How fleshed out are the gods and religious customs (including evil ones) in your setting?
Not at all. What about yours?
>>97678728There is so much inspiration to choose from between human history.
>>97678760And which inspiration did you use for your setting?
>>97678552Hey buddy we have this thing called the world building general. You should join us there!
>>97678871Moloch and Baal make great inspiration for evil gods.
>>97678892Can you elaborate further?
>>97678930Child sacrifice
>>97678552Very, if any player were to say the right thing they might be handed a rare artifact, or insta gibbed and have to make a new character.
We should get a bunch of professors in ancient religions to come up with a Pantheon for some sort of massive worldbuilding project.
>>97678892They are often depicted by Christianity as evil gods. Often involving child sacrifice. Most of that is bad translation work and propaganda though. It's likely molach was not a god but a type of sacrifice.Interesting stuff though
My deities are a sort of chicken and the egg thing where collective prayer created them but then the powers the races use come from them aswell but they were birthed by mankind's needs for some light in the darkness, which is literal because the world was black until they developed the first magic which was fire
>>97678552I use many of the gods fleshed out in old Dragon magazines for the world of Greyhawk. They had gods of every alignment, so a cleric had a big selection to choose from to devote himself to. A LG priest knew who his allies were (other LG, LN, NG and N), as well as those priests, races and other worldy creatures (CE, NE and CN) he should oppose as a matter of course.The world map also indicated the general alignment (and the gods worshipped) in each country, so a cleric knew which areas he would be welcomed and supported in and which ones would attack him on sight. An evil priest of Hextor would tend to get hounded out of or executed if discovered in the Shield Lands, but welcome in the devil worshipping Great Kingdom. Likewise, a LG priest of Heronious would get the opposite treatment. It leads to some interesting roleplaying when travelling in far and foreign lands, as alignment indicated which side a character was on in the ongoing heavenly and earthly war.
>>97678871mainly Christianity for evil religions
>>97679781I wonder if this area is nice
Less is more. Also all gods should be evil from a mortal's pov.
>>97678892Moloch wasn't even a real god and Baal refers to several gods as it just means "lord".
>>97679835>using evil religion as a template for evil religions
>>97679883There's no way that entire region would allow an evil country to exist in such a perfect strategic peninsula.
>>97679883>plot twist: the LG nation is a barren wasteland while the CE empire is a lush garden
>>97678552Each one has one paragraph describing their story, one describing their rituals, one describing their priesthood, one describing their holidays, and one describing their names.I've just got 9--1 per alignment. And the descriptions and their appearance in the game has very much been about their religious practices. The gods themselves, as individuals, are kinda irrelevant.
>>97678552All gods are evil, petty dicks who abuse mortals with their whims.
>>97679931I've never been a fan of making evil gods and religions about twirling a mustache. My evil gods are still worshipped by regular people, most of whom worship all of the gods depending on what they need when. One of the evil gods is the winter goddess, to whom you pray for a short winter and relief from bad weather. She's also the goddess of deception and change, so people might pray to her if they're struggling with corrupt officials, or if they're hoping to get away with something, or if they are trying to find out the truth of something and think someone is lying so that maybe she'll expose their lies. Another one of the evil gods is over death and magic. So she gets prayed to by people who want to communicate with the dead or learn magic. People use her name as an expletive or to curse someone else. Common people don't question the gods or why they do the things they do. But when you think a god can do something for you, you make a sacrifice and pray to them (like you sacrifice fruit or wine to the winter goddess). And priests who follow the evil gods aren't necessarily seen as bad people, just because they're philosophically committed to the worship of evil. Ok sure, dude is a priest of the evil goddess of winter. But when I need something from that goddess, I gotta have someone to go to. And we need someone to make sacrifices to the goddess or our winters are going to come early and stay late and fuck up our crops. So their priests get treated as outsiders who are welcome in formal settings, but most people avoid them when they can do so without being rude or giving offense. I think it makes for a more interesting and realistic religious landscape. And my players seem to like it, but to tell the truth they haven't particularly questioned it much, and all they interact with are priests and holidays and temples.
>>97679891The idea of a bored evil god empowering random farmer kids into heroes to fuck with other gods, nations, and mortals in general sounds hilarious.
