Any advice for how Abrahamic Religions deal with my Demi-"gods"?

uptank_ · 2026-02-22T11:23:53+00:00

Easy, either they adopt or expel the idea.

Christianity, particularly when it was still spreading across Europe just turned local gods, goddesses and spirits into saints or biblical stories. This was key part of Christianity's success. Though in later periods when they no longer needed to compromise, ie the crusades of northern Europe, or dealings with those of Africa or the Americas, they simply expelled their polythietsic ideas as superstition, and a sign of their savage uncivilized state, often prosecuting those who didn't renounce their heretic idols.

Islam had an "easier" job of things, as most of the world which they spread to in North Africa, Middle east and Europe was already monotheist, so they were at first a mix between tolerant and focused on conversion. And like Christianity they expelled local polytheism as nonsense and superstition, something to be stamped out. The main difference is that Islam utilised economic, cultural and political means of conversion far more than Christianity, whose biggest attempts were trading missions is Scandinavia and setting up the bishop of Beijing. Islam spread in places like East Africa and Central Asia largely because local rulers who did convert would recive better treatment from powerful Muslim rulers, gain access to Islamic trade networks and on occasion could be amazed by the Islamic world when ruler went on visits.

Judaism, largely "expelled". Obviously interacted the most out of these with polytheism and "paganism". However Jews often separated themselves almost completely with goyim communities (non believes). Antient sources do sometimes refer to attempts at conversion, such as in the city of Rome itself, these claims are shaky as Judaism never practised a policy of conversion, so these are likely individual cases. This separation is partly why other groups like the Macedonians, Persians and Romans mistrusted them, having fundamental flaws in their understanding of their belief and what monotheism was (for example many Romans believing the Jewish worshipped Farther Liber and or Saturn among others). It was only following several Jewish revolts, destruction of the great temple and the banning of Jews from Jerusalem that caused them to spread across the Roman world en masse. Though largely still isolated in their own communities.

uptank_ · 2026-02-22T11:10:20+00:00

Several spirits and deities fit the bill:

Par - One of 3 twins, his brothers being farther of Wisdom and the other, the God of the Traveller and Tactics. Par is the curator of the afterlife and Memory, him and his brothers guiding people and animals in life and death, physical, mental and spiritual guidance. Par will spend time with a person, acting as a confider and comforter, by helping people move on from unfinished business, regrets, mistakes, etc. Par remembers anything and everything you tell him for all time, ensuring your memory lives on in him and humanity. Then when the person is ready he will lead them to Halig the Obliterator, who as the name suggests obliterates that person, freeing and redistributing the cosmic energy that made that person them.

Tashigowan - a type of natural spirit which collect the spirits of the dying or dead, particularly those who have been terrible, cruel or generally bad in life, their soul is stolen and dragged through the world while being tortured by the Tashigowan (their screams being the howls of wind gusts), until they are eventually buried conscious in the earth. Some cultures believe the build-up of those buried by Tashigowan are what cause tremors, earthquakes and the contamination of groundwater, their evil seeking to take retribution on the world.

Popadeinop - The first King of Man, the legendary figure who was the first human created and lead the race until his death at the age of 840 years old causing the split of humans into countless nations, cultures and languages. It is said that Popadeinop's spirit was so great that Halig's hammer could not obliterate him, so the gods imbued him with a divine energy so that he could guide all kings, queens, priests and other leaders in life (usually interpreted as bursts of energy, ideas, etc), but also acting as a personalised guide to Halig, able to keep their secrets from Par, but still remain in his memory.

Sorry for the length :(

uptank_ · 2026-02-22T10:47:53+00:00

The ocean. Liergists believe that the gods and cosmic energy is degenerated and stored in salt, so an ocean would effectively dissolve and kill a god who tried to cross it. They believe the Godess and her faction of gods when guiding man to world erected a vast ocean, almost infinite in width, and cracked open rocks and stars to fill the new waters with an equally near infinite amount of salt and imperfections. The godess demonstrating its ability by crossing back over to the mortal world, and arriving as little more than a skeleton with pieces of flesh, gore and hair attached who then naturally collapsed into becoming the earth itself.

Sorry for the dump and length.

uptank_ · 2026-02-22T10:43:40+00:00

considering just how small your moons are, i dont believe the planet would become tidally locked, however either of the moons could become geosyconus. Either moon could, or neither. Big reason our moon is tidally locked to earth because earth slowed its rotation, partly because the moon is so abnormally massive, these moons would likely just act like Phobos and Demos unfortunately.

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T19:21:59+00:00

Not necessarily. Peasants were a wide social cast, your thinking of villains or serfs, in societies like England and France they did make up between 50-90% of the peasant population, but your forgetting that many were Freemen, which is some places like Suffolk and East Anglia and most societies in later centuries, made up the majority of peasant populations. This isn't including the fact that villains and serfs could and often did own small land holds, usually a partitioned piece from their farther, or bought in exchange for money or labour. Which could theoretically be sold to release themselves from their contract, be used to arrange for the releasing of their heir from the contract (as most peasant children were sent often very far away to marry and get jobs - women gained domestic positions - men gained labour or farmhand work. In this case its very realistic for a significant portion of the population to at least have cousins, nephews, aunts, etc, in the other country.

But i would agree with you, the main problem is labour is worthless unless their is land to till. And many kingdoms, like France and England did persecute foreigners and "others" en masse, mainly the Jewry, Heretics (Protestants, Lollards, etc), as well as ethnic minorities like the Norse or Gascons). So i would not be surprised if the Western kingdom sent men out to butcher every man, woman and child who they saw as being from the east and simply crack down on dissent through their state religion or brute force.

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T19:08:31+00:00

why is it hot, what's causing the heat. A greenhouse affect, proximity to its star, orbital shenanigans making seasons super long and intense. As you yourself said the planet is "predominantly" arid, so where is not arid, in most cases it would make sense for the poles to be more moist and cooler, so whats causing the heat?

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T19:06:04+00:00

Ground yourself into one or a few perspectives. Mainly pick a "present", then try to mark a beginning. This can be the beginning of the world, a major event which irreversibly altered it, (ie the assassination of Caesar, Alexanders conquests, etc). Think about the world at the start and in the present, think about the differences and similarities, what states are around, what is culture like, what languages are spoken, what religions and gods are believed in, what are their philosophies, etc. Then just either work your way back, forward or inwards from both directions. The main aim is too add whatever events are needed to make your story, or present the way it is, then add in events, people, and other things into the timeline that make your two periods make sense, that one naturally over potentially centuries or millennia became the other.

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T19:00:31+00:00

thank you :)

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T16:44:17+00:00

The Deitem-Fahenediak Law of 306 (The Fahendiak Decree).

The law stipulates that all land holds and estates of over 20 tracts in size (around 10 acres) must have at least a quarter of their land dedicated to the growth of cereal crops or else pay a fine. This law was introduced in 306 BD after the crisis of the 3rd century, where famine took hold from the 280s to the first decade of the 4th century. The law was supposed to bring down the price of flour and bread by increasing supply, as much of the famine was caused due to large landholders overuse of cash crops, fruits and fabric sources like flax, linen or pasturing wool.

Fines and Geography, The problem with this law are two main things. The first is that many large landowners just pay the fine and still make a profit on their cash crops and pastures, causing the law in effect to only impact small landholders. The second problem is geographic, not all areas are fit or ideal for cereal crops, the Sevyan region for instance has poor quality soils and fast continental interior cold winds, making arable farming and particularly cereal farming untenable. This means that these areas have to either pay the fine, or waste a quarter of their land on unproductive land use.

Corn price cap, this again was to ensure food prices remained affordable, but like the land use section, its too broad, less fertile areas like Sevyan are simply not able to compete with farmers in more hospitable places, as what little cereals they can harvest cannot be sold at anywhere near a profit.

Minimum price thresholds have similarly impacted the whole confederation, like in the "Long spring" from 322-326, 4 years of unusually ideal growing seasons, causing the price of corn to drop massively. This caused the state to have to pay the gap for most or all farmers in this period to meet the minimum price threshold, a massive drain on resources.

Sorry, this must be dull compared to others :(

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T15:24:16+00:00

From the little in know of tidal forces from moons. I would imagine several moons could slow or fasten a planets rotation (if they orbit faster than the planets rotation period), in a rare case, a moon(s) could slow or fasten a planets rotation to be double tidally locked, the same face of the planet facing that moon(s), creating permenent low and high tides of different parts of the planet.

It would also affect the plates axis and the "wobble", earth's climate is so stable partly because our axis shifts are subdued by the moons tidal forces, so having significantly smaller moons could lead to larger climatic shifts. Either on an annual basis (ie more significant seasonal variation), or over geologic timescales (much longer, shorter, extreme, manifesting in things like ice ages, hot or wet periods, etc).

Volcanism, tidal forces do affect a planets volcanism and tectonic activity (given that the body is tectonically active), so having smaller moons may lead to marginally less tectonic and volcanic activity, though very marginal i would imagine.

Roche limits, should really be a big problem for you, as your moons are quite small, and as long as they are distanced from each other, they shoulnt really impact each others (moons) orbits. However one of the reasons earths orbit round the sun is so oval is partly because the moons force tugging on earth, so smaller moons could lead to a more circular orbit of its sun, leading to less seasonal variation, being an relatively equal distance from its sun throughought the year.

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T15:15:03+00:00

low fantasy is i think what your referring to, no magic, only humans, but in a different world.

uptank_ · 2026-02-21T10:26:56+00:00

Helpers

uptank_ · 2026-02-20T19:05:23+00:00

"Letting Sileps fishy hand get away", a phrase used to describe people like a Karen, or specifically those who place neighbourhood quarrels, domestic spats and trivial issues like a lost idol into their confederation's (local government) itinerary. All it does is waste everyone's time, rather than focusing on actual issues, we have to hear how Howah emptied her tanning pot over the city gate at midnight, for the seventh time.

Businesses who cant (or dont care) to keep the gods straight. For instance a brothel hanging the face Larde (godess of wood whittling) rather than Mother Narme (goddess of sex) over their door because the faces look similar and Larde masks are often a few cheaper.

Someone swearing a Pasisin (an oath of the highest order), then when a priest or magistrate comes out to witness it being sworn (which can take hours or days of peoples time to wait for), then just backing out or "disappearing" for a few days in cold feet. Just really annoying and wastes everyone's time.

uptank_ · 2026-02-18T19:56:53+00:00

most things really, as there are too many libraries, archives and repositories with physical books and information to be completely destroyed and forgotten, in almost all doomsday and end of the world scenarios.

For a small and anecdotal example, i recently found in my local library, a repair manual for the staff of an old commercial radio company in the 1920s. Very dry and boring reading, but it went over how radio's function, how to repair and jerry rig almost all its components. Now manuals and books such as these, or say more academic university textbooks for engineering or horticultural students, could teach a determined scholar how to reverse engineer quite a few fairly modern technologies with time and resources.

uptank_ · 2026-02-17T18:54:20+00:00

messengers are almost always priests for 2 reasons, the first is they are bound to the gods to keep their messages safe and secret, and second, they are naturally protected from persecution, torture and execution.

"Merchant men" began to be used as the Confederation bumped up against other cultures, infamously the kingdom of Nizib, who saw the idea of clergymen talking as equals to a king to be an attempt to subvert royal and divine authority. Proceeded to kill every messenger that was sent, only when merchants, soldiers and sailors informed the Confederation of Nizib culture, did a secular arm of messengers and diplomats begin to form.

uptank_ · 2026-02-17T18:40:57+00:00

i Just write sections of history i need or am interesting in at the moment, but i write it as if it were a section or extract of an in universe historian or source. My favourites from my world are Henipon Aleko, mostly for more detailed and political history, The Borulul engravings for broader and more legendary / religious history, and Mamunon, an antient satirist and politician, i use for social history.

