Topic: DAGLEA? Mistress of Justice

[Syssiah]

Heya O community of fans !

I didn't find any informations in any book on Daglea, Mistress of Justice, from the Charon pantheon.

Do any of you has any clue, or maybe developed anything about this intriguing dark divinity ?

[Voriig Kye]

Powers of Light and Darkness, page 111.

Beseeched by the wronged seeking justice, Daglea often deals out retribution out of proportion to her victim’s crime, and those who called upon the Dark Spirit live to regret their demand for vengeance.

There's stats, items, and all the stuff minor Charon spirits have in that book.

[Syssiah]

Thanks sir Dragon !

[Syssiah]

so few about  this entity. A shame ! lol

[MisterK]

so few about  this entity. A shame ! lol

There is very little in the way of usable material for the various gods. The SWMA spends much space providing stat blocks, which are, let's be honest, borderline useless. On the other hand, the tenets of faith, the core credo of worship, the variations (organisation of various religions in different places, everyday rituals, strictures of the church, holy days and celebrations, usual clerical vestments and symbols, religious antagonisms...) are sorely lacking. Even in the Powers of Light and Darkness book, the information is scarce and often very restricted. And this is the kind of information you need to run a proper campaign in a location where there *is* a religious presence.

I would have expected, for instance, a very significant section on religion and religious practices in the Haalkitaine book, given the presence of the Unified Orhan Church (as an official state religion) and the fact that the individual cults (not to mention some non-orhanic cults) still maintain official temples in the city. But there was very little, and the Haalkitaine book actually spends more space describing what nobles wear than how religion interacts with the everyday life of people. You don't know what the major sects or factions are within the UOC, and how they interact. You don't know what the most common rituals are, what the mainstream doctrine is, what believers are expected to do, how tithes work, how the church bureaucracy works, what is done during special holy days, what the clerical hierarchy in Haalkitaine is, and so on. I understand that, for the whole world, you would have to provide only the bare bones because you can't write a thousand-pages book, but for specific environment, I would have expected more details. And this is true for all the Emer MAs as well: religion exist, but no details are provided, so you don't know how it works or how the people live with it. It's basically a hitchiker's guide to Emer: made for people who are just passing through in their quest to loot ruins and kill evildoers, but not to provide a vivid picture of what actually happens when you *live* there.

And religion is first and foremost a social construct. As such, knowing how practitioners live is the single most important point in the description (even more important that the description of the deity itself - after all, in all but the most dramatic cases, you won't ever meet the deity except through the words and deeds of the faithful).

[B Hanson]

SW Channeling Handbook doesn’t cover all of that, but it’s a start?


https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=15879.0;attach=4373

[MisterK]

SW Channeling Handbook doesn’t cover all of that, but it’s a start?


https://ironcrown.co.uk/ICEforums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=15879.0;attach=4373

I've started to look at it, but one comment I already have is that it seems to consider religion as unified, with a single centre of power and high priest for the whole world. I have trouble subscribing to that idea. For me, Kulthea is a very fragmented world, and religions are not unified beyond the continent level, and most often are not unified even at continent level. Unification would only occur if 1) the realms can actually communicate frequently, 2) the culture is fairly homogeneous, and 3) the realms are not political enemies. And this is setting aside the fact that a god might be viewed as different entities altogether in different regions. After all, there are four major christian churches in Europe only (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican), not taking into account the minor schisms, and the people of the Book, who basically worship the same god, created three major and very antagonistic (at least at times) religions. That's for one single god, and in a world where there were no Flows of Essaence, dragons, or demon portals to make long-distance travel a hazardous proposition.

I can't see any reason why Kulthean religions would be more homogeneous than our own, especially since the major gods seem not to care much about what the people may actually believe.

[B Hanson]

"I can't see any reason why Kulthean religions would be more homogeneous than our own, especially since the major gods seem not to care much about what the people may actually believe."

I can think of one big reason: the "Gods" of Shadow World are real, powerful entities that channel to their followers and actual manifest on the planet. That takes a bit of speculation and guess work out of the religions, unlike in our own real world? The Priests of such real beings would be incentivized to ensure that their followers were devout and following the correct entity. Once power structures: religions, temples and churches are created, then leadership will result. Even in our own world, with faith based religions, there is the Pope.

