Creating a Campaign Part 6: Religion

Why yes, I am an eldritch abomination posing as a god!

Hello there, my lovelies,

And welcome back to part 6 of this series, where I discuss what I do when I create a new setting or campaign. In a nutshell, I try to create an immersive setting by strategically placing flavourful concepts and terse descriptions, rather than diving into massive exposition dumps.  By sprinkling a few evocative statements here and there, it fires up the player’s imagination, and they weave these ideas into their own unique mental map of your world.

If you want to read the previous entries, please use the links below:

Creating a Campaign Part 1: Creating Concepts
Creating a Campaign Part 2: Character Creation
Creating a Campaign Part 3: Shopping!
Creating a Campaign Part 4: Artefacts

Today I am going to go over everyone’s favourite subject (other than politics), religion. I will be honest, I am not sure I have cracked the code of making in-game religions that feel real. I think very few TTRPGs or even computer games manage to achieve this; they often feel like they have fallen into a contextual uncanny valley. They look and sound like a real religion, but somehow lack. Perhaps this is just a limitation of the medium. In the real world, religion is so deeply interlaced with culture that the society is very much a product of its religious traditions as well as its civic values.

There are exceptions to this, and I will discuss one in particular later. The majority of this post will describe types of religion that fit well in a TTRPG, and the considerations that might make them feel more real.

Tea-Set’s Note

Obviously, this is a HUGE topic, perhaps worthy of its own series of posts.  So consider the following in this post as an overview, rather than a deep dive.

Aniamism

Animism is one of the earliest forms of religious belief. For the animist, the world is full of spirits found in every object, environment and location.  These spirits have power and agency to change the world around them, just like us.  This can make them very dangerous if angered. So animists seek good relationships with the environment and provide rituals and offerings to the spirits.

A good example of a modern animist religion is the Shinto religion of Japan, which venerates spirits (kami) of the land. It is full of ritual and shrines that attempt to bring peace and harmony to the environment.

Polythesim

Polytheistic religions are the most common form of religion in TTRPGs.  The advantage is that it creates instant diversity in the setting and gives your players more options when building their character.

One thing I have noticed is that these gods tend to be iconic characters, meaning they do not change; they are eternal personifications of their domains. In the real world, gods in pantheons tend to have strong interpersonal connections. They are either related, lovers, or even enemies. This makes them deeply flawed characters and painfully human in their behaviour. The best example of this is Zeus and Hera.  Zeus gets horny, turns himself into a sexy animal or object, and then seduces a young fair maiden. Rather than address the issues in their marriage, his wife, Hera, takes her anger out on these poor women and curses them in various ways.  Creating a set of myths for your pantheon would take a lot of effort, but it is worth considering.

Pantheons in the real world also tend to face their own threats. The Greek gods have the titans, the Norse gods have to reckon with Ragnarok, and even the Hindu gods face the threat of the Asura.

When designing your pathenon, there needs to be a conscious choice between typical Iconic gods and the community of gods you tend to find in real-world religions.  If you opt for the former, it is worth asking yourself why it is iconic.  Why do they not change? My personal answer to this question is that they are eldritch beings of immense power, but unlike the old ones and elder gods of Lovecraft, they are deeply invested in the direction and well-being of humanity.

Monotheism

Monotheistic religions are particularly hard to implement in a fantasy setting, as they have to have a reason why people would reject the alternatives.  If clerics exist, who are powered by their faith in that god, then surely that is evidence that their religion has truth to it.

So if you want to implement a monotheistic religion, there needs to be a philosophical underpinning and a good narrative story for people to believe it.  One game that does this really well is Shadow of the Demon Lord, and its wannabe monotheistic religion, The New Faith.

The New Faith of Shadow of the Demon Lord

In a nutshell.  The prophet Astrid is visited by “the new god”.  A mysterious deity that gifts her with the four truths.

• The soul is eternal; death merely leads to the next life.

• The gods need the faith of mortals; without it, they are powerless.

• Through evil action and deed, the soul can be corrupted, which will doom them to hell.  Only through a moral life can a mortal escape this threat.

• Seeking a path to escape the cycle of death and rebirth, such as undeath, is an abomination.

She spends most of her life spreading these truths, but ultimately disappears, and there is debate as to what happened to her. But many feel that she either ascended to heaven or was martyred. 

Every aspect of Shadow of the Demon Lord’s cosmology is exceptional.  The New Faith is one shining example.  It works because:

• It is similar to real-world religions (Christianity in particular).

