Endovelicus

When Kristoff sees the light and hears "freedom" he feels dizy almost fainting. "No...It...It can't be..."

I'm sorry, perhaps it's the old church I'm thinking of, but I distinctly remember being witchhunted in the fringe for being a cleric. You have to come out and state it as official church doctrine ICly for it to have any effect.

Yeah, but we literaly have chants asking the Aeguls and Daemons and saints to be witness of our piety and devotion to god...

I think the reason so many people associate sexism with the church of Oren is because the culture and religion shift happened at the exact same time around early Asulon, and with the same catalyst (IE Godfrey's era) when the humans were looking to "revitalize" their culture and re-unify the race. They essentially decided to take middle ages European values and instill them IG, with no expense spared. That said, the association goes beyond origins. Many people when creating a human character will look at the culture and automatically associate misogyny with the culture being portrayed because they're so strikingly similar. I am not trying to say that you guys are not creative, because everyone enjoys certain flavors of roleplay, and everyone has a right to enjoy it. I'm just trying to help you understand where other people are coming from.

 

As for me, if I could see one change in the church of Oren, I would find it very interesting to see them be more embracing of the pantheon of aenguls and daemons, offering tribute to the servants of the Creator alongside he himself. Oren, for a very long time has been very Game of Thrones esque in the mannerisms and roleplay style of its community, and perhaps it's just me, but I always love high fantasy over realism. My best advice is to not tie yourself down, and to let your creative juices flow. Give your culture room to expand, grow, and flourish as new generations of players enter the picture with new ideas.

 

In my experience with the Druids, the best framework for a guild or culture is one that does not restrict its members as much as possible. RP is all about storytelling, and we all have a story in our heads we think is the best. Making one's guild as free as possible allows as many players as possible to create that "perfect" story within the regulations and ideology of that group.  

Embrace the pantheon of Aenguls and Daemons? Like fully worshiping them?

As has been stated earlier, an excellent way to reform the church, is to simply involve the clerical patrons. Powerful beings believed to be in service to the Creator, going around investing their power in servants after the fashion of Aeriel and the Ascended. The legitimacy and prestige of the church ICly would increase, if the wielders of holy power, were endorsed.

We do endorsed them, people just haven't done that, I guess it's because the lack of numbers.

Not particularly, no. I mean Clerics and Knights under the church that would use actual Cleric magic. This ties in with the addition of Aenguls in the church's faith - legitimate Aenguls who would be able to provide these powers under good reason.

Aenguls are already in the church, we don't have to legitimize them further.Plus I'm pretty sure if a priest wants to he can just learn Clerical magic.

So if you wish to be one...Go ahead, send him a letter by a forum post or something, and make a nunnery.

So the HP is 100% fine it nuns, but they just haven't well...Apeared.

But you can preach the polar opposite, which I think is what's being suggested.

We can, but that depends on who is preaching.

This only addresses one side, not everyone who is uncomfortable with the Christian similarities is athiest. Some find it awkward because they are Christians themselves. I play a pagan nature worshiper and have gotten into frequent discussions with religious Orenians about Creator-ism vs Druidism, and many of the arguments I present to them against their religion are things I would be able to answer myself when defending my IRL religion. But they didn't know how to answer those questions because their religion only uses the external trappings of Christianity with none of the internal logic, that or their supposed missionaries and crusaders don't know their own doctrine.

 

It was brought up because the sexism seems to be supported by the church. If religion supports something it makes it very difficult to try to change the society's position about it.

As I said many times over this thread, we are making it more original.And about sexism I don't really see how the church affects it...We don't go around preaching that women should be kept in a home cleaning, if that happens it's the culture itself, and if women don't want to RP being houswives they don't have to.

As for paladins, you could have them hunt evil rather than "the unbelievers."

That a good point.I'll bring that up with the HP.

If you want to bring the church back to prominence you'll need the nation leaders on board. A priest as a royal advisor involved in official functions, regularly scheduled gatherings in the church for sermons, charity for the poor, make as much RP as you can out of it.

