[SrsBznz]

I'm writing a short story in English that takes place in the Gothic universe, I'm looking for some input regarding my take on their philosophy and general religious lore. Without going too much into the story, at this point in time the character finds a tome titled 'The Tongue of Beliar' in a library full of long forgotten books written in a strange language.

Fühle euch frei in Deutch zu antworten.


‘Innos created light and law so that his children could flourish, but in his foolish pride he refused to see what he was actually stripping them of. Without conflict and strife man will never grow nor will the frail and weak of mind be weeded out from the strong and resourceful, so in his wisdom Beliar created the beast to roam the land. Man must now fight for his survival, but this is what fosters true greatness and ingenuity. One needs an adversarial force to test himself against whilst never failing to remember the imminence of death that lingers in the shadows. This so that he may discover a sincere appreciation for the gift of life so graciously passed down to him by the Gods.
But with their feeble minds many begun shunning the dark God and his worshippers, eventually driving them away from the light of day, deep underground. Power fought for and grasped with one's own two hands is never unjustly earned no matter the means, it is the mindset of weak men that power must be carefully weighed before passed down to only the most subservient. This book is written in order to assist the dedicated few in discovering and deciphering the darkest and most well-kept secrets of the world, those that the two brothers of Beliar thought mankind were too weak to bear the burden of.’


(Been editing it a bit since it's one of my latest passages in the story and I'm still playing around with the wording and such to make it sound better.)

[Sir Ewek Emelot]

There is not much lore, so you would have to make up most of it yourself, which would be good if you knew something or had to say something about actual philosphical or religious questions, or if it would fit into the general themes of your story.

We have two different gothic religions: The one from the first game, where the gods and their servants are not opposed to each other, but where the gods are simpling fulfilling different tasks in the universe. In gothic 1 Beliar does not seem to be evil, but he is simply rouling over death and the underworld. The sleeper, on the other hand, is a totally independent and quite evil entity (which is why his cult stood in opposition to the cults of all three gods, including Beliar).

From game two, however, Beliar is just a force of evil and ruler of demons. Social darwinism, which is pretty much the core idea of the passage you've posted, would be a rather simple way to justify evil. I would not consider it particularly interesting, though, since it's the standard justification of a great number of villainous characters or organizations in fiction (for example the Sith from Star Wars).

I think the user Jüdex would be an expert regarding lore questions.

[SrsBznz]

There is not much lore, so you would have to make up most of it yourself, which would be good if you knew something or had to say something about actual philosphical or religious questions, or if it would fit into the general themes of your story.

We have two different gothic religions: The one from the first game, where the gods and their servants are not opposed to each other, but where the gods are simpling fulfilling different tasks in the universe. In gothic 1 Beliar does not seem to be evil, but he is simply rouling over death and the underworld. The sleeper, on the other hand, is a totally independent and quite evil entity (which is why his cult stood in opposition to the cults of all three gods, including Beliar).

From game two, however, Beliar is just a force of evil and ruler of demons. Social darwinism, which is pretty much the core idea of the passage you've posted, would be a rather simple way to justify evil. I would not consider it particularly interesting, though, since it's the standard justification of a great number of villainous characters or organizations in fiction (for example the Sith from Star Wars).

I think the user Jüdex would be an expert regarding lore questions.

Thank you for the answer.

I'm aware of and realize that the lack of lore lets me find my own interpretation and I personally enjoy the constant struggle between the three gods, that they together form a whole despite being at odds with each other. At the same time most people willingly choose to worship only one because they in turn have created their own idea of what their chosen God's will is and refuse to see the whole picture (the passage is written by a Beliar worshipper, they're not the words of a prophet or the God Beliar himself).

