Life Cycle

In this Clerical Error, I am going to be discussing character religious identity in the context of the life cycle, and designing rituals for use at major events in life. I was originally thinking of covering this material in my column on Sacred Time, but I decided that it was complex and important enough that it deserved its own column. The ceremonies and beliefs of a culture as regards to the transitions and milestones of life are essential for the self-identity of believers. If you have an NPC or a PC with any form of faith or religious identity, then knowing these ritual experiences will help you understand the way they would see themselves as a part of the faith. Also, they serve as good cultural world-building. A milestone ritual will say a lot about how a religion or culture views major facets of human life.

Naked, Bloody, and Screaming

Birth rituals do not seem like the kind of thing that would have much psychological impact on a character. It’s not like they remember it, or indeed, anything that would happen to them for the next couple years. However, the rituals surrounding the birth of a child into a community tell you a huge amount about how that community sees itself. It is worth thinking about, because it makes a good nutshell description of a faith.

The first thing that a birth ritual might establish is the personhood of the child. Not every culture believes that simply being born is enough to make you count as a person. Anyone who saw the opening of 300 knows that a newborn Spartan had to pass a physical inspection or they would be left in the open to die. Similarly, in ancient Rome a noble child was presented for their father’s inspection. If their father did not officially recognize them, they would suffer a similar fate. The ritual showed how the community defined being human, and knowing they passed through that sort of ritual would be an important part of a character’s self-image. A character who survived a rejection would have plenty of built-in angst.

Even in cultures that have a gentler birth ritual, it still makes a powerful statement about what role the culture sees for itself. The birth ritual makes the child a member of the faith, so the ritual will define what it means to be a part of that faith. If a religion believes they are in a special relationship to a deity, then that is what the ritual will show. Designing a birth ritual makes you consider the fundamental purpose of the religious community, which is an important part of a religious character’s identity. Even ex-religious characters will be influenced by that identity, even if just to rebel against it.

Our own culture, while generally nonreligious, still has a few rituals surrounding rite of passage. We mark the change from childhood or adulthood with such events as Sweet 16 (or 15), Driver’s License, and the most ritualized of all, Graduation. We recognize that this is a profound moment in life, and rite of passage stories are a major pop culture staple. However, it is difficult for us to understand the absolute, ironclad meaning of traditional religious rites of passage. In most faiths, until you go through the ritual, you are not an adult. It does not matter how old you are, or how much you accomplish. You are still, socially and legally, a child. It would be as if you were legally a child until the moment you walked across the stage and got your diploma.

This is the ritual that gives a character their identity as an adult, and is going to be one of the most psychologically important events of their life. Whatever their adult role in society is--profession, social position, gender identity, religious identity--it was made official in this experience. In societies where those roles are predetermined, rites of passage usually involve going away from the community and being taught the lore and secrets of their role. They might learn family stories, hunting techniques, crafting chants, class- specific prayers, gender-specific rituals, etc. In a society where there is more flexibility and choice in choosing social identity, the first part of the rite of passage would be some sort of searching rite. A child would enter the experience and discern their role, often through some sort of physically and psychologically exhausting ordeal, designed to elevate their awareness to supernatural levels. They would then have the symbols and knowledge of that role given to them, and return to the community as an adult with a specific place in society. Once again, even those who rebel from that identity are in some way defined by it.

A rite of passage is seen as a very supernaturally powerful time. The boundaries between child and adult are blurring, and other boundaries (the spirit world and the earth, the past, present, and future, etc) are blurred as well. This is what allows people to be open to supernatural discernment of their role, and is a great time for characters to either get or already have gotten visions/prophecies. Suppose you have a PC from a low-technology, nomadic culture. When he turned 13, the men of the tribe led him on a journey with the other boys of their age group out into the wilderness. The men taught them a series of songs and rituals unique to their tribe, and showed them how to carve the sacred masks of their gods. Finally, each boy was sent alone to suffer starvation and thirst until they had a vision. In that vision, one of the masks would appear, signifying the role they would play in the tribe. When they returned, they would receive ritual scarification showing that role, and take their place as a man of the tribe. Your PC, however, had a vision of a strange being unknown to his people. The elders interpreted this to mean he was destined to a strange destiny in a foreign land. He left his people unscarred, and traveled forth.

