[4e] Building A World's Religions

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I was wondering if I could trouble you good people here for a bit of creative advice. I don't believe it's been so long that some of you have forgotten the 4e game I'd joined some time ago that had my goody-goody paladin in a party of amoral *******s. That game fell through due to personal disagreements and a general lack of interest from the other players. Well, my co-creator and I have decided to blow the dust off it and try again.

The thing is, we're not just reebooting the game. We're giving the entire campaign setting we were planning a total makeover. One important thing about the world that we're just starting to work on is what I think is essential. The pantheon. I've talked with my co-creator, whose made a pantheon and has divied up the domains as he sees fit. At the moment we're still trying to think up Channel Divinity feats and new utility powers for the Chosen ED, but before that, we need to decide just what the pantheon looks like. We have a basic outline and some names, but we have no idea how the faiths of these deities should be structured, what their commandments should be, what their relationships are with each other, etc, and I was hoping for some advice in that department. Here's our basic writeup:

Faiths of the Vale

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The Vale of Thorns worships a different pantheon of deities to those presented in The Player’s Handbook, and they are outlined in this section.

Alignment

The Vale pantheon differs to most other depictions of deity in other campaign settings, as there is no difference in alignment among them: all deities in the Vale pantheon are unaligned.

Essentially this is because the gods have not spoken to anyone in the world since the Fall. Some say this is because the magical energy released during the Fall sealed the gods away from the world, and they watch on helpless. Others say that the gods have simply lost interest, and ignore what goes on. In fact, there is no clear proof that the gods even exist at all; they never contact the Vale or intervene in its affairs. Essentially, religion in the Vale is just a matter of faith.

Consequentially, what people have come to believe in about their deity might not always be the truth. One follower of Alloria will preach on the virtues of being unafraid of death, and of the pleasures of sea-travel, while another will offer Alloria human sacrifices beneath the light of the full moon. Because Alloria can’t (or won’t) get involved to support either cause, both have equal validity.

The two exceptions to this are Avock and the Thorns, the former residing within the World Forest and the latter making up the bulk of the landscape within the Vale. However, even in these cases, intervention and messages are not forthcoming. Avock believes that to meddle in the Vale’s affairs is unjust, and the Thorns motives are so unclear as to make their stance in the battle between good and evil indecipherable.

Divine Characters

Clerics, paladins, and other characters that must worry about the compatibility between their alignment and their deity’s, do not have such a problem when selecting a deity from the Vale pantheon. Any from its ranks may be considered of any alignment: both good and evil clerics serve Toek.

Regardless of this, such characters are still expected to act in a manner both fitting to their own alignment, and to the tenants of their god. A good aligned paladin of Liara must still bring the wicked to justice, and an evil aligned paladin seek revenge against all that slight him.

Domains

As introduced in Divine Power, each deity has a number of domains that they control. The Vale pantheon is no different, and their domains are shown in the table below.

Alloria: Death, Moon, Sea
Avock: Hope, Luck, Madness
Havonna: Storm, Sun
Iros: Arcana, Knowledge, Skill
Issmae: Love, Life, Poison, Undeath
Liara: Justice, Torment, Vengeance
Litia: Destruction, Fate, Winter, Strife
Risech: Protection, Strength, Tyranny, War
Skelarmos: Darkness, Freedom, Trickery
The Thorns: Earth, Wilderness
Toek: Change, Civilisation, Creation

The only bit we know for sure involves Avock, since he was the first one we thought of. He was a wraith that recieved divinity for reasons unknown and created the first dreams.

Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Advice? Torch and pitchfork mobs?

[FlawedParadigm]

Need more fluff to offer very constructive criticism; for one, I don't quite see how Hope, Luck, and Madness all manage to be under the dominion of one being, unless said being is also schizophrenic.

