Now, if I had a GM or if I wanted to think for awhile about my character background, I would have a much more in depth understanding of Bastian’s religious life. The thing I like best about this small project is the speed at which I can get started and go. So in this post I will use the Solo-6 to semi-randomly make up a fantasy religion system.
Why use the solo-6?
Creativity is a tricky business, and often works best with other people’s feedback. The solo-6 provides (random) feedback which helps me be more creative. It is totally random and fake, but I find it helps me generate more interesting ideas.
How many gods?
Unlike the real world, where we can leave the existence of gods to faith, in the fantasy world gods deliver true power to their followers, so we need to know how many gods there actually are. Is there only one god? Yes, but… that god has many different demigods that act independently. Is the one god inaccessible in some way? Yes, and… in fact not even the demigods know what exactly happened. So I get a picture of a single creator god that has many divine servants of different kinds. Sometime in the distant past, the original god disappeared and the remaining divine beings all tried to carry on. They can still channel the original god’s power to followers, but they are not sure how or why.
We should give the original god a name. First, is the original god considered male? Yes. Ok, I will use the Fantasy Location Name Generator to make a name. This is so the god doesn’t end up being called a human name, like Bob. Here we go: Cal-pher/opher/epher. Actually, Calopher sounds pretty ok. Sometimes that table gives some weird stuff, but I got lucky this time. Calopher: the wandering father of the world.
Demigods
Ok, Calopher is gone so we need to spend more time on this group of demigods. I think it is likely that they are called children of Calopher, whether or not that makes any biological (divine biological) sense. My first question is do the demigods get along with each other? Yes. Ok, so after Calopher’s disappearance, his children came together to carry on his wishes as best they could. Fantasy religion typically has some divine conflict, so let’s investigate.
Did one of the children break away from the others? No. Is there some sort of not quite demigod being that opposes the children? No. Ok, so the demigods are relatively united and typically work together, but to provide conflict lets say they might disagree or support different ways of doing things. Maybe like a more united Olympia. That brings up another question, is one of the children the leader of them all in some way? No. That is three fives in a row!
The children form an essentially egalitarian council which makes big decisions. Individual children are free to do what they believe is best, and conflicts between them are always moderated by the council.
How many demigods?
Nine is a traditionally divine number so I will start there. Are there nine demigods? No, and… there are either much more or fewer of them. Are there a lot more than nine demigods? No, and… seriously there are not that many. Interesting. I was imagining a large pantheon, but it looks like we only have a few. I am going to choose four demigods: two male, two female for balance. There are so few I can name them all:
Dan- olan/ilan/elan/ulan: The God Danelan
Esta- le/li/lo- rand/irand/iren: The God Estaliren
Mul- se/si/so- r/ar/ara/iara/or/iora: The Goddess Mulsiara
Col- myr/omyr/myria/imyria: The Goddess Colmyria
Who does Bastian follow?
In the spirit of randomness, I roll for this and get Colmyria. So Bastian is a priest of Colmyria, daughter of Calopher the Wandering Father. I will generate a couple random themes from the Surname Elements Table: Sky/Cloud, Far/Deep, Harvest/Sown, Serpent/Giant, Prayer/Praise, Reaver/Bane, Watch/Keeper. Colmyria rules over the sky, she watches over her people from afar, because of the sky’s connection to seasons she is considered to govern the harvest, and she is the bane of serpents.
Prayer to Colmyria:
Oh great Colmyria, queen of the sky and daughter of the lost father, may you watch over your devoted followers from your home in the distant sky. Bring our crops into safe harvest and protect us from wickedness of serpents. We pledge our undying praise to you.
Great! Now I have a bit more flavor for Bastian and can later flesh things out more if needed.
Ra's Head 