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Xallace
2010-02-20, 09:23 AM
I never... got, Wee Jas. Never really understood her reason for being among the main gods of the PHB other than what I suppose is tradition. Her portfolio (Death and Magic) is taken up by two other gods with much more focus on their respective domains. She doesn't seem to have much else, save the footnote on her being a goddess of "vanity."

So where does that leave the Witch Goddess? What really differentiates her from Boccob and Nerull? I've considered just dropping her from campaigns I DM, but I don't like letting material go to waste. What makes her interesting, and, if nothing really, how can I make her more interesting? Other than associating her music with Shakira, because I already do that.

Volkov
2010-02-20, 09:31 AM
Someone to get her powers stolen by Vecna in another one of his mad schemes for dominance. :P

Zom B
2010-02-20, 09:36 AM
I've never had a character worship: Fharlagn, Wee Jas, or any of the racial deities. I've just never seen a point in the first two at all, and the racial deities, well, I guess my characters don't have a lot of racial pride.

Ryuuk
2010-02-20, 09:41 AM
I see her as the god for scholars and historians. Her clergy would help any who wish it in posthumous affairs. Matters dealing with inheritances and burial ceremonies for the common folk and preserving the legacy arcanists and philosophers whose work was is recognized as important.

Volkov
2010-02-20, 09:41 AM
I've never had a character worship: Fharlagn, Wee Jas, or any of the racial deities. I've just never seen a point in the first two at all, and the racial deities, well, I guess my characters don't have a lot of racial pride.

Wee Jass isn't a racial deity for anyone but the extinct Suel Imperium. And they were just evil humans.

Volkov
2010-02-20, 09:43 AM
I see her as the god for scholars and historians. Her clergy would any who wish it in posthumous affairs. Matters dealing with inheritances and burial ceremonies for the common folk and preserving the legacy arcanists and philosophers whose deeds where greatly recognized.

At least, that's my take on it.

Boccob and Vecna are more focused on that then she is.

Tome
2010-02-20, 09:45 AM
Wee Jas is a very different approach to death than the other death gods.

Nerull wants everything to die, right now, and encourages undead. Raise Dead is not a spell his followers are encouraged to use, not when they have things like Create Undead.

Wee Jas is more of a goddess of the restful dead. She wants the dead to stay dead, for people to die at their appointed times and for them not to be disturbed. She almost certainly has a large body of rules regarding when it is and is not okay to bring someone back from the dead - whether with Animate Dead or Raise Dead. She isn't the screaming enemy of all that lives that Nerull is.

Volkov
2010-02-20, 09:48 AM
Wee Jas is a very different approach to death than the other death gods.

Nerull wants everything to die, right now, and encourages undead. Raise Dead is not a spell his followers are encouraged to use, not when they have things like Create Undead.

Wee Jas is more of a goddess of the restful dead. She wants the dead to stay dead, for people to die at their appointed times and for them not to be disturbed. She almost certainly has a large body of rules regarding when it is and is not okay to bring someone back from the dead - whether with Animate Dead or Raise Dead. She isn't the screaming enemy of all that lives that Nerull is.

Or the manipulative bastard who can outfox everything from Asmodeus to the Dark powers that Vecna is.

Ryuuk
2010-02-20, 09:51 AM
Boccob being the uncaring, I only really see arcanists worshiping him, with his clergy having no concern on matters beyond magic.

Vecna focuses on hiding the truth, likewise Nerull is known as the Foe of all that is Good. Their worship is doesn't seem like something that one would publicize.

Wee Jas hits the middle ground. She deals with death as something inevitable, not something to be necessarily avoided. She seems like the ideal good for the common folk to turn for when dealing with death. She's supposed to be the benign goddess of death.

Optimystik
2010-02-20, 09:54 AM
Actually, apart from being undead, Vecna doesn't have a whole lot to do with Death. Indeed, he spends his time defying it (Undeath) rather than embracing it like Wee Jas does.

Wee Jas represents the philosophical/detached side of death. It's just something that living beings have to deal with - no need to either seek it out before its time or avoid it. She is the Jergal to Vecna's Velsharoon.

She also wants knowledge spread and propogated (and so respects Boccob) which is quite the opposite of Vecna's belief, that people should always keep secrets and never share everything they know.

So no, they are nothing alike, apart from being a touch macabre. She was replaced by (and probably even is) the Raven Queen in 4e.