>>97679740Oy Vey good work distracting from the parallels of ancient tophets and epstein's island today
>>97680719>naming the heir of the dukedom, a successor of long line of knights, who has trained his whole life as your celestial champion? BOOORIIING>making this random son of a whore bastard with a lame leg and missing eye the greatest hero this realm has ever known? Now that is a challenge!
>>97680751Moloch is believed to have been a specific religious ritual, rather than a god. And a tophet was the religious site where it would have been performed. It does appear to have been the sacrifice of a first born son. And it was practiced rarely, but widely, in Canaanite society, including by the early Israelites and Judahites, as well as the Moabites and the Phoenicians. However, the practice seems to have died out by around 700bce, at least within Yahwhistic traditions (during the consolidation and standardization of worship under Josiah, during which it becomes expressly forbidden for Israelites). It seems to have survived in Carthaginian society until around 150bce. There are zero parrallels to current politics. These were ancient near-eastern religious practices that were part of Canaanite society. Canaanite society included all of the minor nations along the eastern coast of the Mediteranean from modern day from somewhere around modern-day Syria down into the Sinai Peninsula. Moloch's practice is attested in sacrifice to a number of the polytheistic, Canaanite pantheon including Yahweh, Chemosh and some of the Baals ("Baal" means "lord" and there are a buncha gods named Baal--not just Baal Hadad who we are usually referring to when we use "Baal" without qualification).
>>97680911>Lord's Prayer = Baal's PrayerWake up, sheeple!
>>97680763It gets even funnier if the worship of the hero functions as worship of the deity that made the guy their champion.If they send enemies for the hero to slay, his legend grows, as does his worship and, in turn, the worship of the deity.Pretty good deal, especially with both sides being in your pocket.I don't know how the good gods could turn this around, at least without destroying the evil gods' unwitting champions.Sounds like something for a more humorous campaign, or a really dramatic one, with such a major plot twist.
>>97681186Lol. I suppose that's true. Isn't it from the didache?
>>97681334Really? Never heard of that.
>>97678552The Broken Buddha is the name given to an seemingly mechanical life form that crashed onto the earth after it had a violent encounter with another one of its kind.The fight, and its subsequent crash landing and injury, forced it into contact with the Humans it was previously content to observe. People started calling it the Broken Buddha because it was very frank with it's answers in explaining how the Universe actually works and either dispelling some historical myths and religious beliefs while fostering other forms of belief (by confirming the existence of the soul and a plane of existence beyond the mortal one). It otherwise maintains a sort of indifference and doesn't want nor encourages worship but people have built a religion around it anyways.
>>97689003Nah I checked after posting that. Just the doxology at the end (the "your kingdom is so handsome and cool" part) is from the didache. The rest first appears in matthew.
>>97689753Thanks for clarifying on that.
>>97678552What are some good resources, especially system agnostic ones, for creating gods and/or religions in fantasy settings?
>>97695418Your imagination.
>>97695418History
>>97679781I imagine the good side is roughly on the same team? They'd have to be, evil controls some really important real estate
>>97678552What existing settings have believable gods and religions, evil or otherwise, and what have you taken from them?
>>97699043None, really. TTRPGs have all taken a queue from D&D, which has led to really terrible presentations of religion in them. A believable polytheistic religion looks like rituals, culturals norms, festivals, funery rights, prayers and public gatherings. Anyone developing a "pantheon" where they sit down and write out the biographies of their gods is doing it in a way that feels inauthentic.The public life and practice, integrated into daily living as "this is just how the world works" drives realistic religions. The stories about the gods are secondary, contradictory, and serve the needs of the people practicing the religion. The religion should define the gods, not the gods the religion.
>>97680089>I've never been a fan of making evil gods and religions about twirling a mustacheseriously, what's even the point of having alignments then.