 

As always, Lore Team stands ready if you want our help.

We are aiming for that sort of stuff, we just have to little numbers.Even with little number we will try and bring the church from the ashes.

Even if he means paladins, the church is aiming for something peacufull, at the moment we don't have the need for any holy order or paladins, although that might change in the future.But for now the church is peacufull.

That only covered half of the point. What of raising levies of Cleric Knights and establishing a legitimate sense of divinity that most religion-oriented human kingdoms display in various other fantasy settings that I mentioned?

Edit;

Leowarrior and Fiend, are talks of sexism and misogyny really necessary here? You guys need to make your own threads about changing the allegedly repressive lack of opportunity for women in the human community. This is a discussion on the betterment of the church, not the race that hosts it. If you want more stuff for girls to be available (in roleplay) then try to strive for said opportunities - in roleplay. I swear, this is reminiscent of when IC raiding was discourteously demanded to be removed because no one put an effort toward defenses in the game.

Clerical knights? Like crusaders? 

Humans are not original they mimic humans in real life and we should change that...

Orcs are not original they are in Lord of the Rings...

Lord of the Craft is not Original it is Lord of the Rings in Minecraft...

Can we call this server something else please?

 

I don't know why you made this thread but all i see is people saying that it's Christianity and going hard about being atheist.

To be a Human is basically to Roleplay in a Medieval Environment, Humans enjoy low-fantasy.  Usually the player base of Humans looks to history to develop ideas and Christianity was a large part of Feudal society.  This isn't even Christianity it's the base of the Abrahamic religions and it is the religion that makes the most sense for people that want to play a Medieval themed Human.  I don't understand why you cry about Latin now when it was introduced like 4 years ago not even by the church.

 

I don't understand why people make OOC posts to give feedback about an RP topic... useless...Dibley.....

I mainly made this post to see the opinion on the church.Although some posts don't help at all, others give us ideas to better the church.That way we can make a friendlier enviroment to RP in.

 

@Gaius, eh. You do you, boo boo. Buuut... you're always gonna upset a few people if you hit touchy subjects from the irls.

Remember the Moogle incident?

 

 

See, reading this also made me cringe. The idea of someone who is christian seeing their faith used (as it is, sadly, so commonly in the real lifes) to justify evil when there are so many other choices is a bit saddening. I wonder if anyone Islamic has seen our lore and noped out. ;(

Bloop bleep XXBOT 9000 wants equal treatment.

 

But yes! Nuns. What an idea.

 

 

Let's make a baby, so I can spend all day cooking and cleaning to prepare the house for your return upon completion of your manly sweaty job.

 

Women don't have to marry...They can own shops etc, of course there will always be that guy who tries to flirt, but you can just turn him away.And if you want to be a nun, get a group of women with the same goal and send a letter to the HP.

I served in the Order of Saint Lucien for months and never once did I care about Doctrines, Canonization, Orthodoxy, Traditionalism, schism, flexio, or any of that other crap.

 

It's not very entry level friendly. You're either really into church stuff or you just don't care or it's too much to get into.

That Orthodxy, Traditionalism etc are all out of teh window, we are one church, not many churches under one man.

Whatever the issue is with Orenian religion, it certainly isn't a lack of female roles or sexist factors derivitive of dark-age Christianity. Knowing those two were filed as complaints in this thread likely killed some of my brain cells.

I personally suggest the church takes a step into the fray and submerge itself in a little of the server's fantasy. I noticed a page or so back that it was mentioned that Aengulic inclusion, or atleast worship, were very unlikely to take shape in the faith. While this is understandable, especially for the latter pertaining to worship, melding other deities besides the Creator into the church's roster of legitimate heavenly beings would enrich it moreso than it's current plan does.

Aenguls and Daemons are often direct servants of God; they could be considered much like His angels, for example, whom are reverred but not exactly worshipped. This offers the opportunity for the church to welcome beliefs like that of the faiths of Tahariae, Xan or Gazadariael, whose dogmas do not necessarily interfere with the Creator's plan.

