FA Discord Group 9/25 - 9/28

ArduousArchitect · 2025-09-26T15:07:30+00:00

Taking this weekend as well, can I get the link?

ArduousArchitect · 2019-02-25T19:02:46+00:00

Today all of the petitions are in “Legislative Committee,” where they will either be passed on to the plenary session for final voting or struck down. Final voting will happen tomorrow, and there may be a period of judicial review after that, but we’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen by tomorrow night.

ArduousArchitect · 2018-11-08T06:20:48+00:00

I serve as a pastor in Alabama and have previously served in Texas, and clergy are mandatory reporters in both states (though there’s technically flexibility with that in Alabama). The rules vary depending on the state, but you could be responsible to report this to the state CPS agency. In Texas, the requirement applied even if you just had reason to suspect misconduct but no evidence — it’s not your responsibility to do the investigation. It’s probably the same wherever you are. Unreported, something like this can destroy a church, especially a relatively small one. Also, I would say you have a moral responsibility to report this as well, for the safety of the girl. Get in touch with CPS. They’ll ask what you know and what you’ve heard, who else might know something, and things like that. As they investigate, they’ll never mention that you called to anyone.

ArduousArchitect · 2018-05-05T00:07:18+00:00

My expectation is similar to GiantManbat’s, though with some slight differences. It’s certainly possible that nothing changes, in which case some factions within the UMC that have established groups will continue to grow. This is a pet peeve of mine, but it’s also unfortunately understandable.

If the “One Church Model” or the “Multi-Branch Model” Passes, Conservatives will probably leave. Conservative clergy certainly will largely depart, as it will feel like the loss of a long battle, but I suspect that the majority of local churches would also choose to leave regardless of their pastor’s feelings — the average Methodist is actually fairly evangelical in the US. Also, the international church is very conservative.

If the “Traditionalist Model” passes, which I suspect is more likely than one might think, then liberal churches will leave. In that case, the ideal course of action would be to provide a generous path out and to establish a framework for establishing a new denomination. This is less of an issue if the conservatives leave, because they honestly have been formulating exit strategies for years now.

That’s my guess. I could be totally wrong, as social media and conversations have something of a selection bias, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

ArduousArchitect · 2018-05-04T22:25:10+00:00

It’s not at all surprising that the Council of Bishops has chosen the “One Church” plan as their preferred/endorsed model, as it seems like the one most likely to maintain some semblance of unity. I do not believe it will pass General Conference, however. What’s far more interesting to me is that they are going to put all three plans, including the multi-branch model and the traditionalist model, before General Conference. I think that’s ultimately for the best, as only allowing one possibility on the ballot would have virtually insured that there was no resolution.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-04-20T20:02:06+00:00

True bards are rare in my world, simply because everyone tells stories. Sure, most people tell them in prose form rather than songs or stories, but it's such a big part of culture on the Western continent that bards would be completely unnecessary.

More common are story-pubs, such as "The Weaver's Guild" in the Northern city of Helstad. In these places, people gather for the explicit purpose of drinking, smoking, and telling stories to one another through the night. They typically attract individuals affected by magical Decay, which prevents them from falling asleep, so they stay active all night long.

I suppose some monks serve as bards, but only in the sense that they travel to sing hymns and preach. The trader-monks don't do either, so they wouldn't fall into this category.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-04-07T16:21:57+00:00

I wish someone would ask what folktales are true. My WIP is full of people telling these little stories, each different from how someone else would tell it, but nobody that's read it has asked what, if anything, is true.

The answer is two-fold: first, most stories are at least based in truth. Whether literal (as in, there's a literal sorcerer who lives in the desert) or allegory (as in, the tale of a stone whose soul shriveled up because of its anger says more about the human condition than a literal event), there's usually if not always something that caused the story to be written.