What interests me are the conflicts and interpretations the different believers could potentially have rather than how the Gods are factually. I'll probably not reveal anything about how the Gods are 'canonically' (within my fiction) but I'll rather let the believers define the Gods by themselves. Having different groups with different interpretations of the same god has also struck me as something I might want to explore.
For example, Beliar could in my universe very well be an evil ruler of demons that wants to wipe out mankind, but some worshippers have misinterpreted his intent. In the end I don't think that the Gods true intent matters or is as interesting as the people worshipping them.

While social Darwinism might be a bit played out, it's the more interesting of the options that I can think of (while still loosely fitting the established Gothic lore). The other would be a more passive role like a 'ruler of death and the underworld' but like I said, I enjoy the idea of having the 3 gods conflict but also inadvertently support the continued life of mankind through it (I guess I'm a sucker for Adanos' mindset). The third alternative would be a 'blood for the blood God' type deal and that in my mind is far edgier and more played out than a social Darwinism outlook.

And like you accurately point out, social Darwinism is a simple way to justify 'evil', but that is also to its credit since it's more sensible that such an ideology would attract and garner a following when you compare it to a 'blood for the blood God' cult. The latter would only attract fanatics that are just as likely to murder their own solely for the sake of killing, and it would be much harder to reasonably explain how they've managed to sustain a congregation for such a long time without ignoring major flaws in their own ideology.

You brought up the Sith and while I don't think it's completely off-base, a group that follows what they interpret as the will of a God would function a lot different from one that is solely based on gaining personal power. Beliar worshippers would be much more likely to work towards a common goal without power usurpers and backstabbing, since the one with ultimate power is a literal God.
If anything I'd consider the Sith to be more of the 'blood for the blood god' type except that in their mind they're the 'god' and blood means gaining power through any means necessary.

[Jünger des Xardas]

It depends entirely on what sort of story you want to write, namely how close you want to stay to the games. I mean, there is no reason different interpretations or sects of the Gothic religion shouldn't exist within the universe, even though the games themselves present the three religions as rather monolithic. For example there could be a group that sees all three gods as part of one pantheon, one higher harmony (or maybe even as three faces of the same god, as a trinity, as maybe different manifestations of the one true god Ra) just like there could be groups seeing the gods as being opposed to each other and fighting an eternal war for domination of the world of mankind.

