Religions

[JonStryker]

In the paragraph below is the information I have found so far (Wiki, Games, Internet, the first short story book). I have only started reading the books so I am lacking lots of basic Witcher knowledge.

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Cult of Melitele:
This is a pagan like religion where the priests are always female. The goddess Melitele has three forms and is worshipped in temples. The head of the religion is most likely Nenneke who's the head priestess of Melitele's most important temple located in Ellander. This cult was once the most wide spread religion but isn't anymore (what's the most wide spread religion now???).
I'd assume that Melitele worship is found nearly everywhere in the Northern kingdoms. Maybe even in Nilfgaard: Cintra, maybe provinces south of it (Nazair?, ...).

Freya
The goddess Freya is mostly worshipped on the Skellige islands and maybe in nearby coastal areas like Bremervoord. Maybe even in Cintra. The head of the religion is Freya herself as she still roams the world. There is an important religious site on the island of Hindarsfjall. Priests seem to be female only.

Eternal Fire
The eternal fire has it's center in Novigrad. Its head is the Hierarch. Most likely this religion has spread throughout Redania and across the Pontar to Temeria. The Order of the Flaming Rose is a Military Order that worships the Eternal Fire (games only). There seem to be only male priests.

Cult of Kreve
Not much is known about the cult of Kreve, book wise.
In W2 Henselt seems to have an adviser who is a priest of Kreve. So it's fair to assume that Henselt follows this religion and that it is quite wide-spread in Kaedwen. The Forefather is an alternative name. The church in La Valette is most likely also one of Kreve's.

Prophet Lebioda
Prophet Lebioda seems to be a reference to Jesus. As Zuleyka of Kovir&Poviss is a follower of this religion it seems fair to assume that it is most wide spread in Kovir&Poviss and in the Hengfors league.

Nilfgaardian religion
I've read at some obscure place that "true" Nilfgaardians don't have a religion in the classical sense. They instead worship the sun (their national symbol) and the Emperor.

Nature religion
There are certain faction which seem to worship the Earth and all its gifts. Like for instance the Dryads of Brokilon and the druids.

Elfish/Dwarven religion
Not much is known about their religion. Maybe they have no god at all (unlikely), maybe their main goddess is Dana Méabdh or maybe they follow the "Nature" religion I listed above. In W2 Vergen sports a statue of a fat women looking like a goddess of fertility.

Obscure Cults
- Coram Agh Tera: The Cult of the lionhead spider: Seems to not have that many followers. But those that follow it are dangerous.
- Veyopatis: W2 only (?). Old religion of the Pontar delta.
- Water Lords: W1 only.
- Lilith: evil goddess still worshipped in the east. Most likely east of the Blue Mountains, maybe Haakland.
- Dagon: W1 only
- Dragon deities: worshipped in Zerrikania

?
- The order of the white rose: The PnP game says it is connected to the Cult of Kreve. In W1 the order of the flaming rose (Eternal Fire!) is built on top of it. A connection to the Melitele-cult isn't absolutely impossible either (judging from one of the short stories).
- Baal-Zebuth: That name of a god (?) was dropped by a thug in Aedd Gynvael, Kovir.
- Huldra: A god(dess) that has a sanctuary somewhere

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Please post your knowledge / your ideas for religions. About large parts of Nilfgaard not much is known in terms of religion. Names for invented religions are welcome!

[Screwtape]

Coming from a guy who pretty much grew up on the books: If you'd like to keep to the way religion is portrayed in the books, you should look at ways to downplay its role in the game. Sapkowski has a pretty anticlerical outlook of the world and it shows in the way he portrays religious elements in the books. The only one he treats seriously is a form of ancient mother goddess cult. Anything else is a caricature or a harmless freak. Religion isn't a part of person's identity there in the same sense as it is in CK2/Medieval Europe.

This world is not a place for holy wars and crusades. It has its share of problems, but arguably religious turmoil isn't one of them. I believe the cults coexist with each other on the same lands and having a temple of Melitele and a temple of Eternal Flame in the same province would not feel out of place flavorwise.

