How might monotheism come about in Eberron? How would such a religion interact with the existing faiths?
My first through is that monotheism could develop out of nostalgia for Galifar, which provided a unified, if secular, order to the universe. A longing for the peace (real or imagined) that Galifar provided might lead people to worship a singular god.
Monotheism might also spring from a Silver Flame cult through holds the Flame to be an actual and singular deity, with the Sovereigns and Six being illusions, or worse, fiendish impersonators, who existence only distracts people from the battle against evil; this religion might develop to be a crusading version of Zoroastrianism.
What other monotheistic faiths might develop?
Monotheism might also spring from a Silver Flame cult through holds the Flame to be an actual and singular deity, with the Sovereigns and Six being illusions, or worse, fiendish impersonators, who existence only distracts people from the battle against evil; this religion might develop to be a crusading version of Zoroastrianism.
Seems perfectly reasonable. I know I'm the one always pointing out that "The Flame is an abstraction, not a deity", but that's simply to clarify the material as it stands. Certainly no reason such a faith couldn't develop.
One possibility would be to go with the progenitors, specifically Eberron. They ARE the supposed creators of the multiverse, after all. Siberys is dead, which puts him out of the picture. Eberron is the creator of all life, and the world itself. Giver of all bounty. She is also the force that imprisons evil Khyber - the ultimate barrier to evil. And then you have Khyber as your "dark force" opposing your positive monotheistic god. Technically, you've got kobolds who have followed these principles for ages, so someone could pick the faith up from them.
Given that Eberron IS a magical world, if I wanted to introduce a new faith and have it spread rapidly, I would likely have it provide easier access to divine power than any other faith. The idea of faiths in Eberron is that any faith CAN produce divine magic, if the person has sufficient faith (potentially because they are drawing on raw magical energy, potentially because they are picking it up from another deity... depending on if you believe in deities). But one reason the Silver Flame & SH have more followers than Bel Shalor or Belashyrra is that they produce more divine characters. So if a new faith shows up that produces even MORE divine characters, that would be one reason to expect it to spread rapidly.
Another thing I'd want to do would be to factor in the Mourning in some way. It's a transformative event of the age and something that will have many people questioning faith. So if it's either a question of "The Mourning was Eberron's wrath - we must show her our faith lest she punish us further" (sort of like making a sacrifice to the Devourer to hold back a storm)... or if you want a more positive spin, "Khyber and Eberron are at war. The Mourning is Khyber striking at Eberron. She needs our faith and support to strengthen her for this battle. Our worship of lesser, flawed faiths weakens her."
You could tie it to Galifar, but if it were me, whatever the monotheistic faith is, I'd use it as the basis for a new noble line - like the Swords of Karrn in Stormreach. The Wynarns are tied to the old faiths and led us to war and the Mourning. The leader who fights in the name of this new faith will lead to a new golden age.
Anyhow, just some random thoughts.
I can't see Monotheism getting established as a major religion in Eberron. There is nothing to stop minor monotheistic churches springing up that might worship a single deity, just as they might worship a shoe. :-)
However, Eberron, even more than most worlds, has examples of clerics with opposing faiths and viewpoints still being granted divine magic. A monotheistic faith by definition believes in a single Source of Divine power, and thus would have real problems resolving why their deity sees fit to grant its power to such opposing aims and viewpoints.
Even the Silver Flame acknowledges the Sovereigns: Tira Miron was known and accepted to be a practising paladin of Dol Arrah before she joined with the Flame.
To me, the Mourning is the big key to kicking off a new and rapidly spreading faith of any sort. Either the Mourning happened because the unworshipped god was angry and caused it... or worship of this new god is the only thing that can stop it from happening again.
Obviously I'm not saying that such a thing is required. But it certainly seems like something that could occur, with the Mourning shaking peoples' faith.
One possibility would be to go with the progenitors, specifically Eberron. They ARE the supposed creators of the multiverse, after all. Siberys is dead, which puts him out of the picture. Eberron is the creator of all life, and the world itself. Giver of all bounty. She is also the force that imprisons evil Khyber - the ultimate barrier to evil. And then you have Khyber as your "dark force" opposing your positive monotheistic god. Technically, you've got kobolds who have followed these principles for ages, so someone could pick the faith up from them.
