Mythosa Design Notes III: Religion

The previous incarnation of Mythosa took a cue from White Wolf's Scarred Lands and had a religious system based on the nine alignments. At one time I liked this but I eventually found it somewhat limiting. As such, I wanted to open things up a bit. I was also reading Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories and thought that it might be cool to have a world dominated by dark powers (evil gods, demon lords, etc.), with very few, if any, good religions. Interesting but ultimately a little too dark for my tastes. On the other hand, I still liked the idea of a limited following for the "good" deities - it's a built-in plot device for clerics and paladins, giving them a reason to proselytize and crusade for their religion.

I also liked the idea (hardly original) of a dichotomy between the "primitive" nature religion ("Faith of the Old Mother") and the "civilized" religions (the "New Gods"). Often the nature god/goddess and druids are simply relegated to the "neutral" square of a campaign matrix. They have some unique traits but everything tends to fit together in a nice package. I liked the idea instead to have a genuine philosophical conflict between the two, particularly since it's not the standard "good versus evil". George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice has something like this (RuneQuest comes to mind as well, though they take RPG religion to an entirely different level).