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Verra could use a savior from the Gods: An Anti-Religious Organization
loghan
Member
Citizens and Corrupted of Verra, currently the game pushes us (though does not require us) to join a religion and worship a god, or at least pretend to, in order to get the rewards such faith grants. And while I am a man of god (Evil? Good? Who knows) there are those on the internet who are already making it clear they don’t like basically being forced to be religious. You could bypass it but then you miss out on some fun quests and rewards.
The recent video by the Theory Forge is what got me to thinking about this, give these guys a watch: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUZdkRNBChLQ5pb_2iY_hw
And so why do we all worship gods who were the ones that either caused Verra to get corrupted in the first place or they were too weak to stop it! Perhaps instead of worshiping them we should be doing all we can to rid the world of them! To block their ability to interact with the physical world of Verra!
My suggestion would be to add another NPC ran religious organization option in every city. This one would be the “Anti-Religion” group named the Faithless Ones. Their leader would go by the name “Faithless One” (and they always wear a porcelain mask so you never know who they are whilst walking around the Market Place, and the added benefit that the "leader" can be replaced after some years and the followers would never know it since all they see is a mask and someone in thick robes.) It could be that this Anti-religious group created an army of followers in every major city that has the stated goal of removing the gods or atleast removing their ability to affect Verra. This organization just like the religions will grant you unique quest lines and rewards.
A post-launch Expansion idea at least.
The recent video by the Theory Forge is what got me to thinking about this, give these guys a watch: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUZdkRNBChLQ5pb_2iY_hw
And so why do we all worship gods who were the ones that either caused Verra to get corrupted in the first place or they were too weak to stop it! Perhaps instead of worshiping them we should be doing all we can to rid the world of them! To block their ability to interact with the physical world of Verra!
My suggestion would be to add another NPC ran religious organization option in every city. This one would be the “Anti-Religion” group named the Faithless Ones. Their leader would go by the name “Faithless One” (and they always wear a porcelain mask so you never know who they are whilst walking around the Market Place, and the added benefit that the "leader" can be replaced after some years and the followers would never know it since all they see is a mask and someone in thick robes.) It could be that this Anti-religious group created an army of followers in every major city that has the stated goal of removing the gods or atleast removing their ability to affect Verra. This organization just like the religions will grant you unique quest lines and rewards.
A post-launch Expansion idea at least.
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In case they didnt, well good job pointing it out
I also envision a scenario where the Faithless Ones actually succeed in being the most dominate "Religious" organization in that server which causes a world event where the Gods actually get pissed off at us. That if the majority of the server stops praying to them then instead of the normal scenario of just one or a few angry gods unleashing a beast on the world because they're pissed they are not the popular god, in this scenario instead we manage to piss off all the gods at once! So they actually temporarily unite to teach us mortals a lesson! and it causes the worst possible outcome of the most world boss mobs to spawn at once.
No you're right, if you shun the gods you won't be getting any of their specific buffs. But you would still be capable of doing magic because your "we don't believe in gods as our saviors" organization would instead believe that magic is just a natural thing that the planet Verra allows us to draw from it. Additionally, benefits from the quest lines and higher ranks within this Faithless organization would be more economic/political. Instead of a divine buff that gives you maybe resistance against dark magic, your buffs would be more like that you get a discount at NPC vendors or the cost of your caravans are cheaper, so bonuses that are man-made instead of divine bonuses.
Alternatively you could worship him directly like satanist rebel against god by worshiping the devil. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is already a thing.
If the Gods don't believe in me I won't believe in them.
I do like your idea as well!
In history, man would look up at the sky and see the moon and assume it was put there by the Gods, or was the Gods. They had no explanation.
For that reason I think that, rather than an atheist faction, we would see factions spring up in support of new Gods, or perhaps of beings that are wanting to supplant the Gods of Verra. Devil's, perhaps, or some sort of being of another realm.
And come on. The white masks are clearly right out of Game Of Thrones.
Tldr: Heretics yes. Atheists no.
If I lived in the world of Verra, I would stupid not to believe in at least something. I mean magic and deities would be all around me. It would be less about "faith" and more about not neglecting the obvious in front of you.
I think the most you can be in that world is someone who recognizes that there are these very powerful entities that have a lot of influence over the lives of mortal. But unlike others you don't think they should be blindly obeyed, served or worshiped. Any of them. You might pretend.. but really are looking/researching a way to fight them off... somehow. You are striving for a godless world for better or for worst.
