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[Mesa]

So, gods and deities. They're procedurally generated like a lot of things in the game, they have their own spheres of influences and I believe that they either hate each other or don't really care and only want more worshipers of their own (if not directly).

With the new progressive history system finally put in place and magic being a topic for discussion as always, I got a rather expansive idea in regards to the religion part of DF's worlds, which I promptly dubbed "War in the heavens".

Currently, we have some greater scale mechanics and features already put in place, with armies moving about the place and whatnot. However most of these seem to largely driven by earthly needs or conflicts, and larger scale conflicts on the religious background don't really happen if I'm not mistaken. However, imagine that the various deities that one's worlds inevitably end up with could be just as mischievous as the mortals, with their own personalities or rather, a set of preferences and dislikes which could drive them to create godly alliances between each other (aptly called pantheons for the sake of this thread) and possibly wage war against other deities they don't particularly like (since for instance deity A could be much more self-centered than deity B since deity A wants to be the only deity of fortresses and metal but deity B is also a deity of fortresses and metal, with significantly more followers than deity A).
This would allow the deities to contact their followers and tell them to fight against the followers of other deities (though for that one would need to first have a way to distinguish between followers of certain deities, and adding a conversation option for that would be a nice thing to have) to please them, and the deities could reward or punish their followers if they're particularly (un)happy about the results - ranging from sending down curses and nasty plagues onto their worshipers if something went wrong to artifacts, powerful beings or even stepping into the mortal world themselves (assuming they don't do that already, barring the posers).

Such a system could also tie in nicely with whatever magic system we eventually end up with - if magic was of godly origin, then mages of a stronger deity with more faithful worshipers would have access to more powerful magic than the lesser deity with few to no followers. (though if you want to discuss that, I guess this is a better thread for it)

This would also give people (priests in particular) a meaningful reason to actually talk directly to their deities, though I don't think that a deity would be willing to, say, trade. Unless it's a god of death in which case you could your soul (whatever it might mean in the gameplay sense) for some powerful godly things, but that's loosely tied to this thread.

[TheHossofMoss]

I think this would be awesome. Plus, your god could call you to a crusade against another civilization that has another god. Although this may lead you to being attacked by other dwarven civs.

You could however, join up with a crusading army and fight in their grand battle once they reach their destination.

Like, you talk with the leader of the group, and may be allowed to join (if they permit you to). Maybe you'll have to prove your dedication to their god. I'm not sure.

On the other side, maybe it's well known in the world that there's a crusade occurring, and that they say "the army of Urist McLionheart is marching on a glorious crusade to the fortress of xxxx" and you decide to defend the fortress. So, you travel to the fortress, and speak with the leader. Then you can join the defense when they come!

Then get rewarded or something. i'm not sure. Just an idea!

[jefam99]

All i can picture from this idea is a massive loyalty cascade occurring whenever i get a migrant who worships deity A, thus rendering my fortress unplayable

[Bumber]

All i can picture from this idea is a massive loyalty cascade occurring whenever i get a migrant who worships deity A, thus rendering my fortress unplayable

I doubt anyone would wage a holy war against one individual. If you had two large factions then they might fight or one might emigrate, depending on religious doctrines and the personalities of the followers and leaders.

They might harass and individual, causing bad thoughts.

[Bohandas]

There should definitely be conflicts between deities.

These are a feature of every major real world mythological system*


_{*(except for those that use an excessively and unusually stringent definition of what constitutes a deity as a means to artificially limit the number of beings in their mythology that are officially considered gods [ie. Christianity, Islam, Judiasm, etc])}

[SixOfSpades]

Until you consider that the various deities of fortresses (every civilization has one) might all just be aspects of the same god.

Which, in turn, is just one of the many aspects of Armok.

Every god is Armok. The more you care about serving one god over another, the more you care about serving Armok.

Now go get him some blood.

[Findulidas]

Until you consider that the various deities of fortresses (every civilization has one) might all just be aspects of the same god.

Which, in turn, is just one of the many aspects of Armok.

Every god is Armok. The more you care about serving one god over another, the more you care about serving Armok.

Now go get him some blood.