>>97699407>The religion should define the gods, not the gods the religion.This only works if your gods arent real living things. Religion throughout history was an attempt by people to understand the universe and create ways to assert a sense of control over it via ritual, story, and community. The same is true of modern religions. A god that actually exists, that can assert their will upon worshippers via boons and banes, via visions and omens, or literally just talking to them face to face, would by necessity change how that religion works away from something from our own history and its lack of real gods.The gods define the religion in this paradigm. The religions of real gods would become something more akin to a hybrid of polytheism, cults of personality, and celebrity fandom. The gods would have preferences, shaping ritual and worship, and the people would have far less of our modern worlds sense of faith.>sit down and write out the biographies of their gods is doing it in a way that feels inauthentic.This is because we dont have real gods in our world and therefore unlike real world religions born of such, it feels "inauthentic". A world where the gods are not only real but actually do things would have biographies, even autobiographies, that inform the way worshippers approach them.
>>97699594Zeus was exactly as real to a priest in ancient Athens as Helm is to a paladin in Waterdeep. >A god that actually exists, that can assert their will upon worshippers via boons and banes, via visions and omens, or literally just talking to them face to face, would by necessity change how that religion works away from something from our own history and its lack of real gods.The gods of ancient people did all that, in their experience. But no worries that you want something more... game-able and simple. It's your table, anon.
>>97699902>The gods of ancient people did all that, in their experience.No, they didnt, and you know they didnt. There were no gods coming down and talking directly to the masses in plainly visible ways, like a politician addressing a crowd. There were stories of the gods doing so to individuals or those touched by mental illness claiming such. But none of them thought their god actually talked to them in the way a living god would. It was cognitive biases alongside hopes and dreams, a culture and its need for community and control. Not a literal gods stepping out of their temples to address the masses, strange but plainly evident omens/banes/boons that defy the natural order, and other such things that real gods would perform. >something more... game-able and simpleWe're playing a fucking elf-game retard. This isnt some anthropology text on the religions of some far-off world. Its a game where we make up characters, go on quests, kill things via dice and miniatures, and then spend that made up loot on random bullshit. There may or may not be some playing pretend involved. The problem with so many here is that they want a lore book to read and not the game manuals that get released. Go to fucking /it/ for that shit, find a fantasy book to read instead.
>>97678552I've begun writing a detailed setting just tonight and I think they will be very important. Religion is fundamental even today, when atheism is big and common, let alone in any medieval inspired setting, let alone in a setting where demons, magic etc play a role.Religion will be front of center of my setting, informing the decisions of factions, characters, and masses. I can't see it working any other way, I just need to decide how "real" I want the good gods to be, because I kinda need to make clerics work somehow. Maybe some kind of ritual of initiation where the cleric is infused with magic (not divine power, magic). Obviously different cults play it off as it being a divine ritual where their gods bestow powers upon the clerics, when in reality a wizard might disagree and tell them they are merely infusing the cleric with souls or something, causing their ire and a burning at the stake. But I don't want the good gods to be completely fake either, because if demons are real and feed off real sins and vices, then it stands to reason an opposite should also exist.
>>97679891>Less is more. Also all gods should be evil from a mortal's pov.Is there more to this image? Also, can you explain this a bit more please?
>>97705721Every day you walk outside and step on ants without noticing them. Sometimes, intentionally or not, you might drop a crumb from your sandwich and watch an ant gleefully scurry away with its divine providence.
>>97699594>the people would have far less of our modern worlds sense of faithi was thinking about this, the tangible existence of gods wouldn't necessarily preclude more faith-based beliefs. people might still phylosophise about what created the gods, or about other questions not covered by the gods themselves. for example, maybe there's a confirmed afterlife and reincarnation but there might also be a buddhist-like belief that's not concretely provable about becoming free from this cycle. maybe even the gods themselves might have these beliefs!
>>97679931The peninsula is insulated from the rest of the region by a lawful neutral nation and a chaotic neutral one
>>97705792Also there's the good old reality that knowledge =/= faith
>>97700201>No, they didnt, and you know they didnt. There were no gods coming down and talking directly to the masses in plainly visible ways, like a politician addressing a crowd. They did to the people who lived it. That's the experience of the people who believed in those gods, anon.>We're playing a fucking elf-game retard. This isnt some anthropology text on the religions of some far-off world.Anon I wasn't criticizing you for wanting something gamified and simple. That's fine. But the question was "What existing settings have believable gods and religions." It's ok that other people want different things than you, too. No: it doesn't make everyone else a dreaded "nogames," just because you play the game differently.
