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View Full Version : DM Help Avatar of the Gods....



Ranting Fool
2014-07-01, 04:54 PM
*SPOILERS* Void, De'Calis, castiel no peeking please.

Hey playground, in the campaign I'm running the players have just found out a big old plot secret (The very act of knowing requires a high Will Save or go insane)

The PC's haven't got the whole story and this is from what they know/think happened, Since most of the knowledge has been lost or it makes people go mad they've been piecing bits together as they go on.
Back in the dawn of the world there were 9 Gods, one of each alignment who draw all power from belief and the only intelligent life on the world was Dragons.
Each God had a brood of Dragons who bound to their God's tenets and things were rather balanced and stagnant.
Humanoid life came via great rifts and those crazy mortals started believing in all sorts of things and the Gods power levels became uneven. The PC's don't know why the God's decided to do what they did, conventional wisdom knows that 9 Elder unnamed Gods once existed but that they all died in a great War. The God's power shattered and hundereds of little Gods sprang up each one waxing and waning depending on mortal belief.

20,000 years ago - Ish.
The Gods decided to take on Mortal form. Or rather their essence can inhabit an Avatar (Someone who's alignment is strongly the same as theirs) if the Avatar dies the God just jumps to another one.
There are some sort of rules for one of the Gods to win this challenge but the PC's have no idea what they are.
The Avatars are mortals (They believe that the first 8 Emperors were the same LN God jumping to a new body when he died) but powerful hero types. So while they stand out they could easily just be an awesome hero type person and not really a Avatar
The Avatars themselves don't know they are Gods PC's believe it will drive them mad with no save or cure.
Any knowledge of this can drive most people mad, all Extra-planer creatures are unable to tell the truth or act upon this knowledge.
There is a level 3 spell that can tell if someone is an Avatar (Since some shadowy types tried to find out if one of the PC's are one, they are not)
The TN God did NOT become an Avatar, but instead holds the majority of all the other God's essence and power and hands it out to the lesser Gods depending on what mortals believe.
The CN Avatar found out that he was a God, went mad and being a high level Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Thurge decided to leave the plane... which caused a rift in the world where a few million Orcs came through causing the first Rift War 150 years ago (There have been 3 Rifts so far where the Players are) the day this happened the Travel domain stopped working an any long range teleport spell just stopped working including Arcane versions.


My main question is this.

What character traits would you do for a God of each alignment + Class/Themes that would work well for this. Races? What stupidly unachievable goal does each avatar have?

LG
LN: Just but harsh Ruler. Has been Human at least 8 times in a row (A Wizard who knew the truth kept finding the Avatar and got him to name the next Avatar as heir) Melee Warrior/Leader type
LE
NG
True (No need)
NE
CG
CN: No longer on this plane. Can't be "Dead" but unknown if in mortal form on another plane or essence trapped somewhere.
CE


The players want to try and find / restore a Good Avatar to full God-hood and make the world a nice and happy place. Failing that as this has been going on 20,000 years or more they want to find out what happened to the CN Avatar and restore the power of Travel to the world (All divine magic got weaker but Travel domain is completely gone)

Questions, thoughts, suggestions all welcome :smallbiggrin:

draken50
2014-07-01, 05:42 PM
CG

Halfling Bard- Spends his time drinking, smoking, singing, and doing random small favors to random people he encounters. He'll steal a cooling pie and give the cook a small fortune. Play pranks on the kind of minor administrators who use their limited power to be hard on people.

He wants to help people see that if they just stopped stressing out over every little goddamn thing and just helped each other out, they could drink and sing and play together, and they'd be happy.

He might also steal items of value from the rich to try to teach them not to value material items as much.

I'd expect the character to be somewhat of an epicurean, often trying to get the most from each movement in a relaxed way "Smell that? A the cool breeze across the city.. with just a hint of smoked meat."

Slipperychicken
2014-07-01, 06:44 PM
Chaotic Evil: The incarnation of unpredictability, malevolence, and trickery. Uses all sorts of means to turn people on each other, and make them suffer while they do it. Starts riots, agitates peaceful assembly to violence, encourages rebellions, prods nations into war, plants diseases in wells, torches fields before harvest, tricks friends and family into feuding and killing each other, and will even trick a pet-owner into beating his pets: No trickery is beneath him. It's rarely clear who started it, since he's supremely crafty and sly, but it's easy to tell he's in town when tensions flare, lovers quarrel, and brother turns against brother. While he does revel in the occasional bit of ultraviolence, he first makes sure someone else will take the blame. Sometimes he will possess some nobility (princeling, a great warlord, or even a king), and then shall blood flow in rivers. His avatar's goal is to be the last man standing on the earth, so the breakdown of all civilization and goodwill shall be an excellent first step. A changeling could work for a race, and class could be anything from Bard, or Beguiler, to Sorcerers or even Antipaladins and Barbarians at times.

