Religions: The Book of Staves

Religion: The Book of Staves

Quoth the Bard Meridian (summary to follow):

Meridian: The Book of Staves is a lot like the modern Bible - there are books that recount ancient history, books of parables and stories with built in morality lessons, and books like Leviticus that spell out laws and codes of conduct (not, in general, as strict as Leviticus BTW). The Humans have basically "mucked with it" to make the All_Father the most powerful of the Gods beyond all doubt (in fact, much of the original material dealing with Braialla, etc is toned down or gone, and even the Titans are being minimized to maximize the All-Father). There is probably a Creed someplace within it that would serve a similar purpose to the Article of Faith. No, I haven't written it yet.

Funny you should mention the patriarch... Yes - like the RL Catholic Church, the Patriarch is elected by a college of Cardinals, and serves for life. The sitting Patriarch interprets this to mean "until permanent death," so it does indeed seem that the Holy Church is stuck with him, at least for the indefinite future. Given his indecisiveness and ambiguity on the Church's role in the post turning world, that has some Archbishops and Cardinals a little miffed. In fact, the first idea I had for an intriguey, RP event was to call a convocation of Church Guild Leaders to vote on the issue of whether canonic law should be revised - I can imagine an FC cardinal who wants to lead the Church to a more aggressive stance, trying to curry favor in return for votes...

As to whether or not we'll ever sanction a PC Patriarch, I'd say let the game cook a while, and we'll see if there are any players out there worthy of the job. It'd be interesting, that's for sure! Of course, any Guild leader can claim to be Patriarch if they want to - we'd just mirror the Middle Ages, when at the height of the schism we had three or four popes running around Europe, each denouncing the others as Anti Christ...

I hope these answers help! My advice to the Holy Church community (if there is one) would be to make up your own doctirnes as needed - if you like you can run 'em by me, and I'll see if they gell with my Holy Church "vibe." The Prelate and Crusader descriptions give the most feel for the Church, and if you start there and look at the history of Catholicism for inspiration, you can't go far wrong.

Original Post By: Trynian