Classless Bugbear will soon become a cleric, but HOW?!

[tortor]

Hey guys, I'm running a purely goblinoid campaign that started at level 3, one of my players grabbed a bugbear and has informed me that, though currently classless he will be becoming a cleric (travel and luck domains) he really wants a sort of immersive "self discovery" thing where instead of just leveling and suddenly just becoming a cleric, he discovers his god and realizes (in his dim little bugbear brain) that clerics are a thing and he could be one etc etc etc

My question is, how do I do this in a way which is a good story? The party has just arrived at a small dwarven fishing village but I don't know how to work in that he discovers his cleric-ness(ish-ness)

Ideas? Suggestions? Insults?

[Flickerdart]

A god of Travel and Luck will have many wandering priests. Have them meet one, who demonstrates his power. Perhaps the priest is on the same mission as the party (or joins them, or they join him, after discovering the problem). Perhaps the priest saw a vision of this bugbear and was told by his god to induct him into the faith. Perhaps the bugbear gets a vision of the priest instead.

[Zaq]

Yeah, figuring out a fluff justification for divinely-granted power is just about the easiest thing there is, since you can literally say A God Did It. (Especially if you're speaking as the GM, not as the player, since the GM is, of course, in charge of the gods, so you don't have to worry about whether the GM will go along with the message you want the god to send, the way you might if you were a player.)

Just have some kind of stroke of (quite literal) divine inspiration hit Mr. Bugbear—a vision, a portentous dream, a minor miracle, a revelation of some sort, whatever. You can make it as obvious as having a divine voice speak to the character, or you can have it be some kind of fortunate coincidence or near-miss that causes the character to reflect on his position in the world and whether there's something greater out there. Or, as Flickerdart said, have the character in question meet one of the relevant god's mortal agents (or other-than-mortal agents, whatever would make for a better story). The gods work in many ways, so just about anything can serve as a guiding force to nudge a willing character onto a religious path. You do have to be careful that you're not dictating the character's response to a situation (players generally don't like GMs telling them how their character feels or reacts), but since the player has explicitly asked for help with a justification to find religion, you're starting from a pretty good spot.

And of course, you're the GM, so you can make this as big or as small a deal as you want. If you don't like the gods directly interfering in the lives of low-level nobodies, then go for the wandering priest or other faithful follower over the direct revelation. If you don't want to explain why this particular god has followers in this particular town, go for the vision or the portentous dream over just happening to stumble across the appropriate church. If you want to make it very clear that this god has A Mission for this particular bugbear, then make it a big and obvious affair; if you don't want to single out one player as being Divinely Chosen, then make it small and personal. If you want to make this church a big part of the part of the world the players are in, you can weave that church into the narrative and possibly use them as a base (literal or figurative) to launch plot hooks. If you don't want this church to be important, then don't put any infrastructure in place, instead having a lone wandering follower or a personal divine inspiration be the order of the day. If the character doesn't want to think of themselves as a "follower," you can even put in something that will trigger a contrary reaction—have some other church that the character will find to be obviously misguided (leading to contemplation and revelation about what they would find to be right instead of wrong), or have some kind of minor fiend trying poorly to turn corruptible mortals away from revering the gods (the fiend does this in a sufficiently incompetent manner to have the character reject them, but that gets the character thinking about what would be a better worldview than that offered by the fiend).

But yeah. Divine power is just about the easiest thing to justify, so pretty much anything you throw out there is going to make some kind of sense. Personal or public, big or small, direct or indirect, widespread or individual—you can justify just about whatever you like.

[AvatarVecna]

Rather than becoming a cleric of a deity, become a cleric of an ideal? It makes the transition even easier to explain away than if you just say "a god did it".

[ATHATH]

Discuss with the player how he wants it to go (perhaps bounce a few ideas off of each other) before the session, then stick to that as a general guideline.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you don't want to have to deal with the repercussions of visions, divine speech, or divine agents, then it could be an entirely personal thing, too. Perhaps the character had known of the deity before going adventuring, and something has made them think back to those times and realize that they had been missing something important.

