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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Most fantasy world builders create their fictional people and then create fictional religions that suit the people they created.

    I created a fictional pantheon and then asked myself "What sort of people would they create?" I did not want to have a god for the orcs, and a god for the dwarfs, and a god for the elves. I wanted my pantheon to be everyone's deities.

    I have nine deities one for each alignment. They barely managed to put aside their differences to overthrow their tyrannical progenitor when they realized their progenitor was going to eat the universe (lesser gods included) and start over. The good deities wanted to protect the innocents and the evil deities wanted to protect themselves. The neutral deities kept the coalition in line.

    Originally they all agreed to share the worship of the surviving mortals equally but the Chaotic Neutral goddess Nami, was like, "I'm going to give mortals free will and see what happens." Among other things, Nami was getting a lot of worship because mortals were gratious for the Gift of freewill, so the other deities followed suit with their own Gifts to try to bribe mortals to worship them: control over fire, agriculture, literacy, etc.

    Without listing a specific real world example, I will state that historically religious institutions have wielded direct or indirect political power. That was without having a small army of spell-casters to call on. It occurred to me that a medieval-ish fantasy world where the priesthoods have access to potent magic, the religious institutions would be more powerful not less. But with nine priesthoods competing, if a secular queen decides priesthood A is being too demanding she can throw her political support to Priesthood B who will fall over themselves to underbid Priesthood A.

    I notice when I'm developing nations that i reuse that story a lot and I'm mildly worried that I'm reusing a cliche.

    In most nations I created, the three Lawful deities' priests and priestesses are competing with each other to win over the king or queen. And if they cannot get the king, they will focus on the dukes, counts, knights, courtiers, and bureaucrats.

    Hallisan is Lawful Good, he is the god of chivalry, the earth and metalworking among other things. His clergy usually focus on winning over the soldiers and knights. Then use the military influence to win over the rulers. They have a fringe faction that believes they should focus on the common man over the rulers. The fringe faction produces a lot of lone heroes.

    Khemra is Lawful Neutral, she is the goddess of literacy, the sun/fire and law among other things. Her clergy usually focus on winning over scholars and bureaucrats. Then use the inner workings of the government to influence the rulers. They have a fringe faction that brutal methods.

    Phidas is Lawful Evil, he is the god commerce, protection, and trade among other things. His clergy usually focus on winning over rich people. Then use money and espionage to influence the rulers. They have a fringe faction that favors generosity to win worshipers.



    The three Neutral (with respect to Law and Chaos) deities' clergy will usually focus on winning over the masses of commoners.

    Mera is Neutral Good. She is the goddess of family, water, healing and protection among other things. Her clergy try to win over converts by providing counsel and healing services for free. They have a fringe faction that has a police state view of "protection" and curtails freedoms for the people's own safety.

    Greymoria is Neutral Evil. She is the goddess of arcane magic and monsters among other things. Usually she lashes out at the populace for not loving her enough. This causes them to turn away from her further, causing her to lash out again. Greymoria has to make due with fear instead of love. A fringe faction wants to win Greymoria worshipers by being nice to people, specifically showing them how arcane magic can benefit the populace.

    Korus is True Neutral. He is the god of nature and agriculture among other things. His followers help the crops grow and help people navigate the wilderness and this wins Korus worshipers though many take Korus for granted. Korus doesn't have a fringe faction per se, he has two. About half of his followers are farmer friendly clerics and about half are wilderness friendly druids. Both sides have hardliners that want to expand or contract civilization by force and Korus' followers have more civil wars than the other priesthoods but they usually keep a lid on it not involving outsiders.




    The three Chaotic deities' followers usually are content to administer to mavericks and nonconformists. Occasionally they will poke a stick at the powers that be. They are so decentralized that they don't really have fringe factions per se. They have lots of little factions, none of them are that mainstream.

    Zarthus is Chaotic Good. He is the god of the moon, self-reliance, and art among other things. A few of his followers skirt between camps but most fall into the Patrons who want to spread art and music, the homesteaders who want to carve out independent communities in isolated places, and the Liberators who want to oppose tyranny where ever it's found. The latter of which are a thorn in the side of nearly all rules, even Lawful Good ones. They are not likely to try to violently overthrow a Lawful Good king, but they will complain loudly about every misstep he makes.

    Nami is Chaotic Good. She is the goddess of weather, travel, and freedom among other things. Most people worship Nami once or twice a year on her holy festivals (which take the form of wild parties), and then they forget about Nami the rest of the year. Most of Nami's priests and priestesses are content with this. Nearly every country has their Nami festival on a different day, so a small number of traveling priests can preside over six or seven festivals a year. The priesthood often set up their temples at crossroads to double as inns both to help their itinerant priests and travelers in general. They claim that every priest or priestess is a faction of one. Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil clergy are forging alliances and preparing to drag the priesthood into a civil war.

