Dan Howdle takes a look at the weird and wobbly world of gaming pantheons...

10
Game: Any Star Wars title
Religion: The Force
Who: Jedi/Sith

This right here is a demonstration of the brown side.

Beliefs: So there’s these microscopic particles called midi-chlorians that Mr Lucas invented in a fit of deranged bonkersness just in time for the first prequel film. Why on earth he assumed that The Force was in need of a more sciency-sounding explanation beyond that it simply ‘is’ is a mystery to every known sentient species in the galaxy (ie us).

What exactly you believe The Force to be useful for depends on which side you are on. There are two sides to every Force; one light and one dark, presumably, though, since both are invisible, awarding them arbitrary levels of illumination is purely for the purposes of making it sound cool. Cooler than say a pink side and a blue side, which would instead imply that one side is for boys and one for girls. Luke Skywalker uses the pink side which explains why the majority of his efforts to manipulate it are small and twatty.

The Jedi believe that the Force must only be used for the power of good and never in anger, so they generally knock about the galaxy rescuing cats from trees and feigning empathy while they sit by and watch genocide occur. They also never use lightning since static electricity is inherently evil. The Sith on the other hand will use The Force for practically anything from levitating their ’saber through an innocent’s neck to Force-pulling a bog roll from an opposing cubicle.

Known Issues: The Force as a religion suffers a little from Harry Potter syndrome. If you don’t have midi-chlorians (a genetic trait), you’re simply not worth giving the time of day, which in a sense is inherently racist, a bit like the nauseating, snooty public-school kids who refer to non-magic folk as ‘Muggles’. Jedi treat non-Jedi as worthless and Sith as mortal enemies, but let’s be honest, so long as you’re not grossly incompetent, you’re likely to get better treatment working for a Sith.

Blobby blobby... blobby blobby... Enkindler... blobby.

9
Game: Mass Effect
Religion: The Enkindlers
Who: The Hanar

Beliefs: The Hanar (or ‘the pink blobby ones’) are known to fiercely defend their right to preach their religion at anyone who happens to cross their path. The Enkindlers whom they worship are Protheans by another name; those who left all that Mass Effect technology lying around so that the lazy races of the universe didn’t have to worry about inventing anything themselves.

Known Issues: What kind of race leaves handy technology lying around? And more importantly what kind of moron would use it without raising important questions such as ‘What are the long-term goals of said race?’. If you were a member of a low-tech species – a chicken, say – and you found a piece of relatively high technology – an egg whisk, say – would you start whisking everything willy-nilly while clucking smugly to yourself, or scarper home and protect your eggs?

… continued

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Here's the best of the bunch...

shinigamichelo@NowGamer_Dan Los Iluminados in RE4. They kill people, then go to church. They dig for bugs to put into people and control them. Then pray.

eye_shuhIcon_lock@NowGamer_Dan Haha, well, the obvious one of course: Fallout 3 Church of the Children of Atom. Takes some crazy to worship irradiated death.

mana_junkie@NowGamer_Dan There is the Mighty Poo who thinks he's a god in Conker's Bad Fur Day!

LukeStillman@NowGamer_Dan The Dustmen in Planescape: Torment. They believe everybody is dead and you need to purge your passion to ascend to True Death.

SteGi2009@NowGamer_Dan Preying to a big monkey head (Monkey Island) c´mon how can it get any more weird than that :-) ... oh behind a three-headed monkey.

mrsashlux@NowGamer_Dan I dunno if this is what you mean, but I always found the Geth worship of the Reapers in Mass Effect 'weird'. AI worshiping AI.