• It has a VERY clear set of beliefs that are internally consistent and make sense in the mythology of the setting.

• It has a protagonist prophet who follows a strong narrative path.  Revelation leads to enlightenment, which leads to preaching and persecution, which ends in martyrdom.

If you want to implement your own monotheism in your game, give it a clear philosophy and a good narrative.

Evil and Extremism

Sadly, you do not need evil gods for people to do evil things in the name of religion.  You just need people willing to interpret religious tenets in a way that brings about destructive behaviour.  Many years ago, I used to play a lot of LARP, which used an alignment system of Evil/Good, Chaotic/Lawful. As a result, you would get the phenomenon of what was dubbed as Fascist Good. A goodly character who brutally punishes and kills anyone committing an evil act, no matter how petty. These characters were morally inflexible and often scary to deal with.  What I mean is that even in the name of good, people can commit all kinds of horrors.

Consider the following:

• Followers of a god of law believe that any infraction should be brutally punished.  A paladin’s vows turn a member of the clergy into something akin to Judge from 2000AD.

• Followers of a god of freedom might see any form of authority as benevolent as tyranny; they espouse that society should live according to natural freedoms, in total anarchy.

• Followers of a god of nature might turn to regular human sacrifice.  The natural world is by definition red in tooth and claw, and life continues at the cost of others dying to give it the energy it needs to persist.

• Followers of a god of knowledge may forego ethics to achieve new breakthroughs. Human life is cheap compared to the devotional duties of one pushing the boundaries of knowledge for their god.

Conclusion

Adding religions to your games is a harder task than most because religion is such a ubiquitous part of culture.  However, because of its diversity, there are so many ways to sprinkle it into your games to add real flavour.  

Consider what your gods are.  Are they iconic? Do they have relationships with others? Are the gods under threat themselves from other beings?

Religious tenets will need some thought, especially if you create a monotheistic religion.

Are there extremists? How do they pervert the tenets of that religion?

I know this was not as practical-minded as previous entries in this series, but I hope my thoughts on this matter have been useful.

Tea-set

Creating a Campaign Part 4: Artefacts

 

Mysterious artefacts!

Introduction

Hello there, my lovelies,

Welcome back to what is the 4th instalment of my series on how I create a new campaign. In a nutshell, I try to create a sense of immersion for my players. I want them totally engaged and excited to play in the game world I have created.

Remember that every player is building a mental model of the world their character inhabits, and each player will have a mental model unique to them.  So instead of providing massive, in-depth descriptions, it is better to offer short, evocative statements that add one more bit of lore to the world so that your players can knit together all of these data points into a whole.

If you want to catch up and read the previous articles, you can find them in the links below:

Creating a Campaign Part 1: Creating Concepts

Creating a Campaign Part 2: Character Creation

Today, we are going full Dark Souls and investigating how we can leverage those ideas to create artefacts that add a whole load of flavour into our games. For clarity, when I talk about artefacts, I mean them quite generally. It could include magic items, arcane grimoires, or even steampunk knick-knacks. We can think of artefacts in this case as objects that either augment or enhance a character or their abilities.

The reason artefacts can add so much flavour to your world is that your players become attached to them. I think we can all think about a character who has a very personal bond with their beloved magical greatsword. So this is a great opportunity to give the player an item that feels like it was part of this world’s history and culture, and through it, they can feel linked to it.

Naming Artefacts

Obviously, this is a personal thing, and undoubtedly most people have their own process. I try to give artefacts short names that echo their theme. For example, if I had a fire-based artefact, I would use words in its name like ignite, flame, or conflagration.  

It is often the case that artefacts are retrieved from the ruins of long-lost civilisations, or from alien cultures.  When that is the case, I run the chosen name through a translator of ancient or dead languages to create a weird but cool title.  In the past, I have used Google Translate or the following sites to help name my artefacts.

Sanskrit: https://www.learnsanskrit.cc/translate?search=hello&dir=au

Latin: https://www.translate.com/latin-english

Norse: https://www.polytranslator.com/old-norse/?src=eng_Latn&tgt=non_Latn&q=%0A

Aztec: https://lingojam.com/Aztectranslator

Examples

Bani-Blot (Blood Axe): A throwing axe that returns to hand on command.

Tarangarakshakah (Wave guard): A trident that allows the wielder to walk on water.

Umbra Cultro (Shadow Knife): A dagger with an insubstantial blade that ignores armour.

Esteyaochiualistli (Blood Weapon): A large natural club with thorns, making its victims bleed out.

Evocative Descriptions

I believe that any artefact of note should be accompanied by a description. I do this by giving the player a card that acts as the physical representation of the item, and the item description is displayed front and centre (see below).

A typical item card from a campaign

The masters of item descriptions without a doubt are the Souls games. In general, these descriptions provide:

• A description of the items form, or its function.
• An extremely short but impactful sentence of lore associated with the item.

Let's have a look at a few examples from Elden Ring:

Exiles Hood

Sexy

(part of the exiles' armour set)

‘’Deep red hood that covers the whole head.

Worn by soldiers sent to the penal colonies, who were required to keep their faces hidden.’’

This description tells us that the knights are here because of a crime they, or their order, committed. Additionally, this crime is so bad or so shameful that they have to keep their faces hidden. It hints at a large event in the world of which they are a part.

The Briars of Punishment

not so sexy

(a sorcery collected from blinded cultists)

‘’An aberrant sorcery discovered by exiled criminals. Theirs are the sorceries most reviled by the academy.

Wounds the caster with thorns of punishment, sending a trail of bloodthorns running over the ground to impale enemies from below.

This sorcery can be cast repeatedly.

The guilty, their eyes gouged by thorns, lived in eternal darkness. There, they discovered the blood star.’’

This unsettling description hints at cosmic horror.  That these criminals, who have been punished by having their eyes scourged out of their heads by thorns, have been able to witness the Blood Star. Something no sighted person could ever see, and this thing has gifted them with blood magic.

That is powerful and evocative world-building.

The following two examples are from important artefacts from my own campaigns. The first is from a campaign of Shadow of the Demon Lord. This weapon was found in the hide of a great demon, and it was designed to hint at the true scale of the threat the shadow of the Demon Lord posed to the world.

Fearsome Bloom

“This weapon is the final remnant of a lost people from an extinct universe.

It appears as a brilliant magenta flower, in the shape of a crescent axe.

Its handle is covered in fearsome thorns upon which a careless user could prick their hands.”

The second item is from my Webrail campaign, and it is designed to reinforce the train and spider aesthetics of the setting.

Resonance: Silk steel battle wrench

“This oversized wrench has the familiar blue tint of a silk steel.

When struck on a solid surface, the wrench sings with a rich metallic hum.”

In Conclusion

Use naming conventions that echo the theme of your artefact, and there is always the option to put that name through a translator.

More importantly, your artefacts should have descriptions. Focus on short pieces of flavour text that include a piece of lore, and the player will then weave that information into their mental model of your game world.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Next time, the one thing that should never be discussed over dinner, religion.

Ta-ra!

Love Tea Set

Creating A Campagin Part 3: Shopping!

 Intro

Well, hello there, my lovelies,

Welcome back to the third part of my series, where I discuss how I go about building a new campaign setting. I am essentially arguing that the most important thing when planning your campaign is creating a sense of immersion.  That every time your players come to the table, they feel like your world is alive, and they are excited to be part of it. If they have the buy-in for your game, it will make everything 100 times smoother.

If you want to read the previous posts, you can find them here.

Part 1: Creating Ideas

Part 2: Character Creation

In this post, I will describe two ways of injecting that flavour into your game world via shops and other vendors.

1. Specialist vendors: who sell products unique to that location.

2. Item flavour text: A sentence or two that adds context to a product, and helps players expand their mental model of the game world.

Specialist Vendors

Firstly, let's take a look at specialist vendors, and for that, we need to consider the magnificent Bakewell Tart.

Banging

The Bakewell tart is a classic British treat. This shortcrust dessert stuffed with jam and icing is topped with a glazed cherry, making it an absolute banger. And if you have had the privilege of eating one before, you will no doubt agree with me.

Bakewell tarts were invented in the town of Bakewell, in the Peak District of the North of England. The town is something of a tourist spot nowadays, and it is chock full of bakeries selling Bakewell Tarts, because this is its local speciality, the town’s cultural gift to the world.

They sell giant Bakewells here. I had one to myself, and I regret nothing.

So, when you are making vendors think about what makes that town special, and create a niche vendor to reflect that. Human culture is often expressed in fashion, food, the arts, and technology, so specialist vendors selling something of that sort would work well. If you are stuck, here are some potential specialist vendors.

1. Food and drink

2. Tobbaconist

3. Musical instruments

4. Toy shops

5. Florist

6. Spas and beauty salons

7. Bars, restaurants, and taverns

8. Book sellers

9. Art galleries

10. Curio shops

11. Tailor’s

12. Engineering/tinkers

Pro-Tip:

Always give your shops 10, 12, or 20 items. That way, you can use them as an ad hoc loot table!

