When we say faith, are we talking religion as we humans understand it, or Roads? Since the Roads take up the faith slot in CK3 and all. I suppose it is possible to be an adherent of a Road, but also a follower of a major world religion at the same time, without necessarily being on the Via Caeli?
Again, this may be the Lasombra in me talking, but I have a somewhat difficult time seeing selfish, intrigue-obsessed creatures like the kindred form large realms simply based on sympathy over sharing a Road. V20 Dark Ages describes the Roads as a very personal thing. That two vampires study death, for example, doesn't seem to provide them quite enough foundation for trust or alliance. The way I see it, for a religion to be effective there, you must either provide them tangible benefit (I think fear of hell or promise of heaven are not usually enough on their own, they're already Damned in the first place), or scare them shitless. The Setites do the former, they can get you anything you want and provide a network that aids you in breaking taboos. And Mithras does a bit of both, I imagine, if you have his favor you can live an easy unlife, but he also makes it clear that if you mess with him in any way you'll have a bad time. Being only one step removed from an Antediluvian, who basically are gods, he can probably back up his divinity very directly, too.
As for the Ashirra, it's interesting, actually. From their wiki entry, it sounds like a lot of vamps simply joined because it made operating in the Middle East easier, and Christian vampires aren't nearly as unified. The way it appears to me is, because the early Caliphate was a relatively powerful, comparatively centralized state with a somewhat clear agenda, vampires had to adapt to the kine to infiltrate more effectively. This sounds almost exactly like the rationale for why the Camarilla would adopt the Road of Humanity later on. Of course there's true believers, but I have a hard time seeing large quantities of kindred adapting to that easily. Vampires are fed distrust, cynicism and paranoia with their mother's milk (blood?) so to speak, and it's a good lesson if you want to stay alive. Unless of course, this being the World of Darkness, it's a movement based around bullying/killing someone weaker than themselves.
I guess an existing power structure that's not going away anytime soon also does a lot to encourage faith-based cooperation. Would Mithras be as effective if he wasn't already a powerful ruler and made it clear that it's his cult running things in Britain, so if you have any business there you better adapt? You might even go about things the other way round, so long as you have enough power behind it, you can make kindred adhere to (or at least pay lip service to) any belief system? In general, I've also found that some Roads/Paths of Enlightenment have more of a clear political agenda (Setites, Road of Lilith, Prometheans...), while others are more of a lifestyle (Road of Bones, Metamorphosis...), and the former seem much more likely to produce cooperative networks and thus realms.
EDIT: Actually, I suppose I'm going about this the wrong way, saying that Princes cooperate based on Road sympathy. I think it makes more sense to think of it as cooperating based on the lived experiences and needs of their Road. For instance, going with the Road of Bones again, maybe necromancy books are rare, so it helps to have a network to find them. Reaching the higher mysteries of a Road is hard, and so it's extremely helpful to share notes if you have any hopes of progressing. And if followers of a Road feel they are being persecuted or otherwise under attack, they may also band together for defense.
Again, this may be the Lasombra in me talking, but I have a somewhat difficult time seeing selfish, intrigue-obsessed creatures like the kindred form large realms simply based on sympathy over sharing a Road. V20 Dark Ages describes the Roads as a very personal thing. That two vampires study death, for example, doesn't seem to provide them quite enough foundation for trust or alliance. The way I see it, for a religion to be effective there, you must either provide them tangible benefit (I think fear of hell or promise of heaven are not usually enough on their own, they're already Damned in the first place), or scare them shitless. The Setites do the former, they can get you anything you want and provide a network that aids you in breaking taboos. And Mithras does a bit of both, I imagine, if you have his favor you can live an easy unlife, but he also makes it clear that if you mess with him in any way you'll have a bad time. Being only one step removed from an Antediluvian, who basically are gods, he can probably back up his divinity very directly, too.
As for the Ashirra, it's interesting, actually. From their wiki entry, it sounds like a lot of vamps simply joined because it made operating in the Middle East easier, and Christian vampires aren't nearly as unified. The way it appears to me is, because the early Caliphate was a relatively powerful, comparatively centralized state with a somewhat clear agenda, vampires had to adapt to the kine to infiltrate more effectively. This sounds almost exactly like the rationale for why the Camarilla would adopt the Road of Humanity later on. Of course there's true believers, but I have a hard time seeing large quantities of kindred adapting to that easily. Vampires are fed distrust, cynicism and paranoia with their mother's milk (blood?) so to speak, and it's a good lesson if you want to stay alive. Unless of course, this being the World of Darkness, it's a movement based around bullying/killing someone weaker than themselves.
I guess an existing power structure that's not going away anytime soon also does a lot to encourage faith-based cooperation. Would Mithras be as effective if he wasn't already a powerful ruler and made it clear that it's his cult running things in Britain, so if you have any business there you better adapt? You might even go about things the other way round, so long as you have enough power behind it, you can make kindred adhere to (or at least pay lip service to) any belief system? In general, I've also found that some Roads/Paths of Enlightenment have more of a clear political agenda (Setites, Road of Lilith, Prometheans...), while others are more of a lifestyle (Road of Bones, Metamorphosis...), and the former seem much more likely to produce cooperative networks and thus realms.
EDIT: Actually, I suppose I'm going about this the wrong way, saying that Princes cooperate based on Road sympathy. I think it makes more sense to think of it as cooperating based on the lived experiences and needs of their Road. For instance, going with the Road of Bones again, maybe necromancy books are rare, so it helps to have a network to find them. Reaching the higher mysteries of a Road is hard, and so it's extremely helpful to share notes if you have any hopes of progressing. And if followers of a Road feel they are being persecuted or otherwise under attack, they may also band together for defense.
Last edited:
