For this month's column I decided to present a whole religion for use as you see fit. I opted to do so from an in-character point of view; I hope that you don't mind.

As you come over the hill you can see a series of small fields that stretch along both sides of the road. There are men, women, and children harvesting vegetables. A young girl runs over to your party and offers you some water, "To quench your thirst. May the blessings of the Mother be upon you." The people seem happy.

As the fields reach the walls of the city, you notice young men and women — wearing white robes — walking between the various buildings. Their heads held high with purpose or bowed in either prayer or contemplation. As you pass through the gate you can see that some of the robed figures are wearing colored stoles around their necks; blue, green, and red. Those wearing blue stoles are teaching assembled groups of men, women, and children. The topics range from language to math to raising crops.

Passing further into the complex, the sound of metal on metal can also be heard. Men — and a few women — are dressed in red robes or red armor and drilling under the dwindling light of the sun with sword and bow and mace. Each wears the emblem of a torch on their shield or around their neck.

As you draw nearer to the main complex, the robes become blue and multiple languages can be heard while those wearing white robes with blue stoles carry large tomes. A few of those wearing blue robes ask about your travels and whether you have any news of the outside world that you are willing to share. One older man seems particularly interested in the history of the area.

Just outside the low wall of the temple proper you are stopped by a woman in a green robe who indicates that while you are welcome to stay inside the city, the interior of the temple is off limits for everyone except the faithful. You notice that the sounds of battle practice have ceased and that people are milling toward the temple for evening prayers. However, the priestess indicates that you are welcome to attend morning prayers if you desire.

In the center courtyard, there is an icon of the goddess worshiped here. She appears as a dark skinned woman standing in a pale green robe holding a book in her left hand. She wears a crown of gold and holds aloft a torch in her right. A young man wearing a white robe with a red stole passes by and explains that the torch represents the light of freedom removing barriers to body, mind, and soul. He explains that his goddess has no proper name — or at least not one known to anyone other than the high priestess. He says, "She is called Mother, the Mother of Exiles, and the Lady. She is the goddess of the poor and downtrodden and her followers care for the poor, lift up the tired and strike off the chains of slavery.

He further explains that he is in training to become a warrior to strike off the physical chains of slavery. He indicates that the warriors, called clerics, liberate the body while those wearing blue, known as magi, liberate the mind. The priestesses, who wear green, administer to the liberation of the soul. The white robes signify initiates while the color of the stole indicates the initiate's chosen area of focus.

He leads you to a squat structure that could serve as an inn, a barracks, a jail or a hospital. After a little thought, it seems apparent that flexible utility had been the primary goal; however, the ale is plentiful and the food passable. There is a discussion going on at a corner table among three initiates arguing over which of the seven virtues is the most important. Your guide reappears and explains that the seven virtues are guiding principles of the faith. They are Rectitude, or right action; Courage; Kindness; Diligence; Temperance; Honesty, sometimes called Integrity; and Loyalty.

The nuts and bolts

Hopefully, that little IC sharing of information was helpful. While I doubt that any of you would use that much exposition — unless your group likes exposition — you can see how filling in the gaps allows more details to paint a picture. Is this a dangerous cult? Is it a benign organization? Is there a dangerous cult inside an otherwise benign organization? Why would your initiate guide not head to evening prayer? Are his duties purely temporal rather than spiritual? The sub-plot hooks are there fore the taking.

While I'm willing to bet that most of you have guessed the inspiration for this deity, I thought it might be helpful to walk through the thought process as well.

I wanted a sun deity but not a carbon copy of the typical male sun gods. So, the easiest way to get away from that is to flip it; therefore, we have a goddess. However, making a female deity identical to a male one doesn't really work either. So, starting from female sun deity, I asked, "How would she interact with her faithful?" I decided that she would be more like a powerful woman and mother than a full on warrior. She would fight as needed but would focus on their complete well being. That led to the three pronged approach of body (warriors), mind (teachers) and spirit/soul (priestess).

Now, I needed some colors. Red seemed appropriate for warriors because of battle and bloodshed during war. Blue seemed appropriate for learning because I've been replaying Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and the learned ancient uses blue. White for the initiate was easy. Many faiths use white to symbolize purity and/or newness. The idea for colored stoles was borrowed from academia as well as a Christian tradition of the pastor wearing a different colored stole to indicate the liturgical season. Green for the priestess came later.

I needed a model for the physical nature of the goddess and hit upon the idea of using the Statue of Liberty. I've been toying with the idea of doing a post-apocalyptic earth game but set far enough in the future that my players would think of it as fantasy at first. Little by little, the idea that they are on earth could be rolled out to them. Also, I wanted to be able to use my work for a fantasy campaign so that I don't have to redesign it from scratch. Thus, I found myself facing the need to keep the religion open ended enough to accommodate miracles and/or magic but able to function without them if needed. Thus the separation between the various faces was reinforced. The "magi" could be mages but could also just be "the wise" among the faithful. The "clerics" could call down divine wrath but could also have more in common with the Knights Templar if need be. Ecclesiastical positions (priestesses in this case) could be either literally divine or merely taken on faith. Either way would work.

Next I needed some doctrine. I decided that a sun deity would tie worship ceremonies to the rising and setting of the sun. However, more was needed. Though not covered in the IC write-up, the Mother of Exiles came over the sea to her people as a symbol of her desire to spread liberty to all. If you know history, the Statue of Liberty did indeed come over the sea from France as a symbol of Liberty. The name "Mother of Exiles" was borrowed from the poem, "The New Colossus" which is now synonymous with the Statue.

What tenets of faith would this religion have? I decided to pool together both the traditional Seven Heavenly Virtues (Christian) with the Seven Virtues of Bushido (a warrior's code) and pick out those that seemed the most interesting. I think that it worked well.

Most of the rest of the details about this faith can be inferred from the tenets thus shown. Can a man drink? I would believe so since ale is served in the IC story. Can he buy slaves? No, not unless his intention is to free them through non-violent means. What would this faith think of prostitution? As long as neither party is being constrained in some way, it is probably fine.

Hopefully, this will help you as you look to creating more interesting layers of faith in your own games. Also, feel free to use this if you like.