Also one religion isn't same everywhere forever. It varies between places and changes over time.

Idea: Have a religion with four gods and each one be linked to one of the cardinal directions. So when praying to god A you face north, when praying to god B you face east and so forth.

I'm curious to read the comments in a few days.

next make a worldbuilding on politics and explain the difference between the 149 different forms of anarchism, because don't have a fkn clue

James: I wanted to tackle something uncontroversial so let’s talk about religion *16 mins later* James: religion is a pretty controversial topic

I think the relationship between religion and magic is not well enough explored in most books where it is present. There's often a lot of "magic is heresy, suppress it," but do some people see magic as a religious gift? Do religions disagree about it? Do people dispute whether events from scripture are magic or miracle? Etc, etc

A book that had a great religious influence was The Priory of the Orange Tree. The people of this world believed that the bloodline of the queens was what’s keeping the big evil guy in prison, and that the queens were descended from the union of a divine knight and maiden. It’s not totally confirmed in world that this is the truth, so there’s also other religions that deify the maiden, but dispute the divinity of the knight. And then there’s other religions who don’t worship the maiden and worship dragons (who are real and alive). I thought it was a good example of religion playing an important role in creating conflict.

me, a fantasy writer: *taking notes furiously*

As a religious scholar and part time sci-fi author, I couldn't agree more with this analysis. Religious faith is an infinitely complex topic, as it incorporates spirituality, philosophy, history, literature, mathematics, mysticism, politics, and a variety of other topics. Being a scholar of religion means you don't just study spirituality, but all of these other things influencing by spirituality and which influence spirituality. It annoys me when writers take a simplistic approach to faith, where the protagonist is either unwavering in goodness and piety, or the only brilliant thinker among a sea of "unthinking sheeple" (way to self-project, authors). In truth, religious faith manifests itself in innumerable ways, so creating simplistic structures is just lazy writing. Religion in real life informs human complexities. Therefore, if you desire verisimilitude in your writings, the same should seen with religious worldbuilding.

Not really religiously based: It's always bugged me that in most fantasy stories, whenever a character tells the legend of something, or tells a spooky story, IT'S ALWAYS TRUE. The absolutism and the lack of wonder really pull me out of a story. The big exception I can think of is ASOIAF where George likes to misdirect the reader. If there are others, I'd like to hear about them as I don't read half of what I should

One can look at the stories of old travelers (like Ibn Battuta) to see how important it was to those people to find people of the same faith on their journeys. You could travel to distant countries inhabited by people with very different customs or languages, but as long as you find someone with the same faith you'll be welcomed and find hospitality. Religion was something that could tie people together even if they lived at the opposite ends of the known world, something that nothing else back then could accomplish. Considering how common travel is in fantasy stories you'd think this kind of thing would come up at least occasionally but...nope!

Italy has a secular religion: Soccer.

I always feel overwhelmed when I look at world building. There’s so many layers, and different variables that, I don’t know where to start

"The peasants will spend a lot less time wondering why they work out at the fields all day to provide for the lavish lifestyle of their rulers if they think disobeying their rulers will cause earthquakes and shit. And then if the earthquakes and shit hit them, if there's a plague or famine or any other sort of disaster, then they might start to believe that their rulers are no longer favored by the gods and they might rise up to remove them" This is extremely similar to the Chinese philosophy of the Mandate of Heaven, where it's inferred that just like an emperor can appoint a governor to rule a province and dismiss them if they rule horribly, so too could the Jade Emperor appoint a person to rule over the mortal realm and remove their mandate (such as in the form of nature disasters or famine) if those rulers are corrupt, tyrannical or incompetent thus giving the people carte blanche to rise up and remove them.

As a person who is in the middle of writing a fantasy book, I feel relieved that religion plays a ginormous part in my book. In my book, a demigod sacrificed his divinity so that the humans could use magic, something that would help them face against the disasters that the gods created. This makes it so that many magic users become priests and priestesses because they are more able to connect and communicate to the gods.