It would also allow the church to provide a sort of legitimacy in their religion - actual Clerics are like an attraction and role model which can coerce humans of Oren and otherwise into interacting with the church more because of the goodly power it would exhibit.

You can pray to saint and Aenguls/Daemons you just can't directly worship them.

I've always found it extremely interesting roleplaying a member of the church. My second and first real main was a wandering preacher when I started him, and through ecclesiastical politics and religious RP (Sermons / Alms / Teaching) I found a niche which created some of the funnest RP on the server. Let's face the facts, Church RP isn't here in bundles. How the church functions is exactly the same as the IRL church- although lacking in numbers, they've always had some of the best statesmen and theorists ICly in the ranks. This has contributed to a few interesting scenarios where the church actually dismantled the Empire or denied a king his crown.

 

The ideals and influence of the church primary come from the competency of the HP and the Bishops / Cardinals. Who function as the 'privy' for the HP, and discuss all sorts of things.

 

Anyways, a few things that I've always seen as ways to improve the church,

 

-Documentation, RPly the church should be keeping vast collections of information / books. During my time as High Pontiff I started creation of a Papal Library, which I expertly hid in the marshes of Savoie (where no one ever found it after I left). The HP should entrust the bishops will the constant updating and collection and analysis of the books.

 

-Alms, basic. The purpose the Church held land in past papacies is to fund Alms. Savoie was originally intended to fund the church. Perhaps a vast farmland owned by the church, I would actually help you w/ this if you need in my barony

-Vatican, Church needs a HQ. Always has, skype chats don't work. How awesome would a papal palace be, where the bishops could RP with eachother ect (I'd suggest we put this in/near Petrus)

 

-Abby / Monastery, currently monks have been attempted but never done properly. What I suggest is that Church monks act as Human Guides. We change the cathedral into Petrus into a monstary, and the monks who live there can teach / guide new humans (or other races) in anything, professions, the creator, lore, government, alms, ect

We are actually working on all of those as we speak. Some of the trials for a Deacon is actually writing a book wich will be stored in a librabry.The Vatican and alms are getting worked on, we are building a small town wich will serve as both a Vatican and a way of getting funds.

And the abby/monastery will be up to the HP, I'll bring that up whne I have time.Thank you for your comment.

As has been said, it's too similar to IRL religions. I'm not saying this because I'm an athiest who hates religion, I'm actually a very conservative Christian and find people RPing a knock off of Christianity kind of uncomfortable. Especially when people use actual hymns or prayers in RP. But it seems that's being dealt with, so I won't go into it any more.

 

Fiend mentioned treatment of women and I agree with some of that too, Oren feels very hostile toward female characters sometimes. Nuns that focus on charity, healing, or educating children could be nice RP, and would provide other things for Orenian women to do besides be a housewife, and would expand on religious RP.

I agree with that, but that's not up to us, women should band together and send a letter to the High Pontiff.

What I think about the Church is that it's pointless.

The vast majority of people know nothing about church doctrine, and the church Rp is kind of a niche sphere for like a group of 10 bishops to Rp about.

Edit: I never see enjoyable masses, or priests being helpful/charitable/kind, I only see people running around calling people heretics or masses that are copied catholic prayers that last like 10 minutes.

However, other people will take like 1 tiny bit from the church belief and use that as an excuse to run around being zealous human supremacist murderers, despite never actually going to church or donating to the church or anything.

I also have a problem with the supposed "cultural/religious sexism," because like a lot of things, that was basically stolen from the real world based on a misconception that we're mimicking the real world, without any actual Rp pvrpose or backing. The only reason for it to exist is that "it did exist" in Rp before, but back then there was no reason for it to exist besides some people wanted to copy the real world. What it does in practice is makes Rp for girls (oocly) less fun, because the only roles they can play in Oren are powerless women who have to sit around being told what to do. There's a reason there are almost no human females in Oren.

