GreatWyrmGold
2017-09-09, 07:44 AM
Over in the Level Adjustment Reassignment thread, a discussion grew, starting from a discussion relating to how nonhumanoid creatures often have to burn a feat just to cast spells and leading to...
Also, isn't it strange that the laws of magic are so...anthrocentric? Humanoid beings can talk and gesture to cast spells fine, but anything else had best burn a feat to be able to unlock any magical potential beyond that given to them by the gods. Kinda makes you feel sorry for the naga equivalent of the Dark One...
In the myth of Prometheus, Prometheus has to distribute gifts to animals and his lack wit brothers forgets to save enough for humans so he gets them fire. One can imagine similar events in a fantasy setting.
But really, there are far fewer wizards per capita than most magical creatures have per level hitter powers. Keith Baker said that in Eberron the monster races worship the Shadow as a Prometheus figure who gave them magical powers that Aureon held back from the civilized races, which seems more likely to be a natural explanation than the reverse.
@White Blade: That makes quite a lot of sense. To take it further: How about adding a pro-humanoid/anti-humanoid axis to the alignment system? For example, tanar'ri and obyrith demons would be at different sides of the axis, you could have nature vs. technology* deities, even some positive energy vs. negative energy debate could tie into that**. The pro-humanoid side would say it's fair to grant humanoids luck (to compensate for lesser natural power), the anti-humanoid side would variously claim it's not fair, or that the pro-humanoid side overcompensated, or something like that. Ties in well with the idea that humanoids are (currently) the dominant species of the Great Wheel, making it a really current debate. You could even go so far as to create generations of old, weak, pre-humanoid deities, and young, weak, post-humanoid deities in the anti-humanoid camp (who represent past and future shifts in alignment/multiplanar politics).
*The distinction isn't so useful IRL, but, like the law/chaos distinction, it's consistent enough for D&D :smalltongue:.
**I like to map good/evil to positive/negative energy, but that does require a lot of reworking of fiends, because they are still living creatures, harmed by negative energy.
Just ditching the moral alignments and going with more cosmic-level stuff sounds more interesting to me. Pro-mortals who consider such life inherently valuable versus anti-mortals who think they mess everything up, and maybe a few who are against life in general; static versus dynamic, maybe with dynamic being broken down into builders/tenders and those who just want to see chaos blossom; with or against a theoretical universal sovereign; for or against celestial cooperation; etc. There are probably more that you could add with the right lore (e.g, something thaumatological, how to handle/ignore a given curse, stance on some setting-changing event, etc).
I'm sorry I didn't notice this before. I'd say that I think pro civilization and anti-civilization would probably be a very real debate among gods (though I dislike drawing the line on "humanoid"). I think that anti-civilization gods would represent a strong contingent. Builders vs. Breakers might make sense of the standard D&D setting, with lots of "dungeons" being old school bunkers layered with traps and resource vaults. Of course, you could easily fold this back into the law/chaos distinction.
I don't know a ton about the Great Wheel, but I think the gods being made up of either the "monster" gods, who represent and are worshipped throughout the areas PCs adventure into, or the "civilized" gods, who rule over what mortals build and harvest, is an entirely natural one; albeit that it is the same sort of mythology that underwrote most of the imperial powers of history.
The distinction I make is generally Cycles vs. Progress, because I prefer a debate where both sides have a valid point.
But I think this is not the thread to discuss the topic further.
Clearly, I agree.
I'm interested to know which mythologies White Blade is referring to, and how they relate to the proposed cosmology he mentions; I don't think most imperial powers encountered monsters, or regarded foreign gods as comparable to their own (generally either considering them inferior to or the same as their own). Or are you simply referring to the divide between "our" gods and "their" gods? ...And is there a way to keep this discussion focused on real-world mythologies (e.g, Roman), or will it inevitably drift into a discussion of real-world religion?
As for Nifft, I'm curious as to what you mean by Cycles vs. Progress. I'd also like to suggest that having divine beings who care more about realizing their vision for the world than how mortals would perceive the morality of their actions makes them feel more...different than mortals, which is good if you're not going for the moderate, down-to-earth kind of deity.
