Biblical Roleplaying

"Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses."

- 1 Samuel 13:3, New American Bible


To be honest, it sounds a lot like the behavior of your typical gaming groups mechanism of dealing with a goblin lair. However, that passage comes straight out of the Bible.

I recently finished Reza Aslan's book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. In it Aslan examines what we know and what we can surmise about the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth. It's a fascinating work, something I will be reviewing in its own right, either here or in my political blog (or in both places, from different perspectives). I'm pretty certain I'd not want to live in  Judea within fifty years of 1 AD. But as a time for adventure, it is an absolutely fascinating period. It is a period of numerous Messiahs who rose up against the Romans in attempts to bring about the Earthly Kingdom of God. It was a time when the people most definitely believed in magic - Aslan pointed out that Jesus the miracle-worker is not something that people of the era would find all that surprising - the shocking thing was he performed these miracles free of charge. The people of the period most certainly believed there were people who could perform miracles.

It is a period of intense resistance to Roman rule, but to replace it with what? Aslan points to the Zealots who would go so far as to assassinate the high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem - a man who was dependent on the approval of the hated Romans for his power.

Green Ronin published a D&D 3.0 supplement entitled Testament, detailing the cultures and beliefs of the people of the Old Testament. Though obviously it had the Israelites as its focus it also covered the other cultures of the area. It took a decidedly agnostic approach as far as gods and magic went - the people of the time believed in magic and therefore the supplement covered magic existing as they believed it did. It gave a great overview of various time periods of the Bible and the types of adventures possible. It also covered the differences in equipment to be found in earlier time periods, giving a nice appreciation of the advantages an iron age culture might have over a bronze age one. Testament is still available in pdf form, albeit in the rarely used 3.0-incarnation of the D&D rules - though I'd imagine upgrading would not present much of a problem.


From my own gaming experience introducing these types of concepts would need to be done with a delicate hand. Not surprisingly, religion is a touchy subject, with people having a variety of beliefs. I'm a so-liberal-are-you-sure-you're-a-Catholic Catholic. An agnostic player in my gaming group was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of this sort of game, one of the reasons I never used Testament. Were I to try such an undertaking today, I think I'd take one of two approaches. If I wanted to strongly emphasize the religious aspects I think I'd actually make my own religions and cultures, albeit ones clearly inspired by real ones in the manner that Robert E. Howard did in his Conan stories. The other way I'd go, one I think more likely, would be to use a more historic view of religions. The people might believe in the power of healing magic but that doesn't make it real beyond a placebo effect. To my mind this seems a good option to use Cthulhu Invictus and take inspiration from Richard Tierney's Simon Magus tales.

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Death and Resurrection in Gaming

I threw down my enemy, an he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. 

Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - Gandalf describing his death and resurrection.

 Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

- New American Bible, Revised Translation, Luke 24:13-16

If I were smart and planned my blog a week in advance this idea would have come to me way earlier. When I was reading Swords & Wizardry yesterday, in between prepping for reading at Easter mass this morning, I came across this:

Raise Dead
Spell Level: Cleric, 5th Level
Range: Close/Touch (Referee’s discretion)
Duration: Immediate
Raise Dead allows the Cleric to raise a corpse from the dead, provided it has not been dead too long. The normal time limit is 5 days, but for every caster level higher than 8th, the time limit extends another 5 days. Characters with low Constitution might not survive the ordeal, and even for those with strong Constitution a period of at least a week is required before they can function normally. This spell functions only on “human-like” races, that is, ones that can be used for player characters.

Fiction, mythology, and religion are full of examples of people rising from the dead. Obviously it is Easter in western Christian churches, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus (whether this is fiction, mythology, or religion is up to the individual reader). Orpheus of the ancient Greek religion ventured into Hades in an attempt to bring his wife Eurydice back from death. Buffy Summers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer died (twice), the second time for an extended period of time. And of course Gandalf the Grey of Lord of the Rings died in battle with the Balrog of Moria, only to return as Gandalf the White.


Done right, a resurrection story can be a fascinating thing. Done poorly it can be cheap. Sometimes comic books don't even bother to explain why a previously dead hero or villain has returned. But the examples above I believe all make for an inspiring tale.

Gandalf and Jesus both returned somehow transformed and were difficult to recognize. Neither stayed for very long after their return.

Orpheus received permission to retrieve his wife from the underworld under the condition he not look back. Of course he did. And his wife returned to Hades.

