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View Full Version : Seeking fitting Deity in Forgotten Realms[3.5]



Grey Paladin
2009-04-01, 05:47 PM
I'm having a hard time finding a deity for my FR character. He is basically a nihilist and his idealogy is outlined below:

He is not as much evil as utterly amoral - he believes that ethics are basically aesthetics and they have no inherent value, and that cosmic Alignment (such as the one detected by spells) is a construct created by the gods and not native to the universe. There is no inherent meaning to life or any action within and no course of action is truly better than the other - it all depends on what we consider to be beautiful and of personal worth.
Life is a game where you decide upon the victory conditions, and like a game winning doesn't truly gives you anything.

Being Faithless may fit him, but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible so he can be resurrected.

Thanks in advance.

Rhiannon87
2009-04-01, 06:05 PM
Yikes. That's a tricky one. Any of the elemental deities might work for a character like that... They're all neutral, and don't really have any strong attachments to their followers or morality. I'd avoid Kossuth (god of fire) as he has a large following in Thay and can be associated with certain moral standards, simply by virtue of his followers. Akadi (air), Istishia (water), or Grumbar (earth) might all work.

For the description you've given, I'd suggest Akadi-- she's much less committed to any particular idea than the other elemental gods, and your character's relativist/nihilist view would probably fit well into that. If you've got Faiths and Pantheons, take a look at her in there... if not, feel free to PM me and I'll send you some info.

Keld Denar
2009-04-01, 06:08 PM
Maybe go with Ao, the Overgod. He's impartial to the will of mortals, being so far transcended from them. He only really steps in when the lesser gods beneath him get into a tussle. That would fit your characters "I'm above your worldly morals and ethics and gods. My will is pure" kinda attitude.

I just hope you aren't praying for spells from that guy. GL getting any granted...

Thane of Fife
2009-04-01, 06:09 PM
Someone amoral and scorning the gods as basically holier-than-thou brats does not seem the type to worship a deity.

You might be able to argue that someone like Cyric is using him as a pawn. Or Malar is sort of like the God of Survival of the Fittest, which could be vaguely appropriate.

Mystral
2009-04-01, 06:11 PM
How about one of the Elemental gods (Akadi, Kossuth etc.). They don't give a **** about humans or their prayers, they are just there to govern their element. If they even notice you, either did them a very, very big favor or pissed them off to great extends. They are amorral, Akadis Law for Example states "Do what you want as long as you don't loose your freedom in the process".

Paramour Pink
2009-04-01, 06:12 PM
Bocob? Not sure if he's a deity in Forgotten Realms, but he's Uncaring...so, probabl counts fr something to a nihilist. Maybe. :smalleek:

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-04-01, 06:21 PM
Boccob doesn't exist in FR. I'd agree that Ao might be an interesting choice, provided your character doesn't cast divine spells. Then you're up the crick.

AslanCross
2009-04-01, 06:42 PM
I think Nihilism firmly puts him in the camp of Shar's followers. She's the only deity I know of who hates everyone else. She does join up with Cyric once in a while, but I think her only goal is to ruin the universe.

Grey Paladin
2009-04-01, 06:52 PM
Great advice, all.

Thane: Can't one worship another he sees as a far more powerful equal?

Aslan: Amorality != immorality, although it is sometimes so.

RTGoodman
2009-04-01, 06:57 PM
I didn't think Ao allowed worshipers, but the elemental ones sound like they could be a good bet for you. I'll take a look through the FR book later to check to see if there's another, though.

Thane of Fife
2009-04-01, 07:05 PM
Great advice, all.

Thane: Can't one worship another he sees as a far more powerful equal?

Sure, I guess, but the way you worded it, it implies to me that he sees the gods as basically foisting their own (fake) morals on everybody. He might respect their power, but I think that worship implies a respect for the being as a whole.

Grey Paladin
2009-04-01, 07:26 PM
Thane: Imposing your concept of beauty upon the world is the ultimate goal of all, so he may simply view gods as the tyrannical few who succeeded (although he finds freedom of thought more appealing than propaganda).

By the way, this XKCD strip illustrates what I was trying to say to Aslan

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/Shdow/Nihilism.png

AslanCross
2009-04-01, 07:35 PM
I'm aware, but I think Shar has a deeply-ingrained sense of mistrust of the deities in general. You don't need to be Neutral Evil yourself, and you might not even be a hardcore follower of Shar, but I think by far her dogma would be the most interesting to such a character.

EDIT: Thinking about it again, I guess I suggested Shar because nihilism automatically rings the Shar bell. But if you go "look! Squirrels!," then maybe you could at least respect Tymora. Another possibility is Shaundakul, since your character might see life as a journey that doesn't necessarily go anywhere, but the journey is more important than the destination anyway. At least either way you can still revere a relatively important deity instead of some minor demigod of underwater basket weaving or loaded dice rolling.

