Eastern Marakiz information

[Avianmosquito]

This thread is to provide setting information in my next recruitment thread.

Eastern Marakiz is the human-controlled region on the continent of Marakiz. Marakiz is the "central" continent of Aelsif, as looking at it from the more populated side of the planet it appears to be between the other four, and in fact when the continents split the part that became Marakiz probably was in the middle of the supercontinent. That is, unless you believe that the largest continent, The White Unknown, was the main body of the supercontinent and everything else drifted north away from it.

Marakiz can be split into the human lands of eastern Marakiz, the goblin coast of western Marakiz, the grasslands between their southern reaches, the great desert north of that, the kobold coast at the north of Marakiz, and the great jungles at the southern end where the lizardfolk live in their primitive, isolated kingdoms.

The human-controlled region can be split into northern and southern halves, which are each under the heavy influence of a large nation. These large nations are very different, however, and there is no end to the fighting between them. While both the north and south have the same official state religion, they have drastically different takes on it and there's a huge difference in how important their believe their religion to be.

The northern half is largely secular, enforcing only a few religious laws and mostly ignoring their holy book when it's inconvenient to them while using it to justify their actions when need be. They own slaves under the justification of their religion and drive hard to increase profits for their robber barons against the word of their religion, but you may want to hear about the southern nations before you pass judgement. They have elected representatives instead of kings, though the fairness of the elections is debatable, they allow people to do many things that would be punished down south, such as drink alcohol outside of the temple and play music that isn't religious, and even the things they do punish for religious reasons they are much softer on and often turn a blind eye to. Sure, living in the north really sucks if you happen to be homosexual or don't want to wait for marriage, but it's better than the south's stonings and shotgun weddings.

The south is completely theocratic. It has a vice squad larger than the rest of its police force, whose entire purpose is to enforce religious laws, such as the prohibition of non-religious alcohol consumption, the ban on non-religious music, forcing those who have sex to get married or be stoned to death, stoning adulterers and homosexuals, the blaming of rape victims to the point where they are often forced to marry their rapist or stoned to death for adultery, and of course the execution of apostates, drug smugglers and arcane casters. These nations also fund fundamentalist groups in the north, including terrorist groups who attack establishments associated with acts against religious laws, such as brothels and taverns, and they are currently at open war with the heathen goblin inhabitants of the grasslands, the human homeland humanity abandoned millenia ago. And if you think they're better in terms of slavery, they're actually much worse.

Most of this comes down to the human religion, a monotheistic religion with a supposedly omniscient (but demonstrably not in their own holy book), omnipotent (again, demonstrably not in their own holy book), omnipresent (see above) and omnibenevolent (we'll get to that) creator deity. In practice, though, this deity is a war god at best, and his primary domains seem to be deceit and torture. The southern interpretation is entirely correct, their god really does want them to murder unbelievers, homosexuals and adulterers, force rape victims to marry their rapist (or kill them both if either of them is married), engage in chattel slavery and spread their religion through violence. If they don't, or if they disobey any of his laws, many of which are as ridiculous as not wearing mixed fabrics, he threatens to torture them for all eternity. This infinite torture is also applied to any who are not believers, even those who never heard of this deity, despite the religion saying their god specifically mind controlled non-believers to force them to be incapable of belief. (Isn't this god just a swell guy?) The bits about alcohol and music, however, are complete nonsense and nobody knows where that crap came from. (It was the church, trying to enforce monopolies.)

Thankfully, this deity is an outright fabrication, and any intelligent person who wasn't indoctrinated in childhood can see that. Not only is it horrifically inconsistent, but the laws of the religion and the way their holy book is written are very blatantly designed for effective indoctrination. Everything from the constant repetition that non-believers deserve to be tortured for all time, to the similarly constant repetition that they only don't believe because their god made them not believe, to the laws against homosexuality (to speed population growth) and the extreme hatred of the outgroup and urging them to take slaves and murder those that resist, these are all the methods you'd expect from an ancient cult the creator wanted to take over the world.

In case you hadn't guessed, the church in the south? Not your allies.

