looking for a specific type of campaign.

[Mystic Muse]

Okay. a few of my player's mother is uncomfortable with religion in the game. I'm looking for a campaign with no references to any of the gods or demon lords whatsoever. although this should be a given also no demons/devils or celestials or anything like that.

for those who are going to say "convince her to let you do it anyway." please avoid posting this. I'm going to try and if it's successful I'll be using one of two of my own campaigns. Or a third campaign pretty much taken from a video game.

[Forever Curious]

My best advice would be to make one up yourself: it's not hard to eliminate religion from the game if you try. Just focus on arcane (if that's within your limits) and on more mundane obstacles than demons/celestrals.

[oxybe]

my opinion? Dark Sun.

if there are gods, they're not touching this barren, desert world with a 10-plane pole. as it stands, there are no gods and none can currently rise up. normally divine characters like the cleric, avenger, paladin & invoker would draw their powers from the elemental planes (fire, water, earth, air or cosmos[elemental-neutral]) instead of the deities.

should they rank among the Templars their power is drawn/leeched from the powerful Sorceror-king whom they serve instead of the elemental planes.

the Sorceror-Kings (not all males, of course, King seems to be used for both men and women with the title) are the closest things to demons/devils in the setting since their presence and tyranny is felt everywhere they call their land, and while Immortal (in the sense that they don't die of age) they aren't creatures of hell... just ridiculously powerful arcane casters, all of them defilers. each King has a city under it's jurisdiction that it will actually go to great lengths to protect it's inhabitants (and thus, it's power structure).

the 4th ed barbarian, a primal power source character, would actually fit better with the divines in Dark Sun as he would draw his power from the elementals & spirits around him. druids/shamans/wardens would draw their power from the scorched & ravaged earth itself, trying to heal it with their arts and repopulate Athas with life again.

arcane casters are usually either Defilers (draining and destroying the land around them to cast their spells) or Preservers (they replace what they drain when they cast).

one of the most powerful creature in the setting is The Scourge, The Dragon of Tyr. THE dragon as in possibly the only one left. It also happens to be a powerful Defiler who's magic defiles like no one's business, killing virtually all life in the immediate area.

the setting is essentially post-apocalyptic D&D: the world is in ruins and largely a desert, fresh water and oases are heavily guarded, the environment is very warm and harsh and travelers can die if they leave the city unprepared. metal is rare and most gear is made from leather, chitin, bone or rock. between the merchants, caravans, slavers, raiders, rogues, nomads, herdsmen, hermits and many insectoid races and monsters like the insectoid tri-kreen, it's definately not your standard D&D world.

lots more exist on the setting. Dark Sun and Athas... how i love thee.

[Mystic Muse]

stuff.

this looks very good. Did you make this up yourself or is it one that's online/being sold?

[dragonfan6490]

Going the video game route would probably be the easiest way to go, since alot of video games don't even mention religion.

[Mystic Muse]

Going the video game route would probably be the easiest way to go, since alot of video games don't even mention religion.

actually that campaign DOES have religion in it. I meant if I could convince their mom to allow it I might do that one.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

this looks very good. Did you make this up yourself or is it one that's online/being sold?

You've never heard of Dark Sun!?

It was an awesome 2e campaign setting that's been mostly updated to 3e. Take a look and see if it works!

[Mystic Muse]

You've never heard of Dark Sun!?

It was an awesome 2e campaign setting that's been mostly updated to 3e. Take a look and see if it works!

sorry. My D&D lore isn't that great and I've never played anything except 3.5 and 4.0 so no. I've never heard of dark sun or many other dungeons except for tomb of horrors and Ravenloft.

[Baerdog7]

The good news for you is that Dark Sun will be the 2010 campaign setting for 4e. It'll come out sometime after the PHB3 which will introduce the psychic/psionic power source. Appropriate, seeing as how psionics play a major role in Dark Sun.

[Mystic Muse]

I actually prefer 3.5. 4.0 is a bit too bland in my opinion. I just like the group too much to quit. ergo my group will be playing 3.5 this year. maybe 4th edition again next year but it's doubtful. although eventually we may play the earlier version.

[oxybe]

actually the 4th ed Campaign Setting book, if it's anything like the Eberron one, will probably be relatively crunch lite. the only real crunch in it are the important NPC guys and some of the setting-particular monsters, which will usually gives you enough information on their abilities to recreate them for your preferred game.

the rest of the book is delicious in it's awesomeness, detailing the history of the setting, the various regions & it's people, the factions vying for control and much more.

the crunch to fluff content is much higher in the Player Guide, which contains lots of content for players (new class, gear, feats, yadda yadda) and enough information on the setting to make a character that fits.

i'm still at the chicken scratch/scrawl steps of my 4th ed Eberron campaign, but i'll be using some of my old Dark Sun & Ravenloft material as sources i'll draw from, as well as a few choice 3rd ed books (heroes of horror, libris mortis).

they might not have rules i can plug directly into my games, but the fluff stuff is edition neutral.

[Raum]

You might check out some of the Science Fiction games as well, few mention religion at all. Here are a couple: Slipstream and Traveller. Other possible genre options include Pulp and Historical.

[Kol Korran]

i think you could quite easely convert many of your own material into non religious stuff. consider the following:

1) religions turns into magical orders who highly value certain standards or aspects of creation/ the world. gods of sun? you have magicicna who think magical energies come from the sun, and that it's light rejuvinates the ebbing energies of the world. god of death? magicinas who believe that if magic in living being persists too long then it is corrupted, and thus death comes to solve this problem. this may be why they oppose undeath. god of undeath? you see it can be easely done. i suggest you stick with several major "asctetic orders" or what not, while there could be many other philosophical minor "cults/ schools of thought".

2) spells: since you're not going to have divine magic (unless druids are allowed? i kind of assumed they are included as religious people), you need to do some alterations:
- basically you either get rid of all divine spells, or enable a new class- or the "philosopher"? (might need more work on the name) to learn these spells. they gain the spells by meditation but no religious content. they could work exactly like clerics and be the fighting order of the wizards cabals, or maybe their higher ups. for you to decide.
- enable healing some hp by use of the heal skill, or give some other class healing powers. these could take the form of something similar to the warlord and bard of 4E.
- as to the "good/evil/law/chaos" spells, they reek of religious content. so either get rid of them, or allow only those who follow a specific school of thought to follow them.

3) outsiders: just remove the connotation to fiend/celestial. instead make call the summoned creatures "creatures of the beyond". if the mom asks tell her thee represents life force applied to the wild imaginations and thoughts of wizards. they are created from the minds of men. in the game you don't even really need to change anything about them except maybe their overly "good/evil" spells, as mentioned before. but again, these creatures could just be incarnations of evil/ good.

as you see, a little change of outlook is all that's needed. then comes the campaign itself. you can still do it about all the previous stuff as long as you don't involve gods, and religions undergo the right transformation of concept.

hope this helped, perhaps it was a bit too long winded,
Kol.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

- as to the "good/evil/law/chaos" spells, they reek of religious content. so either get rid of them, or allow only those who follow a specific school of thought to follow them.

[...]

in the game you don't even really need to change anything about them except maybe their overly "good/evil" spells, as mentioned before. but again, these creatures could just be incarnations of evil/ good.

You don't necessarily need to remove alignment-based spells, as "I'm a good guy, he's a bad guy" really has nothing in common with "I'm religion X, he's religion Y." If nothing else, you could always rule that aligned spells affect only enemies, so holy word cast by a good character would simply affect anyone he considered to be an enemy, instead of only evil characters.

[valadil]

You can do D&D without religious focus. I'd get rid of paladins and reflavor clerics a little. You don't even need to change any rules.

[woodenbandman]

An interesting thought that i just had would be a world where magic had been around for ever and technology was fairly new, and the two would be in constant war over which was better. The Clerics could be totally reflavored to be tech-priests working to develop new and better technology.

[Raltar]

Can try a system not DnD? Might I suggest Star Wars Saga edition? Or even Shadowrun.

[OracleofWuffing]

You can do D&D without religious focus. I'd get rid of paladins and reflavor clerics a little. You don't even need to change any rules.

Reflavor the Druid ever so slightly, too. Anyone who doesn't want gods or demon lords probably doesn't want to hear about divine casting.

[Sir_Elderberry]

Nah, I'd say that if you're alright with manipulating the universe in general (arcane magic), you should be alright with the universe manipulating back (druids). Yeah, it's "divine" magic, but not quite so much. Then again, I've been playing 4e, and maybe the 3.5 ones are more god-focused than I remember.

Really, you're the one who knows the person objecting to the stuff, and what they will and will not go for.

[OracleofWuffing]

Nah, they're not really god-focused, just that I would see the word "divine" itself as a no-no area in general. Most dictionary definitions would point one directly to the deity area, and if I was in such a situation, I'd rather nip such an issue in the bud rather than trying to explain, "But no, that's not what it really means in the game..." after the fact. I'm only going for a little refluff here, calling it anything from "Green Thumb Magic" to "Environmental Might" is enough to work.

[sonofzeal]

Eberron is pretty good for that. There's religious institutions but they're mostly just that, with no tangible divine backing. Demons are similarly not really a part of the cosmology at all; they're around, but they don't really "matter" and are more just wandering monsters than sinister plotting malevolences, and could probably be handwaved as some Wizard's war-minions gone feral. It might not all be far enough for your friend, but you could ask, and Eberron's one of the most popular campaign settings anyway.