Religion

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals."

– Martin Luther King, Jr

Dracula: I was called here by, huuuuumans, who wish to pay me tribute!

Richter Belmont: Tribute?! You steal men's souls! And make them your slaves!

Dracula: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.

--An excerpt from the infamous exchange that also gave us "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets" in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Because it's important to several settings and RPG systems, particularly ones that are high-profile or relevant to /tg/, we have a religion article. Let's try and keep it focused on the directly-related-to-/tg/ stuff and not descend into the pure skub that can arise in discussions of real-life religions, okay?

Definition of Religion

Almost since the inception of the term, scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. While there are some belief systems that always count as religions, some have applied the term to various things such as political ideologies, or groups when they reach a certain point. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.

The two most widely accepted are:

• "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."
• "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".

As stated before, one common element that every religion which fits the criteria has is humanity's relation to supernatural forces, as all of them have at least one god and/or an afterlife even where there are exceptions; Buddhism doesn't have any gods but has afterlives, and Taoism doesn't have an afterlife but does have a pantheistic concept of a god as a supernatural force.

Like other terms for heavily debated subjects, religion and religious have also been used as insults or Snarl Words in social and political discussions (especially from the 20th century and onwards) to ridicule groups openly promoting something the user disagrees with. This snarl creates a caricature of the group to smear them by association with the worst excesses/negative stereotypes of real-world religious people (like being too preachy, judgmental, irrational, hypocritical, or pressuring everyone to convert).

Religion vs. Mythology

While mythologies aren't religions in and of themselves, every religion has a mythology. While mythologies are merely the accounts of supernatural events, religions also have several criteria such as how life should be lived, what happens to a person after death and humanity's relation to the supernatural. Whatever the source, the mythology almost always predates the religion. As a result, especially since the Fantasy genre deals in supernatural beings and forces, most if not all fantasy settings have religions. Science fiction does to a lesser degree, mostly because during the Golden Age of sci-fi empiricists and secular humanists were attracted to the genre and their views often seeped into their stories. Despite this, given that most real-life societies have had religions playing a role in or since their founding, religions are still found in sci-fi.

Religions involves belief systems and practices, where an adherent can call upon the power/being the religion is focused on to give them aid in various ways, depending at the very least on the religion and the task in question. Given that religions are about people's place in the world, how it was made, ideas on how life should be lived and what happens after death, they have major implications for societies. Given that people can become dangerously single-minded about a cause, people can be become extremists about their religion, regardless of the fact that some are more benevolent than others and in numerous cases even if it involves going against the religion's teachings; in conjunction with the above this means religious conflicts can become widespread, long-lasting, cause carnage and also involve other elements such as politics.

Role in Society

A person's belief (for or against) any or all religions is a major factor in their worldview, and as such often serves as the undercurrent for all others. This is because this belief shapes people's views on the big things such as the purpose of life, how life should be lived in relation to oneself and others and what happens to people after they die. On the upside, this often leads to teachings with the goal of unity, peace, charity and co-operation as per the teachings of most religions, some of which are adapted by or also found among non-religious systems. On the downside, this can lead to clashes over how the people involved do the will of whichever beings or forces they follow, which religion should be followed or whether or not people should follow a god or religion at all. This can involve arguments and factionalizing, or in some cases worse things like pogroms and wars. Since they are an overarching and fairly common element in cultures, they often appear or are referenced in fiction.

The most common religious belief systems are the Abrahamic family of religions (primarily Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which are Monotheistic (belief in a singular God) and share many common elements and root, with - at the time this was written - Christianity being the most followed religion globally.

