God/Goddess for a zealous paladin

[Fairy]

So, I've drawn up a character who I think will be a lot of fun to roleplay - he's very much so old testament inspired and is basically a priest zealously going about the place smiting heretics while spouting something about 'The Lord's wrath'.

My group's playing in a Faerûnian pantheon setting, and so I'm looking for suggestions as to what deity my paladin might actually worship :smallsmile:

My ideal candidate is a god somewhat off the main branch, and who a worshiper could argue to be a sort of 'god of gods'.
My reasoning for the former point is:
This character of mine has some time-displacement stuff going on. He was petrified 500 years ago and has only now been revived - the religious order he once fought for has been destroyed in his absence, which wouldn't make much sense if they worshipped a main god. I suppose the order could have been a sort of sub-sect, but I like the idea of a vengeance paladin perceiving himself as a last stalward living in a corrupted future.

As for the 'god of gods' point, the whole point of the character is that he's a true zealot; he perceives his god/goddess as 'the one true one'. I have speeches prepared referring to a singular 'Lord's holy wrath' and that sort of thing. Incidentally, my last character was a warlock who openly mocked all deities, claiming they were lesser beings compared to old gods like caiphon. This sort of thing is perfect - an excuse to claim 'The Lord' has total dominion over the world. Obviously, though, eldritch gods won't work for this character - and no I'm not going to be multiclassing warlock or anything like that.

... One likely candidate is Ao, who kind of ticks all the boxes and would perfectly explain why the old order was destroyed. Perhaps the old clerics and paladins were in reality being fed power by cyric or some other god, since Ao doesn't grant divine spells? The only problem is - Ao was only discovered 100 years ago. I could maybe adjust my character's timeline, but I'm really attached to the idea of this character being a relic of the past, and some ~90 years isn't a whole lot when many races live much longer.

Last thing to add: this is a vengeance paladin and I have him penned down as chaotic good; I can imagine him smilingly assisting locals who he doesn't deem as heretical. So I imagine a deity the order might have worshiped would be neutral, or even good. 'Worship The Lord with fear' type of thing.

Thanks for any and all suggestions!

[Unoriginal]

So, I've drawn up a character who I think will be a lot of fun to roleplay - he's very much so old testament inspired and is basically a priest zealously going about the place smiting heretics while spouting something about 'The Lord's wrath'.

My group's playing in a Faerûnian pantheon setting, and so I'm looking for suggestions as to what deity my paladin might actually worship :smallsmile:

My ideal candidate is a god somewhat off the main branch, and who a worshiper could argue to be a sort of 'god of gods'.
My reasoning for the former point is:
This character of mine has some time-displacement stuff going on. He was petrified 500 years ago and has only now been revived - the religious order he once fought for has been destroyed in his absence, which wouldn't make much sense if they worshipped a main god. I suppose the order could have been a sort of sub-sect, but I like the idea of a vengeance paladin perceiving himself as a last stalward living in a corrupted future.

As for the 'god of gods' point, the whole point of the character is that he's a true zealot; he perceives his god/goddess as 'the one true one'. I have speeches prepared referring to a singular 'Lord's holy wrath' and that sort of thing. Incidentally, my last character was a warlock who openly mocked all deities, claiming they were lesser beings compared to old gods like caiphon. This sort of thing is perfect - an excuse to claim 'The Lord' has total dominion over the world. Obviously, though, eldritch gods won't work for this character - and no I'm not going to be multiclassing warlock or anything like that.

Sounds like someone who would worship Asmodeus or Maglubiyet. Perhaps unknowingly.

Asmodeus only recently became a god, though, so I would go for Maglubiyet.



Last thing to add: this is a vengeance paladin and I have him penned down as chaotic good; I can imagine him smilingly assisting locals who he doesn't deem as heretical. So I imagine a deity the order might have worshiped would be neutral, or even good. 'Worship The Lord with fear' type of thing.

Regularly slaughtering people for worshipping a different deity does not fit any of the good alignments' descriptions. Especially in the Forgotten Realms, where polytheism with a tendency toward henotheism is the norm.

No matter how much smiling assistance your PC does in-between their bloody, hate-and-anger-fueled rampages.

[Fairy]

Regularly slaughtering people for worshipping a different deity does not fit any of the good alignments' descriptions. Especially in the Forgotten Realms, where polytheism with a tendency toward henotheism is the norm.

No matter how much smiling assistance your PC does in-between their bloody, hate-and-anger-fueled rampages.

I may have overstated the 'heretics' thing. Again, he's very old-testament inspired. He may say God is to be feared, and that those who don't fear Him shall burn in the fires of Hell. But the character knows that 'sins' are still 'sins' and 'virtues' are still 'virtues'.