I'll start with what is known from the source material. As Ewek already pointed out, Pb retconned some stuff, so between the different games you already have differing statements about the gods and the religion.
In the Gothic comic published before the realse of the game there is mention of Ra being the highest god. Since Innos, Adanos and Beliar are presented as brothers, Ra might be their father. Though from context it's also possible, that this was simply an early name for Innos. In any case, the King as presented as ruling on earth in Ra's name. There's also mention of the king propagating and protecting the belief in the three gods. This may speak for Beliar (since you are obviously commaned to believe in him too, though believing of course isn't the same as worshipping) being part of pantheon and not simply being seen as evil here. It could also be an indication of entirely different religions believing in entirely different gods existing elsewhere (but being banned as heretic in Myrtana).
Then in Gothic 1 the story goes as follows: First there is Innos who is the highest god and creats light, the sun and the day. But from this alone, no life is possible. So he divides himself, creating Adanos and Beliar too. Beliar brings the night, so all living beings can rest. Adanos creates balance and brings water and thereby, it can be assumed, life. When Beliar sees people only worshipping Innos (it seems at a later time some humans turned to Adanos, as the watermages are said to have split from the firemages, originally simply called priests, at a later time) he creates a human of his own to only pray to him, but he turns out being awake during the day and sleeping during the night like everybody else. In his anger Beliar strikes him down, thereby creating death. He rules over the underworld from that point on (and judging from the fire- and watermage's oathes everybody goes into Beliar's realm once they die). Beliar is feared and not worshipped by humans, but not necessarly painted as evil. He still seems to be working together with his brothers, since he promises to take everybody with him into the shadows who goes against their laws (Innos gives the humans laws, Adanos mainly wants them to work instead of being lazy and idle; he has a bit of a protestant vibe here actually). He is never said to be the lord of demons here, the Sleeper seems to have nothing to do with Beliar, nor does anybody think Xardas follows Beliar for being a summoner of demons. However there are statements such as Ian saying the Minecrawlers must come straight out of Beliar's realm, like we'd say some beast must come straight out of hell. So there's that.
The religion is most flashed out in Gothic 2 and 3 but also quite different from the first game. Here the gods are onequal footing as brothers. Beliar however is less presented as a Hades-type god and more as the Gothic version of the devil, ruling over demons and such, whileapparently not all the dead go to Beliar - the firemage's oath is changed, talking about the halls of Innos. Anyway, the story is now that Innos started by creating light but it was a pain for Beliar and he set out to destroy everything Innos created. When Adanos stepped between them to end their fight, he created the universe the games are set in, a place with order and chaos, light and dark, where from the waters life emerged. Each god seems to have his own sphere now and they seem to have at best limited power in Adanos' world. While Adanos himself has the power to wipe out entire civilizations. Only in his world there can be life. Not much is known about the worlds of the other gods, but I'd imagine Beliar's sphere to be pure chaos and utter darkness, only inhabited by demons, free from any rules or natural laws, while the world of Innos being unberable light and complete order that prevents any motion, any developement or change (there is no mention of angels or anything that could be compared to Beliar's demons). Innos and Beliar use Adanos' world as their battle ground, one chosing humans, the other animals to grant them their power or magical artifacts. Both seem to have plans (or their worshippers seem to have) to come into Adanos' world and possibly take it over: The Innos worshippers of old in Varant built a big portal to summon Innos himself, which was prevented by Adanos, and the hashashins built a massive throne into the big tower of the temple of Bakaresh for Beliar to take seat on on the day he comes to earth. Though it's questionable whether one brother taking the world for himself and completely banning all the influence of his opponent wouldn't simply mean the end of all life. Anyway, here Innos is the god of light, day, fire, order, law, rulership, justice and judgement and of humankind. Beliar represents chaos, night, earth (only mentioned in the artbook, never ingame), chaos, death and destruction and animalkind. He does seem to be quite bloddthirsty. Or at least his Avatar is, planning to cleanse the world of all life and let it bath in streams of blood and all. Adanos stands for balance, life, nature, water and is called the scale of justice.

I think any number of philosophies or worldviews could be constructed from here.
For Innos one could stretch the whole order, law and justice thing. This could mean a feudal society like in Myrtana, a society where everybody has their place they are born into, where social advancement is near impossible, because nobles and commoners, men and women, etc., everybody is expected to do what Innos allegedly intended them to do. Taken to the extreme Innos worshippers could be quite fascist. You could also throw in some christian asceticism. Disdain for the flesh. That sort of thing. It would also work, if you want to get more philosophical, to have them go with a rather narrow-minded rationalism or idealism.
For Beliar their could be different variations. Even within the games we have two different sects: The hidden cults in Myrtana we see in Irdorath. Or Zuben's hashashins in Varant. The former could indeed be a sort of death cult. The latter? Well, they sem to be quite worldly. A nation of slave hunters and traders. What we know of their ideology we know from the preacher Amul in Bakaresh: "For us the wealth, for Beliar the rulership!" is how he sums it up. They seem to think that Innos is punishing them with the heat of his sun, that he is a cruel and uncaring god, while Beliar grants them shadow and night and will, while unforgiving when it comes to his enemies, richly reward anybody who follows him and helps him rule. One could stretch the whole chaos thing and even portrait Beliar as a god of freedom opposed to the unchanging order of Innos. This could be taken to some sort of anarchy or social darwinism: Yes, there is a ruler in Zuben, yes, there are slaves, but unlike in Myrtana you aren't born into your place, you get what you deserve. A lighter version of this could simply be a society that allows for social mobility. Beliar worship could also be about embracing humans animalistic nature. Living all the lusts of the flesh. Holding nothing back, doing whatever may be your fancy. The beasts being there for humans to struggle and to force them to fight and grow through the conflict could indeed be a possible interpretation too. I'd imagine Beliar worshippers as more empiristic and materialistic. Though thinking of the historical hashashins and again stressing the bit about freedom and refusing the order of Innos you could always go with a "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" approach. And thinking of this, Innos and Beliar both could just as well be identified with the Apollonian and the Dionysian principle.