    Maylar is Chaotic Evil. He is the god of Darwinism, animal husbandry, and disease among other thing. Maylar supposedly does not care if anyone loves him or not and is perfectly content to be feared. Maylar's central tenet is "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger." If you can survive the horrible things Maylar's followers inflict on you, then you are strong and deserve to survive. If not, your death is a blessing. A fringe faction is actually being nice to people. Not just anybody. They go to places with harsh climate and lots of natural danger figuring if people can survive there they deserve a little help and support.



    But when I come up with descriptions for how different nations and tribes view the Nine I keep falling back on the same script.

    The King supports Hallisan/Khemra publicly with Khemra/Hallisan vying for the second place spot of influence. Phidas is waiting in the wings but the king heard enough apocryphical stories about what happens to those who fall into debt under Phidas' priestshood so he keeps them at arms length.

    Unless the King is a tyrant, then he has Phidas as the state religion, Khemra in the number two spot, and Hallisan tied up with red tape.

    Most commoners worship Korus and Mera because Korus makes the crops grow and Mera encourages happy families. Korus's core worshipers prefer to stay out of politics as long as no one is harming nature on a grand scale, but they are sometimes sought out as impartial mediators. Mera's core worshipers rarely get political because if they do, the rulers might restrict their freedom of movement and association which allows them to go around healing people. Greymoria worship is A) barely tolerated or B) actively forbidden.

    Nami is worshiped on her holy days and ignored the rest of the year. Maylar worship is A) barely tolerated or B) actively forbidden or C) brutally crushed. Zarthus is either A) hamstrung by government regulations B) barely tolerated or C) placated by the king being a patron to the arts.


    I found I reuse the italicized script over and over again.

    I also have a small group called the Cult of the Compact that says everyone should worship all nine of the Nine equally. They are a little hamstrung by a lack of divine spell-casters. A divine spell-caster either has to have great piety in one god or goddesses or roughly equal piety for all nine. It's much easier to cultivate the former than than to latter. So the Cult of the Compact is too small to wield much political influence outside of a few very isolated areas.

    Is there an angle I'm missing to allow more diversity in the religious practices of each land while still keeping them with the same gods? I thought of some lands giving the deities different genders but that doesn't change their core values or tactics much.

    I thought about giving them different regional names, but that would only irritate players. If a player can recite the names of nine of my deities, I'm satisfied, I don't need to give them more names to learn.

    My current game is sort of on pause because of social distancing unless I can convince my friends to play via web camera (which they are sadly lukewarm on), but I hope to play again soonish. One of the PCs is a charismatic Lawful Good priest of Khemra and he is happy to play politics spinning his adventures to win support for Khemra among both nobles and commoners alike. He even got an ally installed in the court of a Duke who owed him a favor.

  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    What about coalitions and sub-pantheons?

    Like, one king might take the ALL-LAW trifecta; another might prefer the ALL-GOOD trio; a third might feel that the neutral middle layer is the most pragmatic compromise (the non-good, non-evil three).

    Yeah the state religion might tend to the Lawful left-hand side of the chart, but if you make the state pantheon a subset of 3 which INCLUDES one of those Lawful gods, then you've got a lot more room for creativity.

    Plus, a lot of human pattern-formation seems to clump around groups of 3, so it's a natural-feeling way to present a sub-pantheon.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by Scalenex View Post
    Without listing a specific real world example, I will state that historically religious institutions have wielded direct or indirect political power. That was without having a small army of spell-casters to call on. It occurred to me that a medieval-ish fantasy world where the priesthoods have access to potent magic, the religious institutions would be more powerful not less. But with nine priesthoods competing, if a secular queen decides priesthood A is being too demanding she can throw her political support to Priesthood B who will fall over themselves to underbid Priesthood A.
    If the priesthoods are more powerful because they have armies of spellcasters, why are there even any secular queens? If priesthoods in the real world could rule states and feudal fiefs on equal terms with secular authorities, why wouldn't they totally dominate when they have real working miracles? Every king or queen in this world should be a high priest of one of the nine.
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    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Take away the Nobility domain entirely or make it available to all four corners.

    The first way allows any deity to foster a ruling caste, and the others must take a supporting, (or competing,) role.

    The second way gives you The Rebel Captain, The Knight of Camelot, The Despotic Ruler, and The Insane Monarch, all vying for power all the time.

