So my wife sent me this today concerning her PK:


I’m thinking Bran might start experiencing a crisis of faith. He’s been dealt all this mess with Brennus, had two fires, a kid died and one of his best friend, Rhys, is pagan. He might be receptive to switchin’ sides. He does have a 15 in Love of God, but he only has a 2 in Religion.

I love the fact that she is trying to do something proactively that springs from the inner life of her character. But I'm not sure what t do with this. I don't want to arbitrarily lower her Love (God) trait that she came by honestly. I think I'm gonna have her knight consult with his chaplain, who will talk about the Trials of Job and so forth — maybe give her a Religious check for her trouble. Maybe I'll do a Spiritual roll with a Love (God) passion roll to see if Bran can regain any inspiration from the deity. If she fails or Fumbles, maybe she gets a check in Worldly. I'd be grateful for any other ideas. Maybe the chaplain recommends a pilgrimage?

We're just about to do St Albans in 495. If she thinks things are bad now — Oy...


Thanks,

T.

So my wife sent me this today concerning her PK:

I’m thinking Bran might start experiencing a crisis of faith. He’s been dealt all this mess with Brennus, had two fires, a kid died and one of his best friend, Rhys, is pagan. He might be receptive to switchin’ sides. He does have a 15 in Love of God, but he only has a 2 in Religion.
I love the fact that she is trying to do something proactively that springs from the inner life of her character. But I'm not sure what t do with this. I don't want to arbitrarily lower her Love (God) trait that she came by honestly. I thinks I'm gonna have her knight consult with his chaplain, who will talk about the Trials of Job and so forth — maybe give her a Religious check for her trouble. Maybe I'll do a Spiritual roll with a Love (God) passion roll to see if Bran can regain any inspiration from the deity. If she fails or Fumbles, maybe she gets a check in Worldly. I'd be grateful for any other ideas. Maybe the chaplain recommend a pilgrimage?
We're just about to do St Albans in 495. If she thinks things are bad now — Oy...

I think you are handling it quite well.
A fail or fumble there might also reduce her Love (God)--perhaps not in the rules, but certainly an appropriate reaction
Also, the most popular pilgrimage in Britain would be to the shrine of St Albans...

You are so lucky. ;)

This is a great opportunity for an adventure where her Love(God) is crucial to success. You could use something like the Trials of Job as a way to test her christian ways. Another option is to let her become pagan, but not reduce Love(God) yet. Let it happen slowly as time progresses. Of course this gives you several options to test the resolve of the character. Is she truly a pagan and from time to time the Love(god) will shine through. Remember that she probably has good christian traits and it is one thing to say you are pagan and another to really be pagan. There are some traits that contradict (chaste/lustful and modest/proud). Maybe if she is confronted with these contradictions she will understand that she is still christian? A third option is that the Love(God) transfers to another diety. In other words what is God for the PK. Maybe one of the pagan deities represents her love (God).

Thanks, fellas. This is what I did last night:

Teacher Brugyn (The PKs chaplain, who is old, but very easy going and kind) can’t help but notice Bran’s depression and asks what’s troubling him.

After listening carefully, Brugyn suggests that God has not abandoned Bran, and asks if Bran recalls the story of Job (Roll Religion 2 — FAIL). Bran says no, sheepishly. Burgeon tells the story and how everything happens according to God’s plan, even though we cannot see all ends. Brugyn suggests Bran confess his sins to ease his conscience. Afterwards, the chaplain pronounces penance and suggests Bran should try to draw even closer to God through prayer and says he will pray for him as well.

Now comes a chance to do something with this important Gamemaster character:

Roll Bruygen Religion 11
Critical: +5 to possible Spiritual roll for Bran (below)
Success: Bran makes a Spirutal roll
Fail: Not inspired, no roll for Bran
Fumble: Bran makes Spiritual roll at -5

Burgeon got a normal success, so Bran got to make a Spiritual roll to see if he inspired by the chaplain's counsel.

Roll Spiritual to try to get inspired. You may roll Love (God) Passion if you want (she declined to do so and made a straight roll).
Critical: You are divinely inspired by a vision. Come up with something so you can describe what you saw before our next session. Check Spiritual.
Success: You are inspired. Check Spiritual.
Failure: You fail to be inspired. Check Worldly.
Fumble: Incease Worldly by 1

She got a normal Success, and so got to check Spiritual.

While the army was mustering at Sarum, I gave the players a list of twelve things to do in their "down-time" (choose ONE that represents how you'll spend most of your down-time):

1.) Carousing (Choose one: Indulgent/Intrigue/Proud rolls, with check possible on a crit)
2.) Socializing/Networking (Choose one: Intrigue/Proud/Modest roll, with check possible on a crit)
3.) Gaming
4.) Worshipping (Religion or Spiritual roll and possible check)
5.) Hunting
6.) Birding
7.) Whoring (Lustful roll and possible check)
8.) Shopping (Worldly roll and possible check)
9.) Gossiping (Intrigue roll and possible)
10.) Dog fighting, Cock fighting (Cruel roll and check)
11.) Fasting (as purification ritual) (Temperate roll and check)
12.) Nothing. Check Lazy.