Also, I'd try to not have deities with four domains. Consider shunting Life from Issmae to Havonna (Storm and Sun are water and light - certainly enough for plant Life, and most other living beings partake of those elements as well), and giving Risech's Protection to The Thorns (Earth, Wilderness, and Protection make sense, as well as leaving Risech with Strength, War, and Tyranny).

Issmae would also become quite interesting, mixing Poison and Undeath with...Love. (S?)he could represent Love taken to excesses - pride, vanity, gluttony, lust, greed, et cetera. You'd have to cook up something with Litia separately, or just remove one of (her?) domains as well and create a deity from the three "lost" domains.

Also note; it's perfectly fine to use some domains more than once. If you use Issmae as suggested above, you'd almost certainly want another deity who represents a more traditional idea of Love, unless you're intending on some kind of grimdark campaign setting.

[dragoonsgone]

Seems like it would be easier to have the gods first then assign domains to them. Unless those domains aren't concrete.

Skelarmos- Gnome god who has a cruel since of humor. He likes to play jokes that are a bit too mean for some peoples tastes. He adhores any kind of slavery or servitude though. Everyone is equal.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, my co-creator changed his mind. Now instead of a number of unaligned gods, he's only having a handful (like five or six) but with multiple churches. Members of different churches would have access to different domains. Here's his writeup for that:

Faiths of the Vale

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Avock

Church of the Dreaming Father

Alignment: Good
Domains: Arcana, Change, Freedom, Knowledge, Protection.

Council of the Wraith Lord

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Arcana, Change, Darkness, Knowledge, Undeath.

Illoria

Church of the Cycle

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Change, Death, Strife, Winter.

Agents of the Reaper

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Change, Death, Strife, Winter.

Children of the Rolling Deep

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Freedom, Sea, Skill, Storm.

Church of the Pale Lady

Alignment: Good
Domains: Love, Luck, Moon, Sea.

Lytia

Reformed Church of Lytia the Spinner

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Creation, Fate, Hope, Life, Strife.

Watchers of the Gold Thread

Alignment: Good
Domains: Creation, Fate, Hope, Luck

Church of the Last Fate

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Creation, Fate, Strife, Torment

Church of Lytia the Mother

Alignment: Good
Domains: Creation, Life, Love, Protection

Ios

Church of the Fallen

Alignment: Unaligned
Domain: Civilisation, Knowledge, Skill, Strength

Church of the Risen

Alignment: Good
Domains: Arcana, Creation, Freedom, Justice.

Church of the Scholar

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Arcana, Creation, Knowledge, Skill.

Church of the Traveller

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Freedom, Justice, Luck, Trickery.

Church of the King

Alignment: Good
Domains: Civilisation, Protection, Strength, War.

The Screaming Host

The Screaming Host are number of ancient immortals, as powerful as they are wicked. In days past they were known as primordials, but the Fall and their subsequent incarceration in the Black Pit, a magical prison of black iron buried deep within the earth, has warped them into something far worse.

The Screaming Host are all beings of extraordinary power, but three in particular hold great sway in the Black Pit: the Engine, the Agony, and the Beauty. Mortals who are seduced by the Screaming Host most commonly worship one of these three, or the Host as a whole.

Servants of the Host

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Destruction, Madness, Strife, Torment.

Church of the Engine

Alignment: Chaotic Evil.
Domains: Change, Civilisation, Destruction, War.

Church of the Agony

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Darkness, Poison, Torment, Vengeance.

Church of the Beauty

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Love, Madness, Moon, Trickery.

The Thorns

Thornheralds of the Vale

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Earth, Madness, Tyranny, Wilderness.

Church of the Rose

Alignment: Unaligned.
Domains: Earth, Life, Sun, Wilderness.

I think this is a better idea than the last one, but I'm going to propose a number of tweaks to it later. My biggest issue at the moment is that the Lawful Good alignment isn't really represented here.

[Mando Knight]

Well, my co-creator changed his mind. Now instead of a number of unaligned gods, he's only having a handful (like five or six) but with multiple churches. Members of different churches would have access to different domains. Here's his writeup for that:

Faiths of the Vale

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Avock

Church of the Dreaming Father

Alignment: Good
Domains: Arcana, Change, Freedom, Knowledge, Protection.