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    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Phidas is Lawful Evil, he is the god commerce, protection, and trade among other things. His clergy usually focus on winning over rich people. Then use money and espionage to influence the rulers. They have a fringe faction that favors generosity to win worshipers.
    So I could when worshipping phidas be good by being in the fringe faction?
    Also none of those domains sound evil or lawful in any way.
    Nami is Chaotic Good. She is the goddess of weather, travel, and freedom among other things. Most people worship Nami once or twice a year on her holy festivals (which take the form of wild parties), and then they forget about Nami the rest of the year. Most of Nami's priests and priestesses are content with this. Nearly every country has their Nami festival on a different day, so a small number of traveling priests can preside over six or seven festivals a year. The priesthood often set up their temples at crossroads to double as inns both to help their itinerant priests and travelers in general. They claim that every priest or priestess is a faction of one. Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil clergy are forging alliances and preparing to drag the priesthood into a civil war.
    I guess it was bound to happen : someone was going to stop representing their alignment.
    Instead she represent freedom which is a chaotic good concept (because if we let people be free to do everything we grant no freedom to those who gets enslaved so in order to provide freedom to everybody we need to protect the weak from the strong and make the weak less weak)

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    How about instead of thinking primarily about different gods when creating nations, you think about different kinds of nations first, then think about how the different priests might work in them?

    Don't just make monarchies, is what I mean. Have a Republican city state with Senate, where noble families hand out political offices like general and governor and tax collector to their favourites. Have a theocracy, where king is also high priest. Have an elective monarchy, where after the death of the king, there is a one-year interregnum during which the nobles haggle for power and gather supporters. Have a nomadic nation with tribal leaders, who only occasionally unite under a khan for a migration or a large raid. Have a highly decentralized empire, where all the real power lies with Dukes and Counts.

    All of those give you a lot of leverage points for your priesthoods.

    Then, an entirely different point, how about sacred locations? Sites of pilgrimage for the different gods, that also mean there is a steady source of income and influence for one god over another? This is the clay pit where Korus breathed life into the first oxen to plow the fields for an especially loyal worshipper. This is the very rock in which Khemra's holy fire carved the first letters to teach mortals how to write. It still glows brightly after all these years. This is the spring of Mera's tears, that cure leprosy. This is the mountaintop oracle of Nami, where anyone can listen to the winds, which will tell them where to travel to find new purpose in life. This crater is where the first mortal defied Greymoria's love, gaze upon it and tremble. And so on.
    Last edited by Eldan; 2020-06-29 at 09:39 AM.
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    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    Take away the Nobility domain entirely or make it available to all four corners.

    The first way allows any deity to foster a ruling caste, and the others must take a supporting, (or competing,) role.

    The second way gives you The Rebel Captain, The Knight of Camelot, The Despotic Ruler, and The Insane Monarch, all vying for power all the time.
    It occurs to me this system might set in motion a great wheel of history in which The Rebel realizes there must be laws to protect the weak, and ushers in The Good King who begins to demand conformity, which opens the door to The Tyrant, whose absolute power absolutely corrupts until The Insane Monarch makes life unbearable, which then brings a Rebel Captain along to overthrow him.

    I also like the suggestion to create many different governments and work the clergy into them.

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    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Thank you for the thoughful replies!

    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    What about coalitions and sub-pantheons?

    Like, one king might take the ALL-LAW trifecta; another might prefer the ALL-GOOD trio; a third might feel that the neutral middle layer is the most pragmatic compromise (the non-good, non-evil three).

    Yeah the state religion might tend to the Lawful left-hand side of the chart, but if you make the state pantheon a subset of 3 which INCLUDES one of those Lawful gods, then you've got a lot more room for creativity.

    Plus, a lot of human pattern-formation seems to clump around groups of 3, so it's a natural-feeling way to present a sub-pantheon.
    That is a good idea. I did create a Trifecta for the Merfolk. The three deities that have water in their portfolio who happen to be neutral. I also did a lot of gender swaps as my Merfolk are matriarchal. The Merfolk have a Mother Sea, Father Sky, Uncle Earth, motiff. Greymoria, Korus, and Mera are the Seeyirah which translates into "three Sisters/Daughters of the Sea". Zarthus and Khemra are the sons of the sky. Phidas and Hallisan are the sons of the sea floor, gods of crabs and chemical vents, and Maylar and Nami are the Seeyirah's wacky sisters that swim in to cause problems once in a while.

    I guess I could use this trifecta system for land people too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Xuc Xac View Post
    If the priesthoods are more powerful because they have armies of spellcasters, why are there even any secular queens? If priesthoods in the real world could rule states and feudal fiefs on equal terms with secular authorities, why wouldn't they totally dominate when they have real working miracles? Every king or queen in this world should be a high priest of one of the nine.
    I created a few theocracies. One large nation vaguely inspired by ancient Egypt and ruled by Khemra and a bunch of small nations with a wide variety of theocratic rulers. I guess I just assumed feudalistic monarchies would be the norm and others would be deviations because that's what players and readers expect. Maybe that's not the logical result. Perhaps I should create more theocracies.