Within the last few centuries, particularly due to events such as the French Revolution, there has also been a significant amount of anti-religious sentiment, with those who hold this view considering religion at best redundant and at worst destructive (beyond historical grievances with specific groups within religions, reasons for this view and whether or not those arguments have any merit, shall not be discussed here). Interestingly, numerous tyrannical regimes have tried to restrict or stamp out religions, usually because most religions don't consider themselves subservient to state authority and their teachings often condemn many of the things tyrannical leaders indulge in. Tyrants also don't appreciate competition for their subjects' fealty and don't care for the idea of being answerable to anything besides themselves. While nations have just tried to block specific religions deemed "false" (read: are opposed to the state-sponsored religion), several nations (usually Communist states which took Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses" quote out of context, as Marx viewed religion was a sort of protest against oppression that relieved people's immediate suffering and gave them the strength to go on living while also preventing them from revolting against the class system that produced their oppression that would disappear when no longer useful) tried to get rid of religion altogether, albeit with horrifying results each time. Best case scenario, they sidegrade from one set of problems to another as cults of personality (commonly ones based on the ruler in charge) spring up to exploit the newly created power vacuum formerly filled by an established religion while believers try to continue their activities in secret.

How this impacts /tg/

A few major ways. Since most if not every society in real-life has had religion either be the basis for its founding or play a role in it, religion is just as involved in the backstory or current lore of settings. There are three major "modes" of /tg/ settings and related fictions:

• The purely functional where religions are a story device.
• Religions are portrayed positively as some sort of endorsement of religiosity.
• Religions are portrayed negative as some sort of criticism of religiosity.

Religion as a story device

Compared to the two types of writers found below, these writers are usually just attempting to model their work after real-world Mythology and are frequently attempting to keep their views of Religion separate from their work. Frequently comes in one of two subspecies:

• The Standard Fantasy Setting default: The world is ruled by an ordinary polytheistic pantheon, usually close to some admixture of Norse and Greek mythologies. Some of them also have a Top God - one more powerful than all the others and maybe the in-universe creator of everything - who is mostly hands-off in cosmic affairs. The gods of these religions tend to focus on specific areas (gods of Justice and Nature are common, for subtly obvious reasons) and frequently want their followers to propagate or promote these things.
• The kind of setting they wanted to make dictated the nature of the divine. For example, in Exalted just about all the figures anybody would call a "God" (besides the Exalted) are Useless, because the Exalted (which includes the Player Characters) are supposed to be the Most Important People in the world, to go with the main theme of the setting for the PCs: "You can do almost anything, except avoid the consequences of being the one who did that anything".

Religion as a Bad Thing

There are several writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy that are of the opinion "Religion Is Bad", and have an axe to grind (sometimes warranted, sometimes not) with either one or more specific real-life religions or religion in general. This is more common in Sci-Fi than fantasy because the focus on science appeals to the naturalist, empiricist and/or humanist worldview of such writers, with the supernatural being seen as an obstacle to that. This view can be found among fantasy authors as well, such as the author of the book series "His Dark Materials" Philip Pullman (he wrote it after getting triggered by reading C.S Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" series). Cosmic Horror also tends to use the "Gods Don't Exist" or "Gods are Evil" route, or combine them into "The Gods are actually Incomprehensible and Destructive Aliens". This also has the side effect of inclining science fiction towards an atheistic perspective.

Another major component is personal issues of the author such as grievance or prejudice, but that's case-by-case and a major can of worms. Writers of this type often model their fictional religions on the - occasionally exaggerated - worst excesses of real world religious people and lift imagery from those religions or groups among them. Popular targets are Christianity, Islam, any faith that practiced Human Sacrifice - such as the Aztec civilization's, and Scientology (to be honest, its usually just the first one that's targeted these days). This comes in flavors of either "The Gods Don't Exist", "The Gods are Incompetent" (more on that above) or "The Gods are Evil".

Religion as a Good Thing

There are several religious Science Fiction and Fantasy writers who either want to promote their worldview, look upon religion positively and put that into the story or both. This is more common in Fantasy than Sci-fi, partly because with the supernatural being a fundamental element of the genre this opens opportunities to explore many aspects of religiosity. These authors usually put more thought into their fictional religion plus its central figure (although they have a tendency to go all "Crystal Dragon Jesus"), and try and have it be at least a somewhat good influence, although religious institutions and leaders are usually hit-and-miss affairs.

Some people make a fictional setting with figures from real-world religions, either in the real-world or an alternate world such as Narnia). Others use fictional religions that either visually resemble real-life religions of figures from them; religions that often get this treatment are the Abrahamic faiths (most often Christianity), Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology (albeit often a sanitized version of the latter three).

