The Church in Rifts

[Killer Cyborg]

Since Rifts loves to have history repeat itself, how about...

the Wolfen Empire initially persecutes the Christians in the area, but then one day the emperor is dying and converts on his deathbed...

[Uncle Servo]

seeing as the Wolfen control Rifts Italy maybe its being used as military complex or training ground by them that is to say if its still standing

IIRC, the Wolfen romanesque empire in Italy was an optional setting in a Rifter, not official. But it's been a while since I played a Europe game so I may not remember correctly.

cheers,
omni

Well untill there is an Official Italy you cant prove me wrong

Of course, until there is an Official Italy you can't prove yourself RIGHT, either.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

It's simple, really, the Alien Intelligence that all Christians worship (aka YHWH aka Jehovah aka the Lord Our God etc.) manifested at its worshipers' most prominent religious center, ate everybody there, and initiated its long-standing plans at megaversal conquest using Vatican City as its base.

That's awesome.

[Cardiac]

seeing as the Wolfen control Rifts Italy maybe its being used as military complex or training ground by them that is to say if its still standing

but i do like the thought of it being blown to bits by a nuke

Lynx

Nope. Super-MDC-Jesus started flying around casting Impenetrable Walls of Force all over the place to save his faithful worshippers.

[taalismn]

What about a scattered but global organization headquartered in Rome or somewhere nearby .

Gotta agree with you there....given the large distribution of Christian churches and sects around the world, there's no reason to suppose that just as the more secular nation-states are re-organizing and spreading about, that similar religious organizations aren't doing the same...The Catholic Church in Europe, in particular, would be in such a position....The post-Rifts era would see a rebirth of the sort of quasi-militant orders like the Crusaders and the Knights Templar to defend remaining assets of the Church(intentionally capitalized), with a number of European communities sending expeditions to Rome(or suspected hiding places of the remaining official organization) to make contact with the Pope...THough some groups might resent the site of the Holy City being in the hands of the New Roman Empire, however religiously tolerant the Wolfen/human nation might be....
Not to offend anyone of the persuasion, but many people might see the re-emergence of the Catholic Church based in Europe as a sign of a return of true, post-Rifts, civilization, in its own way as important and highly anticipated as the Second Coming....

One of the priorities of such an organization as the dukeofshadows outlines would be the recovery and restoration of Church records and artifacts...and in the process, such teams are likely rto recover and restore other artifacts and records of pre-Rifts civilization, long thought lost....or such might be the hope...

Taking a cue from the sci-fi authors Simak and Silverberg, however, if the traditional Catholic Church structure were to be revived, might we see a non-human(but native of Earth) Pope elected at some far distant date?

[Uncle Servo]

The problem with 'statting out God' is that folks tend to take their religion VERY seriously, and the more conservative types are already of the mistaken idea that role-playing games are inherently evil thanks to those freakin' idiots out there in California who took a D&D campaign too far and started killing each other about 20 years ago.

'Statting out Allah' isn't any better of an idea since Islam is known in several circles as 'the way of the sword' which implies that you run a greater chance of offending one sect or another by turning Him into a character in an RPG -- and I think we're all aware of what can happen when Muslim extremists get a mad on for someone.


Personally, I think Palladium has more or less taken the best route out of it by offering the Preacher and Rifts Priest OCCs. I know the Preacher was written with the Judeo-Christian beliefs in mind, but it could easily be converted over to an Islamic cleric... and the Rifts Priest is a demoninationally-generic holy man/woman that can be used for pretty much any religion you want.

[ExcuseMySarcasm]

It's frickin' twisted that they have no problem doing that to other religions. Just don't touch the Jesus one...

[taalismn]

It's frickin' twisted that they have no problem doing that to other religions. Just don't touch the Jesus one...

Yes....I agree....I am personally OFFENDED at the oblique treatment given the mighty Cthulu! 'Lord of the Deep', INDEED! Have these people no decency, that they not utter its TRUE name?!? Are we, of the loyal and faithful Lovecraftian Church of the Unspeakable to have our sensibilities so trod upon in the name of feckless and crass commericalism?!

They WILL hear more of this, mark you, when the planets are next in conjunction!

[KromeLizard]

Note that RIFTS only uses religions that have exceptionally few followers or are so ancient and isolated that *very* few people would take offense. Heck, I'm surprised they even got into Zoroastrianism in the second conversion book.

I don't think you could call nearly one billion Hindus a few or isolated.

I think their refusal to address christianity, judaism, or Islam in Rifts is an unfortunate decision. There's been no significant backlash against games that deal explicitly with them, and the lack of them in the setting is a notable absence. Though I suppose it's telling that the only worship mentioned in most Rifts books is of beings just like the one Basilisk jokingly described.

