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Showing posts from July, 2024

"Good and Evil"

So, let's have a little talk about good and evil.  Most people have a pretty good understanding of 'good' and 'evil', but let's more look at it from a theological standpoint.  We'll start with Judaism and Christianity, then we can flip into Shinto a little bit. 

Shinto-Based Fantasy

How would I do a Shinto-based fantasy campaign? Urban fantasy, high fantasy, whatever. Well a few ground rules would need to be put into play: The gods (kami) are everywhere. You have the celestial gods (amatsugami) , the terrestrial gods (kunitsugami), you have the little gods (mikogami). See a tree? It's god a kami in it.  A rock?  A sword?  A song?  All have their own spirit. Just in most cases, these spirits are quiescent unless you do something to get them going. None of these are Good or Evil. The universe and all it holds has a vested disinterest in you and what you're doing. Go about your life. The only thing that matters is that you're being spiritually pure (pure in thought, pure in word, pure in deed). If not, you annoy the kami. If you are, cool.  Good and Evil are mortal constructs, indicating what is good for harmony and society, and what is harmful, causing strife in society. All kami have two aspects: benevolent and wrathful. A kami in its benevo...