Minor deities or local forms of major deities?

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Knight of the Lady
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I have a question in regards to religious expression in the Old World. I am making preperations for a game in an area where I decided that these guys are a bit crazy about the classical inheritance of the Old World. Thus official stuff often gets a Greco-Roman look, there's a theater for classical Tilean plays (mostly, they do some other stuff as well), being able to speak Classical is kind of a must for high society and so on. They don't have toga parties but its almost there.

But with the background out of the way, my question is about this. Given their craze for the classical past, how would they deal with classical cults? The way I imagine it is that I'll take some stuff from RL Greco-Roman religion and mythology, give it a Warhammer spin, and then bring it into the setting. But my main question is that when these guys start up all manner of classical cults and build Greco-Roman/Classical Tilean-ish temples, which they don't really know much about when it comes ot it, is it likely given the general way religion works in the Old World that these are brought in as minor deities or as aspects of major deities?

This is taking place in the Empire but outland of the Reikland, if its of any use.
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hallucyon
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Knight of the Lady wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 8:55 am But my main question is that when these guys start up all manner of classical cults and build Greco-Roman/Classical Tilean-ish temples, which they don't really know much about when it comes ot it, is it likely given the general way religion works in the Old World that these are brought in as minor deities or as aspects of major deities?
Your post is a little bit long-winded and confusing. If I understand you correctly, you are asking whether locally-worshipped gods are minor deities or aspects of major deities, am I right?

Well, in the first-edition setting the answer is explicitly stated in the rulebook on p. 193 in the Minor Deities section. These local gods can be either minor deities or aspects of major deities. So it is entirely up to you, as a gamesmaster, to decide if a local cult worships an independent entity or just a specific incarnation of some popular god.

Unfortunately, the Strike-to-Stun forum is long gone as there was, if my memory serves me well, a whole thread dedicated to this problem. Perhaps someone has saved it on his or her hard disk drive and can share it.
Knight of the Lady
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Yes, it may have been the long-winded but the basics I want to get the answer; Is it more common/normal to go with aspects of major deities or minor deities? I know I can do as I wish, but I thought that I should check some other perspectives in before my decision on this.
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Orin J.
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i don't think there's really one community preference over the other, either. both are fun to use and neither is particularly offensive to the lore. really you can leave it ambiguous in the face of quite a lot if you don't want to pick one. i mean if anything should be cryptic and opaque to the players it's gods.
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Wyrmslayer
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The 2nd ed' Tome of Salvation had some interesting splinter groups of the main deities.

A 3rd option could be a long-dead, local sainted devotee of a deity. Revered for their local connection, or that they were the one that brought the greco-roman influence.

Used to be more made of the divide between southern/city gods and the northern/rural gods. The southern ones like Verena and Myrmidia would be ideal for your purposes.

Could introduce an element of something fishy into the background of it all. Perhaps the revered individual was really trying to subvert the Sigmarite faith in an attempt to weaken the Empire, or folding in additional new strictures that nurtured cultists.
CommanderCax
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Both is common, but it seems to also be a matter of perspective. The major cults often say lesser deities are aspects of their major deities. The minor cults at times accept this, but at times see it as heresy. I somehow remember in the old Realm of Chaos it is more or less stated that all deities are aspects of the warp (i.e. warpstorms) with sometimes overlapping spheres of influence...
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Orin J.
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CommanderCax wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 2:34 pm Both is common, but it seems to also be a matter of perspective. The major cults often say lesser deities are aspects of their major deities. The minor cults at times accept this, but at times see it as heresy. I somehow remember in the old Realm of Chaos it is more or less stated that all deities are aspects of the warp (i.e. warpstorms) with sometimes overlapping spheres of influence...
...jus' wanna slide in there and mention this information is portrayed in the book as the opinion of chaos followers, and should probably not be viewed as probable fact. them folks crazy.
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Hyarion
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They would join social clubs with rituals somewhat resembling the actual worships performed by the ancient Tileans, but garbled, like how we would read ancient texts about something and get some of the picture but not all of it.

Even the names of these dieties might be confused. These new cults would have an equal chance of worshipping Xalinish (a daemon prince of Tzeentch, assuming he's still alive and not vanquished) or Juventus (a Tilean diety related to squigball) or Parenthesis, the ancient Tilean god of good grammar and pamphlets.
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Capitaneus Fractus
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CommanderCax wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 2:34 pm Both is common, but it seems to also be a matter of perspective. The major cults often say lesser deities are aspects of their major deities. The minor cults at times accept this, but at times see it as heresy. I somehow remember in the old Realm of Chaos it is more or less stated that all deities are aspects of the warp (i.e. warpstorms) with sometimes overlapping spheres of influence...
IIRC, in Warhammer, what mortals call "gods", "goddess", "spirits", & alii are more or less conscientious entities constituted from the reflects of souls amalgamated in the warp.

On the origin of gods, confer: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=144
and also, for primary sources, from Rick Priestley and Bryan Ansell: https://www.docdroid.net/obgv8Gj/chaos-doc-pdf
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Knight of the Lady
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Thanks guys, I think I know how to proceed.

I'll try to obscure the metaphysics for the players and add a political dimension with two factions, one that want the cults to be minor and see controllable by members of the elite and a faction that wants to see them either folded up or brought in under the control of the Classical gods' priesthoods. So far those wanting them to be independent are holding the upper hand.
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Overlord
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in Career Compedium for wfrp is reference in the Friar description for worship saints. There is also mention about Sigmar Brewmaster. So call it a minor destiction
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