Buffy Summers returned to life confused, finding herself in a horrible place compared to the heaven she had been in. She did not want to return.

I think all of these give more interesting consequences than the week of recovery time from the Raise Dead spell (and no recovery at all is required once you bump it up to 7th level). The Dungeon Crawl Classics game advises making attaining the resurrection of a companion a major quest, possibly involving a deal with Death himself (something I seem to recall they inserted into an adventure). And it is difficult to imagine the hierarchy of any faith being pleased with a cleric who brings a heretical mage or hedonistic rogue back to life.

There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: “Not today." 

- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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Fiction Review: "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore

I talked a bit about religion in various fantasy worlds last week which got me thinking about religion in our world.

It's a touchy subject, whether in office conversations or your gaming group. I've gamed with followers of Christianity, Judaism, Paganism. I'm not certain but I think I may have gamed with a Hindu and a Buddhist. I've gamed with believers, atheists, and agnostics. And truth to tell I'm comfortable with all of them. But I've also learned to respect people have different comfort levels with the way their beliefs (or things they don't believe in) are treated in fictional works. When I had a group playing D&D 3.0 several years ago I was strongly tempted to run a game using Green Ronin's Testament setting, based on the lands of the Old Testament of the Bible. One of my players was, quite honestly, horrified of the idea of using that for a game. I had thought it made for a fascinating setting with lands being conquered, betrayals, nomadic tribes, competing religions, etc. It didn't seem worth insulting a friend over a game.

With that in mind that brings me to Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Just looking at the title it sounds like an awfully offensive work, one sure to get Christians up in arms. And I'm pretty certain it has done just that with some people, though as one who considers himself Christian I greatly enjoyed it.

So what's it about? Essentially it involves "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff" being resurrected from the dead into our modern world. He's been brought back to write a new gospel - as Jesus' best friend from childhood he is well suited for this task. Though even that statement is an inaccuracy which Biff corrects - no one called Jesus "Jesus". That's a Greek name. In his home he was referred to as "Joshua Bar Joseph" or just "Josh". 

Just from that preceding paragraph the tone appears to be light - and in a lot of ways it is a light-hearted book. It has running jokes, like Biff having a crush on Jesus' mother. Josh as a human wants to understand sin better but does not want to engage in sin - so Biff makes the great sacrifice and engages in the services of prostitutes so he can report back to Josh.

I'm getting perhaps a little ahead of myself though ad perhaps a little more discussion of the plot is appropriate. This book covers Josh's life from his early childhood through his death. In his childhood we see him experimenting with his powers and trying to figure out what he is supposed to do as the Messiah. We see him and Biff meet Mary of Magdala, referred to as Maggie in this book, with both of the boys attracted to her. 

In Josh's efforts to better understand what he should do he and Biff go out in search of the three wise men, spending years and years learning from each of them, traveling to modern-day Afghanistan, China, and India to learn from them. There the two learn all sorts of martial arts, learn about different world religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, and manage to get into lots of trouble along the way. Biff also tends to seek out the company of any woman he can find. Eventually the two return home and Josh begins his ministry and we witness many of the events of the Bible, albeit from Biff's unique perspective. We even get some twists of the death of Josh and of his betrayer, Judas Iscariot.


So should you read the book? I loved it. I'm a pretty liberal Catholic (i.e waiting for the pope to give me the boot) so do with that as you may. But I'd think it is a portrayal that a non-Christian - including agnostics and atheists, can find much to enjoy. If for nothing else Moore clearly did his homework in the world of the New Testament of the Bible. We get some fantastic glimpses of life in Roman-occupied Judea as well as other places in the world like India and China. 

It's also a fun book. There is a certain amount of enjoyable zaniness seeing Josh and Biff learn martial arts, seeing some of the scams that Biff and even Josh get involved with (including getting Maggie away from her husband).

As far as RPG-ers go... Like I said above, I view the world of the Old Testament a fantastic period for gaming. Well this gives us a great view of the world of the New Testament - that of the early Roman Empire, though none of the action to place in Europe. 

It's also a short read - in this world of 5-book trilogies, it's nice to be able to just read a story that stands on its own.

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Religion in Fantasy Settings

As a preface to this post it probably makes sense to describe how I view religion in the "real world" as it surely has an impact on how I view it in fictional settings.


