On reflection, I don't think that Gozreh wants to be confined to a city.

Desna or Cayden Cailean might be good alternative perhaps?

Is there a list of outlawed religions?

I believe that Hanspur was recently outlawed by council decree in Midmarch?

Or at least.. the ritual drownings were banned.

I believe the basis of freedom of religion in Midmarch is that you are free to worship whomever you like, however you like, as long as that worship does not break any of the laws of Midmarch.

Cold blooded murder is against the law.

Cayden seems more likeable to Adoven.

Hands Adoven a mug of ale.

*cheers*

From what I recall (I don't have time to look back through the threads today) Hanspur and Gyronna are the only two deities that have been 'banned'.

I am fairly sure the conversations took place in early Midmarch Council threads.

I don't remember Gyronna being banned but I may well have forgotten that one. (My comment about Besmara being definitely not welcome in Midmarch at all, is Andalon's personal position as the Bishop of Tusk and head of the Cathedral of Abadar in Tusk, not an official Midmarch position, as far as I am aware.)

There was a letter from a priest of Hanspur asking Midmarch to implement the River Freedoms as followed by The River Kingdoms. (Fuzzy:  The Midmarch Council - msg #17, 29 Dec 2017)

More recently I reminded the party heading south down the river about Hanspur and the River Freedoms (Fuzzy: The Lady of the Lake - msg #13, 15 Feb 2020):

"Lord Henry and the Midmarch Council decided those River Freedoms are not suitable for Midmarch and we have our own charter instead. What's more, we have banned the worship of Hanspur, the patron deity of the river that runs from here down to Mivon and beyond, mainly because one of the rituals of Hanspur requires his followers to drown someone in the river.

"Then there was that unpleasant fellow who made a nuisance of himself at the bar at the Naming Day ceremony last year. He was nosing around to see what we are doing here in land he claims belongs to Pitax. He was upset that we have banned the worship of Hanspur and that we will not acknowledge their River Freedoms."

I haven't managed to find the old thread where we actually banned the worship of Hanspur.

*grin*  we need to get Jase to builds a search function that scans the whole game for a specific word buried in any thread :)  because I can't find it either

However, I am fairly sure there was a discussion at some point.  I found some references to Gyrona in the Stag Lord's Fort thread, and there are a couple of references to Hanspur -  I suppose I had better call a meeting of all the churches and Clerics in Midmarch ....

As far as the searching, I usually just use the same method when I save a thread for archiving my past adventures:

Head to the thread you want to search.  In between the options to pick your page number, there's one called "all". Tap that, and then, on your keyboard, hit Ctrl-F to bring up the search bar (may be something else on other browsers, I use Firefox).  Type what you want to search in there, and hope you picked the right thread. :P

It's not the fastest- or the cleanest- method, but it works if you're willing to dig thread by thread for something.

Yep.  I use that method too.  But with six pages of threads, I run out of patience  :)

So we'll have the discussion again -  and the Clerics can choose  :P

Maybe they ought to just make a list at this point- like maybe figure what faiths are allowed, which ones could go either way, and which ones are never going to be allowed as far as Midmarch goes- and adapt the listing as the game and time goes on.

Though I admit the discussion has me reading my copy of Inner Sea Gods again, especially all the sections on gods not really covered in it.  It's pretty fascinating.

I've left it up to the priests to decide  :)


There is a list of religions that are already represented in Midmarch here

http://rp.baileymail.net/doku....chgazetteer#religion

Just as Clarification - ANY priest can comment -  be it an NPC Adept or a Squire/paladin.

Just remember that they are commenting in the name of their faith.

Nor is a problem if another cleric of the faith has spoken already.  They speak their version of the word of their god.  There can easily be other takes.  For example there are three different Pharasmin Monasteries in Midmarch (run by Beatrix, Marceline and Ethankos respectively) - each will have a slightly different take on their faith. Think of the variety of different Christian denominations there are in the world.  There are even   Churches from three different denominations with within a few hundred yards of my house - but they are all Christian!

I found the thread where it was discussed at Midmarch Council, but not one where it was formally banned:

link to a message in this game

Thank you.

