We are a community made by and for original content creators, and people who participate here should share that DIY ethic. While we aim to embrace and coach new users, we will be harsh with people who disregard our community’s core values.
/r/Worldbuilding is not a substitute for search engines or Wikipedia. Please do your own research and make your own efforts to develop your project before coming to the subreddit for help. Requests for basic research, without discussing progress so far and what problems you still need help with, will be removed.
If you aim for something grounded, study the actual religions that existed.
The way people in other era and even in other part of the world, think of religion doesn't fit the neat categorization of we tend to have. It gives you the opportunity to think of something unique.
Well, I don't know how usefull I can be but; first, put down their beliefs. What do they consider sin, what do they consider virtue, what is the middle ground, what subject is open to argument?
I want to be practical, so I plant beliefs on people by a particular person.
Let’s say that particular person doesn’t care about what others thinking he just does what he does.
But people around him believe him something special, then a group of people start preaching about that particular person. If you want miracles you can add them as coincidence.
But important part is planting the belief in the people, because religion is all about believing, if they stop believing that religion will be dead.
My personal rule of thumb is: nobody believes things for no reason. Religion has some things in common with science, in that it is a form of meaning-making about reality. People believe because there are some really serious, potentially upsetting questions out there. Think about, for example, how many sun gods there are- the sun is something materially evident but for a long time we had absolutely no tools to understand what this thing is and why it exists despite that our entire planet's life is dependent on it.
That's scary! We all just sort of have to count on the idea that the big sky orb will keep doing that, and it's been doing that for some unknown amount of time beyond our history, etc etc. And knowing scientifically some of those answers doesn't really help us swallow the lead weight that we inevitably have a relationship with the sun that we cannot really participate in.
I feel like that's the root of a lot of religious belief. People want answers- how do I be a good person? How can I prevent bad things from happening? Is there a way I can talk to these things I have an inevitable relationship with and know it will be okay?
Believable fictional religions, to me, have that kernel of comprehension to it. You can see how people in this situation ended up with this belief. It sprouts from cultural and environmental factors, what's important, what's valued. It's easier to understand why "no pork" might be a spiritual rule for example if you look at historically the way that pigs have been used as essentially trash recycling.
A folkloric belief in my home setting, on a small arctic island, is they don't eat giant squids in particular, and in fact look at cephalopod meat in general with unease. This is based on our actual historical relationship with the giant squid, how close to a real life cryptid these things are, and imagining people who have no access to the internet or modern science gathering uneasily to see this... something creature flung up on the beach and dying or tangled in fishing nets, and trying to understand its shape. The way its arms spread out, is it almost... human? So a legend arises, of the 'drownman', a good-for-nothing who maltreated his village and fled into the sea only to die out there and be consumed, changed, made a groom of the ocean itself. Not everybody takes this story as 100% fact (it's also unsubtly a cautionary tale emphasizing the village's very serious attitude about work and responsibility and community care) but they perceive this 'otherness' of the squid that makes them see it as essentially a fallen human relative rather than an animal, so eating one skirts close to cannibalism.
Practically, this is also, normally not a problem- even a robust fishing village isn't going to successfully dig up a bunch of evasive, deep sea squid. Between mussels, crabs, whaling, and general fishing, they have a lot of alternative protein sources. But it's just enough of a possibility that people might be tempted to it in especially lean or desperate times, which would build up the legend more when you can point to counterexamples of supposedly damned people who set teeth on their neighbor (also, not exactly a hypothetical to people who experience very brutal winters)
So you can see how this legend, belief, folklore aspect, immediately contextualizes a whole lot about this culture just from a fun anecdote 'they think squids might be people that went to hell', about what they believe in, how they live, what pressures they're under, what the climate and environment is around them... religion and folklore are FANTASTIC worldbuilding tools and because these are things your viewpoint into the world might think of as completely normal, they also have a very organic presence to it. Even if it's not your viewpoint protagonist's religion, it's good to build these sort of beliefs from the inside out- explore it how a 'true believer' sees it first, to avoid the idea of weird strawmen. There sure are doomsday cults and conspiracy theorists, don't get me wrong- but even those guys are disturbing because you can see where the emotional desire for, for example, a rapture where nothing bad they did matters and they won't have to ever struggle anymore and will be ultimately vindicated- overrides other boundaries.
Everybody believes what they believe for a reason.