[SrsBznz]

It depends entirely on what sort of story you want to write...

You gave me some much needed information on canon lore and a lot to think about regarding my world building and how I wish to portray the religions, thank you very much!
I'm still not entirely sure how I want to proceed from here but as I said in my previous post I really like the idea of Innos and Beliar being true opposites that fight each other, but said conflict is what enables the continued existence of mankind while Adanos acts as an almost neutral protector, making sure that one doesn't get too much of an advantage.
My approach to how closely I wish to follow canon lore is more along the lines of 'heavily inspired' rather than following it perfectly.

While I'm still not sure where the story will take me as I keep writing it, my rough plan is the story of a novice in an Innos monastery that accidentally stumbles on a hidden and ancient part of their library filled with books from a Beliar worshipping cult.
Many years later when he has been a fully fledged fire mage for a long time, he attempts to find an artefact he read about that will help him achieve the feat of turning into a lich (put his own soul and very being into an immortal, physical form).

The journey is not going to be anywhere as straight forward as that and I haven't even begun thinking about an ending to it. I've started writing it as a short story in order to make it less of a daunting task, but I'd love it if I could eventually make a fully fledged novel out of it.
I realize that the whole 'Necromancer that wants to turn into a lich' might be a bit of a trope, but it's one I enjoy a lot.

[Jünger des Xardas]

Well, trope to me is a completely neutral thing. There are always tropes. Pretty much everything is a trope and has been there before. It's impossible to write a story without tropes and it's not something that should be a goal anyway. It's entirely about how a trope is presented and used. So I don't see much of an issue there.
One more thing maybe regarding Beliar that I've played a little with in my stories: He IS the god of chaos. So one interpretation of this is: Anything goes and it doesn't necessarly have to be entirely coherent. To be fair, I mainly used this to explain away certain plotholes of the games: Why do the Seekers use fire magic and thereby the magic of Innos? Well, Beliar is not above stealing from his enemy. Why, if it is Innos who stands for order, law and rulership, do these things even exist in Varant, why is Zuben ruling instead of promoting pure anarchy? Well, why not? Why is it that the hero can kill the Avatar of Beliar in Gothic 2 yet still follow Beliar in Gothic 3 and be happily invited to do so by Zuben, why isn't Zuben angry and trying to get revange because the Avatar of his god was defeated? Well, because unlike the followers of Innos those of Beliar don't necessarly need to all follow the same plan. And while the Undead Dragon may have represented the destruction aspect of Beliar, Zuben and the hashashins probably weren't interested in being wiped out and may be more about Beliar giving them freedom and the chance to seek for power, wealth and pleasures. Of course the chaos thing could get into absurd territory. Like I said, I used it for plotholes mainly and it may be a bit of a cheap trick sometimes.

Anyway, I'm always happy to help and I've always been quite invested in the Gothic lore. So you're welcome! So I wish you good luck with your project!

[SrsBznz]