If we were insane enough to apply roleplay game alignments to the real world, I'm very confident that old-age inquisitors would be lawful-evil. That doesn't mean they openly worshipped the devil.

Shortly put, he smites devils and warlocks, not paupers worshipping any of the other many-many gods.

To be fair to your point, I should probably change my character's alignment to something more like chaotic neutral. I guess it will depend upon his 'serving the righteous' and 'smiting the wicked' ratio. If he existed in reality, this bastard's evil and should die. In D&D? There are devils and such roaming the planes, maybe his zealotry has some uses.
In any case, who cares about alignments.

[JonBeowulf]

Last thing to add: this is a vengeance paladin and I have him penned down as chaotic good; I can imagine him smilingly assisting locals who he doesn't deem as heretical. So I imagine a deity the order might have worshiped would be neutral, or even good. 'Worship The Lord with fear' type of thing.


Sounds like this guy holds on tightly to his own rules, not wanting to deviate from them at all. There's nothing chaotic about that. Gleefully smiting non-believers and whatnot while lending aid to non-heretics is, at best, neutral. But that's only if you care what's in your alignment box. Background, Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are what's going to define what and who this guy is.

Word of caution: I tried something similar once and it annoyed the other players.

[Fairy]

Sounds like this guy holds on tightly to his own rules, not wanting to deviate from them at all. There's nothing chaotic about that. Gleefully smiting non-believers and whatnot while lending aid to non-heretics is, at best, neutral. But that's only if you care what's in your alignment box. Background, Personality, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are what's going to define what and who this guy is.

Word of caution: I tried something similar once and it annoyed the other players.

Good words of caution, I've seen the infamous 'annoying paladin' before. I solemly swear to avoid the archetype, I'll make some excuses for this guy's flexibility. 'Out of time' thing might serve towards that end, instilling some apathy.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Well, there's certainly tons of RL inspiration for a character like this. But I'm not sure any of the Faerun gods are a great fit for this play style. So you'll have to be willing to spin one of the deities a little, at least from the perspective of the old religious order. Remember, just because one strange cult of a god thinks things should be done in a certain way, that doesn't mean that the god himself (or that god's larger body of followers) would necessarily agree. So, maybe it isn't the god himself who's fallen out of favor or gone missing in the last 500 years, but rather this Order that was wiped out and their intolerant views which didn't survive, and the god is generally viewed differently by current worshippers?

Some ideas:

Istishia: The paladins of your order were very concerned about nature and purity, sort of like watery eco-terrorists. They are very concerned about the purity of their essences and their precious bodily fluids. Mielikki would be very similar, but less focused upon water and liquids.

Helm: A god of vigilance and protection, your order thought that meant protecting the holy from the influence of the infidels

The Red Knight: Honestly, not a great deal of spin needed on this one. A non-major goddess of war.

Torm: A god who changed over time, and was more about duty, loyalty and righteousness in the past.

Tyr: A viking-like god of war and justice, but a great god for any vengeance paladins. Mostly about punishing offenders.


I will say that, while alignments are vastly unimportant and your character's personal alignment can be whatever you want, your expired Order's outlook sounds rather Lawful in nature (although I won't speculated about whether it's more good, neutral, or evil).

[Seekergeek]

I played a similar character. He worshiped a goddess called Raqvor The One. He believed that in fact there was only one god, who took on different forms and functions depending on the nature of individual worshipers, explaining (to himself at least) the polytheism of the forgotten realms. He zealously preached about the Many Faced God, and that "All was Raqvor", he was good natured and derpy, but typically reacted violently to any accusations of his own herasy. In reality he was simply a poor sap being manipulated by Fraz-Urb'luu for the demon's own enjoyment. Paladin's don't need a god, just conviction, so a misguided belief is just as powerful as an actual faith. Food for thought.

[Segev]

Maybe one of the Trickster Gods of Omu?

[Unoriginal]

Maybe one of the Trickster Gods of Omu?

That could work.

Or directly go for Ubtao. That would fit the "fish out of temporal water" aspect, as well as the "worshipers say their god is the one god" part.

[PhantomSoul]

Word of caution: I tried something similar once and it annoyed the other players.

That was going to be my warning too (and beyond annoying them, the risk that your character "should" directly antagonise their characters and perhaps kill their characters, or monopolise/limit the design space others get to build their characters in by dictating beliefs or behaviours), with extra emphasis because of the real-world inspiration mentioned in the comments.

