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    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    RedWizardGuy

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    Dec 2018
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    Default Re: Enlightenment, a city of great good and great evil.

    Quote Originally Posted by aimlessPolymath View Post
    It's not clear to me how there are Good aligned elements prominent here, mostly that it's very wealthy and able to fund the construction of temples- Good aligned groups might have representatives, but it's not clear how much influence they actually have, given that slavery is prominent (I rate institutions of learning as basically neutral aligned, generally). For example, if there's a a CG god of freedom (there might not be), why would his priests peacefully exist in an environment where slavery is prominent?

    Generally, what are the Good deities in the setting, and what do they preach? I can probably invent an institution for each if I have more inspiration.
    to answer your question,
    I wanted to emphasize hypocrisy with this city. Great hope and great despair. The good ensure they have a presence here specifically to counter the evil.

    This is from my deity notes:

    Pantheon:

    Elemental Lords of Creation (Pantheonic Temples)
    Priests can be of ANY alignment. They also have access to spells of one elemental school of their choice. Many take the elemental adept feat.
    Air
    Fire
    Earth
    Water
    This is a pantheonic faith that venerates primordials from the four elemental planes. The primordials are not named, but are worshipped together as a whole.

    This is a faith that venerates beginnings, inventors, great projects. and of course, the elements. Temples always have one or more pinprick openings to the planes

    A pantheonic cleric can chose a domain from one the four elements. For example, fire gets a free cantrip, the player chooses any of the fire based cantrips from arcane or divine sources. Further they can add their wisdom bonus to their chosen element’s damage. Many take the elemental adept feat.

    Primordial is a free language of every pantheonic cleric. Genies are not considered holy, but are just blessed with the ability to live in the Elemental chaos.

    LG
    The Lawgiver: Law, judgement, courts, loyalty. Leader of the Pantheon.
    Moradin: The Forge, Artifice, Hardwork, patron of the dwarves
    Justinian: Lord of medicine and healing, patron of the poor, charity
    Bahamut: patron of Good Dragons, Draconians and kobolds. Among men he is the protector, the good sentinel, the faithful guard. He is venerated by good dragon’s blood sorcerers, many paladins, and by good people yearning for freedom and justice.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    CG
    Shea Luna: Beauty Art Love, the Moon CG (Uses Charisma as spellcasting stat), patron of the elves
    Garl Glittergold, gems, jewelry, miners, invention, patron of gnomes
    Apollo: Music, bards, performers, the sun, Light.
    Beren: Song, revelry, taverns, friendship, comradery/brothers in arms, adventurers, good beer and ale, brewers.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    NG
    Chauntea: Agriculture, family, home and hearth, patron of the halflings
    Silvanus: lord of the wild, rangers, druids, hunters, Unicorns
    Flanagan: Freedom, travelers, the road, escaped slaves, Navigation, the stars.
    Oghma: Books, wisdom, learning, literacy, schools and sages
    Thor: God of storms. Thunder, Lightning, the sky above. Just war. His paladins all carry hammers for some reason. He really doesn’t like Loki.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    N

    Circe’: Magic
    Nerull: God of the dead, great judge of the dead, Fair judgement in courts of law. Lawyers and judges. Bureaucrats.
    Shinare: Goddess of money, wealth, trade,
    merchants
    Dionysus: hedonism, brewing, wine, debauchery, casinos, gambling, festhalls
    Neptune: God of the sea. Navigation, fishermen and good races under the sea.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    NE
    Ares: War
    Reynard: Thieves, organized crime, Tax Collectors, Bureaucrats
    Orcus: deity of the undead, liches, vampires, patron for those who seek to avoid punishment in the afterlife. Necromancers.
    The Kraken: deity of the ocean depths, patron of the evil undersea races (through various incarnations, like the shark god of the sea devils). Also, patron of spies, bandits and pirates. Keeper of sunken treasures. Maker of sea monsters, keeper of the oceans undead.
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    CE
    LOKI: Prince of Lies, Murder, Actors, illusion
    Lolth, Goddess of the dark elves, spiders, intrigue, poisons
    Grumish: cruel warlord of the orcs.
    The wild hunt: murders, assassins, hunting, patron of gnolls and lycanthropes.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    LE
    Bane: Tyranny, royalty, the divine right to rule, oppression of the ruled.
    This is a LE deity found in every kingdom. His clerics deny he is evil.
    Bane is the deity of tyranny, the divine right to rule, obedience to your rulers, taxes, oppression of the masses, and the protector of kings and nobility.
    His clerics prefer to be the state religion with all forced to worship there. While this is rarely the case, they act as it is and bully all they deem lesser than themselves.
    Domains are War and Life………………………………………………….
    Kratos: God of conquest, slave master. patron of Goblinkind
    Tiamat: patron of Evil Dragons, Draconians and kobolds. Also venerated by evil Dragon Blood sorcerers.
    Set: Clerics of Set are rewarded with distinctive Egyptian style dog heads. Set is the patron of the Ishtar empire. He is the lord of the night, he who walks in darkness. Set is master of the stars and navigation.


