Splatboard Campaign - Let's see what sticks

[LordotTrinkets]

After a quick volley in a separate thread, it became apparent that I'd need to move the conversation into the brainstorming thread. As the name implies, the format will be very informal. Just feel free to throw out whatever stray idea you have and we'll see if/how it sticks.

Here's what been discussed so far:

The standard races will all fit into a caste system as the various career paths (merchant, farmer, soldier, beggar, etc.). The 'beggar' caste might have an associated race, but people from other races might be demoted into the caste by divine decree. The castes are mostly equal to one another with the exceptions of the beggar and royal castes. Beggars might have their own society outside the walls of civilization.

Interspeciary relations are viewed on levels varying from discouraged to outright illegal. Not because of racism, per se, but rather on the account of the fore mentioned caste-system. These are referred to as 'mongrelfolk' as they are almost always hideously deformed.
Mongrelfolk also require intervention in the form of binding (see below, under "Magic - Binding"). Due to the nature of the spirit that's being donated to the child, the donator must be a female. Many cultists and madmen have been known to take advantage of this process to create that appear as normal representatives of their species, but are really mentally a demon or some other creature of power Mongrelfolk. This has also contributed to the discouragement of interspeciary relations, for fear of the offspring being one of these creatures.
There's also a slight chance that the ritual will go horribly wrong and drive the child violently insane. Worse yet, it's impossible to tell if this the case until it's too late. There are also the occasional 'unblemished' half-b

The god, Thoth, has one race that is split into two sub-races, the Hadozee and Vanara. Hadozee are the librarian caste, casually climbing on and flying from the bookshelves as they organize the books. Vanara are renowned the caste of scholars, thumbing through old tomes and discovering new secrets. The new favored class for Vanara will be Archivist.
Though many choose to keep a quiet life sorting books and studying, some are called, even order by Thoth to delve into dungeons for the knowledge that lies within. The standard Ape man adventuring party is composed of a Hadozee rogue, Vanara Archivist, and two swords-for-hire.

The elves compose the royal caste, a subset of the religious caste that is allowed to stand before the gods. All elves were once members of some previous race, but being exposed to the power of the gods has caused them to change into a different race entirely.

Compliments of this transformation, elves have an impressive control over heka (see below: Magic) and express this by becoming wizards.

Mind Flayers hold great prominence in the religion and politics of this world and are considered a caste above royal, but below godhood. Conventional wisdom of the world states that the brain is of no particular use and the Mind Flayers have taken great advantage of this ignorance. Their success in gaining authority has placed them in great position to treat the 'lesser' races of the world like a flock of sheep, ignorant of the fate their shepherds have for them. Some of the 'lesser' races even offer themselves to these beings as servants, being routinely slaughtered as they enter the gates of the Mind Flayers' Cities of the Dead (These being areas where Mind Flayers are free to express their full technological power without fear of prying eyes).

They are an alien race that came to earth and wiped out the Spirit-Folk (described below) and wiped history clear of them completely.

No real name has been decided for these yet, but they are a race that greatly resembles genies with an Egyptian twist to them (haven't decided what that means yet). They waged a war with the Mind Flayers in order to keep the creatures from destroying their native realm, and lost. They created many of the artifacts that are hidden throughout the world as hastily designed weapons of war. They also are supposedly the inventors of the art of binding.
Some might be dormant in the peaceful nation listed under 'Culture', and might be the real reason for why these countries are on the edge of war.
They also might be, or at least closely related to dinosaurs.

The spotlight of this setting is a world with very strong Egyptian influence, but a superpower has been mentioned. The gods dwell on earth, so it is likely that they will each have their own domain in the form of city-states or nations. This superpower will likely be modeled off of Rome, but might be based off of another conqueror of the ancient world.
The superpower is on the verge of war with Thouu. Mind Flayers are masters of political manipulation and are possibly the reason for this war starting (See above, under 'Culture - Spirit-Folk')
The reason the gods dwell on earth is because they need to be fed constantly to maintain their power, thus becoming physically prisoners in their own domains. Some gods have non-standard diets, for instance, Thoth feeds off of research instead of bread and water.
Nation of Thoth and other gods that might affiliate with the obtainment of knowledge (i.e. Imhotep). Being interested solely in the obtainment of knowledge, this realm is strictly neutral on all political concepts. This does not, however, prevent them from aggravating their neighbors by the obtainment of knowledge. Mind Flayers are secretly aware that the Thouu pantheon has discretely accepted a member of the spirit-folks' pantheon into their fold. Though aware that they granted this god protection merely to gain knowledge on the arts of binding and that they would certainly not cause a stir if they did learn their dreadful secret, the Mind Flayers have begun to nudge the super-power into waging war with Thouu... Just to be safe.


