Syncretism

Syncretism is not a Religion in and of itself, but more a process by which multiple Religions can be combined, or aspects of Religions can be absorbed into other Religions. Most of Aloria's Religions are polytheistic, and Gods are generally also fairly flexible in terms of their pantheon membership. One God's divine lessons can be applied to believers from another Religion, for example. In technical canon interpretations, Syncretism is heresy. However, Religious Roleplay already happens rarely on the server, and we do not want to limit the reach of this type of Roleplay by putting hard limitations on interactivity. Syncretism is meant to be optional, we only recommend experienced players experiment with Syncretism because it comes with its own problems.

Syncretism Rules

Syncretism as a concept follows several rules. These rules are hard set in stone, and going beyond the limitations set out means your Character is a Heretic to all faiths involved. If a Religion is not mentioned here, assume that it cannot be Syncretized.

• Your Character must always have a dominant Religion and a sub-dominant Religion. The dominant Religion (main Religion) will define your Character's Religious Mechanics, Afterlife, etc.
• Your Character may choose 1 or 2 Gods of the sub-dominant Religion (secondary Religion) only to worship. It is not possible to worship a whole pantheon for the sub-dominant Religion.
• Your Character does not receive the Religious Mechanic from the sub-dominant Religion, nor access to the Afterlife. Its Gods however do treat your Character as a worshiper, for example in summoning.
• Ailor cannot Syncretize Religions, because they already have a Mechanic that allows Dual-Religions. Minor Faiths cannot be Syncretized at all, because they are not full organized Religions.
• Player Characters both as worshipers of your dominant and sub-dominant Religion, may reject your Character as a heretic, particularly if your Character chose a problematic Syncretism.

At the end of the day, Syncretism is meant to give your Character validation in their belief and access to other Religious communities, but still allow other Players to reject the combination you have chosen, if they think it is not something their Character would support. At a baseline, the Gods will always support your Character's choices, but you can never force other Players to include your Character if they do not want to. While for example, it is possible to play a Baskarr worshiper who Syncretizes with Estelley Gods, those Gods were involved in historical crimes against the Asha. We leave room for the Players to examine these combinations and reserve the right to their own to reject your Character if the combination you have chosen is deemed unacceptable to their OC, but the Gods won't ever reject these combinations, because they benefit from the power of worship, and the more worshipers they have on an individual basis the more powerful they are.

• Unionism can be Syncretized (and works well with Draconism or Estelley).
• Draconism can be Syncretized (and works well with Unionism or Fornoss).
• Fornoss can be Syncretized (and works well with Draconism or Evolism).
• Evolism can be Syncretized (and works well with Fornoss or Baskarr).
• Baskarr can be Syncretized (and works well with Evolism).
• Nilthism cannot be Syncretized.
• Minor Faiths cannot be Syncretized.