The craft of designing belief systems, rituals, clergy, and spiritual practices that feel real and meaningful within your fictional world.
Religion in worldbuilding means creating the belief systems your characters live by, argue about, kill for, and draw comfort from. It covers everything from the gods themselves (if they exist in your world) to the rituals people perform, the clergy who hold power, the heresies that get you burned, and the everyday superstitions that shape how a farmer plants crops. The key question isn't just 'what do people believe?' but 'how does that belief change how they act?'
Religion is one of the most powerful motivators in human history, and cutting it from your world removes an enormous source of conflict, comfort, community, and meaning. Characters who pray, doubt, convert, or rebel against their faith feel more human. A world with a living religion has festivals, taboos, architecture, and moral arguments your plot can draw from endlessly.
Herbert explores how religion can be deliberately engineered (the Missionaria Protectiva) and how genuine belief can grow from manufactured prophecy.
Father Earth as a hostile entity inverts typical creation myths. The world's 'religion' is built around survival and the fear of a planet that actively hates you.
Pratchett dissects the relationship between gods and believers, asking what happens when the institution outgrows the deity it was built to serve.
Show a character making a hard choice because of their faith. Does a soldier spare an enemy because his religion forbids killing the unarmed? Does a healer refuse treatment because illness is considered divine punishment?
Even within a single faith, there are denominations, heresies, reformers, and atheists. Religious diversity creates some of your richest internal conflicts.
Draw from multiple sources and adapt them to your world's specific conditions. Ask what beliefs would naturally emerge from your world's magic, geography, and history.
Create a religion for your world by answering five questions: What do they believe happens after death? What act is considered the worst sin? What does a weekly worship service look like? Who can become clergy, and who can't? What's one thing outsiders find strange about this faith? Write your answers in 15 minutes, then draft a short scene showing a character practicing this religion.