I’m a DM for a group of 25-45 year olds. I’ve created some worlds in my day, but DMing for these guys brought up many, many questions about religion. I had no religious agenda, and so I thought about it to the extent that there would be temples and such in villages and towns. This brought questions I didn’t expect like “what God do they worship there? How exactly WAS this world formed?” And so on. It turned into a HUGE part of the campaign, and magic became based on religion. (i.e. you cast a spell by making a prayer to a relevant God) It was fun and interesting because it fleshed out my world and made it very real and, like the video says, it makes many aspects of writing much easier. Villain? Worships a different God. Maybe WANTS to be God. Maybe is corrupting the very essence of divinity. Character motivation? God wills it. Make an item cool? Blessed by your fave God. Done and done. 😎

When you came here for a whole ass history lesson

I believe the ecclesiarchy in warhammer 40k, it is a good example of religion in fiction as they have several dogmas and regional variations, besides commanding several institutions and army and being very influential in this fictional world, even if they are the medieval Catholic church in space.

Here I am, watching a video by Hello Future Me about class, and just as he's talking about the influence of religion, James Tullos posts a video about religion.

I really love your worldbuilding videos. They make me want to write something

An example of a made up religion (pun intended) done well, is in the Inheritance cycle: there's a bloody religion where people would mutilate themselves to offer blood sacrifices to their gods, and the gods turned out the be some weird ancient, bug like creatures who had some sort of mind controlling abilities. Everything from the type of worship, their places of worship and their cultural impact was so well made, it still gives me shivers to this day when I remember it.

potential listener towards end of video "okay, okay, that wasn't so controversial! I thought it would be - " james "acab!"

Gotta admit, upsetting to see SKYRIM as an example in the visuals, considering how much retconning and lack of care for the worse in the side of religion and history of the world it has. One of the best works regarding religion and history in a fantasy setting is Morrowind. Religion, history, politics and culture, all have huuuuuge weight and focus on the game's story. Since the game's universe is one where magic and superpowerful entities exist, it would be easy to just go "ok this is the right religion", but they avoid that and go super interesting in many ways. They explore the ideas of, how history, time, linguistic and cultural shifts, and power struggles, shape modern conceptions of how all those things used to be retroactively, and in a world were such supernatural beings and concepts exist, how much of that is based or outright accurate to history is a focus. And the books in it are brilliant! Like, on religion alone, you have: Religious texts; religious analysis by religious folk; religious analysis by secular folk; by historians; by theologists comparing how all the different nations and cultures have different names and versions of the same or different stories, but with overlapping between em enough so that the author in universe of the book goes like "it's super likely they are the same being/historical figure"; and so on. And hell, prophecy is also an important part of the game's story, but it does a fantastic deconstruction about what the hell a prophecy even is, or if it means anything to begin with, and where it starts and ends, if it ever does at all. It's honestly of the best works that explores what would happen in a world with supernatural entities and events, when it comes to how it would affect people, sociopolitical groups, history, and the perception of history.

8:19 **Licks Arm** Ah yes, Magic

so, how does tangible evidence of the existence of (a) god affect religion?

5:20 *I was chosen by heaven* *say my name when you pray!*

Honestly, the hardest part of worldbuilding for me, is the absolute basics... How the heck do I shape continents? Where do mountains go? How the hell do you START to make a world?!

That guy whose head’s being shaved looks so happy 😀

A good video throughout, and you really stuck the landing with the end. Thanks for the insights!

"All it takes is one guy breaking the rules for them to all go out the window." I see what you did there.

I know this channel is more inclined to books and western media, but I must say, the Overlord books, and adapted into an anime, had great world building, story arcs, character development etc, would love to see what you think of it

4:10 Funnily enough, the painting is of an orthodox baptism of prince Vladimir of Kiev. Not yet formally separate from the Catholic church at the moment, but still.