    I also have a few nations that are technically secular but in reality they are puppets to one of the priesthood. My Dark Elf equivalent, Kahdisteria, is the only civilized nation that has Greymoria has the state religion. They are a magocracy where the most powerful spell-casters make up the monarch and the upper level nobles.

    Hallisan created the first dwarfs birthing them from a large stone. The oldest dwarf nation is built around the Temple of the Stone and the Temple of Stone can override whenever they choose. They rarely choose to do so, but the King is always aware of that sword of Damocles, so the king tends to take the temple's "suggestions" very seriously.

    One thing that would partially prevent an army of divine spell-casters from taking over a nation and declaring a theocracy is that if one priesthood got to aggressive, the other eight priesthoods would stand against them, at least indirectly. Though I suppose a trifecta of priesthoods that were truly unified could organize themselves well enough to beat the disorganized resistance of the other six. Also, arcane spell casters are an independent check on divine magic power. When Greymoria was at her lowest point for worshipers, she taught mortals wizardry in order to undermine the magical monopoly the other eight deities were enjoying. Though eventually this led to backfiring on Greymoria as some wizards turned away from worshiping her and now most wizards are not very religious, but Greymoria has always been a short-term thinker.


    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    Take away the Nobility domain entirely or make it available to all four corners.

    The first way allows any deity to foster a ruling caste, and the others must take a supporting, (or competing,) role.

    The second way gives you The Rebel Captain, The Knight of Camelot, The Despotic Ruler, and The Insane Monarch, all vying for power all the time.
    That's a good idea. Note that while I originally created my world as a 3.5 D&D setting, I was independently working on my homebrew game system and my friends said, "Hey know, you got two RPG projects, why not put them together?" so that's what I did.

    But I suppose if I bring it back to D&D 3.5 (or more likely 5th edition) I could easily open up the Nobility domain to all gods. Given that I only have nine gods to choose from, I figured I would give my gods a lot more domains than normal D&D gods get.

    In my homebrew system, all ten priesthoods (counting the rare polytheistic casters as a tenth priesthood) have access to the same magic, but they get a small dice bonus when casting magic that is their deity's specialty.


    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    So I could when worshipping phidas be good by being in the fringe faction?
    Also none of those domains sound evil or lawful in any way.

    I guess it was bound to happen : someone was going to stop representing their alignment.
    Instead she represent freedom which is a chaotic good concept (because if we let people be free to do everything we grant no freedom to those who gets enslaved so in order to provide freedom to everybody we need to protect the weak from the strong and make the weak less weak)
    I am experimenting with eliminating alignment requirements in my setting. I gave each of my deities an alignment as a baseline, but they are intended to be more than just an archetype of their alignment.

    As long as a divine spell-caster is trying to advance his deity's goals, the deity is not going to smite him or take away his magic for having the "wrong" alignment or using unorthodox tactics. The Nine are very forgiving of heresy. On the other hand, the Nine's mortal priests are generally less forgiving of heresy than their deities, especially the clergy of the Lawful deities.

    Also, there are some darker interpretations of freedom. Normally I subscribe to the "My right to swing my fist ends where your face begins," but some do not prescribe to respecting the freedom of others in the pursuit of their own freedom.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    How about instead of thinking primarily about different gods when creating nations, you think about different kinds of nations first, then think about how the different priests might work in them?

    Don't just make monarchies, is what I mean. Have a Republican city state with Senate, where noble families hand out political offices like general and governor and tax collector to their favourites. Have a theocracy, where king is also high priest. Have an elective monarchy, where after the death of the king, there is a one-year interregnum during which the nobles haggle for power and gather supporters. Have a nomadic nation with tribal leaders, who only occasionally unite under a khan for a migration or a large raid. Have a highly decentralized empire, where all the real power lies with Dukes and Counts.

    All of those give you a lot of leverage points for your priesthoods.
    That’s a good idea. I do have one nation that has a Senate. The elves and humans used to be at war for a long time and half-elves were treated like crap by both sides. There was a small border region between the elven and human lands that was conquered and reconquered over and over again. There were a lot of half-elves there because of what soldiers do when they conquer places…

    Eventually some half-elf adventurers gathered enough of a following that they were able to conquer the border region. Not liking the human and elf kings that oppressed them, they vowed to create a better system. They also had a lot of backing from the priesthood of Zarthus who are thrilled to have a nation where the people had a voice. It also helped that by the time the Half-elves declared their own separate nation both the humans and the elves were exhausted from centuries of war and ready to declare peace. A half-elf buffer zone between their lands seemed like a good idea at the time.

    Also, Zarthus is the patron god of half-breeds and bastards, so a nation of half-elves is perfect for his priesthood to actually have political influence for once. Maybe I’m biased against Chaotic Good revolutionaries, but I just assumed that 90% of Zarthus backed coups fail outright and of the ones that succeed 90% of the new governments collapse in two generations. The half-elf nation is the exception that proves the rule. They are about to celebrate their 300th year as a nation.

