On Religion in my world

[kaiser_vonhabsburg]

All of the religions in my world are off-shoots of a single religion that was the 'first' (per se) religion to be sprouted in the world. They all have the same basic tenets: that a single creator God created the universe and then created three other minor deities who are its "children". However, from that point on they branch off. They all then focus on one of the thee minor deities that were created with the original creator deity disappearing into the aether. I was somewhat interested in Milton's "Paradise Lost" and other pieces of Christian literature as well as some other religious texts.

Typically, there's always a sense of cosmic duality, being Good and Evil. However, I decided to introduce something different. While there is an objective "Good" and "Evil" in my world, there is also an in-between, as in, a morally ambiguous deity who is a combination of both the good and the evil that's present in the world. Anyway, back to the religions: whilst their core beliefs differ from the point of the three moral deities being created, their similarities return in terms of their "apocalypse" or end of the world myths.

The Apocalypse is an event destined to happen at the end of time when the morally evil deity Kuragg achieves full power and initiates the greatest holy war in the universe. His goal during this is to bring back the Original Creator so that he can absorb it and become the most powerful being in the universe. Each of the three main religions, however, have different goals for the apocalypse. Those dedicated to Kuragg are determined to be the strongest they possibly can militarily (similar to the Spartan view) so that when Kuragg sparks the apocalypse, He will deem them worthy to join his Celestial Host in the great battle.

Those dedicated to Golgatha (the morally good deity) have the generally accepted goal of sending Kuragg back to Shol-Mediggo (Hell) during the apocalypse to save the universe. The morally ambiguous deity Anbarra, however, believes in the idea of True Chaos. Although He would enjoy the universe-wide chaos of a massive holy war, He also acknowledges that it would be detrimental if everyone was dead. His followers believe that the only way to avoid the apocalypse is to completely eradicate the followers of both opposing deities.

That's all I've noted so far. Is there anything I should work some more on or add? Many thanks in advance.

-The Kaiser

 

[skip.knox]

If Golgotha wins, what is to become of his followers? Or of Anbarra and his followers? That is, what happens if the good guys win? For that matter, what happens if Anbarra wins? You've said what he wants to avoid, but what does he want to achieve?

 

[ThinkerX]

A bit over focused on morality - good and evil.

Ye old line pantheons tended to be families, attached to a nation, tribe, or region, associated with things like fertility, success in battle, artifice,hunting, and whatnot. No few of them were regarded as downright nasty, but one still paid homage to them. The prevailing attitude was: 'my people, may gods - even if they are sociopaths.' That said, many of the gods were interchangeable across pantheons.

 

[kaiser_vonhabsburg]

Ah, I do understand now that I've focused too much on morality and such. I should introduce more down-to-earth (per se) aspects of my pantheon and maybe make a few other patheons and such.

 

[Alora pendrak]

Gods are pretty morally ambigious figures in general and the older gods seemed more like they were a way to make sense of the world around the society rather then present ideas of good and evil. For instance the Greek/Roman goddess of love Venus was often potrayed as petty and vindictive becuse the acient greeks often viewed romantic love as a kind of madness that consumed you entirely,they did not have positive views on it. Sounds to me like your society's gods are somewhat warlike so how good or evil they are would depend on how your diffrent societies view war.as a whole. Do they embrace it early like the Spartans or vilkings? shy away from it entirely?or see it as a nessacery evil? These things deturmine how these people view their gods and can be somewhat objective.