Notes On The Notes

Let's have some "behind the scenes director's commentary" about the notes I presented on my upcoming AD&D campaign.

The Tetradic Church is mainly inspired by an article in Dragon magazine issue 77 by Nonie Quinlan, titled "Elemental Gods". It argued for a less monster-style approach to gods and religions, presenting a model based on the classical Four Element system. The names of the gods are in Indonesian, Banteng meaning "bull, ox" and representing strong, solid earth, Kucing meaning "cat" and manifesting a sort of playful/cruel, almost-Dionysian air/wind, Naga Emas meaning "gold[en] dragon", the Church's understanding of fire, and Bidadari meaning "angel, nymph, beautiful woman", who is ever-changing water and the Moon.

The Church of the King of Life is inspired by the story game, Dogs in the Vineyard, and so is a fantasy version of the LDS/Mormon church. Like that game, my current plan is to leave specific scriptural justifications up to the players who choose to play adherents, or to the exigencies of play as I need them, but the patriarchal culture and Branch system of organization are the general basis of that religion. Padishah, of course, is Persian for "monarch".

The Weaving Goddess of Fate is my version of Gary Gygax's "Istus, Lady of Fate" from his World of Greyhawk setting, by way of the three Norns/three Fates, Islamic and Norse fatalist ideas, Irish weaving prophetesses, and so on. Her name is from Inanna, because I wanted that Middle Eastern connection.

The traditional D&D/AD&D cleric class fits best with those three religions, whose gods don't have hit points, per se. 

The Alien God is based mainly on G.R.S. Mead's analysis of what we know about Simon Magus. Aśundǒr and Śukar are words in Romani meaning, respectively, "listener", which is more or less the meaning of "Simon", and "brilliant, shining", a rendering of Helen, who was Simon Magus's partner, probably taking the role of Gnostic Sophia in his theology. I like the mix of Stoic, Neoplatonic, and Gnostic/Manichean ideas that Mead derives from the Simonian fragments we have. Plus, Mead's work is also a major influence on Tierney's and Rahman's "Simon of Gitta" stories, which are excellent sword and sorcery/sword and sandal/weird story yarns. There may come a time in the future of the setting when clerics of the Alien God travel the world of Dunia, but for now things are more personal, less involved with intermediaries.

I explained most of my take on Druidism already. Erodia is a rendering of Aradia, hero of an allegedly ancient Italian witchcraft poem collected by Charles Godfrey Leland. The name is related to the Biblical Herodias, but may also be related to Diana (I believe "Herodiana" is attested). Dunia, who gives her name to the world of the setting, is a Gaea-type (or Terra, Demeter, etc.) Briga's name comes from Celtic languages and means "High One" or "Powerful", the same as Brig in Irish legend, St. Brighid, Briginda, Brigantona, and so on. The particle also finds its way into Irish briocht/Gaulish briχtia, both meaning "magic spell", which I adapt as similar to "heka" in "Hekate/Hecate". Artor and Medraut come from Arthurian legend, being versions of Arthur and Mordred, and take roles in my game setting's Druidism from Robert Graves's poetic inventions that he tried to impose over historical ideas (and which have been adopted by some modern neopagans/Wiccans). The idea is, basically, that the Summer/Oak King and the Winter/Holly King meet in combat twice a year, representing the turning of the seasons, with the victor taking up the White Goddess as wife until the next combat. In reality, pretty weak sauce as theology in my opinion, but it has its supporters. Karnon is derived from "Cernunnos", a lightly-attested Gaulish deity of largely unknown (but perhaps not unknowable) character who was adopted by early neopagans/Wiccans as the Horned God of their craft, inspired by Margaret Murray's unfortunately flawed reconstructions. Whatever the historical flaws, I hasten to note, it does carry great meaning and depth for many. Mixing that with material from the Barddas of Iolo Morgannwg and other sources I mention, I get a fun naturalistic/esoteric philosophy that easily carries and supports the flavor of AD&D druids.

My vision of polytheistic cults worshiping/forging relationships with localized spirits is in part from long consideration of the place of gods depicted as a sort of monster in D&D-style games going back to Supplement 4: Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes for original D&D (which used to be the only book from that edition I owned; it has since vanished from my collection, but at least I still have my original copies of Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror). As noted in my writeup, I'm looking to an article from Dragon magazine as the mechanical basis of this cleric-free religion cluster, though also including a version of the "warlock" class adapted to 1st edition AD&D terms and other approaches. I'm pretty sure there won't actually be any Zeus or Athena gods, those were merely examples demonstrating the idea of local epithets.

As an aside, I'm still working out the exact places of demons, devils, daemons, and so forth in the setting. Was it the demons or the devils who built the world-prison in opposition to the Alien God? Not fully sure. I'm actually leaning toward the devils at the moment. It will give them more purpose in the setting, and make Hell a somewhat meaningful place.

I didn't mention it, but that wasn't a comprehensive list of religions in the setting. Notably, I skipped over the Church of the Serpent, found among the Drakkonern people, my adaptation of the Dragonlord people found in Mayfair's Dragons supplement in their Role Aids line. I really liked the dragon civil war situation laid out in that supplement, and often work to fit it into my settings. The Dragon religion looks to four great elemental dragons, so it fits with my Tetradic Church, but I can also mine the Palladium Role-Playing Game, which also includes four elemental dragon-gods, for ideas. Another religion I have in mind is the Loathesome Toad Gods, inspired by Jeff Rients's Miscellaneum of Cinder, but also John Tynes's vision of the Lovecraftian gods laid out in Delta Green (as well as its supplements and follow-on games) and, especially, the D20 adaptation of Call of Cthulhu.