(Perhaps Vecna killed Wee Jas, elevating himself in power to a Greater Deity, yet she was so dedicated to death that she refused to defy her fate... proving how true she was to her portfolio, which then brought part of her essence back as the Raven Queen?)

Volkov
2010-02-20, 09:59 AM
Vecna is D&D's Doctor Doom. He may not be the most overtly powerful, but the damned man has got a plan for everything.

Armoury99
2010-02-20, 10:05 AM
Wee Jass isn't a racial deity for anyone but the extinct Suel Imperium. And they were just evil humans.

This is part of the problem: You're seeing her out of context. Back in the good old days she was strictly a deity of the Suel peoples, and had nothing to do with those upstart barbarians on the rest of the continent. Comparing her to Boccob is like comparing Odin with Zeus. Both gods with similar aspects but from completely diffierent pantheons.

Delve into older suppliments if you want more info, but in the meantime why not check out Weejasipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wee_Jas):smallsmile:

For me she's alsways had a distinctly different outlook than Boccob, Nerull and Vecna. She's more in to witchcraft, mediums, and ghost-busting. The women who walk in the grey lands of death and lay restless spirits, pray over the newly dead, and conduct funerals (and maybe a preeney goth goddess in love with her appearance and mystique too).

Volkov
2010-02-20, 10:09 AM
This is part of the problem: You're seeing her out of context. Back in the good old days she was strictly a deity of the Suel peoples, and had nothing to do with those upstart barbarians on the rest of the continent. Comparing her to Boccob is like comparing Odin with Zeus. Both gods with similar aspects but from completely diffierent pantheons.

Delve into older suppliments if you want more info, but in the meantime why not check out Weejasipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wee_Jas):smallsmile:

For me she's alsways had a distinctly different outlook than Boccob, Nerull and Vecna. She's more in to witchcraft, mediums, and ghost-busting. The women who walk in the grey lands of death and lay restless spirits, pray over the newly dead, and conduct funerals (and maybe a preeney goth goddess in love with her appearance and mystique too).
You mean the barbarians who obliterated her entire people with the rain of colorless fire? :P

magic9mushroom
2010-02-20, 10:10 AM
If Inevitables had a goddess, Wee Jas would be it.

She's, as others have said, more about the sanctity of death than about being the Reaper. Her priests would likely be the ones presiding at funerals a lot of the time. She also represents a more accessible perspective to magic.

juggalotis
2010-02-20, 10:11 AM
wee jas's purpose is as big as the dm is willing to make it :P

Volkov
2010-02-20, 10:11 AM
If Inevitables had a goddess, Wee Jas would be it.

She's, as others have said, more about the sanctity of death than about being the Reaper. Her priests would likely be the ones presiding at funerals a lot of the time. She also represents a more accessible perspective to magic.

Primus would object to her presence because she didn't file the necessary paper-work. :smalltongue:

Optimystik
2010-02-20, 10:22 AM
wee jas's purpose is as big as the dm is willing to make it :P

Thank you for contributing nothing to this discussion.


If Maruts had a goddess, Wee Jas would be it.

Fixed

bosssmiley
2010-02-20, 10:30 AM
The Core Beliefs article on Wee Jas in Dragon #350 made a lot more sense of this goddess of Magic, Death, Law and Love(!). SKR's take made her seem to be more an arbiter god, perhaps like Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries, than a classic sex-and-violence goddess like Ishtar or Freya.

One thing I did take issue with in SKR's write-up:


Wee Jas is the sage of the arcane, guardian of the afterlife, and the enforcer of the rules regarding such things. She is also a love goddess - queen of a realm that has no rules.

Anyone who knows anything about courtly love can tell you that this take on love is b0rked. The strictures of romance are just as complex and binding as any other code of conduct. They might be insane or profoundly dishonorable from an outsider's perspective (Lancelot is the poster boy here: jousting from a cart; fighting opponents one-handed; going mad because he slept with the wrong girl; stealing his liege lord's wife! - all for love), but there's a consistent internal logic to them.

Wee Jas' on-again,off-again love affair with Norebo, the Suel trickster god (and thus antithesis of the goddess of law), is a classic instance of "you shouldn't, but your heart tells you to" courtly love. The degree of doublethink required is all a little bit sophisticated and French...

