Hi,

Because I like the 1001 Nights I let my players end up in Araby. Problem is, as far as I know there isn't an official source were this is described. (links please, if i'm wrong) . Because I have a scientific layman interest in Islamic religion/mythology I wanted to include some of this in the campaign setting.

So I came up with the following:

Arabic Religion

The main religion in Araby is comprised of the worship of nature and elemental spirits. But since a few decades there's an upcoming religion. Land inward to the South East there's a congragation of Arabians an Touareg Tribes led by 'Salamed The Allseer" (yes, a combination of Mohammed and Saladin). Salamed is spoken to by the presumed dead god Ptrah. Ptrah survived the onslaught of Nagash by absorbing the essences of the other gods. Having learned from his past mistakes Ptrah chose to have a more distant relation with mortals, having only one mortal emissary, Salamed. Because of his divine guidance as well as his excellence as a mortal (advanced career witch I haven't fleshed out yet) Salamed and his huge army of Desert Warriors/devotees is gaining ground and influence rapidly. Posing a clear and present threat to the decadent ruling classes (merchant houses an Pasha's) of the great Arabian Cities.

I also came up with the following theory about possession in the warhammer multiverse.

Every god is able to possess a worthy follower. Depending on the morals of the specific god each has a specific stance.

The Ruinous Powers: because of possession is part in the trade for the soul the big four are fond of possessing in a similar way of the old Ushabti; as in anyone worthy enough. I like to include the fact from Mordheim (altough thousand years ago) that any Cultist warband has 1 or 2 possessed. The deovtee doesn't have to agree to get possessed.

The Good Gods: the free will of mortals is the most cherished by the Gods of Men, Dwarves and Elves. From the free choice to do good and devote themselves to the good gods comes good in the world of Warhammer. The negative effect is that corruption by the Ruinous Powers within the cults of Sigmar and the likes is possible. Only under dire circumstances (Apokalypse/Gotterdammerung-like situations) will a good god possess a devotee (as in sacrifice one hero to save the world) and only if the devotee agrees. As far as I know this has never happened.

I'm very interested in the opinions of fellow gamemasters on my brain-fart :-)

I'm also interested in this subject, having an interest in the Middle East / North Africa and Islam too.

One thing I'm keen to avoid however, is to try to 'WFRP-ize' Islam. I think scraps of information that have been published over the years have suggested that the WFRP Arabians pray to one God rather than many, but I find this problematic. For real world reasons I think it's awkward and also needless to twist an existing religion, especially if you're not going to do it well.

I also think that multiple Gods is an interesting and important part of the setting. There are obvious parallels with Christianity and the Church in the Empire, and I think it's fine to take some ideas from the real world religion of Islam and the history of the countries where it's been practiced, but that's it.

I think it'd be much more interesting to give multiple Gods to the Arabians as well. Here are some thoughts I've had: Base the Gods on the 'qualities of Allah'. So there rather than being one God who is Charitable, Just, Wise, etc, have several Gods: one of Charity, one of Justice, one of Wisdom etc. However, not many of the old world Gods are that 'good', so I wouldn't want to make the Arabian Gods all nice and brilliant either.

I would probably keep a 'nature' link to the Arabian Gods. Perhaps having a 'Moon God', a 'Sun God' etc (again - this references Islam without clearly being a rip-off of it). Or perhaps a God of the Desert Winds, a God of the Mountains, a God of the Sea, a God of the Oases... perhaps even a new God of the City?

The other thing I'd be interested in doing is trying to make a link between modern WFRP religions and Gods that we as players can see elements of Islam in and the ancient Egyptian Gods / the ancient religion of the 'Tomb Kings'. I haven't thought too much about this, as I'm not terribly happy with this stuff in WFRP, but as it's so far out of the way, it's not an issue I've ever had to confront and work out what to do with.

One comment specifically on your idea of having an Islam-inspired, Prophet-led religious movement: you're taking two very different historical periods and pushing them together. i.e. the Arabian cities that exist along the coast of Araby, are clearly inspired by the cities and civilisation of the Islamic Mediterranean. i.e., the culture of these cities is based on the assumption that the WFRP equivalent of the birth of Islam has already happened, and is not happening right now. I'm not saying you're wrong if you choose to do this, just pointing it out.

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Isn't Araby heavily influenced by Khemri?

HedgeWizard said:

From what I remember, 1st Ed WFRP came out a long time before the Tomb Kings army was developed for the WFB game (and therefore before there was a need to develop Khemri, although there were probably some references to generic mummy/undead elements in the background).

The original Old World had a larger similarity with real historical or contemporary places / periods than the setting does now - which has become more high fantasy. So Bretonia was more clearly modelled on an exaggerated period of French history, Tilea was more closely modeled on the renaissance city states period etc, whereas now there is more mixing and matching, more dragons, orks, beastman nations etc.

So to answer your question, Araby was originally based (if only pretty vaguely) on the North African and Middle Eastern regions of the world, rather than on ancient Egypt. GW have never done much with Araby, and never officially ret-conned it out of existence, so as Khemri has developed in the background, Araby has sort of shrunk in importance.

To make sense of this, you could argue that the 'current' Araby must therefore have some sort of connection with Khemri - cultural or otherwise, but I don't think it's really been addressed officially.

Thanks for the reply!

...So, I'm not doing it rite? ;-)

In the creation of my new Ptrah Cult I had a few things I wanted to include:

1. The religion had to originate from Khemri. Like the three real world 'religions of the book' orginate from ancient Egypt.

2. Fumble up real world historical events. I enjoy WFRP being a parody of late medieval and renaissance times. This resulted in making one event of two real world events which actually lay 600 years apart (rise of Muhammmed and the crusades).

3. There had to be something alien about the culture for emperials. Something that really points out they're in a different part of the world. So they have to roleplay dealing with it. Not just different scenery and language.

In relation to this I'm thinking about creating a wacko atheist cult somewhere in the Empire who most deffinitly got it all wrong.

Olmo said:

...Nope, just not doing it the way I would!

I think there already is an atheist cult in WFRP. I have the feeling I've read about agitators who preach the non-existence of Gods, although I think only as a throw-away line, but 'Something Rotten In Kislev' featured a 'shrine' to a God of aetheism, essentially. I can't remember the God's name. The shrine was a neglected table with no artifacts and no one to look after it or come to worship at it.

Necoho is the god of atheists, doubt, and skepticism.

As far as religion in Araby goes, I can not remember any consistent treatment of the issue. I have seen Araby portrayed as monotheistic with most of the population worshipping "the One" but I have also heard of less popular gods. Ishtra, goddess of fate, and Uzzal, goddess of protection, as well as a small following worshipping Hysh, the serpent of Life. And then there is the worship of chaos in various guises...

The important thing to remember is that Araby is a meeting point for the world; the economy is founded on trade and/or piracy in the sea and slavery/tomb robbing and tourism in the interior. Any warhammer faith could turn up in Araby including several lost or forgotten faiths. The interaction between a monotheistic and polytheistic tradition may be worth pursuing....

regards,

ET

ErrantThought said:

That is awesome. I can deffinitly use that. Thanks for the info!