Tl;dr: Kind of like the Joker, with cackling and makeup optional. Hell, he might have even had a "Mad Jester" incarnation at one point or another.

Ranting Fool
2014-07-02, 12:12 PM
Thanks guys this is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for :smallbiggrin:

TeChameleon
2014-07-02, 01:36 PM
Lawful Evil: The Ur-Bureaucrat. Anywhere a repressive empire has a system of laws and regulations so arcane and tedious that you feel like your soul is slowly being pulled out your ears every time you have to deal with it, but not dealing with it results in an ever-increasing spiral of even worse misery, you can bet that some incarnation of this guy was there at the beginning of the process to set things up. And, given that the systems tend to bloat insanely quickly, then tank the economy, they're jealously guarded by career bureaucrats who will obfuscate them even further, desperate to keep the only jobs they can, and perpetuating the misery for generations, until bloody revolution wipes the country off the map. The epitome of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't, and for that matter, damned if you happen to be within a country mile of anyone who is or isn't doing it'. Coming into contact with anything he's done leaves you feeling like you need to bathe... and that bathing requires you to fill out a six-page form. In triplicate.

Ironically, this avatar is likely to be high-charisma. Maybe a warlock?

Neutral Good: To put it briefly, a saint. Little interest in either rules or silliness, merely in tirelessly improving the lives of everyone they can reach. They might be a little stodgy or humourless, but at the same time they're wise and caring, and will go to the wall with equal fervour to put down an undead uprising and destroy their dark lich master or scrub the floors in a plague hospital to lessen the spread of disease. They might not be much fun at parties, but you'd better believe that there's no-one better to have in your corner when you've got a problem.

Probably a cleric of an ideal, a druid, or even a questing paladin. And maybe, once in a long while, the bard who brought the song that heartened the army that was the kingdom's last hope against the encroaching dark forces, or the valiant knight who, even bereft of divine aid, brought help and hope wherever they went. I'd almost suggest having this avatar be more restless and wandering than the others, jumping from host to host without waiting for their death as a temporary (massive?) empowering of someone with the desire to selflessly do good.

draken50
2014-07-02, 02:54 PM
Neutral Evil:

Human or Elf (Elf would help explain longevity).

Well dressed, very controlled leader of a business empire on par with something like the East India Trading Company. The company would be focused on maximizing profits, but not create a huge stir in its home location. At the Avatars direction the company would engage in practices like a foreign drug trade (see opium smuggling and sales), profit of of child labor (Chocolate) or encourage foreign civil wars to protect their business interests. (Bananas.)

The avatar would be primarily concerned with increasing his own wealth and political power. Far removed from consequences he should be able to callously order the "removal" of troublemakers, and consider the destruction of his opponents a natural part of business. Law of the Jungle and all that.

This avatar would not consider actions taken against him/his company personally, but would accept them again as the natural order, and be very willing to shrug off loses due to a large amount of diversification and established profitable enterprises. This is not to say he would not act to remove threats to his profits, but if an arm of the business was cut, he wouldn't act in a manner of retribution. This doesn't mean he would not eliminate the cause if he determined it to be a further threat to his interests.

The key too me for the character, is a callous insensitivity to the consequences of his actions/decisions. He doesn't destroy lives, or profit from suffering for the sake of it, but simply because it is the most profitable methodology in his mind. He would likely donate to charities to avoid taxation, but would be unconcerned about their actual benefit, or even more likely, have created those charities in order to create problems for competition.

draken50
2014-07-02, 03:16 PM
Lawfull Good.

I'm going to cop to this basiclaly being based of of Carrot from the Discworld books.

The avatar would be incredibly charismatic, and give such goodwill and trust to people, that they are almost magically compelled to live up to it. He/She should be a very capable fighter, and work could work as a lawman in a very very chaotic semi-democratic city. As a lawman he would be loathe to break any rules, and take his oaths seriously and to the letter. He would however be willing to break those rules if he felt it was just and necessary. He would additionally willingly and immediately submit to whatever punishment he would receive for those actions.

Due to his dislike of shades of grey, he would rise nearly to the top of the authority, but defer to a more cynical but effective commanding officer. This officer would probably be CG and headstrong and be well aware of the uniqueness of the avatar character.

The avatar should be well liked, and get along with everyone, but ultimately be a bit naive. He should win allies easily, even among the most selfish, callous, and greedy of characters. Leaving them bewildered as to their sudden altruistic motivations in his wake. The character would not lie, but would be very very good at allowing his words to leave a false impression.

"If you refuse us entry, then I will have no choice but to follow the orders I have been given by my commanding officer. Orders I will be very much do not want to follow. I am forced to tell you though, I will follow them to the letter." -The orders specified that if they didn't let him in, then he was to immediately to leave peacefully.