You could tie it to Galifar, but if it were me, whatever the monotheistic faith is, I'd use it as the basis for a new noble line - like the Swords of Karrn in Stormreach. The Wynarns are tied to the old faiths and led us to war and the Mourning. The leader who fights in the name of this new faith will lead to a new golden age.
Interesting to see your trail of thought is like mine. I have a player who worships Eberron and was given a dream to start adventuring. He plays an invoker and over the past few levels I got him more to belief in the trinity of creator gods. Depending on how he develops I was going to take the approach Keith mentions here for him to be the start of a new religion, coincidentaly my PCs try to reunite Galifar so there is some potential to mix and match.
And in response to Keiths new post.
Interesting spin of would be to have the new faith originate from the warforged. In a bit of a stretch it can easily be argued that due to the mourning the warforged became a true race. Building on that you got the first creation myth covered as well.
However, Eberron, even more than most worlds, has examples of clerics with opposing faiths and viewpoints still being granted divine magic. A monotheistic faith by definition believes in a single Source of Divine power, and thus would have real problems resolving why their deity sees fit to grant its power to such opposing aims and viewpoints.
Just because a power source is called "divine" in the rulebooks doesn't mean that the power comes from gods. Hell, we have divine power based on the faith people have in the Silver Flame, which explicitly isn't a god (in the usual sense).
The books are silent on this next matter, but there's no actual indication that power sources, whether arcane, divine, psionic, shadow, etc. are actually qualitatively different to observers: I can't just look at two people shoot fire from their outstretched arms and figure out who is the warlock and who is the invoker. If a new faith arose that wanted to discredit other faiths, it's not much of a stretch to say that the power of other faiths isn't truly divine.
Even if such power is clearly divine to people, that doesn't change much, even though the point is valid. When Moses tries to convince the Egyptians in the truth of his god's existence, he turns sticks to snakes - which the Pharaoh promptly orders his mages to do as well. Yet monotheism does win in the end, doesn't it?
Interesting spin of would be to have the new faith originate from the warforged.
We actually have two already. The Lord of Blades is a messianic figure already, and the cult of the Becoming God has warforged in the Mournland actually building a body for their god.
The Becoming God has some interesting potential for monotheistic developments, particularly if the Lord of Blades can tweak their philosophy - he already is prominent to them, being considered something like a prophet (see Faiths of Eberron). Given that ol'Blades thinks of flesh beings as inferior, it's not much of a stretch to end up declaring that they don't even have souls at all - and that their gods aren't real either.
If this kind of thinking catches on, the Godforged might come to believe not simply that they are building a body for their god, but that their god is the only god. It's when people start thinking that only they possess The Truth that they start getting dangerous.
There's also some alarming potential for synergy with worshipers of Onatar. Vassals tend to use the old saw "Aurestelon, god of wisdom and kings? Nah, you must mean Aureon, god of law and lore!" They reflexively interpret the gods of other cultures as their own (much as the Romans linked Jupiter/Zeus or Mars/Ares). Might not this thinking work both ways? Perhaps vassals for whom Onatar is very important come to think that Onatar is actually the Becoming God - or vice versa.
The Godforged are already big on questing for lore and components with which they can make their god manifest. With some more energy, that questing could become crusading. The greatest turn for their faith might be persuasion of humanoids to serve, if not join. Maybe they develop an article of faith which suggests that while flesh creatures cannot truly know the Becoming God, they can, upon a righteous death, be reborn as souls for a new generation of warforged bodies. Cyran refugees might be especially vulnerable to this kind of proselytizing, given that the warforged seem perfectly happy to live in the ruins of their own homeland. Thousands of humanoid soldiers, with no lands, no mission, and no future might be easily converted to a faith which asks them to seek out a glorious death on behalf of the superior warforged.
In a bit of a stretch it can easily be argued that due to the mourning the warforged became a true race.
That's not so crazy - the Mourning did end the Last War, and as a result, the warforged were granted recognition as a true race of living beings.
Though to take the side of the Traveler, CK... many monotheistic faiths posit the existence of a force opposed to the divine, the justification for evil in the world. A monotheistic faith would presumably argue that the people who can perform divine magic for purposes that go against the monotheistic faith are being granted that power by this force of evil...
Indeed, and this is exactly what the Inspired did in Riedra. True divine power comes from the Path of Inspiration, but fiends and other evil forces trick people into straying from holiness with things like arcane magic.
