Ideas about atheists

[Pronoein]

As before, take everything I say with a bit of salt.

An atheist civilization should have Death of God speakers instead of Great Prophet (or even a Great Prophet Hero among them).
Powers:
- Kill God (eradicate religion from town =inquisition)
- Fear
- Dispel
- Banish (80% damage vs invocated creature)


Instead of priest citizens, atheists should have skeptics. Skeptics add +3 tech/+1 hammer/+2 commerce, and -1 tech to all other known civs.
They would be a main feature of the atheist nations
Religious buildings (producing great prophet points) should thus be redesigned follow the themes of reason, doubt, denial, analyze, etc.

 

[Emptiness]

There are no Atheist civs in FfH2. There are Agnostic civs. Atheism would be very rare in a world like Erebus, where gods walk among men from time to time (and the tales of such happenings are fresh in the ears of those who have not witness it themselves).

Even in Agnostic civs there are (or can be, anyway) followers of various faiths. It is not unreasonable to assume that from time to time a prophet could arise from among a religious faction that is part of the civ. Having an Agnostic civ does not mean that every person in the civ is Agnostic. It simply means that the society as a whole is sufficiently disassociated from the "normal" religions of Erebus that they are not willing to dedicate themselves to following a single one in an official capacity.

 

[a_civilian]

Strictly speaking agnosticism is the belief that it's impossible to determine whether god(s) exist, which would also make no sense in this world.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yeah, the Agnostic trait is misnamed. Cassiel is a mistheist, Auric is an autotheist.

 

[autopsy-turvey]

The idea of atheists in a fantasy world where literal gods walk around literally talking to people and literally giving their priests magic powers to summon treants and balors and is dumb as hell, sorry

 

[Kael]

Cassiel doesn't believe that the god are gods. He thinks they are imperfect beings (or petulant children depending on his mood). So Cassiel believes in Junil (for example), he just doesn't think Junil deserves the title "god".

As for the existence of a deserving "god", Cassiel doesn't know (or at least he isn't telling, his acceptance and protection of the Luonnnotar is unusual considering his dislike for religions). Which is what places him in the agnostic camp. Its probably more truthful to say that Cassiel is antitheist, but I didn't think that term would have been as clear to new players.

In the end, Agnostic was a reasonable name for the mechanic of being able unable to accept a state religion. It was this more than an attempt to sum up Cassiel's philosophy that lead to the name.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I believe it has been established that Cassiel and Basium have heard the "gods" themselves discuss The One True God (at The Seven Pines when negotiating The Compact, if not before), and both revere him but neither knows him personally. All their information came from biased sources, and each choose to interpret it very differently based on their own natures. Basium prays to The One and carves his holy names into his flesh, but sees no problem with using mortals' faith in other gods to his own purposes. Cassiel believes that worship is itself is an aspect of Agares corrupt sphere, that any god's desire for worship is a sin, and that The One is beyond any desire for worship. As The One chose to hide himself from his creations, Cassiel assumes he does not want to be known and so does not speak of him. Basium interprets The One's commandment for the good gods to guard humanity until his return to mean that he has a duty to destroy Evil.


While Mulcarn certainly knew of The One, Auric likely knows nothing about Him.


I'm not a fan of the term Agnostic for either of them. Cassiel actually has more knowledge of God than does any mortal leader.



The original meaning of the Greek word atheos was "rejecting the gods, rejected by the gods, or godforsaken," which I think could fir them quite well. However, most people would probably understand Atheist in the modern sense of believing in the non-existence of gods, which does not make sense in Erebus.


In my modmod, I opted for Misothiestic, "hating the gods," which is closer to the old meaning of Atheist. Cassiel has a dislike for all who would claim godhood. Auric considers himself a god, but harbors an intense hatred for other gods, especially Sucellus and Bhall. Mulcarn himself disliked other gods in general (including his own allies), because he was jealous of the worship mortals gave them.



