- A Cathar believer is about to persuade a bishop to release his wife. Both are a cathedral and the Cathar prays that the (as he sees it) unholy wealth and excess of the Babylonic building will not distract him. Will he get bonus to his prayer from the Divine Aura of the cathedral?
If the Cathar is using a supernatural power that is aligned with the Divine, sure, he gets an aura bonus to his power for a Divine aura. Why wouldn't he? "Praying" isn't necessarily a supernatural power though.
Don´t forget it: The Divine Aura doesn´t exist because of the rich cathedral, the aura exists, because god is present.
Chiarina.
Ok... my example was bad. The Cathar uses a undefined "supernatural power" in a cathedral. According to his beliefs the cathedral is a manifestation of Satanel to bind human souls to a false faith - but if he gets an Aura bonus this belief is then proved wrong.
Would the Cathar realise it at all that the Divine Aura is stronger at this place except for that his prayers might be answeared a bit easyer then expected?
I don't think a supernatural power can be "undefined". At least not to the players, or at the very least not to the storyguide. The players (or storyguide) know whether the supernatural power is Divine or not. If it is, and it is used in a Divine aura, then it gets a bonus (if it isn't Divine and is used in a Divine aura, then it will get a penalty).
Now, assuming that the Cathar has some way to definitely detect both the presence of a Divine aura and its impact on his powers, then, sure, he needs an in-character explanation of why this is so. If what occurred is not what his Cathar faith tells him should happen, then he has many options, such as:
a) he could deny the evidence, always a good option when faith is challenged.
b) he could explain the evidence away by the fact that God is both powerful and (apparently according to his Cathar belief) "evil", and therefore it is not unsurprising that God would behave in an annoying manner.
c) he could further develop Cathar theology in a way that explains why the Divine aura in a cathedral is beneficial to a Cathar's supernatural powers.
d) he could undergo a crisis of faith and convert to the Latin church.
Whatever you choose, there are plenty of opportunities to either create or block story development along these lines, depending on what your troupe wants to do.
The aura does not have to be âundeifiedâ just because the Cathars powers does not work. That is one advantage by splitting the Divine aura. Regarding the options;
a) Yes, he could do that but is is no fun to be proven wrong by game mechanics even in-character.
b) Not very kind to the Cathar as this means that his powers are worthless as they in fact only are the marvels of the devil. If his powers would come from the True God they would work just as good outside as inside the cathedral.
c) All writings of the Great Plotinus dismissed just like that? Why didnât anyone notice this phenomenon before?
d) Not necessarily as but he would feel an aura at home as well.
So, what is the main reason for not splitting the Divine aura? The game creators have made a realm split between polytheistic and monotheistic/dualistic religions already.
A worshipper of Thor benefits from a Faerie aura that comes from the worship of Zeus, Jupiter or even Epona.
If there are multiple divine entities up there, they're still all divine, just like all of those are faerie.
The big thing about monotheism is that there isn't a multiple of ruling divine entities up there. You may argue that the saints and Mother Mary are divine entities sort of but a medieval theologian would probably not say that the God of the Jews or the God of the Moors is the same as the Christian God. A neoplatonic gnostic would absolutely not say that the Demiurge (the creator) and God are the same... they would absolutely not sit by each others side ruling heaven. Imagine worshiping Satan and Jesus a the same time. Thor and Jupiter can belong to the same realm and they won't condemn you if you worship both. Compare a closed supermarket that only accept their own credit card (monotheism) with an open fair (polytheism).
That's not how polytheism generally works. Telling a Hindu that Thor must be real because they're polytheistic just won't work.
Polytheists often believe in one, specific, pantheon and nothing outside it. Only one creation myth, and therefore only one pantheon, can be the true source of reality.
Most Romans, for instance, believed that every pantheon (that is, every faerie religion in Ars M) was actually a misinterpretation of the one true set of deities: the Roman one.
Much the same as Islam just being a misinterpretation of Christianity and visa versa.
Generic "paganism" where people worship every pantheon ever is mostly a modern invention.
Why not? The Hindu even accepted the monotheistic Jesus and Buddha into their pantheon.
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That is not my understanding as polytheism is usually very flexible and without dogma... what polytheist religion are you talking about?
That didn't stop them from importing other gods like Mithras, Isis, Serapis, and the very familiar Hermes-Toth. They also made sure to lure out the Etruscan gods before they sacked Veji because they didn't want to mess with them. Same thing happened at Jerusalem I think.
