Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Irritable

Religion in RPGs is a sticky topic. On the one hand you don't want to alienate anyone by insulting any beliefs they actually have, but on the other hand you need to make it vibrant, interesting, and detailed enough to be as compelling a part of the campaign world as it has been in the real world. OK, you don't need to do that, but it really does help to make the world seem like a living, breathing place instead of just another fantasy world where PCs run around killing orcs and stealing copper pieces.

This is especially true in a faux-Arthurian setting like mine, as in both Arthurian legend and Arthurian reality (so far as can be reconstructed) religion was a major motivating force. I can't really imagine Galahad, Lancelot, Percival and the rest divorced from Christian motivations and strictures -- it's a central part of who they are and what they do. Likewise when one looks at the historical period where any real Arthur must have flourished, you see a massive revival of Celtic paganism and the rolling back of Christianity all across formerly Roman Britain, a fact that must have played a huge role in whatever the real Arthur did. These are both really interesting dynamics that I'd like to capture, as is the idea of the barbarians bringing in their own religion. So, how best to do that?

The part of it that I thought would be the most challenging -- the "pagan" religion of the native people of the area where the game takes place, turned out to be the easiest. I've mentioned before how I want to be informed by a Slavic sensibility in a lot of this game, and as it turns out the religion of the pagan Slavs was both fascinating in its own right and full of a lot of really interesting elements that could make for good gaming. Take this discussion from Wikipedia on the nature and relationship between the two main deities, Perun and Veles:

Ivanov and Toporov reconstructed the ancient myth involving the two major gods of the Proto-Slavic pantheon, Perun and Veles. The two of them stand in opposition in almost every way. Perun is a heavenly god of thunder and lightning, fiery and dry, who rules the living world from his citadel high above, located on the top of the highest branch of the World Tree. Veles is a chthonic god associated with waters, earthly and wet, lord of the underworld, who rules the realm of the dead from down in the roots of the World Tree. Perun is a giver of rain to farmers, god of war and weapons, invoked by fighters. Veles is a god of cattle, protector of shepherds, associated with magic and commerce.

A cosmic battle fought between two of them echoes the ancient Indo-European myth of a fight between a storm god and a dragon. Attacking with his lightning bolts from sky, Perun pursues his serpentine enemy Veles who slithers down over earth. Veles taunts Perun and flees, transforming himself into various animals, hiding behind trees, houses, or people. In the end, he is killed by Perun, or he flees into the water, into the underworld. This is basically the same thing; by killing Veles, Perun does not actually destroy him, but simply returns him to his place in the world of the dead. Thus the order of the world, disrupted by Veles's mischief, is established once again by Perun. The idea that storms and thunder are actually a divine battle between the supreme god and his arch-enemy was extremely important to Slavs, and continued to thrive long after Perun and Veles were replaced by God and Devil. A lightning bolt striking down a tree or burning down a peasant's house was always explained through the belief of a raging heavenly deity bashing down on his earthly, underworldly, enemy.

The enmity of the two gods was explained by Veles' theft of Perun's cattle, or by Perun's theft of Veles' cattle (since Veles was the god of cattle, the matter of ownership here is not clear). The motif of stealing divine cattle is also a common one in Indo-European mythology; the cattle in fact may be understood simply as a metaphor for heavenly water or rain. Thus, Veles steals rain water from Perun, or Perun steals water for rain from Veles (again, since Veles is associated with waters, and Perun with sky and clouds, it is unclear to whom rain should belong). An additional reason for this enmity may be wife-theft. From folklore accounts it seems that the Sun was sometimes considered to be Perun's wife (an odd idea, as all Slavic sun-gods, like Hors and Dazbog, are male). However, since the Sun, in the mythic view of the world, dies every evening, as it descends beyond the horizon and into the underworld where it spends the night, this was understood by Slavs as Veles' theft of Perun's wife (but again, the rebirth of the Sun in the morning could also be understood as Perun's theft of Veles' wife).

This couldn't be more appropriate to an RPG setting in general, and I get dozens of ideas just reading those couple of paragraphs. But more than that, it's both familiar enough to be easily grasped and different enough from the more common Western European/Celtic/Greco-Roman myths that I find it really fascinating and evocative. The rest of the Slavic pantheon is full of these sorts of dualities as well, and it all bears that faintly familiar stamp that makes it at once accessible and alien.

So the solution presented itself: I'd just basically lift the Slavic pantheon and a lot of their religious elements, tweak them a tad, and pop them in nearly wholesale. The thing I thought would be terribly hard was, in the end, easy as pie.

The other religion -- the Christianity analogue -- turned out to be a different story, but that's a topic for a later time.

And let this be a lesson to me: just because I write it doesn't mean anyone gives a damn.