Well, trope to me is a completely neutral thing. There are always tropes. Pretty much everything is a trope and has been there before. It's impossible to write a story without tropes and it's not something that should be a goal anyway. It's entirely about how a trope is presented and used. So I don't see much of an issue there.
One more thing maybe regarding Beliar that I've played a little with in my stories: He IS the god of chaos. So one interpretation of this is: Anything goes and it doesn't necessarly have to be entirely coherent. To be fair, I mainly used this to explain away certain plotholes of the games: Why do the Seekers use fire magic and thereby the magic of Innos? Well, Beliar is not above stealing from his enemy. Why, if it is Innos who stands for order, law and rulership, do these things even exist in Varant, why is Zuben ruling instead of promoting pure anarchy? Well, why not? Why is it that the hero can kill the Avatar of Beliar in Gothic 2 yet still follow Beliar in Gothic 3 and be happily invited to do so by Zuben, why isn't Zuben angry and trying to get revange because the Avatar of his god was defeated? Well, because unlike the followers of Innos those of Beliar don't necessarly need to all follow the same plan. And while the Undead Dragon may have represented the destruction aspect of Beliar, Zuben and the hashashins probably weren't interested in being wiped out and may be more about Beliar giving them freedom and the chance to seek for power, wealth and pleasures. Of course the chaos thing could get into absurd territory. Like I said, I used it for plotholes mainly and it may be a bit of a cheap trick sometimes.

Anyway, I'm always happy to help and I've always been quite invested in the Gothic lore. So you're welcome! So I wish you good luck with your project!

Thanks again, yeah the chaos aspect is definitely something I want to play around with. It will also help to create a stronger contrast to the order of Innos and further emphasize their differences and what they fight for.
Especially the chaos of having no restrictions placed on the use of magic and its studies. Since he's a novice in a monastery dedicated to Innos I think that I'll be able to contrast their two different ways of teaching and usage of magic very well.

[SrsBznz]

So after some assistance from 'Jünger des Xardas' regarding the canon of religious lore, this is the interpretation that I threw together from an Innos/Adanos believer's view of the world. This is roughly how I plan to explain the creation mythos of Myrtana (while keeping my OP as a Beliar worshippers point of view) in my universe. Please give me criticism. I'm especially focused on the starting paragraphs which I'm not entirely happy with.
Also keep in mind that this is meant to be read more as a religious text and/or sermon, hence the choice of language.

Regarding Beliar, in actuality I want to present Beliar in a more neutral light than Gothic 2 does and the best way (in my mind) is to present him as two different sides of the extreme, either the saviour or destroyer of mankind depending on which source material you look at. I want to lead the reader to interpret that he in reality lands somewhere in the middle without stating it outright. I guess this is where the point of view from Adanos is helpful, but I still don't want it to be too 'on the nose', especially when writing a text created by an Innos worshipper.


‘Before the world of Myrtana, a suffocating emptiness reigned over all that was. Then Innos stepped into our realm and spawned a gloriously radiant orb that shone down from above, purifying the earth as an endless immutable order of light was established. But Innos was not alone, in his company there stood two brothers. Of these, the one called Beliar, could not bear the perpetual cleansing sun that Innos had created and so he cast a veil of darkness over the world. This was the beginning of the rivalry between the two brothers, a cyclical struggle that still today permeates every moment of being.
Their third brother Adanos felt unfulfilled by this barren and empty world his brothers had created solely to make into their own personal battleground of will. As such he decided to flood the world with the source of all life and creation, water. The influence of Beliar’s chaotic being let nature take root and spread without halt, whilst the aura of order emanating from the very existence of Innos assisted the living creatures sprouting from the wellspring of life to begin working together, eventually creating laws that would foster stability and commonality.

As time passed, mankind begun offering tributes to the sun so that it would never extinguish and instead continue granting them prosperity. However, no one paid reverence to the darkness of night, as it to them was merely the absence of light rather than an entity of its own.
Beliar’s wrath grew in correlation to Innos’ followers and in a desperate bid to succeed over his brother, he created a servant of his own, one that would spread the praise and word of darkness to man. But to the frustration of Beliar, he like everyone else stayed awake during the day and slept at night, before long he too started making offerings to the sun. In his unbridled anger Beliar struck down his own creation, strengthened by the dark Gods fury the act echoed across the entirety of existence, and so death and decay was born. Nothing would ever again exist outside the harsh boundaries of time, all would eventually fall into degeneration before completely dissipating from both the world and memory itself. To fully extract revenge upon his brother and believers, Beliar created the chaotic beast which would come to roam the land and forever be in opposition to mankind and the order of Innos.
This is how the world continued for many millenniums, the intensity of the two brothers fight carried on through the will of their creations and would never truly be forgotten. But in Adanos’ mind their children needed both of his brothers to thrive. The light to live and the dark to rest, order to survive and chaos to grow. So rather than choosing a brother to side with, Adanos decided to view the battle from the sidelines, determined to never let one completely overthrow the other.’

