Inventing a Religion

[Greybeard]

Have you tried creating a new religion for your stories? Where do you recommend beginning?

Religions invented for fantasy novels typically gravitate towards two ends of a spectrum. They are obviously patterned after a real religion, which can be unsettling. Or they are oversimplified caricatures of good or evil.

How can an invented religion transcend the tendency to go in either direction?

[Chilari]

The religion I created for one of my stories, The General's Secret, was originally created to give me an excuse for my main character keeping a secret about his identity - he's immortal, and he's invaded another city. I wanted the people to hate him, forcing him to pretend to be mortal. So I decided a religion that believes in reincarnation would work nicely, as he bucks their expectations. One that dispises deception would be fun too, so discovery that he was keeping a secret at all makes them hate him. So I went with a twin gods scenario - the god of truth, honesty, justice, virtue. That's Reth. Sune, his brother, is the god of deception, dishonesty, secrecy etc.

I tied this into the reincarnation thing by having the gods lead dead people's souls to their next life, with the belief that Reth leads honest souls to good (high born) lives, and Sune leads dishonest souls to bad (low born) lives. This also means I've got a sort of hierarchy built into the mindset of these people. Kings and princes are automatically the best people to follow because they are honest. Slaves and the poor are dishonest, or they'd have been born rich. So if you're not particularly well born, and you tell people you're a prince from some distant city they've barely heard of, and you have at least some evidence to back it up, or a very good story, or swear an oath on the steps of the temple of Reth, they'll put you in charge of stuff even if you're not a citizen.

I also made it that they believe that immortals were so deceptive that even Sune refused to walk them to the next life when they died, so they remained almost as ghosts - they don't really know much about immortals, and think they could spot one if they saw one, which works in my character's favour because he doesn't particularly stand out.

I've used this both as a positive force for my characters and a negative one. Admittedly they suffer from people's beliefs more than they benefit, but there is a key moment where an oath made at the temple of Reth is believed even though the people see the person who made it as a follower of Sune and thus deceptive, because to them it isn't possible to make an oath there without the honest intention of keeping it.

[Ophiucha]

I don't make religion an emphasis in any of my stories because, frankly, I'm an antitheist. I don't like religion, neither any proposed religion nor the idea of religion. But I don't want to turn my novel into a soapbox for that - at least not THIS novel, anyway - so mentions of religion are mostly delegated to naming conventions and festivals. And all of my major characters are atheists, save a couple of Earthlings who are unspecified (but given their respective time lines, I would say two are Christian and one is Buddhist). Still, given the fact that the major antagonistic force created their world and those who inhabit it, it is hard not to at least toy around with a religion, even if it is mostly background fluff. All of the week days (there are six) are different words for immortality, and the Charnel (a "god" according to the religious) briefly talks about it with my protagonist. I have a little about it, but I don't develop it very heavily.

As with everything else, my major concern with religion in a novel is simply its relevance to the story. How does it play a part, and why do we need to know about it? Beyond that, I don't really care if a religion resembles an Earth one (though some cross the line between 'resembling' and 'Hasus = Jesus, come on, it's really obvious'), though as someone who has studied religions (particularly Judeo-Christian and Norse), I will get annoyed if it is basically identical to an Earth religion, save for some arbitrary changes for the sake of convenience. I've read a few stories where the religion was basically Greco-Roman - down to the names of the gods - but all the gods save Aphrodite were monogamous, for no reason but what was clearly the author's own morality.

I think religion can be interesting in fantasy stories, particularly since certain elements of it aren't things we could discuss in regards to Earth stories. For instance, in many fantasy stories, the existence of the gods is undeniable - or, at least, far more plausible than any alternative (as many stories explain magic away as a gift from the gods). That's something that could be interesting to explore, though most just use it as a good backing for some deus (literally) ex machina and polarized good and evil. I would still like to read more about religion, worship, and faith in a world where the gods are unquestionable, though. What sort of people wouldn't follow the gods, and what punishments would there be for unfaithfulness? And would rituals involve the god/dess directly, in some fashion? A feast in their honor, a dance (or mating ritual, eh?) between a priestess and her god, something involving direct contact, you know?

[JBryden88]

I think it's hard to -not- draw a parallel to real world religions at times, even if you avoid it. The reason isn't necessarily the writer's fault. The moment the reader reads "and he launched a crusade" or something about priests, or whatever, they will draw parallels.

One of the faiths of the main characters in my novel in progress is that of the horse-lord. They believe in a god who was once a man, the founder of their people, who in life was a breeder and tamer of horses, a mighty warrior, and an overall good man. Thus, they worship him based on those things: horses are highly revered, thus are those who raise them. Those who ride horses -into- battle are highly respected, and the religion emphasizes priests who double as soldiers rather then sitting in an organized temple preaching.

[sashamerideth]

I have so far two primary religions, one a matriarichal deity for my travelling people, who receive instruction and revelations from her via stones. They worship her and travel so when they die they can continue on her path, forever travelling the infinite universe.