Also of note are the grasslands and their goblins. Tales of how they came to inhabit it instead of humans vary, but there was massive volcanic activity at about the time humans fled the grasslands. Humans say it was god punishing the goblins for stealing their land, the goblins say the volcanoes led humans to flee the grasslands and the goblins just moved in once the volcanoes died down. Either way, that was millenia ago and now the humans in the southern reaches are invading the grasslands to "take back" the land that none of them ever owned from people who were born there, and it's the one thing the northern and southern humans agree on and work together on, which is a big part of why they aren't openly at war. Expect to visit this region, by the way. And no, the goblins are not the third party supporting the theocracy.

[Shark Uppercut]

When we're not arguing about bipeds fighting quadrupeds, I like the setting.
I have one concern, tho.
I may be reading too much into this, but is the religion meant to be a parody/flanderization/critique of fundamentalist Christianity? Because that could be awkward, even if none of the players are Christians.

Just in case, I'd alter some details so it isn't just "Evil Christianity".
I.E, Warhammer 40k has humans be the "Evil Christians", but it's entirely secular. And it has future tech and psychics, so it would be distinct enough to not be insulting to Christians.
I haven't played Bloodborne, but I know a little about it. Do clerics ever risk turning into beasts? Does every item description have the word 'blood' in it? Do people use the bodies of Old Ones?
And then there's the jerkface preachers in Dark Souls 3. The Way of White is very Christian-like, but the first flame is very different than Jesus or God.

Is the third-party Old God related?

[Avianmosquito]

When we're not arguing about bipeds fighting quadrupeds, I like the setting.
I have one concern, tho.
I may be reading too much into this, but is the religion meant to be a parody/flanderization/critique of fundamentalist Christianity? Because that could be awkward, even if none of the players are Christians.

Just in case, I'd alter some details so it isn't just "Evil Christianity".
I.E, Warhammer 40k has humans be the "Evil Christians", but it's entirely secular. And it has future tech and psychics, so it would be distinct enough to not be insulting to Christians.

You're not far off, but It's a composite. I can't talk about real-world influences, so suffice to say Bloodborne's Healing Church was the largest fictional influence and I can definitely talk about that. The other two fictional influences are the Way of White and Church of Atom from Dark Souls and the east coast Fallout games, the former inspiring practices of a few religious organizations and latter directing some extremist sects' language and attitude towards their foretold fiery apocalypse and cavalier embrace of health hazards sane people would avoid if at all possible. But remember, the religion itself is not the point here.

I haven't played Bloodborne, but I know a little about it. Do clerics ever risk turning into beasts? Does every item description have the word 'blood' in it? Do people use the bodies of Old Ones?

In order:

1. In Bloodborne, the church's healing blood is the source of the beast plague and clerics consume the most of it and become the worst beasts. Here, the blood wine is just a shiraz wine, but the priests... Well, there's spoilers there, so let's stop at "yes, but the beasts are figurative".

2. No, there is an obsession in both Bloodborne and this setting with the blood of god, but it isn't mentioned quite that often. The horror is less blood linked than in Bloodborne, though. Voice is more important, that's a very prevalent theme in this setting.

3. In Bloodborne, the church's healing blood is the blood of the great one Ebrietas. The blood obsession here has no relation to any such entity and isn't even borrowed from Bloodborne.

Is the third-party Old God related?

No comment.

[esorscher]

Are there northerners who understand their god is a fabrication?

[Avianmosquito]

Are there northerners who understand their god is a fabrication?

Yes. There are northerners who practice other theistic religions, the gods of which are all equally fabricated, though they are rare. More common are atheists, both those who are not members of any religion and those whose religions are non-theistic (like the common religious practices of those in sohei). They are still a small, vulnerable and deeply detested minority, however. Even more common are non-believing practitioners, who take the religion in a strictly metaphorical and spiritual sense and don't actually believe skydaddy got bored and popped the world into existence last tuesday.

Also, sorry this said the southern church was the enemy. They aren't. I had another campaign in the same region set to go like a month ago, I just re-used this thread.