Editing User:Bill/Buckle Your Swash! (section)

===Religions===

I don’t think a creation myth is really necessary for a RPG. In fact giving away too much of the ancient history will cause the game to be trite and without nuance in my opinion. I would rather do something more like the real world; full of uncertainty and doubt. To that end regardless of the god or pantheon that a cleric, healer, priest, paladin or other divine spell caster may worship, they will in fact be drawing their power from the aligned power source rather than an actual being. So, a cleric of Yama-ruti may make blood sacrifices to an evil deity, but he’s actually drawing his power from plain old evil. If he claims to be speaking with Yama-ruti then he’s probably just crazy. In other words, there are gods but they don’t normally talk to mortals. Nobody knows why. To gain Exalted feats will generally require that a character meet a god.

Every major geographic area will have its own pantheon, as will every race living in that geographic area. So the total number of religions will equal regions multiplied by races. That’s a lot of faiths to keep track of and the further away from home a character is the greater the difficulty will be on any Knowledge Religion rolls.

Interfaith hostility will arise from conflicting views on the nature of the divine right and the purpose of existence. Holy wars may even occur if the anointed leader of the people starts taking his or her faith too seriously.

Atheism, while potentially a viable option among cultures who have no divinely appointed ruler or priests that are able to heal through divine inspiration, is unlikely. There is simply too much evidence of divine will in the world to make it a widespread belief.