I Thee Wed

Marriage is the second major ritual that a character will probably be a conscious participant in. Beyond the obvious necessity for designing character weddings, these are useful for understanding a religions view on sex, gender, and lineage. Like birth rituals, weddings are a useful world-building exercise even if they never come up in-game. In most societies, marriage is seen in a more businesslike way then in ours. However, those same societies surround marriage with ritual. It is, after all, the joining of two family legacies into one. The exact mechanics and words of the ritual will reflect what the faith believes is the meaning of that joining. What is the relationship the spouses have to each other, what are the proper forms of behavior to each other- what has happened to those two people now that they have a new identity as part of a marriage? A good example of this might be the wedding ritual in Corpse Bride. A series of metaphors are acted out that show the role of the husband as loving, protecting, and caring for the wife. Another example is the wedding rituals for noble families in the Song of Ice and Fire series. The wife starts the ritual wearing a cloak embroidered with the symbols of her house, and then her husband removes it a puts on a cloak embroidered with those of his house. Of course, a matriarchal culture might have similar, gender-reversed roles.

Marriage is an act of spiritual union. For most religions, that union is a joining of two people into one. On a purely cultural level, that joining is of two bloodlines. In this joining, two (or more) people create a new relationship to each other, and like all relationships it includes a code of proper behavior. Husbands and wives are supposed to be a certain thing to each other, and so they are supposed to act a certain way toward each other. That relationship will reflect the culture’s beliefs on gender, sex, and love. Whatever a religion believes about those things will be expressed in its wedding rituals. Each spouse will perform ritual gestures where they take the persona of an ideal husband or wife- whether that persona is protection, obedience, mutual love, or something else.

Birth to Earth

We end as all things do, with death. Life their birth ritual, funeral rites are not going to have much direct psychological effect on characters. They’re not going to be aware of it, after all (of course, with PC’s that’s not necessarily true.) However, what a culture does at death says so much about what a culture believes about death and afterlife. Funerals give you a sense of those beliefs, and so they are worth thinking through. Funerals also give you a window on how a culture processes grief and mourning, something that most PC’s will experience at some point in the game.

It seems to me that there are two types of funeral rituals. The first I will call intercessory rituals. These are rituals that can in some way help the dead. Whether you are influencing divine judgment, helping secure a favorable next incarnation, or providing for the needs of the spirit in the next life, these rituals provide the grieving with a way to stay connected to the dead. It can be through offerings, prayer, or other forms of ritual assistance. Securing that assistance would be a major concern for people on the edge of death, whether dying or going into danger. Providing that assistance would be an important duty done for loved ones. In fact, the extravagance of the assistance offered would be an indicator of a correctly lived life. The second type of funeral ritual I call memorial rituals. These are the culture where the ultimate fate of the dead is beyond mortal hands. Whether because divine judgment is implacable, or there is a universal afterlife for all, or even no afterlife for anyone, there is nothing the living can do for the dead. In this case, the funeral provides psychological closure by allowing the loved ones to remember and mourn the deceased. For example, a culture that believes in the importance of achieving glory in this life would have funerals that center on the great achievements of the dead. Other cultures might have funeral centered on the sharing of family stories or the public expression of grief. Once again, the extravagance of the ritual is a social indicator of a proper life. Whatever a culture believes a well-lived life is will heavily influence the rituals of mourning. The goal of a funeral, after all, is to try to fit the deceased’s life into that model as a psychological and social comfort to the living.

Rituals are acted out metaphors. They are a tangible way to interact with invisible forces. So much of our identity is based on being a member of intangible social groups-- profession, creed, people, family, etc. Our life is a series of transition and changes in our identity, and we need rituals to make those changes real. Designing rituals for the life cycle of your characters will help you get a sense of their self identity, and of their culture’s beliefs about how to properly live in all the stages of life.