Islam (and probably Judaism but I am not sure) recognises Christianity as close to them but do not recognise Jesus as divine and the trinity is considered an abomination. Medieval theologians would have Islam a heathen cult dedicated to Baphomet and Apollyon and the God of the Jews was not the same god as the Christian God at the time. I would say that generic monotheism is absolutely a modern invention. We have it in ArM perhaps because of prudence but I really wouln't say it is, here we go again, "medieval paradigm". If Jews, Christians, Muslims and Gnostics could feel that they actually belong to the same Realm (as they can in ArM) people would probably have been harder to fool into Crusades and such. It would indeed have had an impact on the Church fathers and theologians.
Simon de Montfort, infamous for extreme cruelty during the Albigensian Crusade, refused to have his own soldiers participating in the sack and looting of Constantinople during The Forth Crusade because he felt that the Greeks were fellow Christians. Needless to say, he did not feel the same about the Cathars.
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Interesting points; thanks to all.
I still maintain that the only way to realistically maintain the Crusades et al, given access to Sense Holiness & Unholiness and to angels, is to split the Divine. Now -
How does the Cathar maintain his belief that the Catholic Church is worshiping Satan ? I don't know. But I don't know how factions in the Church can be corrupted, either, given that there are plenty of holy men and even angels in charge of the organization (according to RoPTD) and the people who comprise it. Isolated individuals may fall, but prominent ones or entire institutions will very quickly be exposed as Infernal. I just don't get it.
So if you figure out how the Templars, say, can be corrupted into an Infernal cult - then you should be able to figure out how the higher echelons of the Church can be similarly corrupted.
That said - I don't think dualism works that well in the setting. The Church is pretty clearly Divine. I like that the Church is divine, and that the divine is broadly speaking "good", since that provides some moral gray area for players to fret about. But to each his own.
And there, in a nutshell, is the problem. Back when Divine influence was more or less confined to Auras and True Faith, it was possible to support a level of "mysterious ways" ambiguity. AM5, and particularly RoP:D, have amped up Divine involvement so much that suspension of disbelief is a lot harder. For example, if Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Angels are all really one and the same and are manifest in the world, don't you think they might suggest that followers of the three religions be a bit nicer to each other?
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I think this problem emerges from two causes:
Mythic Europe has to be internally consistent, so when you mention Constantinople in the Irish book*, it needs to look like it does in the Constantinople book. This means that if we say "A guy in the Reconquista saw Islamic and Christian angles fighting" it becomes univerally true, or not true if we say he was drunk or faerie-led. It doesn't just become true for one campaign, or campaigns using one set of tools: it's True.
The folklore we are using as source material is far wider than the people coming up with stories in the Middle Ages were using as their base stock A character in Ireland isn't really all that likely to know about the Reconquista fighting angel thing, and so if he says "No, Jewish angels are the same as Christian angels: God didn't get a new Gabriel at any point." we get this conflict.
- Place names picked at random: I've not read the Irish book.
For the same reasons that historic Cathars did --- the Latin Church is an obvious source of great evil in Mythic Europe --- c.f. the crusades, the obsence wealth of the "princes" of the church, etc.
Also remember that Catharism is much more than a theological argument. There was an Albigensian crusade. There were battles. Not everyone on the Cathar side was a pacifist, ascetic, theologian who had renouced belief in the material world.
Lucifier rebelled. God allowed Eve to be tempted by the snake in the Garden of Eden.
There are any number of such logic problems which have complex theological explanations. If the Fall of Man can happen, then corruption in the church can happen.
If God can be both the Father and the Son, then there is no problem about Gabriel being both one and two (or more). Again there is a theological explanation that is in-character knowledge for those with sufficient Theology.
Also, as Timothy suggests, most people in Mythic Europe don't have this problem at all. Most people believe just one of the faiths (their one) is true (and, perhaps, will concede that elements of other faiths are not totally false). Most people (lacking a score in Theology) will have even only a vague idea of the details of their own faith. Most people have no access to something like InVi that can analyse the presence and effect of auras.
It is only people like (well-travelled) Hermetic magi who will recognise that somehow the supernatural force of the Divine is present in both Islam and Christianity. Some magi presumably have a theological explanation of why this is so. But even those magi don't really know.
The only character in Mythic Europe who actually knows how several inconsistent religions can all be the Divine is God. And He is unlikely to be a character encountered in play.
