Favored Weapon recommendations [3.5]

[SilverLeaf167]

I'm homebrewing a campaign setting, and currently designing the gods. I would like some help with deciding what favored weapons fit the deities. The deities' portfolios are listed below, along with any weapon idea they have so far.

Peace, wellbeing: Ranseur
Life, fertility: Handaxe
Freedom: Warhammer
Magic, knowledge: None
Nature: Longbow
Tyranny, oppression: Falchion
Death, pestilence: Scythe
War, slaughter: Greatsword

Also, what kind of god would fit the Chaotic Neutral "slot"? I'm trying to have at least one greater god for every alignment.
All Clerics are proficient with their deity's favored weapon.

[Reynard]

I'm homebrewing a campaign setting, and currently designing the gods. I would like some help with deciding what favored weapons fit the deities. The deities' portfolios are listed below, along with any weapon idea they have so far.

Peace, wellbeing: Scimitar
Life, fertility: ?
Freedom: ?
Magic, knowledge: ?
Nature: ?
Tyranny, oppression: ?
Death, pestilence: Scythe
War, slaughter: Greatsword

Also, what kind of god would fit the Chaotic Neutral "slot"? I'm trying to have at least one greater god for every alignment.

@ Bold: What, why? Wouldn't a less lethal option fit better? Maybe Unarmed Strike?

Life: Some Simple weapon, again Unarmed Strike could fit.
Freedom: Longsword is a classic, I think. Maybe say "any", giving freedom of choice.
Magic: Quarterstaff.
Nature: Sickle/club/quarterstaff
Tyranny: Spiked Chain (maybe), or whip.

[SilverLeaf167]

I dunno, a scimitar was just cool. :P
Unarmed Strike might fit for life, but the goddess of peace would still have to kill people sometimes. His clerics would probably get merciful weapons anyway.

If I made the unarmed strike Life's favored weapon, should he also grant Improved Unarmed Strike?

[Dreadn4ught]

Life, fertility: Quarterstaff. If you want it to be a martial weapon, than I dunno.
Freedom: Lance
Magic, Knowledge: Glaive
Nature: Trident
Tyranny, Oppression: Flail or falchion

Chaotic Neutral God? Make it god of tricksters. Favored Weapon: Short sword

[SilverLeaf167]

The god of tricksters is already created as a lesser god. As you can see from their portfolios, these "greater" gods are more "important".

[Reynard]

I dunno, a scimitar was just cool. :P
Unarmed Strike might fit for life, but the goddess of peace would still have to kill people sometimes. His clerics would probably get merciful weapons anyway.

If I made the unarmed strike Life's favored weapon, should he also grant Improved Unarmed Strike?

As the Monk class feature, for giggles.

Merciful weapons would work, but you'd still have the problem of lower-level clerics of this god carrying around weapons that are particularly adept at causing massive damage.

[bladesyz]

Here's my suggestion:

Peace, wellbeing: Unarmed Strike
Life, fertility: Quarterstaff
Freedom: Longsword or Spear
Magic, knowledge: None
Nature: Scimitar or Longbow (Cleric's choice)
Tyranny, oppression: Mace or Warhammer
Death, pestilence: Scythe
War, slaughter: Greatsword or Battleaxe

Justifications:

- Peace and wellbeing strikes me as the quintessential Monk mentality
- Life, fertility: the Quarterstaff is a defensive and merciful weapon
- Freedom: in order to have freedom, you must fight for it. The most representative weapons of any struggle for freedom is the sword and the spear. The sword for the chivalrous knight, the spear for the oppressed peasants who take up arms.
- Magic, knowledge: this sphere does not strike me as one willing to spend time with weapons. Perhaps give some mage spells instead?
- Nature: Scimitar because it goes well with druids. (And really, what is a cleric of a nature god?)
- Tyranny: the word "crushing" comes to mind

[SilverLeaf167]

I changed it to longsword, though I guess it's kind of a cliche.
Maybe I should give all gods some special ability they grant to their clerics? For example, Life would grant the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, and Peace might grant the ability to deal non-lethal damage without a penalty to the attack roll.

[pilvento]

Life, fertility: Quarterstaff. If you want it to
Chaotic Neutral God? Make it god of tricksters. Favored Weapon: Short sword

instead of a rapier or a dagger???

[Crossblade]

Freedom: Any Martial

Definitely over powered. Clerics are strong enough as they are. Maybe Warhammer for freedom? To smash chains of oppression and tyranny?

