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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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chryssalideater said:
While my inner 14 year old feverently agrees, my shoulder Azel is recommending this be handled with the lightest possible touch, and it would much simpler for everyone if we are never seen (in the eyes of the general public anyway) to directly crush the faith. Madmen, lunatics, terrorists, absolutely; but it needs to appear as if we are attacking them for endangering the piece, not for their fundamentalism.

I am not down for letting the judeo-christian analogue play the part of the victim, that's proven far too much of an effective strategy for them IRal to allow here.
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"inner 14 year-old" - Ouch, that hurts.

More seriously, I'm modelling my reaction on how the Church's influence over government and society was reduced IRL in France:
  • Keep the Church away from the levers of power as much as possible. YOU are in charge, not some bishop. This works better for Republics who aren't using the Church as justification for their divine right to rule, but Kings have managed this too.
  • Have the secular government handle the positive things the Church does (weddings, funerals, some charity work, community activities) but do a better job than the Church (which isn't too hard, honestly)
  • Limit the economic power of the Church. They aren't meant to be landlords or robber barons, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to levy obligatory taxes. They can pray, but they shouldn't be able to buy and election or fund an army. Seize their lands and then tax them as you would any other hyper-billionaire owning 20% of the country! This will severely decrease their influence : you wouldn't believe how much of the medieval Church's power came from straight-up owning more land and wealth than most Kings.
  • Make education available (and obligatory) and have people be taught a secular curriculum
  • Fight back against corruption in the church, just as you would for any other commercial enterprise. There are laws against corruption in business and politics, and those should apply to the Church too.
  • There will inevitably be some nutjobs who will use force to fight back against this loss of influence. This is fantastic news for you : use all available media to turn their victims into martyrs, and then send in the army and crush the traitors.
This has mostly worked IRL : France went from being one of the most Catholic countries in the world to being a country where the Pope and the Church hierarchy are almost irrelevant. Furthermore, although the social impacts of Catholicism's domination are still around among some segments of the traditionalist conservatives it isn't enough to sway major elections or stop gay marriage bills !

Therefore I have not given up hope that we can do the same to the Church of the Seven. Of course actual success will take ages, but it's entirely possible to break their grip on power and to make huge leaps forwards in other areas within a generation or two.
 
Quite curiously, magic gives us some rather powerful tools for dealing with the Faith (and other religions that refuse to accept the existence of others in their basic scripture) without needing to rely on military force except in fantastically rare cases. And given how bloody French history is where both religious and secular power is concerned, I'm entirely uninterested in using it as a baseline for a successful transition.

Vote workup commencing. Gonna have a few callbacks here, I think.
 
Staff Notice - Please take care to avoid the tones of “religion is inferior to atheism” present here
Acolyte said:
Yo people are none of you deeply religious. Cause destroying someones faith sounds really really bad to me. Like seriously whats with the hate for faith.
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I just find blind faith distasteful. I don't hate faithful people tho, I just see them as Atheists-to-be in need of some social-fu
 
>tfw you just want to talk about ASoIaF and D&D Cosmology
>TRW topic is religion and all they wanna speak of is Catholicism

Please no.
 
Acolyte said:
Yo people are none of you deeply religious. Cause destroying someones faith sounds really really bad to me. Like seriously whats with the hate for faith.
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The problem isn't faith in and of itself (we've been building places of worship and encouraging the development of several religions in our capital, for example). The problem is that:
  1. The organised Church holds a lot of power. That power should be OURS. We're the King, and what's the point of invading a country if we can't change its socioeconomic structure or build magic schools all over the place? :V
  2. These religions are preaching some very inconvenient things. "Burn all the witches" or "our God is the one true god, the unbelievers are trying to lead you into hell and we should burn their heathen temple" are a problem. As is the "all nonhumans are monsters, and all monsters are demons" that we're seeing time and time again. That sort of hate should be avoided, not endorsed by the church's authority and legitimacy. Therefore we're spreading the truth and educating people. This will weaken the organised church, this will reduce violence and hate within our kingdom, and this will weaken those inconvenient gods we don't like much.
Snowfire said:
Quite curiously, magic gives us some rather powerful tools for dealing with the Faith (and other religions that refuse to accept the existence of others in their basic scripture) without needing to rely on military force except in fantastically rare cases. And given how bloody French history is where both religious and secular power is concerned, I'm entirely uninterested in using it as a baseline for a successful transition.