Edit: And the whole "copying the real world" thing goes for Latin as well. There's no reason for that language to exist in Rp except that the Catholic Church preached in Latin IRL. I saw somewhere on the thread that priests make up original prayers for the church... that's a lie. I've seen prayers that have the word Jesus in them because someone forgot to change the name.

1-Catholic rip offs are over.We have our own mass plans now.

2-We are aiming to be more charitable, kind etc.

3-The Latin is basicly the toungue of the imortal beings like Aenguls and Daemons which are the servants of god, so that's why we use it.

And the church under this new Pontiff is under heavy metamorphosis.Things will hopefully change for the best.Most of those comments are irrelevant.

Well can you tell me what you're doing, then, to make it more interesting?

1-We are finishing the holy scrolls so people can actually RP the religion correctly.

2-We are trying to get the clergy more active.

3-He have writen new mass plans, so we can replace them from the Catholic Ripoff.

4-We are staying away from the whole "We kill everyone who doesn't belive in the same thing as we do", now we take a more diplomatic aproach and try to teach them instaed of killing them.

And a whole lot more.

I think people have yet to see what is happening, I thinks it's perhaps they aren't so involved in the church.Anyways, all I can say is that everyday we step forward, we try to make the church more original etc.We are working everyday so it can become something fun and enjoyable for everyone.

So are you working on changing it or not?

Change it with in reasonable boundries yes.

An old tradition of House Horen was apparently that the third (or second?) son born would be involved with the church for the majority of their life (or entirely). The only problem with this is that religion and church rp is recycled over and over and it's not appealing. What would make someone want to stay with church rp and enjoy it (aside from asking for donations like a bum for god haha). Aside from activity, you have to give religion an actual meaning for it's people rather than it just being half-assed worship and excuse for war. Marriage should be more meaningful since it has to be done through the church (most of the time), half-assed worshipers should not be able to marry until they are more in-touch with the religion, as they are being married under the creator. I don't mean to say if you don't memorize holy scriptures then you should not be able to marry, but nobles especially under the creator should know a bit about the religion ICly rather than OOCly. The church should also actively offer to teach noble houses and their kids, maybe even go as far as to send a member of the church to live-in with a noble house to asses their devotion to the creator for a certain amount of time every couple years.

The church seems to have some power within Oren, but rather it seems like leaders of noble houses hold more strength than that of the church. I don't mean to say that the church should come stomping up to noble houses and make demands, but rather that if a house isn't seen as devout to the religion then the church should be able to do something about it (excommunication doesn't do jack-****).

About making it more interesting, we are writing Liturgies and **** to make more fun.For the rest of the things you said, I do agree with you, I'll have to send that to the HP.Thank you.

Probably didn't word that correctly. Probably should have said changed how they rp it. 

How they RP it? Do explain.

There is nothing wrong with the current church and it's lore, people spouting it not being original don't seem to realise that about 90% of everything they do on this server isn't original. Fighting dragons? Evil mages? Racial discrimination? Religions based on one god? The church is meaningful in so many ways for Oren, though it could be a bit more meaningful to it's people rather than the nation itself. That being said, maybe instead of trying to do a mass where one player speaks for an hour while others whisper RP you can figure out a better way to involve the playerbase with the religion aside from crusades and people just yelling 'For God' when the majority of them aren't all that involved in the religion to be able to represent it without feeling like an airhead.

tl;dr people cry because things are based off existing things, have playerbase more involved with the religion in different aspects aside from crusades.

I like your idea.Can you just give an example of how we might do that?

I did just write out a reply but for some reason it seems I have trouble posting them...Therefore I will just say my ooc opinion is here because it makes me biased but I would like to see some more minor gods or aenguls being worshipped too!

 

 

 

 

This isn't changing the lore. It is simply changing what humans worship.

Sorry, but that just impossible, if this was a early stage of the religion yeah sure, but it's just too old to be changed.So that's a no...