D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Hates Religion (Spoilers)

[Steampunkette]

An always-benevolent god is actually rare in most religions, at least by my research, though others can disagree. The Christian God is really one of the very few whose believers maintain that it said God is a never-ending source of beneficial miracles and love. Look at the rest of the world and many gods, especially the highest in a pantheon, are very morally grey and, because of their almighty power, actually skewing towards evil-by-incompetence. Even the Christian God does incredibly wild things in the Old Testament (annihilating two cities, the flood); so, really, there is no religion I know of where everything is peaceful, loving, and beneficial. Most people fear their god(s) IRL just as much as they love them. If the gods are then actually made real and have direct impact on the world, then there has to be reason why these gods are fear -- they sometimes do things that have consequences that create said fear.

Or in other words, it wouldn't be true to the human experience IMO if gods in the FR didn't do messed up things from time to time.

I've been trying very carefully not to touch on real world religions in this thread to avoid a lock. But yeah. Gods tend to suck from time to time.

ALL of the gods in this game suck at the -same- time is the point. At no point is there an actually healthy relationship between worshipper and religion in the game. It's all trash all the way through.

The point isn't "Gods should never be bad and always be invariably kind and perfect" it's "isn't it weird that -all- of them suck in this particular storyline at the same time?"

Like. Not one has a wholly healthy relationship. The closest we get is Isobel with Selune but there's the whole "Daughter in Law" angle that kinda twists that up in a weird family power dynamic.

And it also doesn't even stop -there-. 'Cause you've got Karlach who has no deity she follows fully intending to go rot on the Fugue Plane for being Faithless. And Gale becomes a god and instantly becomes a distant and unhelpful jerk even though part of his goal in becoming a god was to do so to help people since Mystra wouldn't help him and asked him to destroy himself (and the Sword Coast) for her benefit.

Yes. I get it. The Greek gods also sucked. The Roman gods also sucked. Every pantheon has gods that suck and some of them suck pretty much all the time.

It's just -weird- that in this story -every- god sucks at the exact same time and there are no examples of gods who don't suck.

ARGUABLY Jergal through Withers, but he's not a god anymore and none of the PCs are part of his religion which is the whole thrust of the thread! He stepped down from both the throne of Death for Myrkul and from Divinity -completely- for the Dead Three together. Dude was a seneschal, an exarch. You could -maybe- argue he's a Demigod on the same sort of level as Hercules but for Deadness... but all he does is hang out with your party to provide gameplay-repair services and throw an afterparty like he used to do in Sylvania.

Unless we wanna acknowledge that other player companions getting put into Withers' Wardrobe while they're offline so you can grab three origin party members is canonically something that happens alongside the replacement NPCs and 100gp rezzes.

The only real story bit he actually does for you during gameplay is casts Revivify -once- if you're the Dark Urge. Though he does also advise Arabella, which is pretty cool, but it's to encourage her to bail and do other stuff on her own life-path rather than help fight the Absolute.

All of the religious figures in the game suck and betray their followers for their own goals. It's -weird- that that's the only relationships we really get to see.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've been trying very carefully not to touch on real world religions in this thread to avoid a lock. But yeah. Gods tend to suck from time to time.

ALL of the gods in this game suck at the -same- time is the point. At no point is there an actually healthy relationship between worshipper and religion in the game. It's all trash all the way through.

The point isn't "Gods should never be bad and always be invariably kind and perfect" it's "isn't it weird that -all- of them suck in this particular storyline at the same time?"

Like. Not one has a wholly healthy relationship. The closest we get is Isobel with Selune but there's the whole "Daughter in Law" angle that kinda twists that up in a weird family power dynamic.

And it also doesn't even stop -there-. 'Cause you've got Karlach who has no deity she follows fully intending to go rot on the Fugue Plane for being Faithless. And Gale becomes a god and instantly becomes a distant and unhelpful jerk even though part of his goal in becoming a god was to do so to help people since Mystra wouldn't help him and asked him to destroy himself (and the Sword Coast) for her benefit.

Yes. I get it. The Greek gods also sucked. The Roman gods also sucked. Every pantheon has gods that suck and some of them suck pretty much all the time.

It's just -weird- that in this story -every- god sucks at the exact same time and there are no examples of gods who don't suck.

ARGUABLY Jergal through Withers, but he's not a god anymore and none of the PCs are part of his religion which is the whole thrust of the thread! He stepped down from both the throne of Death for Myrkul and from Divinity -completely- for the Dead Three together. Dude was a seneschal, an exarch. You could -maybe- argue he's a Demigod on the same sort of level as Hercules but for Deadness... but all he does is hang out with your party to provide gameplay-repair services and throw an afterparty like he used to do in Sylvania.

