7RED7
2012-06-20, 10:36 PM
So I've been kicking around this idea of a character who was raised with the belief that the strange prophecy his village received at his birth predicts his future deification, and he isn't sure if he believes it, but doesn't want to discount it in case it was true and he isn't prepared to handle it.
He was raised in a rather sizable village that was able to support a temple to the local pantheon, and spent a great deal of time in the temple's library studying whatever he could get his hands on (as books and learning, outside of the clergy or travel to distant cities, were rather rare) in exchange for doing odd jobs like cleaning the temple or setting up a small stand in town and using his charismatic speaking abilities to convince the locals who could spare coins to donate them to the temple. He learned much about religion, the local history, and the types and challenges of governance (Machiavellian texts and the living history of regional nobility being common topics in the land), while developing a passable work ethic, and the skills of persuasion and accounting.
A senile old oracle told him that he had 'the Spark', but he doesn't know whether that's true either. He's always felt some connection to latent divine energy (and later in his youth comes to the conclusion that he can interact with the remnants and byproducts of spent divine magic at a conscious level), and has been able to perform the occasional feat of distinctly non-arcane or psionic magic from a young age. He is a skeptical of the nature of this ability and believes that anyone who would be a deity already is, but can't seem to discover what basis his abilities actually have. He decides to make studying the "nature of his nature" a primary goal of his life after a repeat trip to the local oracle for information resulted in the miraculous regrowth of her missing eye and the loss of her "3rd eye", if nothing else than to keep him from inadvertently causing another kerfuffle like the result of that incident (town folk can take the loss of their daily horoscope rather personally).
He decides to set off from his homeland and see if travels will bring answers that all the questions asked in his homeland could not. With an extroverted "guy you'd like to share a drink with" personality, he finds it easy to make friends and prefers to associate with carefree commoners instead of the nobles and knights that his adventuring companions prefer to deal with (largely because he's read much about them and discovered that, by either cause or effect, they don't deviate far from the ideas and mannerisms represented in his books, thereby finding them rather predictable and uninteresting in an "anti-genre-savvy" sort of way). He loves to learn what people are thinking and always tries to uphold his own idea of intellectual barter where he takes a perspective or bit of knowledge with which he was unfamiliar and returns another tidbit he picked up elsewhere, in order to gain a broader view of the world and get an idea of what the average mortal experience is (partially out of curiosity, but largely out of suppressed insecurity about being different). He prefers and shares insight that is keen and logical, but sensible to the common man. He likes to be correct, and takes great steps to remedy his understanding of the situation when he is wrong.
As his abilities grow, and word of his insight and approachability spread, he starts to gain a bit of a following, and a reputation as "that guy you just have to be around when he comes to town" (sort of a cross between "Lebowski" and "The Machine" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAtFsJY5q0 , but with a bit of the occasional little miracle thrown in ). Eventually the following takes on a life of its own and people start spreading the "for the common man, by the common man" insights he has collected and hybridized into a set of ideas on what it means to be the working man, how to live, and what it's all about anyway. His more zealous followers refer to him jokingly as "The Mud God" due to him reserving his abilities mostly for the peasantry.
That would probably be about as far as I'd set it up, if the character level was high enough that characters are coming in with some experience under their belt. The actual final results and divine status (or lack thereof) would be FOIG and however the DM wanted to work it out, as the character doesn't really know what's going on and it would be more fun to not have the ability to metagame it.
Whether he would become a deity, demigod, or just a cult leader, the end result is someone who would be kind of looked down on by those who champion powerful aspects of reality, grand monster races, and the wealthy cathedral goers, as he just takes an active interest in the lives of commoners, the unimpressive, and the unwanted. He could be seen as unwanted minor competition, but actively tries to avoid rocking the boat and causing problems for the higher powers. If the deity jump is made due to the game and setting being able to handle it, then he mostly sets the really broken abilities aside (some fluff thing about using it to fuel abilities for his followers, providing a valid reason for cleric cohorts that stay back and tend to the commoners. He kind of separates himself from it, and allows it to build on its own under his influence rather than his direct control, while receiving only minor practical benefits), and continues traveling with just a few enhanced novelty abilities. He would also be a bit more transparent with followers about the whole "worship fueling deity powers" thing, and debate the symbiotic benefits of it with his followers whenever he's in their town instead of just telling them to do it.
His main point of view in talks or confrontations with irritated envoys of other deities is that anyone who converts to his cause isn't costing the original worship recipient much as they weren't truly faithful to begin with. He's just picking up some of the fakers so the original group of worshipers will be more representative of their deity without the outliers taking credibility away from their cause.
In the case of both the magic, and the followers he kind of figures he's doing them a bit of a favor by cleaning up the scraps and recycling them back into the system.
I'm not sure what the best setup would be for this though. It would be interesting to actually use the leadership feat for something other than optimization, and explore what can be done when all the followers are basically commoners/workers/farmers/etc. from a roleplaying perspective.
I'm not sure what class would work. I'd rather have the end results dictated by the game in a way which manages to work naturally than just pull some pun pun shenanigans. The standard Cleric, Favored Soul, Druid just aren't all that interesting. The closest thing I can think of fluff wise would be an Ur-Priest, but I'm not familiar with playing them and the whole mandatory evilguy thing is a little corny. Any ideas for things that would play a bit differently and have some different effects than the "Standard" three mentioned above, while still having the whole divine shtick?