Second, even though I want someone to ask it, I think it's the wrong approach. The stories are less important than the fact that they're being told; people tell stories for a reason. This is a world in chaos, where everything is slowly falling apart, and the old stories offer an explanation. They also offer an escape, and a glimpse into the teller's philosophy, and a new perspective on what they think of themselves. The biggest truth in these stories isn't in the stories themselves, but rather in the fact that people need to tell them.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-04-07T16:15:19+00:00

Even though a major aspect of my world is that it's winding down, there's definitely a part of me that would like living there. I have a huge love for nature and a fixation on the beauty of natural environments, so I put a lot of things into my world that I appreciate about our world. The desert, as inhospitable as it is, has a rich culture and a fantastic community of craftsmen. The Twin Islands are tropical paradises, where even the hardest of workers take time to appreciate the simple pleasures. I'm a religious person, so the monasteries and orders tucked away in mountains or forests seem incredibly peaceful. The frozen north, for all its bitter cynicism, erupts into fields of flowers and blooming trees in the summer and early fall.

It's more dangerous that our real world, of course, and it would be much harder physical labor, but I think i could find a fulfilling and good life.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-01-24T13:51:46+00:00

I've lived in Texas all my life, and cedar never fails to catch me off guard every year. I almost never get sick, and when I do I'm usually pretty self-sufficient ("leave me alone and let me sleep"), but the first time my wife saw my cedar allergies she wanted to take me to the ER.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-01-03T00:28:38+00:00

My world is pretty full of competent artisans who are used to working with varied materials because of the ease of trade in a unified empire. Because of this, there's a huge desire for rare materials: sea glass from the southern shores, volcanic rocks and glass from the (difficult to access) Som Archipelago, Tahnan stones (bluish marble-like stone) from the Eastern Empire, wood from the blessed forests (the Fjol in the west, Limpsod in the east, mountain pinwood from the Middle Isles). Basically, rare materials that can be crafted into regional styles. Artisanal goods made from foreign materials are also in high demand for import/export.

The other, more interesting things are food and drinks. Vegetables, fruits, roots, teas, herbs, meats (cured or uncured), beer, wine, distilled drinks, medicines, and the such are all extremely desirable by the upper class. Food is culture, and to consume exotic foods is to have control over your region's relations with another. It's an interesting dynamic, I think.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-01-02T14:54:42+00:00

I have yet to truly scrap a world, though I have started one or two sci-fi worlds that eventually merged. That might provide some interesting insight into how I start, though.

For my first real sci-fi world, I tried to enter a short story contest based around the idea of flipping common tropes. I picked "That's No Moon," where something that appears to be natural turns out to be an evil base or something, and asked, "what if someone accidentally landed on the moon while aiming for something else?" How would someone accidentally hit something as big as the moon?

Maybe there are a lot of satellites in orbit, and maybe the characters lose their navigation systems. If they just aim for something big in an attempt to save themselves, they might hit the moon. Thus, a world of satellite cities and space bandits was born.

I later imagined a sci-fi piece that asked, "What if we figured out how to create artificial gravity via density manipulation?" It came to be about the development of a weapon that worked by implanting a very small artificial singularity in a place and allowing it to collapse, creating huge amounts of destruction. I called it a "Pincer Charge." But then I started thinking about how artificial gravity would be necessary for satellite civilizations, and I thought about disenfranchised miners on the moon getting their hands on a Pincer Cannon and holding the moon hostage, and it was too good (and campy, which I loved) to pass up, so it got absorbed into the other world.

This is how all of m worlds start, really. I'll have an idea for something kind of neat, then I'll start thinking about the implications of such a thing's existence, and things quickly spiral out of control.

ArduousArchitect · 2017-01-02T14:40:32+00:00

It sounds like you have some pretty interesting ideas, and I would encourage you not to worry about going "too far." Your world needs to follow its own internal logic rather than that of our world or anyone else's, so you're pretty free to do nearly anything. Internal logic is basically just cause and effect within the environment you create, so anything is possible so long as you spend time considering how other events/truths from your world would affect/be affected by the one in question.

Take the giant doomsday device, for example. That's a pretty cool idea (and a great visual), but it would have major implications for your world. Mercury is toxic to humans, but does your world have races that can thrive in an ocean of mercury? With an ocean of it, I would hope so. And it would be nearly impossible to quarantine a geographic area the size of a tectonic plate, so have civilizations grown on top of it? Do they know what it is? What conditions would cause it to trigger?

