The Difference Between Gods and Fiends

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So I have been slowly been building a world to do adventures in and the idea behind it is that the world had no magic what so ever until just recently. Suddenly the world irrupted with magic, ancient forests come alive with the magic of life fey start to appear and so do magical beasts and plant monsters, graveyards and ancient battlefield emanate with negative energy bringing back the dead to unlife. The power of belief makes creatures only talked about in myth come into reality. And the faithful begin to hear the voice of 'gods'.

So the question I have been milling over is how do mundane people with no preconception of magic or skill in it tell the difference between a true god talking to them and a fiend (term used to encompass both demons and devils along with whatever else might act similar)? From a mortal's point of view a god and a fiend would be very similar both would offer power in exchange for belief and spreading their message and offering yourself/your soul to them. There really isn't much of a difference as far as I can tell, even once the mortal starts granting spells, it seems pretty easy for a fiend/evil god to grant a follower detect good and say they are being granted detect evil. From the view point of the follower who has no real understanding of magic but has been granted power there isn't much of a difference.

Anyways I was hoping to get others thoughts and input.

[H_H_F_F]

I don't think the distinction has to be as strong as it is in classic D&D. Do what works for you.

However, if you feel like this is an issue, I'd comment on the last point about detect/protect etc spells. I think you can simply have it be a part of the experience of the caster - one is not granted information ("the thing you tried to detect is here") but a feeling ("bright, comforting light" or something) which is very hard to mistake.

[satorian]

There are varying rules for whether demon lords and dukes of hell the like can grant spells (anything below that rank can't do so, afaik). I think in Deities and Demigods, they can, but only up to spell level 3 or 5. They are equivalent to demigods and thus can grant spells in Pathfinder.

Still, the rule that requires clerics to be within 1 alignment of their deity should still apply. Also, even a point or two in knowledge:religion should allow a cleric to know that his rituals are for a certain god. And a point or two in spellcraft would be enough to identify a spell as detect evil or detect good. Also, as far as I know, clerics always know what spells they are praying for, and get those spells.

You could certainly house rule in some pretender mechanics. But you'd probably also have to house rule spellcraft not to work to identify spells, which could have unforeseen side effects.

[liquidformat]

There are varying rules for whether demon lords and dukes of hell the like can grant spells (anything below that rank can't do so, afaik). I think in Deities and Demigods, they can, but only up to spell level 3 or 5. They are equivalent to demigods and thus can grant spells in Pathfinder.

Still, the rule that requires clerics to be within 1 alignment of their deity should still apply. Also, even a point or two in knowledge:religion should allow a cleric to know that his rituals are for a certain god. And a point or two in spellcraft would be enough to identify a spell as detect evil or detect good. Also, as far as I know, clerics always know what spells they are praying for, and get those spells.

You could certainly house rule in some pretender mechanics. But you'd probably also have to house rule spellcraft not to work to identify spells, which could have unforeseen side effects.

In a normal game with well established history of magic and religion I would agree with you, a couple ranks in spellcraft and knowledge should be sufficient to understand what is going on. Also cleric and deity alignment would be heavily in play too. However, that isn't what we have here. What I am envisioning is say suddenly throwing magic and divinity into medieval Europe.

The absolute concept of alignment hasn't been a thing until the deities and fiends show up so it would be very common to have every alignment under the sun worshiping a 'god' premagic. Now you have a fiend come in claiming to be said 'god' that never actually existed and curbing his flock down the path of its choosing. No one in the world has any preconception of magic so the only thing they have to go on is what the 'gods' tell them about the spells. Similarly they only have their own past preconceptions about gods for knowledge checks that were based on premagic information. Until people get enough information and understanding of any god they are in effect making untrained knowledge checks otherwise known as an int check. And even in the case of spellcraft I think until they have been practicing spells for a long enough time all checks would be made with a very high penalties especially since you have someone telling you 'this is spell X' if you are always told this is spell X how are you supposed to know it is actually spell Y? Your knowledge of 'spellcraft' has been skewed in such a way that your basic understanding of magic is wrong.

Also there is another interesting route to go down, a fiend could make their true believers into say warlocks and have said warlocks act as priests of their religion to spread the faith. For a civilization with no preconception of what a 'cleric' is how are they to tell the difference between a priest that is a cleric and a priest that is a warlock they both can teach the beliefs of their 'gods' and perform Miracles that have never been seen in the world...

From my point of view the first instances of humanoids using magic would come from 'gods' bestowing magic onto people. You would see sorcerers for at least 10-15 years until you could start having children being born and growing up in areas inundated with magic. Also you probably wouldn't see wizards, bards, duskblades, archivists, and other magic users that are trained for at least a couple generations until humanoids have learned enough about magic to start creating spells.


I don't think the distinction has to be as strong as it is in classic D&D. Do what works for you.

However, if you feel like this is an issue, I'd comment on the last point about detect/protect etc spells. I think you can simply have it be a part of the experience of the caster - one is not granted information ("the thing you tried to detect is here") but a feeling ("bright, comforting light" or something) which is very hard to mistake.

This is a good and interesting point, the slight hints like warm, bright, dark, cold would be the first clues to mortals understanding the powers they are being bestowed.

[Fouredged Sword]

Telling the difference isn't easy, and in fact there are several cults dedicated to fiends despite the fiends not being able to grant divine spellcasting. That's the main distinction between gods and powerful outsiders. Gods are powerful outsiders with divine rank who can grant divine casting. Other powerful outsiders don't have divine rank and can't grant divine spellcasting.

That's it.

And clerics of philosophies just make this more complex because they can worship a fiend and have divine spellcasting and may even believe that the fiend grants said spellcasting, but they would be wrong.

Someone with ranks in knowledge religion would know the difference because they know who the gods are and that the thing they are talking to isn't one of them. Outside that they get "powerful outsider of X subtype" and nothing more.

[hamishspence]

In 3.5, I think the standard rule (except for Asmodeus) is that divine casters following fiends, get their power direct from the Outer Plane itself. The fiend may determine what domains the caster gets, but the Outer Plane is supplying the actual power.

So - a cultist of Mephistopheles, has access to "Mephistopheles's domains" - but it's the Nine Hells themselves, that are "granting them spells".