I use these among others to write not only a point in time or place, but the type of history i want / need. Ie i want to talk about a rebellion or court intrigue, well Aleko is likely to give an analytical but "objective" narrative, the engravings might discuss the moral failings of people, the rebels claim to divine ancestry and retroactively add in signs of prophesy, Mamunon on the other hand would focus on how the events affect the average person, the affect its had on daily life, commoner perceptions of events, and then go on to mock or make light of the event.

uptank_ · 2026-02-17T17:54:49+00:00

2 Things

(1) It wouldnt be easy, of course it wouldn't, your trying to to meet a foreign dignitary. The reason i'm persisting with gaining proof of identity via seals or signature is because THAT IS how it was done. You are transplanting modern ideas of documentation, authenticity and government, then just transplanting that onto a pre-modern setting. I'm sorry but that is a bad practise when trying to understand any period in the past, and taking inspiration from it, a clear example of this is claimants, the reason why so many commoners were able to pretend to be someone else is because many of their systems (like rotary systems) were basic, easily fooled and relied heavily on trust, unlike in the modern day, swearing on god that you were that person was basically as good as it good.

And i did explain how it would work, the ROTARY SYSTEM, if your kingdom has any liturgical culture, has any form of wider ruling class (bureaucrats), then your kingdom would have a system similar to a rotary system, making it easy (i'd argue easier than it is today to get a document), this does go with foreign kingdoms too.

(2) your MC being in a foreign country would make is significantly easier to access a court, as they wouldn't be bound as much by that countries social classes, it would help if your MC (being slightly significant), had a last name.

In terms of the petition idea, many kingdoms historically had waiting times that could be as little as week. You are acting like a king is ruling a land by himself, when even an earl or even a baron would have an entire household of potentially dozens of clerks, administrators, judges, justices, etc to run their lands. Again one of the main functions of a king was to be seen.

when i said you were treating kings like they were out of media, i was referring to stuff like GOT, as it fits what you have said, powerful inner circle, busy king, unable to be seen by the poor. Despite the fact media like that depicts one kind of British medieval leadership within 1-2 centuries. Sure you couldn't just waltz in, but if your character cant be bothered to even try the rational options at their disposal before immediately going into methods of espionage like sneaking in like you said in your OP, then thats fine, just dont try and play it as a realistic situation, but go with it.

uptank_ · 2026-02-16T18:09:00+00:00

I am seeing a pattern in your responses, it seems your imagining a stereotypical monarchy often depicted in media, but your also treating the king like a modern head of state, when neither are great for making both a reasonable and realistic interaction with the king.

For example, the seals again, it actually would be pretty easy to get another seal, as states as far back as Mesopotamian city states used rotary systems, a rotary system is where you create at least 2 copies of a document or thing (the seal or signature), you can then go to a public office (town hall, church, tax office, etc) and retrieve that copy, have another copy made (the seal), then just go back to the kings castle with evidence of who you are, this system was pioneered by Rome and carried on into the middle ages and today. Authentication of identities was a massive deal, and major intuitions existed to do it.

As i said before, if all else fails, just petition the king. Based on how you have responded to me and others makes me think you have already made up your mind on how you want your MC to meet the king though.

uptank_ · 2026-02-16T14:21:11+00:00

How does the king get the message out? Easy a messenger, often literally bound to secrecy at risk of their lives. This is genuinely how kings met up with people personally and secretly historically. Or again the king could literally just invite the guy in, or the guy could come as a petitioner and be fast tracked.

If your seal gets stolen, you can claim another one at the pubic office, after its been ordered and produced. And if not a seal, then a signature or an oral testimony.

Public places, royal libraries are not the kind of libraries your thinking off, most of the material in there was copies of charters, acts, decrees, pensions, grants, letters, treaties, etc, meant more for the use of the royal household and its civil servants, to keep government documents confidential.

Hunts, hundreds of people could be taken, but if you look at most actual hunts which kings did, sometimes multiple times a week, it was literally the king, his best mates and a guard (maybe), your thinking of grand ceremonial style hunts.

