The church of Belenus

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tomokaicho
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The church of Belenus

Post by tomokaicho »

In Ravenloft, why is the church of Belenus in particular populated with religious extremists? In Tepest, the followers of Belenus conduct an inquisition. In Nidala the mostly unconnected (to Tepest) followers of Belenus are on an intolerant crusade to wipe out 'evil' and equate evil with non-belief.

Any ideas?
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by ewancummins »

tomokaicho wrote:In Ravenloft, why is the church of Belenus in particular populated with religious extremists? In Tepest, the followers of Belenus conduct an inquisition. In Nidala the mostly unconnected (to Tepest) followers of Belenus are on an intolerant crusade to wipe out 'evil' and equate evil with non-belief.

Any ideas?
Sure.

Belenus was not part of Nidala or Faith-hold's background in the original published versions (Islands of Terror). My guess is the designers who added him to Nidala (in its later version) were casting about for a good-aligned deity already used in Ravenloft and settled on Belenus.

To my knowledge, the god first appears in Ravenloft in Castles Forlorn.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by Hamiclar »

First off I really like the religion in the both lands they exit in. The first Tepest has Belenus as primary god of intolerance goes back into Tepest history of fake history in its creation in Gaz 5 in the last of mist. They fey had declared war on Tepestians which were more Nordic in their culture setting but when coming to the mists the fey had been at war with man forcing them to come together and form a new culture from the old. Religion at this time was holding block for their culture. Prior to the GC it was more local in appeasing the fey and affirming they were not corrupting the populace, then came the GC which changed everything. The disappearance of Ghena and Markovia to east and south drove others to fear, and the religious again declared the fey were at war again but this time the righteous would attack and prevail which lead to cleaning of the populace with priests watching than appointing others as their religious soldiers hunting fey which in most cases would be traveling demihumans in which the populace would blame and most cases strike there hatreds at those supposedly guilty of this predicamite.

Nidalia is totally different in its current situation their land they had come from was in crusade which had turned dark attacking those not of their faith and later not fully human. Their leader had lead their army and was brought to mists and over time formed Nidalia which the church hunts those which the lord decrees as heresy and punished as such transgressions. The whole church its self was brought to the mists and would join it as cluster for their lords past which brought her to its current situation where its has lost its direction in the night.

To the answer above it was changed when the cd adventure was published.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by thekristhomas »

In the original black box rules (I've got a feeling it changed later), commune was only able to be cast by evilly aligned priests to evilly aligned gods, to some extent meaning that priests of good or neutrally aligned gods, such as Belenus, were without guidance.

This has lead to mission drift, if you will, in the priesthoods as they have had to rely on best judgement rather than divine truth. This has lead to most Outlander non evil religions to never really take off, the exceptions being Belenus & the Morninglord.

The Morninglord has also experienced some alterations due to Ravenloft, the church's image of the Morninglord himself is actually that of Jander Sunstar an elven vampire, which might cause something of a calamity in the church were it to come out (hmm me thinks another thread might be in order) and their attitude towards afflicted werebeasts is likewise effected by the church's early history.

In Nidala, mission drift is kinda the whole point, but dates to before Elena Faith-hold entered the demi-plane IIRC, she took her separation from her god as sign she needed to kill more unbelievers not less.

In Tepest, the Church of Belenus has only recently shifted towards extremism mostly because of the appearance of the Shadow Rift and growing incursions by the fey.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by Resonant Curse »

Not sure on release dates, but Belenus is the god of the land of Avonleigh pre-Ravenloft as shown in the novel Shadowborn. His church was still relatively benevolent as far as we saw there.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by Igor the Henchman »

I've recently started a Ravenloft campaign set in Tepest and one of the characters is a priest of Belenus. One of the aspects I'm playing up is the fact that the Inquisition's zeal appears at least somewhat justified. The players have so far witnessed several situations where evil fey kidnap or outright kill innocent people for fun, or turn them into grotesque monsters without a second thought. If the Inquisition didn't exist, the amount of fey-related attacks and other mischief would be much greater, and lots of innocent humans would die or suffer as a result.

Another aspect I'm trying to show is that most inquisitors of Belenus aren't fanatical killers at their core, they just do what they believe must be done to protect their communities. Most of them are unaware (or in denial) that innocent bystanders get executed as a result of their actions. However, a few especially fanatical members (led by Inquisitor Finn) are deliberately trying to stoke up fear and intolerance within the populace to gain political power and turn Tepest into a bona fide theocracy with themselves at the top. And while Wyan of Viktal is doing what he can to stop them from going too far, he hasn't been able to contain them, because despite his fearsome reputation, he's actually a prudent, timid kind of leader who is full of good intentions, but is in over his head when it comes to real politics.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by Gonzoron of the FoS »

In Forlorn, Belenus worship doesn't go the fanatic route, and I like to think there are enclaves of more reasonably Belenus worship in Tepest (and maybe even Nidala).
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by ewancummins »

It's been a while since I looked at anything to do with Nidala, but it might be interesting if the clerics of Belenus in that domain only received spells if their alignments matched , or were at least close to, that of their god.
If Belenus is NG, or N(g), then this would suggest a situation in which true clerics of the god are actually rare in that domain, or must operate clandestinely.
The darklord no doubt considers any priests who openly challenge her rule to be evil heretics.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Gonzoron of the FoS wrote:In Forlorn, Belenus worship doesn't go the fanatic route, and I like to think there are enclaves of more reasonably Belenus worship in Tepest (and maybe even Nidala).
True, but the Rowan faction tend to be overzealous and fairly certain their way is the right way, to historically horrific results- see Shelaugh's botched invasion of Castle Tristenoira. (Not that the Oak Faction is a lot more enlightened- their mistaking of why "the Fair Folk" are called the Fair Folk, for example.)

