Religion, again?

[Nemt]

There appears to be a pretty elaborate and well thought out major religion in the empire, as well as many smaller regonal beliefs and practices, as described on the main site. In the actual game, however, I can't recall religion ever really being mentioned aside from in character statements I've made, and a very very early decree legalizing some tribal religion in one of the provinces.

Is it just not something that's paid very much attention among those in power in the empire, or has it kind of been forgotten about?

I'm aware the vast majority of playtesters, including myself, likely don't follow any religion too seriously - though trying to project this into characters kind of kills realism, it's unlikely a bunch of heretics would've become leaders en masse in a society with a state religion.

[Kortelan]

That has been bothering me too. In real life I don't follow a religion and I know only very few people who strictly adhere to a religion even though I grew up just north of the Bible Belt. But that is only because we are a democratic republic that has no official stance on religion (I could go on about non official stance but this is not the place for real life politics.). From the issue awhile back about religion it seems Zekran has a state religion that people care enough about to have a big deal made about it when other religions are legalized. So logic states that our characters are followers of this religion or in the case of Kortelan for example a farm boy from his tribe's homeland he might be a secret follower of his tribe's religion.

[Nemt]

Since the Verronese and Zekresh peoples came to power in close physical proximity, their religions were probably combined over the years.

[Gamemaster]

I'm glad you pointed this out. The in-game religions play a key role in the game and suffuse most of what is going on. I'm surprised it's not more obvious, but thank you for pointing out that it may be too subdued.

If you think back to the Winter Solstice, known as "Oronoran" in Zekresh, (or look at the old posts) you will recall that every player who was near any market place in the days leading up to Oronoran saw merchants selling sacrificial goats preparing for the holiday. In the Zekresh religion, the two holiest days are the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice and practitioners of the religion sacrifice goats to the god Gilhalnan on those days. Nemt even saw sacrificial goats for sale in Vasservold in Sligifteria province which is a very long way from any significant settlements of ethnic Zekresh people. This may have been subtle, but it is a measure of just how pervasive the official religion is. The gamemasters were surprised that Nemt did nothing to mark the holiday. Some of the troops were surprised as well, but didn't say anything since it could be seen as insubordinate. Another measure of the importance of religion is that Oronoran is not just marked on the calendar, but has a special status. That day, and the Summer Solstice, are not part of any month. They are the only two days in the Zekresh calendar that are not part of any month.

We accept that some player characters will be more religious than others. Some players will be more willing to role play this aspect of Zekresh society than others. We have already had one Christian player express reluctance to have his character be part of any non-Christian religion. But on the other hand, there are players who are quite involved in the in-game religions.

In fact, there are four players whose primary focus is religion. Two of them are important religious leaders. In the early days of the game when little was going on except debates in the Imperial Council and decrees by Ulors, there were actually two issues that hinged on religion. One of them was the one Nemt mentioned. The other one was the Empire's war against the Tavani people. It was never mentioned in the debates, because the Empire did not care why the Tavani were uncooperative, but the primary reason the Tavani were insistent on maintaining their own ways and refusing to give in to Imperial authority is because they are members of the Hywatsi religion. One of the players was intimately involved in this and was deeply concerned about religion both in the game and in real life even though he is not one of the four players for whom it is paramount. He was an Ulor, not a religious leader. He has stopped playing now and he never did anything to inform the rest of the Empire about the Tavani or their religion. But you may hear more about it before too long. Due to the low technology level of the Empire, communication and transportation often take a long time and consequences can be slow to appear, but we just put them on a timeline of future events and unless something alters that timeline, there is no danger of the gamemasters forgetting about things that should happen.

There are reasons why the Zekresh Empire seems to have only a couple perfunctory religious holidays per year and few other signs of religion. There are two main reasons for this. One is the concern that either allowing or supressing unofficial religions could lead to an armed revolt. The other is that Zekran was, from the beginning, a multicultural city. The Zekresh are an amalgamation of refugees from the Frayeth Empire and indigenous Shell People and Marsh People. They did not all have the same religion at first. Over time, the religious ideas of the Frayeth people have been adopted by virtually everyone in Zekran and by the ethnic Zekresh people outside the capital. But outside the capital, sincere practitioners of the official religion are quite rare. The overwhelming majority of people ruled by the Empire do not believe in the official religion. Most of them don't even pretend to.

This is at the heart of why virtually no one says anything about religion most of the time. It is a touchy subject.

The official Zekresh Religion was created by Emperor Yatyva VI, "The Pious" as has been mentioned in the scrolls. He was not creating a religion so much creating a new priesthood for the religion that was already dominant in Zekran. It was Yatyva the Pious who banned the public practice of all other religions. This was originally aimed not at unbelievers, but at the existing priesthood of the Frayeth religion whom the Emperor wished to coopt or destroy. By creating an official religion identical to the main existing religion, Yatyva the Pious interjected his own authority into religious matters. He asserted the authority to appoint priests of the new "Zekresh Religion". He didn't really create any new priests. He just sanctioned the members of the existing priesthood who cooperated with his power grab. Those who tried to resist or ignore what was happening, were deemed to be practicing a different religion than the official one even though their beliefs were virtually identical. The law was enforced with the death penalty. The creation of the official religion and the ban on the public practice of other religions were two steps in a single plan to put religion under the Emperor's control. The plan worked, at least in Zekran.

