Religion is a massive part of your World Building. Like Religion in our own world, Religion in fictional worlds are controversial, varied and are a huge part of our society. Put simply; your world is dependent on the complexity of your Religion to indicate how your people act, what their morals are and basically how they live. Interconnectivity is a big part of World Building, and Religion is connected to everything in this case. So when crafting a religion, you have to take into account the territory you beliefs hold, the amount of time it has been around, the economy, political influences and geography of your land. From those small building blocks, you can craft a religion which is complex and something that could be unique to your world.
The Basics of Crafting a Religion
To start yourself off in building your Religion you need to ask yourself the following questions, and your Religion must answer them: Â Â - Where do we go when we die? Â Â - How was life created? Â Â - What morals should your people live by? These questions are the basics of crafting your Religion and by answering these provide your world with a basic feeling of spirituality that is important for civilizations. However, no all these questions have to be answered for you to form a religion. Maybe only one or two questions are answered. This gives your religion unique qualities and if you have many religions in your world a variety.
Variation on Religion
In order for your Religion to seem realistic in your world, you must provide a variation in beliefs and reasons behind such an occurrence. If your Religion is the most dominant one on a continent, you have to consider how it became that way. One way a particular belief becomes popular is through absorbing other smaller religions. They take their gods or moral rules and change them to fit their narrative. This would definitely create different beliefs and interpretations inside your Religion. The way your Religion can also become popular is that it should have gain and loss element to it. How much does a worshiper gain from following that Religion and how much do they lose. By deciding that your then can determine how realistic the popularity our Religion would be. There are other factors that must be considered when creating a religion which how much territory or land your Religion dominates or is in, the number of followers and the age of it. If your Religion has more territory, followers and is quite an old variation and different interpretation will be inevitable. However, if your Religion is young and has a small following, they would be more agreement.
Interconnectivity
Like every element of world building religion is connected and effects everything in your fictional world. The complexity and uniqueness of your fictional Religion depends on how much it links to the different aspects of your society. If your Religion is very intertwined in the society from the economy to culture, you will then make a world that feels realistic in its depth and complexity. The way to do this is to consider a few different aspects in your society and ask yourself how your Religion would affect this societal structure. To show the culture your Religion promotes is to show how the beliefs would affect people in day to day life. How does your Religion change their weekly routine? What kind of relationship do they have with the gods? Is it a sibling or a parental-like relationship? You will also have to ask yourself how it would affect the economy. If your Religion has a heavy influence on the military, the most popular job would be a soldier, a lot of money would put into that industry. Which leads nicely into the effects Religion has on politics. This depends on the type of Religion as there are different influences they would have. If your Religion is monotheistic, you would have more centralized power. With a more united front, your monotheistic Religion would have a lot of influences over politics often deciding your leaders. However, if your Religion is polytheistic, it would definitely would not have centralized power as you would different factions for each aspect of your Religion therefore not having a united front. This concept would cause less power of the political landscape. Another aspect you would have to consider is the geography of your world. For example, if your civilization rely on a large river to survive you people would naturally worship the river a may even have a river god!
Extra Notes
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