[Janthkin]

Start with dumb luck: "OOooh, a copper piece!" <Bugbear bends down to get it> <Dozen arrows fly over head>

After the encounter is over, pick it up with a trail of copper pieces leading down a road, then off onto a track, and eventually to the body of a fallen man. He's got nothing of interest, except to the bugbear, who is unaccountably attracted to the traveler's walking stick/holy symbol.

Bonus points if the "copper pieces" look like worthless rocks & leaves to everyone else in the party, and they can't tell what's going on.

Now you've got a conduit. Start slipping him some travel-easing spells in the form of "You don't know why, but you're inspired to start waving your hands, and then this happens" sort of notes.

After a session or two of that, apply a divine revelation in the form of a divine messenger (or fellow cleric), perhaps who was tracking down the bandits who slew the last cleric, to put him on notice that they're watching his bugbearian backside, and he should keep in mind these few simple tenets. Elaborate from there.

[Beheld]

Step 1) Kill him.
Step 2) Chat with his God.
Step 3) Reincarnated as a creature without level adjustment or racial HD.
Step 4) XP doesn't change, so he can take a bunch of cleric levels at once.

[BWR]

Let me share the abbreviated story of Grund the ogre barbarian-paladin.

Grund was born to a rather typical ogre tribe in Vestland in the Northern Reaches of the Known World. His particular tribe worked with an evil cult there and he thought little of it. Murder, torture sacrifice; they were just what one did. He was significantly smarter, stronger and more charismatic than the rest of his tribe but their masters in the cult did not like his independent streak so after being caught for a minor infraction he was strung up on the rack. Now Grund did not consider this unfair or unusual and had he been punished and let go he would probably have gone on his merry way doing what he always had done with everyone else in his tribe. Except that one day, instead of the torturer for the daily session a bunch of humans and elves broke into the prison cell. Unhesitatingly, one of the elves released him and cured his wounds. She then asked about the cult. Seeing his chance to advance his position in life he agreed to sell out the cult's secrets, and seeing his chance for revenge he offered to help fight them. The group accepted his offer, armed him and trusted him. To Grund, trust was a concept rooted in fear of reprisals: this group said nothing but took him at his word and turned their literal but not metaphorical backs on him, trusting he would not do anything to them.
After the cult and the rest of Grund's tribe was vanquished, the elf, Othariel, thanked him, smiled and wished him a good life before the party left. No one had ever wished Grund anything good before that before and it troubled him. He was alone for the first time ever and unsure of what to do. So he started walking.

While out walking he met another human, an effete little wizard who wanted a bodyguard and was willing to pay. The idea of honest pay for honest work was a new one and several incidents occurred before Grund understood what the deal was. Lushay, the wizard, was patient and smoothed things over, even providing Grund with a magical disguise that made him look human. Traveling the world and seeing the wide variety of cultures and races mostly getting along was an eye-opener. While there plenty of weak characters, both physically and mentally, in general people got along without having to resort to crude violence to keep the peace. After a brief period of wonder and hope, his dreams were broken. Sure, things were better here than among his tribe, but not for everyone, and certainly not for the 'humanoids'. While he could hardly fault people for fearing those that acted as his tribe did, Grund felt sure that he was not unique. No one gave ogres a chance, and maybe a chance was all that some needed to make a better life. Depressed and sorely tempted to return to what he knew - violence and pain. Lushay tried to help but was a better wizard than life coach. Again it was Othariel, this time in his memories, that helped him. She had seen someone in need and helped that person without a second thought, without consideration for what they looked like or what they had done in the past, and she had given him a chance to do something new. So that was what he should do: give people chances. Give the weak a chance to grow strong, give wicked a chance to redeem themselves, give the outcasts a chance to find a community, give civilization a chance to embrace everyone.
This realization and determination gave Grund a sense of peace and strength he had never felt before, a sense of righteousness and purpose. He did not even question the first time he felt the detestable taint of evil in an opponent or how his attacks became filled with a holy fire that enhanced his skill.

