What are some ways to depict the followers of a love goddess to players without it being taken immediately as "haha sex"?
I am thinking of going for a sort of "love is the foundation for all goodness" vibe and shooting at compassion more than eros, but idk if that would still fairly fall into the domain of "love goddess".
Mommy goddess.
This but in an actual maternal way instead of a fetish
There is just no way. Especially If you are playing with weirdos.
They only know sex as love, and nothing else. So there is not anything you can do
Sylvian from funger, it's still about sex but far from laughing matter.
Shelyn (The Eternal Rose)
[NG]
Source: Core Rulebook pg. 440
Edicts: be peaceful, choose and perfect an art, lead by example, see the beauty in all things
Anathema: destroy art or allow it to be destroyed, unless saving a life or pursuing greater art; refuse to accept surrender
Areas of Concern: art, beauty, love, and music
Shelyn watches over existence with a kind and loving eye, encouraging mortals to make the best of their lives by spreading love, art, and beauty as best they can. Even the crudest artistic awakenings are worthy of praise in the goddess’s eyes, as they represent an individual’s expression of life’s trials and triumphs. She believes every creature is worthy of love and capable of creating art in their own way. Shelyn’s religion does not require chastity, fidelity, or a particular relationship structure, as the passion of early romance is a facet of love just as important and valid as the comfortable trust between a long-married couple. However, she does make the distinction between courtship and pure carnal desire, and she prefers that trysts blossom into more meaningful relationships along the way.
By focusing on love that isn't just about attraction, but as the feeling of connection and beauty between all people, in this case as an expression of art. While sex is still there, it is at best tertiary to her portfolio as the goddess of love and beauty, love for friends, love for lovers, love for children and parents, love of art, and so on.
don't copy the lesbian polycule though
>I am thinking of going for a sort of "love is the foundation for all goodness" vibe
Sounds like you need a grandmotherly goddess.
Honestly just making her appearance that of an old woman would do wonders for detering most coomers
Why don't you look up "love" in the fucking dictionary, since there's about ten definitions, you distilled cum sauce?
This is not a very loving attitude, anon
Just a little tough love.
Probably a lot of hospitality and generosity.
these anons are right
make your focus of love around gatherings at the dinner table
even the symposium and phaedras both start out with the participants eating and drinking wine together.
That sounds a lot like Mara from Elder Scrolls.
Marriage, Family, Community, those are her virtues.
In Skyrim her amulet helps with Restoration magic, usually used for healing and warding against undead spells
The only reason Mara can be a goddess of platonic love is because Dibella is ruling over the the erotic side of it.
Can't have a Goddess rule over everything that can be considered love and not include the sexy bits. You either shrink down her domain to exclude anything related to sex and give whats left over to another God OR not make her a Goddess of Love at all.
I'm honestly amazed I have to comment on it, but have you tried actually taking love as classic romantic definition? Without nu-age cynic bullshit?
Followers of love goddess don't have to be boisterous, lovely or even attractive, and behave more like matchmakers, but through divine favour able to actually see if the people fit each other to marry and stay together?
Must be a novel concept for zoomshits.
ez
just make it a guy and it'll be easier
I think that the Norse might actually have had a god like that.
God platonic love and compassion? That's literally Jesus!
Jesus is a lich, extending his power via a deathcult that enshrines bones of his officers (saints) and engaging in rites that ape cannibalism of his living body.
If this thread is still up in a few hours, I can post something from my setting.
Okay, so, in my low-magic dark fantasy setting, the pagan goddess of love is also the goddess of hearth (and thus fire), home, ale, work, and celebration. She values loyalty to your family (especially to your partner), and the will to work hard, and play harder. She also doesn't mind killing, if done to protect one's own home or family. My players know that she will also provide benefits to erotic situations if needed, but don't make too much of a hassle out of it.
She is greatly appreciated by many people living in remote villages, where the Light-Goddess's (which is 'TOTALLY NOT CHRISTIANITY') priestesses do not proselytize so frequently. To be fair, most people who are not pious servants of the Light most often pray to the fire-goddess, and grant her tributes in form of coins and food in exchange for her blessings.
(Feel free to ask for more, if you wish.)