Archpaladin Zousha
2009-04-01, 07:45 PM
What IS it with you people and underwater basket weaving?! :smallconfused:

MickJay
2009-04-01, 08:06 PM
What IS it with you people and underwater basket weaving?! :smallconfused:

You should try that sometime yourself, great fun, great fun. :smallcool:

Faulty
2009-04-01, 08:33 PM
Shar is the first deity that comes to mind when you use "nihilistic" and "FR deity" in the same sentence. If he doesn't believe in morality, maybe he could be a hedonist? Maybe he could worship Sharess? Though she's also very commited against evil and I believe used to be a goddess of war. There's actually an Exalted PrC in the Player's Guide to Faerun for followers of Sharess who focus on the Good part of her Chaotic Good alignment. Still, her clergy runs brothels for Christ's sake.

Keld Denar
2009-04-01, 08:39 PM
What IS it with you people and underwater basket weaving?! :smallconfused:

Proof that CO can optimize anything! (http://forums.gleemax.com/leaving.php?destination=http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D873736)

LibraryOgre
2009-04-01, 08:41 PM
I'm having a hard time finding a deity for my FR character. He is basically a nihilist and his idealogy is outlined below:

He is not as much evil as utterly amoral - he believes that ethics are basically aesthetics and they have no inherent value, and that cosmic Alignment (such as the one detected by spells) is a construct created by the gods and not native to the universe. There is no inherent meaning to life or any action within and no course of action is truly better than the other - it all depends on what we consider to be beautiful and of personal worth.
Life is a game where you decide upon the victory conditions, and like a game winning doesn't truly gives you anything.

Being Faithless may fit him, but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible so he can be resurrected.

Thanks in advance.

Ok, so he's not much for the constructs of morality.

What does he like? What does he consider beautiful and of personal worth?

As written, I can see him having a few deities who he gets along with, and possibly respects.

1) If he's like the XKCD comic, Lliira. He's not out to moralize... he's out to enjoy the world as it is. He's not terribly worried about what other people consider beautiful or of personal worth... he's enjoying himself.

2) If he's a bit more militant, he might go with Tempus. All life is a competition. All life is a battle. He doesn't GIVE victory to people... he lets the deserving win.

3) Kossuth has been mentioned as a negative, but I would kinda lean towards him. He has a somewhat Darwinian view, though your character wouldn't get along the church itself (which tends to say "Only by worshiping Kossuth will you be strong enough to survive.")

4) Silvanus. Forget about morality. Forget about beauty. Life doesn't care about these things. Life is. All that other crap is dressing to the fact that life goes on. For your character, balance isn't an ideal, it is simply how life works.

Just a few thoughts on it.

Devils_Advocate
2009-04-02, 11:30 PM
Mark basically said what I was gonna. What are this guy's personal victory conditions? What a character opts to do with his life might just conceivably influence his choice of deity. (Or possibly vice versa if he finds one god's ideas particularly compelling, but that doesn't sound too likely for this guy.)

Boccob, in a setting where he exists, is great deity for an amoral character... who is at least very interested in, and ideally practices, magic. For an anti-intellectual hunter-gatherer, probably not. :smalltongue:

Gods aren't defined solely by ideology. In addition to stuff like honor, justice, betrayal, murder, theft, liberation, etc, divine portfolios also contain stuff like knowledge, plants, roads, seas, wind, crafting, and so on.

Sourcebooks list the gods by the classes that typically worship them, as well as alignment. It's sort of strongly implied that your choice of deity is strongly influenced by what you do.

But also where you live, and what you are. Basically, it comes down to what parts of reality you're personally involved with. Ideally, you want a god who'll potentially be helpful, right? Like, if you live underwater, worshiping a god of fire probably won't get you much, but worshiping a god of water might be beneficial.

Mo_the_Hawked
2009-04-02, 11:56 PM
Perhaps Mask?

Triaxx
2009-04-03, 06:29 AM
Waukeen, or Amaunator. They're both dead if I'm remembering correctly, so they don't really care. Unless they got better and I didn't know it.

AslanCross
2009-04-03, 10:04 AM
If you go by 4e, though---Lathander is Amaunator.

LibraryOgre
2009-04-03, 02:38 PM
And Waukeen came back in 3.x.

Texas Jedi
2009-04-03, 02:51 PM
I don't think Shar is right for you because she ultimataly wants to end all things and return to nothingness.

Shaundakul would be good because he is a good of travel, and he cares more about the journey than the destination.

Tymora's sister might fit the evil amoral part because she is the bringer of bad luck.

The B*tch Queen (goddess of the Deep) is quite fickle and doesn't really care about anything only just hating other more beatiful goddess.

You might try worshipping Mystul (sp? first god of magic) she only truly cared about the growth and spread of magic. Of course she was killed when the Kingdom of Netheral (Sp) collapsed but you could be a small hold out.