Unless we wanna acknowledge that other player companions getting put into Withers' Wardrobe while they're offline so you can grab three origin party members is canonically something that happens alongside the replacement NPCs and 100gp rezzes.

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The only real story bit he actually does for you during gameplay is casts Revivify -once- if you're the Dark Urge. Though he does also advise Arabella, which is pretty cool, but it's to encourage her to bail and do other stuff on her own life-path rather than help fight the Absolute.

All of the religious figures in the game suck and betray their followers for their own goals. It's -weird- that that's the only relationships we really get to see.

Jergal still a God. Demigod after he stood down.

Karkach has free will the gods created the world their house their will. She doesn't have to follow any of them but the fugue plain is a consequence of that.

Personally I would just nominally pick Eldath or something.

They've always been depicted as Roman/Greek. As long as you're nominally faithful you avoid the Fugue plain. Even then the Fugue plain is more like hades than say hell.

 

[Steampunkette]

Jergal still a God. Demigod after he stood down.

He stood down 100 years ago. So Demigod. Still doesn't have a religion and none of the origin characters worship Jergal or follow his Religion which is what the core of the thread is about. So he still doesn't actually qualify.

Karkach has free will the gods created the world their house their will. She doesn't have to follow any of them but the fugue plain is a consequence of that.

Yes. She does. And it's kind of messed up they CREATED the "You don't worship me you are destroyed" angle. I don't want to point to any real world analogues to that, but y'know... that's abusive as hell. "Love me or suffer and be destroyed."

Personally I would just nominally pick Eldath or something.

I mean, yeah. But literally any god would do. Heck, with how Thirsty she is after 10 years in Avernus you'd think she'd be a quick convert to Sharess! Well. No. Sune because she's a romantic at heart who doesn't want to share.

They've always been depicted as Roman/Greek.

Which doesn't really help. Usually at least Athena is not a complete jerk in any story where the gods are messing around with heroic individuals.

All the religious figures in this story suck. Including Vlaakith who isn't -actually- a god but also is clearly a religious figure. So it's not even -just- gods, though it's mostly gods.

 

[Zardnaar]

He stood down 100 years ago. So Demigod. Still doesn't have a religion and none of the origin characters worship Jergal or follow his Religion which is what the core of the thread is about. So he still doesn't actually qualify.

Yes. She does. And it's kind of messed up they CREATED the "You don't worship me you are destroyed" angle. I don't want to point to any real world analogues to that, but y'know... that's abusive as hell. "Love me or suffer and be destroyed."

I mean, yeah. But literally any god would do. Heck, with how Thirsty she is after 10 years in Avernus you'd think she'd be a quick convert to Sharess!

Which doesn't really help. Usually at least Athena is not a complete jerk in any story where the gods are messing around with heroic individuals.

All the religious figures in this story suck. Including Vlaakith who isn't -actually- a god but also is clearly a religious figure. So it's not even -just- gods, though it's mostly gods.

That's more writers of the games fault than the Deities themselves. They have been portrayed differently.

Jergal stood down 1600+ years ago and he actually does have a religion. Obscure yes but that's why he's a demipower.

Kelemvor was the new dead God 100+ years ago.

 

[Steampunkette]

Jergal stood down 1600+ years ago and he actually does have a religion. Obscure yes but that's why he's a demipower.

Okay. Still doesn't matter because this is about the Origin Characters who are religious and their relationships with their Gods/Religious Figures/Whatever.

None of the characters in the game worship him so there is no Deity/Worshipper relationship to critique.

Kelemvor was the new dead God 100+ years ago.

You're right. Myrkul took over ages ago, Cyric killed him and Bane and Bhaal and then Kelemvor stepped up to be the Death God post time-of-troubles once Cyric was dethroned.

Big part of why I don't demand the writers know all the lore: I've been playing for decades and still get mixed up on which deity died or got replaced in which conflict.

That's more writers of the games fault than the Deities themselves. They have been portrayed differently.

Yes. That's rather the point. The Gods don't actually exist. They're figments.

It's weird that the writers chose to tell a story where there are no actually decent relations between people and their religious figures.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Usually at least Athena is not a complete jerk in any story where the gods are messing around with heroic individuals.