Show by example that sex has nothing to do with love, having the lust cult being mentally deranged disloyal and very broken people that exist only to hedonistically seek pleasures not as a reward but as the sole reason for existence, and how hollow and empty are the moment they stop being youthful and sexy. Literally what people are IRL that sleep around.
Divorce the concept of love from the hole dynamic that modern westoids view it through. Love is about cherishing and positive feelings toward something. People can selflessly love their dogs or children to the point of unhesitatingly sacrificing their life for them without ever once thinking even for a moment of exploring their holes. Boromir and Aragorn loved each other. Portray what love actually is, not just what the broken lumps of flesh that make up modern day society have perverted it's meaning into.
Gee warhammer when did you get here? We get it. You're the traddest of the trad, able to divine the truths of the ancient world and the path we all deviated from...While Cummin all over your chest as you jerk off on Ganker. Get the fuck over yourself yo self aggrandizing fuck.
Love is not sexual and you do not need to have five illicit tabs open.
Eldath
A goodess that encourages strong healthy interpersonal relationships. No matter if it's romantic, familial, friendship, or just being cordial to others.
Like others have said, bportrating the goddess as a motherly figure is good. Maybe with being wise about matters of dealing with the ups and downs in life and how to understand and deal with people in general. Like the persona of a wise grandmother.
Read Plato.
What does he have to do with anything? I thought that he was a philosopher.
In Symposium he discusses different kinds of love and love both from theological and philosophical side. Much of the time the dialogue is centered around Eros, the god of love.
Literally just copy and paste Ishtar, who was the goddess of both love and war
That just makes the religion even hornier.
I know this haram and may get me banned, but what you're looking for is an optimistic saturday morning cartoon vibe of universal love, like Care-a-Lot or Sesame Street or Equestria. You might feel like your god's sermons shouldn't sound like they belong on PBS, but if you want a religion focused on love and you also want it to be child-safe, then it's going to sound like it belongs on PBS. Just do it anyway.
Supposedly the Christian god is a god of love so, I guess, nuns? Should make most people stop thinking about sex
He’s more of a god of everything, so he’s only technically a Love god.
In Christian theology, everything is made and held together by the love of god. The love of god is not "Cuddly vibes", but the method that that which is above, and that which is below get along and behave to reach the same end. You coud say your cells "love" your body, and you hopefully "love" your cells enough that you take care of yourself. So the Christian Trinity is a god of love, that creates and rules everything with that love. Really, I think if they are going for feminine love, they could look to catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary to find the fitting and very explicitly not sexual love.
Real-world gods take credit for portfolios that they didn't earn and don't promote. It's not like in fantasy where Jesus would have to kill Venus and take her profile.
Jesus did kill Venus though. Or do you see anyone worshipping her anymore?
Well, we named a planet after her. Does that count?
A planet also known as the morning star
> I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Revelation 22:16. Jesus clearly mantled Venus
>Revelation
>not canon
this is just your fanfic
Tie love to gravity and then you have a powerful goddess that holds reality together. Also read the first 40 verses of the De Rerum Natura
Look into Rahja from The Dark Eye maybe. She's a goddess of love (including the physical aspects of it), but also of harmony and mental well-being. Helping people get over their arguments and assisting with traumas, depressions and that kinda jazz.
Basically the goddess of hookers and mental healthcare.
What about ways to gods of Life that are more than basically this?
Also, for your thing, what about making the love goddess also the goddess of hatred? That duality would also tie into the war god thing others have mentioned.
This is not a perfect answer but I think of it every time I hold hands with someone.
Simple, just make it the domain of a different god, maybe the love god's twin. Or, alternatively, just run with it full-tilt.
Make it familial. A love goddess is a doting mother that sees the best in her children. She sees greatness in the small, and encourages the protection of the weak and downtrodden. Clerical members would likely focus on gathering alms for the sake of providing healing to those who can't afford it, or keeping orphanages well maintained, offering education to all, and in a fantasy setting full of monsters probably providing weapons or magical wards to those who will defend the weak.
Can't have a mother without a father, make it a God+Goddess pair and with cleric+preistess pairs to symbolize the religions parental protection of it's believers
That would make different interpretation of love and generally ruins the intent.