As for the Nidalan vs. the Tepestani Inquisitions, they have a few similarities in that they have more than their fair share of hurting innocents, and they're not the most tolerant people in the world. However, it seems like otherwise they're pretty dissimilar in structure.

Nidala's Inquisition is a tightly controlled and highly centralized machine. Everything goes back to Faithhold (or, if you use him as her major domo, Theokos), and she's got her mayor spies all over the place. Faithold is genuinely a totalitarian dictator, in that she wants to control the basics of how people live their lives, in such a way they may live "virtuous" lives. Faithhold is willing to mass-murder in the name of fraud and deception (that being Banemaw).

By contrast, I see the Inquisition of Tepest as frayed and decentralized, something of the opposite of the Nidalan inquisition. (The alignment of the average Inquisitor is Chaotic Neutral, for example.) Their problem is that they can get really worked up, and the infrastructure is not there to produce some universal guidelines on how to properly conduct fey hunts. (Wyan is developing written language from an oral tradition, but that takes time to develop ways you can communicate complicated guidelines, much less the guidlines themselves.)

I see the persecution of the innocent in Tepest a reflection of fear/flight-or-fight response, a stressful environment taking away mental resources to differentiate guilty from innocent, lack of proper knowledge/awareness, and perhaps an implicit desire to hold onto their own views in the face of evidence to the contrary. Of course, there are a few people of questionable intent that might feel more comfortable in Nidala's court, Finn being one of them. They may be putting Wyan out of the loop, though his strings of guilt sometimes push him there too. For his part, Wyan's seen what happens in G'Henna when the priesthood gets too powerful and in a few cases in Tepest some misplaced fervor as well. Thus he works to establish guidelines and limit/disconnect the Inquisition from power.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by ewancummins »

It's the name that might create confusion.

'Inquisition' calls up propagandistic or literary stories about the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course, the real Spanish Inquisition was actually a bureaucratic institution, which used torture less often than did the secular courts of the day, applied strict legal methodology in most cases, and was partly run by laymen. It's fascinating reading, but nothing much like The Pit and the Pendulum.

(The Roman Inquisition was even smaller in scope and less severe).


But maybe this is what Wyan wants? Just as Lesser Evil suggests.
He wants to take these disorganized witch-hunts with semi-literate priests leading mobs of yokels and turn it into a professional, fair (by his standards), consistent, organized effort.

An Inquisition.

Questions asked.

Answers given.
Last edited by ewancummins on Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by Igor the Henchman »

The Lesser Evil wrote:Their problem is that they can get really worked up, and the infrastructure is not there to produce some universal guidelines on how to properly conduct fey hunts. (Wyan is developing written language from an oral tradition, but that takes time to develop ways you can communicate complicated guidelines, much less the guidlines themselves.)
I don't know... In my campaign I've reasoned that the Malleus Umbricum serves as the tepestani inquisitors' field manual. Assuming it is similar to its real-life inspiration, it includes detailed instructions for conducting hunts and trials. I'm also presuming that all inquisitors are taught to read Wyan's new writing system, since (according to Gaz5) one of their duties is to write down which villagers attend church meetings and which do not. So the inquisitors IMO do have a (totally flawed) core of written tenets and practices they use as guidelines, but they don't have a lot of field supervision. At least, that's the way I have it set in my game.
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by ewancummins »

Igor the Henchman wrote:
The Lesser Evil wrote:Their problem is that they can get really worked up, and the infrastructure is not there to produce some universal guidelines on how to properly conduct fey hunts. (Wyan is developing written language from an oral tradition, but that takes time to develop ways you can communicate complicated guidelines, much less the guidlines themselves.)
I don't know... In my campaign I've reasoned that the Malleus Umbricum serves as the tepestani inquisitors' field manual. Assuming it is similar to its real-life inspiration, it includes detailed instructions for conducting hunts and trials. I'm also presuming that all inquisitors are taught to read Wyan's new writing system, since (according to Gaz5) one of their duties is to write down which villagers attend church meetings and which do not. So the inquisitors IMO do have a (totally flawed) core of written tenets and practices they use as guidelines, but they don't have a lot of field supervision. At least, that's the way I have it set in my game.

That makes sense, although Wyan must have had strong outside influences to produce anything comparable to the legal and theoretical sophistication of the Malleus Maleficarum.
Was he educated in another domain?

Nidala, perhaps...
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: The church of Belenus

Post by ewancummins »

But , really, while Nidala would be fun, I suspect a DM who wanted to stick closer to canon would not use that option.

Maybe Wyan went to university in a neighboring domain?
Nova Vaasa?

He studied there before he became a priest of Belenus?
He might have taken on some Vaasi prejudices while there.

Isn't Egertus rather more sophisticated than the rest of the domain?

MORE:


http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/w/in ... edirect=no

Well-intentioned types using semi-effective methods to hunt evil fay, and making some bad mistakes as they go.

I like it.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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