Another route this uses is the route that faith itself provides the power; think of Morpheus' "your mind makes it real" quote, or the "Clap Your Hands If you Believe" trope. In fact, Warhammer often goes the route that the gods are powered by faith as well as from their sphere of influence which has either caused some people have risen to godhood or caused new gods to be born in the setting. In fact, this has proven the greatest weapon against Chaos in every Warhammer setting (and why the Emperor's plan to starve the Chaos Gods with atheism was doomed to fail from the start).

Somewhat special cases

One somewhat special case is the "Religion of Evil"; in many settings, there is a religion that is explicitly capital E Evil and seeks one of the usual "Card Carrying Villain" goals of Control, Conquest, Corruption, or Destruction. Frequently has some admixture of the worst aspects of Roman Paganism, Norse practices, the Aztec, Scientology, H.P. Lovecraft and/or the various Abrahamic religions. If this cult directly worships an individual Evil God, expect whatever makes sense for that deity--e.g., the cult of the God of Murder demands human sacrifice on a regular basis, with a certain portion of that explicitly being not-careful-enough cultists. Regardless, Religions of Evil can show up in all three above modes, and usually has a special purpose in all three:

• Functionalists (and, for that matter, all three) need bad guys. In particular, a group who by definition is Evil is always good for some no-need-to-worry-about-the-ethics-or-morality killing fodder.
• Religion is Bad types tend to use them to say either "while they're all Bad, some are worse then others", or say "Religion can be used to justify anything". Occasionally a prejudiced writer also uses it as a strawman to either tar all religions with the same brush or they have an axe to grind against a specific real-life religion and/or its followers.
• The sincerely religious tend to use them as analogies with fanaticism and/or Real World cults.
  • As a side note, a lot of fantasy has moved slightly away from pure Religions of Evil, for much the same reason as Always Chaotic Evil races (audiences and authors nowdays demand more motive for their villains). While there are still plenty of them, they usually add some nuance that makes them at least morally neutral under their own lights--frequently, taking vengeance for a real or perceived wrong or injustice (which has plenty of real-life precedent).

Urban Fantasy writers are another special case, since almost all Urban Fantasy is set in something that might be called "the real world with a twist", with all the usual political trouble that implies. As a result, they can take one of a few routes:

• The most common route is "there are many possible explanations" and vague things up as much as possible (Faith being the power that repels Vampires rather than than a cross having any actual connection to a deity is a popular one).
• The second common route (which is rarer outside of Cosmic Horror) is straight up atheistic/"Religion is Bad" propaganda, and in practice the writer often has an axe to grind against a specific religion (almost always the popular targets listed above).
• Some Urban Fantasy works with a clear correct religion exist thanks to the above mentioned sincerely religious authors, which are typically barely veiled proselytizing or just straight up terrible, though there are some good ones.
• The fourth route, taken most notably by DC and Marvel comics among others, is to take an "All Myths are True" approach: All religions are sort of true, but none have any exclusivity to the Truth, so Thor and Athena might have the Archangel Michael on speeddial when the Orochi starts making trouble in their neighborhoods (because "Mikey really likes kicking serpent tail, and gets annoyed when we don't at least try to invite him to an evil serpent ass-kicking."). Differs from the "vague things up" route by being clearer on some details, and also much more gonzo. The Abrahamic God is the exception here: He's usually kept especially vague and only referred to by some codephrase (Marvel likes "The One Above All", DC generally goes for "The Presence" or "whatever is behind the Source Wall").

Miscellaneous Observations

Doing the "The Gods are Incompetent" thing (the similar but different "The Gods are Insane", "The Gods Are Assholes" and "The Gods Don't Actually Do Anything" routes also falls under this umbrella) can go into any of the three modes; in a sincere monotheist's (such as Christian) work, it can be a "Take That" to polytheistic religions; in a "Religion is Bad" atheist's, it can be one to religion in general; in a Buddhist-influenced work, it can be a part of the whole "even the Gods are tied up in the Wheel of Karma" concept; and, even if the author is not pushing any religious message in any way, there's a neutral, plot-structural reason to go "Incompetent Gods": it can make the adventurers the Most Competent People Available.

