Random thought of the day, have you ever placed or encountered a nunnery in a D&D setting? Or read about one in a module or setting document?

I know I've seen several write ups for monasteries, even within typical D&D polytheistic setups, but as far as I recall never a nunnery. What gives?

well, not D&D, but the Battle Nuns of Mordheim I used quite extensively in a WFRP campaign.

We've had plenty of the other sort of 'nunnery' show up in games... but not the religious sort.

I seem to recall a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure that includes an orphanage run by nuns.

I have in a couple AD&D games and worlds I created back in the day.

On a related note, I set a short Call of Cthulhu campaign in a medieval abbey inspired by The Name of the Rose, using the gameboard from Mystery of the Abbey:

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;953664Random thought of the day, have you ever placed or encountered a nunnery in a D&D setting? Or read about one in a module or setting document?

I know I've seen several write ups for monasteries, even within typical D&D polytheistic setups, but as far as I recall never a nunnery. What gives?

I don't know what gives, but I'm sure I've seen a few nunneries in games run with a typical D&D-inspired settings, as well as male monasteries, and mixed-gender monasteries. Different games, I guess?
It's more common in historical games, though, I'd give you that.

The only one I can think of is the one in White Dwarf's "Irillian". I think D&D at least has tended to move away from the kind of medievalesque setting where they'd make sense. You do get occasional temples of (eg) Athena with all-female priesthood, not so much Christian type nunneries. "The Tough Guide to Fantasyland" has the recently-sacked-by-raiders nunnery as a standard trope/cliche of fantasy fiction but I don't think I've seen it in an RPG. I suspect these days in most of my games I wouldn't want the Unfortunate Implications.

The line from Shakespeare actually means nunnery as slang term for a brothel.  Apparently in the middle ages, the Church owned and operated many of them.

Most of the D&D monasteries are pretty clearly inspired by the Shaolin more than than the Western ones (as is the monk class) and I don't think there was a female equivalent of that sort of monk.

Though with that said, there was that one module that featured a pregen monk character who was a woman. C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness. She was from a monastery. So I guess they were co-ed.

QuoteThe Duke then turns and slowly bows to the last of your
group; the tall barefoot woman. "Of all you five," declares
the Duke, "Li Hon is the only one here who should not spend
the rest of her life in prison for some crime. I am deeply
honored, Li Hon, that your monastery saw fit to offer your
services to me as payment of this year's taxes."

My D&D settings tend to have religions which are their own things or, at the very least, not drawn from the trappings of Christianity.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745The line from Shakespeare actually means nunnery as slang term for a brothel.

This is not the case. Popular bit of nonsense, though.

The Sisters of Sigmar are a common sight in my WFRP games.

My Mazes & Minotaurs campaign has all female temples to Hera and the Amazons' have temples to Artemis.

My OD&D? I think I've only done co-ed temples.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745Apparently in the middle ages, the Church owned and operated many of them.

Not really. I mean, "the middle ages" being such a broad thing in time and space, and the Church doing all sorts of things, good and bad, it happened. But this is just a drive-by pot-shot. Pro-tip: lots of history for the last couple of hundred years has been written by those with an anti-Church axe to grind. A bit of deconstruction is required.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;953782My D&D settings tend to have religions which are their own things or, at the very least, not drawn from the trappings of Christianity.

I think that's most likely where it comes from. As the generic D&D experience gradually solidified on a ahistoric polytheistic setting, people only brought Christian trappings back in as needed. Since making a priesthood (or even temple, monastery, etc.) gender specific usually only puts limitations on the DM (or PCs if they want to play a cleric/monk from there), there's usually little reason to do so.


Plus, if you are a designer and want a female-only religion/priesthood in your game, you can always make something more like the FR's church of Eilestree (naked women in a circle of trees at midnight, praying to a moon goddess with kickass swords). :-P

Quote from: AsenRG;953685It's more common in historical games, though, I'd give you that.

That's definitely where I put them more often.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745Though with that said, there was that one module that featured a pregen monk character who was a woman. C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness. She was from a monastery. So I guess they were co-ed.

I believe the 3e PHB example monk was female. There's another example for that.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745The line from Shakespeare actually means nunnery as slang term for a brothel.

Justin already got to this, but there's precious little evidence that "nunnery" was ever a common term for brothel (there's very limited evidence that it was used in that way).  Even if the term did have that double meaning, the racier interpretation doesn't make sense in the context of the scene in Hamlet.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745The line from Shakespeare actually means nunnery as slang term for a brothel.  Apparently in the middle ages, the Church owned and operated many of them.

That's what our English Lit teacher told us. That why I mentioned our games having had plenty of the 'other sort' of nunnery... but none of the churchy variety.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;953782This is not the case. Popular bit of nonsense, though.

Meh... I've seen a fair bit of scholarly argument that it WAS a term used at the time, such as a famous prostitute being referred to as 'The Nun'. Whether Hamlet himself meant it that way... I think it, like other things in that play, is up to the viewer. It does kinda slot in with other elements of the play having double meanings or masked intent.

Quote from: JeremyR;953745Most of the D&D monasteries are pretty clearly inspired by the Shaolin more than than the Western ones (as is the monk class) and I don't think there was a female equivalent of that sort of monk.

Wing Chun was canonically created by a Shaolin nun.