Don't fear the reaper

[Iampower]

Been rewatching some critical role and had just gotten to the part where the party start hating the raven queen. Then this reminded me of how i came up with the death diety in my campaign.

I was inspired by the "don't fear the reaper" trope hence the thread name. Made her two yrs ago when i was expanding my world beyond a handfull of villages and a town.

Bit of context. In my world there are 8 primary dieties, each with 2 domains and occupying the outer alignments (the true neutral spot is permanently on the overgod). This means that there are always 2 dieties with the same domain among them (the 8 domains are the 7 from the phb plus the death in the dmg). Most of them are former mortals that got their spot after the war of the gods 5k yrs go but a few are beings that came with the worlds creation.

Anyway here is my world's primary death goddess. The other one is asmodeus who's other domain is war.

Emeriasse
Domain: Life, Death
Alignment: Neutral Good
Goddess of Love, Friend of Lost Souls. Protector of Children,
Orphans, and Maidens
Tenets;
1. Mourn not their death, but celebrate instead the life they lived.
2. Bring joy to others and be endulge in what beauty you see in the world.
3. Drink, laugh, and be merry for life is short and one never knows
when the Emer will escort you to paradise.
4. Smile for those who are left behind.

The last one is another major reason why i wanted to make her like this. What do you think her reception would be in ypur table? My friends like her more or less. I told them she had a sorto punk/goth appeqrance and wws friendly. I went to great lengths to make her likeable the first time someone died for good and personally met her...


Edit: oh! And i made it so that because of her, the most popular form of funeral in human lands is essentially a small festival where everyone tells stories about the deceased. Starts with a procetion of a throne with some of the person's belongings then the festivities until sunset where things start to become more somber. Finally the throne along with any food and gifts given to the person (who they believed was present literally in spirit) is burned as the spirit begins their journey to the afterlife. This is the part where people actually cry because the soul truely is leaving.

[Teaguethebean]

I would rather give them life and grave domain, death has features based around undeath which seems troubling for a morally good reaper.

[Iampower]

i wanted to give a more neutral view of "death" the concept (not "death" the game mechanic), so i named the domain 'death' but i lumped in grave in there as far as any PC or NPC would be concerned. what i mean is, in the world, people only know these 8 domains. i fitted the other game mechanic domains under one (or more) of these as appropriate.

[togapika]

Does she have a cult whose symbol is a blue oyster?

[Ganryu]

Does she have a cult whose symbol is a blue oyster?

Do seasons fear her?

[Millstone85]

I would rather give them life and grave domain, death has features based around undeath which seems troubling for a morally good reaper.Technically, the Death cleric gets exactly one truly undeath-based feature: animate dead as a domain spell.

Other than that, it is easy to make a Death cleric who is all about dealing necrotic damage. Something the Grave cleric is not above doing, since both subclasses get vampiric touch and blight as domain spells.

Heck, the Death cleric might even be a better Van Helsing than the Grave cleric:

Grave gets a very limited undead radar, usable Wis-mod times between long rests. That's it.
Death can twin chill touch and ignore the necrotic resistance of liches and vampires, 24/7.

Also, why in the world do both domains get antilife shell, a spell that fails against the creatures Grave is supposed to be good at fighting?

The ludonarrative dissonance is strong with these clerics. :smalltongue:

[Iampower]

To be clear sticking (at least in name) to the 8 domains in the phb and dmg is purely aestheetic. I wanted those 8 to be a theme in the world so i simply renamed the other domains in-verse as needed.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've come up with a fairly standard dogma for deities of death in my worlds: every person is supposed to die at an appointed time. Cheating this death is against the divine will, dying early causes a lot of paperwork.

Most sects believe this appointed time is when one's body finally gives into old age, and many priests of death are trained in medicine and spend more time healing than directing funerals. There are exceptions of course, but even those exceptions tend to be pacifistic. Their role is to serve death, not cause it.

In the setting I'm currently writing the only group to actively worship the local god of death are a group of magi who believe in reincarnation. They tend to wander around the area helping ghosts find rest and comforting bereaved families. But that would has very different metaphysics then D&D, and is a pretty atheistic universe (reincarnation does happen, but it's not presided over by a god, it's just how the universe works).

[Iampower]

I envissioned her as a pretty chill goddess. People die when they die, but she is more concerned with ensuring that people are satisfied and fullfilled with their life (and afterlife). Unless they lived a violent life with no regards for the life of others, she is a life goddess too afterall. But she also has a vested interest in ensuring that as few souls as possible reach asmodeus.

Although, the first major introduction (besides some lore dump) i had of her were in the form of a heretical sect of fanatics. The leader (believed he) was a well intentioned extreemist. He believed that since mortals made the living world such an aweful place with their greed and prejudice, then the truely innocent needs to be "rescued". His sect went around kidnapping young children and killing them, believing (truthfully ironically enough) that the protector of children, orphans, and maidens will take their souls to a better (after)life than the material plane currently is. Needless to say not a lot of people, including the goddess, liked this very much.

[KorvinStarmast]

Does she have a cult whose symbol is a blue oyster? Have you been peaking into my home brew campaign? :smalleek: