[Lore] Worldbuilding Part 5: Religion & Alignment

Hawk the Slayer and friends

    Since I've had a bit of a break from gaming lately, I've been using that time to continue fleshing out how I handle religion, as well as alignment, in my campaign.  One of my favorite fantasy movies is Hawk the Slayer, the story follows a legendary hero and his companions who team up to save an abbess from the clutches of the evil Voltan.  Although the movie never explicitly states that the nuns are Christian, it heavily implies it.  Plus, Hawk wears a cross necklace throughout the movie.  Now, in my own setting, I had already decided that I want the Great Church to essentially be the Catholic Church as its depicted in popular culture, similar to how they handled it in Hawk the Slayer.  

    The question I had though was whether the humans and demi-humans would both belong (or could belong) to the same religion.  My answer is yes, but the vast majority of followers will still be human.  This is mainly because the demi-humans rarely travel to the cities of men and so there isn't much in terms of cultural sharing between the races.  Demi-humans also tend to be too proud of their own ancestry and culture to convert to a "human's" religion even if that religion is universal.  I'm thinking of having players roll to see which religion they are a part of.  Human clerics have to be of the Great Church while other human characters might have a 6-in-10 chance of being in the Great Church or belonging to some other religion.  Demi-humans could also have a 1-in-10 or 1-in-20 chance of being in the Great Church rather than their own ancestral religion.  Also, while clerics have to belong to the Great Church, they are free to make up their own patron saint to pray to.

    I've also decided that each alignment has its own chief deity that created all other lesser gods of that alignment.  So, while characters might worship different gods they can still be unified in alignment.  The Great Church claims to worship the God of Law directly and that the other Lawful religions have simply mistaken His servants as "true" deities.  This allows for clerics to try to convert others without making it a big issue, since even clerics of the Great Church recognize other Lawfuls as being on their side, for the most part.

    Additionally, the Cult of Evil Chaos essentially functions the same way that the Great Church does but for Chaotic (Evil) characters.  Monsters can have their own race-based deities but many get converted by Evil priests and end up worshiping demons in the service of the God of Chaos.

    And as for how I want to depict the God of Law and God of Chaos, I was thinking of using a phoenix for the God of Law and a serpent for the God of Chaos.  It's got the Christian symbolism that I think is cool and also ties into Robert E Howard's "The Phoenix on the Sword" with Mitra and Set (which also has elements of Christian symbolism).  The Holy symbol for the Great Church will still be a cross but the Cult of Evil Chaos will probably have a ton of evil and ancient symbols to choose from, the most common being a pentagram.

    Overall though, I plan on keeping things vague for the players and having the clerics focus on their patron saint above all.  I'm gonna try and keep my worldbuilding on religion limited to what I have here until I actually need to develop it in game.  That way the religion further resembles the type of fantasy I like, with it being visible in the background but generally pretty vague in details.  Plus, this also allows the players to have a bit of freedom with who and how their characters worship.