The Followers of The Book and The Word
The Followers of The Book and The Word believe in the strict adherence to the Law and The Word.
The Bringer of the Word was first in the lands of the North. His disciples (The Cleric Kethen and a dozen others) brought the word to the Lands of the South and East.
The Bringer of the Word was The Son of the Primal Deity BA'AN.
He brought his message to the peoples that the Primal Deity had returned and the false Spirits had been cast down. His was the only font of life. He wrote down his message in The Book. Included in the Book were the work of the four primary Disciples, expressing the hows and whys of proper living under BA'AN.
With the Book under their arms, they brought the Word to the Hundred Tribes. The tribes were lost without their tribal spirits. The suggestions for proper living became the foundation for The Law in the Land of the Hundred Tribes. From The Law came the Lands of Corbis, Alaba'am and Chekk'ka.
The Followers of The Book and The Word follow the path of prayer and devotion, the giving of gifts to friends and the poor, the supporting of the elders, and the slaying of the those who worship the old Gods/ demons over BA'AN. Also the Book suggest to 'walk the path of the Bringer', so those who can will often pilgrimage to the various venerated places the Bringer preached the Message of the Word.
Priests of all stripes wear sashes. There is no ranking here. The priest who convince others to follow him through his personality and his wisdom is the most senior priest. (inject military prowess and this is the same pattern that the 100 tribes used to determine leadership).
The Followers of The Book and The Word find the Northerners weak, as they do not properly follow the tenants of The Disciples and the Word of the Bringer. The Followers have to pass through this so called civilized mess on their way to the venerated places of the Word. There is much talk among the Holy Men of the Followers that the Right Path must be brought to the Northerners.
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? Responses (4)
These are our enemies that are also our friends. We all believe in the same religion (more or less) but we see it different ways. This is great. You can have a realistic and complicated religious situation, something to add drama to the game and give a great deal of potential.
Updated: Spelling corrections
The Followers of the Book and the Word had a signifigant advantage when they entered the Northern lands and the 100 Tribes. With the animistic totems and little gods gone, the Tribes could not deny the power of the Followers, unlike such real world conversions as the Christianization of Skandanavia and Lithuania. A little on the sparse side as it says that the Followers came, the Tribes assimilated haphazardly, and that was that. I would have liked to have seen some NPC figures to give a face to this, or some descritpion of the north lands and the 100 tribes to make this come alive.
The Northern Lands are described... mostly in terms of the religion in Church of The Message . You can get a sense of the history by reading BA'AN and The Messenger submission.
I saw these people as horse peoples or herders - semi nomadic. Tent people, with occasional tribal sites that are stationary (where a forge or a kiln might be kept). The land they live in is harsh, but has 'islands' of green and water. You can insert any kind of tribal peoples on any kind of environment really. This is about the radical cultural change that happened.
So the Church of the Message came to the South. They did not completely manage to transmit their culture and their beliefs. (I assume the envoys with the books died early on or did not travel too far south.) The locals adapted it to their views. They have taken the Northerner's message and remade it in their own image. The 100 tribes could not deny the power of BA'AN and the Messenger, as they had clerical power and the Tribes did not. The Book of the Message gave them the keys they needed to unlock the worship of Ba'an.
This post sums up a few hundred years of history, and the changes from a nomadic people to a almost sedentary one. It only covers the religion. The change in their religion (and the destruction of their old ways) changed their society: changing a tribal region/ cultural region into three countries with laws, and government, and buildings. It was assumed that since The Book was right on the points of Ba'an, it must be right in other things. It served as the new foundation for their culture. Thus pointing the way to a different cultural path. (The Messenger preached to the people in the cities ... thus these people thought they needed cities for example).
(Kind of the reverse of the Plainsmen of the Mid West, where they went from an semi-agricultural society to a full nomadic one with the existence of the horse in less than 100 years. Or the Iraquoi who developed their own towns and laws after being exposed to letters. Rapid change as the old way of life failed.)
The point of all this was two fold, to show how the same God (and even religion) can be re-interpreted in different ways and how a change of culture can occur quickly and seemingly radical changes are possible.. given the right conditions.