Vote workup commencing. Gonna have a few callbacks here, I think.
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Yes, I would also love to do without the military force. Thankfully our socials and propaganda should be enough for the job. Most religious conflicts in France were wars of faith (Catholics vs Protestants, mainly) : the job of removing the Church from power didn't cause any actual wars. There were just a few riots and a minor rebellion, AFAIK.
I'm not expecting a war of faith here, just a few angry septons getting arrested after riling up a mob. Or maybe some infighting within the church, leading to a few arrests for disturbing the peace or stabbing a fellow septon. Whatever.

EDIT: Well, we'll have to kill Lucan. That probably won't require a war though.
 
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In my experience it has always been...

For all that people decry religions blind fanaticism and prejudice, I always see many many people engaging in all the things that created these institutions in the first place.

Ah well, probably because the internet isn't the most level headed discussion platform in the universe.
 
zxzx24 said:
In my experience it has always been...

For all that people decry religions blind fanaticism and prejudice, I always see many many people engaging in all the things that created these institutions in the first place.

Ah well, probably because the internet isn't the most level headed discussion platform in the universe.
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I'm all for creating some blind fanaticism! Let's make a cult of personality for our GLORIOUS DRAGON EMPEROR!

Not something I would defend IRL of course, but in this game...
 
Must admit I'm rather on the 'meh' side of this whole thing, though I'll end up voting Snowfire because i know that doesn't help us right now.

In the long term, religions who tell the truth about their nature and that of the spheres should win out naturally simply because they'll have a bunch of stuff in common and can form a common front against The Liars. We'll certainly not be neutral in this particular debate. Informing of the truth through secular education and propping up heresies that incorporate it into their canon are both things we can do.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Come on. The Faith of the Seven is clearly an expy for medieval Catholicism.
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People are more likely to be offended by expressed contempt toward religion. It's hard to kick up complaints if you're bashing fake pretend-land hokey cults, but if you bring up real religion, you're just asking for a bad time.

I would just act like this thread exists in a vacuum when the topic of religion comes up. If it isn't mentioned in the SRD, it isn't relevant and shouldn't be talked about.
 
Crake said:
People are more likely to be offended by expressed contempt toward religion. It's hard to kick up complaints if you're bashing fake pretend-land hokey cults, but if you bring up real religion, you're just asking for a bad time.

I would just act like this thread exists in a vacuum when the topic of religion comes up. If it isn't mentioned in the SRD, it isn't relevant and shouldn't be talked about.
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Probably safer that way and in any case the Faith can't really be a one for one reflection of Catholicism, since there is no savior figure.
 
DragonParadox said:
Probably safer that way and in any case the Faith can't really be a one for one reflection of Catholicism, since there is no savior figure.
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For the purposes of the quest couldn't there be a savior figure? A chosen king raised up to stand against us (and given artifacts which we can loot)?

I've been after that crown of stars for several thousand pages now.
 
[X] In the Land of the Blind...Cast Remove Blindness
-[X] "Not silly at all. Remember how careful we had to be with mother when she asked about the gods on our way South?" A link back to a discussion of similar things.
-[X] "It is different, of course. Mother was not well treated by the Seven, and Maer is an Elder Septa, which made it easier for her to accept the reality we know is true. But in the end, I don't believe that the truth must turn her against us, or break the faith which makes her who she is."
-[X] "We know that the Seven are not acting together in Westeros. If that was not the case, then their Chosen would be working together under their guidance. As Gods, they cannot not know the truth of the world, Dany, even if some try to hide from it. Maer, and maybe Danelle, could be a way for us to spare many from the vengeance the Old Gods cry out for."
-[X] "As for the true shape of the world? We are already teaching it, and I don't intend to stop. Much of the power of the Faith will be stripped from them when we retake Westeros, and I do not intend to grant them a monopoly over teaching and charitable enterprise. I think one only need look to Sorcerer's Deep to see that." Reference to the schools and orphanages we've been building, and how we're education our population. Also a note to how certain powers will be centralised to the Imperium during our conquest.
-[X] "Westeros will require a delicate hand, but the truth has a place here, too. You added some of it to her world tonight, sister, even if it was under the guise of another. Once that's there, it doesn't go away." We've seen people take a fragment of truth and leverage it into much more before. No need to assume that's a purely Essosi trait.
-[X] "I, we, will do with those how follow the Seven what we have already begun to do with those who follow the Red God. Religion will always endure, gods grant power that we cannot simply deny. But with the spread of knowledge of what Gods truly are, and how they do not hold dominion over the souls of mortals, how they're seen will change. And as their congregation changes, so will they. It'll take time, but we have that." The final goal is faith in full understanding of what it means. That the rewards are true, yes, but they're offered by all gods. And as the nature of faith changes, which it can, so too will the Gods to which that faith is given.

