I've been thinking about the unintended consequences of the absence of God.
There was a time when we took God, or Gods, for Granted. That mountain? God did it. The burning bush over there? God - it's a sign of things to come. A magical King who can cure scrofula just by touching you? God's holy power manifest in His human servant.
We don't do that any more, and one of the unintended consequences of this is that we don't think too much about how having an actual God that does actual Things upon this actual Earth affects plot, in any RPG setting.
For purposes of this post I'm going to assume a Pantheon of fantasy Gods each with their own area of expertise, but your campaign may do things differently.
Point The First: Divine Right of Kings
It's never entirely clear, in any fantasy setting, how the King got to be first in line at the shiny, pointy hat giveaway. It's just assumed the King is the King, and therefore.
However, there was a point when in order to be King you had to prove your worth, and more often than not this meant proving your lineage. Perhaps you were a demi-god, the offspring of Zeus or Poseidon. Perhaps you were the son of a demi-god. Perhaps you got the nearest religious authority to crown you, thus showing that God approves of your ascension to the throne. Perhaps you have to perform a miracle, such as curing someone of disease by the touch of your divinely inspired hand.
Whatever your proofs may be, you needed proof of some kind to show that you weren't just a Johnny-come-lately with a sharp knife and a winning smile. Otherwise some Johnny-come-even-more-lately might take your place some day.
The flip side to this is that, if you defy the Gods and take the crown anyway through nefarious means, your Kingdom might be punished for your misdeeds. That's essentially the story of Oedipus Rex.
Overly Sarcastic Productions, Red
How does this affect gameplay? Let me count the ways:
- If your King is the Daughter of Zeus, then another offspring of Zeus might contest them for the Throne by showing off their divine qualifications. The bigger thunderbolt wins.
- Before you can take the Throne you need to visit the Oracle and get its blessing, and that means Side Quest! Plus Festival! Plus possible shenanigans if all is not well at the Oracle ...
- In order to become King you had to create a Divine Something - a well, let's say, that cures all who drink its water. This becomes a pilgrimage site. Then the well stops working, or falls into the hands of some hideous evil. Does this mean you have to stop being King?
In a modern(ish) setting there are far fewer Kings and therefore far fewer reasons to explore this trope, but even then there are ways into the mystery.
Let's say this is Night's Black Agents, with a Damned or Supernatural backstory. For there to be Damnation, there must also be Heaven. It might be a Heaven Denied situation where Lucifer's armies are constantly besieging the Pearly Gates and on the brink of victory, but nevertheless there's a Heaven. Often agents try to brew up Holy Water, if that's a bane, or acquire some divine relic like Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi.
However, that assumes that the agents are worthy of God's favor. Suppose they have to prove their worth before they can wield the powers of Kings? What does that look like?
Point the Second: Pilgrimage and Relics
Kings aren't the only ones touched by God. There are many places, many people, which once were ordinary but now are lumined with Divine favor. Or Satanic, for that matter - Dungeons and Dragons' Ravenloft setting, for instance, is based around the concept of a land irredeemably tainted by evil powers.
It might be an abbey where a Holy Avatar once rested, and left behind a relic. It might be a sinister crossroads where Strahd once committed some hideous act of depravity. Whatever may have happened, it left behind physical evidence and as a consequence became a place where pilgrims gather to pay tribute, or gain unholy powers.
In history, people went to great lengths to steal relics. Bishop Hugh of Lincoln once went to France to pay homage to a holy relic of Mary Magdalene, and bit off her fingers in front of the entire congregation so he could carry them back to Lincoln. He would have snapped off her arm, but lacked the strength.
Some relic vendors made their career, and fortune, out of selling, say, nails from the Holy Cross, or the finger-bones of saints. The wood and nails of the True Cross seem to act on Ship of Theseus principles and there are enough bits of saint scattered about to put together an undead Ziegfeld Follies, but the fact remains that if your church has a bit of saint or scrap of cross then your church is a very very very fine church.
A vendor gets their cash up front but pilgrimage sites made their money after they obtained the relic. Once you have, say, the skull of St. Foy, you can demand golden tribute from every citizen in the locality, and use that gold to make elaborate artefacts for your abbey. It's essentially the same trick the Mafia uses, but with less leg-breaking and property damage. Nice soul you have there. Shame if something were to ... happen to it.
Again, how does this affect gameplay?
- The land is decimated, but not by plague or war; the clerics at the temple have scooped up every available gold piece, leaving nothing behind. They say their relic needs to be properly honored - but is their relic a true relic? Or is Mammon up to its usual trickery?
- The relic dealer says they have a genuine holy item of glorious memory, and if true then your knightly patron wants it - but is it genuine? That's what you have to find out. Potential added moral dilemma: the item is genuine, but the relic dealer stole it from its resting place.
- In order to cleanse the land of some hideous curse you have to find the artefact that's at the root of it all and carry it to a holy site for cleansing. The skull of the vampire king, say, must be drowned in the Well of St. Dunstan, or the vampire may rise again. Alternatively, the cursed item you just picked up might demand to be taken to an Unholy ritual site, where it can finally fulfil its purpose.
- The characters are drafted in to act as legal counsel. A horse trampled a farmer to death, and is put on trial for murder. The local lord is the prosecution. The characters are the horse's defenders. If the characters play their cards right they could walk away from this with a lot of local fame, possibly a boon or two; but if they anger the local lord they could find themselves in very hot water.
- The wizard's familiar is accused of theft, and embarrassingly the jewelry in question is found in the wizard's possession. The familiar swears blind they didn't do it. In fact, the crime was committed by someone else who faked it - perhaps a shapeshifter or druid who was able to make it look as if the familiar did it.
- A holy shrine, well or similar location is polluted and it looks as if animals are to blame; a herd of swine did what swine usually do. The question is, did the pigs act of their own accord or did some supernatural entity push the pigs into action?
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