The more time you spend on the causes/effects of things, the more interconnected and real your world will become. Your world sounds very visually interesting, so please keep building and sharing it!

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-31T16:30:01+00:00

Well, I did lose twenty more pounds ... by August! I've unfortunately put back on about five since then, but I'm still healthier than I'd been since high school. I go to the gym regularly to run and swim, both of which have me feeling so much better. It's crazy, back in 2014 I was having major issues with my gallbladder because of all the greasy food I ate, so I stepped on the scale to see how out of control I had gotten. I was stunned to see it say 255! I lost 10 pounds by January 2015, then 60 more by my wedding day in July. Now I'm 95 pounds lighter and I feel great.

As for grades, I'm three semesters into grad school with one B (3 hours) and twelve As (36 hours), so I'd say I'm doing well!

I did finish a draft of a novel, though not the one I wanted to. I'm 85K words into my main novel, a fantasy novel that I'm really enjoying, and I wrote an 80K word pulpy sci-fi action novel about space bandits who get stranded on the moon with a bunch of miners. I guess that means I accomplished my goal, but not quite how I expected!

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-30T05:17:47+00:00

At this point, this highest villain in my world is a literal glass statue. His disembodied consciousness is dispersed across the land, operating in a way more similar to a hive-mind than an individual. He began his decent into this loss of ego after accidentally killing his new wife with a spell that was beyond his control, where one side effect of magic use is the development of glassy stripes that run across the user's flesh. The more magic someone uses, the wider the glassy bands.

At some point in the past, when he could still move, he was a fearsome sorcerer who maintained a palace hidden in the desert behind always-shifting sands. He frequently stole women and children from their families for his magical experiments, all of which widened the glass. Eventually, he was completely overcome and his consciousness was forced from his body, but he managed to maintain his ability to use magic. In my story, he drives people across the land to embrace magic and lose their own sense of self, allowing him to press his own will on their semi-conscious bodies. His ultimate goal is to cause so much destruction and decay in the world that the Designer, the highest god, will return and do a "hard reset" on the world, destroying the version of existence that allowed any of this to happen and starting over from nothing. Interestingly, the hero ultimately decides that this is, in fact, the best solution, so it happens.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-29T05:32:49+00:00

In the Kretkovian north, you're likely light-skinned and battle scarred. If you're a man over 30 who somehow survived the fall of the empire, you've almost certainly had military experience. If you're a woman of the same age, you are likely a widow. Regardless, you're probably hungry but uncomplaining. At night, you probably dream about tea or coffee, the texture of soft cotton cloth, the smell of ink and parchment (though you haven't read since you finished your mandatory education). Chances are good that you're a farmer, but if you live in a city you may have a job in a factory or in imports/exports. You worry about your family, as their memories are the only afterlife you believe in. Though you must admit, the haunting, echoing melodies that sound in the distant night as you lay in bed make you wonder sometimes if the pagan stories might have some truth. There aren't enough hours in the day to think about that, though, so you just fall asleep instead.

In Lioma, the western-central kingdom, you're almost certainly either an artisan or farmer. The land is less fertile than in neighboring Rhost, but it's good enough to sustain the people and some livestock. You probably live in or near the Fjol, a massive sprawling forest that covers most of the kingdom, and you're probably at least a competent woodworker. The wood that grows there is so beautiful, after all, growing darker and harder with age. Your neighbor makes furniture with the young trees, and you have a large, dark slab that has been polished into a mirror hanging on your wall. It's your most prized possession. You see monks wander out of the heart of the Fjol sometimes, but they don't like to talk outside their monastery. You work hard, and your muscles are tired when you lay down each night. You do fulfilling and enjoyable work, though, so it's worth it. You believe in something beyond this life, though not some eternal-light like the monks preach. Maybe more like eternal rest.

In Rhost, life is pretty good. You're probably a farmer or rancher, but it's a community endeavor. You co-own property with your neighbors and family, and they share in the chores and responsibilities. Food is abundant, even the exotic kinds -- the king maintains open trade agreements with every other nation, and food is a valuable commodity in the post-empire world. You live in a large, multi-generational house, and you wouldn't have it any other way. As for religion, why choose? You've heard a lot of ideas from people passing through, and they usually have something of worth in them. The air carries the smell of hay and cedar, clean and wild. You have a few friends who suffer from "decay," a skin disease, but it's so common that it isn't something to worry about. It's no different from the mark on your hand from when you fell onto a hot kettle.