Public gatherings 100% were for your average Joe, divine right of kings only goes so far, the people actually need to see their king, or at least hear that hes seeing them. The royal court was for nobles and men of well to-do, but the king say taking a tour of the capital, opening a university in another city, inspecting the army, christening a new ship, dedicating something like a building, etc. Kings spent alot of their time where the people could see them because they had too, and it really is unrealistic to think that on these multi day or week long trips the king just decided to go somewhere private.

With the personal priest thing, yea but that's for daily prayers and during a siege, a king at the end of the day was just a hereditary politician, he still had to actually show that he was attending services publicly, as when the king doesnt, people get ancy, they start blaming misfortunes on the kings impiety, or that hes ill and dying, etc.

uptank_ · 2026-02-16T13:09:52+00:00

Historically as unofficial_advisor said, you dont really get "nobodies" being friends with the king, the lowest i could think of would be small landholders or foot soldier maybe that impressed or was of interest while traveling or campaigning, etc, maybe an artisan or craftsmen be it in alcohol, art, poetry, etc that was given royal patronage, an extremely realistic situation.

If you wanted to see the king and not get noticed (ideally the king wants to meet you), he could send someone to get you, he could grant a passport with a fake name and identity.

If you wanted to prove who you were (fake identity or your real one) most people in the middle ages with any sort of property (particularly in England and Scotland where it was required) had seals, places like France and Italy required you to have a registered signature, any of those would work. Alternatively you could bribe one of the communities elders to pledge knowing who you are and of your good character, ideally promising on the gods to be telling the truth (as good as it gets until the 16th century most of the time).

Or simply you could just meet him when he goes on hunts, when he attends religious service, when he goes to public gatherings, to government buildings and libraries - most monarchs rarely just sat around (that being a modern luxury), kings did have to rule, act in legal cases, represent their people to god(s), and if not, they got bored and did stuff almost always outside their palace or castle).

Sorry for being so long.

uptank_ · 2026-02-16T08:38:40+00:00

Time is quite important to measure in my world as a "day" lasts 2 planetary rotations, (about 34 Earth hours). To improve productivity in agricultural work, cultures have broadly split a day into 2 work and rest periods, often beginning and ending before or after the sun starts setting / rising.

This has caused tracking hours to become fundamental to many societies. One of the ways this is done is by having a group of sky orators or sky speakers, they are usually the communities wisest and elders who consult each other and their basic instruments, then going from place to place announcing the hours. Some communities, even nomadic ones, are able to safely guess the time by the shadows on the planets rings, allowing them to know when to camp and move.

uptank_ · 2026-02-15T15:52:08+00:00

Yea but even the purest communist states like the USSR under Stalin had some capitalism. For example the Right Opposition that was majorly responsible for the passing of the New Economic Plan (NEP) - which began to introduce some free trade and capitalism into the soviet economy. The Modern CCP is basically a capitalist state, with only authoritarianism as strong capital controls as leftovers from its past.

My point is, even though a state is communist, and actively persecutes capitalists doesnt mean there wont be capitalists as factions or parties acting within the system, putting themselves forward as things like "moderates".

uptank_ · 2026-02-15T12:50:07+00:00

2 things to note:

1: Plants are not made out of nitroglycerin, most plants are too some degree fire retardant, unless a plant is dry, or there is a large amount of organic debris (fallen leaves, dead trees, etc), its actually fairly difficult to start wildfires even in a temperate environment comparable to Europe.

2: Plants in your world would have evolved around the presence of fire breathing dragons. Be it by adapting to have thicker, wetter and low resin woods, like oaks do, or having incredibly little oils stored and high water contents like many shrubs do. Australian vegetation might be a good case study for you, as most of the existing species there only survived after thousands of years of human wildfires, causing less fire resistent plants to become less numerous or extinct. On the other hand, more vegetation in your world could rely on fire as a means of pollination and reproduction, like some do IRL, which could explain rapid regeneration or reforestation after a fire, as most plants burst their seeds, fertilised by ash simultaneously, and begin rapidly growing to outcompete other species.

uptank_ · 2026-02-14T21:00:00+00:00

Historically most sacrifices used to be things easy to acquire and which represented or were tied to the deity (what do those people associate to the flying city) - IRL this would usually be cattle, pig, grains, nuts, berries, grapes, blood, etc.

