My answer to
this post was running long, so I figure it warranted its own post. As such, here's a bunch of nonsense about religion in a Retro-Futurist Fantasy setting.
I’m going to preface this by saying in the setting, there are no gods, due to editorial atheism. As such, all theistic religions are full of it and most likely trying to sell you something. There are idolatrous religions (ie, you worship something physical) that are true, but that’s because they worship things that exist and which have limited powers.
This isn’t all of the religions, just the ones your average person on Planet Mondo has heard of:
Lucianity, based on Christianity and Zoroastrianism
A trinitarian monotheistic Crystal Dragon Jesus faith cluster (a group of faiths that are essentially the same thing), with a solar flavor; the most powerful religion in the setting. They worship a “three-in-one” being, in three aspects, as some kind of Holy Trinity: The Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Glow.
- StarfatheGod. The supposed creator of the universe, and father of Lucina Sunday. Looks cool in art because he’s generally drawn the way the Judeo-Christian god is, except his hair and beard are made out of fire, so he ends up looking more like Surtr.
- Saint Sunday/Lucina Sunday. Redhead female Jesus, pretty much.
- Holy Glow. The Holy Spirit, pretty much.
Unusual Features:
- The taboo against the undead is the doing of these guys.
Primalism, based on Yazidism and Zoroastrianism
An idolatrous, henotheist-ish faith cluster where a monotheistic god is worshipped indirectly through one of three cosmic-monster emissaries: Ziz, Behemoth, and Leviathan. Popular among elves. Primalism tends to have a geographic concentration, with Leviathanists living on coastlines, Behemothists living inland, and Renaninists being in all sorts of wacky places.
- Renanism
The worship of Ziz, who is an enormous magical cosmic bird-thing and the self-proclaimed king of the sky. Renanism is a sky worship religion.
Unusual Features:
- Renaninists abstain from eating birds and theropods.
- Male Renaninists are expected to dress (and act) flamboyantly, to reflect male birds and emulate King Ziz; as such, they wear makeup, bright/tight/flashy clothing, do wacky things with their hair, and generally ooze camp.
- Female Renanists are expected to dress with “mild modesty”, to reflect female birds; as such, they generally strive to be “cute” rather than “hot”.
- Renaninism still has heteronormativity, they just interpret masculinity and femininity the way birds do.
- Popular among dragons.
- Behemothism
The worship of Behemoth, who is an enormous magical elephantine tarrasque thing and the self-proclaimed king of the land. Behemothism is an earth worship religion.
Unusual Features:
- Behemothism is popular among farmers, and farmers of other faiths tend to respect Behemothists just to avoid pissing off Behemoth.
- Behemothists don’t like to waste food, and get can get offended when they see someone else doing so.
- Behemothist shines are run by shrine maidens, the Brides of Behemoth. The Brides of Behemoth have severely distended abdomens due to eating ten times a day, to the point where they don’t even digest most of it. A permanent food baby is cultivated for religious purposes.
- Leviathanism
The worship of Leviathan, who is an enormous mermaid-whale-octopus-thing and the self-proclaimed queen of the seas. Leviathanism is a sea worship religion.
Unusual Features:
- Every Leviathanist knows how to swim.
- There have been religiously-motivated attacks by Leviathanists against individuals and organizations that pollute the ocean. These attacks tend to involve violence and murder inflicted with fishing and boating paraphernalia, or by forced drowning.
- Syncretic Reform Primalism
A more recent Primalist faith, a synctetic blend of Renaninism, Behemothism, and Leviathanism that arose in cities roughly seventy years ago where Primalist sects had to share temples due to high rents.
Unusual Features:
- Syncretic Reform Primalism tends to water down the traditions of Renaninism, Behemothism, and Leviathanism.
Druidic Animism, based on D&D Druids
A fringe green idolatrous religion that worships nature. Practiced mainly by druids, their followers, and people who shop at organic supermarkets. Druids are empowered by making pacts with nature spirits, being granted magic, spells, and power in exchange for guarding over a protectorate, a particular geographic feature, such as a river or a mountain. A druid on their home turf, is to a sorcerer what a sorcerer is to a mundane.
Unusual features:
- Adherents of Druidic Animism are allowed to have other religions.
Shaitanism, also called Satanism, based on Satanism and Zoroastrianism
The worship of Shaitan, the Adversary. A cartoonish take on Satanism, pretty much. Prone to theatrics.
Unusual Features:
- Frequently scapegoated.
- Tend to favor dark, macabre, and occult aesthetics just because.
- Appropriately enough, they can be very tempting and are quite good at sounding reasonable.
- Their analogue to LeVayan Satanists are similarly smug.
Tohoism, based on giant monsters.
The worship of kaiju, which are giant monsters. Tohoists view the kaiju as pinnacles of creation, engines of glorious destruction, and try to stay on their good side by offering sacrifices.
Unusual Features:
- Sympathize with giant monsters.
- Tohoists will blame giant monster attacks on feminism, pacifists, Shaitanists, and other windmills.
- Popular among certain organized crime gangs.
Wicca, based on...well, Wicca.
Wicca, pretty much.
Asatru, based on Norse mythology and Marvel Comics
Setting-transcribed Norse paganism.
Unusual features:
- Too cool to disinclude from the setting.
- Also, needed to explain the names of the weekdays.
- There are some nasty fascist/racist sects of this religion.
Demonism
The worship of various demons.
Unusual Features:
Old One Worship
The worship of eldritch abominations.
Unusual Features:
- I don’t have a name for this one yet.
So I made up a bunch of religions. Thoughts?