Crystal Dragon Jesus
Crystal Dragon Jesus is a fantasy-related trope that /tg/ has appropriated from its long-time nemesis. In a nutshell, it refers to fictional religions that have very strong and/or clear inspiration in the form of real world religions... namely, Christianity (and, to a much lesser extent, Islam and Judaism), since Shinto, Buddhism and Hindu religions all look very much like the mythical/pagan religions that were freely used in fantasy throughout its history. This allows the designer a way to include elements of Christianity that they like (or want to bash, it works both ways), without all the incredibly messy stuff of just porting Christianity into the setting 1-for-1.
Per TVtropes' description, common trappings of the Crystal Dragon Jesus religion are Christian-looking priestly vestments, nuns, confessionals, church design styles, and crosses. The major difference is that the central figure (or figures; there's very likely to be a Satan analogue too) is always explicitly not the Christian style God, but instead an animistic spirit or pagan-flavored god. These religions often use a very firmly female deity, due to a combination of neo-pagan influences and the obvious contrast between the fake religion and the very male-cast God of Christianity.
For Crystal Dragon Islam, major definitive traits unique to it tend to be militant expansionism, coming from the east, and staunch monotheism.
Examples
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- Ironclaw: The Church of S'Allumer is a Crystal Dragon Jesus-religion to the point it even has heterodoxies and heresies based on actual doctrinal disputes of historical Catholicism.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Oh, boy... you got an hour?
- Bahamut and Pelor both have varying levels of Christianity to their basic church.
- The entire Dragonlance pantheon is based on Mormon theology.
- Al-Qadim is ruled over by a Crystal Dragon Islam faith.
- Saint Cuthbert is a Greyhawk deity based on an actual Catholic saint.
- Eberron has the Church of the Silver Flame, which is strongly based on both positive and negative elements of Christanity. In fact their symbol, minus the coloring, is an old christian symbol, being described by Clement of Alexandria and other places. It also get bonus points for resembling the Coat of arms of the Church of Norway which actually is a cross holding axes.
- The Church of the Triad in the Forgotten Realms is a faith that worships Tyr, Torm and Ilmater simulanteously, in a way that is reminiscent of Christian doctrine of God as The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
- Ravenloft has the faiths of Ezra (Gothic Christianity with a female God/Jesus) and Hala (neopagans/wiccans disguised as Catholic Nuns).
- Ptolus has the Church of Lothian, which is quite obviously Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off. The official, if now discredited, dogma that all other gods are false ones and actually demons in disguise, the god being a mortal who became a god after death, said ascension coming as a result of death by crucifixion... the holy symbol of Lothian is basically a Celtic cross (a cross with a circle around the conflux of the arms) with a depiction of Lothian crucified on top, as is the most common depiction of a Christian cross.
- Golarion has two major examples. Iomedae, patron goddess of paladins, is more Crystal Dragon Jeanne d'Arc than Jesus, but her church has a distinct flavor of medieval Christian chivalric orders and they refer to their holy wars as crusades. There's also Sarenrae - she herself is closer to a cross between Pelor (Neutral Good deity of healing and the sun) and Eilistraee (beautiful and benevolent goddess with special interests in redemption and graceful swordplay) than she is to any real-world divinity, although she has common areas of concern with Apollo and Mithra. However the aesthetic of her faithful is solidly Crystal Angel Islam, with minarets, dervishes, calls to prayer, a Hashshashin-equivalent, and, at least for the clergy, abstention from alcohol. (Probably because her worship is most popular and influential in Golarion's equivalent of the Middle East.)
- Warhammer 40,000 has obvious Roman Catholic trappings to both the Imperial Faith and the Adeptus Mechanicus.
- In 7th Sea, the Vaticine Church, Objectionist, and Ussuran Orthodox Churches stand in for Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Russian Orthodoxy in Theah, a swashbuckling, sorcerous version of medieval Europe. The Vaticine Church also subtly incorporates a few elements of Islam as well. Avalon, the local version of England, even has its version of the Anglican church.
- World of Darkness:
- Vampire: The Requiem has the Lancea et Sanctum, which is literally the Abrahamic faiths reinterpreted by Vampires, and bitterly opposing the Circle of the Crone, which is vampire neo-paganism.
- In Mage: The Awakening, the Exarch known as The Father is essentially a dark and twisted version of the Christian God, and his Ministry was founded more or less as an attempt to reconcile Christianity with the reality of the Exarchs. Likewise, the Guardians of the Veil have a Jesus-figure called the Hieromagus, the one mage who will prove immune to Paradox and lead Awakened society to enlightenment.
- In RuneQuest, Glorantha's Rune of Death, which symbolizes the sword of Humakt, God of Death, and thusly terrifies the undead, is a cross.
- Anima: Beyond Fantasy has the Church of Abel, complete with a crucifixion (though this guy didn't come back), and purge (which continues to some extent) against anyone who isn't 100% human. The closer to the setting's present day one gets, the more tenuous the parallel becomes but it doesn't disappear completely.
- In Fading Suns, the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun is very similar to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Churches, in fact the Prophet Zebulon was a priest of those of those faiths, historians aren't sure which. It even has analogues of the Templars, the Inquisition, and Protestants.
- In the Iron Kingdoms setting, the Church of Morrow is clear analogue for Christianity, especially Catholicism: It descends from a preexisting religion via a saviour-prophet (Morrow), and still worships that religion's god (or at least claims to), has saints (Ascended), a Vatican-equivalent, an emphasis on charity and generosity, and even Western-style Warrior Monks (the Precursor Knights).
- Magic: The Gathering has the Church of Serra (which worships a deified female wizard) on one plane, and the Church of Avacyn (which worships a female warrior-Jesus angel) on Innistrad. Meanwhile, Ravnica is home to the Orzhov Syndicate, who are basically Catholic Mafioso Necromancers who worship greed.
- In GURPS Alchemical Baroque, The Architecturalists and the Horologicalists, the two dominant religions of the “Known Lands,” share a common (vague) root and both believe in "a single, transcendent, vaguely imagined God"; they stand in for Protestant and Catholic Christianity respectively.
- Trudvang has the Tenet of Nid, a religion centered around Gave, the one true, almighty, and all-knowing god who freed the Viranns from slavery and claimed them as his favored people. Since then they've been busy spreading the faith and converting people, through bloody crusades if necessary. They even have a female devil,
SmaugSimag.