Antitheism would be an opposition to theism, opposing the belief in gods rather than the gods themselves. That might fit Cassiel, but not Auric. It probably wouldn't fit Cassiel all that well either actually, as he knows antithiesm can itself become a dangerous fanatical religion.

 

[WCH]

The idea of atheists in a fantasy world where literal gods walk around literally talking to people and literally giving their priests magic powers to summon treants and balors and is dumb as hell, sorry

Dungeons & Dragons also has literal gods that walk around literally talking to people and literally giving their priests magic powers, but it includes several distinct flavours of atheists. For example:

1) In Planescape there are the Athar, who view the gods as exceptionally powerful mortals, and believe that power is there in the universe to be taken if you so will it.

2) Then there's the prestige class, Ur Priest, who believe in an older (or dead) god, rejecting the validity of the current pantheon and actively plotting against them.

3) Or there's the effectively immortal race, the Aboleths, who have memories from back before the existence of the gods. In one telling of the cosmology, the aboleths were the first creatures in the normal planes, having been produced as a by product of an unintelligent nightmare thing from the Far Realm grazing past the material plane. They genetically engineered all the other races to be their slaves and ruled the multiverse, but after many thousand years, the collective psychic anguish of their slaves called the gods into being, and their first act was to smash the Aboleth empire. Aboleths still hate the gods and divine magic as a result.

FfH, of course, is largely based on a D&D campaign, and it shows... all three of these tropes show up in the game:

1) Cassiel and his followers are analogous to the Athar

2) Auric is something akin to an Ur Priest

3) The Octopus Overlords are reminiscent of the Aboleths (both are obviously Lovecraftian)

All three make sense in both the D&D world and in the FfH world. James Randi style skeptics who deny any kind of "supernatural powers" would not make sense, and so they're not in the game.

 

[Pronoein]

I would add
4) "Verbal " Godslayers. Not in Dungeons & Dragons but could have been: knights of the Plains of Thoughts who think in a way that they shroud gods in doubt and cast them into oblivion by saying: THEIN GOT IST DEAD in their archaic, pseudo-teutonic language.
Foreigners would fear them because they were bad news messengers. Their words of cursed life would spread like a plague because anyone who'd heard the words would suffer the anguish of doubting the answer. (Is it true? Is He Dead?) Like a trapped spell, a magic waiting for your mind to adventure close enough to fall in.
You know, like Zarathoustra by Nietzsche. The sunlight of Atheism: hardened, sharpened skepticism. Killing god as a starting hypothesis, and living with its death in mind.
Bah nevermind. Too much imagination I guess.
THOU SHALL FORGET NOW! THOU SHAN'T FIND MEANING ANYMORE IN THESE WORDS. The moment has past. It's too late. You won't ever understand now. You can't trust truths. There are no Gods.

 

[Tasunke]

I would have three Misothiestic Promotions (or Athiest).

Athiest I (can grant magic resistance to every living unit in a stack)

Athiest II (magic immune, can inquisition every religion from any city)

Athiest III (remove religion of all units in a Ring of Fire block, including the tile of the caster, and +200% vs disciple units)

 

[Onionsoilder]

I would have three Misothiestic Promotions (or Athiest).

Athiest I (can grant magic resistance to every living unit in a stack)

Athiest II (magic immune, can inquisition every religion from any city)

Athiest III (remove religion of all units in a Ring of Fire block, including the tile of the caster, and +200% vs disciple units)

Good ideas, but they might be a little overpowered(unless it's something like the channeling I/II/III promotions, and not something that can be gotten with EXP). However, where would that power come from in a lore perspective?

 

[Tasunke]

I think they would be through Channeling I-III, and I think only Luannotar and Priests of Winter should be able to buy these promotions from a lore-sense ... with the current lore.

They are supposed to represent Misothiestic intentions, in relation to the "Gods" that are contemporarily worshipped upon Erebus.