Favorite fictional religion

[Bobular]

This season of Game of Thrones has had me thinking about the different religions in that series, you've got your Seven, your Drowned God, your Lord of Light, your Old Gods, did the people of Meereen still worship their harpy?

Then you've also got some of the cool, crazy, evil religions from 40k, where worshiping daemons makes up a large part of humanities religion base along side worship of machines and worship of a rotting corpse on a chair. Then you've got the xenos god, I especially like the whole Eldar pantheon thing that actually has some interesting mythology behind it.

Then there's the religions of Dragon Age, the whole Forgotten Realms mass of different religions, the Eldar Scrolls ones and basically any RPG will bring its own religions, even Mass Effect has Reaper worship and Prothian worship.

So out of the vast collective of fictional religions out their, which is your favorite? And why do you like them, their awesome bad ass priests, interesting mythology, agree with its philosophy?

 

[Sonmi]

Call me boring and unoriginal, but I usually like Catholic Christianity stand-ins.

So yeah, sign me up for the Faith of the Seven, or the Church of Andraste, or whatever.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I'll go with the Church of Humanity Unchained, a Christian sect from the planet Grayson in the Honor Harrington universe. As backwards and oppressive as they can be, they're still amazingly progressive compared to the majority real world Christian Sects.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Heretic! Redeem them with sword and fire! Give thanks to the God-Emperor of Mankind, for He will absolve you in death.

 

[Thomas Barnsley]

Always a fan of the Great Journey in the Halo series, though I don't know much about it having read none of the books. Suicide cults are rarely not interesting after all! But more than that, the Covenant architecture and governance as dictated by their religion and the Prophets is just so cool looking.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The Monks of the Temple of Luck, from Oglaf (NSFW).

 

[DefunctTheory]

Going to have to go with SilentPony on this one - The Imperial Cult takes the cake. There's something truly delightful about taking every conceivable bad thing about religion, rolling it into one big ass, galaxy wide cult, and then putting it into a universe where it's all justified, and a fantastic idea.

Then, just to top it off, you liberally sprinkle with hot as hell nuns with flamethrowers, grenade launchers, chainswords that are bigger then what they use in industrial logging, and pipe organs that fire missiles when you play them.

And for bonus points, the subject of the cults devotion is a 12 foot tall psychic super being that kicked ass, conquered the galaxy, AND was a world class scientist just for funsies.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Don't forget those hot as fuck nuns are NOT celibate. There's just a rule that they can fraternize when they're daily duties are done and so many of them just fill free time with more praying and working out.

I think in one of the Cain novels there's a local Imperial Guard general whose married to the local Sister of Battle Prioress. And when approached on the subject if she's abstinent, the SoB just shrugs and is like "No, I'm off duty."

 

[DefunctTheory]

SNIP

Don't forget those hot as fuck nuns are NOT celibate. There's just a rule that they can fraternize when they're daily duties are done and so many of them just fill free time with more praying and working out.

I think in one of the Cain novels there's a local Imperial Guard general whose married to the local Sister of Battle Prioress. And when approached on the subject if she's abstinent, the SoB just shrugs and is like "No, I'm off duty."

I don't remember that bit, I but I remember that when he was retired and teaching on Perlia, the local Battle Sister at the Schola Progenium he was assigned to was doing the nasty with an Administratum officer.

So not only are they not celibate, but their game for everyone! Whee!

 

[Saelune]

Praise Almsivi! For the Gods walk among us! Oh great warrior poet Vivec, who stopped the moon, oh wise Sotha Sil, who taught us so much, and beloved mother to us all, Almalexia and your kindness...what? They're a bunch of phonies?...

Praise be to Azura, Daedric Prince of Dawn and Dusk, who hath punished the false idols, ever watchful stern matron of the Dunmer peoples!

 

[FalloutJack]

[HEADING=2]-Zio-ism-[/HEADING]​

More specifically, the cult of Dark Falz and the Profound Darkness.

A long time ago, two ancient forces of good and evil split from a single entity, creating the Great Light and the Profound Darkness. Throughout the cosmos, they fought to a standstill, until the Darkness was locked within an abyss that separated it from the known universe. To keep it sealed away, a planetary system - the Algo Star System - was created as a locking mechanism. As long as its planets are kept in rotation, the Darkness cannot return to this plane of existence. However...after some time, life began to appear on these worlds, and with it the ability for the Profound Darkness to reach into their minds. In time, it fed upon that and created a demon avatar of destruction: Dark Falz.


Sometimes known as the Dark Force, the creature itself was the will of the Profound Darkness made manifest, and was able to be born anew in Algo every thousand years, the time in which the planetary alignments caused the celestial barrier to be at its weakest. Dark Falz would enter the world, creating havoc and spreading evil into both the land and the people of Algo. Some began to worship it and join the ranks of its unholy legions. Throughout the years, although it was defeated before it could unleash the Profound Darkness, it has delivered terrible blows. A planet was destroyed, populations were decimated, and civilization receded in terms of development. The lock which held the Profound Darkness was weakening.


