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2006-02-05, 06:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Location
- Johannesburg, South Africa
Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Hi, All
I'm just in the beginnings of fleshing out my homebrew campaign world to start playing in March. Will basically be RAW, no custom races or classes, only those found in PHB and DMG (And MM 1, although no player characters out of the MM). All books will be 3.0, because I can't afford the 3.5 sourcebooks right now. ;) Spells and items from other books will be allowed on a case by case basis, and players will have to come up with a good way to procure these spells or items in my world.
So anyway, I never quite liked the pantheons as written in the RAW. After reading the story about the god Opatop in Funniest Gaming Moments Ever!, I came up with an idea:
There are only three Deities in my world - Doog, Levi (Because "Live" just sounds stupid), and Lartuen. Clerics & Paladins openly worship one of these three, while Druids worship nature, a manifestation of Lartuen. Druids don't actually believe in a god, and so don't realise, and deny profusely, that they are in fact worshipping a manifestation of Lartuen.
Of course, characters of other classes are free to worship any god they choose, but it (obviously) doesn't give them any special powers. I was thinking, though, of a system similar to FR, where if a character dies and doesn't have a patron, he cannot be raised from the dead. This may mean that druids can never be raised, only re-incarnated, or I may choose that druids are exempt from this rule. I haven't decided yet.
So anyway, I was thinking that Doog is Neutral Good, Although he supports rules and laws established for the cause of good, he does not get hung up on them. Levi is Lawful Evil, and in fact delights in causing his followers to come up with highly complex systems of rules and regulations, which he encourages them to interpret to the absolute letter, at all times twisting their interpretations to his own evil ends - he enjoys seeing people suffer for minor rules infractions.
Lartuen, as you might have imagined, is True Neutral. Neither Good nor Evil, Lawful or Chaotic, his absolute dogma is balance in all things. For Good to exist there must also be Evil, for one not to die of starvation, another must die, etc.
So what do you guys think? Do you like the idea? If so, what domains would fit these three well? What about favoured weapons? How would their avatars appear?
Any suggestions would be appreciated!!
Cheers
Grakul
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2006-02-05, 06:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Who do Chaotic Evil people sacrifice to? Demon Princes?
I think if I were doing this, I'd have a Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic god. Let the PCs have different religions.
Maybe change the names, though. Yours come off as a little gimmicky.Thanks to Veera for the avatar.
I keep my stories in a blog. You should read them.
5E Sorcerous Origin: Arcanist
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2006-02-05, 06:42 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Location
- Johannesburg, South Africa
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Originally Posted by Dhavaer
OR... perhaps Levi is only EVER LE, and he has a brother who is CE and doesn't understand the need for all these rules. What would his name be? Citoac? ::) OK, so THAT name would need to be changed, but lets call him Citoac for now. That doesn't change the fact that there are only three gods, perhaps, because Levi & Citoac are sort of like a "two in one" concept (Similar to Christianity).
The only name I would change would be Doog (And now Citoac), because his name is a little lame. I like Lartruen (pronounced Lar-true-en); sounds very mystical. And Levi (pronounced Leev-eye) is Lawful because he reminded me of Leviticus in the Bible.
I realise I forgot about Rangers when describing the worshippers. I'm thinking of Rangers as being kind of like the "missing link" between Druids and Clerics. Most worship Lartruen, but there are rare exceptions.
Also, I like the idea that Druids can never be raised, only re-incarnated. In fact, re-incarnation happens by default for all Druids when they die (And thus, Druid's souls never truly reach any real "end"). The only thing is that, by default, they have no memory of their former life. If they want to be raised with full knowledge of who they used to be, then a live druid needs to intercede by casting Re-incarnate.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Cheers
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2006-02-05, 07:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Location
- Johannesburg, South Africa
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
I just had another idea - scrap Citoac. There are still only three gods in my world - Neutral Good, True Neutral, and Lawful Evil. Chaotic characters, as in real life, fall into one of two categories:
- They don't believe in any god whatsoever, and just spend their lives feeding their natural tendancies. If these natural tendancies are helping people, then they're Good, if they're hurting people they're Evil. If they're neither, they're Neutral.
- They are fanatics who believe that their god is with them, and they are acting in the best interests of their god, but they actually don't really understand who their god is (Think of all the atrocities Christians perpetrated during the Crusades. If they really knew their God, none of that would have happened). I would see angels and demons as examples of these characters as well. A demon sees his god as Evil, and ignores the Lawful side.