There are many people in the world that don't wish to merely ask the gods for magical aid. After all, if gods are powerful because of their skill with heka, and heka is possible to research themselves, why not study it and become gods themselves?
Humans are the most likely to become wizard, being the most prone to rebellion among the common races. After them though, Vanara are the most likely to become wizards. To them, learning about the arcane is merely a different viewpoint from which to further their goal of obtaining knowledge. Vanara Wizard/Archivists are far from uncommon.

Heka is unpredictable, just as one would expect from something that does things through indirect means. The world supposedly was formed from the infinite waters by means of heka. As such, there are those who claim to have an unusual knack with heka, even boasting unusual influence over water.
There is no common race for sorcerers, it cannot be foreseen who gets it when.
Sorcerers might get a variant spell list with a focus on water and conjuration spells and/or bonuses for using water as a material component.

Much of Egyptian religion revolves around the written word and its study. Portions of someone's spirit might be lost forever if their name is erased from texts and thus forgotten, one's trek to the afterlife is strongly dependent on how much of the Book of the Dead one could memorize, even daily rituals center obsessively over the use of scrolls and pieces of papyrus.
It is because of this that there are those who have dedicated their lives to seeking out and reading and writing as many books as they can. Some of these people have even discovered ways to draw power from these writings and thus taken on the name of Archivists.
Rare though they are, Archivists are always found among the religious caste. The only exception to this rule is the clergy of Thoth, which composed just about entirely of Archivists struggling endlessly to find some new bit of knowledge to satiate their lord's hunger for knowledge.

The art of taking small bits of one being's power and transferring it into a lesser being/object is very common in this world. It can be used to create half-breeds and grotesque monstrosities. Not much has been discussed for how the actual rules of this will be.

This hasn't been discussed much, but it is possible that it is strongly associated with the part of the Egyptian soul, known as the 'Sheut' (the part of the soul expressed by the person's shadow)

The name by which magic goes in Egyptian mythology. It is the method of doing something by indirect means.

Most if not all magic items are really artifacts produced by a long dead race in a war against the Mind Flayers. These grant great power to their wielders at steep penalties. For instance, a flaming sword might deal extra damage than usual, but it also deals fire damage to wielder every round it is active.

One exception to this is scrolls, which are merely instructions by which to work Heka. Most scrolls are divine in this world, thus the percentages for Divine vs. Arcane are swapped.

Again, none of this is set in stone, just say what you think and don't be shy to contradict a previous post.

[Tridax]

First thing coming in my head after seeing the first paragraph is the Hindu caste system. If this setting hadn't yet fleshed out it's overall aesthetic... Perhaps the Mindflayers could have a Hindu vibe to them? They could wear some stylized rich clothes and turbans and different garments. Maybe multiply their amount of hands if needed. That's off the top of my head.

[MrNobody]

Ok just a quick volley of ideas after reading your post :smallsmile:

[note: just because i hate adding "to me" after each sentence, everything that follows is my personal opinion :smallsmile:]

Races: love the caste system and the creation of "halfbreed" via this binding magic. How about introducing a small opportunity that the binding ritual goes wrong and an awful mix is born? This could help introducing a race (Races of Destiny's Mongrelfolk seem to be the best) that would perfectly fit the beggar caste. Since people can be "demoted" to beggars they could also be cursed into changing race (becoming Mongrelfolk in this case).
Also,if your are using egyptian pantheon, i suggest using animal-like races (minotaurs, raptorans, catfolks, lizardmen) like the "favourite" caste of animal like deities and so being associated to that gods' activities: for example hadoozes (simian humanoids, from Stormwrack") could be associated with Thoth and be the caste of writers, librarians and such. Some deities can be also easily linked to "standard" races, like Bes with dwarves.

If i recall it correctly, in ancient Egypt becoming a mummy was a luxury that only pharaos and nobles could afford (leaving aside animal mummies... that was another matter) so Mind Flayers could have problems gathering brains, unless they build up a cheap mummification ritual affordable even to the poorests. Since there are various castes they might also have adopted a different ritual for each different caste, linking it to the deity and enriching with particulars to have it being more "appealing".

