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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
 Posted - 09 Jan 2012 : 09:32:31
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I've always felt like the number of Temples described in descriptions of cities is strangely low. In a polytheistic world you'd think it would be important to have temples to many deities not just 1-5. [Real world] If you look at real medieval European communities there are more Churchs and Cathedrals in places of such size... and they would mostly have all been of two similar religions [/real world] How could any port city not have a Temple to Umberlee, Istishia, or Valkur? (If not all three) Do any of you think it would make more sense to have more temples in cities than is canonically described?
Given an example like Melvaunt from Mysteries of the Moonsea having three temples (Loviatar, Gond, and Lliira). Only ONE temple per 10,000 people seems very, very strange to me.
Although there are counter examples like Shadowdale with a small population and many temples it seems like prevalently cities have unrealistically small numbers of places places of worship.
[real world]
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/short_history/full/map%201.jpg
[/real world]
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jan 2012 : 10:19:51
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You might look at it this way.
A Temple as a building does require financial support, donations, and construction does cost. The size of the temple clearly a cost fac6tor in construction.
There also is a building permit issue, a large temple to Bane would likely would not be permitted in many cities.
A temple is a very simple thing, a place to honor a deity. Some temples by the social climate or their nature would remain unnoticed or hidden.
The only other thing I can offer is that all details of a city are rarely listed, three large temples might be all that are displayed on a city map. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Charles Phipps
Master of Realmslore
1419 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jan 2012 : 15:30:31
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Yeah.
I think the average village has one Temple devoted to one god and priests are always trying to build new temples elsewhere (which is a good reason for clerics to adventure - money!). Usually, in these temples, I say there's a section cordoned off from the rest of the temple with statues of the other gods like a mausoleum. Shrines are also ridiculously common in my realms, so when you're walking along the road they're as common as traffic signs in our world.
"It says 40 kilometers to Waterdeep - oh and there's a shrine to Sune, it's cracked and needs weeding."
I do say in most cities, however, there's usually about 12 to 60 (!) temples or so. They're not necessarily large but a one-room place devoted to Talona with burning incense saves a lot in disease prevention. |
My Blog: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/
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Edited by - Charles Phipps on 09 Jan 2012 15:32:05 |
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rjfras
Learned Scribe
261 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jan 2012 : 22:57:01
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you also have to remember that alot of people have private shrines in their homes. Another thing would be that many of the prayers are off the cuff to go with what they are doing, they don't run down to the temple every time they pray or try to appease a deity.
The farmer offers a prayer to Chauntea before he plants his crops. When he goes into the woods to hunt for supper, he may offer one up to Mieliki. When the wife goes to market, she may say a few words to waukeen. when they put their hard worked foodstuffs on a boat to be shipped to another market, they offer up a small sacrifice to Umberlee so that the ship makes it to port and they don't lose their cargo. |
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Charles Phipps
Master of Realmslore
1419 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jan 2012 : 23:06:26
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| Though, to be fair, I do think the patron deity business makes sense. Yes, everybody will prey to Umberlee during a storm. However, I think she gets a lot more prayers from sailors than anybody else. Likewise, the average farmer will prey to Chauntea and Lathander 99% of the time with only the occasional prayer to other gods as situation arises (Sune for marriage, Sharess for a good sex life, Waukeen for crop sales). |
My Blog: http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 10 Jan 2012 : 02:35:34
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Temples definitely imply a building and staff. Staff usually require payment of some kind. I think you would probably find that the number of temples in the Realms corresponds well to the number of churches and cathedrals that you would find supported by a comparable population in the real world (or at least the medieval world).
Shrines, though, don't necessarily require staff or much maintenance. So you might find a lot more shrines and dedicated holy places around the realms where people go to worship. Especially in private homes, public houses, near public wells, gardens, groves, hills, a mountain cave, streams, crossroads, possibly even in a niche in the sewer system, all over the place. Land owners may especially maintain a shrine to their family patron god(s) on their grounds that I bet they allow the public to have access to. Even something like a statue or a standing stone could serve as a shrine. Or a carving on a tree.
