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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: Christmas totems and such
Date: Mon Jan 7 12:05:08 2002
Mmmm, yummy. Catholic calenders and SR totems. Is anyone interested in an
unofficial Vatican City sourcebook, I wonder? *insert evil grin*
The Liturgical Calender of the Catholic church begins four Sundays before
Christmas day. This period is called Advent. The "12 days of Christmas"
are Dec. 25 to Jan. 6. The 6th, called Epiphany, is a commemoration of the
magi arriving to bring gifts. The Christmas season actually continues until
Feb. 2. The Festival of Lights, the feast day of Saint Lucy, officially
ends the Liturgical Christmas season in the Catholic calender. Christmas
itself was placed where it is to supplant the pagan (non-Catholic) practice
of celebrating the Winter Solstice. Almost every single major feast in the
Catholic calender coincides with a major pagan holiday. This is not an
accident.
"Hello Mr. Pagan man...we of the Jesuit order wish to inform you that you
have not been celebrating the Vernal Equinox all these years. Nope. In
fact, you have been celebrating Easter. These men with swords will back me
up on that. Thank you for converting. Yes, you may still make
rabbit-shaped candy to celebrate spring, but they are called Easter bunnies,
don't forget."

--my mother insisted her children be educated Catholics and learn our
church's history...this MAY have been a mistake ;P --

A more thourough handling of the Catholic calender might provide a great
totem for a player wanting that religious feel. The bonuses and penalties
could wax and wane with the Liturgical cycles. Slow build of power through
Advent up to Christmas, long period of quiet for Lent with huge surges of
power around Easter, etc. It's a good idea to sound out your players before
tampering with religion though. I am a really open-minded Catholic, but I
have met some who are not.

--mother, why do you have that cross-shaped sword? mother? :) --

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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (shadowrn@*********.com)
Subject: Christmas totems and such
Date: Mon Jan 7 13:15:01 2002
> Mmmm, yummy. Catholic calenders and SR totems. Is anyone interested in an
> unofficial Vatican City sourcebook, I wonder? *insert evil grin*

Weeeell...

The Vatican might be covered in the Shadows of Europe SB coming out in 2003, depending on
whether FanPro likes peoples proposals or not. A fair bit of material's already been
written on the Roman Catholic Cgurch and the Vatican, it's now just if FanPro like it
enough to use it. :)
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Scott Harrison)
Subject: Christmas totems and such
Date: Wed Jan 9 11:00:01 2002
On Monday, January 7, 2002, at 06:07 , Ice Heart wrote:

> Mmmm, yummy. Catholic calenders and SR totems. Is anyone interested
> in an unofficial Vatican City sourcebook, I wonder? *insert evil grin*
> The Liturgical Calender of the Catholic church begins four Sundays
> before Christmas day. This period is called Advent. The "12 days of
> Christmas" are Dec. 25 to Jan. 6. The 6th, called Epiphany, is a
> commemoration of the magi arriving to bring gifts. The Christmas
> season actually continues until Feb. 2. The Festival of Lights, the
> feast day of Saint Lucy, officially ends the Liturgical Christmas
> season in the Catholic calender. Christmas itself was placed where it
> is to supplant the pagan (non-Catholic) practice of celebrating the
> Winter Solstice. Almost every single major feast in the Catholic
> calender coincides with a major pagan holiday. This is not an accident.
> "Hello Mr. Pagan man...we of the Jesuit order wish to inform you that
> you have not been celebrating the Vernal Equinox all these years.
> Nope. In fact, you have been celebrating Easter. These men with
> swords will back me up on that. Thank you for converting. Yes, you
> may still make rabbit-shaped candy to celebrate spring, but they are
> called Easter bunnies, don't forget."
>
>
Technically the day that Easter occurs is defined as "the first sunday
after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox" and
this was defined early in the 4th century.

And the reason we use the Gregorian Calendar now for most things is
because the date of the vernal equinox was moving earlier and earlier in
the year -- thereby shifting Easter.

Orthodox Christmas is still December 25 -- but in the Julian Calendar.
And this translates to January 7 in the Gregorian Calendar. And since
Orthodox Christians use the Julian Calendar (for the most part -- there
are those that use Gregorian just to fit in with the rest of the modern
Christian world) Easter also can be different each year.

Personally I would tend to use the Orthodox Christian religion as a
totem since it seems to me to be more rooted in the basics of
Christianity, and seems to have a more "pagan" feel to it. I just
imagine it would be the better one for a totem. Of course this is from
my personal viewpoint as a person raised Roman Catholic but married into
Russian Orthodoxy.

--Scott

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Christmas totems and such, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!