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Have you read the 'On Death and Dying' in the lore section? This might kinda help you... or point you in the correct direction.

http://www.finalhavenlarp.com/lore/misc/death.html

Being someone that helps run a game where real world religion is at least a good chunk of the game. I have to say that I'm quite ok with religion being depicted in a LARP, even real religions. It's acting, it's pretend, it's not at all real. Whatever deity you happen to put your faith in I'm sure can figure that out, if not, then you may want to look at changing your religion.

I know this is an old old argument that I lost at the beginning of the game but, FH does have one real world religious thing in it. Witch is a term that was not only derogatory, but is used to describe Wiccans and I've always found it rather interesting that no religion is allowed because of one person aversion to it but it's ok to take the chance of offending other peoples religious morays.

CJ you just described Dallid, all though I'm not positive that I've ever heard him refer to Phantara as "her".

Zydana wrote:Have you read the 'On Death and Dying' in the lore section? This might kinda help you... or point you in the correct direction.

http://www.finalhavenlarp.com/lore/misc/death.html

oh thank you much, im going to post this in SH word info as soon as i ge the chance, thanks much

id have to agree that the other larp that actuall has religion in it has seen absolutely no problems, and many people even find it entertaining in its aplication, and if they dont then they just ignore it and do whatever they were already doing. i have to restate though, that i see where chris is coming from. specificly the point of not wanting to have people bitch to him every event. but on the same coin, final haven has apple calls for a reason, and i dont see any reason why anyone bringing in a spirit or something that they revere would be a game breaking issue.

I wouldn't mind fantasy religions at all. Sounds like a little more RP flavor to me. I wouldn't mind makin a warrior who asks the god of battle for a blessing before a big fight. When I think of fantasy gods, I think of DnD. Your god stands for something and you stand for what the god stands for. Pelor's all about the good stuff. Nerull is all about the baddies. The roleplaying aspects are good but I can understand how someone could be offended. I would like to test it out for an event or two anyway though. I think the majority would be ok with it.

CJ you just described Dallid, all though I'm not positive that I've ever heard him refer to Phantara as "her".

Yep! That's Dallid. While he tries to say 'Phanterra' rather than use a pronoun, he does sometimes say 'her'.

and Dallid is obviously a ghost, look (points up) he even says "Deceased" yet hes here

another question, this one for eater of the dead, wich has abilitys that let you take hearts or brains and eat them to do stuff, now heres the tricky question....can you save them for later????

like carry around some brains in case you need some help, totally RP a zombie that way

by the way, whoever wrote the avayana death belief, freakin awsome, i found it very funny and now want to play one

you should of seen Travis' character, Maggot last game..

and Dallid is obviously a ghost

There is some truth to that, too!

As I stated at the beginning I might have been wrong about the no religion thing. I read something in the bible that made me think that made me think it might actually have a beneficial side effect,.

In any case I thought I would help clarify the no religion policy by talking friendly about the possibility of having a belief system on the game.

WARNING

I believe that after reading what I have to say, no matter how "friendly" I am, this thread is going to turn violent. Lets see if I turn out to be right or wrong

I am going to be very real here. God (notice I did not mention religion) is very important to me. Infact to be clear, incase anyone is not clear, God is the number 1 important thing to me even ahead of family and it is my hope that God is #1 in other people's lives as well. (Again I assume for some of you that statement filled you with all kinds of emotion, but I did not even yet mention some kind of man made religion)

How does this translate to the game? Well I believe that I should do my best to bring glory to God in all I do, even FH. Those who know me well will know that I fail miserably at this task fairly regularly which is why I am sooo happy that God forgives me.

So again how does this translate to the game. Here is where we would need to discuss absolute truth ( I assume yet another phrase that gets emotions high) . The only type of belief system I could get behind would be something that feeling like LOTR. It is subtle and ultimately parallels some of my own beliefs OOG. For those who do not know, in Tolkien's universe there is a singular all powerful good and loving God. So we would at our core have something very similar. Infact for all you know that could already be in place. That could be the "truth" of the FH universe, and all of the other stuff just shadows and miss beliefs like we see in our own universe. Perhaps that is why, despite overwhelming odds, ultimately the players always seem to win…

The key, I think, is to keep belief systems subtle. Take the Serenity LARP. While the Serenity universe as a very present and influential belief system, it has always been kept very vague. You don’t know if Shepherds are Christian, Buddist, Muslim, a combination of religions, or if there are different versions of Shepherds. While religion is clearly a major part of a lot of folks lives, it’s never presented in an ‘in-your-face’ manner, so it never really gets in the way of RP, nor upset players with overt demands of conformity.

The Final Haven ‘No Religion’ rule has worked admirably, IMHO, to keep belief systems subtle. A lot of players, myself included, have ‘snuck’ religion into the game. Ancestor worship, nature worship, dragon worship, daemon worship, etc. Having a belief system is an awesome character motivator, after all, and the GMs have been flexible enough to allow such under-the-table religion.

But the ‘No Religion’ rule ensures such systems remain on the down-low. No one’s out there shouting “CONVERT OR DIE” or “REPENT YOUR SINS”. While that could create some cool RP scenarios, it also could make folks very uncomfortable. Also, as Religions must remain ‘off the record’, there is no over-religion dominating the scene. The nature of religious followers will always be to suppress and remove other religions, so having an ‘official’ religion will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for characters to bring their own belief systems into game due to in-game persecution. An unhappy limitation on character development.