>>97705792Yeah if magic was real I think you'd get more people theorizing about how it worked, what it means and how we should behave about it. Not fewer.
>>97678552What are some things evil gods can represent/control besides the more common examples like War and Disease, etc.?
>>97695418I think the dominions games are great for getting you started, basically everything within them is based either on myth or roleplaying fantasy tropes, if you become interested in a god in game, there is a great chance there is a historical basis for said god that you can read about
>>97680763I honestly love this idea. I'm currently working on a novel in which something not too dissimilar happens.
Does anyone remember, and/or could link me to, a thread we had here way back in the day where we used 3.5 rules to give stats to Yehova, Moses, and Jesus? There was this amazing illustration some drawfriend made of our version of Yehova, where He was a gigantic, snake-tailed being of fire, all covered in burning eyes.
what's the myth where an army is cursed by a god to be forgotten by their families, so that they can't "return home" and are cast out as strangers?
>>97714829Bump.
>>97708281Basically everything 'neutral' if you can pull the concept (like a fate god which is actively screwing up everyone's life, or a nature god but in a 'wolves are constantly trying to eat everyone' kind of way)I guess you could try with a negligent/capricious version of a good domain (like a water/life god that only gives such things on a whim and will rarely be relied upon by those that live in the world because the pretentious son of a birch will sooner take it back that give more upon receiving a thank you)
>>97714829Sounds East-Asian-y but dunno. Would have to be somewhere that kept anscestor worship running longer than most of the West and Near East did so.Unless you're just talking about the Iliad but that's not exactly what happened. The armies did get cursed, though.
>>97678552What kind of traditional gmes are played in your setting?
>>97719115It definitely reminds me of a sort of "Odyssey"-style adventure; maybe I just dreamed it? But I have a strong memory of reading about an army returning home victorious from battle, only for their friends and families to have no memory of them, and caste them out.
>>97695418GURPS Religion.
>>97719204I mean it's kinda what happens to Odysseus and only his dog recognizes him. But it's not an army.
>>97720271Odysseus went to his own palace undercover as a beggar, remember?
>>97720294Yeah that's what I'm saying. That's the closest thing I can think of to anon's myth about people coming home after a war and not being remembered, but it's not very close. My guess is still East Asia.
>>97714702Bumping this; it sounds interesting.>>97720271>>97720294Why was Poseidon so pissed off, anyway? Polyphemus had broken the rules of sacred hospitality in the first place, hadn't he?
>>97721379If I remember the story right, Odysseus might have been justified in killing Polyphemus in order to defend himself and his crew, but to MAIM him, then brag about it and reveal his name as a challenge, was an insult to Polyphemus' family honor that Poseidon couldn't ignore.Even then, Poseidon's not taking it nearly as seriously as Odysseus is. At some point in the story he goes on vacation to Ethiopia.
Has anyone here played Mazes & Minotaurs? It's great for a sort of bronze-age game, and completely free.
>>97721388I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes sense to me.
>>97714702>thread we had here way back in the day where we used 3.5 rules to give stats to Yehova, Moses, and Jesus?No, but I want this link as well please!
>>97678552What are some common blunders that you see newfags make when it comes to gods and/or religions?
>>97719704Thanks, any other similar recommendations please?
>>97714702What is he saying in the first two speech bubbles?
>>97738195I don't believe it's translatable; it's probably intended by the artists as a stand in for Aramaic, which the time-traveler doesn't understand.
>>97678552How do the Chaos gods from Warhammer rate as Evil deities, not to mention their worshippers? And what other settings besides Moorcock’s works have a Law vs Chaos divide in the pantheon, and what domains make sense for each side besides the ones the Warhammer Chaos gods have and the trickster domain for Chaos versus Justice, etc. for the Law gods?
>>97679740hey now hey now i didn't get my image of the god Baal from Christian propaganda I got it from ROMAN propaganda which is way more trustworthy
>>97747028>>97747406>>97747577>>97747642>>97747684kill yourself bumpfag
>>97748267But aren't you, yourself, bumping the thread?I am very smart.
>>97678552Barely. Players aren't interested.
>>97749053>Barely. Players aren't interested.How can we get players more interested then?
