Scars of War - Creating Game Religions

Gareth, over at his SOW Blog has a great article on creating Religions for a game world. He not only discusses out how he perceives most game developers have missed the whole point, but offers clear ideas on what he believes needs to be considered. Here's a clever outline of what he sees as the main approach/failings of most developers:

You see, when most CRPG writers sit down to write up the religious lore for their game they generally do something like the following.

1. First, cycle through the basic elements or principles of existence, creating funny names and assigning Gods to those elements. Gods of Fire, Light, Nature, Being Mean to People, etc etc

2. Assign two dimensional personalities to these Gods based around their particular element. Fire Gods are quick-tempered, Life Gods are compassionate, Being Mean to People Gods tend to enjoy stealing your lunch money and kicking puppies.

3. Assign each God to a race. Because nothing says 3 dimensional lore quite like assigning a single overarching principle to an entire racial group. But hey, Elves are already scraping the bottom of the creativity barrel, why not go all out and assign a nature deity to them, one that is neutral even! Tradition demands it.

3. Make up some sort of creation myth involving these Gods. Something about how they get together in the beginning of time and create the world then each goes off and creates the initial members of their favored race. Later they probably all squabble with the God of Being Mean to People. And then maybe the other Gods triumph over him and lock him away where he can’t possibly escape, unless the Orcs or Necromancers or whoever find his tomb and conduct a ritual requiring 5 pieces of a magic amulet/crystal/staff. Which get scattered across the world, instead of being safely locked away in the divine wall safe.

4. Done! Creativity redefined! Now you only have to assign spell lists to priests, which is easy ‘cause the Gods are already cleanly divided into neat categories.

Check it out.