With the second example, the domain selections of the three gods need to be pretty broad, so that someone worshipping Levi could pick domains that reflected his manner of worship (Ignoring domains that would reflect any kind of respect for order, and choosing domains that would embody chaos, while still being evil).
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2006-02-05, 06:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2005
- Location
- Berlin
- Gender
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Before actually setting domains, I would suggest writing down a list of the deities' portfolios. Just to get an idea of the concepts that the gods might emobdy.
Levi for instance could be something like:
Death, Evil, Trickery, Secrecy, Torment, Domination, Suffering, Pain, Calamities, War, Disease, Destruction, Power
As you can see, many of these either are or very closely resemble domains. This way, you also kill two birds with one stone: You have a list of plausible domains, and you've set down what areas the god will rule over.
Qi
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2006-02-05, 06:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
for a big list of portofolios see deites and demigods.
I don't see how a paladin could fit into your world, a paladin not being lawful good loses its powers. If you want three deties I suggest having a LG, N, and CE, though it isnt as intresting it does work better with D&D mechanics.
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2006-02-05, 10:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Gender
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
I don't see how a paladin could fit into your world, a paladin not being lawful good loses its powers. If you want three deties I suggest having a LG, N, and CE, though it isnt as intresting it does work better with D&D mechanics.
Without trumping the one step alignment rule, with NG, N, and LE gods, you can't have CE divine casters. You can, however, make Levi an exception to this rule, and have him grant spells to CE clerics.Quote:
One of the hardest parts of DMing is to give players a reason to railroad themselves.
(Originally Posted by Rockphed)
Quote:
You're making a reasonable and rational argument here, instead of pandering to the extremists on either side. Stop it. I'm pretty sure that's a banning offense on the internet.
(Originally Posted by Swordguy)
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2006-02-12, 02:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Location
- Johannesburg, ZA
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Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
(I changed my nick, it's Grakul here) ;)
Actually, that thought occurred to me (The "One Step" rule), and kind of convinced me that the idea was not going to work.
I've scrapped it for now - will revisit it when I have some more experience. For now, I'm just going to use the RAW deities from the PHB, and perhaps add my own based on how the campaign story progresses, and on suggestions from my players. Somebody wants to create a new deity, I see no problem with that - just define him/her well, and go for it!! :)
Cheers
Nocturne
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2006-02-12, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2005
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Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
.... So by your logic, no chaotic character could EVER be resurrected if they fit the two categories that you have placed for them?
I always try to think of characters as if they had human characteristics.... I would strongly suggest not trying to categorize everyone based on alignment and religeon, but thats just me. IMHO, yer just thinkin' too hard on it, me boy...
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2006-02-14, 02:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2005
- Location
- Berlin
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Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Of course, it's your world, so you can of course scrap the one-step rule, and say that this and this alignment worship this and that deity.
Qi
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2006-02-14, 10:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2005
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- Johannesburg, ZA
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Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
I could do that, Qi_Chin, but:
a. I don't fancy that I'm experienced enough to go messing with the assumptions of the rules, and
b. It would probably make me a hyppocrite for saying I wanted to play core stuff only. :)
Cheers
Nocturne
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2006-02-14, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2004
- Location
- Torrington, CT
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Originally Posted by Grakul
If you are running a three deity universe, you might look to various yin/yangs plus an interloper. IE, Good Evil, and Nature, or Law, Chaos, and Power.
If I were considering a three god system, I would use Father, Mother, and Child, have all of them be Good, and say that Evil characters get their divine spells from Demons or Devils instead of Gods...
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2006-02-14, 01:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2005
- Location
- Johannesburg, ZA
- Gender
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
Originally Posted by dbsousa
Oh, and I've since discovered d20srd.org. It's pretty darn cool! There aren't that many things (That would affect a Level 1 party) in 3.0 that were changed in 3.5 anyway, barring the Ranger. So I can always use the 3.0 books and refer to the online srd on a case-by-case basis to see if anything's changed.
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2006-02-14, 02:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2004
Re: Religion in my World - Only three Deities
I think building a consolidated pantheon is always a good way to give your campaign a special flavor.
I think the best way to start is to look at a couple of worldly examples.
A typical 3 diety pantheon might follow the hindu trinity model
Brahma the Creator
Vishnu the Preserver
Shiva the Destroyer
(google will net you plenty on them)
I'd avoid at first game constructs like alignment and ask "What do the people of this world rever and what do they fear?" These will be the gods and demons of their world.