>>97747642They're way too OP. Someone has to find a way to keep them from winning without the Tyrannids eating everything.
>>97747804>I got it from ROMAN propaganda which is way more trustworthyHow so precisely?
>>97678552Why would people worship an evil god if they know their afterlife will be awful as a result?
>>97699460Alignments are retarded.>>97680089Is probably pretty correct in how polytheistic societies (particularly graeco-roman ones) worshiped gods. You'd pray to the one you needed when you needed them.DnD doesn't really represent polytheism well (which is unsurprising since Gygax and then Williams after him were both members of weird American pseudo-Christian cults).
>>97770149Worth noting that said gods even had multiple facets to them, which covered areas of life, and sometimes a supposed evil god had areas where he acted more benevolently, the reverse of that also took place.>Alignments are retardedThey're not, but they should serve only as a very rough guideline when you're designing something for your setting.Alignments absolutely do not belong in the actual game, only in the setup leading to it, and as notes on charsheets.It's a good way to roughly(!) describe what a PC's nature is like, according to it's player, which DM should feel free to adjust to reflect player's actions.Attaching any actual mechanics to it is beyond retarded, though.
>>97770254>They're not, but they should serve only as a very rough guideline when you're designing something for your setting.I'll concede that point. I should have said "the way alignments are used in the vast majority of TTRPGs is retarded"
>>97770288I don't think I ever saw them much, outside of D&D, actually.Frankly, I'd be happy if it stayed that way, too.
>>97678552Been thinking on the Aztecs and their beliefs on human sacrifice, do your settings have any peoples with similar takes on it? Or do you just copy Aztec and related cultural practices and/or gods for the evil factions? Or any other cultures for that matter?
>>97770409>I don't think I ever saw them much, outside of D&D, actually.NTA but most older TTRPGs have it in some form. In WoD it's Nature and Demeanor, but it's the same thing. Gurps has them as traits (I would be unsurprised to learn that their role has dimished since the 80s but I can't say I've touched gurps in oh... thirty years). Rifts just calls it "alignment" and goes outa its way to "fix" it by calling one of the alignments "selfish" instead of "evil."
>>97771514What is your understanding of Aztec beliefs?
>>97679925shalom
>>97783200>What is your understanding of Aztec beliefs?That many human sacrifices were actually willing, believing it was a great honor.
How come this thread haven't mentioned Scion 1e or Gaiman's American Gods?
>>97788258Dude.Do you know what a Garland War is?It's a war where you go out to mass-capture slaves from already subjugated peoples.Do you know about the specific requirements of a sacrifice to the rain god Tlaloc?His offerings were children, who would be made to cry, by having their finger and toenails torn out.When the Aztecs first settled on the lake that they would built Tenochtitlan on, which would later become Mexico city, they made a treaty with another tribe that their princess would be "Married" to their god.Thinking this would cement an alliance, their chieftain agreed, and sent his daughter to be prepared for the "wedding".When he arrived as a guest and went up the ziggurat, he found the Aztec High Priest wearing his daughter's flayed skin.Not all cultures are equal.Not all peoples are the same.And there was a good reason Cortez had a thousand times the native troops as he did Spanish.You are a woke idiot.You have forgotten history, and replaced it with dribble.
>>97789592Eh. Virtually every civilization practiced human sacrifice at some point in its past. It tends to be phased out as literacy spreads. Romans, Greeks, Germanic peoples, Celts, the Canaanites (including the Iisraelites and Judahites, as well as the Phoenicians), the Vedic people, the Shang Dynasty. It was virtually universal at SOME point or another, in almost EVERY culture's past. No: the cultures you like aren't "better." Shockingly?Cultures seperated by thousands of years and miles had different levels of development.
>>97789592By the way, regarding your story about the Culhua princess? It's worth noting that the Mexica were vassals of the Culhuacan and they were trying to start a war. It's also entirely possible that the story is just a myth that the Spanish cobbled together for propaganda purposes.
>>97789677>>97789770>A Literal Aztec apologist.Read a Bible, you baby-eating savage.
