In many roleplaying games, prophecy is often associated with divination magic or world-shaking metaplots, but as the (non-)events of today demonstrate, prophetic pronouncements may be a source of challenges, hazards, and opportunities in historical campaigns as well. It's not hard to see how one could turn the examples of Sabbatai Zevi, Manoel Dias Soeiro, Popé, or the Fifth Monarchists into patrons or (possibly sympathetic) antagonists for a 17th century campaign.
And there is also the "flavor" provided by the 17th century equivalent of the sandwich-board wearing heckler prophesying the end of the world, etc.
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, there's no reason why you could have a Savenarola show up and exhort the populace to a Bonfire of the Vanities.
Lot's of possibilities...
I have a few local 'prophets' scattered around in the game-world right now, but mostly their nutters without much influence. A really wide-scale phenomenon would be fun.
DeleteDo you remember the scene in Richard Lester's TTM of the monk (?) in a loin-cloth with a censer on his head? I once found a reference to this somewhere, but the right combination of Google keywords eludes me to find it again.