background: In my upcoming game magic is a newly introduced thing to the world. The explanation for it is that in a parallel universe of somekind the gods jetted after some kind of mass destruction and that brought them and magic to this new world breaking its balance and creating a kind of post apocalyptic setting (players wanted this). In this world there are worshipers of the old god who still view him as a god and view magic and the new gods as kind of the devil trying to sway them. in the starting portion of the game the players are going to witness an execution of a person who possesses magical abilities and afterwards they will overhear an argument between two groups of people. Those groups being the church members who viewed her as evil and a group of people who worship the newly introduced gods and see magic as their gift.
What im needing help with is ideas on how to express this conflict and how to involve the players (a half teifling warlock who is looking to get revenge on his patron for killing a loved one, a fighter warforged pirate who is looking for money and seeking whoever destroyed the ship he used to be apart of and his creators, and a humanoid bunny rouge who i don't have any backstory for yet). I see them getting involved in the conflict in some way, but i am not sure on how to expand on it and to make it somewhat meaningful. so if you have ideas please let me know.
Matt Colville has an idea in his world that magic is a force of Chaos, and its use breaks or weakens Law and Order. You could do something along those lines perhaps...
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Honestly it would be pretty easy to pull inspiration for this sort of thing from stuff like the Witcher series, or Dragon Age. There are tons of books and video game series that have various conflicts between religious orders and magical users. Even in our own history (although magic didn't exist unfortunately) we had plenty of witch hunts and inquisitions you could pull from.
Easy plot points would be underground rebellions or resistances that your players could meet or get involved with, burning at the stakes, maybe a 'sanctioned' magical order that is essentially enslaved. You could include things like devices like cuffs or collars or the like that could control a mage, or maybe the religious orders had some mages at the top that were approved, etc.
Personally I love to add Moran quandaries as well. Don't make things so black and white. For instance, sure are the religious orders are brutal in their methods but have the players meet some reasonable and charitable religious folks, and have them meet some mages that really do feel like their power permits them to do too much. Have them have to figure out if the means justify the ends, and write the story in such a way that it's not clear which side the players will come down on.
How does anyone get involved in a religious conflict? Sometimes the religious lines run parallel to ethnic lines (are elves inherently magic to the followers of the Old God?). Sometimes, it makes an easy-to-understand substitute for a complicated political issue. Sometimes the characters are born in one camp or another and sometimes they're radicalized. If one group or another takes something from the players (a ship, family land, something they needed to kill their patron, whatever), they might hold a grudge.
Overall, this doesn't sound like it's a conflict resolvable by the PCs. They also seem to have issues of their own they'd like to deal with. You may end up preferring to keep the conflict as a background feature of the campaign.
Are the non-human races new to this setting too or is it just magic? If it was just humans prior to your apocalypse, then any non-human folk might just be immediately associated with catastrophe and be ostracized from wider society. Or this may vary by race, I'm thinking tieflings would probably be more associated with the devil according to your church than say halflings.
Not really religion focused, but there is a sci-fi tv series Defiance that had some interesting points about the aftermath of a bunch of alien races suddenly showing up,triggering an apocalyptic event, and how society evolved from that.
I think what you want is to draw on your PCs' backstories to give them reasons to agree or disagree with one side or the other. Were any of them particularly religious or areligious before? What kind of things can magic do that weren't possible under the old religious system that could pull in that question of 'what good is your god if they still allow bad things to happen to good people?' If resurrection, for example, wasn't possible under the old god (or was it possible, if the old god might still have had clerics), that might be a draw for the warlock. Also, think about people who don't believe in either, or who have a different explanation for the new magic (technology, illusions). Nothing being black and white also refers to this -- there's not just two sides.
background: In my upcoming game magic is a newly introduced thing to the world. The explanation for it is that in a parallel universe of somekind the gods jetted after some kind of mass destruction and that brought them and magic to this new world breaking its balance and creating a kind of post apocalyptic setting (players wanted this). In this world there are worshipers of the old god who still view him as a god and view magic and the new gods as kind of the devil trying to sway them. in the starting portion of the game the players are going to witness an execution of a person who possesses magical abilities and afterwards they will overhear an argument between two groups of people. Those groups being the church members who viewed her as evil and a group of people who worship the newly introduced gods and see magic as their gift.
What im needing help with is ideas on how to express this conflict and how to involve the players (a half teifling warlock who is looking to get revenge on his patron for killing a loved one, a fighter warforged pirate who is looking for money and seeking whoever destroyed the ship he used to be apart of and his creators, and a humanoid bunny rouge who i don't have any backstory for yet). I see them getting involved in the conflict in some way, but i am not sure on how to expand on it and to make it somewhat meaningful. so if you have ideas please let me know.
-Manna <3
Matt Colville has an idea in his world that magic is a force of Chaos, and its use breaks or weakens Law and Order. You could do something along those lines perhaps...
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Honestly it would be pretty easy to pull inspiration for this sort of thing from stuff like the Witcher series, or Dragon Age. There are tons of books and video game series that have various conflicts between religious orders and magical users. Even in our own history (although magic didn't exist unfortunately) we had plenty of witch hunts and inquisitions you could pull from.
Easy plot points would be underground rebellions or resistances that your players could meet or get involved with, burning at the stakes, maybe a 'sanctioned' magical order that is essentially enslaved. You could include things like devices like cuffs or collars or the like that could control a mage, or maybe the religious orders had some mages at the top that were approved, etc.
Personally I love to add Moran quandaries as well. Don't make things so black and white. For instance, sure are the religious orders are brutal in their methods but have the players meet some reasonable and charitable religious folks, and have them meet some mages that really do feel like their power permits them to do too much. Have them have to figure out if the means justify the ends, and write the story in such a way that it's not clear which side the players will come down on.
Just my thoughts!
Wonderful, love what you said. thanks for the help!
How does anyone get involved in a religious conflict? Sometimes the religious lines run parallel to ethnic lines (are elves inherently magic to the followers of the Old God?). Sometimes, it makes an easy-to-understand substitute for a complicated political issue. Sometimes the characters are born in one camp or another and sometimes they're radicalized. If one group or another takes something from the players (a ship, family land, something they needed to kill their patron, whatever), they might hold a grudge.
Overall, this doesn't sound like it's a conflict resolvable by the PCs. They also seem to have issues of their own they'd like to deal with. You may end up preferring to keep the conflict as a background feature of the campaign.
Are the non-human races new to this setting too or is it just magic? If it was just humans prior to your apocalypse, then any non-human folk might just be immediately associated with catastrophe and be ostracized from wider society. Or this may vary by race, I'm thinking tieflings would probably be more associated with the devil according to your church than say halflings.
Not really religion focused, but there is a sci-fi tv series Defiance that had some interesting points about the aftermath of a bunch of alien races suddenly showing up,triggering an apocalyptic event, and how society evolved from that.
I think what you want is to draw on your PCs' backstories to give them reasons to agree or disagree with one side or the other. Were any of them particularly religious or areligious before? What kind of things can magic do that weren't possible under the old religious system that could pull in that question of 'what good is your god if they still allow bad things to happen to good people?' If resurrection, for example, wasn't possible under the old god (or was it possible, if the old god might still have had clerics), that might be a draw for the warlock. Also, think about people who don't believe in either, or who have a different explanation for the new magic (technology, illusions). Nothing being black and white also refers to this -- there's not just two sides.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Simple religion hates magic users as only the god/s should have that much power!
From Within Chaos Comes Order!