The other is more Buddhist in style with a person discovering something about my people and building a system of meditation to enhance abilities and approach to life. No soul, spirit or continued existence after death, just living life as best they can. This group also reveres technological advancement and scientific learning and progress more than any other group.

The rest are superstitious with beliefs of fairies, witches, etc. but primarily atheistic.

[Ravana]

This was addressed some time ago, so I'll be (comparatively) succinct here.…

I consider the first, and by far the most important, question to be: are the gods real? If they are, and if they care at all about the ways in which they are worshipped, this will create extremely strong constraints on the forms of religion—these will actually have to conform to the deities' wishes.

If the gods are not real, or if for whatever reason the gods don't care about the practices of their followers, then anything goes. And, yes, it becomes difficult not to echo historical examples, if for no other reason than because there's such a bewildering variety of them.

I have routinely created religions under all the above circumstances. It's certainly a more interesting exercise when you start from the assumption that the gods respond to their followers, and in direct proportion to the extent to which they're pleased. Try it and see what happens.

Keep in mind that religious difference doesn't need to be a "good vs. evil" struggle: it can simply be an "us vs. them" struggle… assuming there's any conflict at all. Most of what we think of today as "pantheons" arose from the gradual accommodation of the gods of neighboring cities/regions into one's own structure of beliefs. Your neighbor's god might be regarded as "evil"… or the god might just be regarded as your neighbor's, and not yours. You might even propitiate such deities from time to time, particularly if you happen to be away from home: "When in Rome," etc. Who knows? Some day your priests might decide that your deity is married to a neighbor's; don't want to burn any theological bridges in advance of such an eventuality, now do ya?

[Fnord]

As much as I enjoy the "human-like" god qualities of Greek and Norse mythology, I tend to keep the gods "distant and obscure". The gods are "real" but largely unknown, represented by rather vague terms based on their influence; the elements, the cardinal directions, the seasons, etc. In this way, religion is not constrained by the real edicts of gods, much like religion works in our world. After all, we have people who--worshipping the same god--can commit acts of love or commit acts of terrible violence. One religious group in a temperate area worships the sun god as a bringer of life, warmth, and light but a religious group in a harsh desert climate treats their worship of the same god as a vengeful god who punishes with fire and little mercy. The gods are the same but the worshippers' interpretations of that god all vary.

I'm an atheist too but I'm extremely fascinated with mythology and theology and, well, fantasy allows you to write in a fashion contrary with your beliefs about the real world, just as I don't try to apply physics to magic.

[ade625]

Instead of giving my own examples (which I admit, I'm still tempted to do) I'll try and answer your questions outright, since there's already quite a lot of examples floating round.

First off, as it's been said, you need to decide how much influence the gods have on the denziens of your world. A walking, intefering god will be handled differently to one that exists only in the imagination of its worshippers, as you might imagine. If the gods are unequivocally real, then you can give them traits with little or no reason. If the opposite is the case, you'll want to start thinking about how they came about in the first place.

One way of coming up with a god is just to give them a theme or area of expertise, and then extrapolate from there. My advice would be to treat gods as characters, but characters that may be misunderstood by the general populace. And then you can craft interactions between the gods, with a little exaggeration given for the celestial measure.

Ah, I'll give my example here at the end, feel free to skip if you're all exampled out. In one world I'm working on, the gods are sort of essences of nature and humanity, but given power and personification through reverance and belief. However, long in the past a long and violent war between these near immortals resulted in them being trapped on another plane, still able to influence humans by giving select followers a small fraction of their power. Hence, as mentioned in this thread, all magic in the world comes from the gods, but is usually quite specific in use, and limited by nature. The gods have their own conflicts and rivalries in this upper plane, but there is no real consequence that can diminish them except for lack of worship, so they rely on humans to act out their grievances. And of course some gods left devices behind that could potentially bring one or all of them back, which becomes a major plot point in a not too obvious way.

[Chase Simba]

The idea with a religion is to provide a motive or effect on the world you have. You might have, for example, the House of Flastin, a religion following the acts of Flastin the Monk, who was devoted to helping those in need and giving to those with less. Now everybody loves and donates to them, thus making them more likely to do good. Another aspect of this is the Dorian Quartet, a pantheon with each god aspect being a different aspect of life. One aspect just happens to be heavily dependant on pride, and that leads to it's priest becoming involved with each government, slowly being corrupted by power and ending up murdering the priests of the other three aspects and turning the entire world into a theocracy (note: another reason for religion). The religion in and of itself doesn't matter, it's the effect on the world it has that's important.

[Chase Simba]

But, of course, if the gods actually have influence on the world via more physical means, as ade625 noted, the effect religion has is extreme. Given your post is about how to keep your religion from becoming good/evil, I believe that the post above this is what you're looking for. The examples above show good and evil, but you just have to keep the effects minimal. It will still change the morality of the population, but, if the population is in a good economic/lifestyle position, then the religion won't have much effect, as they won't have to rely on faith to fix too many problems.
Just remember that it's all about how religion affects your world.