You are made into a D&D style Deity, what's your Portfolio?

[Pandora's_Folly]

Escape, Patience, Words, and Liminality

Neutral Good

 

[Bassoe]

The young acolyte sat uncomfortably as Mother Gabriella, the head of the monastery, wrote in her journal. He was new to the Order of Wings, but he had heard tales of Mother Gabriella. She had wandered the world, had grand adventures and even gotten married once upon a time! That was rather uncommon for followers of the Order, considering most were almost always too busy wandering to settle down with someone. But Mother Gabriella had fallen in love with a Bard, and they had wandered the land together until he had died and she had grown old. She had even picked up some bardic skills from her late husband.

Not that the deity disapproved of such things. According to the doctrine he encouraged all respect for the arts, even ones he wasn't personally involved with.

Mother Gabriella looked over her work and nodded, gently setting the journal aside for the ink to dry. She looked at the young acolyte with an appraising look, and the acolyte could't help but feel she was reading the entire story of his life. Which she might very well could have been, all things considered.

"So, young man," she said as she steepled her fingers. "Do you know why you're here?"

The acolyte gulped. "I… I think so, Mother."

"And could you tell me the reason?"

The acolyte nodded. "I, um… I asked one of the priests a question."

He paused for a moment, looking for the words to say. Mother Gabriella waved her hand for him to continue, indicating to stop stalling.

"I asked why our god is always depicted with a skinned wolf on his head. I mean, he's not a very martial deity, nor does one of hunting. I just… I found it a little strange, is all."

Mother Gabriella scowled, and the acolyte felt a cold pit form in his stomach. Had he overstepped himself? He'd just been curious, is all. But from the look on the Abbess' face he was fairly certain he'd committed some form of faux pa.

Were they going to kick him out for this? He really hoped they didn't. This monastery was one of the few sizable groupings of the Order of Wings anywhere in the country. He so desperately wanted to be a writer, and there was no better instruction on the art than among the Order of Wings. They couldn't just give him the boot for asking a question. They just couldn't!

Please let me stay, he thought to himself. Please.

And then the Abbess smiled. "It's about time you asked that question. It's been, what, four months since you joined us? I'd feared you'd never get around to it."

The acolyte blinked. "What?"

"We're not ones to punish curiosity, young man," Mother Gabriella responded in the face of the acolyte's shock.

The acolyte managed to recover, though his eyes were still wide with surprise. "Then why all the dramatics?"

"Because what's life without a little excitement and fear?" Mother Gabriella said with mirth in her voice. "Oh, don't be mad. We do this to all the new adherents. It helps gauge their temperament and how thick their skin is. And you need a very thick skin to be part of our Order, let me tell you."

"I guess so…" the acolyte said softly, relief and annoyance warring within and in general resulting in him sulking.

"Don't pout," Mother Gabriella said. "It's all in good fun, and you're not in trouble. But as for your original question? Well, let me tell you a tale."

******
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Quick and dirty little thing I whipped up in about ten minutes.​

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Oh.

I get it, the seemingly unrelated holy symbol is a test for acolytes. The goal of the religion is to have a worshipers who care about creativity and asking questions. If wannabe acolytes care more about not questioning the higher levels of the faithful than answering such a question than they're clearly not suited to the religion.

Clever.

 

[Winged Knight]

Oh.

I get it, the seemingly unrelated holy symbol is a test for acolytes. The goal of the religion is to have a worshipers who care about creativity and asking questions. If wannabe acolytes care more about not questioning the higher levels of the faithful than answering such a question than they're clearly not suited to the religion.

Clever.

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I work in roundabout, but not really so mysterious, ways.

 

[Bassoe]

Crossposting some of my ideas on religion/exploiting religion for improving life in general.

The point of religions is to enforce a set of behaviors/moral codes involving belief in one or more deities and spread themselves*. Typically, they will offer some kind of reward to the faithful for their belief/a punishment to the non-faithful. Due to the fact that the faithful will probably leave the religion when it is unable to pull through on its end of the bargain**, most religions offer rewards which can't be proven such as a utopian afterlife or rewards that would happen anyway like rainstorms for crops.
Therefore, if designing a new religion, the ideal goals would be to:
• Have an actually modern code of ethics enforced. No censorship, no homophobia, no infallible priests, etc.
• Instead of offering nonexistent/unprovable rewards for prayer like an utopian afterlife, have "prayer" consist of actually helpful actions, the rewards of prayer being improvements to the real world due to said actions***.
• Deities are dependent on worshippers, not just the other way around. They gain power the more people perform the actions that please them and this power lets them increasingly influence the real world with every worshipper they have. In event of their gaining enough worshippers/enough outpourings of faith they'll become powerful enough to break through into reality and make it a utopia****. The reverse is likewise true. If the faithful die out, so do the deities. Therefore humanity's survival is of the upmost importance. Bring on the off-planet breeding populations.
* This second trait may not be 100% universal, but in the long term the Church of Never Converting Anyone is going to die out when its original set of followers do.
** The faithful pray to the deity, the deity does something to help them. In theory.
*** For example, the god of scientific progress is worshipped by attempts at genuine scientific study. Since this yields better understanding of the universe and new technological advancements, those are the rewards. The faith works!
**** This is clearly impossible due to the deities not actually existing. However in attempting to make it possible the faithful will have created utopia as the conditions of prayer/what the deities want would genuinely improve the world.