If a work has multiple writers, (as frequently happens with RPG and Wargame settings, and quite a few popular SciFi/Fantasy ones as well) there's a tendency for the writers to try and pull the setting into one of the other two "modes" depending on their personal views. This leads to the theme changing from one side to the other as the story progresses. A recent example is the spate of retcons to the cosmology of the Warcraft universe and the morality of its fundamental forces/dominant higher powers, the Light and the Void. If the story doesn't get focused on a pro-religion or anti-religion message, it will swing back and forth between both sides.

Note that members of the "Religion is Bad" and "Religion is Good" brigades will get involved in arguments over the relative morality or "goodness" of various factions in the story and the accuracy of any messages a writer presents. Often history buffs will throw their hat into the ring as well.

Examples of /tg/ connected fictional religions

Warhammer 40k

• The Imperial Truth was originally the Emperor's plan on beliefs, which he and his servants propagated throughout the galaxy during the Great Crusade. Attempting to wean mankind away from Chaos and being a firm member of the "Religion is Bad" brigade, the Emperor proclaimed there are no gods, and religion had to be abolished willingly or by force while science or reason are to be used for explaining the universe and morality. Everything transpired according to his design, except theistic religiosity in the 40k universe is the best weapon against Chaos so Emp's interstellar state atheism policy gave them a major opening. Things went from bad to worse when people started looking up to the Emperor as a god himself and he responded accordingly. After the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's removal from galactic politics: the Imperial Truth was slowly shelved in favor of the Imperial Cult, to the point that espousing the teachings of the Truth is ironically considered heresy. Only a few practitioners of the Imperial Truth remain, most notably the Custodes and the Space Marines (both of whom know The Emperor better than anybody to worship him as a god. Plus, their religious autonomy.).
  • The Imperial Cult is the present-day religion of the Imperium of Man, and is a mix of several Abrahamic Religions along with copious amounts of warmongering, fanaticism and xenophobia. Derived from the Lectitio Divinatus penned by Lorgar pre-HH, the Cult decrees that because the Emperor is capable of all these miracles and power: he must be a god, and why you should worship and pledge loyalty to him. Its a complete 180 from the Emperor's original teachings, and has simultaneously been responsible for damning and saving the Imperium past the clusterfuck of the Horus Heresy. It's unknown whether the Emperor still abhors godhood and religion and would abolish it the moment he could, or if he's resigned himself to becoming the very thing he fought against for mankind to persevere in these trying times. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be a god, but now he has no choice but to become one.
  • The Cult Mechanicus (Machine Cult) is the religion of the Adeptus Mechanicus, placing a heavy emphasis on machines, viewing them as gifts from the Machine God called "The Omnissiah" Officially, the Omnissiah is The Emperor, which allows the Mechanicus to sidestep the more puritan pundits of the Imperial Cult (we worship The Emprah, just not how you do it). Unofficially, the Omnissiah may or may not be the C'tan god: The Void Dragon. It also has a high emphasis on the collection of knowledge, and one of the Admech's roles in the galaxy is to explore remote and uncharted regions of space to find and search for knowledge that has been lost throughout the millennia. The last of these, is guidelines on machines and knowledge. Officially, heretic(tek) and xeno works are to be abhorred and disposed of, viewing them as perversions of the holy Machine God's works. Unofficially however, more liberally-minded and higher-ranked Magos would happily hoard heretek/xeno works, seeing their potential over the more restricted and constrained works of the Mechanicus.

• Chaos is a violent and complicated henotheistic (believing in multiple gods but only worshipping one) or polytheistic religion with dozens, if not hundreds of interpretations. Even then, there's more sub-cults that worship their particular god in a specific way, either minutely or vastly different from everyone else among followers of the Big 4. And this doesn't even get into the realm of Chaos Undivided (which worships the concept of Chaos itself, instead of the individual gods) and Malal. Chaos has very little established guidelines regarding worship, apart from their patron god's/gods' general likes/dislikes, so any religious practices or rituals are either based on commands from the god/s or up to the imagination of the cult.

• All Greenskins worship Gork and Mork (jury's out on whether the Gretchin Revolutionary Committee do), but are too disorganized to have anything like a formal religion, though they do make effigies of Gork and Mork and call on them. Religion doesn't play a significant role in Ork society compared to the other races.

