The doors of the cathedral opened again. The holy symbols of the nine gods – each crafted from glowing godwood – were brought forth. As they passed Dominic, each symbol pulsed with scintillating brilliance, prompting a fresh cheer from the crowd. The symbols were placed in a circle around Rehobath, who kneeled in the center of them and lowered his head in prayer. After a few moments he raised his face to heaven.
One of the things that I think can add a lot of depth to the world is populating it with specific rituals: Not just, “I say a prayer to my god.” But, “How, specifically, do Imperial priests say their prayers?”
Invoking the rites of smart prep, it’s probably best to only prep rituals that are of particular significance to the PCs: Either rituals that they’re going to participate in, or which are part of events which have particular significance to them. (As, for example, in this session of In the Shadow of the Spire.) Particularly large and complex rituals can also be used as the basis for entire scenarios. (For example, I have not infrequently used them as the backbone of a party-planning scenario.)
When it comes to creating these rituals, it’s a little too easy to just say, “Become familiar with lots and lots of real world rituals.” For example, when designing this particular ritual — the inauguration of a Novarch — I’m pretty sure I just spun it up without additional reference; I was drawing on a lifetime of familiarizing myself with different religious traditions. I don’t say that to pat myself on the back, but to point out that studying the real world is the best way to improve your fictional creations. As the old saying goes, if you want to write better fantasy, you’ve got to read more stuff than just fantasy.
The important thing, though, is that you want the traditions and rituals of your world to be more than just thinly veiled copies of some real world tradition or ritual. There’s a ton of mediocre D&D worldbuilding you can find out there, for example, that’s based around people only familiar with the Christian traditions they grew up with basically trying to map those traditions directly onto fantasy pantheons.
So as you’re broadening your studies of real world history and culture, it’s not just about increasing the number of sources you can copy-and-paste from. Rather, it’s about seeing how different cultures took meaning (often similar meanings) and turned them into symbols. And as you come to understand the breadth and variety of that process, you’ll be arming yourself to duplicate the process rather than just pasting in various bits.
REAL-WORLD ANALOGS
For example, if I had been faced with creating a ritual for inaugurating the novarch when I was just starting out as a DM in the early ‘90s, my instinct would have been to look at a real-world analog (say, the coronation of the Christian pope). And then I would have basically taken that ritual, reskinned each step of the ritual with some fantasy equivalent, and been happy with the result.
If you’re in the position of wanting a real-world analog to work from, though, the first thing I’d suggest is to look for a real-world equivalent that is more distant from the fictional ritual you’re trying to create. For example, maybe you’d want to look at the rituals by which a British monarch is crowned. The reason for this is that the greater distance between the real-world analog and the fictional reality will force you to make larger creative decisions, transforming the ritual into something truly unique to your world.
You can do this with other elements of the game world, too. For example, let’s say that you’re looking for inspiration to fill in the history of a kingdom in your world that looks a lot like medieval France. Your first instinct would be to look at the actual history of medieval France, right?
What I would do instead is reach for the history of Japan. Using the cool bits of Japanese history that resonate with you in a medieval European-esque kingdom will force you to translate them — politically, culturally, geographically — in such radical ways that the result will necessarily be infused with a healthy amount of your own creativity.
Layering is also good: Go through the history of Japan and pull out the cool stuff you like. And then go through the history of, say, Russia and do the same thing. Now you’ve got a whole gestalt of influences and the kingdom you’ll end up with will feel unique and rich; and not just a cheap copy of Charlemagne.
PRACTICE SESSIONS & SIMPLE RITUALS
Bringing it back to rituals, the key thing to understand is that all ritual is fundamentally about symbolic equations. In order to make a cool ritual, you need to figure out what the ritual is trying to say or do and then symbolically realize that.
Using the novarch’s inauguration, for example, the ritual is about indicating that this person is now in charge of the Imperial Church of the Nine Gods. So:
- They have the approval/blessing of the Nine Gods. (The holy symbols of the Nine Gods are placed in a circle around them. Over time, these symbols are likely to be made out of a special material. Godwood makes sense.)
- They are symbolically transitioning from a mortal life to one divinely chosen. (Liquid light washes their former life away.)
- They are given a symbol of their new authority. (The liquid light is drawn up into a circlet of elfin gold. They are dressed in the crimson robes of their new office.)
At the other end of the spectrum, there are the daily, simple rituals that are part of everyone’s life in the world. When you’re designing these, you don’t want to overcomplicate them. Look at the daily rituals people do in the real world. Generally speaking, they are not ornate or overwrought.
One of the reasons for this, of course, is that any daily ritual that starts out as particularly complicated will simplify itself over time. Think about how, for example, the complexities of Christian prayer have generally simplified down to “put your hands together.”
You can actually duplicate this process in developing your own rituals. (This is also really good practice for getting a gut instinct for how these symbolic representations work.) For example, you worship the God of War and you want to request their blessing for a battle. What is it you’re asking for? To be better at killing your foes, right? And what’s the most literal way you could do that? Kill a foe.
So, asking for this blessing from the God of War would have originally consisted of plunging your blade into the heart of a captured foe.
But that’s obviously really complicated and difficult. So how could it be simplified?
- Instead of needing to kill a human foe, you can symbolically use an animal sacrifice instead.
- Killing one animal for every single person in your army is inconvenient, so everyone just needs to get their blade bloody from a single common sacrifice.
- What if there’s no animal handy? Well, cut your thumb on the edge of your blade. Blood is blood, right?
- What if you’re not using a bladed weapon? Could you could instead prick your thumb on the sharp point of the God’s holy symbol instead?
And there’s your simple ritual: Followers of the God of War prick their fingers with their god’s bladed holy symbol before going into battle.
You could also look back over this progression and find interesting variations or combinations:
- A feudal lord cuts himself with the God’s holy symbol and holds out his hand so that the knights he is leading into battle can each receive a drop of his blood on their blades.
- It’s not unusual for followers of the God of War to incorporate the God’s holy symbol into the hilt of their blade. A hidden catch or similar device that can provide a sharp edge allows them to knick themselves for their before-battle prayer.
And so forth.
You can see how a similar process, in the real world, leads to “hold your sword up in front of you as if it were a cross and ask for the Christian God’s blessing,” but because we started with a different symbolic base we ended up in a distinct and interesting place.
It should be noted, of course, that there’s not a single right answer here. This is the progression that occurred to me. You could start with a completely different initial ritual (breaking a weapon captured from a foe) and end up in a symbolically different place (you bend the blade of your holy symbol, representing the broken blades of your enemies). Or you could start in the same place and end up in a symbolically different place. (When the priest of a god of war provides a blessing – i.e., casting a buff spell like bull’s strength – it actually creates a small, illusory animal that the recipient of the spell must “sacrifice” in order to receive the god’s boon.)
