Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Religion: Let's Not Make a Big Thing Of It

I am increasingly leaning towards using Christianity as the default religion of the world of Castle Meatgrinder.

For one thing, this is in keeping with the Appendix N style of literature that my own worlds favor.  Books like "The Dragon and the George" and "Three Hearts and Three Lions" managed to successfully blend stories of the fantastic with the Gospel Truth, so why not my own table?

Some say it raises difficult questions, but I say that it doesn't have to.  Don't overthink things.  You're a holy warrior in a fantasy land that has some connection to medieval Europe, and you serve a church that uses the cross and Christian iconography.  You fight the spawn of the devil in all its various forms.  Call them demons, call them children of Chaos, call them Al, it doesn't really matter.

The important thing is that you are a holy warrior fighting evil.  If that means you utilize a fantasy version of Christianity that isn't strictly accurate, so be it.  We use a fantasy version economics and biology that isn't strictly accurate, too.  They are close enough for tabletop, and so long as your warrior can adhere to a Christian worldview that's close enough for the tabletop, so be it.

Angels in the dungeon
You've going to see this aesthetic play out in some of the terrain pieces of Castle Meatgrinder, and you're going to see more of it in the shield designs of some upcoming heroes.  Consider this your trigger warning.

If my DM style makes a player uncomfortable, then they have the same option as they do when my culinary style makes them uncomfortable: push away form the table and find another DM or cook.  No hard feelings.


2 comments:

  1. I hope you don't mind some links, but I write a fair bit about religion in D&D.
    Here I speak about public religion
    https://goo.gl/1tc7XP
    Here about religion in my main campaign
    https://goo.gl/NQXirx
    Here about game mechanics is a general way
    https://goo.gl/1zsBln


    Great piece, BTW!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not at all, always glad for fresh takes on this stuff.

    ReplyDelete

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