Faith Syncretism should do more

[Pigposting]

Crusader Kings has come a long way in making the interactions between faiths more than just through sword and violence, and I welcome its current direction. However, I think it could benefit from some more granularity without making it too complex to better represent its intermingling. Here are a few ideas that would be interesting to see:


-The Patron God tenet could be more accessible to more faiths and should incorporate patrons from the faith you syncretized with. Tenet and said patrons could be renamed Patron Saints, Prophets, Imams or etc, as appropriate. Perhaps a Christian faith having "Saint" Freya as one of their choices.

-Syncretic Folk Traditions could be broken down into different pagan faiths. Maybe not all, but just some that could warrant the extra distinction. Norse, Hellenic, Baltic, etc Syncretism comes to mind. With the appropriate virtue changes too.

-Syncretic tenets could "borrow" some aspects of the faith they syncretized with. It could be as simple adding their character name lists together, having their priests wear the apparel of the faith they borrowed from, being able to use their temples/holy sites, or just in the god names.

-Pagans could "reform" their faith with more lenient requirements in exchange for kneeling to a foreign religion's Head of Faith, and thus retaining some semblance of their folk tradition. Maybe only needing one holy site to do it, or maybe splinter to a new weaker faith instead of reforming the entire parent religion. For example, the kushite pagans accepting the Sunni Caliph as their Head of Faith, or the Mogyar Taltoists adhering to the Orthodox Patriarch, or the Tengrists considering the Taoist Celestial Master as their Lord of the Sky.

-Rite or Syncretic faiths can join Great Holy Wars. Not sure if this is a good idea, but the thought of Baltic Pagans joining the crusades sounds very fun.

-More love to default syncretic faiths. The Kuzarite "break free from the old ways" is a nice touch and I enjoyed it extremely. More please. Perhaps have them count-as members of the religion they syncretized with for the purpose of some events and decisions, such as forming Israel as the Conversos? Or Nestorians uniting India? Mending the Schism as *ahem*, the Priscillian Dualists?

-Interfaith societies. Maybe not in the form they had in CK2, but something that invokes the same experience. I did enjoy slumming it down in Norse Warrior Societies as a north german duke, connive with slavic, baltic and finnish pagans as the Cold Ones, or join the Hermetic Society as a newly-reformed pagan with the Astrology doctrine.

-Please make Taqiya interesting.

I encourage other suggestions, thank you.

 

[HistoryDude]

I like most of these ideas, but, uh, Saint Freya? Why not take inspiration from when this happened in history and merge saints with deities under a more mundane name? We have no "Saint Freya"s in history because it's really obvious that's really just worshipping a Norse goddess. We do have names (I think St. Brigid is an example in Ireland?) that don't sound like old divine names but got syncretized anyway.

 

[Pigposting]

I like most of these ideas, but, uh, Saint Freya? Why not take inspiration from when this happened in history and merge saints with deities under a more mundane name? We have no "Saint Freya"s in history because it's really obvious that's really just worshipping a Norse goddess. We do have names (I think St. Brigid is an example in Ireland?) that don't sound like old divine names but got syncretized anyway.

IIRC she was a celtic goddess, not a norse one. But yes, I was thinking of her when I wrote that. We have another example in the form of Santa Muerte but she's more than a thousand years apart. I think the devs are against the idea of reviving celtic paganism, but giving Insulars more flavors or expressions of heterodoxy would be nice.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I like most of these ideas, but, uh, Saint Freya? Why not take inspiration from when this happened in history and merge saints with deities under a more mundane name? We have no "Saint Freya"s in history because it's really obvious that's really just worshipping a Norse goddess. We do have names (I think St. Brigid is an example in Ireland?) that don't sound like old divine names but got syncretized anyway.

We had a Pope Dionysus - and he's even a saint if I remember correctly (since at the time you had to be outrageously bad as a Pope to not be canonised after death).

But if you found a "Saint Dionysus" in the histories that wasn't him, and had a cult of "unknown age", it would not be impossible that it would trace back to the Hellenic cultus. Or for this to be blurred with the Pope.

In a hypothetical situation where someone named (or known as, since it's a title/nickname as well as a name) Freyja/Freya became canonised for their lifetime it would be possible for the old cultus of Freyja to get attached, and then for the details of the saint to be lost to the old goddess.

Similarly to the case of Brigid/Brig being confused with the saint of the same name, and the saint acquiring many of the aspects associated with the old goddess, and some of her sites. Brigid of Kildare (the actual saint) appears to have been named for the Celtic Goddess, or at least to have had the same name applied to her if it was not her birth name.



Potentially you could also have Thor or Tyr replacing Michael in the Asatru/Christian syncretic setup, as "captain of the warhost" and "defender" of Heaven.
Heimdall, being the watcher at the gate of heaven and guardian of the bridge might also get conflated to one of the saints or angels that has a similar role - or in the syncretic version take gate duty from the conception of St Peter watching the gates of heaven.


Getting syncretic stuff right though could be an utter pain though. Not everyone would want to have the other god names coming through as saint (or alternate god names), whilst others might want to have at least the titles of the old gods and new gods applying across the board.
For example, Odin is known by many names and titles that involve wisdom - and so in a syncretic situation might also gather up the similar names from whichever pantheon they were syncretising with - or have his names passed on to the other god if the syncretisation is going the other way.