Since no one can definitively prove where are given power comes from, these claims can be easily made by anyone. You think your Lay on Hands comes from Dol Dorn? Sorry pal, but the Sovereigns are false gods created by demons to lead you astray. True holiness comes from the primal power of Eberron / psionic power of the quori! / the arcane power of the three creator dragons!
In Khorvaire, this kind of disagreement doesn't seem to happen much. It might go on in theological circles but doesn't appear to get out to the regular faithful. This might be in large part due to the Vassals' habit of claiming that other religions are effectively misinterpretations of the Sovereigns in some way. With the Host being the most prominent faith on Khorvaire, this adaptive, tolerant theology probably does a lot to ease frictions.
Just because a power source is called "divine" in the rulebooks doesn't mean that the power comes from gods.
Agreed.
Hell, we have divine power based on the faith people have in the Silver Flame, which explicitly isn't a god (in the usual sense).
As a point of clarification, in my opinion, it's not power based on the faith, it's faith granting access to the power. The Silver Flame is a quantifiably existing mystical energy source that binds demons. Sufficient faith and discipline as taught by the Church allows you to channel that force.
The books are silent on this next matter, but there's no actual indication that power sources, whether arcane, divine, psionic, shadow, etc. are actually qualitatively different to observers: I can't just look at two people shoot fire from their outstretched arms and figure out who is the warlock and who is the invoker.
It's a good question, and one only a DM can answer. Personally, I WILL make two characters using different power sources feel very different from one another, even if they are performing the same effect. When the cleric of the Silver Flame using healing word to heal, she raises her hand invokes the Flame and silver radiance burns away your wound. When a warlord uses inspiring word, he also "heals" you - but I'd say that he is literally inspiring you, saying "GET UP, MAN!" - no Silver Flame required, even if he happens to be a worshipper of the Silver Flame... and in my opinion, you're not actually healed, he just gives you the courage to fight past the pain. If it's Shadow, I'd DEFINITELY work shadow into the manifestation. Just the fact that different power sources play more to different energy types (radiant often divine) and implements will be a factor, though you don't NEED a holy symbol to uyse your divine power. But to me, if invoker and warlock alike just point and blast, they feel like mutant superheroes; I add in implied (though not restrictive) action based on specific details of class and character.
With that said, even I wouldn't make it ALWAYS obvious, and I think someone could learn to "mask" their source (a rakshasa warlock deliberately learning to produce silver flames, for example). But in my opinion, the invoker will be INVOKING - while the warlock will take a different approach based on pact.
With that said, I'm a big believer in cosmetic reskinning of classes to serve different purposes - the kalashtar druid drawing her wild shape from your nightmares having a very different flavor from the Ashbound. The "priest" of the Dragon Below who is actually a warlock (and who IS getting power from a source, so what's the problem?). But in general, even if the end result is the same ("healing"), I do think power source should have some manifestation. You have the interesting 3.5 example of the Silver Pyromancer, but part of the flavor of the Silver Pyromancer was that part of the fire damage became holy, which would be like making it part radiant in 4E - again, adding a visual distinction between a Silver Pyromancer and a normal wizard.
But you are correct: The books are silent and it's in the hands of the individual DM and how you see the world... and an arcane character can always call out a god's name or hold a holy symbol. If you don't think that the trappings - gestures, actions, cosmetic side effects of the power - are especially unique, a blast of fire is a blast of fire. Though I personally will hold that martial healing and divine healing should feel very different... at least in my game.
Anyhow: Divine magic = channeling divine power, through faith, discipline, and codified tools.
Arcane magic is reaching another force of raw mystical energy, generally accepted by scholars to be emanating from the Ring of Siberys or Khyber (hence dragonshards being the underlying component of magical items). Using knowledge, formula, training... or in the case or warlocks, a bargain with someone who does the haavy lifting for you. Faith isn't a factor at all. A warlock makes a deal, but doesn't have to believe in his patron.
Personally, in my opinion, warlocks will actually be MORE common among the Cults of the Dragon Below than clerics or invokers. You channel the power of Xoriat because the mind flayer has turned a spigot in your mind that lets you do it - not because of your deep, astonishing faith in Xoriat and Belashyrra.
