If i had my way there'd be 50 guilds or more in the game but sadly that cannot be, voted yes, any amount of new guilds is most welcome.

Less of being a guild, more of being an actual church.

Like the Temple in Morrowind. :3

Sounds cool to me. Religeous factions, cults, fanatics, etc.

No to a religious guild that goes around doing good, yes to a variety of religious factions (of which the DB could be considered one).

How about both?

I'm not just purposing guilds that are religiously themed, I'm also purposing guilds that will allow for an entirely different style of play.

I won't lie to you, I'm biased in this question. I would say yes. But even considering my bias:

- Morrowind and Daggerfall both had their goodie two shoes guilds, and that satisfied. But then Oblivion shipped, and what did we have? Nothing like that. The FG and MG don't count, one's a mercenary company and the other is a coven, both neutral. Thankfully BGS realized this and released KoTN.

- Not everyone wants to join the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild. Variety in choice of moral alignment is certainly appreciated (and necessary).

- I'd rather not rehash the Imperial Cult or Tribunal. References, sure. Even quests that touch on them? Ok. But I think it's time for something new. This is Skyrim, not (TES title insert) 2.0.

I would love to see a rival between a native religion and the Imperial cult, too. Never did see enough of that in Morrowind.


Tribunal, perhaps, but I would want to see something similar to the Imperial Cult. They have always been throughout the series. Started in Daggerfall, changed somewhat in Morrowind, and was more fleshed out in Oblivion. Always has been there, however, and never really changed all that much. All they did was merge the gods and add Talos.

I like how Imperial culture and religion is presented, and I like how the "normality" of it clashes with the wild beliefs of other races.

What if the Skaal grew prominent after 200 years and spread into Skyrim, conflicting with the traditional Nordic Pantheon?
That might serve as a good source of rivalry I think



I love the Imperial Cult too, and like all good things, I will miss its prominence in Skyrim. However, when you think in terms of the developers, and of the general nature of Skyrim (rugged, harsh), the Imperial Cult would not survive without being weakened.

I have no doubt the Imperial Cult will appear, and I don't want it gone. I do believe however, that the Imperial Cult does not suit Skyrim as the main religious faction. Besides, with the Empire weakened, I doubt they have a strong foothold in the frozen north.

i wonder how they will handle churches and temples will there be a church for each god like in OB? if so there would be one for alduin....but he is the major bad for the game hmmmm.

eww, no.

I'd rather have this than the Dark Brotherhood (which I know is in).

I think there should be at least one, but preferably more. I like the idea of religious and political factions (do I dare say "Like in Morrowind"?)

I had a priestess character in Oblivion, but no one in game cared, or noticed.

I would hope that a Priestess of Mara could get some notice, at least in temples, and church factions.

I fully support this idea.

Isn't Synod supposed to be somewhat more like a religion compared with the College of Whispers?

The word "synod" itself means something like a "church council."

Hate religion and would never join a religious faction because my serious characters tend to be extremely similar. They have the same opinions and values as I do. But if many people want it then it should be in. As long as there are some opposing factions as well. Even if not my character at least has one more faction to oppose.

Exactly, the more factions the merrier IMO.

http://tamrielchronicles.com/html/maps.html.

http://images.uesp.net/2/24/MW-map-Great_House_Influence.jpg.

http://tamrielchronicles.com/assets/map-morr-enormous.jpg.

There was a lot of rivalry in beliefs between different factions in Morrowind:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Great_Houses

Three were join-able, but only one per each character.

"http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Imperial_Cult" rivaled with the local cult and government, "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Tribunal_Temple", but as imperial cult was a peaceful faction you were not prevented from joining both, and they did not plot against each other, a lot.

On the other hand, "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Imperial_Legion" was there to enforce the power the emperor "Uriel Septim" on Morrowind, and rivalled the local power of the tribunal temple, from "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:High_Fane" in the "http://elderscrolls.neoseeker.com/wiki/Vvardenfell" capital "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Vivec_%28city%29".

As opposed to the imperial cult, the imperial legion actively rival the tribunal temples and have a lot of conflicts with each other.

The three archetype guilds were as always present in Morrowind, but here we see a lot of rivalry in those factions, to the point that they would like the head of other factions dead.

• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Fighters_Guild.
  
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Mages_Guild.
  
• http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Thieves_Guild.

All of http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Factions follow different beliefs and rules, and rival each other.

You could become a vampire of a specific clan and join their war against other clans.

Or even help the "http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Twin_Lamps" fight the slavery in Vvardenfell.

Oh, I really missed all the culture, beliefs, conflict, rivalry, and intrigue in Oblivion's clean slate of factions, and quests.

Interesting how that is. I am secular (atheist if thats what you want to call it) and I am definitely not a fan of dogmatic or organized religion IRL, but I find it fascinating from a third person perspective. Which is why it is my favourite aspect in RPGs and it feels like a huge loss to me when it's left out. Both magic and religion are supersticious in my eyes, yet both are very interesting concepts to me and I like to see them illustrated in different ways in games.