She turned her priestess into a monster as a punishment for being raped. Granted, that was invented by the Romans, so not part of the original Greek myth.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is has always been part of the Shar/Selune dynamic. Yes, Shar is cruel and bitter, but Selune is also a monster, and the only reason she's seen as a "good guy" is because of the pants-on-head stupid philosophy of "dark = evil, light = good." It goes right back to the FR creation story, where Shar and Selune are great pals, creating everythign in balance, then one of them gets aggressively ambitious, breaks their deal, starts making everything to her liking, gets pissed when her sister tries to undo it, literally destroys an entire world to push things her way, then rips out a piece of her own soul to form a weapon to try to commit the first murder against her sister about it. Shar isn't the one that did all that stuff. That stuff happening to her is the reason Shar is now the goddess of grief and loss. In any sane world, Selune is the villain of that story.

Which is actually a pretty cool myth. Once we remove the alignment we can appreciate the gods as weird and capricious mythological creatures the are. I have no issue with gods having questionable morals, I only have an issue with the writers insisting that they are objectively good whilst behaving so.

 

[Steampunkette]

She turned her priestess into a monster as a punishment for being raped. Granted, that was invented by the Romans, so not part of the original Greek myth.

I did say -usually-.

Though, yeah, in Greek Myth she was just one of three sisters that were all monsters and children of Poseidon. It was only when Minerva came along that things changed.

 

[Rystefn]

Err... that's not exactly what happened.

Jenevelle, Arnell, and Emmeline Hallowleaf were all Selunites living in Moonhaven village next to the massive Temple of Selune. As part of a rite of passage, young Jenevelle was tasked with finding her way home in the woods. But those woods were safe AF at the time. Also Jenevelle had to be, like, 10 at the youngest? 'Cause she's 40 in 1492 which is like 28 in half elf years.

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Honestly, she looks 10 in this cutscene and with half-elf aging that puts her around 13ish actual years of age. More than old enough to take a stroll through peaceful woods at night on your way home without it being child abuse.

The only reason they happened to not be safe that particular day is because Viconia and her Sharrans were coming to kidnap children and destroy Moonhaven and the Temple of Selune.

There's a "Missing" poster where several kids' names are listed on the western wall of the village, and various notes and journals, which explain it. Plus Arnell lets you know he caught a Sharran spy who spilled the beans, wolfed-out, and went to save his daughter. He failed, obviously... but the Sharran Attack is why they also have Emmeline, who did not race out into the woods to save her daughter. They had to go into the village to get her as they wrecked everything else.

Not sure why you went off on a tangent about the specific age of the little kids being abandoned in the woods, but yeah, probably around 10. Half elves don't start aging differently from humans until after puberty, and haven't for several editions at this point. Regardless, abandoning the kids in the woods and making them find their own way home is explicitly a rite of passage here. The danger is the point. Yes, it was more dangerous than they believed, but that doesn't make it "safe AF." It's not a "casual evening stroll." It just isn't. It's literally being abandoned in a strange forest without knowing the way home. Because the rite of passage in question is to find their own way home. And there are dangerous predators living in the forest in question. Again, that's part of the point. So once again: Yes, the Sharrans were attacking and kidnapping kids. But that would not even have been possible if the Selunites weren't abandoning them in the woods at the night. That is exactly what's happening, and it's a dangerous, toxic practice.

 

[Steampunkette]

Not sure why you went off on a tangent about the specific age of the little kids being abandoned in the woods, but yeah, probably around 10. Half elves don't start aging differently from humans until after puberty, and haven't for several editions at this point. Regardless, abandoning the kids in the woods and making them find their own way home is explicitly a rite of passage here. The danger is the point. Yes, it was more dangerous than they believed, but that doesn't make it "safe AF." It's not a "casual evening stroll." It just isn't. It's literally being abandoned in a strange forest without knowing the way home. Because the rite of passage in question is to find their own way home. And there are dangerous predators living in the forest in question. Again, that's part of the point. So once again: Yes, the Sharrans were attacking and kidnapping kids. But that would not even have been possible if the Selunites weren't abandoning them in the woods at the night. That is exactly what's happening, and it's a dangerous, toxic practice.

The village of Moonhaven was guarded by Elven Werewolves who routinely left once a month to go wolf out in the wilds away from their families.

I can't imagine there were that many dangerous animals left within a couple miles of the place.

As far as "Half elves age normally 'til they're adults" then that kinda poops all over any reason for them to not just live perfectly normally in Human communities, utterly destroying the "Trapped between two worlds" identity they've got. Because they're just as physically and emotionally mature as their human counterparts there's no conflict, there, aside from having pointier ears than your average kid in the village.