To Sarlax's original point, to the common, casual observer, that DB warlock is going to howl Belashyrra's name, raise his orb of shrivelled eyes, and zap you with a bolt of madness. Is that arcane or divine? If it's possible to tell at all, I'd make it a skill check ("His mutterings don't seem to be specifically tied to the timing of the blasts, but his gestures are very specific and in line with basic arcane evocation principles... seems like a warlock" - at this point allowing the player's concept of "warlock" to take over for the technical knowledge his high-Arcana PC possesses). As a side note, the "Detect Magic" aspect of the Arcana skill is defined as allowing you to recognize the power source of an effect you can detect, so there has to be SOME sort of basis for doing it.
So Sarlax, I do actually agree with your point on a case by case basis... I'm just saying that I see the warlord and the cleric as being considerably different. And in this case, it's a warlock whose pact is with a being he happens to worship, so he's acting like one might expect an invoker to.
But again, all of this is completely personal opinion.
At the end of the day, most people in Khorvaire won't be able to evaluate particular powers except through their common sense, intuition, and feelings - and that's what makes a new religion live or die. The Silver Flame doesn't inspire millions because there's a big shiny flame inside a castle - it inspires because the idea that evil must be confronted appeals to something in mortals. It's ideas that matters, not flashy power.
That's what I'm getting at with this thread. No religion is going to take off because of a magic trick. Sure, yes, the Flame's clerics can call to their force of pure good and heal my wounds - but Jorasco was doing that trick for hundreds of years. It's nice that the Flame didn't charge, but I'm not exactly convinced that a being of holy truth was involved, you know?
The Silver Flame doesn't inspire millions because there's a big shiny flame inside a castle - it inspires because the idea that evil must be confronted appeals to something in mortals.
Certainly. My post on page four of the "Eberron Without Bane" thread specifically addresses this - once you set aside all the magic, what is it that makes the faith appealing.
No religion is going to take off because of a magic trick.
Certainly, and that was never my point. Again, look to page four of the other thread. The reason the major religions of Eberron are successful is because they are based around beliefs that strengthen community and inspire people - beliefs that are going to be more welcoming than the lesser cults. With that in mind, however, a few things.
From the very begining of Eberron, we've emphasized that being a PC should be remarkable in Eberron. That even being an adept is a remarkable thing - that the average priest in Eberron is NOT in fact a divine spellcaster, but rather someone who uses Insight, Diplomacy, and other skills to provide guidance to a community. A priest of Boldrei will likely be trained in Heal as a skill, but magical healing is a plus (which plays well to the fact that 4E clerical healing doesn't do much for the peasant anyway). People can get lost in that idea that PLAYER CHARACTERS can worship a shoe and get power, but again, if you look to the world how many shoe-worshipping magic-wielding clerics do you see? People who worship the Silver Flame know that there are paladins and clerics and other champions of the light, but they don't think it strange that their local priest doesn't do anything flashy, or that they themselves don't have this power; they are drawn by the message and the knowledge that these champions exist. Same principle with the Blood of Vol: I hope that the champions of the faith will bring immortality to all, but I'm not expecting my local priest to be fighting that battle; he's here to guide us in the sacraments and bring us together as a community.
So what is going to make a faith spread are its philosophies and beliefs. This is why my suggestion is that if you want something to spread quickly NOW, the simplest thing to latch onto is the Mourning. It is an inexplicable event that is seared into the mind of everyone in Khorvaire. Whether you say that it was caused by an angry god or that faith is the only way to stop it, fear and survival are powerful tools.
With that said: My point on magic is that it doesn't matter if it's a warlock, a cleric, or a druid: people who wield player-class abilities have always been rare in Eberron. The SH has been successful in part because it's an easier path to that power, but that's simply because historically we're talking about societies that DIDN'T have Jorasco, and that if Faith One allows a society to Cure Disease and Faith Two doesn't, all other things being equal, that's going to help Faith One. TODAY, yes, there's enough other ways to Cure Disease that it's not a deciding factor; when I speak of it helping the SH spread in the past, it's because that was a different world.
HOWEVER, my point remains that PC-class abilities are still rare today. The services are available, but the powers are rare. I don't worship the Silver Flame because I think it will make me a paladin. So if you actually introduced a faith in which I thought that following the faith would give ME, PERSONALLY, some sort of magical power - even if it's not full PC class, even if it's not divine - that is something that would be a dramatic shift from the existing faiths, and something that could help it spread.
Again, I'm just throwing ideas out. I think the Mourning is enough of a factor without any magic... and magic can be a draw without the Mourning. My point on magic is that it's rare enough that a truly "Everybody gets some" faith would be dramatically different.