Culture: if gods walk on earth you must have a ready motivation about why they do not resolve on their own every problem of their followers. A proposal: in the first book of the Iliad there a scene where Zeus simply rises his eyebrows and this act is so powerful that makes all the other gods (that are quarreling) instantly become quiet as lambs. In a similar way, gods living on earth cannot engage in meaningful actions because any kind of effort (even the smallest) would tear the world apart.
If Gods may want to directly fight each other you could put up a separate plane (the same of the underworld, maybe) where they can express their full power without tearing the world apart: this could also open interesting story arc since the temporary absence of a god from earth would leave its protected race... unprotected.
For the superpower, it will be the culture we are talking about? or that would be the peaceful nation?

Magic: for binding magic rules you can take inspiration from Eberrons elemental binding (you trap elementals inside crystal to give more power to objects).

[LordotTrinkets]

Tridax: Actually, the caste system mostly takes inspiration from Aztec culture. In that society, there were really only two castes, royal and common. The class of commoners was divided into various sub-castes, but not nearly as strict as what the Indians had. There was certainly some inspiration from Hinduism though, especially with the beggar-class. Of course, the beggars are more at that status due to exile than 'being made from the dirt on the feet of the beast' (or at least I'm pretty sure that's how the story goes).

Good idea with the Mind Flayers! I don't think that much physical alterations will be needed though, just change the fluff text from 'posh clothing' to 'silken, kaleidoscopic clothing' and let the tentacles work their magic. I could even see the Mind Flayers doing some kind of propaganda saying that the number of tentacles one of them has equals their level of enlightenment. The reality would probably come more down to genetics than that.

I can't repeat this enough DON'T BE SHY ABOUT CONTRADICTING A PREVIOUS POST. The only way something is decided to be kept here is by whether it goes over well/is better than what's been proposed before. You want stone-age Norsemen? Feel free to speak up about it! We might just find a way to make it work.

Mr. Nobody:
Thanks!:smallbiggrin:
Races: Actually, the idea for half-breeds (which I will henceforth refer to as Mongrelfolk) is very much like what you described, with a few differences. Mongrelfolk are always hideously deformed and often insane, two glitches in the ritual that has yet to be removed completely. I'm thinking maybe your idea could be kept, just in a different fashion.
The consequence of the binding going horribly awry will be psychological, the product of these mistakes are violently insane (apply the Tainted Raver template from Heroes of Horror?). Physically though, there's a slim chance that the binder accidentally stumbles upon a superior way of making Mongrelfolk, a way that leaves the child with no deformities. These accidents are few and far between, so no one has been able to study what happens in these happy accidents.

Yet again, I had an idea very similar to that, only with afflicted and natural lycanthropes. Those born with this power are immediately revered as blessed ones of the associated deity and transferred to the religious class to serve them regardless of previous caste (including beggar). Afflicted lycanthropes can be made via binding with an animal, this often results in the death of the animal, since so much of the creature's life-force is pulled out.

Oh, did I mention that people often offer themselves to Mind Flayers as servants? Mind Flayer propaganda has drilled into the common man's head that it's a great honor to make one's self the vassal of these holy creatures and totally NOT a sure-fire way of getting your brains sucked out (though that wouldn't be such a terrifying idea to most in a society that doesn't know what the brain is used for). Yeah, marination of the brain is integrated into the mummification process, but Illithids aren't dependent on it. For the most part, mummy brains are considered a rare delicacy that the elite of their own society eat like caviar. My reason for having Mind Flayers mostly came down to the horrific irony that would surely ensue from the combination.

Culture: Your 'why the gods don't intervene' idea are good, but not really necessary. The Egyptian pantheon already follow a fairly strict 'order to all things' philosophy by my understanding. Though the 'arena of the gods' plane idea is an effective way of handling it, no more answer need be provided than 'that wouldn't really be in anyone's best interest'.
The superpower would be a different nation, their peaceful neighbor may or may not be the nation we're talking about.

Magic: Cool, I've kind of thought about basing it on Incarnum, but since I don't have either of those books, I'd need to leave that sort of stuff to others.

[LordotTrinkets]

Ok, just came up with an idea to integrate the Mind Flayers into the culture of the world with a bit more flare. It is a thought that the Egyptians gained much of their technology from contact with an alien race, no? Mind Flayers are often described as being alien, no? What if the Mind Flayers are from another world and taught the 'lesser' races all sorts of useful sciences? Techniques to construct massive structures like the pyramids, the art of preserving corpses, maybe even this undiscussed shadow magic. All but mere trinkets of knowledge compared to the cutting edge sciences of their kind.