For Chaotic Neutral, if Lawful Neutral is Magic: knowledge, why not have Science/Technology: knowledge. Weapon: Repeating Crossbow or simply Crossbow. Failing those, Long Spear or Glaive.

[RndmNumGen]

I would go with the following:


Peace, wellbeing: Ranseur (As a defensive weapon that excels at disarming)
Life, fertility: Handaxe (Acceptable weapon, but ALSO a useful tool outside of combat.)
Freedom: Warhammer (Good for breaking through tyrant's armor.)
Magic, knowledge: Glaive (Decent, I guess... Can't think of anything else.)
Nature: Sickle OR Longbow (Sickle is simple, and Longbow is good enough anyway)
Tyranny, oppression: Spiked Chain (Chains for Oppression? Hell yeah!) or Scimitar if you don't want to give EWP.
Death, pestilence: Scythe (This one is good)
War, slaughter: Greatsword (Also good)




Also, what kind of god would fit the Chaotic Neutral "slot"? I'm trying to have at least one greater god for every alignment.

Trickery, luck: Rapier

[SilverLeaf167]

As I already said, a Trickery god already exists, but he is merely a demi-god. In the setting, they don't have actual favored weapons or domains, but their Clerics are treated as serving causes or ideals, as their portfolios are so narrow and their might little. Yes, that's just flavor. Yes, it saves me a lot of work.

I like the idea of giving Magic's Clerics some spells instead of a favored weapon, but how would that actually work? Extra spell per day of the highest spell level you can cast? Higher caster level?

[RndmNumGen]

Sorry, I missed the trickster part.

What about Travel then? Or just Chaos?

[Amnestic]

Also, what kind of god would fit the Chaotic Neutral "slot"? I'm trying to have at least one greater god for every alignment.


God of Ale/Wine, Music and Whimsical Philsophical Trysts.

[SilverLeaf167]

The god of Freedom is also the god of Travel.
That sounds nice, Amnestic, but fits better as a lesser god in my head. To make it clear, I have Greater Gods, who have the widest and/or most important portfolios, Lesser Gods, whose portfolios are more specific but still quite important, and Demi-Gods, whose portfolios are extremely narrow and even kind of silly, such as Drunkenness or Farming.

[Xuc Xac]

A lot of thematically appropriate weapons for those portfolios are already simple weapons. If you give the gods a personality beyond the powers they grant to PC clerics, then you can give them any favored weapon you want. Maybe the god of death isn't a grim reaper with a scythe. It could be a hunter with a bow that never misses and he always tracks you down in the end. The God of Freedom could be armed with a dagger that symbolically cuts all bonds or his priests could be proficient with "spiked armor" (a light martial weapon for proficiency purposes) because that's the perfect way to say "you can't push me around". If you want to, you can say that the god of peace carries a massive greatsword which he constantly strokes while mumbling "Let's all stay real friendly now. My little friend is sleeping and you wouldn't want to wake her up. She's rather grouchy when disturbed."

Many gods from real world myths have very diverse portfolios. They aren't just the god of one narrow theme. It feels rather artificial to have one god for each alignment and very tight portfolios. Mars was the quintessential god of war, but he was also the god of farming and keeping the weeds out of your garden. Neptune was the god of the sea, and freshwater springs, and horses. Apollo was the god of the sun, light, prophecy, music, poetry, medicine, plague (yes, he spread diseases as well as cured them), and herding. That's quite a broad range of interests. Even gods have hobbies.

[SilverLeaf167]

Wellyestruewhateverbrainfart.
I just find that for the normal D&D game, these would be kind of odd, and the alignment thing works because the very cosmology of the setting is (secretly) focused on balance, and there's always the divine version of ecological niches.
They might be kind of cliche, but I've tried to think out of the box even a little. For example, the Goddess of Peace considers the God of War her archenemy and keeps attacking him, while the God of War has nothing against her but just likes the fighting. Life and Death are actually quite good friends, as they realize that the other cannot exist properly without the other. Freedom and Tyranny are kind of symbiotic, as the other wouldn't have anything to do without the opposing force.

I think of it like this: Even if the gods have very diverse personalities, they only have some things they are able/willing to spread to their followers, and can only exert their influence over those specific things.

ON THE DEATH'S SCYTHE: I think it works as a symbol of his relationship with Life: Life seeds and grows the "wheat", so that Death can cut it down when the time comes. Also, it's just plain iconic. As this is supposed to be a "general, usable for anything" setting, I want the players to be able to relate to things as easily as possible.