RW style priestly rituals and GURPS effects

[tantric]

I'm looking for a source that describes real (not DF) style rituals for priests, such as baptism, marriage, house blessing, last rights, etc, and their GURPS effects. I suspect it's in Religion, but I can't find my copy. A general list of RW rituals would also be great.

[jason taylor]

Why not the wikipedia?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Why not the wikipedia?

I don't think wikipedia has incorporated GURPS effects into all of their pages yet. But they should.

[Dwarf99]

It also helps if you make your own gods to come up with origin stories. For example, the dwarven goddess of Drink and Hearth (Inebra, in my world, where the word inebriated comes from) was challenged by a human adventurer to a drinkinng contest for her hand in marriage (or for him to be transformed to a form befitting of her image). He lost, so she transformed him into a dwarf. He tried again and did better, but still lost. Impressed by his efforts, she married him anyway.

That's where my dwarves come from, why males make laws, but females are judges, why dwarf weddings break out the drink long before the reception, and so on.

But that's all fictional. Real world accounts don't have to be modern, Anthropological journals discuss the rituals and whatnot of dead cultures so they might be inspiring.

[Dwarf99]

As for GURPS effects, whatever the effect is can be expressed as a point value. Then you can buy Divine Favor levels and purchase the effects as Alternate Abilities (mostly affliction)

A wedding Vow is no more than 5 points (a Perk if you're in an 'open relationship')
Funeral Rites are probably an affliction of a Perk.

A house blessing I'm not sure about.

Being "not excommunicated" is assumed the default and isn't worth points. Hard to say what it's worth as an affliction.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't think wikipedia has incorporated GURPS effects into all of their pages yet. But they should.

Most real world religious rituals are ceremonial rather then magical in intention. Their effect will primarily be social. A rite of passage will remove Social Stigma(minor) for instance.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

A wedding Vow is no more than 5 points (a Perk if you're in an 'open relationship')

Obviously depends on the society. In a Jane Austen setting(where they had different words for "open relationship") it can be the difference between social success and social failure.

[tantric]

In this setting, many of these rituals will have real effects - bad things happen if you skip them. Living in an unblessed house leaves you open for possession, last rights prevents the dead from rising as an angry ghost, the raising the dead ritual, done a year after burial, turns the dead into an ancestor that can be contacted, getting married without a blessing makes you a taboo breaker, etc. Since 'priest' is a default character type, shouldn't there be a resource that deals with realistic priestly rituals rather than 'Sticks to Snakes'? I would expect Banestorm to have this, but I can't find it.

So, let's list a few: baptism/bless birth, christening/naming, marriage, last rights/lay to rest, extreme unction, ritual purification, confession and absolution, sanctify ground, circumcision*/life stage initiation, sacred oath, sacrifice (animal, etc), consecrate ritual item

Bantu cultures have rather specialized rituals for funerals and spirit raising, but I have a good handle on these. I'm creating a holy book for Bantu Traditional Religion, which has two sections on rituals, the Book of Mortuary Rites (done) and the Book of Rituals (which I need help with).

*WTF am I supposed to do about female circumcision/FGM in a Bantu setting?!? At this point I'm saying that it's just a nick to draw blood with no tissue removed. In NO case will I allow any of the the extreme versions, but there has to be some kind of ceremony.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Most real world religious rituals are ceremonial rather then magical in intention. Their effect will primarily be social. A rite of passage will remove Social Stigma(minor) for instance.

Yeah, they're often about marking the transition from one phase of life to another, or purification.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by tantric

In this setting, many of these rituals will have real effects - bad things happen if you skip them.

How blatant are those effects? Does it make being a non-believer completley illogical?