I'm also interested to hear others' thoughts, if they'd like to share.
Also, isn't it strange that the laws of magic are so...anthrocentric? Humanoid beings can talk and gesture to cast spells fine, but anything else had best burn a feat to be able to unlock any magical potential beyond that given to them by the gods. Kinda makes you feel sorry for the naga equivalent of the Dark One...
In the myth of Prometheus, Prometheus has to distribute gifts to animals and his lack wit brothers forgets to save enough for humans so he gets them fire. One can imagine similar events in a fantasy setting.
But really, there are far fewer wizards per capita than most magical creatures have per level hitter powers. Keith Baker said that in Eberron the monster races worship the Shadow as a Prometheus figure who gave them magical powers that Aureon held back from the civilized races, which seems more likely to be a natural explanation than the reverse.
@White Blade: That makes quite a lot of sense. To take it further: How about adding a pro-humanoid/anti-humanoid axis to the alignment system? For example, tanar'ri and obyrith demons would be at different sides of the axis, you could have nature vs. technology* deities, even some positive energy vs. negative energy debate could tie into that**. The pro-humanoid side would say it's fair to grant humanoids luck (to compensate for lesser natural power), the anti-humanoid side would variously claim it's not fair, or that the pro-humanoid side overcompensated, or something like that. Ties in well with the idea that humanoids are (currently) the dominant species of the Great Wheel, making it a really current debate. You could even go so far as to create generations of old, weak, pre-humanoid deities, and young, weak, post-humanoid deities in the anti-humanoid camp (who represent past and future shifts in alignment/multiplanar politics).
*The distinction isn't so useful IRL, but, like the law/chaos distinction, it's consistent enough for D&D :smalltongue:.
**I like to map good/evil to positive/negative energy, but that does require a lot of reworking of fiends, because they are still living creatures, harmed by negative energy.
Just ditching the moral alignments and going with more cosmic-level stuff sounds more interesting to me. Pro-mortals who consider such life inherently valuable versus anti-mortals who think they mess everything up, and maybe a few who are against life in general; static versus dynamic, maybe with dynamic being broken down into builders/tenders and those who just want to see chaos blossom; with or against a theoretical universal sovereign; for or against celestial cooperation; etc. There are probably more that you could add with the right lore (e.g, something thaumatological, how to handle/ignore a given curse, stance on some setting-changing event, etc).
I'm sorry I didn't notice this before. I'd say that I think pro civilization and anti-civilization would probably be a very real debate among gods (though I dislike drawing the line on "humanoid"). I think that anti-civilization gods would represent a strong contingent. Builders vs. Breakers might make sense of the standard D&D setting, with lots of "dungeons" being old school bunkers layered with traps and resource vaults. Of course, you could easily fold this back into the law/chaos distinction.
I don't know a ton about the Great Wheel, but I think the gods being made up of either the "monster" gods, who represent and are worshipped throughout the areas PCs adventure into, or the "civilized" gods, who rule over what mortals build and harvest, is an entirely natural one; albeit that it is the same sort of mythology that underwrote most of the imperial powers of history.
The distinction I make is generally Cycles vs. Progress, because I prefer a debate where both sides have a valid point.
But I think this is not the thread to discuss the topic further.
Clearly, I agree.
I'm interested to know which mythologies White Blade is referring to, and how they relate to the proposed cosmology he mentions; I don't think most imperial powers encountered monsters, or regarded foreign gods as comparable to their own (generally either considering them inferior to or the same as their own). Or are you simply referring to the divide between "our" gods and "their" gods? ...And is there a way to keep this discussion focused on real-world mythologies (e.g, Roman), or will it inevitably drift into a discussion of real-world religion?
As for Nifft, I'm curious as to what you mean by Cycles vs. Progress. I'd also like to suggest that having divine beings who care more about realizing their vision for the world than how mortals would perceive the morality of their actions makes them feel more...different than mortals, which is good if you're not going for the moderate, down-to-earth kind of deity.
I'm also interested to hear others' thoughts, if they'd like to share.