Goddess of Love already has a husband/lover, he doesn't need to share portfolio directly.
>That would make different interpretation of love
That's the point. You WANT the focus to shift away from the eros. Following the cliche of "Love is feminine, so It has to be a Goddess" and expecting it half of her domain to not also be about sex is simply naive.
The Gods in the Greek pantheon don't rule over a single domain, some of the Gods even share domains as well.
No, the point to introduce goddess of Love, not Lust.
And you go back to the beginning and mix it up together like a tool.
>without it being taken immediately as "haha sex"?
Don't have the divine avatar/clergy address sexual matters or dress or act sexually, except that lovemaking in relationships is good and the clergy is allowed marriage. Have them dress and behave modestly. Basically, take some of the qualities of an ideal Amish family and mix it in with whatever else is needed.
what would a chosen, or favored soul of a matronly love goddess be like?
Someone who is generally pleasant to be around, without regard of their deficiencies or weaknesses. Could be a naive boy, could be a bald fat bastard, could be a crone, could be a tomboy - but one whose personality is full of love towards everything.
How do your grandparents act with one another? Couples don't magically stop being in love because their bodies are too feeble or ugly for sex. On the contrary, they would know what love is better than anyone since they've been in love with the same person for roughly 50 years. Figure out what being in love mean to those couples and maybe you'll understand.
Love is not about procreation, as procreation in fact egoistical act. Love is about devotion.
Love is the death of Ego.It's something that destroys You, turning you into a mindless servant of the other person, or even a part of it.
The peak of love is to disassemble yourself and become food.
Despite your cringe, you are hitting on a type of love. Family love requires sacrifice and temperance. You must devote resources to maintain it, and abstain from things that threaten it. It doesn't 'dismember' you, rather you become one of its members. The binding spirit of family has authority, that tells you what to be, and assigns roles: Father, Mother, Child. It tells you how you must act to fit yourself to it, and you support it, loving it more than yourself. This relationship is the ideal for Families, Countries, really any human organization. These single powers made up of multitudes inform how everyone acts and perceives, so self sacrifice is the essential act of participation, and is at the core of all reality.
But procreation is egotistical if you are a psychopath. Raising good, healthy children requires sacrifice. The desire for sex without procreation is much more self-serving.
If anything. I am just giving an inspirational idea to OP, not trying to be serious on the subject. Like and idea of a Goddess who understands love not in human terms.
You also position your views on love through humanity prism. But humans weren't first creatures in any fantasy world, nor should their understanding of love be the default one.
In Perfume, the height of love is to eat and I actually rather agree with it.
What a good god fearing human mindset this is, picture perfect generic slot A description too.
I don't like that the weeb just reinvented the body of Christ
Make her the goddess of Hate. A Yin/Yang style goddess of Love and Hate based around the idea Love and Hate are the same emotion: the object or persons importance is greater than your own. You would sacrifice yourself to save a loved one, just as you would have a nice day to make sure you also killed someone you hate. So her followers show perfect zeal. They will do anything and everything in pursuit of their goals.
Focus more on the non-romantic loves.
This board used to be creative..
A god of love is worshipped by young men wishing to court a lady. As proof of manhood and worth as a husband they pick up the lance and must prove their virtue as a Knight for one year. If he proves his heart is true then their love shall last their life time and the god blesses them with strong children.
Love is expressed via 1 year of sacrifice for the Knight.. He proves he has compassi9n and he's willing to protect his family and his community to protect other families. He's strong both mentally and physically. An ideal father. With proven compassion and the motivation to act when needed.
Think Empire knights with a house dedicated to the love god. Sex never comes into it because its about courtship and sex doesn't happen til later. The blessing leads to healthier children or maybe reversing infertility. It's about family and community not porn addiction. The god doesn't need a human form, it could be a location like a magic lake or some rare type of tree a Knight have to find and lay his oath down too. Step 1 in the knight path could be the couple going to a tree and making a vow together. The woman to build a home for her warrior and the warrior to prove his might to become a strong father.
That was easy as fuck and zero sex bullshit. Love means family and community. A full belly and laughter between kin. Sex doesn't compare to the big picture.