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[Ievan Khurelem]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this so my apologies if it isn't.

So I originally imagined Ievan as something of an outsider to regular Amarrian culture. I like the idea of a man who doesn't really buy into all the ideas and beliefs of his religious society but still loves his country enough to believe it's worth fighting for.

The problem comes in because I've been watching the IGS and The Summit in order to figure out where I can introduce my character. From what I can tell, it seems like there's little to no room for an essentially secular Amarr loyalist as every loyalist Amarr character I see is deeply religious and the backstory for the Amarr paints a picture of a society remarkably free of much variation in how genuine people's faith is.

So I want to ask folk's opinions about whether Ievan as he is currently imagined is a viable RP idea. Would I be better off rethinking him? Or even just scrapping the idea?

[Elmund Egivand]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this so my apologies if it isn't.

So I originally imagined Ievan as something of an outsider to regular Amarrian culture. I like the idea of a man who doesn't really buy into all the ideas and beliefs of his religious society but still loves his country enough to believe it's worth fighting for.

The problem comes in because I've been watching the IGS and The Summit in order to figure out where I can introduce my character. From what I can tell, it seems like there's little to no room for an essentially secular Amarr loyalist as every loyalist Amarr character I see is deeply religious and the backstory for the Amarr paints a picture of a society remarkably free of much variation in how genuine people's faith is.

So I want to ask folk's opinions about whether Ievan as he is currently imagined is a viable RP idea. Would I be better off rethinking him? Or even just scrapping the idea?

Amarr characters who fight for the love of their Empire but does not believe in their Faith do exist, but they often hide their atheism from public view. One of the Amarr characters in The Empyrean Age and Templar One is one such character, an Amarr scientist who does not believe in the Faith and, in fact, considers the Empress, or rather what's inside her, as an enemy. He is, of course, a pariah. He hung out around the Eve Gate, where the interference disrupts all FTL communication attempts with him, until he decided to leave the proximity of the Gate to make an all-or-nothing attempt to halt the Empire's Templar project.

He was successful, but it cost him his life.

[Kunarian]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this so my apologies if it isn't.

So I originally imagined Ievan as something of an outsider to regular Amarrian culture. I like the idea of a man who doesn't really buy into all the ideas and beliefs of his religious society but still loves his country enough to believe it's worth fighting for.

The problem comes in because I've been watching the IGS and The Summit in order to figure out where I can introduce my character. From what I can tell, it seems like there's little to no room for an essentially secular Amarr loyalist as every loyalist Amarr character I see is deeply religious and the backstory for the Amarr paints a picture of a society remarkably free of much variation in how genuine people's faith is.

So I want to ask folk's opinions about whether Ievan as he is currently imagined is a viable RP idea. Would I be better off rethinking him? Or even just scrapping the idea?

As the above said ones like this hide their atheism from view. I think the conflict between loving your country yet not believing in the central faith that practically everything is built on is interesting. I think you should persist and not just make it obvious that your character is atheist, avoid questions of faith and things generally related to faith, don't go around announcing that your character is atheist, that's not a good basis for your character being loyalist because it suggests your character is proud not to believe in the basis for Amarr society. Also I suggest that you keep the atheism close to your characters chest, just letting it affect how they react to situations not something to wave about.

Also out of interest how do you think your atheist character would take slavery? which is another central point of Amarr society.

[Makkal]

He's viable for RP, but if you want to be 'in' with the larger Amarr RP groups, the PC will have to be a bit... closeted. People throughout the ages have kept a religious public face when their private lives were more agnostic or they actually followed a different faith.

If you're comfortable with outsider status, you can be a bit more open.

[Vincent Pryce]

If the original KotMC was still around you would have a loving home. Stick to your idea, I genuinely like it.

[Lyn Farel]

There is of course the solution offered above. It's interesting, but it can become extremely tricky to play, especially considering IC->OOC bleedovers. Even if other characters do not know about it, some of their players will. Be they applying a strict OOC/IC separation or not, the bleedover will occur, probably very limited and harmless in the first case, and not so much in the second one.

Also, something I have learned over the years of Eve RP is that a lot of players are really quick to jump on appearances and what looks to be. Half of the people will immediately fall for the mask a character wears. I have had a great time playing with that over time, making people immediately assume something about my characters and counting on it, and when it inevitably happens because they are looking to put people in properly labelled boxes, they are ready to face a very nasty surprise. If there is something that will confuse people to incredible heights, it is to deal with characters that are really hard to properly discern. Every time they want to counter argue something against such a character, they have to assume at least a bit of his/her positions to make a point, and since your character is elusive, they often completely miss the point and then gets completely puzzled as why the answer that your character gave them is completely not what they expected. It is especially sharp against characters that see the world in black and white. It threatens the very core of their view of the universe.

With that in mind, I think you can have a lot of fun if you play it correctly. It also implies to correctly hide the true beliefs of your character, and in my case I had to create a shitload of different layers in her ideals that can literally be peeled like an onion, the outside mask, the outside beliefs, the familiar mask, the familiar beliefs, the intimate beliefs, etc. Tbh it's the only thing that has kept her alive when she had to face some of the most conservative of the loyalist bloc (edit : aside from the fact that you will have to prove even more that you are a loyalist and still give your life for your empire, I also have 3 years of FW as well as 1-2 years of CVA to back up my claims for example).

So, that said, there is what was proposed above, playing a true amarrian atheist. In my case I chose something less radical. I happen to believe that the Amarr are like all the 3 other empires a modern empire, not a medieval one. It's not the W40K Imperium either. Which also makes me say that what is the most interesting in my eyes in fleshing out the Amarr Empire is to get out of the usual spanish inquisition trope and see what a truly, deeply religious superpower would be in a future setting. Most cultures and societies tend to calm down and enlighten over time, not that it's always true, mind you, but they become more and more subtle at the very least. With that in mind I think that a side of the Amarr Empire that is underplayed is their enlightened, scholarly side. It was also mentioned somewhere that after Vak'Atioth the Amarr started to put everything into question and went then through an age of enlightement under Heideran VII's reign. I would expect that after all these centuries of peace and self introspection they would have seen religious debate, or at least discussions, forums, to become rather popular. There is also the statement that most Houses have developed their own ideals and customs and have gotten more and more separated on that particular point. The most liberal of them can probably offer a lot. When I see the standard Amarr orthodox characters/organization trying to bully other amarrians with different beliefs, i'm sad to see that they do not seem to know how to react or that their world conception is also a valid one (not speaking about the "lolol I loathe the Amarrian faith and will join the TLF").

Eventually I chose to still play a believer, but not in the religion itself. The scriptures can be considered as a collection of philosophical thoughts, spiritual thoughts, science things, etc. The core of the Amarr religion is not extremely religious. Even God can be deconstructed into something very literal that can fit a more atheist approach. Eventually one could say that my character is an atheist - and she probably comes very close to that - but she still believes in most of what is scripture, in her own interpretation. I would also expect a lot of Amarrian scientists to have a rather... pragmatic view of the Faith (like my character), but that doesnt mean that they are atheists. Some maybe, but even IRL the last I checked there is like 50% believers in the scientific community.

Please, don't conform like everybody to the same Amarrian trope that came from PIE. Inc and the likes. They are the beacon of what the Amarrian orthodox is, they set the standard, but i'm a little sad every time someone wants to play something different that they eventually give up because they are alone and roflstomped on the IGS.

[GoGo Yubari]

Please, don't conform like everybody to the same Amarrian trope that came from PIE. Inc and the likes. They are the beacon of what the Amarrian orthodox is, they set the standard, but i'm a little sad every time someone wants to play something different that they eventually give up because they are alone and roflstomped on the IGS.

Word! That's not to say that I don't like what PIE and their ilk have done, because I do, but there is a tendency in EVE/games to homogenize faction populations too much around the key concepts that define a faction. Alternatively some people go so left field in ignoring where them that  they trivilialize the factional affiliation entirely and people are attentive to picking up on this - perhaps too eagerly at times. However, variety done well can really spice things up and open up entirely new realms of possibility. That means not ignoring the key concepts that are out there, but addressing them, just not necessarily conforming to the typical interpretation.

But yeah, IGS can come down hard on dissenters. A lot people who might actually like your angle just can't say it aloud there because that would be out of character for them, though they might enjoy it as a player. You'll just have to weather the storm if you want to play a non-closeted atheist and be active writing there.

[Odelya]

Please, don't conform like everybody to the same Amarrian trope that came from PIE. Inc and the likes. They are the beacon of what the Amarrian orthodox is, they set the standard, but i'm a little sad every time someone wants to play something different that they eventually give up because they are alone and roflstomped on the IGS.

Word! That's not to say that I don't like what PIE and their ilk have done, because I do, but there is a tendency in EVE/games to homogenize faction populations too much around the key concepts that define a faction. Alternatively some people go so left field in ignoring where them that  they trivilialize the factional affiliation entirely and people are attentive to picking up on this - perhaps too eagerly at times. However, variety done well can really spice things up and open up entirely new realms of possibility. That means not ignoring the key concepts that are out there, but addressing them, just not necessarily conforming to the typical interpretation.

But yeah, IGS can come down hard on dissenters. A lot people who might actually like your angle just can't say it aloud there because that would be out of character for them, though they might enjoy it as a player. You'll just have to weather the storm if you want to play a non-closeted atheist and be active writing there.

As a dissenter myself I can affirm to you that it is fun and there many people who won't stop talking to you when you go public with your (dis-)beliefs. And: What Lyn said.

