reverancepavane | underpriest in charge of waterworks (Reply)

This is mainly a note to myself, but I was just thinking about the societal roles in a mundane fantasy campaign (that being, one without magic).

First of all, you have Those Who Toil. The labourers, and in a primarily agrarian society, they are peasants. Even craftsmen and artisan are just a higher class of labourer. So this is our first "caste."

Then we have Those Who Fight. The soldiers. While a society may draw the members of this caste from the first caste, usually the right to bear weapons in society elevates the individual. If only by the fact that if there is no actual society, they can hit the labourer with their weapon and take their produce. Lets call this the second caste.

Now what about the specialists, the experts and bureaucrats. In Ancient Sumerian myth, skills and knowledge were often the provenance of the various temples. The Me were literally the sacred knowledge required to perform tasks. Some of the Me overlapped that of the duties of the first two castes, in that they taught the members of those castes how to perform more specialised duties (such as make a pot or maneuver an army). So what if we make the priesthoods Those Who Teach, and by extension, Those Who Think.

The last caste is those who have risen to the top of the societal heap, Those Who Rule. They may naturally be drawn from the second or third caste, but tend not to be members of it any more (in an attempt to secure their position, if nothing else).

My interest here is in the third caste, that of our proposed priesthood, which exists, not because of any specific faith, but rather that it provides the specialists that make the society function. Now lets add the magic back in without changing the societal role of the priesthood. Suddenly what seems to be sacred to us isn't quite so sacred. The divine is no longer a thing of direct supernatural veneration. Instead the actions of the deity are seen in the application of knowledge. Much more in keeping with what we know of ancient religious practice.

Actually I think I like this world of priest-engineers and librarians.