Grognardia’s The Christianity of Early Gaming
I had written before about the trope of the Crystal Dragon Jesus that appears in too much modern fantasy and anime set in the Middle Ages or a milieu meant to be evocative of it.
In the pages of WELL AT THE WORLD’S END by Morris, at the dawn of modern fantasy, the clerics are clearly Christian clerics of the Roman Catholic Church.
During the high period of Pulp fantasy, there is no hint of such a thing. Crystal Dragon Jesus is not found in the adventures of Conan the Barbarian or Jirel of Joiry or Elric of Melnibone.
The high noon of modern fantasy, THE LORD OF THE RINGS of JRR Tolkien was set in a world meant to be evocative of Beowulf, the pre-Christian North, albeit with parallels to the fallen Roman empire seen in the lost and sundered kingdoms of Numenor, and the siege of Constantinople by the Turk seen in the battle with Minas Tirith. But there are no monks, nuns, bishops, hermits, pilgrims nor crusaders in Middle Earth, and no one drives back a Nazgul with a crucifix.
By the time Jack Vance wrote his LYONESSE (which may be the dusk of modern fantasy, since I have read nothing since then to compare) Brother Umphred is again a Roman Catholic cleric, albeit, as are all men of the cloth in any Jack Vance story, an unregenerate vermin with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
The trope is common in modern fantasy to have all the trappings of Catholic hierarchy, just with no Jesus at the head. What I had not previously pondered was where this trope originates. Where does it come from?
Over at Grognardia, James Maliszewski, in an article written in 2008 points out that Gary Gygax may have been the big influence creating the trope.
… the cleric owes the better part of its existence to Hammer horror films, but, if you read OD&D, you can see that the class quickly evolved beyond its origins as a mere vampire hunter-cum-medic. The influence of historical medieval wargaming on the game shouldn’t be overlooked. Everyone remembers Chainmail because of its Fantasy Supplement, but Jeff Perren and Gary Gygax didn’t write these rules in order to facilitate miniatures battles between dragons and elves but instead to recreate the warfare and technology of the European Middle Ages. Gygax, by his own account, was very keen on medieval history, at least on the military side of things (no doubt the source of his pole arm-philia). Given this, is it any wonder that the armored, mace-wielding cleric bears a strong resemblance to the religious knights of the Crusades?
If you read OD&D carefully, you soon notice that a lot of the paraphernalia associated with clerics has Christian origins. The equipment list, for example, includes wooden and silver crosses, not the “holy symbols” of AD&D and later editions (Interestingly, there are no crucifixes, which I think is significant). The cleric’s level titles include a number of specifically Christian terms (vicar, curate, and bishop). The illustrations of clerics in OD&D — and even early AD&D — always show them dressed in obviously Christian priestly garb. And of course many of the cleric’s spells draw on Christian (and Jewish) religious writings and folklore. Indeed, the cleric’s focus on defense and protection spells is, I think, more evidence of the Christian origins of the class. What’s even more telling is the fact, even as late as Eldritch Wizardry, there are few (if any) explicit references to gods in OD&D. There’s much talk of demons, devils,and, tellingly, saints, but gods aren’t much talked about until Supplement IV’s release in 1976.
I once asked Gary Gygax directly about the question of why this was so and he explained that he felt it unseemly to include anything too explicitly Christian in a mere game, even if he assumed a kind of quasi-Christian or crypto-Christian underpinning for the whole thing. This is also why his demons and devils used somewhat obscure names rather than very familiar ones. All the old school love for statting up Satan/Lucifer was something Gary didn’t feel was proper. It’s the same reason why, even in late AD&D, we get planetars, solars, and devas but never “angels.” Interestingly, the original Blackmoor campaign, as I understand it, had a Church, complete with a hierarchy, but no named gods. Again — and someone can correct me if I’m mistaken on this — there’s an assumption of a quasi-Christianity lurking in the background.
My comment:
Kudos to anyone coining the term pole arm-philia to describe Gary Gygax. To this day, I know the difference between a Ranseur, a Glaive-Guisarm, and a Bifork due to D&D.
When I first became aware, as a child, that there were Christian television preachers denouncing D&D for its alleged Satanist influences, I was appalled. To this day, I wonder if it was not their Christian dislike of the occult that prompted the outcry, but, rather, their Protestant dislike of Catholicism.
D&D take place in a thoroughly Catholic milieu, although, to be sure, Gygax throws in all the elements from Tolkien’s Middle Earth and Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, as well as the kitchen sink:
The Lawful Good hierarchy is the Roman Catholic Church, the Paladins work for Charlemagne in Paris; Lawful Evil are the Paynims who serve the Sultan raiding from the South; Chaotic Evil are the Vikings raiding from the North; the Rangers work for Aragorn son of Arathorn, who is the one remaining heir to the Holy Roman Empire; and the various witches and magic-users worship and serve the Old Gods of Olympus, or the new devils of Hell, and the druids worship Epona and their pagan gods. Elves inhabit the Black Forest of Germany, where no man goes, and Dwarves live in Switzerland and provide a bodyguard for the Pope. Thieves all come from the Court of Miracles in Paris or Lankhmar, which might as well be Alexandria or Byzantium. And monks, um, came back in large numbers from China along the Silk Road with Marco Polo. The only thing D&D does not propose is that Magic Users are despised like Jews in the Middle Ages, courted by kings as necessary, or protected by the Church, but subject to popular outrage — but that would be a detail added, if he chose, by the dungeon master.
To me, it sounds as if Gygax wanted to include as much of Medieval flavor as he could without actually making his game set in the real Middle Ages. Medieval flavor means kings who are not absolute monarchs and an international Church with considerable power and prestige, and the ruins of a once-great civilization still around.
The only element missing in Gygax, which I take to be a sine qua non of the real Middle Ages, was a certain degree of respect paid to the Greek Emperor, or, later, the Holy Roman Emperor, as the legitimate heir, if in name only, to the Roman power and authority. The political theory of the Middle Ages was not nationalism but what we would now call one-world-government, or Imperialism.
Mr Maliszewski does not say outright, but it sounds as if Gygax was too respectful of Christianity, or of his customer’s feelings, to include Christian hierarchy by name in his game. Read the article for yourself, and decide.
AND FOR YOUR FURTHER READING PLEASURE:
Over at the Steampunk scholar, Gotthammer has a few thoughts about the curious absence of Christianity or Christmas in most Steampunk literature. The oddness of the absence is peculiar because the Victorian Era was one of the most deeply and openly religious in history. It would be like setting a bunch of Pilgrim-themed novels in Massachusetts Bay colony, with the characters all in broadcloth with buckles on their hats, but not mentioning Puritan Christianity.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