In FH, I've always envisioned the dragons as the closest thing to gods we have. They are seemingly all powerful (we could only kill one after keeping him in human form and using a special weapon), they influence plots though generally try to avoid dealing in our realm as much as possible. We have good, neutral and evil versions and some people worship one (or more) of them.

As for any absolute truth, I'm against it in a game setting. Let the players decide their own truths. As a GM, you can think of a reason why things happen, but no need to ever tell the players.

For a parallel to (a biblical) God, it's not like God didn't exist before there was Israel, Judasism and the hebrew bible, it's just no one believed in him (* I could very well be wrong on the origins here). This is the era where FH would exist.

I think the "No Religion" state of FH has actually been very successfull now that i have read through these recent posts, i think if a set "god" had been implimented it might make people either feel uncomfortable, or take away from the RP aspect of it all.

lets say we have a set "god" ,now everyone knows that there is one, who to "worship" and if someone said it didnt exist or had a different "god" theres would be wrong, because there already is a known and game created one.

now with the current "no religion" policy, any type of beliefs that as dallid said have been "snuck" in game, are small, not in your face, and have no "yes thats the right belief" about them, also people can make up there own little character beliefs without being told "no yours is fake there is only one "god" in this game and your isnt it, your wrong, im right."

obviously we all know how heated religous debates can get, and if you dont know than you dont know history, i think its a good idea to not have a Finalhaven set "god" but people should continue to be allowed to RP whatever beliefs they want, and if people get uncomfortable, we have safety calls

**ATTENTION: Incoming BRUTAL honesty. I am sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings in the process. Please do not think I am ranting angry about something or someone, regardless of my sentence structure here, thanks! **

Hmm, my opinions:

1.) It's a fantasy game. I think if we can handle fucking cannibalism, rape, torture, violence, racism, slavery, murder and so and and so forth, but we can't handle role-played religious themes, then I think that says more about our own insecurities regarding our own beliefs which may not be so "unshakable" as we want to believe they are if they are threatened by something that supposedly isn't even real within our own beliefs, because it certainly isn't being done for "everyone's" comfort.

For instance, I personally think RAPE or other forms of coerced sexual activities (such as someone being charmed) are pretty fucking vile, but I know of at least one (and now that I think about it, more) situation that involved some sicko evil NPC character that kidnapped, abused and raped another NPC character (albeit off-scene). We didn't put an artificial wall up saying "No eluding to rape. It's just not possible in our world. It doesn't exist and it doesn't happen and no one has ever thought of it, EVER."

I find it odd that my above examples (which in the real-world I find ungodly horrific) are somehow more acceptable to be exposed to in a fantasy world than roleplayed religious beliefs.

2.) I really feel like the "no religion" thing turns into a sort of artificial 4th wall that people go OOC to tell someone: "There is no religion/gods in Phanterra." Rather than a "let's keep it subtle" or "You can believe whatever you want, but it's not supported by the game world."

3.) It's allowed. It's just allowed...err...inconsistently. For example, Donovan's "light" worshiping. Maybe it was allowed because it "fits" Chris' real-world Christian beliefs similarly to Tolkien's? Just for thought on how it APPEARS.

After all, the word "witch-hunter" is allowed with no effort to turn it into something else when it could just as easily be called Magic-Hunter. Sure, I suppose you have to draw a line somewhere, but I think it's funny that "Druid" and "Witch" are allowed to be utilized as is when they are existing religious traditions. It's like you are saying "I don't want someone to offend MY religious beliefs, but it's ok because these aren't MY religious beliefs."

4.) Doesn't matter if it's "real" or not. People make up things to believe in all the time and it's about as entrenched as breathing.

You're somewhat wrong on the LOTR thing there, Chris. While it doesn't affect the story, overmuch (and indeed, Tolkien was a Christian), there were the Maiar (sp?) and the Ainiur, and assorted godlike beings under the "overgod." I have a hard time buying that none of them were ever worshiped. Tolkien (and other folks) can stress the point that they weren't gods, but if they existed in the setting as powerful beings and were mentioned, people worshiped them whether they were answered or not, the same as people worship/ped elemental forces or ANY religion in our own world.

5.) To be fair, while I've heard PLAYERS say "No Religion!" to other players, I've never heard a GM IN-GAME say no or to stop because it might have offensive religious implications. I only ever hear it commented on by GMs on the boards.

6.) It's not a rule in the book, for what that's worth, so I don't feel obligated to consider it as such in my roleplaying and do not let it hinder either my words or my actions. That's what we have safewords for.

7.) When you leave a void, players will fill it with SOMETHING whether you like it or not.

8.) I said it before, I'll say it again: SAFEWORDS. They get reviewed at EVERY game on meeting. The game isn't edited for "non-offensiveness" because we all prefer different styles of play. I am very accepting, and am entertained by, even the darker sides of storytelling when I PCing. USE THE SAFEWORDS IF SOMETHING IS BOTHERING YOU.

9.) I don't have to play. I'm not forced to be here. I can quit whenever I want (maybe).

BUT, as my closing thoughts: I'd take strong offense with someone coming into MY birthed up from the ground game or story and telling me what I am REQUIRED to do based on their own opinions like it's their decision.

And it's your game, so until I'm told otherwise, you have that right to make things whatever you like, whether I agree with it or not, whether I think you are consistent or fair with this issue or not, and just for the record, I don't and that's ok too.

Good day!