The clip of the couple jumping over the broom warms my heart.

Hey James! Just thought I’d thank you for making these worldbuilding videos, they truly help. Oh, and your book reviews are amazing!

That Jathika Hela Urumaya took me by surprise. I was like damn, why am I able to read this before it clicked in my head.

excellent audio quality on this one. keep it up!

I’m writing a sci fi/dystopian novel and one of my favorite things I’m working on is religions. In this world, religion is so subjective that most people don’t even have a name for what they believe in. There’s a few more well known, but most religions have no more than a hundred or so followers. It’s not uncommon for there to be shrines people come upon that nobody knows which deity, if any, it was made for

Religion in fantasy is tricky. How much detail you include is determined by its level of importance to the plot. You don't want to spend page after page detailing out the hierarchy unless it has a direct impact on the story you're trying to tell. But you don't want to glaze over it, thereby giving your world a shallow feel. It's a difficult balance to strike and takes practice. When building a religion, info-dumps are a primary danger. Not only because it's bad writing, but depending on the pace you've set, can bring your story to a grinding and uncomfortable halt. Doling out the relevant information in a way that allows the pace to continue while keeping the reader "in the know" takes no small amount of skill. There are several ways to go about it, but it takes time to find the method right for you.

I would like some feedback on one form of worship/faith that I've come up for a kingdom in my campaign, if whoever's reading this doesn't mind a bit more reading. Some context before. There is this particular, small, poor kingdom where the monarch, due to the country's upbringing, isn't really militarilly or economically powerful over its subjects, but rather they choose to heed his administration of their rather collaborative society. They do so out of trust, since the kings are all from the same dinasty, said to be descendents of a Prometheus-like mythical figure that was chosen by three gods to bring civilization to his peers and banish the threats from the wilderness, a lineage they show every once in a while when some offsprings exhibits unique magical powers, said to be a divine boon. It's kind of a divine right of kings, but the monarch only has as much power over the people as they will, a trust that's built up through generations of peace and prosperity achieved under the kings' advice and direction. So, this peace and prosperity brought about by civilization would be the gods' gift for these people. Thus, to properly worship them, they don't pray or make sacrifices, but rather celebrate their history, since its akin to celebrating their work and deeds. As such, priests (which hail from the common folk with a passion for tradition) are dedicated curators of the country's history, a history they keep alive through oral tradition and even archeological investigation, and they also share the gifts of civilization with those in need through charity. The most "sacred" of rituals and festivities are storytelling events and reenactments of legendary or historical events. It's a weird mashup of many elements from different cultures, and I'd like to know if it works.

1:55 ohh, I remember that fight. BTW I only watch parlement footages whenever I want to watch people each other. It is really common in Turkey. (that footage isn't parlement but still some of those people are at the parlement.)

Very opposite take of what I saw on a booktubers video early this week that said to disregard religion completely.

im currently writing a novel where world religions have something slightly related to the creation of the universe, but very different interpretations. I was thinking of the good and bad stuff to add in those religions, but it got pretty personal because I'm religious myself

Great video! I already have my religion videos written so I swear I'm not copying you when I post them.

Atm I'm working on a cosmic horror Sci-Fi series. Religion plays a huge role, as humanity is splintered and develop doctrines, as well as spreading ideologies (unbeknownst to them, fuelling their cosmic deity). Each is diverse, and there is a plethora of Gods depending on the location of the people. There's generally no such thing as an atheist, due to the high demand for comfort in the post-human psyche.

This is the best video on religious world building I have seen yet !

james: religion is underdeveloped me: *laughs in me stringing together every religion to embodiments of creation and having philosophical themes and ideas flow through to explain and keep things intetional unclear

@0:50 Fiction in general tends to have characters that are explicitly "right" or "wrong". While this also gets applied directly to larger structures ("Being X is explicitly a real deity, but is also explicitly detrimental to free will humanity"), simply being associated with explicitly "right" or "wrong" characters can paint said structures as right or wrong. If the hero is faithful to a particular religion, and that faithfulness is itself not an explicit fault, then that faithfulness becomes implicitly "right".