Council of the Wraith Lord

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Arcana, Change, Darkness, Knowledge, Undeath.

Illoria

Church of the Cycle

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Change, Death, Strife, Winter.

Agents of the Reaper

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Change, Death, Strife, Winter.

Children of the Rolling Deep

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Freedom, Sea, Skill, Storm.

Church of the Pale Lady

Alignment: Good
Domains: Love, Luck, Moon, Sea.

Lytia

Reformed Church of Lytia the Spinner

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Creation, Fate, Hope, Life, Strife.

Watchers of the Gold Thread

Alignment: Good
Domains: Creation, Fate, Hope, Luck

Church of the Last Fate

Alignment: Evil
Domains: Creation, Fate, Strife, Torment

Church of Lytia the Mother

Alignment: Good
Domains: Creation, Life, Love, Protection

Ios

Church of the Fallen

Alignment: Unaligned
Domain: Civilisation, Knowledge, Skill, Strength

Church of the Risen

Alignment: Good
Domains: Arcana, Creation, Freedom, Justice.

Church of the Scholar

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Arcana, Creation, Knowledge, Skill.

Church of the Traveller

Alignment: Unaligned
Domains: Freedom, Justice, Luck, Trickery.

Church of the King

Alignment: Good
Domains: Civilisation, Protection, Strength, War.

The Screaming Host

The Screaming Host are number of ancient immortals, as powerful as they are wicked. In days past they were known as primordials, but the Fall and their subsequent incarceration in the Black Pit, a magical prison of black iron buried deep within the earth, has warped them into something far worse.

The Screaming Host are all beings of extraordinary power, but three in particular hold great sway in the Black Pit: the Engine, the Agony, and the Beauty. Mortals who are seduced by the Screaming Host most commonly worship one of these three, or the Host as a whole.

Servants of the Host

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Destruction, Madness, Strife, Torment.

Church of the Engine

Alignment: Chaotic Evil.
Domains: Change, Civilisation, Destruction, War.

Church of the Agony

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Darkness, Poison, Torment, Vengeance.

Church of the Beauty

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Love, Madness, Moon, Trickery.

The Thorns

Thornheralds of the Vale

Alignment: Evil.
Domains: Earth, Madness, Tyranny, Wilderness.

Church of the Rose

Alignment: Unaligned.
Domains: Earth, Life, Sun, Wilderness.

I think this is a better idea than the last one, but I'm going to propose a number of tweaks to it later. My biggest issue at the moment is that the Lawful Good alignment isn't really represented here.

Yeah... I really don't understand why the King isn't LG. He's got the Protection and Civilization domains, the former of which is a domain that is exclusively an LG domain for the PHB deities, and the latter is used by only deities that fall under Lawful in the 3.5 alignment system (Erathis and Asmodeus). I also don't understand why the King doesn't get the Justice domain (typically a Lawful domain due to its nature), but the Traveler and the Risen do... while they both also have the Freedom domain.

[The Witch-King]

Well, my co-creator changed his mind. Now instead of a number of unaligned gods, he's only having a handful (like five or six) but with multiple churches. Members of different churches would have access to different domains.

I think that's the most awesome idea I've heard for handling religion in these sorts of games for some time now. I've always thought that the Drow religion was a lot less about what they were actually getting from Lolth and a lot more about a bunch of clerics desperately trying to hold onto power. I'm so swiping this idea and introducing a small rebel sect of Good Lolth worshippers!

[Hal]

I'm not sure what advice you're looking for, but if you're looking to build up your world, there's a few questions you need to be able to answer when your players arrive:

-Why do people worship these deities?
-What does worship of these deities entail?
-Do they have an organized hierarchy or is it a loose faith of consensus?
-Does the faith ask or require anything of its followers? Attendance at religious services, pilgrimages, tithing?
-Does the faith have any customs? Festivals? Shrines?
-Do the cities have temples or shrines to all of the deities? If not, what do worshippers of other deities do, if anything?
-How does one become a divine follower? (Cleric, Paladin, etc.)
-Once someone enters into such service to their deity, what comes next?