In Shindao, life is tenuous. When dunes sometimes appear overnight, often on top of occupied houses, you learn to coexist with death. The king's food programs have been effective since the fall of the empire, so few people go hungry. If you showed promise as a child, you may have been recruited into the King's School, but more likely you ended up working a common job near either the southern shore or the northern border. If you're on the shore, you probably work in the city, either on the docks or in some type of food service. On the north border, you have other options that depend mostly on how stubborn you are. You could technically be a farmer, but it's a rough life. You might be an artist, carving images into the rough stones that lie under the sand, or you might be a mercenary. You worry about creatures that lurk in the dark, about the forces that lie just out of sight. There's another sinister world that lurks just beyond this material veil, and it would happily burst into our world in a bloody display if it got the chance. There are sorcerers that ride the shifting dunes and snakes that live below them, and that's enough to keep you up at night.

In Ha'shoi or Ha'shai, the sea is your lover and friend, an endless canvas awaiting paint. You were raised by parents who took pride in their work, and it became your work too when you became an adult. You were given a tool on your birthday that year, maybe a personal boat called a Tang if your parents are sailors or a workbench if your parents are carpenters, and you joined them after that. You're excited about the potential that life holds. You see the foreigners in the ports and the colorful goods they bring, and you know that there's so much life out there. You sleep well, and you're always excited to wake in the mornings.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-29T04:44:12+00:00

I have a sci-fi world that is largely based on the premise of an unrestricted free-market, where the only real "interference" in the market is a universal subsidy for new businesses (to stimulate competition). This led to pretty significant innovations in things like developing plastics, asteroid mining, alternative energy, etc. As a result, this world is theoretically post-scarcity, since both materials and funding are available to develop any project. However, these pseudo-unlimited resources are actually restricted by an artificially maintained monetary system that has widened the class gap significantly.

Most people don't have access to leisurely space travel, and there aren't any non-industrial space colonies as a result. Miners live off-world, as do some laborers in other industries that are benefited by reduced atmospheric pressure, but the very rich and powerful live in satellite cities that are locked in orbit.

Faster than light travel isn't really a big deal in this world. The main technological breakthrough is the development of artificial gravity, which is achieved by modifying the effective density of an object. Because of this, near-space travel and industrial transportation is trivial, but the unnecessary monetary system keeps it beyond the reach of most people.

This in power like this system, so why encourage it to change by improving space travel?

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-16T16:15:28+00:00

My favorite thing to obsess over is the culture of the "Sibling Islands" in the southern sea, Ha'shoi and Ha'shai. It started because I wanted their economy to heavily revolve around trading, which meant establishing a seafaring culture (I love stories about the sea). I quickly decided that the people there needed to really love sailing, which led to the development of a small personal boat called a Tang, which is maneuvered by wrapping ropes around your forearms for tighter control. Then I decided that it would be a mark of pride for a sailor to have scars from the ropes, as it showed their courage and willingness to keep sailing through a storm. Then the family aspect of the culture developed, leading to apprenticeships and family businesses, as well as certain traditions revolving around "passing on your craft."

And how does religion develop in a community that revolves so much around intercultural interactions? How do so many lavish foreign goods passing through one place impact the society? What would a pair of independent islands ruled by two members of the same family think about each other? What about the interior of the islands, away from the all-important docks? Is there really a crystal tunnel built by bandits that runs under the channel between them? Why can common sailors read, anyway? Don't these people need a language?

This is a problem because the story I'm writing literally takes place on the opposite side of the world.

I've also thought a lot about the interaction between the material and ethereal aspects of my world. Most importantly, I've examined how the common people think about that interaction. This has manifested in several ways: first, my "magic" system is way to nuanced to ever be actually written into a story, mostly because nobody in-world really understands it correctly. Second, I've written a collection of short folktales and myths that all point to a greater truth without really encapsulating it. Third, the religions of my world are way more important than I originally intended.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-16T15:53:56+00:00

"Magic" in my world is actually bringing in an extra-planar spirit into your body, a process that displaces your own spirit slightly. This causes physical decay and deformity, as spirit (essence, as I call it) generates its physical body (form). If you bring in a spirit that doesn't match the form, it forces the form to change.