Imagine Wee Jas as a bitch queen admixture of Morgan Le Fey and Queen Guinevere, and she suddenly makes a lot more sense. She's the smart, opinionated, seemingly contradictory girl of the Core pantheon. She's not 'nice'; but she's never dull. :smallwink:

magic9mushroom
2010-02-20, 10:34 AM
Fixed

True, but her general take on things gets behind most of the others as well.

Anxe
2010-02-20, 10:41 AM
The way I always interpreted it was that Boccob was the god of magic and Wee Jas was the goddess of evil magic. That slot is already filled by Nerull and Vecna though; so, yes, she is kind of pointless.

To go a little further, the whole Greyhawk Pantheon doesn't make much sense as an actual religion. With all powerful beings in conflict all the time they should be destroying each other left and right. Even when they had a legitimate chance of killing each other during the Time of Troubles, none of the important gods died. It's also not clear to me how many of the gods and planes were created in the Greyhawk theology. It's confusing and nonsensical that I just started using the Classical Pantheon for my campaigns instead.

You don't have to drop Wee Jas. There are plenty of other minor deities in the D&D Pantheon that don't do much (Racial ones). She can be one of them as well.

magic9mushroom
2010-02-20, 10:47 AM
The way I always interpreted it was that Boccob was the god of magic and Wee Jas was the goddess of evil magic. That slot is already filled by Nerull and Vecna though; so, yes, she is kind of pointless.

To go a little further, the whole Greyhawk Pantheon doesn't make much sense as an actual religion. With all powerful beings in conflict all the time they should be destroying each other left and right. Even when they had a legitimate chance of killing each other during the Time of Troubles, none of the important gods died. It's also not clear to me how many of the gods and planes were created in the Greyhawk theology. It's confusing and nonsensical that I just started using the Classical Pantheon for my campaigns instead.

You don't have to drop Wee Jas. There are plenty of other minor deities in the D&D Pantheon that don't do much (Racial ones). She can be one of them as well.

Wee Jas isn't the goddess of evil magic, though.

Optimystik
2010-02-20, 10:49 AM
The way I always interpreted it was that Boccob was the god of magic and Wee Jas was the goddess of evil magic. That slot is already filled by Nerull and Vecna though; so, yes, she is kind of pointless.

She is not "the goddess of evil magic." How could she be? She's not even Evil.

Moreover, she is actually against undeath, as it violates the laws of nature and fate.

As stated before, she is more like Jergal than any other FR god or goddess.


To go a little further, the whole Greyhawk Pantheon doesn't make much sense as an actual religion. With all powerful beings in conflict all the time they should be destroying each other left and right. Even when they had a legitimate chance of killing each other during the Time of Troubles, none of the important gods died. It's also not clear to me how many of the gods and planes were created in the Greyhawk theology. It's confusing and nonsensical that I just started using the Classical Pantheon for my campaigns instead.

The Time of Troubles was a Faerun thing, not a Greyhawk thing. Greyhawk deities meddle a lot less with the material plane (though they aren't as detached as Eberron.)

Greyhawk deities do oppose each other, but it's a lot less heated because divinity isn't really a huge focus of that setting. Heironeous and Hextor for instance, or Pelor and Vecna.

Starbuck_II
2010-02-20, 10:50 AM
Wee Jas is the bi-curious god of sexiness, the Ruby goddess of Undead are okay "as long as they are under your control."

Heck, Baccob and Nerull are beneath her in her domains of Death and Magic.
"Though she is a relatively benign death goddess, she has no problem with undead being created - as long as they are not reanimated against their will, and their remains are procured in a lawful manner."

Why can't there be a woman and a guy god of magic?

Quirp
2010-02-20, 10:56 AM
I think she is a very interesting godess, since she at least (unlike all other gods of magic (racial perhaps?) cares for her followers. I can`t picture Boccob, Vecna or Nerull (no god of magic, but on topic) coming to aid their worshipers. They do not care for them. And you should read her entry in deities and demigods, it might help.
She defenitely is the godess of the Optimizers: "Wee Jas tells her followers that magic is the key to all things. Wee Jas promises that understanding, personal power, security, order and control over fate come with the study of magic." page 96, Deities and Demigods, WotC
Sounds like a Batman wizard to me.

Optimystik
2010-02-20, 10:59 AM
Why can't there be a woman and a guy god of magic?

There usually are pairs like that - Mystra + Azuth, Thoth + Isis, Apollo + Hecate, Odin + Freya etc.

Generally, the guy represents the more structured side of magic (wizards) while the gal represents the emotional and instinctive side (sorcerers).


