I started my (first Harnic) campaign about a year ago. I tried to go with canon religions, but after a while I just couldn't do it anymore. So I changed the religions into more terran style. I.e. - most people in my Harn and Lythia are now Christians (i.e. a fantasy version of the real world religion).

I know there's been a lot of discussion on this before, but I hope you'll accept the excuse that specifically my version has not been discussed so far (although perhaps something very similar has; but at least I can't remember ever reading about it). And if you can point me to the relevant threads, I'd appreciate that too. (The search engine - or me as its user - sucks. IMHO.)

Although I've already implemented my religion system in my Harn, it's still pretty sketchy. I thought I might get some help with it here. A major problem is my lack of knowledge of the canon religions. Here's what I've done so far:

The Church is not as unified as the medieval Church was. The Pope doesn't have as much power, and even the hierarchy is fragmented. There are at least five types of Christianity; (at least) three of which co-exist in the same Church: the Peonian, Laranian, and Save-Knorian interpretations. I've changed the gods of Harn into major saints, who have followers forming factions.

These in-church factions do not have serious conflicts and function much like the Canon cults, except that here, they are members of the same church. Many Peonian clerics are mendicants, like Franciscans. They mingle with the commoners. The Laranians tend to be made up of political elite, so they emphasize chivalric ideals, and look down upon, or patronise the commoners that make up the Peonian faction.

Save-Knorians are scholars and/or monks. They tend to come from the nobility, or at least merchant elite, and have a bit similar attitudes as the Laranians, toward the Peonians. They are often secluded in monasteries, or even if not, rather aloft or distant from the commoners.

Haleans think of themselves as christians, but are often considered heretics, just of a useful and non-threatning sort. They are not normally persecuted, perhaps mostly, because there's a more dangerous heresy lurking nearby: Agrikans. The Haleans are divided into Perfects, who emphasize complete ascetism, and the ordinary Haleans, who are fairly secular. The Agrikans are pretty zealous, "fundamentalist" lot, and they emphasize judgment, law, and punishment, as well as holy war against "infidels" and heretics.

(All the PCs in the campaign at present are Peonians, Haleans, or Laranians.)

Sarajin is replaced by some type of Asatru. (Probably more new age than historical.)

I have some vague ideas about Siem. Some kind of pantheism, I think. I had more in my notes somewhere, but not much more. Ideas are welcome.

Ilvir is a combination of animism and a cult of "earth mother", ancestral spirits, &c. No theology to speak of. Probably some Lovecraftian aspects.

What others were there?

At least Morgath. Any suggestions what I should do with that? From what little I've read, it's not an insignificant cult in Canon Harn (history, at least).

And Naveh. Is that cult significant (socially, politically) anywhere in Harn? What should I do with it?

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Very interesting stuff. Makes sense to me. Making the Haleans somewhat Cathar-like is especially clever. It quite stunned me at first, but fits rather nicely.

Morgath was indeed very important to the history of western Harn. It will be very hard to skip. You could probably try to make it a very extreme sect or viewpoint of Agrikanism. Since Morgathianism is not centered on self-preservation (or at least the preservation of one's immortal soul) or at the very least something decent like striving for serenity (nirvana?), I can't imagine how this religion will work on a larger scale. It's irrational and stupid and self-devouring. I'd therefore give the Agrikan-variant a try.

Naveh is the easiest of all the deities to do away with. Since they are ever so sneaky about their very existence, nobody will miss them for a long while if they just dissapear.
OTOH you could just as well keep them for the same reason.
They might be a sect of diabolist cultists working clandestinely on the downfall of civilisation.

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

There has been extensive discussion of this elsewhere, and some quite nice ideas put forward. I can't link to a particular thread, but you should have a look at this website:

http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~leifmk/english/ ... igion.html

Your interpretation of Haleans as Cathars is interesting. I tend to think of Jews as the obvious Terran equivalant. It fits with the mercantyle leanings of Haleanism, and allows for characters equivalent to Rebecca of York (from the novel Ivanhoe) - something I feel Harn is otherwise missing. Then again, I kind of based the Tobran heresy in Trierzon off the Cathars (see the Trierzon regional module on Lythia.com), so the Haleans would be doubling up if I went that route.