[Vic Van Meter]

Also, don't be afraid to play the middle ground.  If there's one thing that throws the IGS into a tailspin, it's people who aren't so black and white.  They tend to say people are religious or not, they usually don't know what to do if you end up in that category of scientifically minded believers, or people who have the semi-Anglican idea of following the religion because it's a good idea, but not necessarily caring whether or not there's a God checking your answers.

In the end, faith is sort of Amarrian glue, but people don't often look at it organically as a character concept; it tends to be an on or off switch.  Then, when on, they only show it in one color.  It's totally possible to be an Amarrian who doesn't believe in God, but completely believes in the lifestyle that the religion presents for logical reasons.  In that case, you'll probably fit in just fine because it just wouldn't come up that often.  It would just mean playing a character who doesn't have that zealous streak.

My advice would be to really look think out his beliefs, sometimes issue by issue, against his background.  The second you've called a character an athiest, you've removed a possible character trait.  Especially if you're agnostic or athiest yourself, ask the sorts of religiously intellectual questions about your character.  It's extremely important to really use that to color in the character so he isn't black and white.  A few examples:

If your character does not believe in God, is he still religious?

If there was no religion, would he act the same way, even as an athiest?  Is his agnosticism thus a reaction to religion, or did his develop in a vacuum and there was simply no input?

Does he believe in the deistic view that God left a clockwork machine in place and then stopped paying attention?

Does he believe God is a necessary invention to enforce a moralistic view of the universe that really gives you no other extra credit for being a decent person?

Is the concept of religious community more important than the concept of a religious dogma?  Is any church, even the giant Amarrian religion, simply incapable of ever correctly interpreting the will of God correctly?  Or even, as Mark says, does a religious organization hinder people from seeing the truth, and thus does he reject the idea of the church because he wants to understand the universe?

There's a very fundamental difference between church and God, and there are lots of people who don't really believe in God but go to church, and lots of people who believe in God that think church is really counterproductive at best.  Is he in any of those camps?

It's really in answering questions like that and deciding how a person raised in a society that has omnipresent religion reacts to it.  It's really in that gray area that you'll fit in better as a character, since people will better understand his reasons and rationales.  I would always recommend working out how your Amarrian character relates to religion.  It's extremely important to their people, the way tribal identity is to the Matari, or politics to the Gallente.  It's a facet that other races just don't have and it's what makes playing an Amarr exciting.  Even playing a complete atheist among the Amarrians is a riff on the religion, since it's easy to be an atheist everywhere else.

[Arista Shahni]

It's fine.

In fact, it probably saved him a bit of an internal struggle when they killed him to become a Capsuleer.

Amarrians are all about layers and masks.  If you're seeing a lot of biblestomping and screaming you're definitely looking at the bloc as an outsider and shouldn't be.

[Karmilla Strife]

It's fine.

In fact, it probably saved him a bit of an internal struggle when they killed him to become a Capsuleer.

I believe they got rid of that particular part of the tutorial. Many Amarr RPers insist that isn't part of the program for everybody (especially them)

OP it sounds like you have a great concept. You'll likely experience some IC hostility if your character outright states their lack of belief. There are several characters that I have found interesting precisely because they avoid the more common concepts and tropes of amarrian characters. Great example would be Raphael Saint who plays a very good, patriotic, "working class" type of Amarrian that avoids the more flowery and religion laced speech patterns of many Amarrians.

[Arista Shahni]

I'm not sure if they got rid of it as much as we house rule ignore it - at the end of the day it is likely that someone's initial body DID die.  And if you think "Well no, I jump cloned out!" - go reread the wiki on jumpcloning and you find out they ninja-edited it to say that they BIOMASS you when you do that.

So, like proper Amarrians, we just pretend it isn't real

[Louella Dougans]

A True Amarr character can be credibly played as being less devout than Khanid or Ni-Kunni characters.

Recently converted peoples (e.g. Caldari or Gallente immigrant businesspersons), have to be seen to be very pious and devout and so on.

Khanid or Ni-Kunni people that attend church regularly, but are not particularly devout, are alright.

True Amarr characters, might only attend church on particularly important dates (weddings, funerals, new year, that sort of thing), and otherwise not have much interaction with the religious apparatus of the Empire.

[Ievan Khurelem]

Awesome! Seems there's a lot more leeway to develop Ievan than I thought. I really appreciate all the positive responses and help.

I think I'll be going with the closeted agnostic angle, for a while at least, as I feel people's characters out. I'll put together some sort of character sheet so people will have something to work with in reacting to him as well.

[Arista Shahni]

Theres a lot of RP to explore in that, and at the end of te day, a character concept is a starting point, that gets altered by interactions with others (or alters others via interaction!)

Point is, have fun with it