Given that Eberron IS a magical world, if I wanted to introduce a new faith and have it spread rapidly, I would likely have it provide easier access to divine power than any other faith. The idea of faiths in Eberron is that any faith CAN produce divine magic, if the person has sufficient faith (potentially because they are drawing on raw magical energy, potentially because they are picking it up from another deity... depending on if you believe in deities). But one reason the Silver Flame & SH have more followers than Bel Shalor or Belashyrra is that they produce more divine characters. So if a new faith shows up that produces even MORE divine characters, that would be one reason to expect it to spread rapidly.
Magewrights are exclusively arcane, aren't they? It occurs to me that an excellent way to go about manifesting this 'cheap, free divine power' would be for worshipers of that faith to be able to cast basic divine magics the way magewrights can arcane magics. Sagewrights, for lack of a better term.
Where magewrights invest time and energy in research and study, sagewrights would get unprecedented results through nothing more than prayer and faith. Sure, every other faith gets clerics and such who have better magic, but a humble friar or even holy-minded layman suddenly being able to Cure Disease or even Raise Dead would be like suddenly being able to split atoms with a home chemistry set. That'd damn sure put butts in the pews pretty quickly!
Damn, a phenomenal campaign could be built around discovering the dark secret of the true source of this 'free' power and the toll it intends to exact in return. Too bad I already made mine a Watchmen rip-off. Next time, Gadget. Next time.
Given that Eberron IS a magical world, if I wanted to introduce a new faith and have it spread rapidly, I would likely have it provide easier access to divine power than any other faith. The idea of faiths in Eberron is that any faith CAN produce divine magic, if the person has sufficient faith (potentially because they are drawing on raw magical energy, potentially because they are picking it up from another deity... depending on if you believe in deities). But one reason the Silver Flame & SH have more followers than Bel Shalor or Belashyrra is that they produce more divine characters. So if a new faith shows up that produces even MORE divine characters, that would be one reason to expect it to spread rapidly.
Magewrights are exclusively arcane, aren't they? It occurs to me that an excellent way to go about manifesting this 'cheap, free divine power' would be for worshipers of that faith to be able to cast basic divine magics the way magewrights can arcane magics. Sagewrights, for lack of a better term.
Where magewrights invest time and energy in research and study, sagewrights would get unprecedented results through nothing more than prayer and faith. Sure, every other faith gets clerics and such who have better magic, but a humble friar or even holy-minded layman suddenly being able to Cure Disease or even Raise Dead would be like suddenly being able to split atoms with a home chemistry set. That'd damn sure put butts in the pews pretty quickly!
Damn, a phenomenal campaign could be built around discovering the dark secret of the true source of this 'free' power and the toll it intends to exact in return. Too bad I already made mine a Watchmen rip-off. Next time, Gadget. Next time.
Magewrights are more common than Wizards, but Adepts (their divine equivelant) are more cmmon than Clerics/Paladins/Invokers/Avengers. Even then, the Adept, Magewright, and other such occupations make up a very very small segment of the population.
Even if Adepts did regularly provide such benefits to the general public, they generally don't because of House Jorasco.
House Jorasco has made a continent spanning business providing affordable and widespread "divine magic" in the form of healing, disease prevention, and even the raising of the dead. And Jorasco doesn't ask for your faith or your soul to perform these things. They just want your gold. In a sense, that's cheaper than divine magic.
People turn to their faith for spiritual fulfillment. The magic is a manifestaton, but not the real motivator. Just like most people in our world don't look at which religion or philosophy has members with the highest annual income, highest life expectancy, most rewarding afterlife, and choose to devote their life to it based on that.
People turn to their faith for spiritual fulfillment. The magic is a manifestaton, but not the real motivator.
Agreed... though there are certainly examples in the present day and history of people converting to a faith because of what they believe it can do for them in a concrete, material sense (though it's not like these people are likely to be the most devout followers of that new faith).
Nonethless, again, the followers of the Blood of Vol don't follow the faith because of magic or expect their local priest to work magic; theyexpect guidance and comfort. Followers of the Silver Flame KNOW there are paladins at the forefront of the battle against the darkness, but meeting one is still an exciting event. Divine casters are considerably more common than saints in our history, but I agree that the comfort provided by a philosophy is what matters to an average person on a daily basis, not the divine magic. One of the points of House Jorasco from the begining was to take away the idea that a church is a shop you go to in order to buy magical services... and get back to it being a church.
