CAT SACRIFICES.
Not surprised people are triggered by this, not surprised either its the same people who get triggered without reading the thread properly.
Sacrificing cats to the moon god is an example of a mix and match religious system.
the idea here is that as a leader of a society it is important to let religion evolve as part of your game. It is not a case of ‘we have evidence that civilisation x sacrificed animal y’ we don’t really know why. What we know is the there was a huge diversity of faiths that ordained sacrifices of a wide variety of animals. We have strong Biblical references to this still remaining.
The God of Israel ordained sacrifices of various creatures at various times, sometime specific to gender and colour such as the red heifer sacrifice. Not all these sacrifices are actually understood. Taking Judaism as an example again the concept of the Passover lamb has a historicity to its symbology, however some sacrifices such as the red heifer are simply works of fiat. God required the blood of the red heifer once a year and the Jews didn’t know why.
Now I do think the best way to have religion in game is to allow it to evolve based upon need and an embellished culture. The player decided which religious aspects to focus on, the Moon could be one example given from a long list. The player decided from a list how the Moon is worshiped and why the Moon is especially holy. This develops the mythology and sets standards as to religious service times, frequency and the nature of the religious caste. For example it might make sense to link the cyclic nature of the moon with the cyclic nature of the menstrual cycle and decide that only women were holy enough to lead ceremony. Alternately the moon might be associated with the sea through the tides and be seen as a thalassic deity, and maybe a manly cult.
The player could decide what sacrifices are needed to appease the moon, the pplayer could deceide human sacrifice is necessary, or burn a portion of the city’s grain, or a favoured animal. That favoured animal could be any from a long list. The example I chose was the cat because of the cultural connection between cats and the moon (which is admittedly more modern).
So we come to zomg, sacrifiing teh cats, me triggered!!!
My reply to this is pipe down, we should save mix and match religion because we have the opportunity to show religion from its roots, not (only) imported established faiths, but indigenous faiths established from the first generation onwards. there is enormous opportunity for levity here by allowing as broad a range of worship objects, sacrifices priesthoods etc with the combinations forming a creed automatically. So if you choose Moon cat sacrifice and female priesthood you get a different creed written up about your cities faith than if you chose Sea god, male priesthood and the sacrifice of sharks.
CONSEQUENCES DEVELOPING FROM PLAYER CHOICES
Each player should have options to lead religion down different paths, some would have very heavy societal consequences. Does your city require a sacrifice of the first born to show its faith? Might it be pressured to do so if the culture of first born sacrifice is imported from other cities and ambassadors consider your elders weak because he will not sacrifice their own first born sons like the elders of other cities might do.
How much is that pressure increased or lessened if your city has no culture of blood sacrifice, or if it had regular human sacrifice as part of its established culture.
Do you develop a human sacrifice culture as a secondary means to keep salve populations in line, or to establish a cult of fear for better internal security. Or do you develop a faith where human life is sacred and such a thing is an abomination.
Which animals are sacred to your people and gods, how are your relations with other cities with conflicting faiths. We can return to cat sacrifice here, your neighbours sacrifice cats (or anything else), is that heresy to your people, or just a strange thing they do, or does it make them like minded folks.
Be mindful that animal x could be highlighted not necessarily as a sacrifical animal, but also as an unclean animal or an animal that is holy.
HISTORICITY
While from much later era we can drawn much from Herodotus, and other sources. Herodotus shows us the randomness of myth, how in Egypt some animals were sacred, and one was condemned to death for harming an Ibis for example. The reason for this is extremely convoluted and arbitrary and are in reality meant that the Ibis was chosen at random as holy for mythic reasons. If you want to know more it is because in days of yore (by ancient Egyptian viewpoint) the Ibis would defend Egypt from lethally venomous winged snakes.
This from the games perspective boils down to pick and animal to be holy, or unclean, and pick a reason from a list of myths from the mundane to the outlandish.
Cats are covered here, they were sacred they were also sacrificed by burning, though Herodotus would tell us the cats of Egypt would throw themselves on funerary pyres. Maybe Greeks didnt like to read that Egyptian religion involved throwing cats into fire.
I can understand if the visuals of sacrifice are left to the imagination. A temple need only show four walls and a roof and an evolving holy scripture showing what the player has added over time to the strictures of a city’s cult. As it is basically a text record it can get very diverse indeed and can develop an enormous depth with room for consequences.
Please don’t be narrow minded about this, and one of the advantages of an open ended system is that players can include their own sensibilities and preferences into the mix. This helps as if players invent a cult structure that fits their own mindset and a neighbouring city develops a hostile mindset, then the player gets invested in the struggle of their city against the dark heresies of its neighbours.
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