What are some guidelines for creating new religions?

[Zerminar12]

One thing about Ch 5 that really piqued my interest was the concept of creating clerics of new faiths/ideologies presumably from the character's place of origin. As titillating as this sounded to me, I'm no fool: it'd be stupid to rush in and try this without gathering some information and preparing myself. The forum post that detailed this option https://www.efupw.com/forums/index.php?topic=691380.msg701808#msg701808 said to consult a DM if in doubt. What would be the best means to contact a DM? The #ask-efu-dms channel or creating a forum post?

Secondly, what kind of information should I have prepared for my religion concept? Obviously dogma, but what about organization, rites, holidays and so forth? I'm a big fan of world-building, lore, and other juicy tidbits of information and thus would love to really flesh out a new deity/doctrine. On the other hand, is it possible to go too far and if so what should be the scope of a religion's detail? I understand that writing a novel's worth of information would make it harder on DMs/players who wanted to quickly get an understanding of what a religion is about.

I would also like to know what are the acceptable parameters of such a new faith. Is it acceptable to deify certain preexisting CoR entities or concepts? Both the King and the Architects come to mind. Given that there is no "preexisting citizen" start yet, I'd imagine such a religious concept wouldn't be plausible. Additionally, what is the opinion on overlapping domains? One of the biggest issues I had with FR's vast pantheon is the amount of redundancy among the gods. Is having a "redundant" god acceptable granted that it takes  a new perspective on its domain?

Finally, what is the general metric for an interesting deity/religion? Is something that will generate conflict and change better than a dogma that will conform to the server's current status quo or is anything tonally consistent and well-developed accepted? I apologize that this post has ballooned out into a massive rant. :-[ I probably should've simply stuck to asking where to contact the DMs about this instead of asking for a thesis on what constitutes acceptable theology.   Nevertheless, I am eager to hear the responses from any DMs or knowledgeable players willing to educate me. Thank you for your time!  :D

[Pandip]

"Success" in EFU is generally pretty subjective. I don't think there is a determined path forward for creating a religion in EFU. Religious roleplay is notoriously difficult; conversion of other characters and garnering interest for religious activities is not easy. The path forward, from my experience, has almost nothing to do with what your religion is, the dogma, the domains, etc., so much as how interesting your character is and how engaging they are from the perspective of other players. A very successful cleric from EFU:R represented what might be traditionally considered a very "boring" goddess (Yondalla, essentially) but did it in a way that was incredibly engaging -- dogmatic and inclusive without being overbearing and while also being a source of a lot of intrigue and conflict.

Play a cool PC that people enjoy interacting with. The rest will come.

[Zerminar12]

Thanks for the response Pandip!  :) I agree that the best way to be "successful" is to create an engaging character that'll be fun for everyone to interact with. My main questions were concerning what makes an "acceptable" god. I probably should've paid better attention to my wording. More or less, where would I contact a DM to inquire about the acceptability of a concept and, if anyone has any ideas, are there any guidelines for what makes an acceptable deity concept?

[Grouch]

Crazy koolade cults are always good fun, with the advent of dieities not required to be a cleric/Paladin these days you can pick whatever Cthulhu mythos deity you like, give them a new name and start preaching for the Old Ones today.

Sermons are nice, but live human sacrifices always have a special charm.
Dogma tends to be lovely to have, people need to know what THING FISH is all about before they can prostrate in fear and awe.

As for Organization, Rites, Holidays etc I personally wing it. Figuring out what day it is IG is really annoying for me personally and things rarely ever go as you want them to.

Just my 2 cents as a former NWN cult leader~

[SkillFocuspwn]

I'll respond here but feel free to message me in Discord if you have more questions.

1. The DM-created religions have only a small blurb as easily-found info, and really something similar is all you need. Creating more is good, but as you say take care not to bog the whole thing down; a lot of players might be interested in your cool faith, but maybe not in having to read a bunch to understand it. If the essence of it can be described in a couple sentences or a paragraph, you're golden. Making more is great, but it should not be 'essential reading' to jumping in!

2. Having your character have an epiphany / become obsessed / transfer his faith onto something in the game-world is great and encouraged; this is a setting full of mystery, and having your own unique interpretation of something like the king / the architects or whatever is great! I will mention that worshipping the king is considered a little crazy by a lot of NPCs though (not that it should discourage you if you want to do it).

Personally, I would avoid too much redundancy; if you can, pick a new direction to flesh out (we certainly have a lot of areas godless currently) or work on establishing the pre-existing ones. That being said, if you have a concept you think is killer don't let me discourage you; the most important thing is that you have fun!

3. Absolutely the criteria for a 'successful' religion would be one that creates new plots among players or fits into other plots, gets itself onto the lips of a lot of different players, and adds something cool to the world. Goal-focused religions, or religions that tie naturally into certain concepts, work best from my experience and trying to make it too broad or universal often means nobody has a good reason to convert.

Finding a cool purpose for members of your religion that doesn't require DM attention to work towards is key, whether it's something small like fighting the lizardfolk or something big like reaching ring 1, will help give people a reason to join your religion and will naturally attract people doing that thing anyway. That or some broader thing, such as supporting chaotic adventurers / evil tyrants / people who like to duel and helping them achieve their goals or rewarding them for doing cool stuff, would help to make a cool religion.

I hope this helped!

[Zerminar12]

Thank you all for your responses! I didn't expect to be answered so thoroughly nor swiftly. I'm going to start work-shopping some new religious concepts with my newly acquired knowledge. Hopefully I can live up to this server's excellent standards! I hope to see you folks in-game sometime, good day/night.