Just to repost from the other discussion about tyranny gods and philosophies of the modern faiths...
Spells granted to their clerics? It doesn´t have to be obligatory. Some gods can do it. Some may chose not to do it. Physical Presence? Again, not obligatory.
Certainly. Which means that some of the most important elements of a religion are the behavior it encourages among its followers and its ability to build community. Look at our world. I don't EXPECT to get miracles for my faith. I don't expect a deity to drop by for lunch or smite my foes. So what is going to influence me? I'm likely to choose the faith whose principles inspire me - or that has built up the strongest support base, as the faith of others may influence me.
During the initial development of Eberron, the three strongest faiths were supposed to be the Silver Flame, the Sovereign Host, and the Blood of Vol. To look at each...
As I mentioned above, one of the key ideas of the Sovereign Host is that it is an easy path to divine magic. Clerics who follow something close to a Sovereign are more likely to gain spells than others. There certainly have been faiths scattered around the world that have no connection to the Sovereigns; the people of Rhiavhaar revered an assortment of minor maritime deities before Pyrinean missionaries won them over to Kol Korran and Arawai with their divine miracles. So the history of the Sovereign Host is one that is based in the fact that Eberron is a magical world, and that vassal priests DO work miracles more easily than the Cult of the Shoe. Mind you, the various Sovereign variants (Rusheme, the Sixteen, Wyrm Ascendant) are on equal footing, so at that point you get to specific belief.
Set that aside, though, and look to the faith itself. The Sovereigns encourage order, industry, commerce, and community. They encourage strength and honor in battle. While their worship is not encouraged, the Six are part of the faith; they explain the presence of greed, hatred, passion, treachery, terror, change, and death. Through Arawai and the Devourer, we see both nature's bounty and its wrath. Olladra smiles when fortune is yours; the Traveler grins and the unexpected occurs. The faith encourages the good but acknowledges the bad. Still, through Boldrei, Aureon, Onatar and the others, it encourages civilization and community. It doesn't promise an escape from Dolurrh; evidence shows that you can go down to Dolurrh and pull a soul out. But some believe that there is a realm beyond Dolurrh, the home of the Sovereigns - and that this is where your thoughts go when memories fade in Dolurrh. Today, the vassals aren't so strong on recruitment, in part because they are the incumbant faith. But back in Sarlona, the Pyrineans were filled with missionary zeal, and they had the miracles to back up that faith.
Next you have the Silver Flame. As I've said before, it's important to remember that Eberron is a world in which supernatural evil is a very real threat. Demons, doppelgangers, vampires, werewolves - they are all out there. They could be hidden in your village and plotting your destruction RIGHT NOW. As if this small scale threat wasn't bad enough, there ARE ancient evils locked away in Khyber that could shatter entire countries if released. The Silver Flame calls the community to stand against these evils. It calls on us to do what we can to protect the innocent from these supernatural threats - and to encourage noble behavior within our own communities through compassion, charity, and example. If we are to stand against the darkness, we must first encourage the light. The Silver Flame makes no excuse for the existence of evil, because the Silver Flame is not omnipotent. It's not a god. It is a force of energy that noble souls can draw upon to fight the darkness - and when we die in its service, our souls strengthen it so that we may continue to defend the innocent after we fall.
So the Silver Flame is all about building community and providing hope in a world where supernatural evil is a threat. It doesn't posit the existence of a god; it is a tool the righteous can use in their struggle. Like the Sovereign Hist, it is a source of divine energy that provides an easier path to divine magic than worshipping your shoe - as a result you see various varients (serpent cults, Kalok Shash) that have locked onto that source of power without being exactly the same.
The Blood of Vol holds that if the gods exist, they hate us and have cursed us with death and suffering. As a result, it takes community VERY seriously. All we have is this life and one another. Stand by your family and your friends, because the universe itself is against us and death is the end. It's a very grim faith, but its followers will say that they are realists. Beyond that: they believe that a spark of the divine exists in us all. We could all be gods - and morally, we are better than the gods. Again: stand together. Love your neighbor and your brother. Protect your community in life, and let your bones risse up and protect it in death. Hope that someday we will find a way to end death and suffering for all.
So the point for me is, again, that all three encourage positive values and strong community among their followers. Any of them can harbor corruption. Any of them can be misinterpreted. But they all encourage people to stand by their friends and neighbors. The Blood of Vol and Sovereign Host provide more support for individual ambition - the seeker who believes he can attain his divine potential in this life, the vassal who believes that he is more personally blessed by a Sovereign - but on the other hand, Tira shows that you can be a special vessal for the Flame, too.
