Fantasy religion and culture

[salamandraga]

So originally I was thinking about adding a few little things to help flesh out my fantasy religion while avoiding cultural appropriation. I've created the mythology and come up with the structure of the faith. My characters pray, blaspheme, and utter minced oaths. I've made holidays, festivals, and folklore. I've got holdouts still clutching to

Comments

[salamandraga]

I sort of had it that men took over all the things that had military applications. So mathematics and engineering would be used for fortifications, siege machines, and artillery - though then it would have been correctly timing the explosion of fireballs and other things so that they only went off when you wanted them to - rather than cannons and mortars. Materials science would be theirs as well since chemistry and metallurgy go hand in hand with weapons making.

Magic is seen as the big thing, but being that it requires a strong background in math and science it excludes anyone who doesn't have those things. Although I do like the idea of a society split that way with women controlling practical sciences and men controlling magic.

edit: There is one thing though. There is a division within medicine. Doctors - those making diagnoses - are usually women while surgeons are almost always men. Apothecaries are split between the two since lab work and synthesizing medicine from chemical elements is a male thing, but working with plants and extracting medicine from them is seen as a womanly sort of thing.