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Old 07-20-2018, 11:45 PM   #1
b-dog
 
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Default Buddhist monks in Dungeon Fantasy

How to make a Buddhist monk for use in Dungeon Fantasy? I would think that enlightenment would be different than the Divine. Enlightenment would give understanding of the true nature of reality while the Divine would grant holy powers to the cleric. The Buddhist would try to escape the endless cycle of death and rebirth by attaining moksha or liberation from desires while the cleric would appeal directly to the deity he or she worships to join Him in heaven. The Buddhist desires to go to Nirvana which is outside of Heaven and does not need to even have a deity. The Buddhist achieves this by himself while the cleric needs the Divine to achieve this

The Buddhist would have a different take on the Infernal than would the cleric. He would see the demons as being trapped into a spiritual samsara where they are held by their hatred, envy, sadism and lust. He would attempt to sooth their negative energy with the peaceful Buddhist energy which would cause the demon to become weakened but not through violent holy energy like the cleric but instead through peaceful energy that nullifies the demon. The Buddhist may even be able to get the demon to escape samsara.

Magic and wizardry would also be thought of as being part of samsara. Magic requires understanding spells and the channeling of magical energy to because of this it is not truly real. Thus the laws of gravity are an illusion and so the Buddhist understanding this is able to ignore them and thus can fly. The Buddhist is also able to understand the true nature of reality and would thus be able to see through deceptions and magical illusions. He could see a persons past lives and understand their weaknesses because he will know how the laws of Karma shaped him in this life from the past life. The Buddhist could understand the everything is changing and thus be able to control this and allow healing at a much faster rate than naturally occurs. Theses are some ideas, anyone have any others? Thanks,
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Old 07-21-2018, 03:32 AM   #2
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Default Re: Buddhist monks in Dungeon Fantasy

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How to make a Buddhist monk for use in Dungeon Fantasy?
As a cleric. Details of religious beliefs would be handled by roleplaying and choice of skills/spells.
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Old 07-21-2018, 06:38 AM   #3
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As a cleric. Details of religious beliefs would be handled by roleplaying and choice of skills/spells.
Or as a Martial Artist (the Shaolin monks that inspired the D&D Monk class are after all Buddhist monks).

Or as any other class whatsoever - anybody can after all adopt Buddhism, or for that matter most other religions.

Or as an NPC with no adventuring relevant skills at all, which is how you should model most professions that approximate real world ones, religious or not. Arguably monks of almost any sort would have responsibilities and vows that would keep them from going down into holes in the ground to kill things and loot their possessions.
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Old 07-21-2018, 09:50 AM   #4
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Default Re: Buddhist monks in Dungeon Fantasy

Although Dungeon Fantasy isn't Yrth/Banestorm, some of those assumptions can be used. Assume that the populace came to this world from elsewhere. Groups where dropped down in choppy clumps, a village here, a monastery or nunnery there, ships and travelers lost and strangely found.

The conventional dungeon fantasy world is based either on Tolkien or Howard, well just dump a Buddhist Monastery with a powerful and charismatic abbot in charge into an area of confusion and fear. Let the abbot unify the people. The local churchmen and the pagans can't talk to each other, but the Buddhist monks can.

Several centuries later, a Buddhist monk is just a monk with a slightly different culture. He has a rivalry with the Christian monks, but they behave themselves as a matter of honor.

Now, Buddha forbade miracles, so the Buddhist monks don't use miracles. However, they'd be practical about magic and practical skills. Buddhist monks would be up front Wizards that the locals could trust for esoteric knowledge and pragmatic assistance.

Picture a small isolated village beset by orcs. The Buddhist monk doesn't simply smite the orcs, he asks, "Why do these orcs attack here?" and "How do they do it?" Then he would analyze the problem and snip it in the bud.

So your Buddhist Monk would be a war mage optimized for strategic thinking and information gathering.
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Old 07-21-2018, 12:26 PM   #5
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Buddhist Singing Bowl. When chimed this bowl dispels any mind control on the listener. It allows lucid thought for as long as the bowl vibrates.
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Old 01-04-2019, 11:09 PM   #6
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The powers of the Buddhist monk are enlightenment or the understanding of the true nature of reality. This is not magic but understanding that life is but an illusion and all of the desires of the mortal world bind man into samsara and never ending suffering. Buddha was the first to discover a way for a mortal to break the never ending cycle and enter Nirvana. The powers of the Buddhist monk are cosmic and on par with the Divine. He does not need to petition to a deity for powers his powers all come from enlightenment of the true nature of reality. In effect he has short circuited the plan of the Divine. There is no need for needless war between good and evil. Evil is but a manifestion of desires and by releasing evil from its attachments and desires it is easily overcome. A Buddhist monk can enter Nirvana with the need to pray to deities or to serve them but to follow what is the eightfold path. The Buddhist monk can serve the Divine but he is able to achieve Nirvana without the Divine.