Perhaps that's the very reason why the original race of binders had a war with them? They were likely spirits native to earth that saw these creatures for what they really were, invaders and conquerors of the worst order. Their attempts to fend off these new rulers ultimately failed, even their newest and most powerful creations, the artifacts, backfired and laid waste to them. With this thought, this race distinctly feels like it might be some sort of genie with an Egyptian twist.

Maybe this race isn't even completely wiped out, remnants might just lie dormant beneath the peaceful nation of Hugs-and-kissia. Should the Mind Flayers be aware of that, this might just be the secret reason for this war, the snuff out the survivors amongst their enemy's ranks.

[MrNobody]

Cool idea. What about the Mindflayer not simply landing on this world but shipwracking?
This could allow to redefine the history of magic item that could have originated from Mind Flayer "technology" and scattered around the world as they precipitated, instead of that mysterious race.

Maybe the war between mindflayers and the binder race came up because the flayers tried to retrieve their lost items while the binders claimed them for their own (as gift from their gods), greedly enough to not care about the backfire until it was too late.

[LordotTrinkets]

I think that I thought of them being shipwrecked before, but it was probably just brief mental contact. I was kind of figuring that they landed here and took over, mostly for the realistic threat of interplanetary war if their secret got out. It would make more sense for them to have crash landed here though, since an advanced race wouldn't be prone to deliberately land on such a back-water regent of the galaxy. Maybe they still are in touch with the rest of their kind but decided against leaving after realizing how simple it would to be to start a 'brain-farm'.

See, I kind of like the idea of a large number of artifacts being crafted by the MF's enemies though. These creatures probably wouldn't be able to make all of the artifacts in existence though, so maybe they're a mixed bag, comprised mostly of MF machines and the occasional spirit-craft device. The major question, however, would be why on earth the squidy-thingies made the devices effectively cursed... damaged by impact perhaps? Keyed to only work properly for Mind Flayers?

Anyway, I think we've come up with enough to begin building the world from the perspective of the PCs.

To start this off:
'Mind Flayers' aren't called 'Mind Flayers' or 'Illithids'. Mention of the word mind in such a powerful, "holy" race's name would be just plain odd to the members of this society and 'Illithid' isn't a very Egyptian sounding name either. Not having an Egyptian/English translator on hand, I advocate Hanerdis, a combination of the Arabic words for 'squid' and 'holy'. Modern Egyptian is a hybrid of Egyptian and Arabic.

I can tell that the majority of Rogues and Barbarians are going to definitely be from the beggar class. Wizards will likely be most common among librarians and frequently worship Thoth, Imhotep, and Anubis (among necromancers). Any suggestions for races?

Some more proper names for the most common classes will also be necessary, and maybe some pros and cons to why someone would want to belong to a particular class. For instance, the Religious cast gets a lot of benefits, but aren't allowed to leave the temple grounds.

[MrNobody]

See, I kind of like the idea of a large number of artifacts being crafted by the MF's enemies though. These creatures probably wouldn't be able to make all of the artifacts in existence though, so maybe they're a mixed bag, comprised mostly of MF machines and the occasional spirit-craft device. The major question, however, would be why on earth the squidy-thingies made the devices effectively cursed... damaged by impact perhaps? Keyed to only work properly for Mind Flayers?

Let's think about this: the Illithid space-ship crashes on the planet. While it falls, escape-pods are launched all over and fall in different locations. Most MFs die but a sufficient number survives and try to build up a new society. In the meantime, the autochthonous populations find the escape pods and the magic items that are inside. Most of them got damaged in the process so they now have drawbacks while using. Years pass and these population begin not only to use this "artifacts" but to study them, trying to replicate them via their magic (binding, for example): they don't know that the drawbacks are an accident so they emulate it too, making it a "constant" of item creation.



To start this off:
'Mind Flayers' aren't called 'Mind Flayers' or 'Illithids'. Mention of the word mind in such a powerful, "holy" race's name would be just plain odd to the members of this society and 'Illithid' isn't a very Egyptian sounding name either. Not having an Egyptian/English translator on hand, I advocate Hanerdis, a combination of the Arabic words for 'squid' and 'holy'. Modern Egyptian is a hybrid of Egyptian and Arabic.

In this setting deities are among mortals: how about having a very powerful Illithid (an alhoon, or MF lich) feign to be a god too? It would be strange that every caste/race has its own god while the holiest of them is left without a patron!


I can tell that the majority of Rogues and Barbarians are going to definitely be from the beggar class. Wizards will likely be most common among librarians and frequently worship Thoth, Imhotep, and Anubis (among necromancers). Any suggestions for races?