Looking to the lesser faiths...
The Undying Court is sort of like the cult of the Emperor in Warhammer 40K - less faith in a god, and more support for the ruling party. The Court definitely exists, and you've seen their power at work. It's limited outside of Aerenal, but it's real and it protects your people from dragons. Do the right thing and you might get to be part of it. What's not to like?
The Path of Light is the worship of a deity that DOESN'T exist yet - the belief that il-Yannah is yet to come. It's a code of discipline and the belief that encouraging light in the world will bring greater light in the future.
The Cults of the Dragon Below come in a variety of forms. On the one hand, you have your madness, which is, well, madness. No explanation required. On the other, you have cults that directly interact with aberrations or rakshasa, that directly see the power of the things they worship, that are handed symbiotes and other gifts. Here you have the person who follows the faith because he believes he will receive a concrete reward in this world - whether that is power over the unbelievers or being spared when the darkness rises (or, well, being spared a little longer than everyone else).
The Path of Inspiration provides security, stability, and a promise for a better life after death.
I'll stop here, because I do have actual work I should be doing. But essentially, as a tyrant, there's an argument for many of these. I could be serving Mordakhesh the Shadowsword because he's providing me with an army of Demon Waste barbarians and the promise of power when Rak Tulkhesh rises. I could believe that I'm doing the will of Aureon or Boldrei (as suggested earlier), while others say I've clearly been misled by the Fury. I could be a follower of the Silver Flame who believes that only by imposing my absolute rule can I hunt down the doppelgangers in our midst. Or I could be a man without faith, who doesn't care about any god, much like the first Dhakaani emperors; I do what I do by my own hand and my own will, and I don't need some god to justify my actions or take credit for my victories.
Magewrights are more common than Wizards, but Adepts (their divine equivelant)
*slaps his forehead* Adepts! That'll teach me to post when I can barely keep my eyes open. u_u;
Still, I always assumed being an adept required the same investment of time and resources as being a magewright. If, for this particular faith, that weren't the case, it'd still be a huge phenomenon. For many, the Jorasco price tag is just too high to consider for many applications. If Farmer Joe's cancer won't kill him for thirty years but the price of a Remove Affliction ritual would starve his family this year, guess what painful malady that man is going to endure for years to come? Hell, don't get me started on how expensive and difficult resurrection magic is to secure. Spiritual fulfillment is all well and good, but you tell me that Zoroastrianism wouldn't be making a huge comeback if, instead of helping us accept grandma's death, a no-cost, no-work prayer could actually bring her back to life.
People turn to their faith for spiritual fulfillment. The magic is a manifestaton, but not the real motivator. Just like most people in our world don't look at which religion or philosophy has members with the highest annual income, highest life expectancy, most rewarding afterlife, and choose to devote their life to it based on that.
There are quite a few people who choose their faith that way, and those that don't would probably end up taking a much more mercenary approach than they'd currently admit to if there were only one faith in the world that would grant them, personally, miracles. Look at the way faith healing has hung on in our world despite being accepted by the vast majority to be a fraud. Now imagine it were real. I think you're severely underestimating the phenomenon.
Frankly, I think having a faith where I could just cast LIGHT by saying a prayer - a simple, no question, I Keith Can Perform A Piece Of Magic - would pick up a lot of easily impressed folks, because it's NOT what most of the current religions are about.
Just to clarify: By this, I meant a faith in which I, Keith, a common worshipper of this faith - that is to say, a faith which let ALL of its worshippers perform divine magic. If I, a perfectly normal person, discover that if I say a prayer I make a minor miracle happen - that would cause me to stop and think. It would make ME stop and think "Whoa, what am I getting attached to here", but hey, I'm not all people.
However, when we are just talking about what a priest can do, it's a different story and gets back to Sarlax's point. The average person can't tell the difference between divine and arcane magic. Which means that a priest producing light with a prayer is, at the end of the day, no more impressive than me producing light with a lightbulb/eternal torch. There's no shortage of light; we can get it when we need it. So we're not going to choose our faith based solely on whether the priest can produce light. I have to agree with Alex's point on faith healing. Many people believe in it and believe it DOES work. You can find lots of TV shows and what have you showing people being miraculously healed - and yet, despite EVIDENCE ON TV, most people prefer still go to the hosptial. Faith-healing hasn't become the #1 faith.