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The problem with not using this to limit the god's powers is the ethics/inaction fallacy:
• God is all-powerful and therefore has the power to make the world perfect if he wants to.
• The world isn't perfect.
Conclusion, since god isn't making the world perfect, god either:
• Isn't actually all-powerful.
• Is hostile/doesn't care about everyone's suffering.
• Is punishing everyone for something.
• Only helps people in the afterlife.
• Doesn't exist.
For a religion to work, prayer would need to have actual, demonstrable, reproducible-in-testing effects on the world. Otherwise said religion's deity is either too weak to influence the world, doesn't care or doesn't exist.
A way around this would be for a religion to require the faithful perform tasks instead of prayer where said tasks would improve life for the faithful and/or everyone else. For example, say you had a religion which insisted on the faithful eating a healthy diet, not harming themselves with recreational drugs and getting lots of exercise. Consequentially the faithful would be much healthier than the heathens, look everyone, the religion works! Correlation/causation fallacy, but still effective for getting people to act in a manner benefiting themselves as a whole.

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For an example of how to exploit a new religion to help people, this:
• Deity of Ethical/Moral Behaviors.
• Instead of being worshipped through prayer, worship consists of following said behaviors.
• The religion claims that the more people who do this, the more powerful the deity becomes and the more the deity can influence the real world to make it a utopia.
• If everyone follows the religion and acts according to the ethical code set out by the religion, things get better. Clearly the deity is real due to it having influenced the real world.

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Ideas for deities:
The Mechanist:
• Deity of scientific progress, technological advancement and machines.
• Worshipped by increasing the total scientific understanding of the universe and developing new forms of technology.
• Rewards for worship are better understanding of the universe and advanced technology.
• Hates deliberate primitivism, luddites and those who willingly ignore scientific facts.
The Artist:
• Deity of artwork, fiction and music.
• Worshipped by the creation of new artistic expression of all forms.
• Rewards for worshipping are the creation of large amounts of new art, music and fiction. Even if most of it is bad, the more created = the greater the chances that some of it will be good.
• Hates censorship and anyone who supports censorship.
The Moralist:
• Deity of ethical behavior as listed in a set code of ethics*.
• Worshipped by behaving in an ethical manner as listed in the code of ethics.
• Reward for worshipping would take effect if enough people worshipped, living in a basically ethical society.
• Hates people who violate the set code of ethical behavior.
The Voyager:
• Deity of travel, colonization and exploration.
• Worshipped by setting up shrines. Said shrines are considered more necessary the further away from the rest of civilization they are, leading to a continually expanding area of properly sanctified territory. And what can be further away, once the religion has the money for it than space travel?
• Rewards for worshipping...


* Incidentally, I could use ideas for this. A complete moral code of right and wrong. Any thoughts?

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[Happy Pancake]

Hmm, well, I'm a gemologist/horologist IRL so I can already see where I'd wind up.

Happy Pancake, Deity of Crafting:
The Happy Pancake appears in several guises, most often appearing as an anthropomorphic object of craftsmanship, such as a talking clock, a humanoid potion, or a stack of anthropomorphic pancakes. She is a deity of craft and construction, hard work, and skill who loves those who build and create but has little appreciate for natural geniuses to whom skill comes easily unless they also work hard to reach new heights of skill. Happy Pancake appreciates workmanship but requires adornment and decoration in order to regard something as coming into her domain, crafted items must be both functional and beautiful in order to attain her approval.

Many of the Happy Pancakes worshipers are Dwarves but elven and human crafters also make up a large percentage. A bare handful of goblinoids have been found that have her favor but most of them are only interested in crude devices without any beauty that displease the Happy Pancake.

The Happy Pancake does not accept sacrifices of blood nor of wealth, but rather of time. Her approval is gained by consecrating a shop, forge, kitchen, or similar room of creation and then constructing a masterpiece in her name.

Her holy symbol is an Astrolabe.

Lawful Neutral, Clerics must have at least 1 rank per cleric level in a craft skill.
Domains: Metal, Time, Wealth/Trade*, Law

*Depending on which one is available in setting.

 

[Bassoe]

Hmm, well, I'm a gemologist/horologist IRL so I can already see where I'd wind up.

Happy Pancake, Deity of Crafting:
The Happy Pancake appears in several guises, most often appearing as an anthropomorphic object of craftsmanship, such as a talking clock, a humanoid potion, or a stack of anthropomorphic pancakes. She is a deity of craft and construction, hard work, and skill who loves those who build and create but has little appreciate for natural geniuses to whom skill comes easily unless they also work hard to reach new heights of skill. Happy Pancake appreciates workmanship but requires adornment and decoration in order to regard something as coming into her domain, crafted items must be both functional and beautiful in order to attain her approval.

Many of the Happy Pancakes worshipers are Dwarves but elven and human crafters also make up a large percentage. A bare handful of goblinoids have been found that have her favor but most of them are only interested in crude devices without any beauty that displease the Happy Pancake.

The Happy Pancake does not accept sacrifices of blood nor of wealth, but rather of time. Her approval is gained by consecrating a shop, forge, kitchen, or similar room of creation and then constructing a masterpiece in her name.

Her holy symbol is an Astrolabe.

Lawful Neutral, Clerics must have at least 1 rank per cleric level in a craft skill.
Domains: Metal, Time, Wealth/Trade*, Law

*Depending on which one is available in setting.

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I like this. Reminds me of my idea of the Mechanist, also I like the idea of manifesting as a living work of masterwork craftsmanship. Seems like there could be a lot of potential for odd forms that way.