I'm ok with Anubis for necromancers but i suggest it to be worshipped by non-evil necromancers only: Anubi is not an evil deity and it is the guardian of the underworld. I doubt it would be happy to give its favor to people that raise deads from their graves, use mummies for their own purposes and so on.
I'd put Barbarians in the "warrior" caste, maybe worshipping Sekhmet, the often-enraged goddess of war, while fighters could be in the same caste but worship a different deity (Upuaut?).
Rangers may worship Neith (goddess of war and hunt) and be part in the warrior caste (those who have humanoids and other sentient being as favourite enemies) and part in the "food gatherer" caste (favared enemy animals and plants).
I'd put paladins in the clergy, mostly worshipping Ra/Horus, while having Blackguards worshipping Apopi.

I don't think a good idea the clause of prohibiting the religious caste to leave the temple ground: doing this would cut divine classes out the game (unless you want the adventure to never leave the temple too).

For base races i'd say:

Dwarves -> Ptah (creator god of arts and crafts)
Halflings -> Bes (a small deity of fun and protection)
Elves, Half-elves -> Isis (ancient goddes, beautiful mother of magic... it seems appropriate)
Humans -> Imhotep (born human, later became a god).
Gnomes -> Heka (the child god of magic)
Half-Orcs - > Upuaut (wolf god of war and death) or Sehkmet

[LordotTrinkets]

Let's think about this: the Illithid space-ship crashes on the planet. While it falls, escape-pods are launched all over and fall in different locations. Most MFs die but a sufficient number survives and try to build up a new society. In the meantime, the autochthonous populations find the escape pods and the magic items that are inside. Most of them got damaged in the process so they now have drawbacks while using. Years pass and these population begin not only to use this "artifacts" but to study them, trying to replicate them via their magic (binding, for example): they don't know that the drawbacks are an accident so they emulate it too, making it a "constant" of item creation.

I'm sorry, but it just occurred to me that this MF history is starting to sound VERY Pikmin-ey (alien race crashing to earth, billions of objects to collect, now has an army of natives at their disposal to gather them... Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this). Anyway, that seems like an effective way to do it. It seems likely that the MF artifacts would have the visual effects of circuitry on its surface and that the autochthon... autochan... natives would emulate this as well. This might have eventually evolved into the hieroglyphics of recent.


In this setting deities are among mortals: how about having a very powerful Illithid (an alhoon, or MF lich) feign to be a god too? It would be strange that every caste/race has its own god while the holiest of them is left without a patron!

Cool, I was sort of figuring that they would have a god of some sort to keep their secret safe from even the most powerful of divination. After some thinking, this pseudo-god seems like it should be an elder brain with possibly some inspiration from Meta-Ridley. Such a massive creature would certainly suffer severe injuries from the impact and need some incredible medical intervention.


I'm ok with Anubis for necromancers but i suggest it to be worshipped by non-evil necromancers only: Anubi is not an evil deity and it is the guardian of the underworld. I doubt it would be happy to give its favor to people that raise deads from their graves, use mummies for their own purposes and so on.
I'd put Barbarians in the "warrior" caste, maybe worshipping Sekhmet, the often-enraged goddess of war, while fighters could be in the same caste but worship a different deity (Upuaut?).
Rangers may worship Neith (goddess of war and hunt) and be part in the warrior caste (those who have humanoids and other sentient being as favourite enemies) and part in the "food gatherer" caste (favared enemy animals and plants).
I'd put paladins in the clergy, mostly worshipping Ra/Horus, while having Blackguards worshipping Apopi.

I don't think a good idea the clause of prohibiting the religious caste to leave the temple ground: doing this would cut divine classes out the game (unless you want the adventure to never leave the temple too).

...It's becoming increasingly apparent that I'm going to need to do some research on the topic of the Egyptian pantheon before I can contribute to which deity is patron of what. Do you have any suggestions for good resources?

I was more just throwing something out there as an example of what might be pros and cons. Another example might be that the beggar cast would tend to not be given any good jobs, but they're a lot better at roughing it as a result.

For base races i'd say:


Dwarves -> Ptah (creator god of arts and crafts)
Halflings -> Bes (a small deity of fun and protection)
Elves, Half-elves -> Isis (ancient goddes, beautiful mother of magic... it seems appropriate)
Humans -> Imhotep (born human, later became a god).
Gnomes -> Heka (the child god of magic)
Half-Orcs - > Upuaut (wolf god of war and death) or Sehkmet

I'm not too sure about many of those races though, especially half-elf and half-orc. The original idea I had for the half breeds in this world was that they would be deformed mostly out of a sense of realism. On a genetic level, most of the races out there wouldn't be similar enough to say that they could have kids with each other, a duck is not a chicken and all that. It seems that 'normal' half-breeds would possible, but so rare as to not be able to justify detailing how they fit in.

I also have reservations with dwarfs and elves. While it would be possible to tailor them into the world, it just feels like it ultimately shoehorning creatures from distinctly northern cultures into the world. How about we look back at that idea for more animal-like races? The more I think about the hadoozes, the more natural they seem to fit into the world. I can really just see them climbing and gliding from bookshelf to bookshelf as the favorite race of Thoth.

[MrNobody]

I'm sorry, but it just occurred to me that this MF history is starting to sound VERY Pikmin-ey (alien race crashing to earth, billions of objects to collect, now has an army of natives at their disposal to gather them... Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this). Anyway, that seems like an effective way to do it. It seems likely that the MF artifacts would have the visual effects of circuitry on its surface and that the autochthon... autochan... natives would emulate this as well. This might have eventually evolved into the hieroglyphics of recent.

If you don't like the alien-thing there could be another way, once used by a friend of mine in a campaign he mastered. He made Mind Flayers time travellers: they originated in a moment far in the future, they ruled the world but soon ran out of slaves and braines, so they jumped on their nautiloid-like timeships and went back to past where (or when?) to restart their empire with new slaves and brains.


...It's becoming increasingly apparent that I'm going to need to do some research on the topic of the Egyptian pantheon before I can contribute to which deity is patron of what. Do you have any suggestions for good resources?


It may not be the best thing but this page from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion) seems to have nice articles about egyptian mythology (references seem good and relatively up to date): you could start from there.


I'm not too sure about many of those races though, especially half-elf and half-orc. The original idea I had for the half breeds in this world was that they would be deformed mostly out of a sense of realism. On a genetic level, most of the races out there wouldn't be similar enough to say that they could have kids with each other, a duck is not a chicken and all that. It seems that 'normal' half-breeds would possible, but so rare as to not be able to justify detailing how they fit in.

I also have reservations with dwarfs and elves. While it would be possible to tailor them into the world, it just feels like it ultimately shoehorning creatures from distinctly northern cultures into the world. How about we look back at that idea for more animal-like races? The more I think about the hadoozes, the more natural they seem to fit into the world. I can really just see them climbing and gliding from bookshelf to bookshelf as the favorite race of Thoth.


The existence of a deity like Bes could justify the presence of dwarves and gnome (Bes is a dwarf... is "animal gods" can have half animal servants, why would not a dwarf god have dwarves servants?).
Elves... to me (and only to me) most humanoid figures in ancient egyptian art have somehow reminded of elf-like creatures... but maybe its just me :smallsmile:

Hadoozes for Thoth are good! Other suggestions i can make are Lizardmen for Sobek (the crocodile god), Catfolk for Bastet and Sekhmet (the first cat like, the second lionlike goddesses), Avorals for Ra/Horus, Minotaurs for Apis and Hathor (both bovine gods). In addition you could have Gnolls linked to Set, which is a canine deity but the precise animal is not sure,

[LordotTrinkets]

I'm not saying that I don't like the idea, I was just pointing out some interesting parallels. That's nnecessarily bad, since the idea was created organically. Speaking of time-travel though, I've had this idea for a variant cosmology where the various planes are all the material plane at different points in history. For Egypt, the plane of water would be the time before time, and maybe the upper planes are different points in some great golden age. Just change 'plane shift' to 'time shift' and it works perfectly... If it weren't for the MFs keeping the spirit-folk a secret.

Thanks, that was a lot more informative than the other Wiki-links I took a look at. Here's some ideas that I got from that:

Maybe instead of having a patron deity, the races have patron god-clusters? It would be good to play that up a little bit, and it would be easier to get a nice and manageable pantheon/racial choices. On this note, maybe elves are the royal caste and are just humans that went through a transformation from exposure to divine countenance? This would likely result in more elbow room, since half-celestial elves and half-elves would now become an option. The latter would probably still be rare, as the 'contamination' of the royal line would likely be banished to the mongrel-caste. Also, the 'royal' caste is more accurately the inner circle of the religious caste that is allowed to actually be in the presence of the gods. As such, I advocate that the patron family for the Elves is the Ennead. It would still be good to maybe pick some alternate names though.

The need for priests to provide sustenance for the gods would also be a GREAT reason for why the gods live on earth.

Gnolls for Set is good, but maybe alter their appearance to be more like a combination of donkey and ant-eater (those are the two that I've always seen him described as). What if dragons are the patron 'race' for Sobek and/or Apep depending on alignment. Green dragons wouldn't worship a force of chaos, Red wouldn't worship someone who seeks out loop-holes to the law after all.

EDIT: I almost forgot! I noticed the part about 'heka' and that seems a perfect way to fit magic into the world. It seems to me that it would probably blur the line between divine and arcane. Maybe create a variant for Sorcerer and Wizard and say they are the 'clerics of Thoth', favored class of the Hadooze.

[MrNobody]

Maybe instead of having a patron deity, the races have patron god-clusters? It would be good to play that up a little bit, and it would be easier to get a nice and manageable pantheon/racial choices. On this note, maybe elves are the royal caste and are just humans that went through a transformation from exposure to divine countenance? This would likely result in more elbow room, since half-celestial elves and half-elves would now become an option. The latter would probably still be rare, as the 'contamination' of the royal line would likely be banished to the mongrel-caste. Also, the 'royal' caste is more accurately the inner circle of the religious caste that is allowed to actually be in the presence of the gods. As such, I advocate that the patron family for the Elves is the Ennead. It would still be good to maybe pick some alternate names though.

I like this way to handle Elves, it also opens up to a lot of options for PCs, NPCs and adventure arcs.
Racial god clusters are good: the are a lot "faerunian" but good! It should be easy since most deity have different forms and/or patron animals so they could fit in different clusters. Thoth is the first that comes to my mind: head of an ibis (so suitable for birdlike creature pantheons) but has baboons as favourite animals.


The need for priests to provide sustenance for the gods would also be a GREAT reason for why the gods live on earth.
So they are like prisoners in their own temples? They must live there because they need their followers' offerings to survive but cannot go around the material plane because too much power/world balance?


Gnolls for Set is good, but maybe alter their appearance to be more like a combination of donkey and ant-eater (those are the two that I've always seen him described as). What if dragons are the patron 'race' for Sobek and/or Apep depending on alignment. Green dragons wouldn't worship a force of chaos, Red wouldn't worship someone who seeks out loop-holes to the law after all.
Oh that's good, but are you sure that dragons will fit the setting? Do you already have any idea about how to introduce them?


EDIT: I almost forgot! I noticed the part about 'heka' and that seems a perfect way to fit magic into the world. It seems to me that it would probably blur the line between divine and arcane. Maybe create a variant for Sorcerer and Wizard and say they are the 'clerics of Thoth', favored class of the Hadooze.


More than modifing Wizards and Sorcerers i'd suggest to use Archivists and the Cloistered Cleric variant instead of regular clerics: as far as i know in ancient egypt religion was highly based on written texts (Book of life, Book of the dead...) so they seem to me a natural substitution to the regular cleric. And Archivists are just perfect as Thoth clerics.

[LordotTrinkets]

Racial god clusters are good: the are a lot "faerunian" but good! It should be easy since most deity have different forms and/or patron animals so they could fit in different clusters. Thoth is the first that comes to my mind: head of an ibis (so suitable for birdlike creature pantheons) but has baboons as favourite animals.

While physical attributes would certainly be a factor, I wouldn't overemphasize it. Egyptian deities were traditionally lumped into group according to what they represented, not by what they looked like. For instance, the Ennead was a group of nine gods that were associated solely according to their relation to leadership.


So they are like prisoners in their own temples? They must live there because they need their followers' offerings to survive but cannot go around the material plane because too much power/world balance?

Pretty much.


Oh that's good, but are you sure that dragons will fit the setting? Do you already have any idea about how to introduce them?

Not entirely, they were briefly mentioned as an example for how binding could be used. The example being a government secretly making hideous, draconic hybrids. The only other way of introducing them I have would be slight physical alterations. Make green dragons would be more crocodile-like, maybe even referred to as greater crocodiles or something, red dragons would be more serpentine and have less frills. The others would probably be ditched.


More than modifing Wizards and Sorcerers i'd suggest to use Archivists and the Cloistered Cleric variant instead of regular clerics: as far as i know in ancient egypt religion was highly based on written texts (Book of life, Book of the dead...) so they seem to me a natural substitution to the regular cleric. And Archivists are just perfect as Thoth clerics.

Cool! The variant I was thinking of for Wizard was already sounding like an arcane Cloistered Cleric, but using that actual variant along with Archivists seems a much better way to go. Wizards and Sorcerers would still exist, since Egyptians recognized the gods as beings who utilized heka and not the only source of it.

The idea of being based on written texts does lend itself to some good flavoring for a commonly overlooked magic item. Perhaps the lowly scroll will be highly prized by adventurers, being one of the only magic items that can be used without penalty? Maybe there's a 70% of getting Divine scrolls instead of 30%

[ReturnOfTheKing]

My two cents? Dinosaurs. Adding dinosaurs makes everything more awesome :smallbiggrin:

How about dinosaurs are somehow related to the spirit-folk? Perhaps a race of Lizardfolk or some variation thereof, which have a similar relationship to dinosaurs as do the halflings of Eberron's Talenta Plains or the people of Dinotopia (they consider them to be sacred and equals in law), sided with the spirit-folk and were forced to flee into the desert or something? Maybe there could also be some sort of dinosaur-god, a la Ka the Preserver, who grants some of these Lizardfolk and dinosaurs asylum in their domains or city-states?

Also, since the gods are in the world, how about the planes are mostly adjacent to or located within it? For example, the lower/infernal planes and the equivalent of the afterlife are combined and found underground (like in Egyptian mythology), the elemental planes are the four moons of the world or a ring of elemental chaos, and the Far Realm is accessed through a wormhole/black hole the planet orbits. Too much sci-fi? You get the gist, though, right? Just my splatter's worth, of course.

[LordotTrinkets]

Thanks for the input. As an interesting connection, what if at least some of the dinosaurs really ARE the spirit-folk? Perhaps the Mind Flayer found their brains unappetizing, so they implemented a 'fate-worse-than-death' policy. They genetically wiped out their consciousness and turned them and their descendants into mindless beasts. If this is true, what if the Mind Flayer derive some sort of sick humor from having dinosaurs fight to the death in the 'Roman' Colosseum.

I was kind of thinking that the spirit-folk would need a pantheon of their own, especially if they thought the MF-tech were gifts from their gods. They'd definitely have a Jurassic feel to them and there would likely be only a few of them left alive. Here's one idea for a god, one that looks like a T-rex, is reduced to a sad state and left to wander aimlessly in the desert, and is commonly thought to be a symbol of how binding can be used for evil due to his nasty habit of eating all but the indigestible parts of the soul. In truth, she'd be a kind hearted creature that is willing to use binding to heal those whom she finds lost in the desert (T-rex goddess of healing, just TRY and come up with a more amusing idea).

I like the idea of the realm of the dead, but the elemental planes idea may need some work. From a likely over-analytical perspective, having even just one more moon would seriously mess with all sorts of things. Tides, tectonics, all sorts of things would be going haywire unless the moons were smaller/farther away, but then you'd be likely to run into a higher number of asteroids coming down to earth. My suggestion? Make the plane of fire the sun, combine water with the far realm and call it the expanse beyond creation. That still leaves two moons, but who knows? Maybe the higher amount of meteors hitting the earth is why most of the world is a desert and causes the world to have an abnormally high amount of of starmetal?

The MF's are already sci-fi at their heart, why not have the wormhole be something the brain-eaters made to travel to this realm? This society would probably look upon the wormhole as a milestone marking when the MF's appeared.

[LordotTrinkets]

So I just took a look at the stats for the Hadozee, and since they don't really have any bonuses to Intelligence or Wisdom, I think that some alteration might be needed. The way I see it, Vanara from Oriental Adventures should be migrated into the world, probably connected to Hadozee by a racial subtype. This would give rise to two sub-sub-castes in the librarian sub-caste, Hadozee as organizers happy to live their lives sorting books, Vanara as scholars and researchers. Vanara's usual favored class of Shaman wouldn't exist in this world, so it would make perfect sense for Archivist to become their favored class.

On a related note, what if Thoth has a non-standard way of getting sustenance, feeding off of knowledge as though it were food? This would probably open up some plot hooks too, a band of Thothian researchers is hiring help to delve into some place of lost knowledge.

Maybe Thoth's land is this peaceful nation? Being solely interested in knowledge, he's bound to try and be as neutralist as possible. In fact, what if Thoth's god cluster excepted one of the gods from the spirit-folk's pantheon (he tells them what he knows in exchange for food and shelter). Secretly aggravated and threatened by the risk of this god divulging their secrets, this might be why the MF's would want a super-power to take this nation down.

[LordotTrinkets]

Updated the first post.