Cathars, heresy and dualism in ArM

Also dont miss that from the rules of Sense Holiness one have to get past 15 to sense it in a person or item what means somone who can use this kind of reliable have probably spend years just training the ability instead of Theology or something other.

For what it's worth:

It seems to me that, if you are firmly of the mindset that a place is evil and corrupt, than anticipatory nerves could easily be interpreted as a reaction to that corruption. Even feelings like reverence could be thought of as the workings of temptation, given how good people are at confusing their emotional signals.

I like this fix. Keeps things together very nicely, and subtly.

However, that does not remove the underlying problem. You're saying that large Divine institutions can be kept in the dark, for centuries, about basic metaphysical truths numerous holy men and angels can reveal to them. If that works for you - great. I don't think it's really all that plausible, even if the holy men and angels are rather rare (as long as they're not TOO rare as to make the setting essentially mundane). When holy man after holy man goads against violence onto Muslims, when angel after angel guides Church and Crusade leaders against crusade after crusade... Sorry, you can't have Divine involvement and manifest will on the one hand and the major Divine institutions going against it on the other. You have to either make the divine will vague to nonexistence (God has no objection to Christians killing off Muslims, so yeah - burn them all !) or split up the Divine to opposing wills/auras as suggested upthread. IMHO.


I am starting to think angels form a huge problem to maintaining Mythic Europe. You brushed that off with saying angels only advise and there are plenty of demons that deceive, but I'm afraid I just don't see how that suffices.

Muslim: The trinity is heresy! Jesus is a holy man, not God! Die, heretic !
Christian: Jesus is the only gate to the Father ! Deny his godhood, and you deny yourself heaven ! I will not let your infidel faith to rule the land, I won't you deny heaven to the people.
Muslim: Wait a minute, I know - let's ask Metatron. You know, that voice-of-god dude we BOTH believe in. I know a guy that knows a guy that can reach him; you'll do the same on your end.
Christian: OK....
Metatron appears in a puff of smoke.
Metatron: Emm, you know guys, I'm gonna keep the fifth on this one. Carry on !
Muslim: But... but... there is a crusade about this, you know ? Mosques will be descrated. Thousands will die.
Christian: Hundreds of thousands....
Metatron: Yeah, well, I'm not gonna tell you something I know just to save hundreds of thousands of lives, chruchs, mosques, countless relics and holy places, and so on. What do you think I am ? Good ? Nah, you get to keep your free will and decide things on your own.

I suppose that can work for some, but it doesn't for me. We're saying that despite angels trying to push people to God and good, they won't reveal to them simple truths they know - like whether Jesus is God, whether muslims go to heaven, that muslims also serve the Divine, and so on. Fah. That's not how a good person behaves as I see it, and I prefer to keep the angels good.

But then again - if angels do reveal these truths, it makes Prophets and theologians rather redundant. Which again doesn't really make sense.

I suggest that it's imperative, to keep Mythic Europe functioning, to severely limit what angels can say to mortals. Angels must not be allowed to reveal anything to mortals; except perhaps to Prophets designated by God. Otherwise - all hell breaks loose; errg, I mean, the setting breaks apart. Damn metaphors, always getting mixed on me.

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This is not correct according to some Gnostics. In the Apocryphon of John the Demiurge declares himself God and steals the show from the True God; "I am God and there is no other God beside me". The Demiurge does that in the Gospel of Judas as well - the followers of the other Apostles are lured into worship of the wrong God. The false god Saklas has carried out a great coup on humanity. The Vatican ofc considered this a great heresy and acted accordingly. To me there they just can't belong to the same realm. Islam, Judaism and Christendom could with some bug fixes but the believes of the Cathars just can't. It turns the world up side down - their heresy (correct or not) is just too great. In comparison pagans are harmless. I would rather have the Cathars Infernal than on the same side as the Church.

One funny thing in the Gospel of Judas is that Judas is the only apostle to actually know where Jesus comes from (a very high score in Sense Holiness/Unholiness?) and therefore Jesus informs him that he actually is an unknowing agent of Saklas. He can not follow Jesus to Heaven.

I don't know, I'd expect his answer to be more in line with Kosh (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosh_Naranek). Then each is free to have its own truth.

Ah, but that's precisely The Fixer's point. Precisely because the Demiurge poses as the one true god, the people's devotion goes to the true god ! It doesn't matter if they say "Jesus", if they mean "God". But then again, precisely because the Demiurge is the one that set down the precise commandments and Church structure, the Church's actions and policies inevitably lead to evil and infernal corruption. So you can have the Cathar's belief be basically true, yet still a Divine aura and an occasional Divine holy man.