With the Albigensian Crusade we actually have the greatest paradox in the very heart of Mythic Europe around 1220. What exactly do we loose by explaining this will a rift in the Divine realm? I am actually thinking about splitting the Divine Realm into two - a higher and a lower one. The higher will contain The True God and is worshiped by Gnostics, Zoroastrians and Mithraic Mysteries and perhaps some ascetics and mystics from any religion. This realm will not affect the earth and will not answer prayers but it's worshipers might have some supernatural powers. The lower one will be the place of the Demiurge and his host. They are more powerful on earth and will actively interfere with this realm with miracles and such and demand of its followers only to worship them. The God of the Old Testament and Crusades belongs here and relics will grant powers from this realm. The Demiurge is not the devil but as the creator of the mortal world he is also the creator of Hell and the Infernal Realm. It is not very clear to people with sense Holiness/Unholiness which one is which as they both the higher and the lower Divine realms are Divine. They can appear at the same place or be separated.
IMO, at its core, it boils down to this:
- They worship one god as creator of the universe => Whatever the name and details, they are divine
- God granted humans free will => they can do as they please, even evil. This is also why, despite the presence of angels, the church may do bad things: An angel may advise you, he will seldom tell you what to do. No longer, at least. And you can have any number of demons ruining their work, should you wish it.
Now, the "cathar-in-a-church" problem.
Tell me, are people conscious of Auras?
Magi feel the divine weighting down of them. IMO, this is deliberate, for God wants them the be humbled, to remind them that they are but humans. But, IIRC, magi in infernal auras will feel their power is bolstered, even though the aura penalizes them. So there is at least one case where feeling differs from reality.
Who's to say that, aside from experimentation (casting the same effect time and time again, at various places), practitionners of other powers can tell that their powers are helped or impeded by an aura? They don't have access to casting total, so maybe your cathar invoking god's aid in a church won't realize he was helped by the Aura. After all, if InVi can detect auras, there's a chance magi need them to know for sure.
And what if he does realize that it was easier to use his power in a church? Well, sometimes, when facing great evil, god will help you. Just as sometimes, he will let you to fend on your own, even when you really need him in that infernal aura. Even mechanically speaking, how does he know he didn't just made a good roll?
Unless he's used to make displays of powers in cathedrals, he can't know this rush of power is due to the aura and not an exploding die. Conversely, what if he's in an infernal aura, invoke god's help, and (due to a stress die of 40+) creates the most powerful effect he's ever used? Will he say "Oh, sure, this is due to the aura, so my faith has been wrong all along?"
As for angels vs angels, you have at least 2 options:
- Either god forbids it when divine faces divine, so people can use their supernatural powers (they're free to do so, remember), but can't invoke angels
- Or he lets it be done, and so what? Muslims see christians invoking false gods and demons masquerading as angels, and the christians see the same. And maybe sometimes a demon clouds their view, too, so they see monsters where there are none.
Really, it ain't that difficult to find explanations, if you're willing to. Only if you want to tie yourself up will you be faced with a conundrum, and have to rework the entuiire cosmogony.
People with "Sense Holiness/Unholiness" are IMO.
An evil demiurge might actually enjoy seeing angels and humans killing each other even if all do it in "his" name.
Yes, they will be; but the vast, vast majority of members of any given religion don'y have that ability.
Well, for those few mystics who have it?
If they had it before, there's little chance they could have become cathars. They know the church is divine, why would they look elsewhere?
In any case, unless they somehow decide to spend their time at places of heretic/satanic worship (cathar/catholic/islamic, whatever), there's no problem.
If they do? Whatever they're thinking, it's only a problem if they have the ear of the church. Otherwise, claiming that cathars and catholics are both divine? Surely, here there be heresy at worst, madness at best. Even a cardinal, if claiming that, would be in serious trouble.
In fact, you can quite easily have that happen, in both sides, with those poor souls being turned aside by catholics and cathars alike.
As for how they view it, you can come up with quite a number of reaction. Here's one:
People believe in god. Even the ones misguided by the church. So when they pray, their prayers turn towards the one true god, not the demiurge, creating the Divine auras, so it's logical churches, where simple, pure people pray the most, are washed by the divine. It doesn't change the fact that the Church itself is a tool of the devil, as evidenced by rampant corruption among its more powerful officials, just as wealth is one of its tools.
in fact, since muslims have divine auras too, it stands to reason that the demiruge has multiple such entreprises of putting lies and deceit between humanity and god, to turn them away from Him. He can't affect their faith, and thus the Divine auras born for it, but he can subtly corrupt it, and pit brother against brother.
Surely, that's why a guy like Francis of Assisi relinquished his bellicose ways: He realised that some, if not most muslims had their heart, if not their head, in the right place.
You can easily go along these, or other, lines, and have it all fit. Unless you decide that Sence H/U is quite frequent at all levels and that those with it see a lot of different divine auras, I don't see it as being a problem.