So the point is: if arcane and divine provide the same services - if I KNOW I can get something reliably through the "scientific" medium of arcane magic, if it's a service that is part of the structure of society - it's not likely to be the driving factor of faith.
Now if that service simply isn't available any other way and can be reliably performed through a divine medium? That might be different. My point on the spread of the SH over other faiths due to divine magic was based on the concept that this was in times when there was no other way TO remove affliction - having faith was the only option you had. If you now added a faith that cheaply and reliably brought people back from the dead - something we've established as possible in the world, but something rare, backbreakingly expensive, and even then dangerous and unreliable - that is the sort of thing that I would see as being seen as a miracle.
Essentially, light, healing - these things aren't miracles in Eberron. They're magic. Raising the dead is rare enough that if you could do it casually - that's got power.
Now combine that with the war. Imagine that a faith pops up saying something like this. The war itself was tied to the fact that people have long been following these flawed faiths. The Mourning was a warning - a first warning, and if people don't heed it, another country will be next. But for those who come to the new faith, not only will you be saved from the Mourning, but all your loved ones who died in the Last War will be restored to you. YOUR faith will save them from the arrogance of the kings and priests who sent them to their deaths.
I'd want to know what the actual principles of the faith were - that there's a compelling and spiritually fulfilling message to it beyond "We can raise the dead", because as Alex says, ultimately that's what people need from religion - spiritual fulfilment. But I think it would be an interesting story. All the more so because you're not supposed to be able to bring people back from the dead after that amount of time in Eberron. So what's going on here? Is it real? Is it some trick of the Keeper or Katashka? Are the people coming back who and what they appear to be... or is there something far more sinister going on?
I hope this makes SOME sense - I've got a terrible head cold and not a lot of sleep, so I suspect I'm racving a little. ;)
Magewrights are more common than Wizards, but Adepts (their divine equivelant)
*slaps his forehead* Adepts! That'll teach me to post when I can barely keep my eyes open. u_u;
Still, I always assumed being an adept required the same investment of time and resources as being a magewright. If, for this particular faith, that weren't the case, it'd still be a huge phenomenon. For many, the Jorasco price tag is just too high to consider for many applications. If Farmer Joe's cancer won't kill him for thirty years but the price of a Remove Affliction ritual would starve his family this year, guess what painful malady that man is going to endure for years to come? Hell, don't get me started on how expensive and difficult resurrection magic is to secure. Spiritual fulfillment is all well and good, but you tell me that Zoroastrianism wouldn't be making a huge comeback if, instead of helping us accept grandma's death, a no-cost, no-work prayer could actually bring her back to life.
Zorastianism wouldn't come back to life if every other faith (and even faithless) could do the same, albiet slightly less often- but didn't demand your soul.
People turn to their faith for spiritual fulfillment. The magic is a manifestaton, but not the real motivator. Just like most people in our world don't look at which religion or philosophy has members with the highest annual income, highest life expectancy, most rewarding afterlife, and choose to devote their life to it based on that.
There are quite a few people who choose their faith that way, and those that don't would probably end up taking a much more mercenary approach than they'd currently admit to if there were only one faith in the world that would grant them, personally, miracles. Look at the way faith healing has hung on in our world despite being accepted by the vast majority to be a fraud. Now imagine it were real. I think you're severely underestimating the phenomenon.
People believe in faith healing because they believe in the faith.
Evengelical Christian faith healing events are attended by Evangelical Christians, not by members of other faiths seeking to join the new faith as a means to cure their ailments. People who believe in certain Eastern faiths are going to go get their Chakrahs checked out and undergo accupuncture treatment. People who don't believe in such faiths to begin with are not going to suddenly adopt them out of a desire to get well when they believe surgery will be just as effective and not require them to forgo their faith.
The branch of Christianity I was raised under doesn't really have a strong faith healing tradition. That doesn't mean all of us abandon it in favor of other religions or even other Christian faiths that do.
Take, for example, the prayer of St. Michael the Archangel. Maybe a warrior who received such a prayer from a priest gained a sudden bonus to defenses and whatnot in dire straits, or something like that.
As I see it, the Becoming God seems to have the best chance of becoming a monotheistic religion. It's got one hell of a catalyst in the Mourning, after all.