When it comes to roleplaying 'myself' in a game, I like the concept of "holiness" only as a metaphor for virtous and good. Most people I know who don't like religion tend to be evil in opposition to good just because good is often tied to religious factions in RPGs. I just go the other way in a kind of ironic metaphorical twist, the atheist cleric !?!

I can never immerse myself to a character that has different values, opinions, principles or morals than I do so I never play characters like that. Playing a similar character to me in another world is extremely immersing to me. Especially when I get to express my opinions or values in that world. In this case I could do it by opposing said religious faction or if there was an anti-religious faction I could join that. Immersion is the reason I play rpgs and if that is lacking then that particular rpg wont interest me.

I find religion in fantasy worlds often being very similar to what it is irl. Something that lacks proof and tries to impose, often idiotic, morals on people. Even if there is some sort of proof of "gods" or other similar creatures existing in a fantasy world I rarely find any reason to support, let alone worship them. Thats a very small part of my views and I could explain it much further but I suppose this isnt the right forum. Anyways thats why I usually end up opposing religion even in fantasy worlds. My morals are never "evil" just because religion is "good" (in rpgs or irl). There are many cases where my views are pretty much opposite from religion's but from my view my morals in that case are good and religion's are bad.

Magic is different though and in fantasy worlds I dont see it as superstitious even if I see it as that irl. Its obviously there and it exists so therefore it must have some natural explanation even in a fantasy world.

The problem with that, is in RPGs (Even TES) the Gods are real. And in most RPGs the gods are actually morally good unlike the ones in most of our religions.

What you're saying is actually a lack of immersion because you're importing your views of religion from the outside world into the game. Real immersion would be "If I really lived here... In a world of Gods and magic... Who would I be?"

In TES lore they make it pretty clear that the Aedra created the world that we inhabit when we play the game. I'd find it pretty rational to worship them. Necessary? No. Rational? Yeah.

I consider myself a 'somewhat' virtous and decent person in real life. And in most games, the nice, patient good guys tend to worship some form of god because the gods tend to be real in fantasy games, so for immersion I figure that's who I'd probably be in a world like that..... Y'know? But thats just me.

I had to laugh...in Oblivion, there was no PROOF of the nine divines actually existing....but there was for the Daedric lords.

I said this earlier: "Even if there is some sort of proof of "gods" or other similar creatures existing in a fantasy world I rarely find any reason to support, let alone worship them." I agree that in TES lore the gods are real but theyre more complex than those of most religions irl. I wouldnt even use the term gods. I'd rather say aedra and daedra. They created Nirn and all other stuff but that doesnt give any reason to worship them. The "good" gods aka the aedra rarely even do anything. Creating something isnt a reason to worship the creator and the aedra are yet to do anything truly significant to give the species in Nirn a reason to worship them. You wouldnt worship parents that make you but then abandon you and have nothing to do with you but give you an insignificant blessing every now and then. Thats why I find worshipping the aedra extremely irrational. Also the idiotic qualities I find in the religious people and churches irl tend to show in the religious people and churches in TES as well. If someone wants to be "decent" or "virtuous" he can be that but it doesnt need to have anything to do with religion. Morals dont come from religion. Theyre merely implemented into it and are creations of men and mer. You'd probably never define my characters as good, virtuous or decent (they'd be more "evil" than "good" to you if those terms where used) but even if I made characters like that they wouldnt have anything to do with religion. As I said certain morals dont tie anyone to a certain religion. Morals dont come from religion. Thats why it wouldnt matter to me at all if most of that types of people were religious or not. I'd use my own brain.

The daedra are a different concept since the relationship between them and their worshippers is a bit more balanced but I judge all of the daedra individually.

I completely disagree with your concept of immersion. To me immersion in rpgs is feeling like I am my character and living in his world. The more immersed I am the more I forget me and this world and am my character and live in his world. It has nothing to do with the types of characters I can immerse myself to.

Except if you read the lore where it says that the Aedra (gods) are the ones who sacrificed a part of themselves to create Nirn, which is why they can't manifest directly, the lore makes it quite clear that they are real. Obviously someone is healing you when you pray at the altars.

The Daedra sacrificed nothing and are from an entirely seperate plane of existance.

The Aedra didn't "abandon" humans. They literally can't manifest like Daedra do. And maybe it's just me but I'd probably be quite greatful to beings that created me, since they are the only reason I exist at all. I wouldn't be able to complain about them not doing anything for me if they didn't create my ass now would I?

Also, if they are really as good and powerful as many believe they are, it would be even more rational to hold them in great esteem, it doesn't mean that the virtue comes from the Aedra. That was my point about the immersion. You wouldn't see religion the same way you do in real life because in real life it's obvious bull [censored] and in TES it isn't. But hey, to each his own. The truth is we really don't know who we'd be in another reality where gods were real and daedra came through oblivion gates

Which we all know turn into Jellybeans :thumbsup: