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View Full Version : Real World Eastern Religions in D&D, a new way of looking at clerics of a "cause"



Scalenex
2007-01-26, 10:52 PM
The game I'm running right now, I tried to make most of my D&D gods based on "real world" dieties like Artemis, Anubis, Thor, and the like. I recently had a minor revelation on a new way of looking at clerics of a cause. I used to think of being a cleric of a cause is a twinky way of picking two Domains that normally wouldn't come together or to pick a very simple belief system (I am a cleric of the cause of adventuring!). In many Eastern cultures, religion is used in a way that we Westerners would call philosophy even if they did recognize some gods. That would be a good basis to create a cleric of a cause. Shinto, some forms of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucism and even Hinduism could work as a cause.

The same basic philosphy could have many variations (and thus many domains). I am a WASP (white anglo-saxon protestant) who is not a religious studies major but I believe I have enough of a basic understanding of some Eastern religions that I could extrapolate these Domain-to-Religion pairings. If you disagree with these, that's fine, at least you read my thread and it inspired you to ponder this.

Shinto: Animal, Healing, Plant, Earth
Confuscism: Community, Law, Good, Knowledge
Hinduism: Repose, Animal, Water, Nobility (priest caste only)
Buddhism: Repose, Protection, Healing, Luck

I don't pretend to have enough of an understanding of Taoism to even attempt to come up with domains.