Holy Power

[Saber Cherry]

I'd love to see an "Evil Pope" or "Traitorous Bishop" pretender, who kills his God but retains his followers. Perhaps he could secretly banish a Ghost King, but claim to be possessed. That way, he'd retain his holy levels...

[Amos]

...You can't believe you are the one and only true god if you know that you have to fight your way to get there.
Ultimately the Pretender Gods are not enviable beings. They don't have the luxury of faith, they must wage war and commit atrocities and lie and mislead people. And the seeking of godhead itself shows how greedy and selfish they are, or how arrogant they are.

You just described The Old Testament God (read the first commandment) . If the people think they are gods and can work miracles in their name then they are real gods. Or else how do you know that a god is the real god? Monotheistic Gods destroy all opposition, while polytheistic gods fight but coexist. In case of Dominions they are clearly monotheistic gods, so they most certainly see themselves as one true God.

[Tharivol_Street_Prince]

But there's an obvious distinction made between the True God and the Pretender Gods. It seems like the Pretender Gods know they aren't real Gods (alot of the chassis have the whole "Being so powerful the only thing left to seek is godhood") and the plotline details that they must destroy their opposition in order to BECOME the One True God. It sounds to me like they're just powerful mortals struggling to become something more. To be that powerful and to still want more, and to be willing to kill thousands of others to achieve that goal belies that they have little faith at all. I think the priests work their holy magic based solely on their faith in these supposed "gods."

And the Gnostics would say there's a very good reason why that sounded like the Old Testament god.

[Amos]

But there's an obvious distinction made between the True God and the Pretender Gods. It seems like the Pretender Gods know they aren't real Gods (alot of the chassis have the whole "Being so powerful the only thing left to seek is godhood") and the plotline details that they must destroy their opposition in order to BECOME the One True God. It sounds to me like they're just powerful mortals struggling to become something more. To be that powerful and to still want more, and to be willing to kill thousands of others to achieve that goal belies that they have little faith at all. I think the priests work their holy magic based solely on their faith in these supposed "gods."

I think thats just a logical oversight, no offence. You can explain their ability to bless with high moral as based on faith, maybe. But if the god is not real, you cant explain their ability to Smite foes as based on faith alone.

[Wick]

I'll say priests use their connection to the divine while pretenders are trying to become one with it. Whatever connection a pretender has is being used to spread dominion.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Letting pretenders build temples is a great idea.

[Ubercat]

NTJedi said:
Here's my idea:

It would be interesting if the pretender could build temples and that these temples would be more powerful... called great temples. Also it should be where only 3 of these great temples can exist at one time on the map. If the pretender trys to build a fourth temple the oldest great temple is destroyed.

My first post here. You could also base the temples level on the priests level, although this would penalise nations with lesser priests. Perhaps the pretender could somehow empower a priest temporarily at a gem cost to build temples greater than their level, or the prophet can build greater temples.

As for the earlier OT religion posts I would like to mention a website called Internet Infidels where all manner of religious, philosophical, moral/ethical and scientific debates abound. It's my favorite website and I'm Ubercat there as well. Most of the members are healthily skeptical, but it's debating the fundamentalists which is the most fun. The URL is iidb.org. If it's against the rules here to plug other websites, then I apologise.

-Ubercat