• The Tau's creed "The Greater Good" is a specie-wide philosophy that was adopted ever since the initial unification of the Tau in the olden days. In a nutshell, the Greater Good emphasizes the co-existence of all Tau and sapient life in general into working together for a common goal to further the Tau's progress, seeing everyone's potential and hoping to utilize that for an, ahem, greater good. Personal religion isn't forbidden, but it must not contradict or override The Greater Good, and must be disregarded if it ever does so. Technically, this means Tau can be religious or non-religious, as the Greater Good is not a religion (due to lacking an afterlife and supernatural aspects, with the closest things to figures of worship being the Ethereals). This sounds all fine and dandy, but the Ethereal class, who are responsible for maintaining The Greater Good, have been shown to be less benevolent than believed and have been using their unnaturally powerful charisma to subtly oppress the Tau and use them to further their own agendas.
  • The Farsight Enclaves, who have thrown off Ethereal rule, are the exception in that they have rejected The Greater Good, seeing it as the method of oppression used to keep the T'au under complete control of the ethereals. Due to this, if one considers the Greater Good a religion, The Enclaves are irreligious.
  • As of the 4th Sphere Expansion disaster, Chaos Tau are starting to become a thing.
  • At one point, the Earth Caste gathered Genestealer-infected Tau and studied them to see what would happen. Of course, a Genestealer cult developed and naturally they violently escaped control and surveillance. According to rumors, they've even produced a Genestealer-infected Ethereal.

• The Eldar have varying views on religiosity depending on their type. Their Pantheon's religious practices aren't fleshed out save for those of Cegorach, Isha, and Khaine, via the Harlequins and Aspect Warriors. Apart form these three, with most of their gods out of commission, Eldar religious worship is of a deistic bent.
  • Craftworlders and Exodites almost exclusively worship the original Eldar pantheon, though some engage in henotheistic worship of only one of the gods. Asuryan is more popular among Craftworlders while Isha is among Exodites.
  • Corsairs are all over the place, though Khaine is a popular choice given their more militant nature.
  • Being agents of the Laughing God himself, the Harlequins' worship is centered around Cegorach, whilst still paying minor tribute to the other gods.
  • The new faith around Ynnead, the Ynnari, is rapidly growing but have yet to establish teachings or rituals
  • Unique among the Eldar, the Dark Eldar are irreligious for the most part and while they believe some gods exist they're too self-centered to worship them (this is canon). They're often also anti-religious to boot; a major landmark of Commorragh is a landfill of religious icons called Iconoclast's Mound, and one Wych cult - the Pain Eternal - revolves around killing religious people and destroying shrines and holy sites. The sole exception, except for Dark Eldar who stop being Dark Eldar, are the Incubi who hold Khaine in high regard.

• While the Necrontyr had religions before certain star entities roboticizied them, those aren't fleshed out or detailed. Its also heavily implied the C'tan co-opted the Necrontyr religion beforehand. With the change to Necrons taking the higher though processes of most of them, any Necrons who can comprehend faith and religiosity either worship the C'tan or have become irreligious.

• The Tyranids themselves are irreligious, being spehss bugs and all, but understand at least a few of the advantages of religion. Genestealers infect people and together they establish cults on targeted worlds, such as one worshipping "Children of the Stars", a perversion of the Imperial Cult or something else like "Celebrants of Nihilism" (yes, that's a canon Genestealer cult name). Psychic influence is often involved and, notably, the Genestealers do not consider themselves gods. Once the Tyranids arrive en-masse, the cult-gets assimilated along with all non-Tyranids willingly or not. An interesting tidbit is that the Hive Mind stops the Tyranids from attacking the cultists in early stages of the invasion and leads them on, only to later override the Genestealers' wills and and make them slaughter the cultists.

