User:Chénier/On Religion

I have read every single message on the discussion list, spam and non-spam, for over a year now. I was the founder of an unsuccessful religion, and another character became an elder in a religion that is currently growing. So I have decided to put here one of my posts, which best represents my view on religion in BM.

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Source

I'm going to attempt to recapitale what we discussed about yesterday on IRC,
concerning religions. I was debating with someone else about the power of
religions, I arguing they have *everything* they need to become powerful
entities and that new fancy mechanics are useless, the other person was not
so convinced.


Basicly, the power of religions seem to depend on two core points: 1) The
number of priests and 2) The political power of the members.

The point 1 is obvious, you need priests to preach. You also need them to
raise/lower morale, but that's not all that important, they are important
because they spread the faith and are seen (and are) the pilars of the
faith. The more you have, the stronger the faith is internally. Some
religions have trouble with this point, though, and that's already a bad
omen for them. However, some faiths have the numbers, but for numerous
reasons it just ain't working.

Number 2 is perhaps the most important of them all. Having 20 priests that
can't cross the border of your 3-region realm without getting captured and
that get stabbed every turn won't bring you far, especially if the
leadership doesn't give a damn. For the religion to have influence, members
of that religion *must* have political power. A priest in the
decision-making council is a very good start, a religion elder as judge or
ruler as well, even better if he's not even an elder! Followers in the
decision-making process makes sure that the realm(s) legiferate in ways that
suits the religion (think of how the bourgeoisie took political power for
their own goals, for a more modern example). For example, if a strong realm
decides that its priests will *not* be stabbed anymore, foreign realms might
think twice about allowing their infils to perform such actions unpunished.


Which brought us to the question: How to make religious states from the
state religions (How to make religions control realms instead of realms
controlling religions)?

The first solution, rather simple, is to have to come up that way upon realm
creation. Create the realm to serve the religion, and force religious
figures into power there. This solution, however, is most fit for Dwilight,
where it is atleast planned by one group (mine).

Though Beluaterra was not mentionned, I feel it interesting to note it as
the middle-grounds: Some realms have state religions, many of the important
religions spread over many realms, and don't act in politics, and some
faiths seem to have power over (daimon-aligned) realms.

However, the East Continent was what we talked about, which I have despised
for the longest time (something I don't see changeing soon), but was
nonetheless interested in how we could fix it a bit (so that atleast we'd
stop hearing so many people complaning about how religions are handled
because of what happens on the damn island).

I came up with two solutions. The first was that experienced players with
lots of power decided to gain more, by using a religion as a tool to
manipulate others, however this was quickly dismissed because we don't see
the general mentality about religions (them being inferior to realms) change
anytime soon. So it's not really worth any attention.

The second seemed the be the only plausible way for powerful multi-realm
religions to spawn. It involved a state religion being imposed on others,
through strength of arms, as in "Convert to our faith or we will destroy
what remains of you". Obviously, this cannot be done by anyone, it will need
to be done by a strong realm with an established state religion (I don't
know politics there, I wouldn't know who, or if any, fit these
requirements). Once a realm (properly) uses the religion as a tool of
subjugation, and that we end up with conflicting realms sharing the same
faith, *then* we get great potential, and it makes it much easier to fufill
the two previously-mentionned requirements. Having members in both sides of
the alliances gives the religion an extreme ammount of maneuvrability, if
they do things right.

I believe this sums up most of the important stuff we said about religions,
and I hope it inspires others to use religions properly to give them the
power they deserve. The christian faith in itself had no power in ancient
Rome, they even enjoyed burning and persecuting them. The power came when
the Emperor created the Catholic church and made himself pope, uniting
religious and political power. The same applies to BattleMaster.