Saints are one way to deal with the gods, but the other obvious link is... Well let's just say: "in the name of the mother, the daughter, and the holy ghost, amen"

Cheers,
De Coucy

With this angle, I would view Morgath as the equivalent of The Devil/Satan. Naveh would be a fallen angel, his ertswhile prime lieutenant who rebelled against him (Naveh awaits the advent of Chaos, but only to impose his own power in the ensuing disorder).

Ilvir would be an embodiment of folk beliefs, the pagan remnants of gods who existed prior to Christianity arriving on Hârn.

I would keep Sarajin as is, the foreign pagan god of a foreign culture (opposed or antagonistic to "Hvitakrist" - the White Christ, sorry for the spelling ).

Roland

Well you can always go with God and Lucifer substituting some of the Arch Angels, Fallen Arch Angels and the Patron Saints of Good and Evil for the various Harnic dieties. In the past there has been more than one pope at a time. Sounds a little like the Sarah Douglass series.

Dear J.Villka,

I do not fully understand why you have chosen this path; (I have my suspicions..), but it certainly does throw up some ...interesting challenges. (where was christ born etc etc etc!)

Anyhoos, back to shoehorning Morgath and Naveh in to the fold...

Navehans are relatively easy...partially ideological murderers, sometimes for hire. To me that suggests the vatican secret service and the inquisition. The Dan Brown route. Or just ignore them; Canon mostly does so why bother

Morgathians...Divine Chaos and insanity. Self destuctive war mongers with a phobia of death, That'll be your mainstream catholic church then Alright then, at least the Borgia's.. The thing that I personally would work with is the sincerity of the Morgathians..insane they may be but committed too. What would be the Christian equivalent?

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Christian, as in worshippers of Christ? It's a long way to Hârn from Galilee, so ... did Jesus jump into a godstone, was he snatched by a rogue barási point, or could he cast Gate of Kemdál? Or perhaps his later church did? Truely, the lord moves in mysterious ways...

I think we (or at least I) need some theological/historical/whatever explanations here. Or perhaps do you want to make your P-Hârn monotheistic, rather than Christian? In other words, do you import the Bible or do you rewrite the Libram of the Pantheon?

Personally, if I wanted to introduce Christianism in my P-Hârn, I know I would consider the equivalent of Rome in the early 4th century CE, when Christianism was on its way to becoming a state religion but still co-existed more or less peacefully with many other cults. This allows one to keep all the Hârnic churches, essentially adding one fierce competitor to the game.

And if I wanted a more monotheistic Hârn with a Christian flavour, then I would turn towards mid to late medieval Europe, when Christianism reached the apex of its hold on the western mind. The churches of Peóni-Laráni-Sávè-K'nôr are easily transformed in several different orders (the green, red and grey – or is that purple? – monks or nuns) with agendas which are actually complemental to each other, Haléanism makes for a nice heresy if you remove its more extreme cytherean aspects, Ilvîranism is of course the remnants of the ancient Járin (i.e. celtic) church so peculiar to Hârn, Siémism is an exotic enlightenment philosophy akin to Buddhism practiced by the elder folks, Sárajìnians are nordic heathens to be converted, Some aspects of Agríkanism (without all the fiery stuff) turns into a very militant martial order, the ôrgathan church where official turns into either a corrupt or extremely severe/dour order, and finally aspects of Ágrik, Navéh and Môrgath are combined/hacked to form the local Satan-Lucifer pair.

My 0.127 euro cents anyway.

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«Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil.»
—Nicolaus Stenonius

I'm curious, what are your suspicions?

*

One of the reasons I tried using canon religions at first was the difficulty of placing Jesus, jews, &c. - especially with my poor of knowledge of canon history. But then I decided to do it anyway. I hope there's a way to make these things fit into Kethira.

But in practise, it probably won't much matter, because it's unlikely that the PCs will ever venture far from Kaldor, or have knowledge of world history. They (and their players) just heard about Lothrim for the first time in last session. The story started, "Once upon a time, many centuries ago, in a land not far from here, there was an evil mage..." And it ended in a comment about the gargun coming to take away misbehaving children.

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Is your goal to integrate all of the religions into Christianity, or simply to find real-world analogs for them? I would think Islam would be a better match for the Agrikan tradition than some sect of Christianity (especially since Islam is an offshoot of the Judeu-Christian tradition and integrate its prophets).