    I guess I can certainly create more nations that have a Senate or something similar. It doesn't have to have Zarthus involved and it certainly doesn't have to have half-elves invovled.


    An elective monarchy is not a bad idea either. I certainly like stories about feuding noble houses.


    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    Then, an entirely different point, how about sacred locations? Sites of pilgrimage for the different gods, that also mean there is a steady source of income and influence for one god over another? This is the clay pit where Korus breathed life into the first oxen to plow the fields for an especially loyal worshipper. This is the very rock in which Khemra's holy fire carved the first letters to teach mortals how to write. It still glows brightly after all these years. This is the spring of Mera's tears, that cure leprosy. This is the mountaintop oracle of Nami, where anyone can listen to the winds, which will tell them where to travel to find new purpose in life. This crater is where the first mortal defied Greymoria's love, gaze upon it and tremble. And so on.
    I have a few sacred locations, but I can always use more. The Great Stone where the first dwarfs emerged is a pilgrimage site or dwarves around the world. I like your idea of the clay pit where the oxen came but I might make it the first horse instead because I ended up making Korus the god of horses. In a way, horses represent his dedication to civilization and unicorns represent his dedication to the wild.

    All your suggestions are good. I especially like your oracle of the winds idea.

    When figuring out holy sites I need to figure out how ancient the sites are. There could be three places where the “first” oxen was created. My world is defined by global disasters that force the gods to hit the reset button. I also have a lot of continent scale disasters that cause kind of local resets.

    Originally the Nine made dragons to rule the world. Once the dragons ran out of space to expand, they fought each other very fiercely until one dragon queen tried a magical ritual to seize the power of the elemental plane and accidentally released millions of feral elementals who killed 95% of all life. The surviving dragons became bitter loners sitting on their hoards.

    Then the Nine made elves figuring weaker ruling mortals would cause less damage. Then the elves ran out of space to expand and began to war on each other constantly. Then an elf king had a wild scheme to become the Tenth god and instead partially awakened the essence of the dead primordial god the Nine fought against eons ago and unleashed millions of demons who killed 95% of all life. Only three and a half elf tribes survived. One pledged eternal servitude to Greymoria for magical protection (the dark elves), one made alliances with woodland creatures to survive (the wood elves), and one had the geographic advantage of being a remote island with lots of mountains to hide in (the grey elves). The half is a tiny elf enclave that made alliances with merfolk and other intelligent sea creatures to survive (the sea elves). There are numbers are so small though that many doubt they exist.

    Then the Nine created humans to be the new dominant race figuring a race of people with a lifespan under a century was a safer bet. They figure any cockamamie scheme capable of destroying the world takes at least two centuries to unfold.

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    It occurs to me this system might set in motion a great wheel of history in which The Rebel realizes there must be laws to protect the weak, and ushers in The Good King who begins to demand conformity, which opens the door to The Tyrant, whose absolute power absolutely corrupts until The Insane Monarch makes life unbearable, which then brings a Rebel Captain along to overthrow him.

    I also like the suggestion to create many different governments and work the clergy into them.
    The monarchy life cycle is a good idea. i'm certainly going to ponder different government systems.
    Last edited by Scalenex; 2020-06-29 at 02:03 PM.

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Once the nation of Arkada was a bastion of civilization. Indeed, (in other countries,) it is remembered as the center of a golden age of art and learning. Some statues, buildings, aquaducts, and roads remain from that era, but few Arkadans remember those days as other than improbable myths.
    What they remember is generation upon generation of war and repression. In the last generation their greatest concern has been fear of death by the secret police, who would torture confessions out of their victims, then use the 'intelligence' they gained to make further arrests in the middle of the night.
    So it came as no surprise that most of the population was ready to take up arms when a minor noble whose family had fled just ahead of the death squads returned at the head of an army. Villages, towns, and cities surrendered to the rebels without a fight, and quickly turned on the Inquisitors, informants, and supporters of the self-styled Emperor.
    There was great mourning when General Gnadsch fell during the assault on the wall of The Golden City, which was a monument to the decadence of Emperor Vatrundal, who had squandered the wealth of Arkada, and the lives of thousands of peasants, to build it.
    But General Navin was on hand to complete the victory, and the citizens rejoiced when twenty-one axes fell and one Emperor plus twenty Councillors lost their heads.

    "Your pay, as promised," General Navin said as he pushed a heavy chest of gold across the table.

    "As promised," the weasel-faced man replied with a smile. "There was something more promised for aranging so fortunate an accident."

    "Of course. You shall be appointed Governor of Falknest as soon as the new council can be appointed. Are you sure you don't want to be appointed to the council instead?"

    "I fear the life of a councillor would be too, ahh, brief for my taste."

