Avianmosquito
2017-02-16, 07:19 AM
Aelsif is my current campaign setting and it's a homebrew. And now that I'm writing an unofficial sourcebook for Aelsif, there are some issues I need to resolve that didn't need to be resolved when it was just a homebrew. Chief among them is how to handle clerics. Aelsif has a significant problem with clerics, and that's that Aelsif's deities aren't real.
Clerics believe in and worship gods, but these gods are fictitious. A cleric may worship Odin, but Odin is not hearing their prayers or granting their spells because he doesn't exist. Rather, these clerics worship a fictional character, base their lives off their interpretation of a story book and cast spells with their own power they don't need to worship a deity to attain. If this sounds like an especially unsubtle allegory, remember that this isn't explicitly laid out in-game.
Now, that doesn't mean this setting is devoid of powerful entities some may worship as deities, but these aren't actual deities and they don't grant spells. A sahuagin cleric worshipping It Yeek'Kal Thet is worshipping a being that does actually exist, but It Yeek'Kal Thet is not actually a deity and he's casting spells with his own power, not hers. Though that said, her power is great enough that it's not unreasonable that the sahuagin worship her if it prevents another rampage. (It doesn't, by the way.) Of course, it may also be a factor in her worship that her existence is so existentially horrifying that just witnessing her inflicts crushing despair and causes permanent charisma damage that eventually drives the victim to suicide. Such a creature needn't be a deity to act as one.
This raises an issue regarding domain spells, primarily. To resolve this issue, domains have been nuked from high orbit. Your choice of deity instead grants you weapon focus on their favoured weapon(s) and proficiency if the weapon is martial. Some deities favour a form of elemental damage instead of one of their weapons, allowing their favoured weapon to deal 1d6 extra damage of that type with each hit, which is counted as a touch attack even though the main attack is not. (I don't know, is 1d6 a reasonable substitute for Aelsif's +2 weapon focus? I mean, armour in Aelsif provides a small amount of ER in addition to AC, that 1d6 may get totally screwed by an opponent's armour despite being a touch attack.)
Each deity will grant either an exotic weapon or a simple and a martial weapon. Odin, for example, has the shortspear and arming sword in reference to his legendary weapons Gungnir and Gram. Similarly, Thor's clerics gain proficiency and focus on the warhammer and electric damage on each hit. This allows them to deal 1d6 electric damage on each hit with their hammer, and only their hammer. See the thread on armour in Aelsif for why this isn't as powerful as it looks. For an additional example, look at It Yeek'Kal Thet, whose favoured weapon is the whip, and as that is exotic she doesn't have a second.
Hopefully, this all makes sense.
Clerics believe in and worship gods, but these gods are fictitious. A cleric may worship Odin, but Odin is not hearing their prayers or granting their spells because he doesn't exist. Rather, these clerics worship a fictional character, base their lives off their interpretation of a story book and cast spells with their own power they don't need to worship a deity to attain. If this sounds like an especially unsubtle allegory, remember that this isn't explicitly laid out in-game.
Now, that doesn't mean this setting is devoid of powerful entities some may worship as deities, but these aren't actual deities and they don't grant spells. A sahuagin cleric worshipping It Yeek'Kal Thet is worshipping a being that does actually exist, but It Yeek'Kal Thet is not actually a deity and he's casting spells with his own power, not hers. Though that said, her power is great enough that it's not unreasonable that the sahuagin worship her if it prevents another rampage. (It doesn't, by the way.) Of course, it may also be a factor in her worship that her existence is so existentially horrifying that just witnessing her inflicts crushing despair and causes permanent charisma damage that eventually drives the victim to suicide. Such a creature needn't be a deity to act as one.
This raises an issue regarding domain spells, primarily. To resolve this issue, domains have been nuked from high orbit. Your choice of deity instead grants you weapon focus on their favoured weapon(s) and proficiency if the weapon is martial. Some deities favour a form of elemental damage instead of one of their weapons, allowing their favoured weapon to deal 1d6 extra damage of that type with each hit, which is counted as a touch attack even though the main attack is not. (I don't know, is 1d6 a reasonable substitute for Aelsif's +2 weapon focus? I mean, armour in Aelsif provides a small amount of ER in addition to AC, that 1d6 may get totally screwed by an opponent's armour despite being a touch attack.)
Each deity will grant either an exotic weapon or a simple and a martial weapon. Odin, for example, has the shortspear and arming sword in reference to his legendary weapons Gungnir and Gram. Similarly, Thor's clerics gain proficiency and focus on the warhammer and electric damage on each hit. This allows them to deal 1d6 electric damage on each hit with their hammer, and only their hammer. See the thread on armour in Aelsif for why this isn't as powerful as it looks. For an additional example, look at It Yeek'Kal Thet, whose favoured weapon is the whip, and as that is exotic she doesn't have a second.
Hopefully, this all makes sense.