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White Blade
2010-10-25, 12:02 PM
So, I'm writing up a vague outline for an Eberron campaign, and I've come to the conclusion that I wanted one of my villains to be a Child of Khyber, and a fanatical one at that. He's altogether unpleasant and has been leading a Cult of the Dragon Below for some time. I was debating between Sorcerer and Favored Soul, and I was wondering how exactly Favored Souls work in Eberron. In a world where no god definitively exists, what's the difference between a sorcerer and a favored soul?

Dusk Eclipse
2010-10-25, 12:15 PM
Crunch-wise? one cast divine spells, the other arcane.

Fluff-wise? I really have no idea.... maybe you can make him think he is sorcerer, but as he is not constrained by pitiful thinks as armor, or regeants, he considers himself supperior.

Godless_Paladin
2010-10-25, 12:28 PM
Unless you actually went up to Celestia and met your god or something in other settings, the Gods don't definitively exist from your character's perspective there either.

That said, you actually can definitely go and find entities of religious significance in Eberron. The Undying Court are right there in Aerenal. The Silver Flame is housed in Flamekeep. It's a fairly sound notion that the Valaes Tairn are in fact descended from ancestors. The Blood of Vol have their undying Bodhisattvas. The Serens occasionally actually get to go and meet dragons. Etc.

Anyways, the difference is similar to that between a Cleric and a Wizard in Eberron. Pretty straightforward, I should think.

HunterOfJello
2010-10-25, 03:06 PM
Clerics and Divinity are a bit stretched in Eberron which can easily lead to confusion.

In Eberron, worshipping anything vehemently enough as a Cleric can allow you to gain divine power. Whether you're worshiping the ideals of good, one of the Sovereign Host or a puppet, you can end up gaining divine power over time. This is how there are clerics of The Dragon Below. The cults of The Dragon Below are broken up groups who all work under the power of the Daelkyr lords who lie trapped deep beneath the Earth by the ancient druids.

Because of all this strange divine power stuff, Favored Souls don't work too well into Eberron and would be as much an oddity as Sorcerers are.

Having a Favored Soul of one of the Soverign Host or Dark Six would make sense and work fine. However, a Favored Soul of the Dragon Below wouldn't make as much sense unless they were some kind of direct creation by one of the Daelkyr. All of which wouldn't make too much sense because 1. the Daelkyr aren't gods and 2. they prefer to make Aberrations most of the time and would be more likely to feed a human to one of their mind flayers or something.

So, I don't think being a Favored Soul of the Dragon Below would make much sense in Eberron unless you reflavored it quite a bit.


Unless you actually went up to Celestia and met your god or something in other settings, the Gods don't definitively exist from your character's perspective there either.


That's another big point in Eberron. The gods are very distant from mortals in Eberron. They could, conceivably, create a Favored Soul for a specific important purpose, but it would be a pretty big deal.

Many people even doubt the existence of the gods in Eberron. The Silver Flame obviously exists, but the Soverign Host have practically never been seen. The only god who even walks among mortals is The Traveler, and most people would rather avoid him if at all possible.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-10-25, 03:19 PM
Clerics and Divinity are a bit stretched in Eberron which can easily lead to confusion.

In Eberron, worshipping anything vehemently enough as a Cleric can allow you to gain divine power.

That's how it works by default. The PHB specifically mentions this in the Cleric entry.

Godless_Paladin
2010-10-25, 03:30 PM
That's another big point in Eberron. The gods are very distant from mortals in Eberron. They could, conceivably, create a Favored Soul for a specific important purpose, but it would be a pretty big deal. But see, they're pretty distant in a lot of settings, and people just metagame that it's a sure thing gods exist, even though most settings also allow godless paladins like me.


That's how it works by default. The PHB specifically mentions this in the Cleric entry.

Exactly.


The Silver Flame obviously exists.

But does it exist in the same sense that (Insert Silver Flame Sect Of Choice) says it does? What that big gout of oddly colored fire in Flamekeep means is up for debate. For example, one theory is that it is a manifestation of the sword of Dol Arrah.

Eldan
2010-10-25, 03:35 PM
There are two ways this can go.

Either, the FS does indeed get his power directly from a divine patron, thereby more or less confirming their existence, which does not mesh too well with eberron.

Alternatively, you take the "pool of faith" approach: this person is charismatic and awesome (in the purest sense of the word, he commands awe), he embodies the faith, and if he tells people that he is sent by the gods to save them, they believe it enough that he gains power. As he travels and commits deeds in the name of whatever religion, more people here of him, they worship him as a divine messenger, a chosen one or a saint, and his power grows further.

Godless_Paladin
2010-10-25, 03:37 PM
Either, the FS does indeed get his power directly from a divine patron, thereby more or less confirming their existence, which does not mesh too well with eberron. No it doesn't. It would just mean he believes he gets his power from a divine patron. Whether this is actually true or not is largely irrelevant to the character... he knows god exists.

People can genuinely think they get their powers from divine intervention, and others might disagree, whether they're right or wrong.

For example, a mainstream follower of the Silver Flame would deny that they get their powers from Dol Arrah. A follower of the Sovereign Host might argue otherwise.

Think of it just like Sorcerers. Some believe that they get their powers from dragons, some believe some other nonsense. But they don't actually know. And it doesn't actually matter that they don't know.

What matters is that they do have the power, and what the character (as well as others) believe is going on. You don't have to know what caused the Mourning in order to play a Cyran Avenger, for example.

I mean, for all you know, the gods aren't distant from mortals in Eberron at all. The followers of the Sovereign Host could be right that they're manifesting all over the place and appearing to people. But that doesn't mean everyone believes that anymore than you necessarily believe people testifying about miracles or meeting angels or whatever.

The main difference is that Eberron isn't giving you the omniscient definitive metagaming answers (except when it tells you stuff like "Kaius is really a vampire." But it does this only sparingly, possibly to establish the character of the setting as being filled with hidden conspiracies by spoiling a few of them). For the most part, they don't tell you stuff because they're creating a framework for the DM to make up his own version (which is why, for example, Xen'drik is left unmapped).

It's not that "the gods don't really exist in Eberron" or anything. It's that you don't know anymore than some guy in Sharn knows what's hidden in the heart of Xen'drik or what caused the Mourning or whether Cannith really invented the Warforged themselves. And so forth.