[Fairy]

Well, there's certainly tons of RL inspiration for a character like this. But I'm not sure any of the Faerun gods are a great fit for this play style. So you'll have to be willing to spin one of the deities a little, at least from the perspective of the old religious order. Remember, just because one strange cult of a god thinks things should be done in a certain way, that doesn't mean that the god himself (or that god's larger body of followers) would necessarily agree. So, maybe it isn't the god himself who's fallen out of favor or gone missing in the last 500 years, but rather this Order that was wiped out and their intolerant views which didn't survive, and the god is generally viewed differently by current worshippers?

Some ideas:

Istishia: The paladins of your order were very concerned about nature and purity, sort of like watery eco-terrorists. They are very concerned about the purity of their essences and their precious bodily fluids. Mielikki would be very similar, but less focused upon water and liquids.

Helm: A god of vigilance and protection, your order thought that meant protecting the holy from the influence of the infidels

The Red Knight: Honestly, not a great deal of spin needed on this one. A non-major goddess of war.

Torm: A god who changed over time, and was more about duty, loyalty and righteousness in the past.

Tyr: A viking-like god of war and justice, but a great god for any vengeance paladins. Mostly about punishing offenders.


I will say that, while alignments are vastly unimportant and your character's personal alignment can be whatever you want, your expired Order's outlook sounds rather Lawful in nature (although I won't speculated about whether it's more good, neutral, or evil).

Thanks for these! While I'm extremely tempted to bring in the defense of 'precious bodily fluids', I think Helm is a very solid choice, at least thematically. The paladin could even just generally worship a vague concept like 'holiness' and 'the pantheon' while the order itself was a subsect which worshipped Helm, or claimed to do Helm's work in the world. They fell out of favour for being overly zealous and my paladin believes Helm's vigilance has been lost from the world.
I'm strongly tempted to go with something like this; I'll give it more thought.

I have distant plans for a future character with a head filled with conspiracy theories. Now that I think about it Russians stealing precious bodily fluids via womenkind is a fun fit, so I might save your Istishia idea for later..!

[Fairy]

I played a similar character. He worshiped a goddess called Raqvor The One. He believed that in fact there was only one god, who took on different forms and functions depending on the nature of individual worshipers, explaining (to himself at least) the polytheism of the forgotten realms. He zealously preached about the Many Faced God, and that "All was Raqvor", he was good natured and derpy, but typically reacted violently to any accusations of his own herasy. In reality he was simply a poor sap being manipulated by Fraz-Urb'luu for the demon's own enjoyment. Paladin's don't need a god, just conviction, so a misguided belief is just as powerful as an actual faith. Food for thought.

Nice! If I decide to have my guy worshipping Ao I definitely think a malevolent or trickster force should have provided the old order's order's clerics with power (the wiki has something about Cyric having once done that).
'Raqvor The One' was a good idea you had!

[Fairy]

That could work.

Or directly go for Ubtao. That would fit the "fish out of temporal water" aspect, as well as the "worshipers say their god is the one god" part.

Ticks the boxes alright! I'll read up more on him and on primordials now that he's been mentioned. Good shout!

[Guy Lombard-O]

Thanks for these! While I'm extremely tempted to bring in the defense of 'precious bodily fluids', I think Helm is a very solid choice, at least thematically. The paladin could even just generally worship a vague concept like 'holiness' and 'the pantheon' while the order itself was a subsect which worshipped Helm, or claimed to do Helm's work in the world. They fell out of favour for being overly zealous and my paladin believes Helm's vigilance has been lost from the world.
I'm strongly tempted to go with something like this; I'll give it more thought.

Very welcome!

BTW, I had a couple more thoughts if you do go with this character concept.

The first would be that playing a religiously intolerant character like this, while a fun and interesting trope for you and I, might well strike your other players poorly. So I'd definitely clear it with the table in session zero.

The second is that, if you're looking for a bit of character growth and a redemption arc (possibly because you and/or the group grow tired of your character slaughtering the infidels and it gets a bit too murderhobo-y feeling), one thing you could work out with your DM is that your Order was actually wiped out by a different, more conventional sect of Helm...possibly at the very behest of Helm himself. It's possible that Helm was never really pleased with this group, and never granted them his favor at all (I mean, paladins sort of self-generate their powers based upon self-confidence and don't actually need a god). So maybe Helm eventually had these zealots eradicated when they became too much of an embarrassment? Could give you a great excuse for a change of heart (and possibly subclasses) down the road, when Helm's true feelings about the Order come to light?


I have distant plans for a future character with a head filled with conspiracy theories. Now that I think about it Russians stealing precious bodily fluids via womenkind is a fun fit, so I might save your Istishia idea for later..!

How you learned to stop worrying and love the pond....