[Meta] Church Overhaul

[Colin_Ginger 76]

Travel to any settlement in Oren and two things will be guaranteed: there will be a church, and it will be empty. The church for the most part acts as a small community unto itself, with few interactions with the outside population.

 

There are several reasons for this it seems. First of all, not many people interact with the church correctly. When I was active as my priest character, almost anytime I talked with a regular citizen there typical response was "hur dur, there is no God, ATHEISM RULES." Besides the obvious fact that this is not a very realistic point of view in terms of a medieval peasant or merchant, it's indicative of the fact that the church has no lasting impression on peoples RP day to day, especially for those new to the server and not aware of every facet that is the lore. Second, the church has little to no impact within the greater lore. As much as Oren likes to be self contained, and shun the other races, it thrives because it plays that bigotry up, and conquers and subjugates other races, creating conflict. The church creates little to no conflict because of many of its doctrines. There is no reason for a priest to interact with a druid, because the church states that even though they don't believe in exactly the same thing, it's close enough. The third reason is simple enough, and it is that church rp as is, is not exciting. For a mass to be held, a priest calls the town people in, they afk, he types a message that very few read, and then one dude goes to confession afterwords. There is no chance for the non priest character to interact with their environment, and RP is about interacting with your environment.

 

So what is there to be done? The server is soon entering 5.0 and allows for the church to change along with the server. One of the main events that is occurring is a religious war between the elven druids and orcish shamans. This is a perfect place for humanity to shoehorn their own believes in and either choose a side or to denounce both and start on its own crusade. This creates church related events that are exciting for a player to participate in. Instead of the previously mentioned mass, a priest could be found standing on a street corner rallying a mob to attack the local pagans. The church itself can begin splitting into factions on what should occur. The average Orenian now has stakes in what occurs within the church because it has a direct impact on them. Not only that, but the average LotC player now anticipates the next move of the church because it will have a hand on the world lore.

 

 

That is my two cents on the topic. I would love to hear others opinions, because I'm fairly uninvolved with the church as is. Would you want to see a change that would make others more invested in church rp? 

[grimmothy 188]

I like this, don't give up on it.

[Jistuma 1996]

14 minutes ago, Colin_Ginger said:

When I was active as my priest character, almost anytime I talked with a regular citizen there typical response was "hur dur, there is no God, ATHEISM RULES." Besides the obvious fact that this is not a very realistic point of view in terms of a medieval peasant or merchant

Just a thing about this part. Characters may act like that because the church of Canon is one of the only religions on the server, and the greatest religion on the server, of which the deity worshiped has not shown himself. Doesn't provide magic, doesn't provide visions, doesn't provide any change to the world. So why should a character believe the Creator when Aeriel, Tahariae, Aspects, Spirits, some of the Dwarven gods (or at least one), Khas, Yeu Rthulu, and probably more are Gods (even if some don't consider them gods (though the atheists)) that everyone knows exist? If they worship Aeriel they might become Ascended, if they worship the Aspects they might become druids, etc, if they worship the Creator... they never receive anything, hear anything, and considering that those that worship some of the known Aenguls and Daemons don't even mention the creator nor know anything definitive about it from their own deity.

 

LOTC isn't RL, in LOTC there is complete proof for gods existance, just there's not much at all for the Creator's.

[Heff 2460]

Just now, Jistuma said:

Just a thing about this part. Characters may act like that because the church of Canon is one of the only religions on the server, and the greatest religion on the server, of which the deity worshiped has not shown himself. Doesn't provide magic, doesn't provide visions, doesn't provide any change to the world. So why should a character believe the Creator when Aeriel, Tahariae, Aspects, Spirits, some of the Dwarven gods (or at least one), Khas, Yeu Rthulu, and probably more are Gods (even if some don't consider them gods (though the atheists)) that everyone knows exist? If they worship Aeriel they might become Ascended, if they worship the Aspects they might become druids, etc, if they worship the Creator... they never receive anything, hear anything, and considering that those that worship some of the known Aenguls and Daemons don't even mention the creator nor know anything definitive about it from their own deity.

 

LOTC isn't RL, in LOTC there is complete proof for gods existance, just there's not much at all for the Creator's.

Oh so you'e saying because ET and GMs do special little events were they can become gods by playing their deities that it means they must be worshipped? The Creator was always used as the main source of creation in LOTC up until this and the past map where the staff attempted to shoehorn in and play their own deities, claiming that The Wandering Wizard was probably wrong. Just because your own religion has some special snowflake staff rewards doesn't mean its any better than the ones that have been put so much time into by players since the start of the server. 

 

[Zhulik 3559]

Why doesn't church just do something that isn't Catholic-Copy Paste #67 that could actually take in players. 90% of the server consists of agnostic scruff-faced gentle atheists that think Christianity is bad- it's why they worship Islam and paganism irl instead or completely dismiss the notion because they saw a youtube video. There's not enough pious men these days, truthfully, because the church has indeed gotten stale.

I figure it wouldn't be too hard to incorporate at least some bit of fantasy-faith into church that'd get people interested in at least being religious.

[ARCHITECUS 4788]

Just now, Zhulik said:

Why doesn't church just do something that isn't Catholic-Copy Paste #67 that could actually take in players. 90% of the server consists of agnostic scruff-faced gentle atheists that think Christianity is bad- it's why they worship Islam and paganism irl instead or completely dismiss the notion because they saw a youtube video. There's not enough pious men these days, truthfully, because the church has indeed gotten stale.

I figure it wouldn't be too hard to incorporate at least some bit of fantasy-faith into church that'd get people interested in at least being religious.