[KromeLizard]

Note that RIFTS only uses religions that have exceptionally few followers or are so ancient and isolated that *very* few people would take offense. Heck, I'm surprised they even got into Zoroastrianism in the second conversion book.

I don't think you could call nearly one billion Hindus a few or isolated.

I think their refusal to address christianity, judaism, or Islam in Rifts is an unfortunate decision. There's been no significant backlash against games that deal explicitly with them, and the lack of them in the setting is a notable absence. Though I suppose it's telling that the only worship mentioned in most Rifts books is of beings just like the one Basilisk jokingly described.

Well, personaly... I went and baught Dark Ages: Vampire and Mage

I got a few pages in and saw how they twisted everything with the bible and stuff. I stopped reading.

I wish I hadn't bought the books.

Backlash? I don't know.... but I know I won't ever play that game, personaly.

Understandable if the game offended you. But the official line from the company (when they still bothered to give one on this board) sounded more like they half expected somebody to letter bomb them if there was any mention of christianity in Rifts earth. There was also some vague mention of possible lawsuits, a patently ridiculous concern. Given that White Wolf doesn't seem to have had any real difficulty because of controversial material in their games, I'd say the fears expressed by Palladium are more than a little exaggerated.

I respect that they have every right to make the decision, I just think the game sufferes somewhat because of it.

[KromeLizard]

I don't think you could call nearly one billion Hindus a few or isolated.

How many 1 billion Hindus play Palladium. PAL made a business decision that not many would, and put in the Hindu gods.

I think their refusal to address christianity, judaism, or Islam in Rifts is an unfortunate decision. There's been no significant backlash against games that deal explicitly with them, and the lack of them in the setting is a notable absence. Though I suppose it's telling that the only worship mentioned in most Rifts books is of beings just like the one Basilisk jokingly described.

This would be a bad business decision because it would step on somebody toes. Like if I said that one of the Coalition's biblical heros is Joshua. Remember, Joshua committed genocide against the people of Jericho, Ai, etc for worshipping foreign gods (and a land grab scheme; they just left Egypt). The Coalition could very well be on a biblical Holy War against non-God worshippers, d-bees, wizards (don't suffer a witch to live or something like that), etc. That's bad for business.

I know WHY they made the decision, but like I said, I disagree with it.

[Uncle Servo]

[quote="KromeLizardI know WHY they made the decision, but like I said, I disagree with it.[/quote]

Then as has been recommended already, write a netbook to include Christian, Islam, and Jewish religions. It wouldn't be the first time someone did so to fill what he/she considered a gap in Palladium's coverage.


Someone PMed me on this subject, and when I was writing my reply it occurred to me that in Christianity (can't say much about Judiasm or Islam as I'm largely ignorant of both) God doesn't take quite the active role in the affairs of me in the same way as the gods in what we consider 'mythological' religions such as Norse and Greek. He mainly preferred to give audio instructions to chosen individuals and let them do the interacting -- much like an assistant coach up in the pressbox talking to a quarterback over the phone during a football game. He rarely (if ever) presented Himself as anything more tangible than a burning bush. If you're a Palladium writer, that wouldn't present a lot of information from which you could extrapolate into RPG stats.

Besides, God/Jehovah/Allah is described as being all-knowing and all-powerful -- how do you put that in statistics? Most of the other gods have weaknesses and follies, and therefore would be easier to translate.

Now, if you wanted to introduce Old Testament figures like Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, etc., then I could see the argument for that.

[KromeLizard]

My disagreement with omission of material from a game setting doesn't require me to write a book. When I am disappointed by something in any other book I am under no obligation to rewrite the damn thing to make it better.

I think they've missed out on a chance to make their game world that much more rich and interesting. I don't think that anybody should stat out God, that would be stupid and ultimately pointless. What would make good game material would be things like Basilisk posted up above (Not alien intelligence YHWH, but the other ones, though that isn't really an awful idea-- an alien intelligence pretending to be He That Is Called I Am does seem like awfully good fodder for a story to me) . How the return of the supernatural affected religious life. Like has been stated before, the people of Mexico and surrounding areas should probably be fervently religious, given the strong present day presence of the Catholic church in the area and that after the coming of the Rifts the cross is essential for survival. Maybe that should be mentioned.

[KromeLizard]

I think someone should stat out alien intelligence YHWH.

[Borast]

The forced sterilization issue - nothing to do with the Pope. Various states in the USA (California up till the 1960s) had official policies of sterilizing minorities and undesirables, often without knowledge or consent (a woman would go in for one kind of surgery, and would get a second one without her knowledge). Among those defined as "undesirable" were the poor, "immoral", alcoholic, unwed women, criminal, "insane", non-whites and non-protestants. Communities and community leaders had a large role in identifying who exactly was an undesirable during the writing of these laws and many of the hugely vague definitions came from christian values on what was moral behavior and therefore "sane". The arguments put forth for these laws were often couched in religious terms.
cheers,
omnicrondelicious

That more or less almost describes the same policy as enacted by most of the Provincial governments here in Canada, and practiced until the 70's or 80's on mentally challenged persons. This came to light a few years ago when some persons who's disadvantages were known to be caused by accidents (car crash/lack of oxygen at birth/etc...) were discovered to have been surgically sterilised without them, nor their guardians being informed by the Alberta Government.

Amazing what someone with a desire to "do the right thing," or at least what THEY think is the "right" thing, will do. While I don't approve, I can see why they thought it in the public's interest to prevent "defectives" from breeding. Let's hope that the idea doesn't start growing again - it opens a pandora's box that just cannot be easily closed again, and is too easy to be mis-used.

[Uncle Servo]

Servo, what about the flood, soddom and gomorrah, Jesus, the plagues of egypt, survival in the dessert for 40 years of wandering and all that? Early on god was quite active, I think he only slowed it later on when he had more people to spread his word for him that it was uneccessary. Perhaps he found a better planet and race to spend his time on.

Dah. Old Testament God was quite hands-on. Turning people to salt, ordering his followers to make war and go hither and thither, creating flaming pillars, striking entire armies blind and created illusionary sounds of bogus armies to scare them away.

But I think Servo's point is that God never physically showed up like the other gods detailed by Palladium. God doesn't have nearly the anthropomorphic traits that so many other gods do that make them stattable.

.omni

Yes, that's my point exactly. Yes, there were times that God did dish out a good Old-Testament-style can of whoopin', but most of the time He didn't physically show up to do it Himself.

He never showed up like Odin, Thor, Zeus, or Ishtar did and physically interacted with mortals. Like I said, it was more often a case of him calling up his chosen vessel(s) and giving commands just like the enigmatic "Charlie" in "Charlie's Angels."

[Cardiac]

Servo, what about the flood, soddom and gomorrah, Jesus, the plagues of egypt, survival in the dessert for 40 years of wandering and all that? Early on god was quite active, I think he only slowed it later on when he had more people to spread his word for him that it was uneccessary. Perhaps he found a better planet and race to spend his time on.

Dah. Old Testament God was quite hands-on. Turning people to salt, ordering his followers to make war and go hither and thither, creating flaming pillars, striking entire armies blind and created illusionary sounds of bogus armies to scare them away.

But I think Servo's point is that God never physically showed up like the other gods detailed by Palladium. God doesn't have nearly the anthropomorphic traits that so many other gods do that make them stattable.

.omni

Yes, that's my point exactly. Yes, there were times that God did dish out a good Old-Testament-style can of whoopin', but most of the time He didn't physically show up to do it Himself.

He never showed up like Odin, Thor, Zeus, or Ishtar did and physically interacted with mortals. Like I said, it was more often a case of him calling up his chosen vessel(s) and giving commands just like the enigmatic "Charlie" in "Charlie's Angels."

It would be impossible to give the Christian/Jewish/Muslim god stats - it is what you would call an "overgod" - omnipotent, immortal, it's will is done. To use another RPG world as an analogy; Lord Ao from the Forgotten Realms would be the same. They even describe beings of such power in the begining of Conversion Book 2; it's useless to give stats to these beings if all they have to do is snap their fingers and existence as we know it collapses.

Meanwhile - other gods from other cultures Greek, Roman, Norse, Indian, etc (and to extend the RPG analogy, the plethora of deities woshipped in the Forgotten Realms), are much more humanlike in their thoughts, emotions and their interactions with the mortal world, and thus, while still powerful and somewhat alien, can be given arbitrary stats more easily.

[Pax Concord]

There are a whole bunch of supernatural creatures and abilities presented in scripture that could be interesting gaming fodder and could be "statted out." Angels and demons come to mind. The dybbuk from medieval Jewish folklore is already in Conversion Book 1, not to mention the Golem. The Serpent, Eden. There are a whole load of relics in churches, moques, etc. all over the old world that are obviously items of great power. The Holy Land is (in a Rifts context) probably one of the most ley-line-rich areas of the world. Jewish traditions include a lot of weird mysticism that could end up as some kind of new magic user.
As a liberal, I would like to see the three religions of the Book in an uneasy alliance, defending Jerusalem against an onslaught of unholy demons. There's nothing to make people work together like a common enemy. Perhaps there could be a new Caliph with great power, a Messiah for the Jews and/or a Second Coming for the Christians. How about the antichrist?
There are also some dead religions in the middle east that need some fleshing out, IMO. The Sumerians got a decent treatment in Pantheons, but there's really no good OCC representing the priests of Sumeria. They were sort of a cross between Ley Line Walkers and Rifts Priests, I guess.

[KromeLizard]

Off topic, but I thought that Vampire the Masquerade the first edition main book said that Cain was the first vampire. That it was a long established part of the whole game's setting.