Saga of the Ortegids: Thoughts on Religion

Art by chuckcg

Religion does not play a very big part in the Erdrick Trilogy. Remember, these games belong to an era where the difference between a JRPG and a western RPG had more to do with presentation than anything else. The trope of the corrupt church hiding a sinister conspiracy had not yet been established, and temples in the Trilogy play pretty much the same role they do in old-school D&D - they're a service you go to to resurrect dead party members and remove curses for a fee. However, there are still some implications we can overanalyze in the name of worldbuilding, and I feel it's possible to make some assumptions about the role of religion and the divine in The Saga of the Ortegids.

The predominant religion, in both Erdland and Torland, is that of the aforementioned temples. Its trappings appear to be grounded in your traditional fantasy Catholicism - priests wear miters; temples have stained glass windows. There's some ambiguity as to how many gods are actually worshiped here. The only deity mentioned by name is the goddess Rubiss, who plays an important role in the plot of Dragon Quest III.

Most discussion I see on the subject seems to assume that the temples belong to a monotheistic cult worshiping Rubiss alone, but I feel like this has more to do with people projecting the trope of JRPGs depicting a Catholic-like organization worshiping a goddess instead of a male god onto Dragon Quest. The Erdrick Trilogy never actually makes this explicit, and it's something that probably owes just as much, if not more, to The Legend of Zelda. Modern localizations lean into this, having priests invoke "the Goddess" in NPC dialogue. As I have previously stated, I am very much not a fan of the modern localizations. They make so many changes to the game script and terminology that I don't think this says anything about the canonical intent. Besides, we're basing this on the NES-era localizations.

Art by darksouls1

As a matter of fact, the Dragon Quest novels (yes, there are novels - I told you that no matter how big you think this series is in Japan, it's bigger than that) do depict multiple gods existing in the world of the Erdrick Trilogy, most notably Gaia, a Hephaestus-like forge god (just go with it). I'll only be taking light inspiration from this lore, because not only were these novels not available in English at the time the NES games were released in the West, they aren't available in English now. Still, the Japanese Dragon Quest wiki is fascinating to poke around in, and takes Google Translate reasonably well.

Anyway, the version of DQ3 I played as a kid has the priests very specifically mention "gods," plural, and as such, I'm inclined to make the people of The Saga of the Ortegids worship a polytheistic religion. This does, however, mean I'm going to have to make up most of the pantheon out of whole cloth. Some gods I can get away with borrowing from later entries in the series, but that's still not enough for a realistic pantheon. More on that in a future post. I'd also probably use more pagan imagery to add to the sword-and-sorcery atmosphere, so temples would have more sacrificial pyres and strange rituals of dancing and chanting. The miters and stained glass can stay, though.

On the subject of localization, the NES version of DQ3 actually - unintentionally - solves the issue of the discrepancy between adventuring clerics and the priests that play a role in society. At the time, Nintendo was so afraid of offending anyone that religious references in games were usually removed in translation, and the class later translated as "Cleric" or "Priest" was called "Pilgrim" in the first English release. However, considering the term already carries connotations of travel, I think this presents a great opportunity. In The Saga of the Ortegids, "clerics" are divided into two traditions, perhaps indicating a schism in thought - priests stay in temples and conduct rituals for the benefit of the community, while pilgrims walk the roads in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and to aid the weak so that they may become closer to godliness. They likely have similar abilities if the services temples provide is any indication, but this would explain why a cleric would ever go dungeon-delving.

An interesting point of the setting is how universal many things seem to be. Although Erdland's geography superficially resembles Earth's, all continents are available for exploration, and all of them seem to be on equal footing in terms of development and power dynamics. There are no places that are presented as unexplored frontiers or colonized subjects, even if their real-world counterparts would have been in the Middle Ages. The same temples, with the same services and aesthetics, are present whether you're in Romaly or Baharata, and even between the overworld of 3 and the hollow earth of Torland. Part of this is surely due to game limitations - it lets you reuse the same assets in each town, after all - but I think it has some interesting implications. After all, the same game also features a class of martial artists who are always drawn in Chinese clothing and who use katars and other such exotic weapons, yet can be found in a medieval European setting with no one batting an eye. I think it's interesting if we assume that traditions have disseminated far further and contacts have been more thoroughly established than they had in the real world by medieval times, and perhaps it means that Erdland is much smaller than Earth, even if the continents have recognizably similar shapes.

Art by Biel Bahi Pla

In the case of religion, though, it is quite interesting that the traditions in Erdland and Torland are seemingly identical, despite the two realms being on opposite sides of the planet's crust and having no way to contact one another. I'd personally interpret this to mean that the qualities of this religion are a fundamental part of how deities are worshiped, and that the same deities are worshiped universally (accounting, of course, for the possibility of sinister cults worshiping evil, forbidden gods - that's still pantheonism, just worshiping certain parts of the pantheon mainstream pantheonists don't want you to). Other religions exist, but they seem to worship different forces entirely.

Satorism, given its obvious comparisons to Buddhism, is likely a religion that focuses on internal spiritual growth, meditation, and the pursuit of knowledge over external divinities (and, with regards to the universality of religions, likely has adherents all over the world). Thus, it doesn't share much in common with Pantheonism, as it rejects the pantheon entirely. The only other hint we see at another religion is in Zipangu, the equivalent of Japan; as an isolationist culture, it does not worship the same gods as other lands, as noted by a foreign priest stationed there. They might instead worship animistic nature spirits, or they might be Satorists. If we look at real world precedent, it's probably both.