But hey, it's my take on things. Your mileage may vary.

[MisterK]

"I can't see any reason why Kulthean religions would be more homogeneous than our own, especially since the major gods seem not to care much about what the people may actually believe."

I can think of one big reason: the "Gods" of Shadow World are real, powerful entities that channel to their followers and actual manifest on the planet. That takes a bit of speculation and guess work out of the religions, unlike in our own real world? The Priests of such real beings would be incentivized to ensure that their followers were devout and following the correct entity. Once power structures: religions, temples and churches are created, then leadership will result. Even in our own world, with faith based religions, there is the Pope.

But hey, it's my take on things. Your mileage may vary.

Actually, I come from a different premise - the "Gods" are *not* really gods, and, unless they actually want it, do *not* channel to their followers constantly (all casters use their own ability to work magic, but some require a psychological symbol to 'make the magic work', and this symbol is the mental representation of a god - which explains why people can still work divine magic while not being faithful to the tenets of their 'inspiration', and also explain why people can worship, and 'gain' magic from, things that definitely are not gods.

The gods manifest, sure, but once in a couple of thousand years at best (especially the Lords of Orhan, who are notoriously loathe to intervene in the affairs of kultheans), which is quite often enough for the manifestation to become myth several times over, especially with the periodic upheavals that happen on Kulthea. And even when those manifestations are more frequent, divergences in cultures, antagonisms, difficulty to communicate, and simple physical barriers create variations that end up making different schism faiths and religions.

Kulthea, for me, is a fragmented world, and there's no reason why religion would not follow the trend, because is is first and foremost a cultural construct. After all, the Lords of Orhan do not *need* to be worshipped, and most of them do not even *want* it. They tolerate it, but it almost happens despite their best efforts. They accept it only because it serves the purpose of their opposition to the Charon gods and the Unlife, but they would rather leave the kulthean people to their own devices most of the time. And if they take a fancy to *some* people, they adapt their shape and tenets to the local culture, especially if the culture is somewhat isolated. The Gods of Charon are more 'involved', mostly because they gain pleasure from it, but even them do not need a homogeneous religion as long as the people do their bidding (basically, who care what those people do as long as it serves my whims ?)

So all in all, I find it much easier to believe in a world where religions are local and, even if there is some common grounds between religions that worship what is essentially the same God, if the people are different, their religion is different as well. So, when in Jaiman for instance, the faith of Phaon is different in the east (Tanara), the south (Rhakhaan) and the northwest (Saralis) - and very different in Remiriath because elves do not see the world in the same way as humans and their relation to the gods is different. Only faiths that distance themselves from temporal power can have any chance at homogeneity, because they don't crave temporal power and, as such, are not shacked to its mundane peculiarities.

[pastaav]

Kulthea, for me, is a fragmented world, and there's no reason why religion would not follow the trend, because is is first and foremost a cultural construct.

Obviously the forces of good has been manipulated to be fragmented and divided, due to manipulation of the global threat from Unlife. Still, why would a world with Navigators as commercial business and organizations like the Loremasters not have made sure lots of more global travel and organizations than in just about every fantasy world?

[MisterK]

Kulthea, for me, is a fragmented world, and there's no reason why religion would not follow the trend, because is is first and foremost a cultural construct.

Obviously the forces of good has been manipulated to be fragmented and divided, due to manipulation of the global threat from Unlife. Still, why would a world with Navigators as commercial business and organizations like the Loremasters not have made sure lots of more global travel and organizations than in just about every fantasy world?

Oh, I don't say it's not *possible* - the Alliance is an almost textbook example of it. I'm only saying that the Master Atlas never provided any hint that it was the case, with the sole exception of said Alliance (which has access to compasses similar to the ones the Navigators used, as a side note). So, the Alliance exists and is the exception. The other organisations expand by conquest and there is no trans-national unifying force, if only because centralisation is extremely vulnerable to inside sabotage, as the Emerian Empire proved, and because the more you expand, the more hideously difficult  it becomes to maintain unity in the face of local ambitions and cultural biases, distances, and obstacles. You would basically need flying ships and teleport stations like the pony express of old west to make it work. The capability is there (if you have casters and alchemists powerful enough), but it's definitely not the kind of world that is described in the canon - fragmented, ravaged by bitter infighting, and hovering on the edge of collapse.