In my new Olden Domain campaign, I decided that since the OD&D cleric was so obviously cut from a Christian cloth, I was just going to go ahead and declare that they were indeed Christians:
Now, looking at this, I think it is a bit proscriptive for little reason. It occurs to me that any interested Muslim or Jew that happens upon the campaign site might look at this and think this is saying something about me or my game that it is not. I'm simply trying to engender that medieval feel as I understand (and concentrate) on. But my interpretation shouldn't define the class like that, especially in a way that might case . (thankfully I didn't use the term "White Christ" the way Poul Anderson did... :P)
But because I am a rather obnoxious atheist, I fear that my attempts to be more inclusive will instead be condescending. My idea is to make the cleric class more "Abrahamic," since I want to keep the monotheistic bent to the whole affair, and let individual players be free to identify their characters as Christians or Muslims or Jews or whatever without leaving their comfort zone (or requiring me to come up with some lame fictional religion). Mechanically, a cleric would be a cleric so in-game the distinction would be meaningless (this game is not going to be about, or include, discussions or portrayals of real-world religions practices, beliefs, or philosophies... fictional EVIL CULT stuff is a different matter).
So how do I word the class description without being offensive or ignorant to the point where nobody that I'm trying to include would just dismiss the whole thing anyway?
And if pagans have a problem with a monotheistic real-worldy deity existing and having power in the world, they can just be an elf, who I've decided get druid spells instead of magic-user spells.
Clerics are a special order of those have dedicated themselves to the service and glory of Christ. The cleric may be good or evil, lawful or chaotic, but never neutral (evil clerics serve Satan rather than Christ). Clerics have their own special spells and unlike magic-users they begin with none. They may, however, wear armor, including magic armor, and carry non-edged weapons such as the mace or the quarter staff. No swords or bows and arrows, however, can be employed. The cleric is forbidden by his religion from the drawing of blood. Good clerics can often dispel the undead — skeletons, zombies and their ilk as explained later. As they advance in experience levels they gain the use of additional spells. Spells for evil clerics differ slightly from those of good clerics.
Now, looking at this, I think it is a bit proscriptive for little reason. It occurs to me that any interested Muslim or Jew that happens upon the campaign site might look at this and think this is saying something about me or my game that it is not. I'm simply trying to engender that medieval feel as I understand (and concentrate) on. But my interpretation shouldn't define the class like that, especially in a way that might case . (thankfully I didn't use the term "White Christ" the way Poul Anderson did... :P)
But because I am a rather obnoxious atheist, I fear that my attempts to be more inclusive will instead be condescending. My idea is to make the cleric class more "Abrahamic," since I want to keep the monotheistic bent to the whole affair, and let individual players be free to identify their characters as Christians or Muslims or Jews or whatever without leaving their comfort zone (or requiring me to come up with some lame fictional religion). Mechanically, a cleric would be a cleric so in-game the distinction would be meaningless (this game is not going to be about, or include, discussions or portrayals of real-world religions practices, beliefs, or philosophies... fictional EVIL CULT stuff is a different matter).
So how do I word the class description without being offensive or ignorant to the point where nobody that I'm trying to include would just dismiss the whole thing anyway?
And if pagans have a problem with a monotheistic real-worldy deity existing and having power in the world, they can just be an elf, who I've decided get druid spells instead of magic-user spells.
Well, with the World of Lohsem as I am developing it, the whole Jewish/Christian/Muslim thing isn't an issue, really, as Christianity did not arise on this world, it was imported to this world by a planar traveler (known today as the The Sword of Christ, the First Prophet, aka Solomon Kane). That's why there is no Judaism or Islam on Lohsem; no one has arrived here yet to bring it! The Iremites of course fit a pre-Islamic pagan Arabic/Persian style culture, so they provide the foil for Christian style crusades without bringing up the issue of Christian/Muslim history...
ReplyDeleteMy first thought? Don't limit yourself. Judaism and Islam are also monotheistic. Certainly, the rabbi and the imam are very well established religious positions from Medieval times - why not allow for those.
ReplyDeleteMake the Cleric generic enough with the various rules, but then include a short paragraph for each specific monotheism. Maybe Muslim clerics can't wear armor, but they can wield blades. Maybe Jewish clerics are limited combat-wise, but have an extra spell? Dunno...
James brings up a point I hadn't thought, the issue of religious history. Then again, we can always write our own history.
If you're going for the strict OD&D interpretation, I don't know how this all would fit in, as OD&D clerics were definitely based solely on Christian concepts.
I make clerics in my games servants of a monotheistic religion, I just don't explicitly mention Christianity/Islam/Judaism. All the nitty-gritty detail is kept in the background. Seems to work.
ReplyDeleteI think that clerics as written just work better in a monotheistic context.
Political Correctness is ruining gaming. :(
ReplyDelete>>My first thought? Don't limit yourself. Judaism and Islam are also monotheistic.
ReplyDeleteYeah, and as far as I'm concerned (in real life), they're different branches of the same religion (same roots, same God, each just claims to have "updated information" on the previous).
But the Cleric will be the Cleric, no differences except for spell versions based on whether you're a Good or Evil cleric as OD&D rules state. The declared actual religion will simply be color. But I do want to base the class in something people recognize, and not "Oompaloompa the Singular All-Powerful," without excluding people (tomorrow I'm putting flyers up in foreigner culture centers...).
Jim - I think there's enough commonalities to a priest/rabbi/imam that you can come up with a generic description and maybe an example of each? Just to give something to prod people in the right direction?
ReplyDeleteI'm fascinated by the really early history of Man and how things all had a common beginning and how it's fractured as we've gone on. If I could have a do-over on my career, I would be involved in Mesopotamian archaeology.