And so on. Once you start trying to answer these questions, you'll come up with more questions to answer, but you'll also flesh out your pantheon in the meantime. One thing to note: The fewer unique deities there are in your world, the more prominent and important their presence will be. With more deities, it will be more difficult to display their uniqueness to the players; it'll all blend together. Depending on the role religion is going to take in your campaign, this may or may not matter.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Yeah... I really don't understand why the King isn't LG. He's got the Protection and Civilization domains, the former of which is a domain that is exclusively an LG domain for the PHB deities, and the latter is used by only deities that fall under Lawful in the 3.5 alignment system (Erathis and Asmodeus). I also don't understand why the King doesn't get the Justice domain (typically a Lawful domain due to its nature), but the Traveler and the Risen do... while they both also have the Freedom domain.

Yeah, that was a slip-up on my co-creator's part. He meant for the King to be LG.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm not sure what advice you're looking for, but if you're looking to build up your world, there's a few questions you need to be able to answer when your players arrive:

-Why do people worship these deities?
-What does worship of these deities entail?
-Do they have an organized hierarchy or is it a loose faith of consensus?
-Does the faith ask or require anything of its followers? Attendance at religious services, pilgrimages, tithing?
-Does the faith have any customs? Festivals? Shrines?
-Do the cities have temples or shrines to all of the deities? If not, what do worshippers of other deities do, if anything?
-How does one become a divine follower? (Cleric, Paladin, etc.)
-Once someone enters into such service to their deity, what comes next?

And so on. Once you start trying to answer these questions, you'll come up with more questions to answer, but you'll also flesh out your pantheon in the meantime. One thing to note: The fewer unique deities there are in your world, the more prominent and important their presence will be. With more deities, it will be more difficult to display their uniqueness to the players; it'll all blend together. Depending on the role religion is going to take in your campaign, this may or may not matter.

I'll ask my co-creator these questions. I know religion's going to be important for my character, as he's going to convert to one of the local religions and be ordained as a paladin (effectively multiclassing).

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Here's a small update. My co-creator has provided a description of each god. I'll post more of these when I have more time, but for now, here's one of the most important gods, the Master of Dreams...

Avock

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Benevolent father to all the Vale, Avock is the wraith god master of dreams. It was his intervention after the Fall, when those deva that had survived it began to go insane through lack of dreams, that prevented them being wiped out entirely.

Avock began his existence as an unassuming undead spirit, the first wraith ever to rise in the Vale. Precisely how this came to be, and whether Avock ever even existed as a living mortal before his undeath, are details that have long since been lost to the ages. Avock himself never recalls a life before he was a wraith, though he doesn’t deny there could have been one. Unlike most, he bears no hatred of the living, and never has.

As a wraith, Avock wandered the universe, simply observing all that went on. At the time of the Fall he was watching from the edges of the World Forest, and saw Naershal torn to pieces first hand. It was the magical energy released by the crashed earthmote that gave Avock his godhood, as he directly absorbed vast amounts of raw power.

The magic let loose during the Fall also destroyed the dreams of the surviving deva. Without dreams, they could not sleep, and thus some began to go insane. Avock felt pity for the deva, and took the souls of the deva that had died in the Fall, and tasked them to dream for those still living. This has been the way of the world ever since, the dead of the past dreaming for the living of the future. Every now and again, Illoria allows Avock to take a few souls of the recently deceased to dream eternally. These souls will never awaken, only knowing peaceful slumber for eternity. No matter their former destiny, exalted or damned, all find comfort and peace in the Master of Dreams.

