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Old 11-10-2014, 03:36 PM   #11
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
So you get rid of the oral tradition. As it turns out, various bioengineered plagues wiped out the bulk of humanity, and the various bioweapons (dragons and the like, naturally) remaining from the wars killed all the others. Well, except for the ones in cold sleep, but most of those units suffered serious glitches - the vast majority woke up with some brand of amnesia, and the only ones who didn't either died without passing on what they remembered or were atheists who were rather happy to see religion having died out.
Well yeah you can do that but a lot of the fun of this sort of scenario is how it organically results from it's beginning especially if the start is something like a quirky and highly unrepresentative colony. After a period of time the political organization, the material culture even the theology and changed enough to be at least different enough as a completely separate fantasy world. Then you tell the player the names of the gods worshipped and unless you've been very careful to find excuses for those to change or pushed the date farther to where the hints of it's past are now very faint everything falls apart. Working with real systems of thought allows much greater ease in producing deep flavour than separate creation and a chance to offer questions like "what kind of theology ends up being produced by these neighboring Sunni Muslim and Zen Buddhist groups?"
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Old 11-10-2014, 10:31 PM   #12
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Well yeah you can do that but a lot of the fun of this sort of scenario is how it organically results from it's beginning especially if the start is something like a quirky and highly unrepresentative colony. After a period of time the political organization, the material culture even the theology and changed enough to be at least different enough as a completely separate fantasy world. Then you tell the player the names of the gods worshipped and unless you've been very careful to find excuses for those to change or pushed the date farther to where the hints of it's past are now very faint everything falls apart. Working with real systems of thought allows much greater ease in producing deep flavour than separate creation and a chance to offer questions like "what kind of theology ends up being produced by these neighboring Sunni Muslim and Zen Buddhist groups?"
ZenSunni.

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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Old 11-10-2014, 10:53 PM   #13
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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ZenSunni.
Well, yes : ).

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Originally Posted by Verjigorm View Post
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.
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.
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Old 11-10-2014, 11:05 PM   #14
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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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.
I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who knows anything about historic Mitra.

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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Old 11-10-2014, 11:09 PM   #15
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who knows anything about historic Mitra.
There are still figures in modern religions descended from him with very close names.
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Old 11-10-2014, 11:12 PM   #16
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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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.
Pick a present-day new religious movement (Wikipedia has a useful list). Extrapolate it, fairly roughly, into a structure like that of a large-scale religion of today. Pick another new religious movement that arises out of a present-day large faith and try to apply the same kind of changes to your made-up religion. If it isn't weird enough yet, repeat the cycle.
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Old 11-10-2014, 11:40 PM   #17
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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There are still figures in modern religions descended from him with very close names.
I guess that would be Hindi and maybe the rare Zorasterian you find?

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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Old 11-11-2014, 12:15 AM   #18
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Default Re: Obscuring a Setting's Descent from Earth

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Originally Posted by Verjigorm View Post
ZenSunni.

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.
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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Old 11-11-2014, 04:51 AM   #19
Michael Cule
 
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Default 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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Old 11-11-2014, 07:23 AM   #20
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Default 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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