11-10-2014, 03:36 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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11-10-2014, 10:31 PM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Charlotte, North Caroline, United States of America, Earth?
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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No, seriously, I don't see any reason for the Abrahamic god's worship to continue after an apocalypse. After-all, the Worship of Nerhuz, Mitra and Ishtar have all died out.
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11-10-2014, 10:53 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
Well, yes : ).
That's fair (although for some settings with this scenario "apocalypse" is a little strong) though Mitra isn't the best example as figures descended from him are still present in religions. That raised the question of how best to extrapolate what sort of new religious movements will appear since, after all, they don't appear out of nowhere but are created out of the context of previous religious environments. |
11-10-2014, 11:05 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Charlotte, North Caroline, United States of America, Earth?
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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But depending on what your major history breaker is, that determines what religions may or may not make it. And what belief structures. And philosophies.
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11-10-2014, 11:09 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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11-10-2014, 11:12 PM | #16 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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11-10-2014, 11:40 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Charlotte, North Caroline, United States of America, Earth?
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
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My point, I guess, is that most Americans won't know. Most people I know are flabbergasted when I point out that several traditional "christian" myths, are actually myths associated with Wothan or Hermes. Traditions can definitely evolve and change in ways that don't have to easily expose the past. But if you use iconic historical figures, don't be shocked if people connect the dots. Or, just change it. Mitra can become The Dude. Like I said, it depends on how far back we go. Mitra is more well known than Diewoz or Essus. What about a religion founded by heavy metal and radical islam? That could be fun.
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11-11-2014, 12:15 AM | #18 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
Just as important is that "mangled" future versions of modern religions, no matter how realistic, are more likely to anger players than completely made up belief systems.
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11-11-2014, 04:51 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
It rather depends how much time you want there to have passed. The frankly ludicrous amounts depicted in NUMENERA or the slightly less ludicrous amounts of backstory in TEKUMEL? Or what?
Two things give away the fact that you're dealing with a later version of Earth more than any other: geography and language. You can have as much fun as you like coming up with religious and social customs that are unfamiliar but the fact that someone is called William or Apollo is hard to explain. And if the culture has enough tech to do a decent map... So what I would do is take what historical 'real' Earth gives us and twist it. First, as it's a post-apocalyptic setting decide which obscure and out of the way group survived purely because they were poor and not sitting on top of what other people wanted. Then use their names, religion and customs as the root for your world's history and legends. Mutate them as much as you need to, secure in the knowledge that most of your players aren't going to be professional anthropologists. Secondly, while you could use the continental drift to alter coast lines that is (I believe: I'm not a professional geologist specialising in plate tectonics) going to happen on a scale that probably takes us beyond the likely lifespan of the human race. The possibility (perhaps probability) of global warming would do the job for you up to a point. There are maps on line that should show you the likely new coastal outlines. I would propose something more radical however. I once ran a fantasy game set on a parallel Earth where the rotating globe had shifted through ninety degrees so that the South Pole was over Mexico City. This exposed Antarctica and made it into an island continent and the whole thing was very different in climate and orientation. The whole campaign took place in the Amazon basin but an Amazon basin that was temperate rather than tropical. How about you borrow that and say that the thing that triggered the apocalypse was some piece of superscience that tilted the Earth and destroyed most of human civilization?
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Michael Cule,
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11-11-2014, 07:23 AM | #20 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth
When she wants something to sound unusual, my life mate looks up translations in Basque. I think that's how their unique language survived the Indo-European spread; live in a resource poor harsh mountainous region.
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brainstorm, cartography, gods, player knowledge, religions |
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