My thoughts on some of them:

Cult of Melitele: the most fleshed one in the books, still not an organized religion in the same vein as our medieval ones. Nenneke and Melitele Temple in Ellander were certainly important places in the books plot-wise, but it doesn't make her the Pope in Rome.

Eternal Fire: the short story that introduced the cult tells that the Church rules the city of Novigrad, so it could be a candidate for a Prince-Bishopric. Hierarch of Novigrad is also taking part in the peace talks in the end of "Lady of the Lake", so you could argue that it is popular in Redania.

Cult of Lionhead Spider: mentioned a couple of times, but not a major religion. If you want to have it in a game, they would make sense having a couple of temple holdings scattered across the map and playing the Hassassin.

Prophet Lebioda: a caricatural Jesus-like figure. I vaguely remember some mentions how it gains traction in some far future, but can't say for sure. Zuleyka is a follower, but the Good Book is more of a collection of sayings than a holy scripture. If you can call it a religion, it's more of a heresy, but since there isn't a dominant religion to be a heretic of, hard to say of what.

Freya: makes sense somewhat to make it a separate religion, but it's actually a local flavor of the Cult of Melitele. Quoting a high priestess of Freya: "We're both women. We all serve the Virgin, the Mother and the Hag". Which you can recognize as the three aspects of Melitele. Skellige is a terribly thin veil over Vikings and has other motives borrowed from the Norse mythology (Kambi, Hemdall, Ragh nar Roog).

Kreve: I don't remember it, either wasn't mentioned at all or was mentioned only in passing.

Nilfgaardian religion: your choice fits the 'evil ubermensch' empire theme pretty well.

All in all, I don't see how a ruler in the witcher's world could be coerced to do the bidding of a cult. It's more the case of granting favors to different ones and playing them against each other. A far different reality than what we have in CK2, can't say if you want to go that way.

[JonStryker]

Thanks for your input :)

I am trying to tone down the importance of religion. But I at least want to give all counties some reasonable religion. I could lump all northern religions together into one but that would be boring.
So I decided that to give all those Northern religions followers here and there while I toned down the effect of it. Different religions is nothing people hate each other very much for, religious wars are going to be pretty much disabled and religious revokations too.

I still think that it would be nice to have some "native" religion for all those areas that recently were taken over by Nilfgaard. Using Melitele that south seems to be weird for me.

Old Gods mechanics are used so it is theoretically possible to reform the faith into something more organised. This of course should be very, very hard as the Witcherworld basically is pretty un-religious.

[ajjr1996]

I think it's odd that there are provinces in lyria and aedirn that have the culture of aedirnian/lyrian but the religion of dana meadbh.. where is it stated that humans worshiped their god/gods. For the most part in the witcher world humans hate elves, so i find it odd that they would share the same ideology.

[JonStryker]

That was my interpretation of the short story that involves Dana Meadbh:
http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Dana_M%C3%A9adbh
If you read it take into account that the Elven state of Dol Blathanna was founded years after the short story took place.
Of course that is very much debatable. It could even be argued that Dana Meadh = Melitele
Or that the villagers weren't worshipping her at all.
I just thought that worshipping Dana Meadbh isn't something that only Elves do.
On the other hand Elves would not necessarily worship her. Many might even be some sort of Agnistics that only believe in one specific prophecy.

[ajjr1996]

I hear what you're saying I just think it would be better for the elves to be a certain religion specific to them, such as the dwarves.

[Seahorn]

I think grouping the Northern religions into one would probably be the best idea but, spread them into different patron Gods/Cults like the Hindu religion in Vanilla. Each one can bring certain traits i.e. the Eternal Fire +1 Martial and a seperate religious event/feast event. Furthermore, you can have a -5 approval for each cult except for Melitele who seems to function like Jainism so they can have +10 to everyone.

[JonStryker]

When I first started the mod I was pondering which way to go down: 1 religion (northern pantheon) for the north or a bunch of smaller religions.
People advised me to go for the second option.
Yet the first always felt more right to me.
But to be honest this would be A LOT of work. A really, really big amount of work. Big. Hundreds of files would need to be amended.
Currently I do not have the time to go through with this project considering that the gain would not be all too great.