That's my notion. As long as your players don't venture away from Harn, there is no need to explain and even if they come to other places the need may not be felt.

BTW: I think the introduction of something similar to the christian religion does the setting lots of good, since it is so closely modeled after medieval realities. One simply cannot think the middle-ages without christianity, IMO.

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

Exactly.

Btw, I wrote a comment here earlier, but upon returning now, it doesn't seem to be here. Odd.

I'll have to repeat myself:
My goal is not to "convert" all Canon religions to Christianity, just most of them, or at least the most common of them. I'm not trying to replace them all with terran religions either. I might leave some more fantasy style religions, but Morgathianism is still a problem. They have to be "realistic" in a way, even if they are fantasy. I hope this makes sense. I'm in a hurry, gotta go.

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I've toyed with the Christian religion thing too, but not with a "Christ". Maybe like the late Roman Sun(?) religion, or the Mitra religion of Conan or similar, but with some of the trappings of a middle ages Christian one.

I think it's pretty simple for me where they fit - many of the gods would be orders in the "new" religion

Larani and Agrik - Fighting orders of the same religion but opposed to each other, possibly some beliefs each believes is heretical. With the wars between Protestant and Catholic, the Cathar heresy/crusades, and the one in Eastern Germany with the Hussites this is pretty easy to believe.

Save Knorr - Monastical order, of course big into records, written works, knowledge.

Peoni - The various friar of poverty orders, with a knowledge of healing

Halea - Jewish for sure. Maybe persecuted from time to time, heretical beliefs, unusual practices, big into money.

Morgath - Perhaps the Devil, one of the Arch Angels or similar that turned to bad. The Silmarillion pictures Morgoth much in this way.

Sarajin - God of the Northmen, as it is.

Naveh - Not sure about this one, maybe just a small fanatical sect, perhaps like the Islamic assasins cult.

Ilvir/Siem

This is a tougher one. Perhaps the Celtic religions, the elder people worshipped these as well? The pit of Ilvir on Harn makes it tougher. Druidic practices may fit here also, they would be the "Old Gods" being replaced by the new order.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Just curious.... are folks here using "Christian" as a synonym for "monotheistic"?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

I think to a point, but with some of the trappings of middle ages christendom.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Christendom would make a poor synonym for monotheism, because it is not monotheistic. There are three manifestations of "God" and countless lesser deities of whom Mary is the most powerful. IMHO

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

Not me.

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So, what *do* you mean by "Christian" then, in the context of what you are seeking to achieve?

Is the idea to be Christian in terms of doctrine (e.g. belief in the existence of a historical religious figure who was both human and divine, and who will return to save the world).

Simply having a single (if fractious) church hierarchy?

Or something else entirely?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

That is Christian.

The idea of a single (if fractious) church hierarchy is not Christian becuase that concept/reality is not unique to Christianity but is pervasive in all religious structures. The only place where you won't find disunity on some level is in a religion of one and even then I'm not so sure that there is some disagreement at some time.

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Fides quarens intellectum, Saint Anselm

I would agree that is probably is *the* most fundamental feature of Christianity as a religion. However, I'm curious as to whether having such a belief be the central idea of Harnic religion is primarily what J. Vilkka is after-- or whether his concern is primariy just to have a church organization that looks and feels more like that of the medieval Christian church in Terra rather than a set of 10 competing churches.



No, it may not be uniquely Christian, but as the earlier discussion by J. Vilkka seemed to center around questions of competing orders, internal church divisions, etc., rather than on, say, issues of belief/doctrine, I was just curious as to what his main interest in here.

To turn this around: If I had decided that I wanted to have a Christian harn (defining "Christian" as that key point of Christian doctrine of Jesus being a historical redeemer who is both human and divine), to me, the key question would not be: How do I incorporate Agrikans, Save-Knorrans, Peonians, etc, into a unified Church? Rather, I'd want to know things like: Who was the Lythian Jesus? When and where was he born? When and where did he die-- and how? What are the scriptures that tell of this? Where is the "holy land" where he lived and taught-- and to which people now go on pilgrimmage? What stories do people tell about him? What do they believe about him?