My wife chose Worshipping and got a crit on Religion! So I allowed her to check Religion (now a 2) for the time she spends in Sarum cathedral. But Bran also spent some time talking to Sir Rhys, a recurring Pagan NPC and friend from the "Beast of Imber" days, about his religion and why he's not a Christian.

I thought it went pretty well! This is not the last of this thread, I don't think. Next session is St Albans. Sir Brans's going to have even more reason to question his faith!


Thanks,


T.

Well played.

I think the combination of Love(God) 15 and Religion 2 could allow Bran to become pagan. He has a strong sense of faith in some deity, but his lack of religious knowledge means that he's not really clear on which deity. His faith could be directed away from the Christian God to some other religion. It could turn out that his personal concept of 'God' is really more in line with a pagan goddess like Morrigan. Depends where the player wants to go with it.

Well played.

I think the combination of Love(God) 15 and Religion 2 could allow Bran to become pagan. He has a strong sense of faith in some deity, but his lack of religious knowledge means that he's not really clear on which deity. His faith could be directed away from the Christian God to some other religion. It could turn out that his personal concept of 'God' is really more in line with a pagan goddess like Morrigan. Depends where the player wants to go with it.


This is particularly true if we're referring to British Christianity which has its basis in Pelagianism. If the knight were Roman Christian it would be less of an option. if i may add a counter point.The thing we often forget in Modern Life is that for the residence of a Manor daily Mass is not only expected but also nearly compulsory from a social perspective. There are people that will claim that Christianity still supports a dominant place in society even today whether not you want to believe that claimed all leave to you but imagine that claim times 10

one of the reasons King Clovis or any of the Dark Age kings such as Æthelberht of Kent was because of the explicit support of the church structure and the residual Roman laws that became customs within the church. To not attend church was to reject Divine Right to rule and place in the great chain of being.

I'm not trying to say that you can't convert the love of God passion to a non Christian deity. it's your game you can do whatever you want what I am trying to say is that modern thinkers seem to forget that Europe had to fight. a Series of extremely bloody extended Wars to get to the level of theological nonchalance that were used to today in Western society. So even with a religious roll of 2 a critical failure would be required to fail to remember a trait which would be applied to a Christian deity which would not be applied to a pagan deity such as omniscience.

I think one of the most interesting things about pagan deities is that they have very human characteristic.s considering the misfortune that has befallen the character I could see a conversion based on the idea that whoever is running the world is clearly flawed.

Maybe it's just my own perspective on theology but, it seems to me that someone with that high level of love God passion, given the social and political impact of religion at the time. Would be at least aware of the fundamental elements of faith for the given culture. Which would include radical nonpagan thoughts such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, that would make conversion to paganism a willful choice rather than a slippery slope type situation


TL;DR: i really like the idea of conversion but i dislike the idea of transferal of love god

If I were the game master in this situation I would allow a 3 point drop in love God during the winter phase as long as the Knights actions willfully rejected the Christian doctrine I would measure this by whether or not the character had chosen lust over chastity pride over modesty and intemperance over temperance. The reason for the last is not because it's a pagan trait. But because it's an anti-christian trait. In this case it would represent enjoying the revelry of everyday day engagement in the simple pleasures of the world that comes with the pagan world view. But I imagine someone willful rejecting Christianity for paganism especially without understanding the nuances is going to go to excess particularly, given the characters great misfortunes of late

Just my $5 worth in $0.02 coins

Great ideas, SirCripple. Thanks for joining the discussion!


T.

This is particularly true if we're referring to British Christianity which has its basis in Pelagianism. If the knight were Roman Christian it would be less of an option.



I'd agree the switch from British Christianity might be more likely. However, many of the Christian holidays coincide with pagan ones, and I think the transfer is easier than you might expect. Christmas is the same day as the celebration for Sol Invictus, Easter is named after a Germanic spring fertility goddess, it is easy to confuse Michael the Archangel (God's messenger) with Apollo (messenger of the God's), and Mary clearly takes on aspects of 'mother nature' and fertility. I think Augustine even commented on pagan to Christian converts actually still worshiping their old gods but that it was ok because their children and grandchildren would be Christians.

All depends on how you want to play it. I think a character with a low understanding of his/her religion (Religion 2) could easily be confused about which god or goddess (s)he is worshiping. He doesn't understand doctrine and probably bases his Love in part on what he interprets the personality of God to be. Makes switching and vacillating reasonable if you suddenly realize that personality is actually Manannan (or whatever). However, a strong Love passion might over-rule the low Religion. The character doesn't necessarily understand the doctrine but shows a true love that supersedes knowledge. That would be pretty appropriate for several Arthurian knights.

I've always preferred Pelagianism...

NT