Dungeons and Dragons

• Among Dungeons and Dragons settings, Planescape, Eberron, and Pathfinder are notable for having some coherent things that could be called "Religions", rather then the usual generic Pantheism.
  • Most of Planescape's Factions effectively count as religions, to the point they can produce Clerics (Atheist ones at that). Yes, even the Athar. (Perhaps especially the Athar.)
  • Half of Eberron's religions aren't worship of deities. The Blood of Vol seeks to unlock the divinity within one's self and rejects the gods (if they even exist) and the Path of Inspiration seeks to improve their next reincarnation. The Undying Court worships not gods but their undead ancestors that make up their government. The Path of Light, Becoming God and Reforged all seek to create a deity. Even some interpretations of the Sovereign Host, like the one most common among dragons, don't worship them as deities. Due to the way divine casting works in Eberron, all of these can produce divine casters.
  • There's a handful of religions on Golarion that aren't merely worship of pantheons. The most prominent (read: Actually has mechanical support) is the Prophecies of Kalistrade, which is basically fantasy Ferengi.

• D20 Modern's Urban Arcana, unusually for urban fantasy, has D&D deities bleed into reality alongside the monsters. You are still able to play a cleric "acolyte" of any real world deity despite this.

Star Wars

• Star Wars is inconsistent on if the The Force is a religion. The Jedi and the Sith could both be considered religions as they are considered monastic, but mix in several other traits such as being meritocratic (Jedi) and kraterocratic (Sith) and Lucas himself has axed at least one prototyped book for portraying them too much as a religion. It's also notable that the Sith were former Jedi who left the Jedi path for several reasons including disagreements over the teachings of that creed. Aside from that, religion is nearly always a non-human tradition, something noted in a culture's historical background and never seen implying its extinction, or a scam. The religiously linked "damn" and "hell" are the two real world swear words that exist in-universe, purely because Han Solo used them in the films, and some concept of an "angel" exists because a young Anakin told Padme about them in the prequel trilogy films.
  • There are rare exceptions where a religion is fleshed out and explored, and the writing goes various directions for better or worse. A notable example is the aggressive polytheistic religion of the antagonistic Yuuzhan Vong from the EU (which the story gradually revealed was long ago perverted from benevolent roots, and this perverted form takes a few cues from Islam and Aztec mythology).

Star Trek

• Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a low opinion of religion and in his vision humanity had done away with it and was better off for it and he had no interest in adding it to the aliens. However, some of the cast and crew disagreed and occasionally references and religions found their way into the show, which increased after Roddenberry's death. The Federation's culture is distinctly humanistic (extending the concept to alien species) in it's outlook in which religion is regarded as a thing of the past.
  • While there are plenty of "Godlike" entities in Star Trek, almost all are treated as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens in the Arthur C. Clarke sense--and in particular, in ST:TNG, the flip side, that Picard and his crew are frequently shown to look like Gods to sufficiently primitive aliens, is gone into in more than one episode.
  • The Bajorans are a highly religious alien race, with the majority following peaceful teachings and a minority of violent extremists.
    • Of some note, the Bajoran religion is of interest because their "Gods" actually exist, and can be (somewhat incomprehensibly) talked to (a rarity outside of Science Fantasy). In other words, they were frequently a method of having some religion vs. science debates where the divine entity (A) explicitly exists, (B) is explainable as "sufficiently advanced and unusual aliens", and (C) aren't jerks, just bad at communication with those of us who experience time linearly--in other words, with a deck that wasn't quite as badly stacked. The religiosity was meant to be as a way of contrasting the Starfleet personnel with the native population and to draw a parallel between Bajorans under the Cardassian Occupation and various real world recently freed oppressed religious-slash-ethnic groups.
  • In the fifth Star Trek movie, "The Final Frontier", some of the crew steal the Enterprise to look for God and instead find a powerful alien being impersonating God in the center of the universe Just like there is no live-action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is totally no Star Trek 5!

World of Darkness

• Very large books could be written about religion and World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness. We'll just cover a few highlights:
  • From Vampire: The Requiem, there's the the Lancea et Sanctum, which might be best described as "Christianity for Vampires", and the Circle of the Crone, which is "Pagan Vampires". Both have Vampire miracles on tap (pun intended).
  • Hunter: The Vigil has various religious organizations among the Compacts and Conspiracies, some very similar to real world ones, others...not so much.
  • Mage: The Ascension has various religious Traditions, portrayed in that highly-stereotypical and highly-depending-on-the-author way typical of old WoD.

See also

• Mythology