You could also try the first God of Death. His name started with a J I think. He got tired of being a god and gave his powers to others. He has a very jaded, and bitter view on life and if he is still a god he might work.

Thane of Fife
2009-04-03, 02:58 PM
And Waukeen came back in 3.x.

Actually, I think that there's a 2nd edition module devoted to rescuing Waukeen, so technically, she came back then.

Shadowbane
2009-04-03, 06:41 PM
Shar was the first goddess to come to my mind, personally.

Scorpina
2009-04-03, 07:21 PM
Lliiira seems to fit best with what you describe in the first post, with your whole 'life is a game' stance. Otherwise, as others have said, either Tymora/Beshaba (depending on alignment) or Shaundakul would work.

In the same vein as the elemental deity recommendations, however, maybe another uncaring deity like Gond or Oghma would be appropriate?

Kalirren
2009-04-03, 07:21 PM
I'm having a hard time finding a deity for my FR character. [...] Being Faithless may fit him, but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible so he can be resurrected.


It would, actually, but being "Faithless" is sort of weird; the way it works is that a soul "knows" to which plane it belongs, and if it doesn't belong anywhere, it is then cast into the Wall. One need not explicitly worship a deity, though many do.

It would be entirely appropriate for a character to start out Faithless in this way, but come his death, if his death were meaningful, the character's soul might come to know, in a sense, what he traded his life for. That would -give- him a destination plane and thereby allow his soul to be preserved for resurrection, despite his having acted Faithlessly for the majority of his life.

Yet for this to work, it's necessary that you and your GM have an understanding about where he might end up going if he were to become a last-minute convert, so here are some suggestions:



He is basically a nihilist (Shar) and his ideology is outlined below:

He is not as much evil as utterly amoral - he believes that ethics are basically aesthetics and they have no inherent value (Beshaba?), and that cosmic Alignment (such as the one detected by spells) is a construct created by the gods and not native to the universe (Shar again). There is no inherent meaning to life or any action within and no course of action is truly better than the other - it all depends on what we consider to be beautiful and of personal worth (Sune!?).
Life is a game where you decide upon the victory conditions, and like a game winning doesn't truly gives you anything. (Tempus)

Devils_Advocate
2009-04-03, 11:01 PM
The 3E Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting sort of talks about that (on page 290), going so far as to say that a player should never be punished for not writing down a patron deity on his character sheet. They discuss it as more of a metagame thing, however. That is to say, they seem to be covering the possibility of a player not having decided that aspect of his character yet, and not so much the possibility of the character having been explicitly faithless up till death. Basically, a character is not assumed to be faithless until declared otherwise. They say that the player should choose a deity that the character has shown interest in, at least by how he was played if not by explicitly talking about the deity. (Unless the player decides not to choose a deity, in which case the character is faithless.)

So, you as a player are allowed to put off this decision until your character bites it. Personally, I think that I'd want to know my character's religious leanings before I started playing him, though, even if his faith wasn't really important to him. But that's me.

Interestingly, choosing a patron deity apparently doesn't confer any sort of obligation: Your patron deity is just your favorite deity. You can't even become one of the False by betraying your faith unless you actively made a commitment to it first. Presumably your god could personally reject you if you did something to really piss him off, but that would probably take something pretty severe. The FR gods need worshippers (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly), after all, and I assume that already dead ones count.

krossbow
2009-04-03, 11:06 PM
Be an Ur-priest with no god. that would fit your character's ideals

Renegade Paladin
2009-04-04, 08:42 AM
I'm having a hard time finding a deity for my FR character. He is basically a nihilist and his idealogy is outlined below:

He is not as much evil as utterly amoral - he believes that ethics are basically aesthetics and they have no inherent value, and that cosmic Alignment (such as the one detected by spells) is a construct created by the gods and not native to the universe. There is no inherent meaning to life or any action within and no course of action is truly better than the other - it all depends on what we consider to be beautiful and of personal worth.
Life is a game where you decide upon the victory conditions, and like a game winning doesn't truly gives you anything.

Being Faithless may fit him, but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible so he can be resurrected.

Thanks in advance.
Pick one, but Cyric's the one actually pulling his strings. That's the way this kind of thing works in the Realms, y'know. :smallamused: An elemental deity would sort of fit, but keep in mind that he's wrong about his proposition: If he acts in an immoral way, he will be evil whether he accepts it or not. Faithless is a bad choice, I agree, but he'll end up as one of the False pretty much no matter what unless he has a change of heart before he dies for the last time.

The problem with this idea is that most of the neutral deities have a particular non-alignment ethos (knowledge for Oghma, nature for Silvanus, and so forth). None of them are particularly nihilistic, except for Hoar, and his bag is vengeance, so if your character isn't out for revenge against someone, revering Hoar doesn't make much sense.