I'd say you probably need a creation myth. If there are multiple gods it needs to detail how they interrelate. You don't have to be specific about when other gods came into the mix. You probably need multiple prophets through the centuries if real world religions are anything to go by. Maybe some people who aren't necessarily prophetic, but at least wise philosopher/teachers as well.
Remember that cultures aren't necessarily any good at the virtues of their faith. You can have a people who follow a forthright and honorable god of war be a bunch of scheming devious liars or a religion of peace and love in a country that regularly goes to war. That's not to say that a religion has zero effect on the broader culture, but it isn't always the effect it wants to have.
In addition to the many real life examples of this, one really good example in fiction is the Klingons from Star Trek: the Next Generation. Although they are an atheistic society, they do the same thing where they talk big about honor and then stab each other in the back all day long. You can still see the effects of their warlike culture in their foreign policy, their aesthetics, the fact that you need to be an accomplished duelist to participate in their politics, and in the beliefs of the occasional fundamentalist weirdo who pops up (like, for example Worf). But overall, they are basically bad at their own cultural values.
Another pro tip is to make gods (or saints, or stories about god, because you might be doing a monotheistic religion) that demonstrate a culture's anxieties. My favorite example of this is Odin, who has been described as a god of kings for a people who don't like kings (Zeus is also in this category). Ares can also be seen as a god of war for a people who are pretty ambivalent about war. When a god represents something that the people are anxious about, they end up sending a lot of mixed signals in how they are represented.
Similarly, it can be really fun for a god to have lots of layers. One example from my own world is that the "king of the gods" guy isn't actually the god of kings, laws, or rulership - that's his mom. He's a former trickster god who had to grow up fast when serious stuff happened. So you can still see bits of who he used to be in how he does his current job. In my world, this is because of supernatural spiritual stuff - a war between the gods - but in a more grounded setting it could be because of something like a demographic shift, or a conqueror adopting the religion of their subjects but getting something backwards, or other factors like that.
The main point is that it's fun for gods to be more than just the biggest exemplar of their theme. Burny McFireface, the fiery god of fire, or the gobliniest god of goblins who the goblins worship are kind of standard in the fantasy genre, anyway, but they are also kind of boring. Religions are more interesting with layers and complications.
We are a community made by and for original content creators, and people who participate here should share that DIY ethic. While we aim to embrace and coach new users, we will be harsh with people who disregard our community’s core values.
/r/Worldbuilding is not a substitute for search engines or Wikipedia. Please do your own research and make your own efforts to develop your project before coming to the subreddit for help. Requests for basic research, without discussing progress so far and what problems you still need help with, will be removed.
More info in our rules: 4. This is a DIY community.
If you aim for something grounded, study the actual religions that existed.
The way people in other era and even in other part of the world, think of religion doesn't fit the neat categorization of we tend to have. It gives you the opportunity to think of something unique.
Well, I don't know how usefull I can be but; first, put down their beliefs. What do they consider sin, what do they consider virtue, what is the middle ground, what subject is open to argument?
This is my favorite part.
I want to be practical, so I plant beliefs on people by a particular person.
Let’s say that particular person doesn’t care about what others thinking he just does what he does.
But people around him believe him something special, then a group of people start preaching about that particular person. If you want miracles you can add them as coincidence.
But important part is planting the belief in the people, because religion is all about believing, if they stop believing that religion will be dead.
These are just my thoughts.
My personal rule of thumb is: nobody believes things for no reason. Religion has some things in common with science, in that it is a form of meaning-making about reality. People believe because there are some really serious, potentially upsetting questions out there. Think about, for example, how many sun gods there are- the sun is something materially evident but for a long time we had absolutely no tools to understand what this thing is and why it exists despite that our entire planet's life is dependent on it.
That's scary! We all just sort of have to count on the idea that the big sky orb will keep doing that, and it's been doing that for some unknown amount of time beyond our history, etc etc. And knowing scientifically some of those answers doesn't really help us swallow the lead weight that we inevitably have a relationship with the sun that we cannot really participate in.
I feel like that's the root of a lot of religious belief. People want answers- how do I be a good person? How can I prevent bad things from happening? Is there a way I can talk to these things I have an inevitable relationship with and know it will be okay?
Believable fictional religions, to me, have that kernel of comprehension to it. You can see how people in this situation ended up with this belief. It sprouts from cultural and environmental factors, what's important, what's valued. It's easier to understand why "no pork" might be a spiritual rule for example if you look at historically the way that pigs have been used as essentially trash recycling.
