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AlanBruce
2017-08-30, 03:49 AM
Greetings! I am running a 3.5 game where the party cleric of Fharlanghn should be ECL 10 very soon.

She already access to the Lesser version of the spell, but has not bothered to cast it. This may change when she goes up in level and so, I looked at Complete Divine, the chapter on the gods (p. 108), mostly, where their Heralds and allies (one for each version of the spell) are clearly outlined.

Needless to say, Fharlanghn is rather unimpressive when compared to other deities.

His herald is an imposing 17 HD Ghaele Eladrin. Pretty nice, except the cleric doesn't get to call this guy at all. She gets Fharlanghn's allies which rank, according to the spell used:

Lesser Planar Ally: Medium elemental (Any)

Planar Ally: Large Elemental (Any)

Greater Planar Ally: Elder Arrowhawk

I sort of understand the designer choices behind these: Fharlanghn is a god of travel- of any kind of travel- and elementals can burrow, swim and fly to move around and go wherever these semi mindless creatures may want to go.



Then we look at another Intermediate deity, Heironeous. He gets:

Lesser Planar Ally: Hound Archon

Planar Ally: Trumpet Archon (with its 14th level cleric casting, let's not forget that)

Greater Planar Ally: Hound Archon Hero

Granted, Large Elementals make nice brutes. Big bag of HP, immunities, unique travel methods, but if you are Calling something from the Great Beyond that serves your deity, might as well make it something a lot more memorable and thematic, like with Heironeous.

I understand that like all rules in these books, they are guidelines and are not subject to being followed to the letter. But since they did publish this, I was wondering if any of you had a similar problem when a player asked "What can I call?"" or "I call X because my deity say so."

In other words, if you have any ideas on how to make that list better for some of the deities presented there, I would like to compile a list here that can be referenced in the future.

As a closing note, Wee Jas, one of my favorite core deities has:

Lesser Planar Ally: Formian Taskmaster

Planar Ally: Formian Myrmach

Greater Planar Ally: Horned Devil (Cornugon)


It would seem the Ruby Sorceress, whose Portfolio includes Vanity likes ant centaurs and big dumb ugly bruisers with spiked chains representing her.

We can do better.

ExLibrisMortis
2017-08-30, 04:47 AM
Jasites can also call a [lawful] succubus, as per Dragon #350. Fharlanghn does not have a similar feature, however.

AlanBruce
2017-08-30, 06:20 AM
Jasites can also call a [lawful] succubus, as per Dragon #350. Fharlanghn does not have a similar feature, however.

Will have to check that issue out, but it does make sense for a succubus to be available to her- albeit a lawful one, which is weird, but it's gods we are talking about here.

Too bad The Traveler doesn't get any nice outsiders.

ExLibrisMortis
2017-08-30, 06:44 AM
Will have to check that issue out, but it does make sense for a succubus to be available to her- albeit a lawful one, which is weird, but it's gods we are talking about here.

Too bad The Traveler doesn't get any nice outsiders.
No, it doesn't make sense at all :smallbiggrin:. I don't know why it is a thing, but it's more interesting than a thousand formians, for sure.

It's explained approximately like this: Wee Jas got a succubus-in-a-lamp as a gift, but didn't want to summon it, because it'd be awkward to summon a CE creature to do LN things, and it was all very embarassing. So, after, like, 500 years, she offered to make the succubus [lawful], so it wouldn't have to act against its nature to serve Wee Jas, and the succubus was so bored, it said yes. As befitting of a highly legalistic deity, this is completely acceptable and totally above board, and the succubus was not at any point in any way coerced into acting against its nature :smallbiggrin:.