I think she is a very interesting godess, since she at least (unlike all other gods of magic (racial perhaps?) cares for her followers.

That's because you're only considering the male ones, who are usually portrayed as being more detached. Mystra, Isis and Freya would all be very helpful (and even sex up particularly skilled arcanists.)

Eldan
2010-02-20, 10:59 AM
As far as I remember, she is fine with undead willingly raised for a purpose and a certain time, if the situation requires it, but is generally opposed to liches and others who use undeath as a way of cheating death and prolonging their lives.

Though, really: there is no single Greyhawk pantheon. She's a Suel god, like a few others. She is the one you pray to at a funeral, so that the dead can rest in peace, and the one you pray to to give you the strength to accept your fate.

Xallace
2010-02-20, 11:02 AM
Cool, thanks everybody! You've given me a lot to think about.

Dacia Brabant
2010-02-20, 11:40 AM
My reading of Wee Jas is that she's first and foremost the goddess of Law. There are other lawful deities to be sure, but for each of them Law serves some other purpose, from punishing the wicked to ruling as a tyrant. With Wee Jas, the Law stands as its own end to be upheld above all other considerations. The other aspects of her portfolio have laws and rules unto themselves as well, or at least they do as she views them: there are laws for how to treat the dead, laws governing the use of magic, and even vanity is a kind of order in the sense of exerting control over one's appearance and establishing objective standards for beauty.

I actually wrote up a Code of Conduct for my old Paladin/RKV that tried to unify these aspects using his ToB disciplines as representations of them. I don't know if it was a workable CoC because he didn't live very long, but after writing it her portfolio started making a lot more sense and I think she was a good addition to the pantheon.

Besides, she's a redheaded tsundere. They make everything better. :smallbiggrin:

Zeta Kai
2010-02-20, 11:50 AM
I think she makes a convenient goddess for liches. Death, Domination, Inquisition, Law, Magic, Mind, Repose... yeah, that's all rather lich-y.

Also, from the Wiki article on Her:

Wee Jas thinks of herself as a steward of the dead. Though she is a relatively benign death goddess, she has no problem with undead being created - as long as they are not reanimated against their will, and their remains are procured in a lawful manner. Wee Jas is unconcerned with questions of morality; if it can be done within the confines of the law, she will allow it. Jasidan priests teach that magic is the key to all things. Jasidan are expected to show respect towards their predecessors and the departed.

Zaq
2010-02-20, 01:04 PM
Anyone who knows anything about courtly love can tell you that this take on love is b0rked. The strictures of romance are just as complex and binding as any other code of conduct. They might be insane or profoundly dishonorable from an outsider's perspective (Lancelot is the poster boy here: jousting from a cart; fighting opponents one-handed; going mad because he slept with the wrong girl; stealing his liege lord's wife! - all for love), but there's a consistent internal logic to them.

While this is true, it's important to remember that courtly love is a construction, and is in no sense the "natural" or "inevitable" way for love to be. There were rules because people put them there, not because there's no other way for it to have turned out.

UglyPanda
2010-02-20, 01:12 PM
I just always assumed Wee Jas was there to be a god to the Goth players, just as Pelor was a god to new players. There are dozens and dozens of Greyhawk deities, I just assumed they picked the ones with the most mass-market appeal to put into the PHB.

Starbuck_II
2010-02-20, 01:19 PM
I just always assumed Wee Jas was there to be a god to the Goth players, just as Pelor was a god to new players. There are dozens and dozens of Greyhawk deities, I just assumed they picked the ones with the most mass-market appeal to put into the PHB.

Whoa, don't diss the Ruby Goddess. She doesn't like Sparkle vampires.

Greenish
2010-02-20, 01:31 PM
Besides, she's a redheaded tsundere. They make everything better. :smallbiggrin:http://webpages.charter.net/jtondro/Gaming/Amanda.jpg
Indeed they do, good sir, indeed they do.

Volkov
2010-02-20, 02:33 PM
I think she makes a convenient goddess for liches. Death, Domination, Inquisition, Law, Magic, Mind, Repose... yeah, that's all rather lich-y.

Also, from the Wiki article on Her:

Vecna is a better god. Because he represents what every lich could become. With enough hard work and maniacal planning, you too can become a god that makes the entire multiverse crap itself at the very mention of your name.