>>97789903The bible directly demands that the first born sons of Israelites be sacrificed to Yahweh. Later books revised this demand and allowed Israelites to pay money or substitute other sacrifices. But it's right there in black and white in Exodus 22:29. The Israelites were flatly required, in the earlier period, to perform child sacrifice of their first-born son. Apologists have twisted themselves into all kinds of knots trying to deny it, but the scholarship is incredibly clear and we've found the archeological evidence that proves it was practiced.
>>97789941>Exodus 22:29 says in black and white to sacrifice first-bornsLOL. you are out of your depth - re-read the whole book, especially Exodus 13. God explicitly calls such practices as defiling etc. in for example Ezekiel or 2 Kings:>16And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. 18Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
>>97790204Anon scholars far more knowledgable than you or I have debated this topic to death. It is absolutely the case that the oldest layers of the bible demand child sacrifice, which was edited and retracted by later writers. And we have the archeology to prove it.Sorry that facts are inconvenient, but there's over a century of scholarship proving it. You and I arguing about it on 4chan isn't relevant, so I won't bother. But you can just google it, if you are interested in learning some neat facts about history.
>>97790239>appeal to "scholars" right off the batanon, please... just re-read the book or even the few sentences I quoted that go in complete opposition to what you are implying instead of parroting whatever this lunacy is supposed to be
>>97790266I pointed out:>later authors edited and retracted itYou stated:>look here at these later parts that edit or retract it!Correct.
>>97790280>later authors edited and retracted itwhat later authors? there is only one author of the Bible - God; you'd know that if you took the time to read it. as I said, you are out of your depth
>>97790315>there is only one author of the Bible - GodOh ny. Well, enjoy your Friday ecening, anon.
>>97747642by dnd rules every chaos god would be either lawful or neutral
>>97783200"If we don't kill this guy, the sun will break and we'll all be rape by rattlesnaked dicked skeletons. Come on, time's a wasting. Burning daylight."
>>97788258>>97789592>>97789677>>97789770>>97789903Obsessive autistic Mesoamerican (Aztec Maya etc) history nerd here, you're both partially right but also mostly wrong>human sacrifices were actually willing... it was a great honorThe plurality of Mesoamericans sacrifices were captured enemy soldiers, and the next largest demographic of them was probably noncombatant slaves (though you couldn't just sacrifice slaves whenever, there were rules around it, at least ostensibly for the Aztec). Yes, it was seen as honorable, and some victims are said to have embraced the duty, but even in those cases there was a degree of pressure thrust upon the victim and true "volunteers", were probably rare>It's a war where you...capture slaves from already subjugated peoplesGarland/Flower Wars were not necessarily (and according to most sources, not even usually) waged against existing subject states. Most were between Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, and Tlaxcala, an enemy state they hadn't yet conquered (or was intentionally left unconquered, tho this is disputed). Some sources say they were really mostly ONLY waged between the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and Tlaxcala and its allies, tho other sources assert it being a wider/more frequent practice across Central Mexico (in other words, not a exclusively Mexica practice)Also, when they were waged against existing subjects rather then against enemies (where they had geopolitical/tactical utility as a way to wear down said enemies, their smaller scale meant they could be launched during seasons when full scale wars weren't logistically feasible, and as a way to keep troops fit and active year-round, among other things, see desuarchive.org/tg/thread/97008953/#97015784), they were mutually arranged by both sides, as a way to cement alliances or political marriages, tho allegedly the fact they were mutually arranged was kept hidden from the general populace so they wouldn't know their lives were being spent on showmanship1/?