I've always thought that temples and shrines and dedicated holy places, including things like relics and icons, functioned as part of a mechanic for gods maintaining a geographical sphere of influence. And possibly divine ranking as well. In many ways, I think Kara-Tur begins where the shrines to the Faerūnian pantheon peter out, and vice-versa. I see them as sort of divine radio stations or microwave towers, with signal strength tied to the amount of prayer "broadcast" from each location. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7975 Posts |
Posted - 10 Jan 2012 : 02:53:38
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| The ancient Greeks and Romans gradually consolidated their pagan array into fewer and fewer temples. Each temple officially dedicated to some Grecian or Roman god but shared with a growing number of local place gods (pagani) who were considered lesser or roughly equivalent. The "shrine" to your god might be little more than a statue and handful of sacred objects in some remote alcove, arranged among others in the temple much like books in a library. It didn't help that the Romans heavily commercialized their religions and their temples basically became little more than imperial tax stations where "donations" could purchase spiritual advancement. |
[/Ayrik] |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 13 Jan 2012 : 07:09:58
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I never thought of the descriptions as only mentioning IMPORTANT temples, it always came off as they were the only temples (thinking specifically of Mysteries of the Moonsea) I guess it would be fair to assume there are more temples, and it would be a waste of effort to list 12-60 temples, shrines or cathedrals.
Bezantur and Calimport are described as having very large numbers of temples (maybe even multiple temples to the same god like there being at least two to Azuth in calimport) A quantitative part of me wants to determine what would be a reasonable average Temples per capita ratio, though.
I think shrines could be maintained by friendly clergy, as well, or just be protected by lingering spells cast on them. A shrine of Talona might exist and not be disturbed even without guardians lest Talona curse you with disease or something if you disturb her sacred place. Even in a good city who would dare disturb her fountain of filth down a dark alley? A city with a major Temple to Sune such as Daerlun might maintain chapels or shrines to her allied, associated or subservient deities (Milil, Lliira, Sharess,Selune and [in my own realms] Adon (Why was he the only one of the four not to be a god = P ?) |
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 13 Jan 2012 : 12:15:04
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| There simply isn't enough room in the sourcebooks to list all the temples, the same is with other types of buildings. E.g. Bezantur is supposed to have hundreds of temples, of every religion in the Realms, yet look at the map of Bezantur, it's far from the truth. Also it's weird that there aren't temples like the Pantheon. |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 13 Jan 2012 : 21:05:39
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In Calimport there is a Mosque or Plaza devoted to all the Gods of fury.
I agree that there should be temples devoted to multiple deities... although in some places it has been described as such (such as a chapel to Loviatar within a Temple of Bane) |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jan 2012 : 22:33:08
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With all lore, I consider it additive in nature, rather then subtractive. In other words, if the text only mentions a certain number of temples, then my assumption is that those are the only ones the text is listing... NOT the only ones present (unless stated otherwise).
Also, what others here have said - those are the major temples, which could even mean that they are more affluent, which could just mean they are part of the cities 'inner circle' of power. There could be even larger temples without that kind of support-structure, or as others have mentioned, small alters and shrines, for the deities with less influence in that particular community.
The problem also stems from the fact that most people believe (falsely) that FR folk only worship one god. They might put more prominence in one then the others, for personal reasons, but everyone pays lip-service to the whole pantheon, where applicable.
That means if a Tyr worshiper was in a Tyr temple, and they wanted to say a little prayer to Mielikki for their Ranger-son who's "off fighting Orcs in The North", I don't think Tyr would have any problem with that. A temple is just a building, after all. The real church lies inside us.
So basically, the temples may have a patron, but unless the deity was evil (and jealous), worship of other (friendly/neutral/allied) gods should never be a problem. The gods are all part of the same pantheon, after all - The Temples are merely dedicated to specific ones (IMO).
For evidence, just look at how many patron-deities the Harper Organization has, and the fact that a Priestess of Eilistraee - Qilue' - is a Chosen of Mystra. In the OGB, they list several NPCs as venerating more then one god. I think, perhaps, post-ToT, some gods became more covetous, but I'm just guessing here (as a way of explaining why the later Realms moved away from this paradigm). |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 15 Jan 2012 22:33:58 |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2012 : 05:25:34
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The concept of Monotheistic religion is very ingrained in us, and very reinforced by the portrayal in novels of drow communities, for example.
