Reavers! A Wolves Upon the Coast Campaign

Wolves and Folk Religion

Wolves is filled with all kinds of anachronisms and it is good for that. Taking itself too seriously would really hurt its usability as a game setting.

Despite that I feel like it manages to be a place you can show what a folk religion is pretty well. In an age where most Europeans and Americans grow up with the only religions being institutionalized things with set doctrines it is interesting to make faith around the rise of christianity the nebulous thing it was.

There is a lot of strife between pagans and christians in Wolves but honestly most people didn't differentiate between the two in the real world. They did things like convert old gods into saints of new faiths. St Brigitte is a iconic example of this. She is a saint of healing in christianity but most historians think she is based off the pre-christian Irish goddess Brigid. Old pagan holidays like Imbolc became a Saints Day in the christian faith and the celebration became a time for a priest to read sermons and hand out communion after a day of feasting rather then to watch a different priest sacrifice a sheep or goat after a day of feasting. The people didn't care much the concerns of Gods where beyond them.

Yes there where some communities of die hards of their respective faiths. The Jomsvikings who maintained strict worship of the old nordic gods even a century after the surrounding viking kingdoms had taken to the cross or Charlemagne who famously burnt the Saxon Irminsul or "great pillar" and killed likely tens of thousands in a series of conversions of the Saxon kingdom but many kings had both christian and pagans in their halls and men would wear pagan symbols and be baptized as well.

Jesus was just another of the gods to be worshiped for many early "christians" so long as you didn't go to a major city and proclaim those beliefs nobody would bat an eye. Even if you did you are more likely to get a verbal rebuke from someone then be tossed in irons and burned at the stake as so often is depicted in ttrpgs like Wolves.

Essentially if a pagan player is in a christian town and is openly marked as pagan be willing to give them a warning. "Hey, take off those pagan charms God does not need foolish mortal magic for his powers to work" and the pagans would usually not care much if you where openly christian unless you are preaching to them.

#Thoughts #Wolves-Upon-the-Coast