Now, I realize my way of thinking about things is not the only way. But, the fact that J. Vilkka mentioned he wanted to have a "Christian" variant of Harn-- but also says that placing Jesus in the world is kind of a problem, but one that doesn't really matter in practice... well, it just makes me wonder is the main goal here really about having a faith that actually resembles Christianity in its doctrine? Or is it about having an ecclesiastical organization more similar to the medieval Christian church? Or both? Neither? Something else entirely?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Well, of course I am not J. Vilkka, but as far as I understand it, it's not about the person of a redeemer, which is certainly a central piece of Christianity, not about the ecclesiastical organisation (which is already there in almost all of the churches of Harn-canon), not even doctrine, but more a general 'feel' in the mindset of the people, that is 'christian'. As you see from his initial post, J. Vilkka made the Pantheon more coherent by arranging it along the lines of christian believes/heavenly hierarchy.
On Harn, there is already a lot of stuff that was taken from medieval stock (monasteries, fighting orders, saints, the charity of the Peonians). Much of that doesn't fit that nicely into harnic society with the canon Pantheon, but fits perfect with mor christian ideas as foundation, from which it originally came. Even some ideas of the feudal system are influenced by christian believes.
A society that has such a lot of different and among each other hostile dieties must look very different from a 'classical' medieval society as it is presented in harn-canon. Medieval society was unified through faith, across all boundaries of realms, the church was the only surviving and working institution stemming from the roman empire and it was present in every european country, being a major source of stability, providing the measure and the means for civil conduct, a standard that was recognized by every faithful man.
And IMO the christian belief that is exclusively centered around Jesus Christ is a relatively new (i. e. protestant) idea.

Just some ideas. I hope it is not complete rubbish, because i find it very hard to express such complex ideas, let alone in a foreign language.

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

So, to summarize, the goal (at least as you understand it)-- would be to make it so that there is a single ecclesastical organization and a specific set of shared religious ideas/traditions/practices that are (while still potentially diverse) an omnipresent and universal source of moral/cultural/social/political authority?

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-- Jim Chokey

"Argent, chief embattled tenne. A coney of the field and crossed carrots proper"

Well, as J. Vilkka stated, he doesn't have the same coherence among his church factions as the medieval church did, which isn't necessary IMO, as long as there are similarities that are recognizable to the people (which are there already in canon). Otherwise, my answer is a complete yes.

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"The purpose of the game is to entertain the players and the GM. The rest is just semantics."
-by Munin from the forum-

I like the idea.

I like the idea of Agrikans as an opposed fighting order better than worshippers of the evil Balrog lord!

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

You guys pretty much got it right.

Jesus, AFAIK, was not really thought of as a "historical" figure in the middle ages, the way the protestants (and maybe later Catholics) have thought of him. That's because the people didn't have the same kind of sense of history that we do. Mythology and history were not yet separated from each other. But yes, they did think Jesus had lived in the past. They depicted him as among themselves, in their own time. It didn't matter how long ago, or where, Jesus had lived, or at least it didn't matter nearly as much as the rest of the Jesus mythology. Although the places that were connected to him certainly did gain the "holy" status.

These holy places are probably the only problem with Harn. At present, I think in my Harn I can diminish it by just making it unusual / unfashionable to go on pilgrimages that long. But it certainly would be nice to have Harnic "equivalents" for them.

As for the rest of the mythology / theology, I want to keep it close to Xianity. Their holy book is the Bible, and so on. We can use Xian words and the names of biblical people and places, if the need arises, understanding that we're referring to Harnic "equivalents". But I don't think we'll be discussing such things that much.

The most important saints, especially Peoni, sometimes also Larani, are frequently mentioned, and are much more relevant and "intimate" to the people, than Jesus. (Mystics may think differently.) I'll try to make references to lesser saints as well.

My view of the Agrikans (I haven't used them yet, and don't think I will, any time soon) is influenced by Eastern Orthodox Church. Their Saviour is Jesus Pantocratos (?), who is a stern ruler, and much more central to their lives, than the Christ of the Peonians. Their religion is all about judgment and possibly holy war against the heretics who don't share their idea of Christ. Anyway, that's what I've thought so far, but like I said, I'm not even close to using them in the game at present...

Yeah, no Balrogs worshipped in (the main religions of) my Harn!

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One thing I've so far forgotten to ask:
Is there a Harnic / Kethiran "equivalent" of Latin, or what could be used as such?

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