My breakthrough with Religiosity in my DnD Campaigns
I have allways struggled seting up engaging religions in my campaings and in a recent oneshot I incorporated a form of religiosity i realy enjoyed and intend on expanding on.
I believe it usefull to seperate religiosity into 2 types. It should probably be more of a spectrum but this should surfice for this purpose.
Big Religion: Higher Power(s), that are powerfull beyond human imagination but only interact with the world in very indirect ways. Most modern religious believes i would put into this category
Smal Religion: Higher Powers, that are very much part of this world and have limited power. For example, a river inhabitate by a river god or city devoted to its unique patron deity that resides within its walls.
Over time i more and more moved towards having Smal Relgion present in my games. While i feel i can incorporate those a lot easier into my campaign i feel something is missing. A god(ess) that can be seen, touched, grants gifts and might even be slayen needs no believing in.
What i was looking for was a form of religiosity that requires believing in on the players part and still has an effect on the game beyond a philosophical outlook on the world. The idea i came up with was that there are 2 suns and depending on the believe one can only see one of them and believers have their day night cycle reversed. While i conceptually still like the idea it is a pain in the ass to constantly track for what npc it is currently day and night and it did not have that big an effect on the players. So i planned on ditching the idea after my current campaign is over. But then last week one of my players could not make it on a rather short notice i improvised a oneshot in the campaign world. The players encountered the atheists of my world. And in this world that means you can not see either sun. For them their is only night and they permanently carry lanterns and torches. They tell the players that while dificult, true mental clarity can only be archieved by abandoning the believe in the illusion of the sun. My players where partly mocking them and partly genuitly curios. I havent yet figured out how to further expand on this but i am eager to introduce further similiar forms of (a)religiosity into my campaign world.