Sounds like you are some dirty loklomok worshipper. STAKE HIM BOYS

[Dirst]

All i can picture from this idea is a massive loyalty cascade occurring whenever i get a migrant who worships deity A, thus rendering my fortress unplayable

I doubt anyone would wage a holy war against one individual. If you had two large factions then they might fight or one might emigrate, depending on religious doctrines and the personalities of the followers and leaders.

They might harass and individual, causing bad thoughts.

If there's a holy war between the two sides where neither has any nobles, the lone adherent is just going to be found dead somewhere.

To keep this from getting too out of hand, the heavenly conflicts need to have distinct sides like Greek and Norse mythology (gods vs. titans or frost giants, respectively) and the deities on a side jostle in office politics but no outright battles during mortal history.

Another very important simplification is that the god communicates to the priests in some way that's relatively unambiguous.  That way you don't have adherents to the same god bashing each others' heads in because the other guys were worshiping wrong.

Captain Jonathan Archer: These people you're fighting - what makes them heretics?
Yarrick: We believe the Makers created the Chosen Realm in nine days. They believe it took ten.
Captain Jonathan Archer: [scoffs] For that you've been at war for over a century?

[Neonivek]

I doubt anyone would wage a holy war against one individual

Actually... yes that has occurred before.

I cannot remember the word for it but basically you put a religious mark against someone and then everyone from the religion is obligated to kill the person... But they usually had hitmen and stuff to do it.

[GoblinCookie]

What makes us so sure that the gods of Dwarf Fortress actually exist?  Or that if they existed they would see anything to gain from getting their followers to kill eachother. 

It is not as if holy wars are not in the game already.

[Bumber]

I doubt anyone would wage a holy war against one individual

Actually... yes that has occurred before.

I cannot remember the word for it but basically you put a religious mark against someone and then everyone from the religion is obligated to kill the person... But they usually had hitmen and stuff to do it.

Still, it's not exactly a war. Either they flee the fort, or you lose one migrant that probably nobody cares about. The killer might get arrested, which may or may not lead to more violence.

Then again, who's to say it wasn't that cow the migrant arrived with? She seemed pretty suspicious.

[IndigoFenix]

Many myths are believed to be symbolic of interactions between different nations or tribes that worshiped those gods.  If two city-states were at war, their patron deities would have a fight.  (The war between the Greek deities and the Titans is sometimes thought to represent the new Greek culture supplanting the older, tribal one.)  If they merged together or created a new, significantly different culture made up of people from both tribes, their deities might be said to have married or had a child.

It's pretty hard to determine the cause of a war or a merging of nations in real life, so simulating it in DF would be difficult.  But what if the interactions between different groups could be represented abstractly by the interactions between different gods?  If two gods were the patron deities of two civilizations with opposing ethics, they would hate each other, their escalating hatred could reflect the abstract feelings of their associated nations, and when the gods actually fought, war would break out.  This would also allow the creation of new deities, reflecting the creation of new historical entities.

[Bohandas]

It's pretty hard to determine the cause of a war ... in real life, so simulating it in DF would be difficult.

Not really. We'd just need to add oil as a mineable material.

[Antsan]

What makes us so sure that the gods of Dwarf Fortress actually exist?  Or that if they existed they would see anything to gain from getting their followers to kill eachother. 

It is not as if holy wars are not in the game already.

They actually exist. In the current version they help demons establish their presence in the mortal realm or something like that. They do it in a time before time, though, so you might handwave it as the stuff of pure legends (mode).

[Bohandas]

What makes us so sure that the gods of Dwarf Fortress actually exist?  Or that if they existed they would see anything to gain from getting their followers to kill eachother. 

It is not as if holy wars are not in the game already.

They actually exist. In the current version they help demons establish their presence in the mortal realm or something like that. They do it in a time before time, though, so you might handwave it as the stuff of pure legends (mode).

IIRC it can also happen between followers of regular deities if the deities have opposed spheres and the civilizations sort of dislike esch other anyway.

They cannot yet however go to war over the placement of an iota in a holy book or which of two men who died over 1000 years ago was actually the heir of a famous holy man.