This is in some ways an extension of what we told Rhaella...goodness, over a year ago IRL now. There's some hope in this, but it's not unreasonable hope. We made Melisandre challenge her faith. Doing that to someone like Maer, when we've already laid the groundwork, isn't going to be hard. This is a big part of why I asked you to moderate a bit, @Goldfish. If she succeeds in building a faction around the idea that magic is a tool, nothing more, nothing less, then we can use her to bind sections of the Faith to sections of the Imperium. In a subordinate role, of course, but still. That's how you establish secular primacy without rebellions or war. You make that which is good, as you see it, within those faiths of your nation part of your nation.

We've done this with the Old Gods, we've done this with Yss, we're almost certainly going to end up doing it with most of the other faiths currently present in the Imperium. I see no reason to leave the Humbled Seven (or possibly six, depending on if we can get them to Ides of March The Father) out of that.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
"inner 14 year-old" - Ouch, that hurts.

More seriously, I'm modelling my reaction on how the Church's influence over government and society was reduced IRL in France:
  • Keep the Church away from the levers of power as much as possible. YOU are in charge, not some bishop. This works better for Republics who aren't using the Church as justification for their divine right to rule, but Kings have managed this too.
  • Have the secular government handle the positive things the Church does (weddings, funerals, some charity work, community activities) but do a better job than the Church (which isn't too hard, honestly)
  • Limit the economic power of the Church. They aren't meant to be landlords or robber barons, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to levy obligatory taxes. They can pray, but they shouldn't be able to buy and election or fund an army. Seize their lands and then tax them as you would any other hyper-billionaire owning 20% of the country! This will severely decrease their influence : you wouldn't believe how much of the medieval Church's power came from straight-up owning more land and wealth than most Kings.
  • Make education available (and obligatory) and have people be taught a secular curriculum
  • Fight back against corruption in the church, just as you would for any other commercial enterprise. There are laws against corruption in business and politics, and those should apply to the Church too.
  • There will inevitably be some nutjobs who will use force to fight back against this loss of influence. This is fantastic news for you : use all available media to turn their victims into martyrs, and then send in the army and crush the traitors.
This has mostly worked IRL : France went from being one of the most Catholic countries in the world to being a country where the Pope and the Church hierarchy are almost irrelevant. Furthermore, although the social impacts of Catholicism's domination are still around among some segments of the traditionalist conservatives it isn't enough to sway major elections or stop gay marriage bills !

Therefore I have not given up hope that we can do the same to the Church of the Seven. Of course actual success will take ages, but it's entirely possible to break their grip on power and to make huge leaps forwards in other areas within a generation or two.
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This was quite impressive debate actually.

TalonofAnathrax said:
I'm all for creating some blind fanaticism! Let's make a cult of personality for our GLORIOUS DRAGON EMPEROR!

Not something I would defend IRL of course, but in this game...
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This kind of feels like a joke? Maybe?

Regardless... Do you guys think the 7 are hiding how the spheres work on purpose or?

I just got the impression there were some serious communication issues at play.

I could be wrong though.

But if they are hey! That means we have something to leverage the Smith with. So that's cool.
 
So, long term the solution to this is to find and diplo the clerics of all the major faiths about the truth of Planar Cosmology.
Sure random Septa #3489 won't believe what is clearly the workings of dark sorcerers magics, but if a Cleric imbued with divine power directly from the beings you worship say that the book is getting things wrong, that should be a lot more believable. Especially if all the clerics are saying it.

Regardless, I would also advise caution instead of trying to blatantly break the faith of hundreds of thousands of people essentially over night using the might of the Imperium or some such.
 
zxzx24 said:
This was quite impressive debate actually.



This kind of feels like a joke? Maybe?

Regardless... Do you guys think the 7 are hiding how the spheres work on purpose or?

I just got the impression there were some serious communication issues at play.

I could be wrong though.

But if they are hey! That means we have something to leverage the Smith with. So that's cool.
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I think rather than hiding these things on purpose they were forced to become stupid by centuries of misguided followers.

The Nine Hells becoming Seven Hells? How did that happen? Does pretending Asmodeus doesn't exist make him less of a threat?
 
Duesal said:
I think rather than hiding these things on purpose they were forced to become stupid by centuries of misguided followers.

The Nine Hells becoming Seven Hells? How did that happen? Does pretending Asmodeus doesn't exist make him less of a threat?
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Can we bring up the ordering of the spheres at the conclave?

I want to see Lucans angels explain that there has been some... Drift.
 
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