Roleplaying opportunities concerning the birth of your character

[Entessa]

I'm the guy who made the Bhaalspawn topic here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?646912-how-would-you-roleplay-a-Bhaalspawn

1) I'm wondering a few things: has anyone played a spawn of another God, and not exactly the Bhaalspawn? I think my fascination for Bhaalspawns comes from the fact that killing seems to be "quintessential" into D&D and so you can lace this aspect together with RP opportunities.

2) Has anyone played as a child of Auril? How would I know how to roleplay another god? Maybe the Bhaalspawn are actually the easiest to roleplay now that I think about it.

3) And a totally unrelated question: if you wanted to make your character's birth special by linking it with a Solar, rather than a God, how would you do it?

4) Do solar childs exist?

5) What about a Solar blessing a kid during birth? What would happen?

[Millstone85]

has anyone played a spawn of another GodMy current character believes that she, like all feathered yuan-ti, carries the blood of the couatls and thus of the god Jazirian.

She also thinks that said blood is particularly strong in her, on account that she is a divine soul sorcerer. If I can get her to level 14, where the subclass grants an at-will manifestation of wings, she will think herself to have effectively stepped up from the lowest / most human-like caste to the middle / more couatl-like one.


Do solar childs exist?Probably, though I do not know if the deva/planetar/solar division of aasimon has any consequence on their aasimar children.

[Grod_The_Giant]

3 and 5: Aasimar is a good simple answer for "normal person with a touch of the divine", though the viability depends on edition.

4: Half-Celestial? I know that was a template in 3.5e, at least.

[noob]

5: Magic initiate for summon familiar: the familiar is a celestial spirit sent by the solar to watch over you.

[Pauly]

1 and 2) No. But if I did I would want the whole party to be demigods or godspawn. For a couple of reasons. Most importantly all players are equalish in starting power. Then other considerations like no one player’s back story hogs the spotlight; there are many RP opportunities for scions of different Gods to have in party conflict but not of the sort that will tear the party apart; it gives the GM plenty of plot hooks to use; and it sounds like a fun premise for a campaign.

[Black Jester]

One of my fellow players in a campaign a few years ago played an Aasimar cleric who began her daily prayer to regain her spells with the words "Hello mother, sorry to bother you..."
D&D is a fantasy game. Especially in D&D 5e, where abilities are very specifically defined and determined and have a very predictable effect, while the circumstances from which they derive are very much arbitrary, playing a demigod/godspawn/whatever isn't even particularly exotic. You can, just as well, play an atheist cleric, after all, as long as that guy embodies his domain enough.

[Anonymouswizard]

I am deeply disappointed that this isn't a thread about roleplaying the act of birth.

For the record Solar kids exist. In 3.X they'd be half-celestials and their children would be Aasimar, I'm not sure about other editions.

There are games out there about playing demigods, most notably Scion (with 1e and 2e being quite different, although I've not picked up 2e yet). It's a modern setting, but it's more focused on giving you that mythic 'I'm the child of a God who does badass mythic things' deal. 1e Fate rules suck though, you roll a bunch of dice whenever you spend Legend and if you get enough successes somebody becomes Fatebound to you. The issue is that it'll rarely create strong bonds at Hero level (when you really should be getting bound to your Rivals and maybe a Beloved or three), by the time you hit God ranks you basically can't do anything without getting bonds, and one of the core pantheons focuses on Legend generation.

Scion's cool though, the most major non-Fate 1e issues are relatively simple to fix (Speed floor on weapons, make Epic Attributes scale linearly, some other bits slipping my mind right now). 2e tries harder to be a story game, which is both a boon and an issue, depending on your group.

[Millstone85]

For the record Solar kids exist. In 3.X they'd be half-celestials and their children would be Aasimar, I'm not sure about other editions.Was that exclusive to solars or would the same thing happen with a planetar or a deva?

[Anonymouswizard]

Was that exclusive to solars or would the same thing happen with a planetar or a deva?

It can be a fnording lantern archon if you can work out how to do it.

[Millstone85]

It can be a fnording lantern archon if you can work out how to do it.The question was whether the child of a planetar would also be a half-celestial who could then have aasimar children, or if it would directly be an aasimar.

[Anonymouswizard]

The question was whether the child of a planetar would also be a half-celestial who could then have aasimar children, or if it would directly be an aasimar.

And I decided to cut it off before you worked down the celestial heirachy. It doesn't matter if it's a ****ing solar or a lantern archon. In fact lantern archons are likely responsible for more half-celestials because there's more of them.

For the record a celestial badger reproducing with a normal badger will create a half-celestial badger. Repeat this logic for other pairings.

At least in 3.X. Other editions may vary (and I believe in 4e the answer is 'no').

[LibraryOgre]

I'm the guy who made the Bhaalspawn topic here: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?646912-how-would-you-roleplay-a-Bhaalspawn

1) I'm wondering a few things: has anyone played a spawn of another God, and not exactly the Bhaalspawn? I think my fascination for Bhaalspawns comes from the fact that killing seems to be "quintessential" into D&D and so you can lace this aspect together with RP opportunities.

2) Has anyone played as a child of Auril? How would I know how to roleplay another god? Maybe the Bhaalspawn are actually the easiest to roleplay now that I think about it.

3) And a totally unrelated question: if you wanted to make your character's birth special by linking it with a Solar, rather than a God, how would you do it?

4) Do solar childs exist?

5) What about a Solar blessing a kid during birth? What would happen?

1) A couple of times, usually in non-D&D games. Sometimes, I just stat-swapped... I was playing someone who considered herself a human mercenary fighter, but was, by the stats, an elven priest. It gave her better stats in a few places, the ability to see in the dark, and a variety of magical powers; that particular game didn't really have any benefits for humans, so my only "negative" was I rolled slightly fewer dice for the charisma-equivalent.

2) Never Auril, but there's always going to be the question of how much your divine forebear plays into your characterization. Are you inexorably drawn to be like them? Are you always trying to prove you're not like them? Are you ignorant of your heritage? Mechanically, with Auril, I'd be inclined to go with something more akin to a genasi, since she's so heavily elemental-flavored, but that's an edition-specific question.

3&4) Simple answer in D&D is aasimaar. You could also do some class-based options... warlock is a good one in 5e... but, aside from "How does your ancestry influence your current behavior" kind of questions, you go back to system... Hackmaster, you get called "Immortal Descended" (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2021/07/godspawn-and-immortal-descended.html) and pay a lot of BP for the privilege.

5) What does the Solar want to happen? Solars are immensely powerful beings, and I'd say they can bestow most kinds of gifts they want. Relatively straightforward, in 5e, would be to make the character a celestial warlock, with their divine blood manifesting as their class abilities. In Savage Worlds, you might use it to explain some starting Edges or Hindrances.