Sorry,

Having been on a week's holiday before Easter with limited wifi and even more limited time - as it happens, doing something religious! - I've managed to miss this thread. Just catching up now.

On Sat, 20 Apr 2019 at 04:19, Jeff Zeitlin <xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:

Official Traveller material has generally kept away from religion in the
game, for very good reason - it can be a touchy subject, and if not handled
well, can destroy a game, or a gaming group.

I'd still be up for giving a thorough exploration of this a try; with a group of like minded players!

(See my thoughts here: https://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/columns/nubiref/religion.html )

I also assume, looking at that again, that Jeff is looking for things that suit a Level II or Level III Traveller game. But I'd be *really* interested if someone were to offer rules and background that worked for a Level IV game.

Nevertheless, I doubt very much that sophonts will outgrow the need for
faith in a higher power, at least not without becoming something that we

I've just finished (this morning on the bus), Craig Bernthal's fascinating _Tolkien's Sacramental Vision: Discovery the Holy in The Lord of the Rings_ (Kettering, OH: Second Spring, 2014). I suspect he would argue that it's not something to grow out of, but to grow *into*. In any case, my appreciation for LOTR (and Tolkien) has grown considerably as I've read the various chapters.

For those with extensive collections of Traveller material, but a dearth of
immediate ideas,

Such people exist?

I must have shared here before my theory that I could randomly choose any page from all of Traveller and have *some* kind of inspiration of something I could use/write/riff off! (OK, maybe there are some pages that would be difficult!)

feel free to start by rolling up something, perhaps from
BITS 101 Religions or the Population-related details from World Builders'
Handbook.

Or Grand Census if you're lucky enough to own it.

Craig wrote:

>There was actually a BITS Traveller supplement titled _101 Religions_
><https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124194/101-Religions>. It's one of my
>few, treasured Traveller bylines; I contributed a few of the religions in
>that book. :)

To which Jeff replied:

You and me both; I still have my original copy, and I know exactly where,
though its accessibility is ... problematical.

Ah. Mine's close to hand on the top shelf of 'smaller' books.

Rather like Craig, it's a treasured byline for me because I think it was my first 'in game' contribution to Traveller (i.e. not meta stuff like my bibliographies). If anyone cares, I wrote about 10% of it and edited half of it.

Those who don't own a copy might like to know it makes up a third of the Mongoose volume Supplement 15: Powers and Principalities. Pretty much unchanged IIRC.

I'll have a think, and I'm certainly not uninterested in the idea, but I'd probably want to do something different to the contents of 101 Religions and haven't yet got a clear idea in my head about what direction I'd want to take it. Although it could mesh very nicely with an adventure I'm thinking about writing as a grand projet… some way off that, however.

Thanks for getting me thinking though.