^^^This guy gets it^^^^
It's A GAME. its a FANTASY based GAME. If you don't want to raid, don't raid. If you don't want to PVP, then don't PVP. If you don't want to worship any of the Gods, don't. If you're so hardcore RP you want to start a little atheist religion and walk around denying the core mechanic, cool. Just because a game has an aspect you don't like doesn't mean change a system or in this case, change the system the ENTIRE back story is based on. It is impossible to please everyone 100% of the time, there is at least one thing everyone will not like. This game is being built a specific way and if you don't like it, don't play it, it's not for you. Verra is a fictitious world, the Gods exist, 7 good and 3 bad, they interact with you from time to time through questing and the storyline. The gods are the ones who teach you to harness the essence, allowing you to use magic.
Please stop trying to inject reality into something meant to be a fictitious escape from a world full of responsibility, stress, and drama just like this.
The same way "Flat Earthers" and "Anti-Vaxxers" exist in a real world where FACTS prove them wrong.
You are welcome to the cause
IRL I'm religious and I feel the same way.
I agree with what @loghan is saying, an anti-religion organizations are bound to exist in any world. My only fear is that the choice might become too popular, because that's the kind of creatures humans are ...
LOL yeah that was my inspiration. I mean I was making up ideas on the fly...
On your point that the people of Verra wouldn't have reached a stage yet to have a belief yet in anything other than gods, my only retort would be that we've seen a couple of cosmetic building skins that show very impressive telescopes / observatories. And then you have airships as a discovered technology. I think Science has taken root well enough to start a spark of atheism where if a citizen of Verra was greatly hurt, and needed "someone" to blame for their misfortune (since of course they do not want to look inward and see they have only themselves to blame), they may, as incorrect as it may be, seek out anything, any organization who answers the corrupting whisper in their mind of "why do bad things happen to me despite me always being a devote worshiper of Norlan, Resna and Shol?"
Enter stage left: The Faithless Ones. An organization who's publicly stated goal (though not their true goal) is to create a home of like-minded people who are fed up with the games of the gods, who see the power of Science as equal to the Divine. In truth though, I imagine the leaders of this organization are as corrupt as many leaders are, religious or not. They use their followers to push their own politics within the node and so as a member the rewards you get are related to being better at some of the science based trades/skills and barter with certain like minded groups.
And ultimately, such an organization would be a victim of their own success. If they were to get large enough to actually annoy the gods, then they would be struck down by holy and dark champions manifested by the gods. Since, I fully agree, Verra is very much controlled by very active and very much alive Gods.
Yes, but even in our world there has been a conflict between science and religion throughout history. Galileo was under house arrest because of his theories. Even until the 19th century it took brave men like Darwin to come out with scientific evidence.
I am not totally up on the lore of Verra to date, but if the Gods are indeed revered then I think it even less likely a huge movement would uprise.
It's a nice idea though, and I still think there could be some sort of worship of another powerful source at some point.
Maybe a quest could be designed as part of the religious system to investigate a religious splinter group. That way you idea could be part of Ashes, even if it is not a major mechanic.
That's alot of time (thousands of years) for the people to not be surrounded daily by the divine displays of magical powers and instead be surrounded by displays of power that Science creates and the pride they can feel knowing the power comes from their own hands and their own inventions which further lures them away from a feeling of needing the gods at all. (which is ironic because how quickly they forget they are living on Sanctus which is a safe place possible only because of the care of the gods, and that they got there through divine gateways made by the Goddess of Creation, the Phoenix) This might then explain why the eight above-ground races might think they are better off believing in a non-god religion, they have only just in the last couple years returned to Verra, surely they must atleast for a couple generations cling to their more science based beliefs formed back on Sanctus. Naturally the daily displays of the beauty and horror that are now on Verra would change their minds, now that a relationship with one of the gods can be much more real.
Then there's the Tulnar...
I'm curious if the Tulnar would especially be a group of people who would lean towards having a religion that is anti-god. I imagine many of them felt abandoned by the gods (it must be a strong feeling amongst their people because they call themselves "Tulnar" which stands for "the forgotten") and for thousands of years survived in the underrealm absent of the five Gods, as the Gods themselves had to leave Verra to escape the Corruption. (But again such Tulnar non-believers would be foolish because the underrealm itself was created by the Goddess of Creation as a semi-safe place because the goddness knew not all would make it through the divine gates so she tried her best to protect even those lost children)
I'll end the wall of text with, there are 7 religious organizations (6 primary + 1 Underrealm), "The Orders of the Seven" but there are only 5 "good" gods (Love/Creation/Fate/Hope/Truth) so what are the other 2 organizations? One is very likely to be the "evil" religion that follows the Ancients/The Others. But maybe the 7th is the non-god / Faithless religious organization that may be headquartered out of the Underrealm?