He was raised in a rather sizable village that was able to support a temple to the local pantheon, and spent a great deal of time in the temple's library studying whatever he could get his hands on (as books and learning, outside of the clergy or travel to distant cities, were rather rare) in exchange for doing odd jobs like cleaning the temple or setting up a small stand in town and using his charismatic speaking abilities to convince the locals who could spare coins to donate them to the temple. He learned much about religion, the local history, and the types and challenges of governance (Machiavellian texts and the living history of regional nobility being common topics in the land), while developing a passable work ethic, and the skills of persuasion and accounting.
A senile old oracle told him that he had 'the Spark', but he doesn't know whether that's true either. He's always felt some connection to latent divine energy (and later in his youth comes to the conclusion that he can interact with the remnants and byproducts of spent divine magic at a conscious level), and has been able to perform the occasional feat of distinctly non-arcane or psionic magic from a young age. He is a skeptical of the nature of this ability and believes that anyone who would be a deity already is, but can't seem to discover what basis his abilities actually have. He decides to make studying the "nature of his nature" a primary goal of his life after a repeat trip to the local oracle for information resulted in the miraculous regrowth of her missing eye and the loss of her "3rd eye", if nothing else than to keep him from inadvertently causing another kerfuffle like the result of that incident (town folk can take the loss of their daily horoscope rather personally).
He decides to set off from his homeland and see if travels will bring answers that all the questions asked in his homeland could not. With an extroverted "guy you'd like to share a drink with" personality, he finds it easy to make friends and prefers to associate with carefree commoners instead of the nobles and knights that his adventuring companions prefer to deal with (largely because he's read much about them and discovered that, by either cause or effect, they don't deviate far from the ideas and mannerisms represented in his books, thereby finding them rather predictable and uninteresting in an "anti-genre-savvy" sort of way). He loves to learn what people are thinking and always tries to uphold his own idea of intellectual barter where he takes a perspective or bit of knowledge with which he was unfamiliar and returns another tidbit he picked up elsewhere, in order to gain a broader view of the world and get an idea of what the average mortal experience is (partially out of curiosity, but largely out of suppressed insecurity about being different). He prefers and shares insight that is keen and logical, but sensible to the common man. He likes to be correct, and takes great steps to remedy his understanding of the situation when he is wrong.
As his abilities grow, and word of his insight and approachability spread, he starts to gain a bit of a following, and a reputation as "that guy you just have to be around when he comes to town" (sort of a cross between "Lebowski" and "The Machine" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAtFsJY5q0 , but with a bit of the occasional little miracle thrown in ). Eventually the following takes on a life of its own and people start spreading the "for the common man, by the common man" insights he has collected and hybridized into a set of ideas on what it means to be the working man, how to live, and what it's all about anyway. His more zealous followers refer to him jokingly as "The Mud God" due to him reserving his abilities mostly for the peasantry.
That would probably be about as far as I'd set it up, if the character level was high enough that characters are coming in with some experience under their belt. The actual final results and divine status (or lack thereof) would be FOIG and however the DM wanted to work it out, as the character doesn't really know what's going on and it would be more fun to not have the ability to metagame it.
Whether he would become a deity, demigod, or just a cult leader, the end result is someone who would be kind of looked down on by those who champion powerful aspects of reality, grand monster races, and the wealthy cathedral goers, as he just takes an active interest in the lives of commoners, the unimpressive, and the unwanted. He could be seen as unwanted minor competition, but actively tries to avoid rocking the boat and causing problems for the higher powers. If the deity jump is made due to the game and setting being able to handle it, then he mostly sets the really broken abilities aside (some fluff thing about using it to fuel abilities for his followers, providing a valid reason for cleric cohorts that stay back and tend to the commoners. He kind of separates himself from it, and allows it to build on its own under his influence rather than his direct control, while receiving only minor practical benefits), and continues traveling with just a few enhanced novelty abilities. He would also be a bit more transparent with followers about the whole "worship fueling deity powers" thing, and debate the symbiotic benefits of it with his followers whenever he's in their town instead of just telling them to do it.
His main point of view in talks or confrontations with irritated envoys of other deities is that anyone who converts to his cause isn't costing the original worship recipient much as they weren't truly faithful to begin with. He's just picking up some of the fakers so the original group of worshipers will be more representative of their deity without the outliers taking credibility away from their cause.
In the case of both the magic, and the followers he kind of figures he's doing them a bit of a favor by cleaning up the scraps and recycling them back into the system.
I'm not sure what the best setup would be for this though. It would be interesting to actually use the leadership feat for something other than optimization, and explore what can be done when all the followers are basically commoners/workers/farmers/etc. from a roleplaying perspective.
I'm not sure what class would work. I'd rather have the end results dictated by the game in a way which manages to work naturally than just pull some pun pun shenanigans. The standard Cleric, Favored Soul, Druid just aren't all that interesting. The closest thing I can think of fluff wise would be an Ur-Priest, but I'm not familiar with playing them and the whole mandatory evilguy thing is a little corny. Any ideas for things that would play a bit differently and have some different effects than the "Standard" three mentioned above, while still having the whole divine shtick?