That's a good choice.

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I'm not really sure what you're implying, but I'm not a pluralist on truth. Especially in Mythic Europe, there is a single Truth about whether Jesus is God, whether killing Muslims falls under the commandment to kill blashpemers, and so on. And presumably, the angels pretty much know these truths; at least the basic ones and the ones under their purview. So I just don't find it realistic they'll wiggle their way out of fessing-up and thus saving countless lives, holy places, and so on. IMM(and seemingly does)V.

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Yes, that too but not what I was going for. I was implying angels would give cryptic answers, cryptic enough that both side could say: "See, Metatron says I'm right!"

Setting up an ArM5 campaign in Languedoc during the Albigensian Crusades is certainly a challenge.

To tackle it, I recommend to start by reading Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie: Montaillou, for the closest available look at documented popular Albigensian believes,
and then Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay: Historia Albigensis for the official catholic chronicle. Both books are easily available in many languages.

For ideas on how ArM5 tackles crusades within christian countries, have a look at TsE p.138ff: The Infernal Landscape. Combined with the blatant hypocrisy of Historia Albigensis it provides lots of inspiration, how to set up the bloody mess. It will be a troupe decision, whether perfecti are divinely inspired, humans prone to errors in Theology like all others, or even infernally misguided.
To avoid problems with angels in ArM5, look up RoP:D p.26f: Storyguiding Angels. In particular, nobody forces you to accept angels as player characters, or to have them answer questions about Theology in ways understandable to inquisitive mortals.
And you also need not take medieval legends about the Virgin Mary or Christ endorsing the writings of Thomas Aquinas ("bene scripsisti de me thoma") or Bernard de Clairvaux at face value.

Cheers

God isn't a pluralist on Truth. There is one Truth. In Mythic Europe its pretty clear that Jesus is God's Son and God does not have any sons.
So when an Angel is asked what's right, it probably either confirms their opinion or gives incomprehensible Truths. Or is a demon masquerading as an angel.

I have to say that this section contains a sentence that I think is highly problematic. "There are no politics in Heaven, no adventures, no dramas or personality conflicts; there is only endless and perfect harmony". I get that this makes angels and Heaven rather majestic and alien, which is cool. But I also think that it makes them too boring, and as I said repeatedly in this thread I can't see how this fits in with humanity's multiple warring religions and creeds down below.

How perfectly clear :smiley:

That's certainly one way to go, and if this works for you great. I think I prefer my solution, namely that the angels don't speak of these matters much like they don't take direct action in the world, letting mortals do that instead.

In short - my mileage apparently varies from you lot. That's cool.

Have fun now,

Yair

It fails IF holy men are recognized as such (and not as crazies/heretics) by the church AND have enough influence to be listened to. History tells us this is seldom the case.
The same goes for your christian enlightened enough to discuss with a mulsim and let him invoke [strike]the devil[/strike] Metatron. I'm sure there were christians and muslims, even back then, arguing that they all worshipped the same god. Yet, they were ignored.

The angels are a bigger problem, but only if you have them act blatantly and obey mortals. The more an angel tells Men about God's will, the more he takes away his free will. Men are supposed to make their own choices, be the masters of their own destiny.
And how can a simple mortal distinguish between an angel and a demon masquerading as one? And there's the Faeries, too. Crusades make great stories for the Faeries, just likes stories of angels and devils.
If a cardinal hears a voice telling him "embrace the muslims" and another one saying "Don't be fooled by the devil's tongue, these are his children", how is he supposed to know what to do?
If an angel guides a crusade, who's to say he wouldn't be worse wihout him? And who's to say he's really an angel and not, say, a magus who wants to seize land from islamic wizards?

I'd point you towards Tales of Power as an example: There's a story about the pope's election (so, something huge), and not a single angel in sight. Crusades can certainly be decided upon a similar model.

With all due respect, who cares?
Who's to say what they believed was "true"? And if some gnostics believed that, what of the others, who believed differently? Were they wrong, then?

If you're trying to have every christian, cathar and islamic belief being true all at once yet with the same true god, of course you're gonna have trouble! And then some, what about the different subsets of islam and christian thought?
Likewise, you only have a problem if your hypothetic cathar with insane levels of Sense Holiness makes conclusions that are troublesome for you and is actually listened to and believed by other cathars, and not thought to be corrupted by the Demiurge.

What matters is:

  • What happens to the one witnessing it: What does he think, how does he react?
  • How do the guys in his religion react when he tells them this?
    You can twist these any way you want and still be believable, and this is what I, and others, have tried to show you.
    Your problem is that you decide that the guy will think that divine auras everywhere must mean god = demiurge, will care about it (and not about, say, his personnal power over his flock), will talk about it and will believed by all the higher-ups in his religion.
    Change any one of these and the problem goes away.

