Character Design: Religion

By Ben Miff

Religion is an understandably touchy subject. As such, giving your character a religion means that you have to tread carefully, and accept that some people will be upset with your character, because they feel that you portrayed the religion unfairly. Using the character just to bash a particular religion also is a bad idea; many of the religious can get quite defensive when their religion is insulted, even mildly.

In order to give your character a religion, you first have to decide which to give them; you can have an existing one, or create a new one. For an existing religion, there are disadvantages and advantages, just as there are for creating a whole new one. Advantages include the fact that you have an already existing foundation to work within and that it is more likely that the reader will associate with the religion; disadvantages include the fact that some will be upset with your portrayal, and that it is hard to find a religion that conforms exactly to your ideas. Creating a religion means that you can avoid the disadvantages of using an existing religion; however, it does mean that you have to spend more time creating and explaining it, and also there is always the risk that it may be unbelievable, especially if you claim it to be the main religion.

Using an existing religion, you first need to choose. View your character so far; which religion would fit best? For the purposes of this, I’m going to include atheism and agnostic as “religions”, although they are technically not. If they tend towards the inanely devout type, who follow everything to the letter, one of the eastern religions may be more suiting. If they tend to be inanely scientific, then atheism or agnostic are probably your best bets. Try not to have the religion contradict the character. The only problem with choosing religions is that you may find yourself blurring the character edges a bit, in order to get it to fit.

Creating a religion means that there are a multitude of things to set. You need to consider the status of the gods; are there any, and if so how many; if there aren’t any, what is the replacement; how powerful are they? Once you have a few details about the gods, you then need to decide the type of rules the religion sets down; some discretion is necessary here. “Thy shalt not dip thy squirrels in custard” is not a suitable rule. Also, you don’t want to bury the reader under rules; often, the rules can be condensed by merging some of the similar ones e.g. Thy shalt not eat pork and Thy shalt not eat beef can easily condense into Thy shalt not eat pork or beef. After you’ve set down the rules, look at the religion so far. Does it fit in as a widespread religion, or as a cult? Choose this one accordingly. After this, you may wish to create some terminology. Make up some names. You might want a holy book; you may even wish for a religious language. Once you have flourished out the religion with these little details, the religion looks a lot more fleshed out. As an example, I’ll use PEC.

Firstly, the religion has one god. This god has next to no power in the “real” world, but controls access to the afterlife. You follow his teachings, you go to “ehvean” (heaven); you don’t, you go to “leh” (hell). Next, rules. Currently, there’s only one that I’ve elaborated; in order to gain his favour, you need to send him “heretics”; this you do by killing them, so that he can judge them. Seeing this, it is fairly obvious this will be a cult religion. Next, terminology. While not much of the language has been created (I make it up as I go), I have a base from which I work, consisting of every word created so far (as to prevent having 17 different words for almighty). Examples are luthkanf (thankful) and ghilaght (almighty). The religion now is a functioning one, which works well within the framework of the RP, in that it is another part to cause problems for the characters.

After you’ve created the religion, all that’s left is to write the character. Make sure that you give the reader enough information if it’s a made-up or an obscure religion. Also, ensure that the religion doesn’t take over too much; unless you are aiming for a zealot, then too much will become overbearing. Hopefully, the character will fit into its role, with the religion enhancing it; if not, then more tweaking may be required. And that is all.