I'd tweak your paragraph like this:
ReplyDelete"Clerics are a special order of those have dedicated themselves to the service and glory of GOD. The cleric may be good or evil, lawful or chaotic, but never neutral (evil clerics serve THE DEVIL rather than GOD). Clerics have their own special spells and unlike magic-users they begin with none. They may, however, wear armor, including magic armor, and carry non-edged weapons such as the mace or the quarter staff. No swords or bows and arrows, however, can be employed. The cleric is forbidden by his religion from the drawing of blood. Good clerics can often USE A CROSS TO dispel the undead — skeletons, zombies and their ilk as explained later. As they advance in experience levels they gain the use of additional spells. Spells for evil clerics differ slightly from those of good clerics."
I've put my suggested changes in ALL CAPS.
An excellent thought provoking idea.
ReplyDeleteIn the spirit of old school though why not make the Servants of Christ a dominant rather than exclusive church. Don't rule out future colouring with lesser gods. Remember in our world monotheistic religions are characterised by faith without proofs but a supernatural display by any cleric in a world with One True God would be evidence that would destroy the character of the religion as we know of it. There could be no faith. But opening the door to godlings of other alignments creates an old school confusion as to the source of clerics power and the existence of only One God. If non SoC clerics display powers then the Servant of Christ can have faith again.
Just an idea: Make 95% of all clerics Servants of Christ and for your novel idea use the untapped neutral alignment. Christ can be good but the clerics (if you are realistically attempting to reflect our own clerics) while striving to be good do not see themselves as such being ever conscious of their sinfulness and this tension results in a realistic neutrality of behaviour. It would be arrogant and prideful to consider yourself good. Its something you have to fight for daily. And so Neutral overall.
(With no interest in the *actual* disputations and only as a source for scenario ideas:)
The theologians of the Servants of Christ would be forced to explain the reported miracles of the 5% non SoC clerics. Is it a kind of wizardry? There would be investigations and inquisitions. Using non violent political means, jesuits whispering in the ears of princes, using vast resources to build churches and educate communities would have the effect of isolating the 5%.
I'm guessing your love of horror inspired your idea. Having jesuit exorcists battling a more psychological evil could be fascinating.
Good luck with the idea.
Well, if they are going to mace wielding "no shedding of blood" types, you should probably make them post medieval Christian reconstructionists, or something.
ReplyDeleteI like Mishler's "Solomon Cane" angle. Perhaps the prohibitions on edged weapons were brought by a Victorian age planar traveller who was familiar with a contemporary historical error derived from the Bayeux Tapestry, but was considerably less learned in actual Christian dogma and prohibitions.
Outright changing the name of the class to "exorcist" could help emphasize the idea of "man of God, but kind of on the creepy and dangerous side".
ReplyDeleteAs a total aside, a change I've thought of making to clerics is ditching the "no edged weapons" thing and changing it to "no MAGIC weapons", which I think is more broadly justifiable (e.g., "weapons can only be enchanted through black magic, which clerics eschew, regardless of cultural origin") and also more to the point. By the latter I mean that in OD&D, since a mace does the same damage as a sword or spear anyway, it seems like the "no edged weapon" policy is primarily limiting in that most magic weapons found will be edged, and therefore off-limits to clerics. In any case, players who still want their clerics to refuse to wield edged weapons can, you know, do that.
My suggestion parallels Geoffrey's:
ReplyDeleteJust change the names.
Instead of Jesus, say God or The Light or The Divine Child or The Glorious One or whatever. Instead of Satan, say The Devil or The Evil One or The Adversary or something like that.
It's not real Christianity, so there's no reason to use the same names.
This is one of those perennial topics that, inevitably, also arose pretty quickly out of the D&D game. IIRC there was a quite lengthy look at different real-world religions (modern ones, not just statted-up paganism like TSR offered in GDG&H / D&DG) in one of my stack of early Alarums & Excursions. I'd suggest riffing it off of players to the extent that your players are interested; it's the sort of thing you just can't force.
ReplyDeleteSimple: Word the class description so that it describes the class! If you're not treating it as Christian, then don't so describe it.
ReplyDeleteApart from the level titles (Christian with the exception of "Lama"), I don't recall anything even explicitly RELIGIOUS about the original presentation of clerics!
Replace 'Christ' with 'god' and 'Satan' with 'the adversary' or 'the dread serpent'. That'll mean something resonant, yet not offensively real, to the Abrahamics, the Zoroastrians, (some) Hindus, and most old-style pagans (Norse, Greek, Egyptian, Semito-Syraic, or Babylonian) you might encounter.
ReplyDeleteCaveat: this take on dualism may offend the Yezhidis and sundry gnostics. Are they substantially represented in Finnish gaming circles? ;-)
If explicit details of theology, ritual, iconography and canon law don't figure much in play, then they can probably do without specification. The general idea of a Good God (patron of Clerics) and an Evil Adversary (patron of Anti-Clerics) is pretty widely resonant.
ReplyDeleteEspecially in the formative stage, one might let interested players flesh out matters. As Game Operations Director, you can veto such things as virulent sectarianism getting traction if you like.
One potential problem with any historical model is the player who is (at least in his own mind) more an expert than the referee. When I run (e.g.) a "samurai" game, I make clear that the setting is a FANTASY Land of the Rising Sun!
@Dwaynu Especially in the formative stage, one might let interested players flesh out matters. As Game Operations Director, you can veto such things as virulent sectarianism getting traction if you like.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I'm doing with my JIT (just in time) world creation. I didn't make a pantheon for my Dark Ages campaign. Someone wants to play a cleric and came up with that they're the cleric of the ancient god Mercury/Hermes. Well, there you go, one god in my notebook and I didn't have to think much about him yet. Now I can flesh him out as I see fit. As you say, provide the boundaries, but let the game/play fill in the details.