I was raised a Roman Catholic and I remain one though I suspect if the pope ever had a chance to have a chat with me he'd probably show me the exit in short order. I believe in marriage equality (aka same-sex marriage), believe the church's teachings on the ordination of women and contraception are flawed, and I don't believe Catholics or Christians have an exclusive claim to salvation - to be honest I'm a believer in making this world the best it can be. I am a huge fan of Jesus who spent an awful lot of time telling people to love one another and not much time talking about birth control or homosexuality. Generally speaking if your religion gives you what you need and leads you to a compassionate life I'm fine with it. Heck if your lack of religion takes you there, awesome too. A lot of my philosophy was shaped by the former Catholic nun turned atheist turned theist Karen Armstrong and her Charter for Compassion.

I've found people to admire in a wide array of religions, including my own, and I've found people to despise in a wide array of religions, including my own. I've got a pretty strong hunch that the infinite is beyond the ability of any one set of beliefs to describe.


I begin with this long statement to give an idea as to what I like seeing in portrayals of religion in fantasy settings, whether for a setting for RPGs or for fiction. I generally am not too crazy about settings that have "one true way" - a pantheon of gods that regularly interacts with mortals. It is not an exercise of faith to believe in a supernatural force that regularly visits the world. While I greatly enjoyed the Dragonlance novels when I was younger as I grew older this became a point of frustration for me with Paladine and Takhisis walking the face of Krynn.

Issek of the Jug from TSR's
"Lankhmar: City of Adventure"

I have enjoyed fantasy settings where the gods have worshippers but those worshippers tend to be without "clerical magic" - though sometimes it is suggested there may well be something to these gods. For example, in the short story "Lean Times in Lankhmar" Fafhrd becomes an acolyte of Issek of the Jug but neither he nor anyone involved with Issek has any supernatural ability. Conan refers to his deity Crom numerous times but there is no expectation of ever seeing Crom taking direct action.


One fantasy gaming setting which I felt did an excellent job portraying multiple religious beliefs was the Eberron campaign world for Dungeons & Dragons. It featured multiple faiths. The most common faith was the Sovereign Host, a pantheon of nine mostly benevolent deities. Their counterpoint was the Dark Six, six malevolent deities. You had the church of the Silver Flame, dominant in one nation but able to be found elsewhere. You had elves worshipping their ancestors (who could often be found wandering around in a sort of undead state). You had death worshippers, forbidden cults. Worshippers of all these faiths gained spells but even with that the worshippers actually weren't certain as to the actual source to their powers. The deities in question did not make their wishes or even their existence known. It's not even certain in the game world that the deities are the sources for these powers. This is an approach I greatly liked as it gave the expected powers of clerics but it added the real-world ambiguity that all religions have. Additionally, this made it easy to portray religions in multiple lights. In one adventure I had the main villain be a zealot of the Silver Flame. In another adventure there was a heroic NPC who worshipped the Silver Flame. In most settings the deities are monitoring the behavior of their clerics and withhold spells from those clerics who abuse the tenets of the faith. No such luck in Eberron. Just like in the real world these people may be judged harshly in any afterlife but in this world they may well get away with their subterfuges and abuses of their faiths.

RuneQuest is one game which has embraced multiple world views. While I am not an expert on Glorantha (truth be told Glorantha kind of frightens me), I recall the 3rd edition of RuneQuest having practitioners of shamanism, divine magic, and sorcery write as to why their beliefs represent "the one true way" and why followers of other beliefs are totally wrong and some horrible fate awaits them in the afterlife.


From my exposure there seems to be less portrayal of religion in fantasy literature than in fantasy gaming. For example, there's not a priest to be found in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The Chronicles of Narnia represents one exception and even has multiple religions but only one of those religions is "correct".

Winterfell Godswood from HBO's "A Game of Thrones"

One fantasy series whose portray of religion I greatly enjoy is George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. The continent of Westeros has two main faiths, worship of the Seven and worship of the Old Gods. The Seven are more popular in the civilized south whereas the Old Gods are worshipped more in the north. Sacred trees with carved faces are dedicated to the Old Gods and in later novels we learn there is actually something to the belief that the Old Gods can speak through the trees - though not in the way that most worshippers would imagine.

The worship of the Seven reminds me somewhat of Christianity's place in medieval Europe, with officers of the faith having great temporal power and their holiness varies from true dedication to all-out charlatans.

The worship of the god R'hllor and belief in a dualistic evil other is prevalent on the nearby continent of Essos and begins to become a factor in the politics of Westeros, with one of the rivals to the Iron Throne of Westeros becomes a worshipper of R'hllor. Interestingly the priests of R'hllor are found to have some powers, especially of divination, though they are far from infallible.