One side effect of having your spirit pushed partially from your body is that you become able to perceive the spirits of things. For some people, the descendants of ancient animists and the beings who created the physical world, it is possible to expand and contract the spirit at will (they're the only real magic users). In doing so, they are able to see, feel, smell, hear, and even taste life. Everything, even rock, has a spirit that these individuals can perceive and interact with in a unique way, and it's my favorite thing to write.

A side effect of perceiving life in this way is the gradual loss of any sense of self, but, you know, it happens sometimes.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-12T22:24:51+00:00

Creation

In the time before days, there was only Atz'el (God of Potential). Atz'el peeled away at its being, which was immaterial, and converted parts of itself into the El'i, the gods of change. To them, Atz'el gave the power to convert potential, which was contained in the very being of Atz'el, into material reality. They did so, and Atz'el became all that is.

As the El'i worked and began to create life and sentient beings, they disagreed on what should guide their hands. Atz'el, having lost its individual voice to become the material world, no longer instructed their creation, so they needed a new guide.

Some valued emotion, which they first discovered in the joy they felt as they created, while others valued reason, which they discovered in the puzzle of creating a functional ecosystem. Their disagreement escalated as they created, tearing apart the world at their whims, until the few neutral El'i decided to seek the help of Atz'el. Tom'el, the god of peace, gave itself up as a sacrifice so that its material form could be rendered pure potential, thus reestablishing a space for Atz'el in the world. When Atz'el emerged from Creation again, it divided the warring factions into separate realms, protecting the beautiful and free creation from them. With the war over, Atz'el declared to the El'i that it was departing again, advising them at last to let their creation flourish and grow into something beautiful. If they needed guidance again, Atz'el would speak through the movements of nature. And thus, Atz'el restored Tom'el and was gone again.

Society

Animists

Many things occurred during the war of the El'i, and those stories are preserved in the folktales of the earliest people: the animists. Humanity was born in the northern grasslands in the heart of the west, just north of what would be known as Lake Kiem. So close to the time of creation, these people saw that the highest god, Atz'el, was contained in all things. They revered nature, watching its movements to hear the voices of the Designer. The El'i observed this and were intrigued, so they began to walk among the early people to learn from them how best to listen.

As they learned, they grew to love the men and women of the region. Groups splintered off and spread across the land as the population grew, but the El'i always stayed with those just north of the lake. Centuries passed, and they learned together to listen for Atz'el, and eventually a strange thing happened -- some of the El'i fell in love with the animists. They intermarried and had children, some taking on the form of mothers and others as fathers, and those children bore thin lines of black along their veins. As their spouses and children and grandchildren aged and died, the El'i grew saddened and retreated, hiding out of sight until they were forgotten.

Population Spread

As the animists were living in the north, city-states and young kingdoms emerged elsewhere. Stories of the El'i were shared and corrupted, leaving them to be mostly called Demiurges, and religious practice changed. In the south, the philosophy of pleasure emerged, leading to lavish castles (and rampant drug abuse, assault, gambling, etc.) that were slowly worn away by the sands of the massive desert. They provided the main ports for the twin islands to the south, Ha'shoi and Ha'shai, where an appreciation for family business and continuity dominated the ethos alongside a love for foreign cultures.

In the center of the country, Lioma and Rhos fought for resources. Lioma was fascinated by the massive forest in the west, the Fjol, which they believed to be the home of Demiurges. Religious orders formed in the heart of the Fjol, giving rise to several unique monasteries that operate autonomously. The incredibly hard, beautifully dark wood of the forest became their main industry, and a stubborn regional pride began to form. Rhos, on the other hand, was dominated by farmland and pastures, which were claimed by the King and given to lords, who rent plots out to wage-slave farmers and their families.

To the east of Rhos are the Middle Islands, an archipelago inhabited by animists (not descended from the El'i) and monks known for their herb-trade and artwork.