Hmmm.  Going a bit of stream-of-consciousness here after reading the religious council thread, bear with me. :)

Reading the religious council thread, a thought strikes me: what about gods or goddesses that could have evil followers?  I mean, I don't have a dog in the fight, but all this has got me pondering.

I mean, OOC, the solution is obvious- forbid evil intent.  That pretty much takes care of what the dragon in the room is.  There are gods and goddesses out there who are evil, that's easy enough- Asmodeus, Lamashtu, Norgorber, Rovagug, Urgathoa, Zon-Kuthon, etc. all get the boot, because, well, evil, like Gyronna, which is the easy one out of the three currently up for debate.

As far as Hanspur and Besmara, well... here's where things are going to get complicated.

You're going to need to be cautious on picking and choosing, though- especially on deities that have the possibility of going all sorts of ways.  Would you, for example:

- Turn away priests seeking a temple for a deity that is some form of neutral (think Abadar, Calistria, Gorum, Gozreh, Irori, Nethys, Pharasma, etc.) because it might attract evil practitioners seeking them out?

- Send away an evil practitioner of said religions- would the current church of Abadar in Midmarch show the door to a LE priest of Abadar?

- How's about a LN/TN-aligned priest of an evil deity?

Just some stream of thought stuff, figured this was the best place to put it. :P

It is a bit of a tricky thing...and your input is appreciated.

And I'll toss in my .02 coppers.     Here's where Alisa is coming from:

It is what each of those religions endorses -  not that they might have evil adherents, per se.

Gyronna -  a member of this faith is pretty much trained and expected to prey on the innocent, steal babies, and commit murder if that happens to be expedient.

Hanspur -  a bit sad this one, I think Hanspur is a bit of a tragic figure - but, that still doesn't make it okay that murder is a central component of their rituals.   And it presents a perpetual risk anywhere they happen to set up shop.

Besmara -  kill people at sea, take their possessions - and the goddess shall smile upon you!  Sure, yeah!

Yes, Irori, Abadar, Calistria, and others could have an evilly aligned adherent.   But, their faiths don't mandate that they steal, murder, and prey on people.    So, any such actions fall strictly on the individual.

I don't personally think (and neither does my character) that banning evil wholesale is a viable thing.

Banning religions that mandate their followers doing reprehensible actions is a different matter.

In reply to Alisa D'Medvyed (msg # 917):

I'm taking this from a viewpoint of what is it mean if the opposite of a religion ban.
So if the religion is Ban, then they do not get to build a temple, etc.

So what DOES it mean if a religion is allowed to build a temple.
Tell me what it means... And what does Lord Henry get out of giving them a place to build said temple.

These temples can provide resources when Lord Henry calls them.
Men at arms, priests, healing, potions, wisdom, etc.

Now if a religion is banned, then Lord Henry will not gain the benefit of any of the above.
Or maybe he has a secret relationship with the demon-god of whatever, and we'll have to overthrow him. :)

In reply to Kendrick Winters (msg # 918):

Now this is me giving context / playing Devil's advocate / joining in - rather than representing a GM Opinion.  :P

1)  How does one ban Evil, when the only people who really know who is evil are paladins? And they only know if the subject is strongly evil.  And the only way to prescribe evil acts in, really, to enact a law to make each individual Evil Act illegal.  Midmarch already has a legal structure ( http://rp.baileymail.net/doku....and:midmarch:the_law ) - and it can be enforced quite well in urban settings.  But it is less well enforced in the countryside.  If you look at the Group-0 map - every hex not shaded in Orange is wilderness and only patrolled occasionally.  So is large swathes of Rural hexes.

2) There is a difference between banning a religious establishment (ie Shrine, Holy House etc) and banning individual adherents of a particular faith.

I have just updated

link to a message in this game

Which describes Henry's hopes, plans and aspirations for Midmarch.

Actually anyone that can cast Detect Evil (which in this game I guess is just clerics) can detect anyone 5th level or higher that's evil, or a 1st level cleric that's evil.

Inquisitor class gets Detect Alignment at 2nd level which covers the whole chart, so that's an option

I didn't think the DM allowed inquisitors, but I could be wrong.

I got the green light at character creation, but that was a while ago and GM fiat is always a thing.