Hahahaha I wasn't expecting the video to end with an ACAB :')

There is one place in my setting where all gods are seen as evil, so none of them are worshipped. So this place have become very isolist becasue they don't wanna meet god worshipping heathens.

I hate how religion is most the time used as the bad guy in media

Wings of Fire did the whole “don’t expose but show its effects” rather nice with the Clearsight religion. It showed how the dogma is false and just used to prop up the dictatorship

I've been thinking of this topic a lot... I had an idea of blending two distinct cultures together for a fantasy setting. Unfortunately, I just feel like I'll never finish any novels I write so meh.

Okay the way you popped off on modi,,, you should be scared, modi bhakts (devotees lmao) are super vicious and they might come for you. I stan

king said acab😍😍😍

I feel like that don't hand out encyclopedia entries on a characters religion needs to be something every writer ever hears.

I’m glad I watched this because my story is currently knee deep in fantasy religions. I’m exploring how the ‘All-Good’ religion isn’t perfect and sometimes easy to manipulate.

Excuse me while I go to blast out 'Carolus Rex' on maximum volume.

3:51 ALL PRAISE THE GOD EMPEROR OF MANKIND

Dam you got so many friends now

To the people who think Medieval Europe was exclusively ruled by the Church and nobility had no power, I always bring up what could be considered the two biggest arguments against that idea: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, who ruled over good portions of Europe and even Jerusalem despite most of the Christian world considering him the literal Anti-Christ and being excommunicated three times, and the Borgia family, who quite literally did the opposite thing, taking control of Christianity by having Rodrigo become the Pope, and fundamentally basing modern depictions of Christ on Cesare Borgia's likeness.

I'm from Ankara-Turkey and I laughed so hard when that video showed up. I remember seeing that on tv. It caught me by surprise... Hilarious!

THE FOOL ON THE HILL SEES THE SUN GOING DOWN

This kind of religion I created might have a few unseen flaws, after all, if it's your creation you'll not see an issue with it if there is one. So, to not spoil too much of what I have planned, these Orcs follow a certain religion that is vastly different from their Human rivals East of them. ---- The Orcs believe in a Council, that, according to the current Regime, fought back an army belonging to their long-age rivals, bringing prosperity and forming the borders of what their nation is now. As the generations go on, the religion grew and grew, but that doesn't stop certain members of government to use it to their advantages, issuing edicts and... For the lack of a better word, Orders that all Orcs should follow. Depending on your selected Council Member. In Wartime? Bring favor to that one CM, wish for a good harvest? You know the drill. Basically the religion has been molded to suit the Government's (be it Medieval to Modern age. Which it is.) Wishes. ----- Thanks for reading if you did, if you have anything to say about this Religion, let me know.

The religion I am worldbuilding has 8 gods, but only one of these is the main creator, and this main god is the ocean. For prayer, the religion's believers sit on the beach at the edge of the sea and whisper into the water. The minor gods are all humanoid version of sea creatures and fish, and each one controls things in the world.

1:55 *New actual footage of World War One Trench Warfare in color.*

The video covers a lot of bases, but one thing I feel remains somewhat understated by the end of it is the ability of religions to form communities - something me and my family always found lacking since we are atheists who never had especially close relations to our neighbours. But a few centuries before now, if you were living in a town with a few small churches, taverns and a marketplace, your friendship group would probably consist of people who went to the same church as you. Your family as well. And these friends would not only partake in the same acts of worship together, but would also share most of the same morals. Being an atheist would have been a lot more difficult back then since your religion is your community and your support network. Government programs for the poor were often handled by the church. And since western culture is a lot more secular than it used to be, I've noticed a lot more different communities have taken up the role of bringing people together around a shared activity and/or morals - whether that be people supporting the same sports teams, those who watch the same TV shows, people who champion the same social causes, and the LGBT+ community. In fact I'd half wonder if the role we normally ascribe to taverns as meeting places in medieval fantasy settings would have more realistically been served by churches.

