Tuesday, July 24, 2018

A tiny li'l ol' religion in the Guild-State (Traveller Tuesday #5)

I'm hoping that we roll up a religion that could fit as the Rose Brothers' semi-mystical worship of innovation. Let's find out!

This time we roll 3d6 to determine the religion's God View, and an 11 tells us that this is a crisis monotheism. So, one God who only intervenes at crucial moments in human history. Is it a form of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or something else? Well, the Spiritual Aim might help us narrow that down, and that's a roll of 2d6-2+(11-3)/3, or 2d6+1. We may indeed have the Rose Brothers' religion! The Spiritual Aim of this group is for believers to expand the frontiers of knowledge through inquiry and speculation.

Rolling a 9 on 2d6+4, we learn that this religion requires only bimonthly devotions. Another 9 (this time on 2d6+2) tells us that the religious hierarchy is a loose one with most decisions left to individual worshippers. Rose Brothers or not, this combination sounds like the clergy and religious hierarchy aren't really what you might think of as such, but are really just recognitions for advancing knowledge or achieving a depth of study ~ more collegial than priestly. We go on to determine that the bimonthly devotions are completely informal, open exchanges of ideas and concepts in a casual setting (14 on 2d6+2).

Now we get to the last test as to whether this can be “the” Rose Brother religion or just merely some spin-off splinter sect. I've got my fingers crossed that these three rolls result in at least a high five-digit number. Our first roll is on 2d6-2; it turns out that the religion has an ordinary Missionary Fervor and will accept any sophont among its ranks (rolled a 6). Though a recruitment drive of sorts exists, mostly by means of talks and panels rather than missions or proselytization, the majority of this religion's adherents are perfectly happy to not try to convert their friends. Sadly, this is a tiny religion, as rolling a 0 on 3d6-6 means that there's only a maximum of 9 members.

Rolling the dWikipedia for a name . . . how about the Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers? These (actually randomly generating the number) 6 elders, the oldest people in the Guild-State, still follow the religion of the Rose Brothers in its original form: that the omnibenevolent God of Mystery (Hamachis of the Horizon) can only intervene in human affairs when human ingenuity creates an opening for It to do so. Humans create such openings (is it a cosmological opening, the world torn asunder? Or is it psychological, opened by the wonder and panikon of future shock? These six remember fondly and with melancholy the days when that was still an active theological argument, if a bit of a tired one). They can only get together every other month to reminisce about the old days, discuss theology, and try to impress each other with their new ideas and inventions, but they never miss a meeting. And they're perfectly happy to tell others the Lost Secrets, but they recognize that history has passed them and their beliefs by. If they can't create the opening for Harmachis of the Horizon, then mebbe whatever has replaced their ways can.

So far, the religious landscape of Ishee involves:
4,966,607 sophonts (31% of the population) atheist/agnostic/non-religious
7,690,230 sophonts (48%) Liberty Fellowship of Spirit-Listeners
6 sophonts (essentially 0%) Lost Secrets of the Rose Brothers
3,364,470 sophonts (21%) not yet accounted for

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