Owynist reform?

[iris1612 1780]

TBH church rp is basically dead. There's simply not anything interesting to be done with it. Sure, you can witch-hunt and kill pagans and spread the good word of the lord and **** but.. there's not really much that doesn't get old fast. Without some et plotlines or something the Church can't really do much, since everything players can do with it has already been done.

[Will (TauFirewarrior) 2466]

Just now, Alterazgohg said:

Owynist reform?

There was so much potential...

[Jistuma 1996]

Just now, Heff said:

Oh so you'e saying because ET and GMs do special little events were they can become gods by playing their deities that it means they must be worshipped? The Creator was always used as the main source of creation in LOTC up until this and the past map where the staff attempted to shoehorn in and play their own deities, claiming that The Wandering Wizard was probably wrong. Just because your own religion has some special snowflake staff rewards doesn't mean its any better than the ones that have been put so much time into by players since the start of the server. 

 

What? What does anyone playing deities has to do with their existance? Aenguls and Daemons have ALWAYs shown their power and themselves in LOTC universe, the Creator? Never. The point of the existance of the Creator was done by the Wandering Wizard, as you said, and he's the only Aengul to ever state that.

 

My point though, is: "Why should I worship that god, when this god gives me magic and talks to me?"

[bungo 3965]

3 minutes ago, Jistuma said:

What? What does anyone playing deities has to do with their existance? Aenguls and Daemons have ALWAYs shown their power and themselves in LOTC universe, the Creator? Never. The point of the existance of the Creator was done by the Wandering Wizard, as you said, and he's the only Aengul to ever state that.

 

My point though, is: "Why should I worship that god, when this god gives me magic and talks to me?"

Because the Creator created the other gods as his messengers. 

 

Gereon Christ can save us from Jistuma if we believe hard enough.

[SpiltMemes 368]

praise GOD

[Neri 3590]

Church is being revived in due course.

[Will (TauFirewarrior) 2466]

Try to go more fantasy, please stop copying aspects from the catholic churches structure. I know the scripture isn't very Catholic but that doesn't matter, the church as an organization is structured and is made to appear like the Catholic church. I cbf with Medieval Catholic Simulator 2016, I have CK2 or I could netflix the Borgias if I need to watch or create some fiction with the Catholic church I think many would agree that it doesn't really fit the theme of LOTC. So reform its structure and appearance into something more interesting and you'll get more interested parties, I'm not saying get rid of the scripture because I know a lot of people worked very hard on it and everything as I stated the scripture isn't the issue its the organization itself. There is nothing wrong with having a Monotheistic Religion in Fantasy that is influenced from abrahamic religions IRL but you need to make the structure less like the stuff from IRL history if you want to make it interesting and appeal to the server playerbase of humans and non humans potentially.

[Medvekoma 2073]

Some points have been raised, quite a few well-based. I personally saw some decent church activity, but maybe it's because despite me being an atheist scum picking on religious folk IRL, I play a zealous character and instigate towards church activity.

 

But truly, I have gained nothing from church RP other than ... well, roleplay. And that's all. No matter what you say about druidism and other religions, I'm not going to mention events and event staff involvement because I haven't been around long enough to make a proper observation. But in terms of general "power", the church is literally something kept around by Oren for ... lore reasons. An Emperor would gain all kinds of benefits from abolishing the church.

 

Spoke to an old friend of mine about the question, and he made an interesting observation. In D&D, in Warcraft lore, even in the Elder Scrolls universe the priesthood wields considerable magical powers. Now I'm not stating that anointed knights should be able to cast a bubble and soulstone away, but giving the church some actual powers that differentiate them from the regular old bloke that gives you an advice in the confession booth. Something akin to the clerics' magic. And that'd give some ground to re-form the church as well.

 

I'd love to see a revision and restructure of the church with some priest/paladin aspects inspired by D&D or WoW, even for the structure.

[Neri 3590]

21 minutes ago, Will (TauFirewarrior) said:

Try to go more fantasy, please stop copying aspects from the catholic churches structure. I know the scripture isn't very Catholic but that doesn't matter, the church as an organization is structured and is made to appear like the Catholic church. I cbf with Medieval Catholic Simulator 2016, I have CK2 or I could netflix the Borgias if I need to watch or create some fiction with the Catholic church I think many would agree that it doesn't really fit the theme of LOTC. So reform its structure and appearance into something more interesting and you'll get more interested parties, I'm not saying get rid of the scripture because I know a lot of people worked very hard on it and everything as I stated the scripture isn't the issue its the organization itself. There is nothing wrong with having a Monotheistic Religion in Fantasy that is influenced from abrahamic religions IRL but you need to make the structure less like the stuff from IRL history if you want to make it interesting and appeal to the server playerbase of humans and non humans potentially.

 

90%~ of the server's lore is copied from a trope or just carbon copied from another source. There's nothing really wrong with that, no point reinventing the wheel if it's already been perfected by other (non)fiction sources.

 

I like the church being non-magical and purely faith based. It's the only religious group on the server that doesn't have magical roots. If I suddenly up and went "Wow aengudaemonic magic is so [insert fantasy universe]" then people would be equally insulted.

 

Also the church structure works fine; the only issues are 1. it's not really many peoples cup of tea and 2. it's difficult creating content for a group when you don't have an intrinsic and eternal goal for every member (Druids: get magic, Paladins: forge the Ashbringer or what have you and learn magic, etc...)

 

All it needs is a clean start on 5.0 and it'll be gucci, in my own opinion.