    "Some, perhaps. Some who hold on to silly ideas of freedom and individuality. We have seen what that can be like all too recently. I want Arkada to return to its former glory as the mightiest nation in the world. We need one strong leader and an obedient population."

    "I will do my part, my king." The weaselly man licked his lips and said,"What will you do for now?"

    "I expect the peasants will tire of looting and destroying the palace in a few days. There may be opportunities for a few more fortunate accidents before it's over. Then we will begin to rebuild our nation. In my image." The general smiled. "But tonight I have time to indulge myself. I too have taken loot from the palace. Would you like to come with me to sample our former emperor's harem?"

    The wheel sometimes rolls backward.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2020-06-29 at 09:29 PM.

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by Scalenex View Post
    But when I come up with descriptions for how different nations and tribes view the Nine I keep falling back on the same script.

    The King supports Hallisan/Khemra publicly with Khemra/Hallisan vying for the second place spot of influence. Phidas is waiting in the wings but the king heard enough apocryphical stories about what happens to those who fall into debt under Phidas' priestshood so he keeps them at arms length.

    Unless the King is a tyrant, then he has Phidas as the state religion, Khemra in the number two spot, and Hallisan tied up with red tape.

    Most commoners worship Korus and Mera because Korus makes the crops grow and Mera encourages happy families. Korus's core worshipers prefer to stay out of politics as long as no one is harming nature on a grand scale, but they are sometimes sought out as impartial mediators. Mera's core worshipers rarely get political because if they do, the rulers might restrict their freedom of movement and association which allows them to go around healing people. Greymoria worship is A) barely tolerated or B) actively forbidden.

    Nami is worshiped on her holy days and ignored the rest of the year. Maylar worship is A) barely tolerated or B) actively forbidden or C) brutally crushed. Zarthus is either A) hamstrung by government regulations B) barely tolerated or C) placated by the king being a patron to the arts.


    I found I reuse the italicized script over and over again.

    I also have a small group called the Cult of the Compact that says everyone should worship all nine of the Nine equally. They are a little hamstrung by a lack of divine spell-casters. A divine spell-caster either has to have great piety in one god or goddesses or roughly equal piety for all nine. It's much easier to cultivate the former than than to latter. So the Cult of the Compact is too small to wield much political influence outside of a few very isolated areas.
    Well, the problem you've stumbled upon is that the alignments are not at all equal in terms of how influential they are, or how many people are likely to follow them. Societies, by and large, are overwhelmingly going to be lawful, and most people in those societies will tend to follow lawful precepts either devotedly (those of lawful alignment), or because it's convenient to do so (those who are neutral), with only a handful of chaotic individuals resisting the norm. As part of this, most of the leaders and administrators of those societies will be lawful as well - if you're administrating a nation, you'll want it to be well-run and orderly. Actually, at least in the real world, most people favor order over chaos. There are few truly chaotic individuals - a lot of people who might be described as having a chaotic alignment they typically oppose particular forms of law and order that stifle them, rather than being truly anarchic.

    On top of this, evil is not quite equivalent to good, simply because there are more reasons to be good than there are to be evil - and people who are evil do so largely out of self-interest, not for evil's sake, at least in the real world. Most cultures have their own idea of "good," and "evil," but in every case "good" is meant to strengthen the society, and "evil" is whatever harms it.

    Yes, this is D&D. But if you can't tell, I don't particularly care for D&D's alignments.

    Anyway, the source of the problem, I think, is that each of the alignments appeals to certain types of people, and while individuals may gravitate to any of the nine alignments, people in general, and people in certain professions, will lean towards certain alignments, again and again, for the same reasons.

    That's not a particularly deep observation, I know, so I'll share a little of what I did for _my_ setting - each of the deities represent philosophies or concepts, but these philosophies are more like overarching concepts rather than fine details, and there's a lot of room for interpretation. Different cultures may worship the same god, but that worship - as well as what the god means to each culture - varies.

    For instance, suppose there's a god of the sea. In one culture, based on a series of islands the god of the sea is provider (there are a lot of fisherman in that culture), and protector (for keeping them isolated from other nations). In another culture, on a coastline often wracked by hurricanes, he's still a provider, but he's also a chaotic and wrathful deity. In still another, an alliance of pirates, the sea god might represent freedom, fortune, and even music and brotherhood (sea shanties and singing them with a crew!).

    In another case, imagine a goddess of the night. In many cultures, she might be feared as a force of evil, for the night is hard to see in and holds countless monsters. But for more nocturnal races, she might be a deity of the hunt or of protection. And for human cultures with a more favorable view of the night, she may embody mysticism and wonder (the night sky and astrology).

    Now, how does this translate into deities of each of the alignments? Well, one way to vary it up between cities and cultures is to consider - what does each culture consider Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic? And while you're at it, what factors might shift a culture along one axis?