>>97791900>>97788258>>97789592>>97789677>>97789770>>97789903cont:>[Tlaloc was offered] children, who would be made to cry, by having their finger and toenails torn out.This is probably true. Some assert that this is the Spanish exaggerating, but there's not really evidence to specifically support or disprove it. At the very least we know children WERE sacrificed to Tlaloc, because we've excavated some sacrificial burials of them. In one such burial the victims were sick, so it may have been a way to cull unhealthy children, but the child skulls in the Great Skull Rack were disproportionately healthy, by contrast.>The princess flaying thingFirstly, the Colhuas were not "another tribe", they were a city-state, and an especially respected one, seen as having strong ties to the Toltecs, who the Nahuas/"Aztecs" (see desuarchive.org/aco/thread/7539321/#7685401 for why "Aztec" is a confusing term) saw as the codifiers of sophisticated high culture (the Toltecs were probably entirely mythical, but the point is is that the Colhuas were seen as venerable). In general Mesoamerica didn't have "tribes", as cities, writing etc had been a thing there for millennia, tho the Nahuas were recent migrants into the region who used to be nomadic tribes from the northern fringes or above Mesoamerica, hence Colhuacan having alleged ties to the Toltecs gave them clout other less established Nahua city-states didn't haveNext, while there are variations in the narrative, generally the Mexica asking the Colhua king Achitometl for his daughter was not them deviously trying to sacrifice her in secret: It's the Mexica's patron god Huitzliopotchli telling them to ask for her as a political marriage and then only telling the Mexica to flay her after the fact: The Mexica also got duped, because the point of the narrative is actually that the Mexica got set up and duped by Huitzilopochtli. That's not ME saying they were victims, i'm saying that's the theme in the narrative...2/?
>>97791912>>97788258>>97789592>>97789677>>97789770>>97789903>That's not ME saying they were victims, i'm saying that's the theme in the narrative...cont:...It's a whole series of events where the Mexica constantly got blamed for things, getting displaced over and over as trials and tribulations before finally coming across Huitzilopochtli's omen that would mark the promised land where they were to found their city of Tenochtitlan. Huitzilopochtli caused the flaying incident as they weren't yet at the spot Tenochtitlan needed to be founded and as a war god, he craved conflictThis was also more legend than historical account: It's got gods, witches, etc. Plus, the phrasing of things, at least in the version I've read, also makes it obvious it's apocryphal, because the way the Mexica ask for the princess makes it obvious she'd actually get sacrificed afterwards: That she was being married to a god and dressed as a goddess strongly evokes the way deity impersonators were sacrificed, and sacrifice was a universal practice in Mesoamerica, so Achitometl should have known what was up. This reeks of a story where the characters are clueless to a twist the audience would recognize and see comingFinally, in some versions the princess isn't sacrificed at all, apparently, and instead marries into the Mexica royal family, gives birth to children and dies of old ageIt's >plebbit, but see: reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1ejmsu4/one_of_the_top_ten_biggest_blunders_in_history/lggrtq5/ for more info>there was a good reason Cortez had [1000x] times the native troops as he did SpanishMore like 100x, but yes, there is a good reason, but it's not the reason you probably thinkThe reason you probably think Cortes got allies against the Mexica is because the Mexica were hated for sacrifices or being oppressive, but firstly, as I said above, sacrifices were a universal practice in Mesoamerica, everybody did them, including the states which allied with Cortes....3/?
>>97791935>>97788258>>97789592>>97789677>>97789770>>97789903cont.... Secondly, the Mexica actually had a hands-off political system. They were conquerors, yes, but, but their actual system of rule over subject and vassal states was loose and hands-offThey generally didn't sack/raze cities in their conquests, and mostly left existing rulers, laws, and customs in place in said subjects and vassals, and left them alone to self manage, provided they paid up taxes of economic goods (which did not generally include sacrificial victims or slaves: Those were taken during conquests, not from already conquered subjects as taxes) and met other basic obligations. This kind of system was common in Mesoamerica, because the lack of draft animals and difficult terrain made long distance hands-on administration logistically difficultIt was BECAUSE of this hands off system that Cortes got allies against the Mexica: It meant that subject states retained their identity, agency, and ambitions. This enabled opportunistic side switching and secession because they had both the ability and incentive to take action that prioritized their own interests over their capital's. And a great way to gain or retain status in this system is to pledge yourself as a subject or ally to another state (since subjects mostly got left alone anyways), and then to work with them to take out your existing capital(s) or rivals, so you'd be in a position of higher (or at least the same) standing in the new kingdom/empire you helped prop up for having aided itThat's what happened with CortesFor more info see pastebin.com/h18M28BR and arch.b4k.dev/v/thread/640670498/#640679139 and desuarchive.org/his/thread/16781148/#16781964 and desuarchive.org/k/thread/64935126/#64961571 and desuarchive.org/k/thread/64434397/#64469714 + the other posts I link to within that last /k/ post and the two posts directly preceding it in the thread>>97790678Forgot to quote you throughout all this, whoops4/4 for now
Schizo thread
>>97791900There is a 100% chance that this guy samefags and steers discussions in the direction of Aztecs so that he can drop his textdumps.
>>97791912>Great Skull RackBrother if your culture has a Great Skull Rack it might be time to ask yourself if you're the baddies.
>>97699407>watch one (1) religion for breakfest video and now he thinks hes an expect scholar on religion and theology
>>97700201>>97699594but Gods are real anon thiers just gay how ever thier is one God that isnt gay and lame (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) h hes name starts with a J ◕⩊◕
>>97790323I hate this I know to you this anon is an idiot so thiers no point in arguing with him but could you atleast try to?
>>97789941could you link me to these scholars? and also these archeological findings? Im legitimately curious?
>>97791949>>97788258>>97789677>>97789770>>97789903>>97790678Cont:I should clarify that while what I describe in my previous post here is accurate and true for why most states allied with Cortes (IE: They did so opportunistically as a way of gaining or holding onto political status), there were exceptions (EX: Tlaxcala legitimately did resent the Mexica most likely, though Tlaxcala also wasn't a existing subject they were "oppressive" too, because the Mexica weren't: again, it was an Tlaxcala they were at war with, as noted in >>97791900) and for some states there were a mix of motives (Even Tlaxcala was partially motivated by opportunism, they used the Conquistadors to sack Cholula, which was a sort of Mesoamerican Mecca or Vatican in terms of it's religious influence, and put it back under their political influence after it had previously switched from being a Tlaxcalteca to a Mexica ally, for instance).I already do bring those caveats up in the archive links I provided, but I wanted to be extra clear about this just in case anybody is following along but is too lazy to check the links out. I'd try to read them if you have the time. >>97792261How would that even work, like by me posting incorrect info for me to then reply to with an infodump? My whole thing is that i'm trying to spread and share accurate info about the topic, replying to myself with BS would defeat the pointSometimes I do bring up Mesoamerican stuff in a thread, with the knowledge that it might prompt replies which would warrant a dump in response, but I try to only do so it's on topic anyways, and it's not like I hope or want people to post nonsense that requires I address it. If I want to do big posts for the fun of it I'll be transparent and just say "I'm into Mesoamerica and am bored, ask me questions">>97791912>>97789592> In general Mesoamerica didn't have "tribes", as cities, writing etc had been a thing there for millenniaSee pic for more info on this btw5/6
>>97793543cont:>>97792281>your cultureI'm not Hispanic or indigenous, I just think Mesoamerica is neat.Anyways I never said nor tried to argue that they were benevolent or innocent, I'm just posting accurate (and hopefully interesting) information, you're free to draw your own moral conclusions. I would stress again though that everybody in Mesoamerica did sacrifices, not just the Mexica of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The Mexica likely did it the most (they likely sacrificed a few hundred to a few thousand people a year) but that's probably just because they were the most militarily successful, and as I previously said the likely plurality of sacrifices were captured enemy soldiers, so they simply had the most opportunity to collect captives. Also more broadly what >>97789677 says is also true, a few Spanish authors at the time even specifically compared Mesoamerican sacrifices to Indian and Roman examples (and in general the Spanish considered the Mesoamericans to be "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, with great cities, art and social institutions in spite of their paganism and rites) I also personally don't much see a difference between deaths from sacrifices vs deaths from holy wars, inquisitions, or religious purges, which were also a thing many societies did. As far as I know the Mexica did more sacrifices then say the Spanish Inquisition, but compared to say the Cathar conflict in France or other purges and holy wars, the totals are more comparable or the Mexica actually did less. I really don't think it matters either way though, even if the Mexica had been doing 5 million sacrifices a year and razed every city they came across to the ground, I'd still think they're interesting and would post about them (hell that would just make them more exceptionally interesting)6/6 for now
>>97678892>>97679835>>97783223These are all the same religion thoughbeit
>>97681186This but unironically
>>97678552Not very because I'm leery of just making a pantheon for no reason. I only really want to flesh out deities players are likely to encounter.
Traditional games?
>>97796469Okay, so what gods and cults have you made them?