These ideas have been bouncing around my head as I contemplate how to portray religion in my Dungeon Crawl Classics game. Clerics in DCC need to stay in their deity's good graces which tends to indicate some amount of certainty as to how you're doing with your god. But... it shouldn't be difficult to throttle back on the certainty. Yes, these angels are telling me I'm telling me I'm doing a lousy job. And unless I make them happy I'm going to have a hard time with magic. But am I absolutely certain they come from my god? Also, I plan on making it possible for a worshipper to forsake his holy vows and still have access to magic - though in such a case he is now effectively getting his spells from a new source and needs to keep that source pleased with him...Yes communing with the divine is possible, but the results of doing so are less than reliable, similar to the problems priests of R'hllor in Westeros and Essos tend to have when interpreting visions they see in the sacred flames...

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Film Analysis: Prometheus

(Warning - there be spoilers for the movie Prometheus as this is more a discussion than a proper review.)

As I mentioned previously, I saw Ridley Scott's Prometheus over the weekend. I've long been a fan of the Alien series of movies (though for some reason my parents didn't take me when I was seven years old to see the original when it first came out. Going through high school and college I was a fan of the Dark Horse Comics various spinoff series (which manage to get more and more invalidated with every new release, though they are still well worth reading in their own right).

The nasty chest-bursting xenomorphs from the series inspired tons of creations in my science fiction gaming - I added my own xenomporph's to my FASA Star Trek game, coming up with the idea of the critters being biological weapons.

So, what of Prometheus? Despite clearly taking place in the same Alien universe, it is not truly an Alien movie. A variation of the familiar Alien xenomorph appears at the end but they are not the point of this movie. I've seen some blogs and reviewers refer to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness as a likely inspiration and I believe that to be spot-on. Both stories deal with the idea that human life was made by some ancient race and tell tales of scientists reaching an ancient and isolated site of these ancients.

In Prometheus, these progenitors are referred to as "Engineers". They are of the same race as the "space jockey" as seen in Alien.  I aways thought they looked somewhat like bipedal elephants but Prometheus goes with the idea that they themselves are genetically human, albeit super-sized and wearing a funky helmet. A series of ancient artwork showing the same star pattern leads the scientists of this film to the moon LV-223 (a different terrestrial body than the one in the original Alien film). They hope to encounter these Engineers and they do find a complex of the Engineers - one filled with lots of dead Engineers.

Prometheus follows several horror tropes - some of the characters are isolated and an android in the expedition experiments on one of the scientists, secretly implanting him with an alien substance.

We learn that this base was a bioweapons facility and the Engineers were preparing to destroy all life on Earth. The film asks but does not answer some big questions - why were we created, why would they wish to destroy us? What is the point of faith in God next to science, especially with evidence of our deliberate creation? Noomi Rapace's Dr. Elizabeth Shaw answers that last question with a statement of faith, echoing her father - "it's what I choose to believe". I have friends who are atheists who get very frustrated  when they here religious people give that answer. From my perspective, as a somewhat shaky Catholic, it is the only answer possible. In my opinion, at the end of the day, religious faith of any kind is a choice.

Michael Fassbender was a delight to watch as the android David whose character took deliberate care to model himself after Peter O'Toole's portrayal of T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia. He makes for a counterpoint to the humans of the expedition - he has no illusions as to who created him. While I did not mind so much the unanswered questions I mention in the previous paragraph, I was less than satisfied with the motivations for David experimenting on his fellow crew members. Was he programmed to do so? Did he do so out of dislike for the species that created him? Though as I write this I suspect that ambiguity was an intentional counterpoint to the questions the humans asked.

Prometheus clearly isn't a perfect movie. Beyond the points above, its music at times seemed to be bizarrely inappropriate for the scene in question. Sometimes the characters acted frustratingly foolishly - ignoring signs of an alien infection being one of the biggest. If you are on an alien planet and you notice little worms in your eyes, tell someone! The biggest frustration is the one I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, that of understanding David's motivations. I have heard the original cut was about thirty minutes longer and I have a hunch that while most movies are too long, this is a film which would have benefited from the extra time.

Despite these flaws it is a movie I admire. It is a movie that asks some difficult questions and doesn't tie them down with neat little answers. It's something that the Star Trek films tried to do twice (in the first and fifth filmst) and both times i felt they were done unsuccessfully. I feel Prometheus found the right balance of revelation vs. unanswered questions.

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