A folkloric belief in my home setting, on a small arctic island, is they don't eat giant squids in particular, and in fact look at cephalopod meat in general with unease. This is based on our actual historical relationship with the giant squid, how close to a real life cryptid these things are, and imagining people who have no access to the internet or modern science gathering uneasily to see this... something creature flung up on the beach and dying or tangled in fishing nets, and trying to understand its shape. The way its arms spread out, is it almost... human? So a legend arises, of the 'drownman', a good-for-nothing who maltreated his village and fled into the sea only to die out there and be consumed, changed, made a groom of the ocean itself. Not everybody takes this story as 100% fact (it's also unsubtly a cautionary tale emphasizing the village's very serious attitude about work and responsibility and community care) but they perceive this 'otherness' of the squid that makes them see it as essentially a fallen human relative rather than an animal, so eating one skirts close to cannibalism.
Practically, this is also, normally not a problem- even a robust fishing village isn't going to successfully dig up a bunch of evasive, deep sea squid. Between mussels, crabs, whaling, and general fishing, they have a lot of alternative protein sources. But it's just enough of a possibility that people might be tempted to it in especially lean or desperate times, which would build up the legend more when you can point to counterexamples of supposedly damned people who set teeth on their neighbor (also, not exactly a hypothetical to people who experience very brutal winters)
So you can see how this legend, belief, folklore aspect, immediately contextualizes a whole lot about this culture just from a fun anecdote 'they think squids might be people that went to hell', about what they believe in, how they live, what pressures they're under, what the climate and environment is around them... religion and folklore are FANTASTIC worldbuilding tools and because these are things your viewpoint into the world might think of as completely normal, they also have a very organic presence to it. Even if it's not your viewpoint protagonist's religion, it's good to build these sort of beliefs from the inside out- explore it how a 'true believer' sees it first, to avoid the idea of weird strawmen. There sure are doomsday cults and conspiracy theorists, don't get me wrong- but even those guys are disturbing because you can see where the emotional desire for, for example, a rapture where nothing bad they did matters and they won't have to ever struggle anymore and will be ultimately vindicated- overrides other boundaries.
Everybody believes what they believe for a reason.
I'd say you probably need a creation myth. If there are multiple gods it needs to detail how they interrelate. You don't have to be specific about when other gods came into the mix. You probably need multiple prophets through the centuries if real world religions are anything to go by. Maybe some people who aren't necessarily prophetic, but at least wise philosopher/teachers as well.
The D&D 5E Dungeon Master book goes over how to create your own religion very well. I would highly recommend it.
Remember that cultures aren't necessarily any good at the virtues of their faith. You can have a people who follow a forthright and honorable god of war be a bunch of scheming devious liars or a religion of peace and love in a country that regularly goes to war. That's not to say that a religion has zero effect on the broader culture, but it isn't always the effect it wants to have.
In addition to the many real life examples of this, one really good example in fiction is the Klingons from Star Trek: the Next Generation. Although they are an atheistic society, they do the same thing where they talk big about honor and then stab each other in the back all day long. You can still see the effects of their warlike culture in their foreign policy, their aesthetics, the fact that you need to be an accomplished duelist to participate in their politics, and in the beliefs of the occasional fundamentalist weirdo who pops up (like, for example Worf). But overall, they are basically bad at their own cultural values.
Another pro tip is to make gods (or saints, or stories about god, because you might be doing a monotheistic religion) that demonstrate a culture's anxieties. My favorite example of this is Odin, who has been described as a god of kings for a people who don't like kings (Zeus is also in this category). Ares can also be seen as a god of war for a people who are pretty ambivalent about war. When a god represents something that the people are anxious about, they end up sending a lot of mixed signals in how they are represented.
Similarly, it can be really fun for a god to have lots of layers. One example from my own world is that the "king of the gods" guy isn't actually the god of kings, laws, or rulership - that's his mom. He's a former trickster god who had to grow up fast when serious stuff happened. So you can still see bits of who he used to be in how he does his current job. In my world, this is because of supernatural spiritual stuff - a war between the gods - but in a more grounded setting it could be because of something like a demographic shift, or a conqueror adopting the religion of their subjects but getting something backwards, or other factors like that.
The main point is that it's fun for gods to be more than just the biggest exemplar of their theme. Burny McFireface, the fiery god of fire, or the gobliniest god of goblins who the goblins worship are kind of standard in the fantasy genre, anyway, but they are also kind of boring. Religions are more interesting with layers and complications.
Lol, accurate