    Planar Cosmology

    Prime Material --The world

    The world is flanked by
    The Realm of Shadow. A sarcastic parody of the prime material. It is twisted and evil, full of dangers, but recognizable and navigable.
    It is the home to the Realm of the Dead where the unfaithful souls are judged and sent to respective eternal rewards.
    It is also home to a necropolis of the undead…a little-known refuge for those who wish to escape a much-deserved eternal torment by becoming undead. It is also a home to the greatest school of Necromancy in the known universe.
    The Realm of Orcus can be found here, adjacent to the Necropolis.
    Various Ravenloft Lands can be found here as well.
    ~~It is possible to stumble into this realm by wandering unhallowed graveyards or places of death like battlefields where the dead were never buried.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Feywild
    This land is very similar to the one in the forgotten realms.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Elemental Chaos. All the elements of creation are jumbled together here in large and small chunks, connected by mixed borders Like a volcanic plain with rivers of Lava connecting a fire and Earth domain.
    Small oasis and bubbles of the elements can be found everywhere. A bubble of elemental water can be very welcome in an Earth Node. Further it would not be heated at all in a Fire Node. This is very much like the plane of limbo, but easier to manipulate. Genies and Primordials live in continental islands of their preferred elements. Wizards can create their own islands here without concentration (the demiplane spell)

    Powerful wizards and clerics have spells to pull small portions of the elements into the prime material. A simple fireball is one such spell. Other spells can open a temporary or a permanent opening to one of the planar nodes -making a planar bubble here on the Prime. Every pantheonic temple of the Lords of Creation will have one to four such bubbles.

    The Ethereal/Astral planes are combined here. This is just the place between the planes. There is nothing to be seen here, it is empty. Rumors of the Astral Dreadnaught are just to scare wizard apprentices. And don’t believe the fables of Gith ships searching the emptiness…there is nothing to see here, move along.

    Outer Planes
    Realms of the dieties: These appear as walled cities on the planes. They are walled as not just anyone can enter…further there have been planar wars in the past. It must be noted the realms are not mere cities, but infinite planes in their own right. From the outside, they just appear as a walled city. Typically, the walls are 100 feet tall with glorious glittering towers beyond. The infinite realms are not infinite cities. The city is just a gateway to the realm.

    Paradise:
    This is where all the good dead go. Those who dedicated themselves to a deity bypass the Realm of the Dead and wake up in the Halls of their Chosen. The good who did not have a chosen are sent here after they are judged.
    The good deities all have their homes here and are surrounded by the faithful. Fabulous glittering cities surround the divine palaces.

    But even in between the glorious realms, the plane is a joy to be on. Food grows everywhere, always ripe and ready to be gathered. Towns and settlements are everywhere.
    This plane is home to joy, and song. A fitting reward for a life of goodness.

    The Outlands: Here is the place for the neutrals from the world. The neutral deities can be found here (even the NGs and all the NEs). This realm is a place of balance where good and evil can be found.
    The terrain is beautiful but predatory beasts can be found here as well. This plane actually has colonies of living humans who find the in between places to their liking.
    The NE deities locate here to avoid the chaos of Hades. They do not want to deal with the mess.

    Hades: This is the realm of evil. Devils and demons are here fighting the eternal blood war for control of this plane. The evil deities have their toxic realms here as well. Walled off to keep the pointless war OUT.
    The faithful dead will wake up in the halls of their chosen. The unfaithful will wake up as larva near the battle plains.


    One note:
    Bane, the god of tyranny (mentioned above) has a realm here that “looks like a paradise.” The ruling elite live in splendor served by miserable slaves (either commoner worshipers or larva transformed by the whims of the elite). BUT. They are entrapped in a brutal dance of intrigues, assassinations, and conspiracies. While an assassination cannot give true death, it takes them 60 torturous years to reform. The elite do not realize it but they are as miserable as their slaves.
    Still, this is a respite from the raging Blood War. Supplies can be bought here, and the casinos are the wonders of the outer planes (just do not lose). The House never cheats here…surprising for an evil realm.
    Last edited by Cyclops08; 2020-04-14 at 01:33 AM.