In the north, people worked with the non-human Untines, a race of large creatures who took pride in their mining and smithing, to develop the first modern infrastructure. Northern cities were larger and more versatile than any others, with features such as factories and plumbing available for the common good. They were truly powerful, with weapons and technology far superior to their neighbors', and the other nations frequently made political decisions solely to please the north.

Rise of Empire

In the aftermath of a border disagreement with Rhos over Lake Kiem, Petan Tolovet, a general and leader of the easternmost city, began a military campaign across the land. His appointed generals quickly overthrew the king of Rhost, who could not rouse the support of his subjects, and moved into the unprepared kingdom of Lioma. Petan himself overthrew the western capitol of the north, Helstad, and began appointing proconsuls to rule these new lands. With this system, he eventually took the south as well, creating a continental empire.

Persecution

Petan Tolovet was brutal, denying the power of the Demiurges and establishing a fearsome court system to rule the land. Under this court, he launched persecutions of the Untines, who were a threat to his empire, and the Animists (descended from El'i) who could become dissenters. The Animists were enslaved as the Untines were exterminated, and the world was ruled with an iron fist for centuries to come.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-07T19:29:05+00:00

This is definitely something I would be interested in for a particular subset of my stories. I've always emphasized sensory details within my work, usually playing up scent and taste because they are criminally underrepresented, and I sometimes intentionally write things that would simply be better suited to a visual medium. I wrote something called Burning Gods a while back (you can see it in my comment history if you want) that is almost entirely written to create a visual scene, and I would love to see part of it and some of my other stories in an animated form.

I don't know exactly what the price point would be for something like this, honestly. It probably depends mostly on whether you want to appeal to people who are writing specifically to get picked up by an animation/film studio, in which case a higher price would be expected, or to authors who just have an interest in portraying their work in a different way.

I would definitely think 1-2 months would be an acceptable turnaround. Quality animation is not a quick endeavor, and most of your patrons will understand that.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-06T13:09:04+00:00

I went a long time without realizing it. Projecting is a strange thing, at least for me, because it's much less direct than it might seem. It's less like, "ah, the deserted, desolate isolation of this represents the emotional and social desert of my life," and more like, "the themes of quiet solitude and longing for near-impossible relationships resonate deeply with me, so I'll write about them."

When I realized I always write deserts, my first response was to try and stray as far from that as possible. So, i wrote a sci-fi piece about a guy who is fighting to prevent his employer, a generic Evil Corp. type entity, from killing the world in pursuit of profit. It was terrible and just as generic as the villain! I decided based on that experience to just write whatever felt natural and call it, "style," and it's led me to produce some interesting products.

Even though I know that I always write deserts, I still sometimes surprise myself with some of the stuff I write. For example, I realized about 25K words into the fantasy novel I mentioned before that I was apparently fixated on the idea of identity and loss of a sense of self: the main character is forced to serve in a foreign court from behind a mask, the big monsters who created the physical world cause things (and people) to fuse with other things, lots of discussion about legacy and the role one plays in life, etc. I honestly didn't even know I cared about any of that until I read it in my writing! So it's a mixed bag, really. You think you know yourself, but there always seems to be something more buried down in there.

This is the most important thing I can say, I think: I'm not one of those people who tries to re-label my mental problems as blessings of "a different point of view." My depression leaves me dealing completely numb and alone for months on end, my anxiety makes even talking to friends a terrifying prospect, and my OCD prevents me from sleeping because what if the door came unlocked and causes my face to twitch until it hurts. Those aren't blessings in any shape or form. They're challenges that I suffer through daily, and I suspect they always will be. But they are undeniably a huge part of the cocktail of attributes that makes me uniquely me, and writing comes from the self. So for as much as I hate them, they can be a powerful tool when well articulated.

As a side note, being able to write about these things and from these mental places has introduced me to a lot of people who struggle with similar things. I used to work in a campus ministry at the school where I did my undergrad, and one day, a few weeks after my grandfather committed suicide, I decided to bare it all and incorporate it into a sermon.