During the next planetary phase of Falz's manifestation, the Darkness' hold on the Algo System tightened considerably. Enter Zio, the black magician and cult leader of Dark Falz's worship. Empowered directly by a being which he resolutely declared as his god, he commanded both an army and a cult dedicated to the eradication of life and the destruction of the worlds, the last tumblers in the lock. He also carried the Blackwave, a sinister power of death and defilement which permeates whatever being it is unleashed upon and destroys it from within. Sometimes, the dead of this power would rise again as canniballistic corpses. In time, Zio and indeed the beings he came to worship as gods were fought...


...and beaten. Algo was eventually saved from disaster. But...were the Dark Falz and the Profound Darkness defeated for all time?


Perhaps not.

 

[vare]

The Monks of the Temple of Luck, from Oglaf (NSFW).

Alternatively there is the faith of Sithrak!

Spoiler

 

[Fox12]

Call me boring and unoriginal, but I usually like Catholic Christianity stand-ins.

So yeah, sign me up for the Faith of the Seven, or the Church of Andraste, or whatever.

I really like Bloodborne's take on it. They build it up like its going to be a normal Catholic Church, and then you discover it's actually a Cthulhu cult. Walking up the Grand Cathedral steps for the first time was pretty eye opening.

 

[kris40k]

Then you've also got some of the cool, crazy, evil religions from 40k, ...and worship of a rotting corpse on a chair. Then you've got ...

[image width=230 height=170]http://static2.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/I+heard+some+heresy+_01e94c944f4e989f5bf152a8739f0b94.jpg[/IMG]

In any case, in addition to what others have said about the Imperial Faith, I find that the fact that when the Emperor was walking amongst, he banned all religion as he saw it as a weakness and prone to corruption by the forces of Chaos, and after all that work attempting to unify mankind and stamp out religion, he goes and gets shiv'd by his right-hand man and then deified by the rest of humanity.

He'd be rolling in his grave if they would finally bury him.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Aren't all religions fictional?

Praise the s...sandwich?

String cheese incident?

Stormtroopers?

Striped trouser gods?

Sleazemonkey?

Solomon

Sex strangle serial killer?

Salmon?

ah...SUN!! That's the biscuit! I like it because the absence of information means i can project my horrific fantasies onto it with minimal tainting.

Though i am currently writing a new universe that will include invented religions,naturally, you can't invent civilizations without religions based on what's around them, can you? So different ideas are good to see for added inspiration and to avoid accidentally creating similar themes.

 

[God'sFist]

Let me hear it for Sithis! Ever since Oblivion I absolutely love what the Dark Brotherhood stand for. Seriously when I started the Dark Brotherhood questline in Skyrim and met Astrid and found out about how they had forsaken the five tenets as well as wishing to do away with the Night Mother I tried to assassinate her on the spot and quickly found out she couldn't be killed. I was successful by the way. Hail Sithis the dread father. Hail to the Night Mother and the Black Hand.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I'll go with the Church of Humanity Unchained, a Christian sect from the planet Grayson in the Honor Harrington universe.

Thought that religion name sounded familiar. I need to re-re-re-re-re-re-reread that series.

OT: I'm quite fond of The Imperial Truth from Warhammer 40,000.
Yeah, The Imperial Truth. Not Creed.
>.>
<.<
So, not really a religion, but it was supplanted by one.

 

[Evonisia]

Always a fan of the Great Journey in the Halo series, though I don't know much about it having read none of the books. Suicide cults are rarely not interesting after all! But more than that, the Covenant architecture and governance as dictated by their religion and the Prophets is just so cool looking.

I think one of the books did go out of its way to say that some of the prophets know the purpose of the Halo rings, but because they're so fearful of losing their place of power they bribe the priest who discovers the truth (who then becomes the Prophet of Mercy) before deposing the then Hierarchs and taking their place. Hence why Truth, Mercy and Regret are so desperate to find the Ark as the Halo array will eradicate what's left of their enemies whilst they will be safe to inhabit a galaxy without competition.

OT:
Came here to say The Covenant from "Halo". I find them incredibly interesting, both their beliefs and their structure. Plus some of the books flesh things out even more. They're basically a massive galactic Empire that believes that the technology of the Forerunners (a species long vanished by the time of the Covenant's formation) will ascend them onto a greater existence just as the Forerunners themselves did at the end of a long war against the Flood, eradicating the Flood in the process.

Some of the races in the Covenant aren't even there out of belief, they were just recruited or forced into it in order to act as labour.

Of course 343 Industries made the lore surrounding the Forerunners a lot less interesting, but I choose to ignore it.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I forgot to mention that the Imperial Cult has the best prophets, as well.

 

[happyninja42]

I think my favorite, for it's fleshed outedness, is the Hammerites from the original Thief series. Someone went to a LOT of work to make their holy book actually seem like a holy book, but make it this brutal old testament style one, where the god is this Builder guy, who will smite his own children with his hammer to build a better one.

To couple with that, the Keepers of the same game line. An Order of elite thieves that use their skills to secure and preserve the secret knowledge of the world, so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. Just so much fun their.

I also really enjoy the religion of the Stormfather from Brandon Sanderson's "Stormlight Archive" series. Any religion that founds itself upon worshiping the badassness of a massive planet spanning storm? they've got my vote.