Avock appears to most people as a large wraith, a ragged black cloak with two pinpoints of orange light staring out of the swirling darkness within. Despite his unnerving appearance, he is actually very soft-spoken and cordial. Most people leave him with the impression of a doting, world-weary father.

Most mortals in the Vale itself aren't aware that Avock even exists. The stories of the Master of Dreams are bedtime stories for innocent children to comfort them in the face of growing up in a place like the Vale, openly hostile to mortals. The mysterious vistani, who wander both the Vale and the World Forest, however, know the truth. Avock is their patron, but demands nothing from them. For generations, the spiritual leader of the vistani has also been Avock's wife, siring a daughter who later takes up her mother's mantle as the wisest of the vistani, and Avock's bride.

The form of Avock that most people see is not the form that Avock's bride sees. While Avock began as a single being, his vast knowledge is somehow separate from his immediate conciousness. Almost like a library has an archivist that changes when the old one retires, Avock's identity has changed many times, usually with each generation of vistani. When his bride looks upon him, she does not see a cloak of tatters and shadows, but her perfect husband.

Avock long ago ceased to interfere in mortal affairs. He continues to preserve the current balance and the dreaming process of the Vale, and sometimes gives snippets of advice to those he considers wise, but otherwise leaves mortals to make their own mistakes. Such advice is always dispensed face to face, and usually in the cottage that Avock calls home, deep in the World Forest.

[Dixieboy]

Need more fluff to offer very constructive criticism; for one, I don't quite see how Hope, Luck, and Madness all manage to be under the dominion of one being, unless said being is also schizophrenic.

Or he's just the epitome of chaos/desperation.
Sort of like a patron saint of "Lost causes".

A fickle god who acts in mysterious ways.

Makes sense to me.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Here's the rest of the godly descriptions:

Illoria

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Illoria is the pale goddess of death and grief. After the Fall she took to fishing on the Midnight Sea, a moonlit body of water that runs all the way through the universe. At its largest point it separates the World Forest from the mainland of the Void, and some vistani claim to have met her on their journeys.

Illoria is also known as the Pale Lady. Her white skin contrasts sharply with her pitch black hair and her hands, which, after spending so much time hauling in catches from the Midnight Sea, are stained just as dark. She and her sister Lytia are the oldest of the gods, and fought the primordials alone for many ages before the arrival of Ios. It is not just fish that Illoria snags in her long nets, but also the souls of the dead.

Beneath the light of the eternally full moon, she casts her net deep into the Midnight Sea’s depths and brings back both fish and the shivering remains of mortal life. It is also said that her net can snag the heart of any being in the universe, though Illoria never exercises this power; she is a lonely deity, and brooks no companions on her endless sea journey. For the same reason, Illoria takes no interest in mortal affairs; merely trawling for mortal souls, and depositing her catch about the vast Midnight Sea, is interference enough for her.

Despite her unguarded state, Illoria has never come to harm. A number of powerful immortals who would take her mantle as her own have attempted to do so in the past, but a single gaze from Illoria’s eyes is all it takes to reduce any creature to broken, pitiful sobs.

Ios

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Of all the gods, Ios has the widest following. This is unsurprising considering the breadth of his influence, the result of a thoroughly mixed life. It is told that Ios began life as a mortal, one of the many deva created Lytia. He began this existence as an academic, and studied for so long and so deeply that he came to be an expert in every subject in the universe. Ios is even credited for discovering the secrets of magic and bequeathing them to mortals, giving them powers that previously only the gods possessed.

Knowledge was not enough for Ios however; armed with his wisdom, he set about establishing a great city, and laid the foundations for what would eventually become Naershal. As Naershal’s king, and mortal lord of all the deva, Ios ruled justly and compassionately, extolling the virtues of law within an organised city state. At the height of his reign, Ios led an army of deva into the heavens to aid Illoria and Lytia in their fight with the primordials, and engaged in many successful battles before finally being slain by the being that would eventually become the Engine.

