Which of course, brings me back to my original problem about whether or not this is a fantastical universe or something closely resembling fifth century Europe. Whether I actually set it under the reign of King Arthur, in which case I can use the somewhat obscure but still realistic religion of the celts; druids and so forth, or whether I should write this entirely fictional in which case...


How does one go about developing a fictional pagan religion? Gods, customs, ceremonies, the whole works. Suggestions?

This first dawned on me as I was reviewing my handy-dandy no-profanity trick: he cursed. It suddenly occurred to me, these people are pagans anyway, so if he uses some fictional pagan curse it's not actually profanity and that could actually be kind of cool. Offend other characters without actually offending real people, because his curse is a slight on fictional deities.

The other reason I could really use an actual system instead of some vague ghost of a religion is things like naming customs, marriages, etc. If you read my prologue to Lightning Ranger you discover that one of the crimes he's accused of is blasphemy, one that strikes hardest with the people. It would ring more true if readers actually knew what he was blaspheming against rather than some vague concept of paganism, right?

Help? Where does one begin? Anyone else have a pagan religious system?

I have a Celtic-based pagan cult in one of my cultures. If you were to make it completely fictional, as you said, then you would have to make it more complete and specifically tell your readers a lot. If it were just Celtic religion, your readers could assume a lot about the religion.

I guess that wasn't very helpful. I'll try to, um, write something helpful in this space when I have some time later. Right now I have to finish up a web design.

eruheran

Eruheran, you are the most helpful person around. I don't think I've asked a single question, or posted a single topic anywhere that you haven't said something remotely helpful on. Thanks.

Hm... maybe this will help. My religion currently looks like this:









Not much, I know... but still. There it is.

Thanks for the compliment! (You revealed a little bit of your plot...unless you've already posted this in Story Excerpts and I haven't seen it yet )

Sounds like most of this pagan religion is built on superstitions and traditions, not so much a set of legalistic rules that you have to follow.

eruheran

-- By the way, "Mickey"? Don't tell me she calls him "Mickey"!?

Most of this I did post in Story Excerpts. I figured they were excerpted enough it wouldn't really matter... that's his sister calling him that. Problem?

Yes, superstition and tradition is what it mostly is which is why I never bothered to define anything. But I fear definition may become necessary.

I've been planning on working on a fractalling system for religions. Seems like I might need to get started on that for you I could give you a link to my mythology fractalling system, which would help you lay the foundations for your religion and then give you the religion fractalling system when it's finished. Let me know.

I've never tried, but be creative. It's better than doing research.

If I could get that link, that would be awesome! I am starting a story that will be more on the sci-fi forum, but there will be a lot of pagan religion in it and having a basis would help me out a lot!

I have pagan religions in my world. It takes some thinking to get them started, and I have only two varieties so far.

Variety #1: Single god, requiring sacrifices, chanting, etc. The single god is enshrined in the form of an immense statue, in front of which the sacrifices and other ceremonies take place. The god pervades the entire culture of the people group, and is consulted by four or more priests on any occasion of importance.

Variety #2: Multiple deities, similar to the Egyptian gods, with a head god over all. The gods are worshiped singly or all of them as a whole, but the head god most of all. They also require sacrifices, and each god oversees a different realm of life. The fear of the gods' anger keeps obedience, but they do not take as important a role as the single god in Variety #1.

I will be happy to answer questions if necessary.