    I hope that helps. I probably have a different idea of the role of deities than you do, but I hope my suggestions are at least food for thought.
    Quote Originally Posted by Potato_Priest View Post
    Honestly, most players would get super excited about Zenob the god of crabs because it's eccentric. I know I would.
    Quote Originally Posted by Paragon View Post
    But a friendly reminder that, by RAW, this game is unplayable

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Troll in the Playground
     
    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    All along the Five Rivers the River Folk thrived. Their trade networks flowed up and down every stream through every village, town, and city in the land from the Eastern Icepeak Mountains to the Western Mountains of Mist, from the Frozen South to the tropical delta marshes of the Mother River.

    Then came the red-spot fever. Everywhere the traders went the fever followed. It killed. First the elders, then the babes. Those with the most knowledge of how to heal were among the first to die as they tried to tend the sick. Mothers and fathers died tending their sick children.

    Some of the young never got sick. Some got sick and recovered. Those who fled the cities sometimes avoided the sickness until another refugee encountered them, and then all bets were off.

    In a few short years the cities were empty save for the insane cult of people so maddened by grief that they turned to animating the corpses of their loved ones. But in a few more years all but the most powerful of these were gone.

    Thus, when the Krydens came across the sea they found wandering tribes wary of each other and even more wary of the overgrown cities along the rivers. Their simple, even childlike cultures and languages, gave the invaders the impression they were in need of paternal guidance.

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    If you want to preserve monarchies and nobility, you can include bloodline entailed magic (ala sorcerers or some forms of warlocks) or you can simply make a convincing case that the Sword Bros can handle themselves. Your real issue is that in having a god of bureaucracy means that the government will always be much more similar to Confucian states, which have centralized governments vaguely like our modern ones, than to Western Feudalism, which is basically confederal warlordism. But often fantasy settings more resemble this anyway, since the writers are moderns native to the modern city state!

    I think also you are underestimating the chaotic gods. The whole history of civilization until very recently has been the slow extinguishing of human's natural way of life and its replacement with state-forms born of sedentary agriculture. It was really not that long ago, even in incredibly densely packed Europe, when one could "head for the hills" and join a society that lived in tribal anarchies as humans have for ten thousand of years. Even into the eighteen hundreds, people who were kidnapped into Native American tribes often "went native" whereas the reverse was almost never the case (and the kidnappings did occur in reverse). Such societies would clamor for song, rain, and freedom. (Probably not animal husbandry though) By contrast, a world that's mostly truly conquered territory, that's bent either to agricultural or industrial purposes through human(oid) engineering is also one that's probably on the verge of mass democracy (there's no vent for the pressure states impose and the crowding makes states more dependent on cooperation). And in a mass democracy (or even a state negotiating avoiding that, as pre-19th century Britain or Bismarck's Germany), gods that center freedom and independence (like Zarthus) will be very popular. So it's only in relatively narrow circumstances (early age of exploration, games modeled on the American expansion into the West) that I think the chaotic gods would be genuinely on the outs with humanity.
    Vincent Omnia Veritas
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  13. - Top - End - #13
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    Once the nation of Arkada was a bastion of civilization. Indeed, (in other countries,) it is remembered as the center of a golden age of art and learning. Some statues, buildings, aquaducts, and roads remain from that era, but few Arkadans remember those days as other than improbable myths.
    …..

    The wheel sometimes rolls backward.
    You write excellent prose all the time, Brian. If you published something I would pay money to read it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dusk Raven View Post
    Well, the problem you've stumbled upon is that the alignments are not at all equal in terms of how influential they are, or how many people are likely to follow them. Societies, by and large, are overwhelmingly going to be lawful, and most people in those societies will tend to follow lawful precepts either devotedly (those of lawful alignment), or because it's convenient to do so (those who are neutral), with only a handful of chaotic individuals resisting the norm. As part of this, most of the leaders and administrators of those societies will be lawful as well - if you're administrating a nation, you'll want it to be well-run and orderly. Actually, at least in the real world, most people favor order over chaos. There are few truly chaotic individuals - a lot of people who might be described as having a chaotic alignment they typically oppose particular forms of law and order that stifle them, rather than being truly anarchic.

    On top of this, evil is not quite equivalent to good, simply because there are more reasons to be good than there are to be evil - and people who are evil do so largely out of self-interest, not for evil's sake, at least in the real world. Most cultures have their own idea of "good," and "evil," but in every case "good" is meant to strengthen the society, and "evil" is whatever harms it.

    Yes, this is D&D. But if you can't tell, I don't particularly care for D&D's alignments.
    I am inclined to agree. I used to really like the system of alignments, now I like them less. I created my nine deities using the nine alignments as a baseline, but I’m trying to diverge from the basic alignment descriptions more and more as I develop them further.