By this point in his existence, Ios was so powerful that he didn’t wait for reincarnation as devas normally did, but instead reincarnated himself. This final act confirmed him as a true deity, and Ios spent the next stage of his existence growing used to his new state. He travelled the universe, experiment with the limits of his power, all the while giving aid to those needed it most. His most notable feat during this time was to trick two primordials into killing each other, by assuming their forms and impersonating their voices.

At the time of the Fall, Ios had finishing testing his new godhood, and had rejoined the war with the primordials. It was his struggle, with the being that would later become the Agony, that resulted in the eathmote being knocked from the sky. As he watched Naershal obliterated, Ios became enraged at what the war had done to his people. As the blast of magic from the crashed earthmote rushed up to meet him, Ios created the Black Pit and interred any primordials left alive inside it.

Saddened by the destruction of Naershal, Ios ceased to have any involvement in the Vale’s affairs after the Fall. Precisely how he spends his time now is unknown.

Lytia

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Along with her sister Illoria, Lytia is the oldest of the gods. Since she came into being, Lytia has been a creator, whether it come in the form of creating the fates of the world by spinning them out on her loom, or creating the deva by breathing life into the swirling winds of the World Forest.

Lytia is a warm, loving deity. Very different in appearance as in character to Illoria, she has long, golden hair and rosy cheeks. From her domain the the Astral Sea, Lytia endlessly spins out the fate of the world on her loom, carefully weaving together untold billions of threads so that they correctly resemble the visions of the future she is granted. These visions deliver only the near future to Lytia, so her actual ability to prophesise is limited; her duty is to ensure fate does not become tangled and everyone is led down the path chosen for them, not to know that path far in advance or change it.

Before the Fall, fate was a chaotic, jumbled affair. Exactly what fate had in mind for anything, and whether those plans were being followed, was unknown, as Lytia was too engaged in the war with the primordials to spin it together. Since the Fall however, she has withdrawn to her loom. Her time is now exclusively taken up by spinning fate, and she takes little interest in the mortal world.

The Screaming Host

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The Screaming Host are number of ancient immortals, as powerful as they are wicked. In days past they were known as primordials, but the Fall and their subsequent incarceration in the Black Pit, a magical prison of black iron, has warped them into something far worse.

It is unclear exactly what or where the Black Pit is. Some legends speak of it very literally: as a vast prison made entirely from black iron, burnished with scores of magical wards and buried deep underneath the World Forest. Others say that no literal, material prison exists, and that the Screaming Host is instead held in stasis and orbiting the world. The most widely accepted belief is something in between, with a labyrinthine prison of black iron existing somewhere within the universe, or perhaps existing in several places at once, and that it must be unlocked in all of its locations for the whole to rise up from the earth and spew its terrible contents upon the peoples of the earth.

Because of their incarcerated state, the Screaming Host cannot affect the world directly, but they can reach into the minds of mortals within the Vale and try to influence them one way or another. A number of lesser evil immortals also serves each member of the Screaming Host, from demons and devils to rakshasas and nagas. Someday, the Screaming Host hope that their followers will find a way to free them upon the world.

The Screaming Host are all beings of extraordinary power, but three in particular hold great sway in the Black Pit: the Engine, the Agony, and the Beauty. Mortals who are seduced by the Screaming Host most commonly worship one of these three, or the Host as a whole.

The Thorns

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Created when the Fall caused the Feywild and the Shadowfell to collide with the Vale, the Thorns are both the Vale’s most notable feature and its most overt threat. As a deity, they are hard to fathom, offering no directions to those that worship them and merely dominating the minds of creatures at random to bring them into their midst. While many point out that those who are taken by the Thorns are frequently ripped apart by them, it is also undeniable that the various fey races that live in the Vale wouldn’t have come into existence at all if it hadn’t been for the Thorns. Exactly what the Thorns are and what they want remains to be seen; in the meantime, the two churches that worship them continue to preach completely separate ideologies.

Now that we have more detailed descriptions of the gods themselves, what do you think?