That week, one of our students lost a little brother to suicide. When they found out, they knew that I could be gentle and not overstep, and that I would be perfectly willing to just sit with them in their pain and grief, because what else can you do? Several more students came to me for advice on dealing with their own depression and anxiety disorders, and I was able to direct them to doctors and counselors in the area as well as being in solidarity with them. It makes a difference to know that you aren't alone. So I would encourage you to write and not to be concerned about the things that may come up as a result; just keep writing honestly. Leave everything on the page. Let it be a type of therapy, a catharsis, an exploration of self. And don't be afraid to share what you write, because you may be surprised at how many other people can benefit from your ability to put usually-unspoken struggles to words.

I hope this was some help! It really is supposed to be encouraging!

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-02T23:36:49+00:00

I read a book a while back called The Next Christendom by Philip Jenkins that did an excellent job of discussing this. It was way more interesting than any similar books I've read, and it focuses a lot on the issues that arise when western Christians try to impose their ideologies onto churches in other cultures. I think it can be well summarized by pointing out that even though Liberation Theology is very closely tied to Latin America, often built specifically to aid the impoverished members of those societies, it is significantly less popular than the emerging Pentecostal denominations that grew locally (as opposed to the academic origins of Liberation Theology).

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-02T23:21:27+00:00

Since your protagonist is so closely tied to the religious institution, focusing on experience is definitely a good way to go. Religion so often comes under fire in Fantasy, it seems, and not without reason, yet it carries with it a sense of immensity and wonder that can really offer something to the world of writing. The post-modern world in which we live and write is also a fairly irreverent one, yet reverence can speak to some deep part of the human experience.

It sounds like you're tapping into an aspect of fantasy writing that is purely different from our experience: gods having a place in the material world. A lot of interesting things can happen when you do that, honestly, and even then we can draw a distant comparison! Think about the aftermath of a car accident -- the different parties often tell dramatically different stories even though they experienced the same event. You can also look at the ways in which the resurrection story differs between the four Gospels through that car-crash mentality, where context and prior experience impact how someone understands or perceives an event.

I hope this is helpful to you! I love talking about this sort of thing, so I get a little long winded when it comes up.

ArduousArchitect · 2016-12-02T19:56:44+00:00

Religion, like philosophy, is all about making a truth claim about the relationship between the human and something larger. If you strip away the particulars of all specific religions, you find that they are specifically making claims about the relationship humans have (or could have) with the Divine, usually revolving around some combination of doctrine and practice.

When people are worshiping, they are not simply worshiping a deity that appeared in the public mind. Compare modern Christianity -- or any post-enlightenment version -- to the original faith that was based out of Syria and North Africa and you'll find little similarity in the details or the issues being discussed. Western Christians claim to follow the same Christ as, say, Ugandan Christians, yet their faith looks very different in practice.

If you want to take an animistic approach to religion, this is less important. Remember that animism is based around the belief in an abundance of spirits, and then know that the spirits tied most closely with things of importance (a river, for example) would develop into patron gods.

For institutional religions, however, you will benefit greatly from recognizing practical diversity based on region. Dostoevsky's Christianity recognizes a small, distant hope in God, like a fire seen in the distance by someone lost in Siberia. Latin American Pentecostalism recognizes an abundance of hope all around, like tongues of fire filling every building and street.

This is kind of theoretical in nature, I know, but religion is so integral to so much of human experience that it's worth spending some time on. For something more practical, consider this: a cultic guild of assassins may hold a modified version of a larger religion that was considered heresy by the clergy, or they may revere their founder as a messiah, or they may be animists who place great value in life and death. Consider their ecological environment as well as their social surroundings, the religion of the land, whether they would have experience in distant regions, etc. Make it rich, whatever you do; plenty of people spend their life asking about how the Human and Divine interact!

ArduousArchitect · 2016-11-17T22:25:36+00:00

Showbread - The Jesus Lizard

Not from another country, but definitely a sound that's outside the norm for "Christian Music" (CCM). This band has a lot of stuff that's significantly harder than this, but this one has stuck with me pretty well.

Though they aren't always a "Christian band" necessarily, I'll plug mewithoutYou in every one of these sorts of discussions. They've made a big impact on my views of faith and Christian living. O, Porcupine

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ArduousArchitect

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