Yora
2010-02-20, 02:47 PM
I think Wee Jas is a very good example for a deity that is not worshiped because it has power over one particular portfolio that is of exceptional importance for you, but because you like the organization.
If you want a god of magic, you go to Boccob, if you want a god of death, you go to Nerull. But if you want to join a club of rich, and somewhat spoiled high class wizards, that encourages you to enjoy your wealth and arcane power, look no further than the church of Wee Jas. :smallbiggrin:

Dusk Eclipse
2010-02-20, 02:49 PM
Vecna is a better god. Because he represents what every lich could become. With enough hard work and maniacal planning, you too can become a god that makes the entire multiverse crap itself at the very mention of your name.

Can I sig that???

chiasaur11
2010-02-20, 03:00 PM
Vecna is a better god. Because he represents what every lich could become. With enough hard work and maniacal planning, you too can become a god that makes the entire multiverse crap itself at the very mention of your name.

Horatio Alger for the undead set?

Volkov
2010-02-20, 03:04 PM
Can I sig that???

Sure. Go ahead.

Crafty Cultist
2010-02-20, 04:01 PM
The way I see the magical gods;

Boccob: magical knowledge in general
Nerull: dark magic that spreads death and decay(mwahahaha)
Wee Jas: protecting the dead and remembering their lives
Vecna: Using forbidden knowledge to acheive great power

A bit of an oversimplification, but thats basically it. also props to vecna for earning his godhood the hard way(I've always thought he did it by developing a spell to suck the divine energy out of another god)

LibraryOgre
2010-02-20, 04:06 PM
One thing I did take issue with in SKR's write-up:


The only person whose opinion I agree with less than SKR is Skip "Who Declared this man a Sage" Williams. I have more in common with Hitler, Pol Pot, and Pat Pulling than either of them.

Tiktakkat
2010-02-20, 04:46 PM
Which Wee Jas are you talking about?

The 1st ed Wee Jas?

The 3E Wee Jas?

The Core Beliefs Wee Jas?

They are three rather different deities.

The Core Beliefs Wee Jas adds the rather poorly executed focus on her being a deity of love. This is quite far from having a vanity as an element of her portfolio, and does a major disservice to her original conception.

The 3E Wee Jas fell into the trap of a deity of the dead being synonymous with a deity of necromancers. This was not corrected until quite some time on when the Repose domain was added (and in the LGG campaign quite appropriately substituted for the Death domain for Wee Jas).

You need to go way back to the 1st ed Wee Jas to get a decent appreciation for her place in a trans-racial pantheonic structure.
There, Wee Jas becomes functionally the deity of using magic as opposed to Boccob being the deity of the force of magic. (A concept developed more thoroughly in FR with its many magic-focused deities.) (This also contrasts with Vecna who is a deity with a completely different focus who happens to use magic to achieve his ends.) (Nerull, although later portrayed as being connected to death via the natural cycle, his original version was death as murder and bloody slaughter.) Further, with her tendency towards both Law and Evil, Wee Jas is the use of magic for personal, and oftimes selfish, ends. This is where the vanity aspect comes in. Wee Jas is the idol of all those self-absorbed, power-mongering wizards who are convinced that the rest of the party is there solely because of their generosity, and that they least they could do is serve as meatshields and loot collectors to pay for being carried.
Added to this is the death aspect, which as noted is focused on being a caretaker for the dead. In From the Ashes, specialty clerics of Wee Jas had to commune first to get permission to command undead.
Another bit of insight into her nature can be found from her relationship with Norebo. In a bit of the typical wordplay of early D&D, Norebo is Oberon spelled backwards. That would make Wee Jas the equivalent of Titania, though obviously one of the more authoritarian, and magically powered interpretations of her, and again plays back into the vanity aspect.

So which Wee Jas do you mean?


A bit of an oversimplification, but thats basically it. also props to vecna for earning his godhood the hard way(I've always thought he did it by developing a spell to suck the divine energy out of another god)

Drop the dark magic part from Nerull, add the magic as power element to Wee Jas, and you have the original versions pretty much spot on.

As for Vecna, I use the origin created for him for the LG campaign, combined with a rather direct reading of the events of Vecna Lives, and a slight tweak based on reinterpreting the relics of Vecna.
(Which is: suck the divine energy from a semi-divine being to power his lichdom, sacrifice himself to himself to break free of lichdom (freeing the original energy in the process), use followers to maintain a hero-deity or quasi-deity status, set up to steal all worship-based energy from Oerth, use a major location relic to keep enough stolen power when the heroes show up to stop his plans.)