[Jünger des Xardas]

‘Before the world of Myrtana, a suffocating emptiness reigned over all that was. Then Innos stepped into our realm and spawned a gloriously radiant orb that shone down from above, purifying the earth as an endless immutable order of light was established. But Innos was not alone, in his company there stood two brothers. Of these, the one called Beliar, could not bear the perpetual cleansing sun that Innos had created and so he cast a veil of darkness over the world. This was the beginning of the rivalry between the two brothers, a cyclical struggle that still today permeates every moment of being.
Their third brother Adanos felt unfulfilled by this barren and empty world his brothers had created solely to make into their own personal battleground of will. As such he decided to flood the world with the source of all life and creation, water. The influence of Beliar’s chaotic being let nature take root and spread without halt, whilst the aura of order emanating from the very existence of Innos assisted the living creatures sprouting from the wellspring of life to begin working together, eventually creating laws that would foster stability and commonality.

As time passed, mankind begun offering tributes to the sun so that it would never extinguish and instead continue granting them prosperity. However, no one paid reverence to the darkness of night, as it to them was merely the absence of light rather than an entity of its own.
Beliar’s wrath grew in correlation to Innos’ followers and in a desperate bid to succeed over his brother, he created a servant of his own, one that would spread the praise and word of darkness to man. But to the frustration of Beliar, he like everyone else stayed awake during the day and slept at night, before long he too started making offerings to the sun. In his unbridled anger Beliar struck down his own creation, strengthened by the dark Gods fury the act echoed across the entirety of existence, and so death and decay was born. Nothing would ever again exist outside the harsh boundaries of time, all would eventually fall into degeneration before completely dissipating from both the world and memory itself. To fully extract revenge upon his brother and believers, Beliar created the chaotic beast which would come to roam the land and forever be in opposition to mankind and the order of Innos.
This is how the world continued for many millenniums, the intensity of the two brothers fight carried on through the will of their creations and would never truly be forgotten. But in Adanos’ mind their children needed both of his brothers to thrive. The light to live and the dark to rest, order to survive and chaos to grow. So rather than choosing a brother to side with, Adanos decided to view the battle from the sidelines, determined to never let one completely overthrow the other.’

A few notes:
Myrtana is not a world, simply one kingdom among other realms. If the world has a name it's Morgrad, though the book in Gothic 1 which mentions that name is a little ambigous, so there's debate amongst fans whether Morgrad refers to the planet and is a name similiar to earth or whether the Morgrad is the whole of Adanos' sphere.
You also make it seem like the earth was there before creation. However the earth, I think, should either be part of the realm of Adanos that only comes to be when he steps between his brothers (Vatras speaks about Adanos thereby creating the sea and then the see giving way to the land - so only here we get earth) or a creation of Beliar, his element being earth after all.
Apart from that however I think this is fine as far as the lore goes. I'd maybe work on the language though. At least this doesn't sound like an ancient religious text to me, more like you'd summarize the whole matter in a non-formal forum post. I don't really feel secure enough to offer alternative wording, as this isn't my first language. I can just say that the feeling, the general vibe I get from this tells me it should sound differently. Innos and Beliar making the world their own personal battleground, Adanos watching from the sidelines, those are lines that simply sound a bit off to me. But then, it depends on where you are going with this and what sort of book this text is meant to come from.
As I said, the actual content is mostly fine, I think. And for the language it's probably better to seek for opinions and suggestions from native speakers.