It was only a year or two alter that Grund ran into Othariel and her companions again. Once the disguise was taken off, the elf instantly recognized Grund and was delighted to see he was doing well, and even more delighted to hear of his new resolve. She and Arkhan, the other elf in the party, had a grand scheme that fit right in with Grund's dream: the Thunder Rift was a valley with a wide variety of races, from the major four tow goblins, orcs, gnolls and ogres. O and A wished to forge a peace there and Grund would be a perfect ally. He was not one of the hated weak races so all the humanoids would respect his strength, and not being a traditional enemy they were more likely to listen to him without immediately attacking. It would be a long, hard task but due to the limited size of the valley one that might actually be finished in his lifetime. Grund leaped at the chance. So for several years now he has served Othariel as chief peacekeeper and the the one to keep the humanoids in line. Grund is still enough of an ogre to not be afraid to hand out bruises and broken bones if people get a but too reluctant to be nice to each other (the humanoids still mostly speak the language of force, and speaking that language makes it easier to teach them another one). It is a hard and thankless task but even now there is an uneasy peace among all the races in the valley, something that was unknown previously.
Grund is now home and trying to make that home include everyone.


So this story will not be directly useful to the OP's bugbear but there might be some helpful elements.

Finding the right divine source is important.
It could be a philosophy. I am wary of allowing people to play philosophy clerics because in my experience every one has used it as an excuse to do whatever they want with no restrictions. Maybe your players are better.
Maybe the bugbear, through the journey, attracts the attention of a patron deity but said deity does not actually reveal him/herself. So the PC could just have a bunch of weird powers and the favor of a god because he acts the right way and not even know said god exists! This is often the explanation for classes like 3.5's Favored soul and PF's Oracle.
Maybe the PC meets a priest of an appropriate god who instructs him.
Maybe the god has an avatar or angelic servant walking around who blesses the PC. In Grund's case, it may end up that Othariel is his patron god while still a mortal elf (Mystaran Time Immortals are sometimes weird that way)

[Telonius]

Somebody like Olidammara or Fharlanghn might take him up on a whim - especially if he does something that brings himself to their attention. An encounter with an existing cleric (as a quest-giver possibly) could give some justification.

[vasilidor]

despite what some have previously mentioned in this forum, one should never just arbitrarily make large scale changes to a character without some input from the player. it is a good way to piss them off. the player should have at the very least a "if you don't back down now" type warning. I have had DMs completely change my character so as to make all my previous work in building him and creating the concept irrelevant and I immediately stopped playing those games when the DM disregarded my complaints. On the other hand I also have had run-ins with magic springs and magic items that caused shape shifting, and as a player i knew what my character was getting into (and a couple of those times in character to) and went for it. the major difference being that a; it was my choice and b; it never destroyed my core concept.

[Andezzar]

As I understand the OP. the player of the Bugbear wants the character to become a cleric, but does not want to simply say "I am a cleric now", when the DM says "Ding you have enough XP to level up". So it is on the player's request that the character becomes a cleric anyways.

Is the character still in contact with Bugbear society in general? If so, maybe he is forced to become an apprentice cleric of some bugbear deity and finds out that the ideology does not suit him and either starts wandering about to discover his ideals (based on travelling and luck) or is picked up by a suitable cleric.

[Solidarity]

This is a good opportunity to develop plot alongside character goals. He wants travel and luck for domains and wants to discover a divine meaning regarding those domains through your campaign? Easy. Make it so the party finds out later on that without moving on from place to place they encounter things that are truly unfortunate. Or alternatively let them realize how lucky they were to get out of life-threateningly dangerous situations simply by leaving a day early to get on the road. Human bandits raid the local goblin camp a day after they set out. "Heroes" are heard to have plundered a goblin mine nearby instead of meeting the party on the road. Have a recurring theme that fits the ideals of a go-with-the-flow type of character and the player will thank you as he easily transitions into cleric that follows those ideals, recognizing them as from some divine force. With that kind of laid back vibe, goblin parties are pretty fun in my own Dm'ing experience.

[animewatcha]

Does anyone remember that old joke about a victim of a bear wishing that the bear was a christian, thinking it was save him. Only for the bear to 'give thanks' for his next meal. Or something along those lines? It sounds like you can use that basis as a bit of a gag.