Well, that text is a clear and fair warning against using angels as player characters.
ArM5 has already enough angels who left heaven or were thrown from it. More would be idiosyncratic and voluntaristic (which doesn't mean that an ArM5 campaign putting angels against each other isn't fun with the right players).
ArM5 as written implies, that in-game religion [religio = service, veneration] and theology are the work of men, not of God. So differences about both, even violent ones, need not to be reflected in celestial hierarchies. Yes, Gioacchino da Fiore claimed, that a miracle on Mount Tabor gifted him with the spiritus intelligentiae, bestowing upon him authoritative exegesis of the bible and consequential prophetic powers as to the structure of history. Popes and emperors followed him - but neither the University of Paris, nor Thomas Aquinas.

Cheers

The idea that the will is more important than the ritual is fairly modern, I think. At least that seems to be the idea in gnostic teaching. If the ritual is wrong you might actually end up worshipping the wrong God or at least God won't hear you. This idea has some support in ArM - if you ritual is wrong your Aegis of the Hearth won't work even if you really, really want it.

Perhaps they were wrong, perhaps they were right, but in ArM they would all still belong to the Divine Realm. How do you explain that?

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You (the players) don't need to explain it.

Just like you (the players) don't need to explain why Corpus and Animal are different Forms. It is just the way things are in Mythic Europe.

In character a character who is somehow aware/told/or suspects the monotheist religions (and some others) are Divine, will have to come up with their own in-character explanation for why this is true (or why this information is in fact false). Coming up with this explanation, and perhaps acting on it (whether the explanation is in fact right or wrong), is a potential source of story, if that is what interests your troupe. On the other hand, if this is not what interests your troupe, then just move on to what does.

Or rather; a recent Hermetic discovery makes a magus able to cast "Pilum of Fire" using Creo Aquam.... :confused:

Sure, if in your saga a magus somehow manages to cast "Pilum of Fire" using Creo Aquam, then those magi who find this out (and care, and believe it) will need to radically rethink their ideas of what the Hermetic Forms are.

Likewise, if in your saga a religious character somehow manages to discover that Islam, Christainty and Catharism, are all "Divine", then those characters who learn of this (and care, and believe it) will need to radically rethink their ideas of what the Divine is.

It's your saga. Tell the story you want to tell.

IMO, this seems as if God and Jesus are in (kinda) quantum states, not unlike schrodinger's cat.
In fact, if God is not limited by mortal rules and laws, this would kinda make sense, that he can be multiple things at once.
That's also be coherent, in a way, with the tales of multilocation, like the baptist's head, the grail or the true cross.

I think you may be running in circles here.
I told you a possible explanation a character seeing divine auras everywhere might come up with, which might, or not, be the actual truth. This was your problem, and my answer to it.
You countered by saying some gnostics believed differently. How is that relevant? Your problem is not with gnostic or church beliefs, but with a Sense Holyness character, period.
For all he knows, despite what people, gnostics included, thought, that "modern" idea may be the truth. He's the one who needs to come up with an explanation, and I gave one to you. It is heretic or strange? Of course it is! Everyone knows the church/cathars/muslims are worshippers of the devil!

But if God actually is the Devil and all are devilworshippers we have to merge The Divine Realm with the Infernal Realm... and thinking of it we might just merge the Faerie and Magic as well - I never understood the difference. :slight_smile:

Well, Faeries are like internet trolls, they want you to react to their actions and cause grief or whatever emotion suits them.
Magics are forces of nature, a flash flood doesn't care if it kills or not.

If a magic tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, it still makes a sound.
If a faerie tree falls in the forest and nobody hears, it doesn't make a sound. In fact, it doesn't fall at all but only looks fallen the next time you pass by.

To make place for this in the context of a thread about Cathars, heresy and dualism in ArM, you need to
first find and indicate the source for Catharism you want to build your campaign around,
second describe it to us, and give an argument, why this version and not another,
third decide - likely with your troupe - to make this description conform to the Divine in your campaign,
fourth give us the argument, why you want to do so.
Then you can pose the problem on this forum, just how to make this approach work for your campaign.

Given that there are many ways to incorporate Catharism into a campaign, and tmk none is advertised or demanded in ArM5, your line above otherwise just looks like a rant: too inconsiderate to discuss even with a :slight_smile: behind. (RoP:D p.94 in one paragraph describes Perfecti as adherents to a very diluted form of dualism. This allows to integrate them in a simple way into campaigns not focusing on dualist theology.)

Cheers