Maybe I didn't see it but...

[Shonuff]

RELIGION IN BFRPG

i know you're making just a generic set of rules,

but if there any pantheon or set of deities for use in some generic world/realm?

reason I ask:

If I draw a picture of a cleric..holding their holy symbol..should I be using a symbol from list "X"
or is this a part of the game you're leaving up to the individual DMs?

just asking because it sort of is important when drawing.

[Solomoriah]

In the Morgansfort module, the major religion of the Western Lands is the church of Tah; their holy symbol is a circle bisected by a vertical line, which descends below the circle. Take a look at the picture of Darion in that module (or on the Intro Story page, linked from the navbar above) for Carjack's version.

However, even in that module, there are other clerics using other holy symbols. Whatever you do for us will be fine, I'm sure.

[SmootRK]

I agree that the details in Morgansfort come about as close to "official" sort of religious system as BFRPG has. And, in my opinion, it is an ideal such "pantheon". It is fairly interesting and one can easily recognize some aspects of real world religion stirred in... and nearly perfectly allows a plain vanilla cleric to represent its clergy types.

If I were to mix in another sort of pantheon to that of a generic cleric, it would probably be that of some sort of Njordic pantheon... which makes a great pagan sort of alternative that one might meet in a land roughly analogous to Europe (or at least Northern Europe/England). Fairly warlike types, tossing rune stones about to cast spells, etc.

Another good religion that would be well to represent via artwork is that of Druid/Celtic sort of angle. Finnish types fit here too. Great Hunt, Stag Antler Holy Symbols, "weave designs", etc.

Our friends doing some translating into Italian might prefer some more "Mediterranean" or Roman pantheons to better fit their cultural heritage. And one can never go wrong with an Egyptian Ankh here and there to represent foreign clerics of the desert lands.

[LibraryLass]

I'm not really much of an artist but I like an ankh or tah symbol or something like that-- it's enough like a cross to feel familiar to the average person in the real world,but different enough to feel like its own thing unique from Christianity. Recently I actually borrowed the Tah symbol for Odin in a little thought excercise, representing his body hanging from Yggdrasil.

I've also been known to use a sort of comma shape, like the magatama beads used in Shintoism or like one half of the baguazhang diagram (the familiar "yin-yang") of taoism.

[Fabio_MP]

Good, almost universal, symbols are (IMO):

Sun, Moon, Star(s), Tree (Oak), Sea (a Wave)...

[Joe the Rat]

An Eye, circles and spirals, stylized weapons
The cross and circle-cross appear here and there as well.

[LibraryLass]

As a sun symbol the spiral or labyrinth is second only to the (unfortunately-ruined-by-other-historical-associations) swastika in its frequency of use in the ancient world.