The Confectioner Chronicles by Claire Luana I think has a really good religious outline in her world. Strong reccomend a read of this trilogy. And @James if you review it - I think you'd mostly enjoy it, conflict and worldbuilding wise... (bar the romance part, which I find drab).

So...In my own world, the Pyroxene Drow would have a religion that: -Forbids mummification. Like, hard no. -Believes that being in pain is a gift to the gods, leading to self-harming contests including all social orders. -Their religious also strongly values things such as altruism, protecting the environment, teaching to the next generation, protecting those who are weaker, exetera. However, consent isn't a key factor, and they believe that their bodies should serve their clans (they practice a worship of the dead that's quite private), and that they should suffer. Meanwhile, they believe that it's not the place of mere mortals to enjoy the suffering of others, and find torturing others to be deeply traumatizing for all parties involved. It's a religion of sadness rather than devine wrath. -Their most important religious teaching is: "You, the Drow, fill the caverns with life and you shall never be hungry." -The Drows, as a society, secularly, tend to believe that taking into account the opinions of others is something very vulnerable, and worriying about one's reputation is a sign of weakness. This so prevalent that to a Drow, a teacher praising their students for good behavior would be seen as something deeply violating to all parties involved. However, for their society to function in any capacity, morals based on "the gods said so", religious guilt, empathy and corporal punishment become necessary alternatives to a sense of shame as social regulators. -The priests of the four gods provide essencial services to the public, such as education, medicine, maintaining civil order and even certain textiles. This is precisely what allows the priestly orders to stay in power. The priestesses of Héwwa, for example, play the vague role of policing and education on reading, botany and protection magic. The priests of Moortus become necromancers (well, more like psychics, communicating with the dead rather than controling them), historians and they also teach law, mathematics and rhetoric. The priests and priestesses of Helisa are required to learn healing and textile work and practice it. The priests of Putruus are often in charge of funeral practices, charity and of helping ex-slaves and ex-criminals re-enter normal society. Now, the Drow see individuals who refuse to constantly torture themselves as plain evil, and would see it as their devine duty to convince them otherwise, because their religion's most important commandment, as well as their very existance as an ethnic group, depends on maintaining the cave ecosystem they inhabit...Keeping the caverns oxyginated take most of their societal energy, so they aren't really interested in persecuting outsiders. They aren't that interested in expension either, unless it's to other caverns. Self-flagellation also take a huge chunk of their religious attention, leaving little of it to persecute outsiders. Their religion isn't that obsessed with modesty either. One of the most important philosopher of their religion was originally a forest elf, who upon living with the Drows, learned the "error of her ways" (basically, enjoying life in any capacity and not torturing herself all waking hours), lived afterwards a life of pain and religious penitence, and became the founding mother of a grand dynasty, who even married into the royal family. Her example is one many Drows seek to emulate. Despite that, she remained loyal to her own people, and begged them to accept this life of pain, so that maybe, maybe, their persecution at the hand of the expending human groups would stop, as the gods would ease their punishment as they are actually doing their part in the appeasement.

How to worldbuild: Connections/Bonds (Love, Political etc) Would love to see that! :)

That dude in the cemetery getting possessed tho; definitely bout to look for that lmao ty for this gem

"I'm not qualified to speak on the depths of theology" Oh yeah? Explain your Bible review then, James

14:48 Nazi Buddha! (Yes, I know what that symbol really means)

Best religion stuff i've seen is in The Elder Scrolls. You got multiple religions with sub-grups, each one of them with their own mithos of creation, some of them are similar to each other but with minor differences, just like IRL. Also, none of this is explained trough exposition, it's all in books or in dialogues, again, just like IRL. In sum, the game never tells you "ok that's what really happened".