The reason that Yatyva the Pious did not ban all heresy, but only the public practice of unofficial religions is that he was not actually a religious fanantic. Though in those days, (about 1,200 years ago) the Empire was much smaller and less ethnically diverse than it is now, even then the Emperor did not want to pick a fight with the followers of all other religions. He might have been able to win that fight, but the Empire had other priorities.

Though the Emperor didn't have any serious desire to convert anyone to the official religion, his new priesthood did. So did some of the later Emperors. But the threat of religiously motivated armed rebellion only got greater as more and more diverse nations were conquered and added to the empire. The ban on the "public practice" of other religions has become the religious compromise between conqueror and conquered. The Empire does not attempt to get people to change their religion overnight, but the ban has the effect, over centuries, of making it more difficult for non-Zekresh people to preserve their religious traditions while quietly facilitating the official religion.

It is common for non-Zekresh people in the Empire who have reason to want Zekresh people to think highly of them to actually convert or at least pretend to have converted to the official religion. Other religions are widely practiced, but generally not "in public". What "in public" is taken to mean is different in different places. In Zekran, followers of other religions meet in private homes, draw the curtains and sometimes even whisper their prayers to prevent anyone except the participants from noticing. In the provinces, other religions are usually dominant and everyone knows it. They are not practiced "in public" only to the extent that ceremonies are not performed in front of Zekresh government officials nor are any permanent temples built to unofficial gods. In the frontier provinces, other religions are practiced in public with complete impunity either in open defiance of the law or in ignorance that it even exists.

The Imperial government is not at all strict about enforcing the ban on public practice of unofficial religions. This is partly because religion has never been much of a unifying force either for the Zekresh people, who have been multiethnic from the beginning, or still less for the various nationalities of the Empire. Religion seems to have far more potential to divide the people of the Empire than to unite them and for that reason the government leaves it alone as much as possible.

Another factor is that Zekresh officials notoriously favor people who adopt the ways of the Zekresh. No matter what nation you are, if you speak the Zekresh language fluently, eat Zekresh food, dress like the people in Zekran and slaughter a goat or two on the solstices, you will be more likely to get or keep a government job, get promoted in the Imperial Army, get leniency from Imperial courts or get other favors. If you are known to follow any other religion, you are more likely to be treated as a member of a conquered nation than a citizen of the Empire.

This makes followers of unofficial religions nervous about their true beliefs being known. On the other hand, people who adopt the ways of the Zekresh, including their religion, in order to win favor with Imperial officials are seen as traitors in some of the newer provinces. There is a trace of this attitude left even in many of the older provinces. In many areas, it is understood that you have to adopt Zekresh ways to succeed and even to pretend to follow the Zekresh religion, but actually converting to the Zekresh religion is still taboo. This puts non-Zekresh people in a difficult situation. They face hostility and adverse repercussions no matter what religion they adhere to and even more if they are known to have no religion at all.

This is why so many people prefer not to talk about religion. The Zekresh themselves are more willing to be open about their religion since it is, after all, the official religion, but on the other hand, they realize that most people in the Empire do not share that religion, even if they pretend that they do. Most Zekresh would rather not know about what religion people they deal with actually follow because so often the unofficial religions do carry out ceremonies, rituals and celebrations that are somewhat public. Everyone participating in such activities could, theoretically, be arrested and put to death for it. Some people have been killed for it, generally in cases where they were defying the Empire on purpose. If you are Zekresh and you talk religion with a non-Zekresh, you never know whether they just participated in an illegal religious ceremony last night and are suspecting that you are a spy trying to get them killed for it. This is not made any better by the fact that the government itself hardly cares about such matters. The real spies trying to root out religious nonconformity work for the priests of the Zekresh Religion. Because of that, any Zekresh who appears particularly devout and inquires too closely about the religions of others might end up killed and dumped in a river by paranoid locals.

Because of all this, people are usually unwilling to discuss religion or display any indication of what religion they believe in except in the presence of others who are known to be members of the same religion.

So on Oronoran, people in all the main cities of the Empire mostly make some pretense at observing the holiday of the official religion, but deliberately attempt to appear unenthusiastic about it so as to leave ambiguous their real religious convictions. In the countryside, they don't bother with such pretenses and generally just practice their traditional religions.


One other point, the Verronese do have their own religion which is separate and distinct from the Zekresh religion. Many people practice elements of both for the reasons indicated above, but they still know which is which. I should mention that in the Zekresh Empire, practitioners of one religion often believe in the reality of the gods of another religion or of all other religions, but they generally only pray to their own gods.

[Gamemaster]

One other thing. Early in the game, some Ulors issued decrees legalizing unofficial religions and thereby reversing 1,200 years of Imperial policy on religion. The "Loyalist" faction in the Imperial Council argued at the time that this would have devastating consequences.

There are consequences to almost everything that happens in the game. So far at least five players have been directly affected by the consequences of those changes in Imperial law.

[Nemt]

I didn't mean to minimalize its impact, it just hadn't really seemed visible as much as I would have expected. I'll pay closer attention.

[Kortelan]

gamemaster said:

One other thing. Early in the game, some Ulors issued decrees legalizing unofficial religions and thereby reversing 1,200 years of Imperial policy on religion. The "Loyalist" faction in the Imperial Council argued at the time that this would have devastating consequences.

There are consequences to almost everything that happens in the game. So far at least five players have been directly affected by the consequences of those changes in Imperial law.

Can you send me a message telling me about the Verronese religion and how much Kortelan would probably practice it?