The realms also seems to seriously lack "normal" deities for common people, which I made into my own realms pantheon. (The dwarven, and halfligns pantheons being gone - except for Sheela, Cyrrollalee, Urogalon, Berronar, Hathor etc.) A more realistic society would have Temples to the goddess of motherhood or god of herding alongside the deities worshiped by heroes and adventurers. |
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Rhewtani
Senior Scribe
USA
508 Posts |
Posted - 17 Jan 2012 : 19:09:14
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Following up the monotheism-bias...
We build churches with the assumption that the congregation/members/followers will be visiting weekly (most of the time). If you worship eight gods, you simply cannot both work AND attend temple services weekly (tendaily). For that reason I do not think we can equate "worship" in FR as being the same thing as the real world.
To your original point about Melvaunt, it's worse than you think. The Loviatar temple is supposed to be secret-ish. So, it's really 1 temple per 15k people.
I do think we need to start imagining and possibly including in descriptions personal shrines that people have in their homes or communities.
For my own campaign, the chances of findign a temple of Tyr that does not have shrines to Ilmater and Torm present within them is pretty rare. The Temple in Phlan actually has the distinction of now being a Temple of the Triad, with a shrine of Moradin in the catacombs. In the slowly growing village of Hulburg there is likely to be temples to Lathander, Tyr, Ilmater, and possibly Valkur all constructed in the next couple of years. |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2012 : 08:22:09
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I didn't realize the Temple Of Loviatar in Melvaunt was secretish. Wasn't it a public scandal that one of the noblemen joined the clergy?
I am currently studying The History of Religion in Canada at University... and every village/town would have a Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran Church from what I can tell... all within what is essentially one religion. |
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Rhewtani
Senior Scribe
USA
508 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2012 : 20:28:50
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Right, from a Realmsian standpoint ~ those Canadian towns have a strange band of worshippers. Since the Canadian religions require weekly attendance to maintain your religious status, 1/6 of the people worship Metho, 1/6 worship Presby, 1/6 worship Bap, 1/6 worship Ang Li, 1/6 worship Cathol, and 1/6 worship Luther.
This would be akin to having full-blown temples of: Waukeen, Jergal, Ilmater, Iyachtu Xvim, Bane, and Tyr ('cause if anyone's going to post the "top 75 reasons banites suck," it's gonna be a tyrite). A more likely scenario is a shrine at the merchant guild to Waukeen; an ancient shrine to Jergal on the outskirts of town that no one knows who built, but it's always been there; a Temple of Tyr, housing an attached monastery dedicated to Ilmater; and a church of Bane with a small sect of hold-overs who secretly seek the rebirth of Xvim (for some reason).
I was under the impression that Lyran Nanther worshipping Loviatar thing was a private scandal. I could be remembering wrong (he's wearing a mask, and I didn't think everyone knew that this guy was Lyran). The people of Melvaunt know that there are Loviatar worshippers around. They just don't know where the temple is (it's located in several connected mansions). |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7975 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2012 : 21:11:20
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I view the deities and their clergy as being somewhat territorial. Worship of multiple deities within one city is unavoidable and largely unproblematic since the religions in question are typically concerned with very different things which don't overlap. But different temples dedicated to the same deity which are governed by different interpretations or schisms of faith are far less likely in the Realms. The only example I can immediately recall is Zhentil Keep, wherein many brands of faith worshipped Bane and Cyric and various things between ... and the city was ultimately destroyed in something of a religious war, although I admit there were special circumstances which might make this a poor example.
I'm not saying it's impossible for, say three churches of Selūne to share a city - dedicated perhaps to the different aspects of their goddess, one to guide navigators and astronomers, another for the werepeople, another for the guild of silversmiths. But unless a larger temple infrastructure is required to service a large population, why wouldn't they all just unify their shared faith? A martial city with multiple temples to Tempus seems more likely, each built on some sacred site where blood was spilled in ferocious battle, each forcefully competing to assert dominance and "win" their holy war. |
[/Ayrik] |
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Number of temples per city/town/region