'dont get any ideas modi' this had me screaming.

George R.R. Martin did a great job making a setting with religious diversity, with the Faith Of The Seven coexisting with the pagan nature-worship of the North, the Ironborn's drowned god cult, and the Essosi faith of R'hlorr, among others.

Funny, cuz Buddhism (and Islam) in India was popular with people who were near the bottom of society, such as Dalit (Untouchables), since the non-Hindu religions did not have a caste system. For another example, Christianity encouraged a lot of stories to have redemption arcs. That's something a fantasy author could maybe subvert; maybe your fantasy religion's heroes are static characters, for example.

Excellent Analysis; as a footnote I'll give an exert of Fulcanelli's Mystery of the Cathedral's that covers the topic on Churches being a place for conducting diplomacy. "If people go to the building to take part in religious services, if they enter it following a funeral corthge or the joyful procession of a high festival, they also throng there in many other circumstances. Political meetings are held there under the aegis of the bishop; the price of grain and livestock is discussed there; the drapers fix the price of their cloth there; people hurry there to seek comfort, to ask for advice, to beg for pardon. There is scarcely a guild which does not use the cathedral for the passing-out ceremony of its new journeyman, scarcely a guild which does not meet there once a year under the protection of its patron saint."

damn this series, making me want to start a second world building project. I already spend too much time world building!

I really enjoyed the religious aspects of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Sure, there's only one religion that’s explained in-depth, but it’s more detailed and interesting than the majority of fictional religions I’ve come across.

Also would have been interesting to add how conquering empires like to try and jigsaw together aspects/pantheons of diverse religions of conquered people into one whole to encourage cohesion (like Romans and their interpretatio graeca/Romana)?

Informative and concise video. Great job!

An interesting idea is to have your gods be real, but they’re fluid and evolve with the cultures and their needs. So a benevolent rain goddess in an agricultural culture is the same as the malevolent storm god of the island people who they need to appease. The best way this would work is through limiting physical interaction but still maintains some

Yoooo I love this. I can’t write for shit but I love your thoughts

i needed this

Bruh the Hamas screenshot aged soooo well

A Canticle for Leibowitz, anyone?

4:35 you mean a popefight?

Why would you use that AOM? WHY? Any way, fascinating topic here that really gets into some important stuff for world building. The only problem with adding in religion to a setting and deeply ingraining it in a society is the worry that there's too much religious talk going on but I guess that just comes down to knowing you audience.

Wonderful work!!! Just one thing... I visited your twitter and was greeted with scat porn I see you were having a spat with some dumbass but like bro I had to see that bro It's taken me years to phase 2 girls 1 cup out of my mind and you brought those repressed childhood memories right to the surface. Darn you

Riddle me this, how can someone so knowledgeable be an ACABer?

Finaly a worldbiuldig video, I really love this videos, please make more...

JAMES SAYS ACAB

11:19 Despite 16 minutes of lecture the only thing I can focus on is that someone really thought Wilem was white.

im writing a dystopian sci-fi book and in a small section of it, there is an underground city where people get trapped for 2 or 3 hundred years and before they get trapped, it was a multiethnic city with cultures from all over the world where people could practice their beliefs with zero racism. since they got trapped though, and the food got scarce, the sun couldn't reach and the oxygen got less and less every day, they started believeing that the sun god left them and they should start sacrificing people. 2 factions where there, the sun believers and those who werent sun believers. they started fighting and what was a peaceful city with no racism became the exact opposite. if you werent a believer, you were heathen and had to be killed.

I as a Krsna devotee literally use the Gita for world building my personal religion.

I once read a series were lesbians were based around a goddess and I thought that idea was cool wish they ran with it more

So much shade being thrown at Philip Pullman at 1:43

What are your thoughts on Mistborn's take on religion?

Cop here. Your videos are really well made, very interesting and approachable. Have a cool day.

"If you don't eat meat, you'll need to get your food from somewhere else." *laughs in vegan*