 

[blackjack419]

Crusader Kings has come a long way in making the interactions between faiths more than just through sword and violence, and I welcome its current direction. However, I think it could benefit from some more granularity without making it too complex to better represent its intermingling. Here are a few ideas that would be interesting to see:


-The Patron God tenet could be more accessible to more faiths and should incorporate patrons from the faith you syncretized with. Tenet and said patrons could be renamed Patron Saints, Prophets, Imams or etc, as appropriate. Perhaps a Christian faith having "Saint" Freya as one of their choices.

-Syncretic Folk Traditions could be broken down into different pagan faiths. Maybe not all, but just some that could warrant the extra distinction. Norse, Hellenic, Baltic, etc Syncretism comes to mind. With the appropriate virtue changes too.

-Syncretic tenets could "borrow" some aspects of the faith they syncretized with. It could be as simple adding their character name lists together, having their priests wear the apparel of the faith they borrowed from, being able to use their temples/holy sites, or just in the god names.

-Pagans could "reform" their faith with more lenient requirements in exchange for kneeling to a foreign religion's Head of Faith, and thus retaining some semblance of their folk tradition. Maybe only needing one holy site to do it, or maybe splinter to a new weaker faith instead of reforming the entire parent religion. For example, the kushite pagans accepting the Sunni Caliph as their Head of Faith, or the Mogyar Taltoists adhering to the Orthodox Patriarch, or the Tengrists considering the Taoist Celestial Master as their Lord of the Sky.

-Rite or Syncretic faiths can join Great Holy Wars. Not sure if this is a good idea, but the thought of Baltic Pagans joining the crusades sounds very fun.

-More love to default syncretic faiths. The Kuzarite "break free from the old ways" is a nice touch and I enjoyed it extremely. More please. Perhaps have them count-as members of the religion they syncretized with for the purpose of some events and decisions, such as forming Israel as the Conversos? Or Nestorians uniting India? Mending the Schism as *ahem*, the Priscillian Dualists?

-Interfaith societies. Maybe not in the form they had in CK2, but something that invokes the same experience. I did enjoy slumming it down in Norse Warrior Societies as a north german duke, connive with slavic, baltic and finnish pagans as the Cold Ones, or join the Hermetic Society as a newly-reformed pagan with the Astrology doctrine.

-Please make Taqiya interesting.

I encourage other suggestions, thank you.

I like the idea of Faith Localizing Patrons in Patron Saints - saints are famously diverse from different creeds, religions, or even regions. Or even referencing significant persons or prophets for other faiths.

Syncretic does need some change - I've only ever removed it from a newly made faith, never added, even for flavor.

 

[HistoryDude]

IIRC she was a celtic goddess, not a norse one. But yes, I was thinking of her when I wrote that. We have another example in the form of Santa Muerte but she's more than a thousand years apart. I think the devs are against the idea of reviving celtic paganism, but giving Insulars more flavors or expressions of heterodoxy would be nice.

Well, yes. I meant that the name wasn't exactly the same. I do agree with the Insular bit, though.

We had a Pope Dionysus - and he's even a saint if I remember correctly (since at the time you had to be outrageously bad as a Pope to not be canonised after death).

But if you found a "Saint Dionysus" in the histories that wasn't him, and had a cult of "unknown age", it would not be impossible that it would trace back to the Hellenic cultus. Or for this to be blurred with the Pope.

In a hypothetical situation where someone named (or known as, since it's a title/nickname as well as a name) Freyja/Freya became canonised for their lifetime it would be possible for the old cultus of Freyja to get attached, and then for the details of the saint to be lost to the old goddess.

Similarly to the case of Brigid/Brig being confused with the saint of the same name, and the saint acquiring many of the aspects associated with the old goddess, and some of her sites. Brigid of Kildare (the actual saint) appears to have been named for the Celtic Goddess, or at least to have had the same name applied to her if it was not her birth name.



Potentially you could also have Thor or Tyr replacing Michael in the Asatru/Christian syncretic setup, as "captain of the warhost" and "defender" of Heaven.
Heimdall, being the watcher at the gate of heaven and guardian of the bridge might also get conflated to one of the saints or angels that has a similar role - or in the syncretic version take gate duty from the conception of St Peter watching the gates of heaven.


Getting syncretic stuff right though could be an utter pain though. Not everyone would want to have the other god names coming through as saint (or alternate god names), whilst others might want to have at least the titles of the old gods and new gods applying across the board.
For example, Odin is known by many names and titles that involve wisdom - and so in a syncretic situation might also gather up the similar names from whichever pantheon they were syncretising with - or have his names passed on to the other god if the syncretisation is going the other way.

This also makes logical sense, but you'd need historical personages with similar names to exist first. I agree with the Odin & names bit.

 

[Pigposting]

Well, yes. I meant that the name wasn't exactly the same. I do agree with the Insular bit, though.



This also makes logical sense, but you'd need historical personages with similar names to exist first. I agree with the Odin & names bit.

Well, what if instead of mentioning the pagan gods by name themselves, they are called by plausible possible titles/archetypes? He's still giving you that +2 Stewardship +3 Prowess, but you're calling him "Captain of the War Host" instead of Thor. Nameless "generic" titles also allow some leeway on the naming/localization issue since there are many many faith syncretic combinations, so you could have an islamic faith with eastern syncretism calling Shiva the "Angel of Destruction" and no one would bat an eye.

 

[Salazard260]

-Rite or Syncretic faiths can join Great Holy Wars. Not sure if this is a good idea, but the thought of Baltic Pagans joining the crusades sounds very fun.

Not sure about syncretic faiths since GHW are based on faith not religion, but yes always found it weird insularists and mozarabs couldn't join catholic crusades. They should also share holy orders imo.

But that's probablky coming in a religion dlc.