Faith and creatures

When I bought creatures 2 as a kid I had no idea what to expect. As I have said before I even wondered whether my little tribe of norns would develop a religion. They didn’t, my expectations were a little high I admit. Perhaps this was a thought more players have had, and I at least still think its a reasonable one.

All human cultures have had religions or faith in various levels of complexity, and finding explanations or filling in voids is wholly natural. Because of this even our pre-stone age norn cultures might have had a hand in it. Now in a way we, the hand, are something norns already look up to. They simply lack the small things that allow for worship.

“Doing things for another” is something creatures miss, something generally necessary for societies as a whole. A base version of this could be pre programmed as an instinct, and has been in the past. But never in mythical reverence.

In the design mythology for creatures the norns make a pilgrimage every generation, travelling around the world to ensure fertility. Nornir temples would be around albia, situated on pillars below which the bones of norns would be interned after the flesh would have been picked off by animals. These ancestors would have been the focus of veneration here. Their pilgrimage would have eventually taken them to the tree yggdrasil, their most holy place and the source of norn fertility.

Though none of this came to fruition in the games themselves the backgrounds do contain temples, statues and the tree itself. Though having no real aim, c2 contains the statue of a throned figure which holds norns in awed hypnosis.

Would religion have a use in the game, besides telling a story?

The usual motivations for creatures are reproduction, or base survival drives, perhaps boredom. Human needs like meaning in life, the need to belong or to be part of a grand plan are far too complex for creatures to experience, but perhaps it would merely be fun to watch? Who knows, they might provide a biological imperative for faith.

However many gods, devils and presumed divines I use in my stories, my personal conviction is that “the journey” is the most fitting religion for creatures for at least there was a clear survival motive for it. 

Second would be ancestor worship, for it could be implemented easily enough: not unlike the creature nests i've described in an earlier article a background script would check for triggers, in this case many concentrated norn deaths, norn home smell and some living norns. A small altar decreasing loneliness, calming the angry and frightened could be created.