Flavour Text

Again, we can return to the Souls games for inspiration here. A short piece of flavour text can add depth to your world with very little effort. It will make the player think about how that item fits into your world, and they map it into their mental model, which in turn makes your world feel more alive.

This is how I would add flavour text to the Bakewell Tart.

Bakewell Tart

Created in the Black Horse Inn in the 1820s. This delicious dessert from the town of Bakewell is guaranteed to give you the energy to hike across the beautiful landscape of the Peak District. 

Counts as 1 ration.

Examples

Pro-Tip

Not every item needs a purpose. Some can be in the shop as filler, or to add flavour. It is just a reflection of what the vendor would usually sell.

I consistently find that one of the best ways to add flavour to the game is to create an alcohol vendor. So many nations on earth have their own unique drink that reflects local culture. The example below is from my Webrail campaign, and each entry comes with a bit of flavour text.

Drinks Merchant
Item	Cost
Memories of Yggdrisil An earthy Cabernet Sauvignon.  Drinkers often report having dreams of a vast tree once consumed.	10
Crystal Icewine Technically cursed.  This rare wine is made from enchanted ice crystals found on frozen fragments. It's known for its crisp, sweet flavour and its ability to briefly lower the drinker’s body temperature.	25
Railside Red A popular and relatively cheap house red.  Notable for its sweet and fruity flavour.	5
Ghosttouched Chardonnay A delicate chardonnay.  The wine is almost exclusively made from grapes that have grown in necromantically infused landscapes.  When drinking it, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.	20
Holy Fuck Vodka Vodka with an extra kick.  Upon taking a shot, the drinker must make a Constitution check.  If they fail, they must say “holy fuck”.	30
Mother’s Ruin Gin A brand of gin that gleefully leans into its infamous reputation.  The label proudly states. “The favourite drink of wayward women”	22
Abyss Spiced Rum Abyss spiced rum is aged in a unique fashion.  Kegs are lowered off the sides of fragments for years at a time.  The process gives the rum an extra kick that is found in no other drink.	50
Driver’s Tipple Whiskey A warm and peaty whiskey.  One swig of this is enough to shock the senses to make you alert.  One bottle is enough to lull you into a dreamless sleep.	50
Axel Grease Moonshine Yes, it is actually made from fermented axle grease.	5

The next example is a vendor who sold meat and tusks. This was from a settlement found in cold regions, and was inhabited by Viking-like folk.

Food and Tusks
Item	Description	Cost
Whale meat	Filing and Fatty. 1 ration.	1cp
Walrus Meat	Tastes like pork. 1 ration.	1cp
Shark Meat	So chewy, you might as well be eating leather. 1 ration.	1cp
Penguin Meat	Very gamey and stringy.  Good source of protein, but wow, penguins are vicious. 1 ration.	1bit
Walrus Tusks	This must have come from a large, robust beast. As Dagger.	2sp
Narwhale Horn	It has the appearance of a unicorn’s horn. Have you been lied to all your life? As spear.	5sp

This last example was for a campaign set in the underground of a post-apocalyptic dwarven kingdom. The vendor is what I considered a typical miner's vendor.

Headroom The Mining Store
Item	Description	Cost
Mining helmets	Complete with a section to hang a candle to see in the Dark!	20
Pickaxe	Made with tempered steel.  Robust!  Can act as a weapon (1D8/1 damage)	10
Rope	Hardy, cut to the desired length.  Use gloves with it, or the coarse surface will give you friction burns.	1 per 10ft
Hardened Crowbars	Sometimes you just need to prise a rock open with a bit of elbow grease and one of these (1D6)	5
Very reasonable explosives	Inflicts 1D6 damage.  5ft blast radius	15
Reasonable explosives	Inflicts 2D6. 5ft blast radius	30
Unreasonable explosives	Inflicts 4D6.  10ft blast radius	60
Irresponsible Explosives	Inflicts 10D6.  30ft Blast radius.	120
Sledgehammer	As a Warhammer.  Used to hammer supports into place to support unstable ceilings	7
Drill Slug Egg	Legally dubious to own.  This drill slug uses its grinding teeth and acidic saliva to burrow its way through the rock.  Dangerous!	1000

I hope that was helpful. Remember, all it takes to make your world more immersive is just a little bit of flavour here and there, which creates a mental image for your players. Over time, their mental image of your game world becomes more expansive, and their engagement increases.

Next time. Artefacts.