Whats All This About Just Rolling With It?

woah

"Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky. It’s looking back."

Drew The Magnus Archives season 4 finale, this is the first piece in a while thag actually took me days to complete. Also made a funny shitty little poster thing because why not

In this world it's either witness the horrors or the horrors will witness you (ceaselessly)

18.06.2022

I haven't been very active recently, but today I wanted to make another post related to (fantasy) world building. You can check my post about making a character encyclopedia here, or my other post about making an imaginary country.

Now, onto today's theme:

World building: making a religion

That's right! Religion is an important part of human history and - whether you are or are not religious yourself - you might want to give the people in your country or fantasy world some sort of beliefs or religion.

Today I created my very first imaginary religion and I wanted to share my creative process.

As I did with my country building guide, I will shorten the explanation to four simple steps in order to get started and set the basic traits of your religion. Here we go.

1. Type of religion (general traits)

Before anything else, you must think about what kind of religion you want it to be. These are questions you can ask yourself to get started:

Will it be a monotheistic or polytheistic religion?

If polytheistic, how many gods/goddesses are there? Are they arranged in some sort of hierarchy? If so, make a small diagram to organise it.

If monotheistic, is the god/goddess omnipotent? Are they limited by anything? Did they create humankind and the rest of the species?

Is there any kind of sacred texts, similar to the Bible or so? Or is it a religion transmitted orally?

Is the religion centered on any particular aspect of life (e.g. death, chastity, knowledge...)?

Are there pastors or any kind of religious guides or leaders? Or do the people speak directly to the god(s)/goddess(es)?

Does it give any explanation to what happens after death? Is there some sort of Heaven? Do they believe in Hell?

(I recommend thinking of a name, too, but this is not mandatory.)

2. Develop the ideas written before

This might seem obvious.

For polytheistic religions, try to describe as much as possible about every god/goddess. You can take inspiration from actual religions (always being respectful, of course) or ancient mythology. For instance, I decided to base the religion I created on spirits and natural elements (water, earth & forest, light, night and wind). Give the gods and goddesses some recognisable symbols.

Establish some basic rules, too. Here are some prompt questions.

How strict are the leaders of the religion (if there are any leaders at all)? Are the believers required to do anything in particular in their daily lives? Will there be any punishment if they don't do it?

Are there any forbidden foods or drinks?

Do they have any specific celebrations? Write those down and briefly explain them.

What are some of the legends, myths or stories that are part of the religion?

3. Branches

Of course, this is optional, but it is very likely that a religion will eventually split into different branches or groups.

I would recommend establishing which branch is the most important one. Then you can invent as many smaller groups as you want. Explain why they differ from the main branch of the religion and if they are considered to be a cult by the rest of the community.

Again, here are some more questions you can get inspiration from:

Are they a pacifist group or do they attack other believers/apostates/atheists?

Do all branches live peacefully or are they constantly at war?

What names do these branches receive?

4. Integrate the religion in your world/country

Now you have a solid idea of what your religion is like. It's time to integrate it in your fantasy world.

How powerful are the different branches of the religion?

Have they caused any wars or revolutions? Have they succeed in defeating their enemies?

Did the religion expand across other countries? To which ones? Did they make any changes to it?

This is basically everything I can suggest in order to invent a religion from scratch to use in your stories. I hope somebody finds this small guide useful in some way. Thanks for reading :)

I got inspired by the post with the voices in stp and assigning dnd classes….I’m going to do that with the princesses, specifically chapter 2 princesses. Let me know if you want chapter 3 princesses too!

My gut instinct is to make adversary a barbarian, but I don’t think she has as much rage as her 3rd chapter forms, so I think either a monk or fighter fits her best. Battle master fighter or Way of the open hand monk

Beast would be a circle of the Shepard Druid I think, protecting herself from who she perceives as a hunter

Damsel is difficult because she just wants to make you happy and is willing to do whatever you like. However maybe life domain cleric? Or oath of devotion paladin? Maybe a glamour bard could also work???? A support character for sure.

The nightmare I think is an aberrant mind sorcerer, being able to control the things around her by just getting close and killing someone just by slightly touching them.

I don’t really know what the prisoner would be. She’s colder and more collected so maybe a rogue? Assassin rogue could work I suppose but I don’t really think it fits her. Does anyone else have any better ideas?

Razor is another difficult one, rogue and fighter are my best bets. I think she’s more akin to a rogue but she’s not a stealthy rogue. Maybe inquisitive or mastermind for her subclass

Specter is a phantom rogue, makes sense to me. Also the wails from the grave is just something cool she could totally have

The stranger is all of the different classes all at once. She’s really talented.

Tower is definitely a sorcerer to me! Probably with a divine soul subclass especially because of her power and self-importance

THE WITCH!!!! I can only see two different paths for her! A Druid or a Ranger. For Druid I think she would either be circle of spores or circle of the moon? For Ranger I think she would be gloom stalker or get wanderer

S4 Jon, staring at the computer screen:I just woke up from a coma, can’t I catch one single break

Computer screen:

{ID - A CAPTCHA reading, “I am human” END ID}

The babygirl 🧡

box cat!

okay tma bumper stickers

“ i really loved you, you know” ok and what if i just ended my life then what 🤨🤨

things I’ve experienced working at the smp museum

Tommy innit (the kid who was exiled) put himself through recreations of traumatic experiences in some twisted version of exposure therapy

someone asked what the camarvan was and i had to explain that it was the catalyst for the creation of l’manburg and also a drug van

some kids tried to recreate the final control room betrayal for a school project but the kid playing eret (the traitor in the lmanburg war for independence and also my boss) stood on top of the chest for the infamous line and fucking fell off and broke their nose

someone tried to steal the camarvan

some kid doing a project on heredity said they had to pick one famous figure and for some goddamn reason they picked Wilbur soot so i had to explain the bastards fucked up family tree and i have never seen someone so confused (kid if you’re out there good luck on your project)

someone who knew Far too much about soot came and demanded we add an exhibit dedicated to his sand-eating habits

someone tried to defend dream and i just left bc what the Fuck

one day my boss said they were going to some cult banquet (i don’t handle the egg shit that’s my coworkers domain) and i got to spin in their office chair

heard later the cult banquet ended with multiple murders. not surprised.

got an assignment to hang up a “historically significant painting” but it was just a picture of first gentleman ranboo my beloved in a locket with his name??? but yknow his husband has nukes so I’m not gonna protest

some kid called the front desk at like midnight and asked if being straight was ok. first of all why the fuck are you calling a history museum second of all i was really confused and panicked and said “what’s a straight” and hung up so uh sorry kid

had to witness 3 kids try to recreate the lmanburg independence war in the form of interpretive dance. im all for creative schooling but what the fuck