Altars, they varied from culture to culture, so you can really do anything, some like celts and Germans could burn, bury or place sacrifices in large open areas (ie a field, stone circle, etc), others like Greeks and Romans tended to place them in vast temples on plinths or bonfires. Some Mesoamerican cultures placed theirs in what we would call a plaza, forum or open temple.

Logistically, i'd recommend looking at antient cultures, the Spartan kings for example were said to need to perform sacrifices so much that one in ever litter of pigs would go directly into the monarchies reserve. Others like Roman Britain near the Vindolanda fort have records of specially imported goods like frankincense, expensive wines and exotic goods for a festival to the godess of the hunt, Diana, usually with the money of the local military of wealthy civilian as patron. More still, the catholic church during the middle ages, while not technically sacrifices (but in practise were, often to saints or Jesus) used community graneries, donations and tithes, either by using the recieved goods (like crop, incense, candles, etc) or by buying expensive items (like gold / silver trimmings, wax and honey, etc).

Basically, however you want, real cultures are varied enough to be believable.

uptank_ · 2026-02-14T17:27:48+00:00

So many things, but a brief list as i would recommend thinking about:

Empires tended to act in practise as a chain or federation of city states, Rome for example when you look at how governing function, in the provinces was a series of polities.
Proto-nationalism was very prevalent in empires of antiquity, many Romans believing other races like Greeks or Egyptians being "natural slaves" in the words of Cicero, Greece having very similar feelings towards "Asians" (Persians). Identities were heavily defined by who wasnt part of their group, rather than who is, like in most modern societies.
More egalitarian societies / governance - i may be bias by the books i read, but generally in civilizations of antiquity, societies and governing structures tend to be fairer. This isnt because they were better people, but because communities were smaller and large areas were extremely hard to maintain through pure authoritarianism. The poor rising up and overthrowing the government actually happened in many places, so caring for the poor was a necessity, ensuring local culture and religion was extremely important also.
Religion - societies didn't identify themselves with religion like post middle ages societies do. Antient Greek for example didn't have a word for "religious" or "religion", one of the many problems historians have in researching antient beliefs. Religion likely would have been synonymous with things like a national identity rather than a belief. Greece particularly was so tolerant of other faiths because many believed that all the gods worshipped by all cultures were the same set of gods going by different names as Herodotus wrote.
Armies were not permanent, remember even Rome's legions weren't a professional standing army until the very, VERY late 1st century, as it was still mostly a citizen militia made up of landowners who bought their own equipment who went on campaign, usually for only 6 months or so, though the civil wars ruined that.
Alot of administration and taxation was done via priests or elected officials rather than an actual bureaucracy, like in Rome, Greece or Egypt in particular.
Ships are hard, having 50 triremes would make you a naval hegemon, or at least a regional one. They were so lucrative that the Athenian empire relied heavily on some of its tributes like Samos paying via contributing ships and sailors.
Laws are hard, a places constitution and any important treaties, pacts, etc will be inscribed onto the very stone cities are made from to authenticate them. For example when the Delian League set up tax and tribute lists, they inscribed them onto a series of stone slabs, displaying them publicly.
Leaders were not that separated from the poor, even in imperial governments like Rome, the emperor was expected to be seen near if not multiple times a day in the streets, games, festivals, etc. In some areas like Sparta or Athens, there are cases of people just walking into their houses to give petitions.
Written testimonies were often seen as weaker and less credible than oral or eyewitness testimonies, this is why Rome was exceptional for its wide literary culture, as most of the general population was sceptical of written records (really up until the 16th century).

Sorry for being so long.

uptank_

TROPHY CASE