All reality is illusion so an enlightened monk can see through deceptions and magical illusions as magic is a lesser power than enlightenment.
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Old 01-05-2019, 08:51 AM   #7
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All reality is illusion so an enlightened monk can see through deceptions and magical illusions as magic is a lesser power than enlightenment.
That doesn't really make sense. Seeing through an illusion means distinguishing it from reality somehow, if reality itself is an illusion....

Though I don't think "illusion" means quite the same thing in Buddhism. It seems more like the Platonic "accident". Reality is an illusion is less about denying things have existence external to the observer, and more about what you observe about them isn't true or important - it's not their "essence"

I feel like lesser forms of Enlightenment should be about allowing you to see truths about things (more like Empathy or Divination or Aura Sight) than immunity to a school of magic.
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Old 01-06-2019, 07:05 AM   #8
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The powers of the Buddhist monk are enlightenment or the understanding of the true nature of reality. This is not magic but understanding that life is but an illusion and all of the desires of the mortal world bind man into samsara and never ending suffering. Buddha was the first to discover a way for a mortal to break the never ending cycle and enter Nirvana. The powers of the Buddhist monk are cosmic and on par with the Divine. He does not need to petition to a deity for powers his powers all come from enlightenment of the true nature of reality. In effect he has short-circuited the plan of the Divine. There is no need for needless war between good and evil. Evil is but a manifestation of desires and by releasing evil from its attachments and desires it is easily overcome. A Buddhist monk can enter Nirvana with the need to pray to deities or to serve them but to follow what is the eightfold path. The Buddhist monk can serve the Divine but he is able to achieve Nirvana without the Divine.

All reality is illusion so an enlightened monk can see through deceptions and magical illusions as magic is a lesser power than enlightenment.
Just as the Shaolin monks developed highly practical fighting skills that let them defeat their foes without unnecessary killing and minimal violence, Buddhist monks in a magic world would learn those spells that allowed them to resolve difficulties without excessive pain or pointless suffering. Magic is an illusion be a Buddhist, so is everything else. Using illusions both to relieve suffering and to show the illusory nature of the world would fit many different Buddhist teachings.

Given the presence of spells of illusion, I could see Buddhist monks becoming highly skilled in such magic as a way of teaching people about the illusory nature of reality. In our real world's history, Buddhists monks specialized in medicine, to relieve suffering, and exorcism for the same reason. So Buddhist monks with skills in Illusion, Healing, and spirit magic, make perfect sense.

Buddhist monks, like Christian monks, even though their ideals are different, find ways of being useful to and protective of local communities. Heck, I could see both Buddhist and Christian Monks (and Nuns, all of this applies equally to nuns) becoming practical Wizards focused on those magics that serve and protect their communities.
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Old 01-06-2019, 07:10 AM   #9
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That doesn't really make sense. Seeing through an illusion means distinguishing it from reality somehow, if reality itself is an illusion....

Though I don't think "illusion" means quite the same thing in Buddhism. It seems more like the Platonic "accident". Reality is an illusion is less about denying things have existence external to the observer, and more about what you observe about them isn't true or important - it's not their "essence"

I feel like lesser forms of Enlightenment should be about allowing you to see truths about things (more like Empathy or Divination or Aura Sight) than immunity to a school of magic.
Still, if, with my teaching homily, I cast an illusion, and show and teach that the world itself is merely a greater more sophisticated illusion, I might make progress in my teaching. Buddhist monks have often used the metaphor of theatre, especially shadow puppets, to teach about the illusory nature of the world. In a magical world, why not cast a spell of illusion to teach about illusion.
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Old 01-06-2019, 08:48 AM   #10
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Default Re: Buddhist monks in Dungeon Fantasy

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That doesn't really make sense. Seeing through an illusion means distinguishing it from reality somehow, if reality itself is an illusion....

Though I don't think "illusion" means quite the same thing in Buddhism. It seems more like the Platonic "accident". Reality is an illusion is less about denying things have existence external to the observer, and more about what you observe about them isn't true or important - it's not their "essence"

I feel like lesser forms of Enlightenment should be about allowing you to see truths about things (more like Empathy or Divination or Aura Sight) than immunity to a school of magic.
I just sort of see the illusion as something obscuring the true nature of reality. It is true that the Buddhist monk should progress to higher and higher levels of enlightenment. With simple deceptions and magical illusions being overcome at low levels while the laws of reality themselves being able to be overcome at higher levels of enlightenment.
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