    I am a Star Trek fan and I really like Deep Space Nine in particular. I notice that alignment charts for the various characters don’t agree. It’s all relative to each other. That’s probably because Star Trek is a hyper lawful setting. The Federation is ruled by rigid laws and Starfleet follows a strict code. Cardassia values loyalty to the state above all else. Romulus is largely the same. The Bajora follow the will of the prophets without question. The Klingon’s may kill each other in challenges but they have a strict code. The Ferengi have 285 Rules of Acquisition. The Dominion is tightly controlled. The Borg are a hive mind. I would say a vast majority of Star Trek characters would be Lawful by D&D terms but you can still sort them on the alignment chart. Few if any Star Trek characters are Chaotic but are some are Chaotic compared to the others.

    None of my evil gods really delight in evil. What unites my three evil gods is that all three deities believe they deserve a bigger piece of the pie. When the Nine battled their tyrannical progenitor the three evil deities walked away believing that their contribution to the battle was the greatest and therefore they deserve the most worship and power.
    Before the Nine fought their creator Turoch, they poisoned him by feeding him mutilated souls. Greymoria tortured souls so that they were poisonous when consumed. This horrified the other mortals when they found out about this causing mortals to turn away from worshipping Greymoria, but Greymoria would like to point out without her supposed “atrocity” no mortals would have survived at all.
    Phidas told the lies to get Turoch to eat the poison and Turoch attacked him first, ripping off his face. Phidas was technically the first to break his oath of fealty to Turoch and he suffered the most for it. This is why Phidas embodies contracts and punishment. Turoch vowed he’d come back and said he’d kill Phidas first. Turoch’s death created a dark realm called the Void which is basically my version of the Negative Energy Plane. Phidas maintains the safeguards to keep the Void from destroying the world. He’s evil, but the good gods trust him to safeguard the world out of fear for his own safety.
    When the Nine fought Turoch, Maylar played possum early in the fight than sucker punched Turoch and struck the killing blow. Because he actually slew Turoch he believes he deserves the biggest piece of the pie.
    The good gods are generally interested in actively helping the mortals live better lives and my Neutral gods generally believe in leaving to them to their own devices with only occasional guidance from the Nine.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dusk Raven View Post
    Anyway, the source of the problem, I think, is that each of the alignments appeals to certain types of people, and while individuals may gravitate to any of the nine alignments, people in general, and people in certain professions, will lean towards certain alignments, again and again, for the same reasons.

    That's not a particularly deep observation, I know, so I'll share a little of what I did for _my_ setting - each of the deities represent philosophies or concepts, but these philosophies are more like overarching concepts rather than fine details, and there's a lot of room for interpretation. Different cultures may worship the same god, but that worship - as well as what the god means to each culture - varies.

    For instance, suppose there's a god of the sea. In one culture, based on a series of islands the god of the sea is provider (there are a lot of fisherman in that culture), and protector (for keeping them isolated from other nations). In another culture, on a coastline often wracked by hurricanes, he's still a provider, but he's also a chaotic and wrathful deity. In still another, an alliance of pirates, the sea god might represent freedom, fortune, and even music and brotherhood (sea shanties and singing them with a crew!).

    In another case, imagine a goddess of the night. In many cultures, she might be feared as a force of evil, for the night is hard to see in and holds countless monsters. But for more nocturnal races, she might be a deity of the hunt or of protection. And for human cultures with a more favorable view of the night, she may embody mysticism and wonder (the night sky and astrology).

    Now, how does this translate into deities of each of the alignments? Well, one way to vary it up between cities and cultures is to consider - what does each culture consider Good, Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic? And while you're at it, what factors might shift a culture along one axis?

    I hope that helps. I probably have a different idea of the role of deities than you do, but I hope my suggestions are at least food for thought.
    This is a good way to look at things. I need to put some thought into this.

    Quote Originally Posted by White Blade View Post
    If you want to preserve monarchies and nobility, you can include bloodline entailed magic (ala sorcerers or some forms of warlocks) or you can simply make a convincing case that the Sword Bros can handle themselves.
    I do have one large nation where the nobles are hereditary sorcerers. I’m still playtesting the rules of my homebrew system. Relative to D&D 2nd and 3.5, the two D&Ds I’ve extensively played, magic is less powerful in my world. Very useful but there is no raising the dead, no teleporting hundreds of miles, no smiting armies with one spell.
    I don’t know about a societal level, based on playtesting, on an adventuring party level, non-spellcasters are just as useful as spell-casters. When it comes to fighting goblins and monsters and whatnot buff spells on warriors seem more efficient than having the warriors sword things while the spell-casters blast things.
    Based on this, it is conceivable that a warlord could hold on to power against a wizard or a spell casting cleric, at least sometimes.
    Quote Originally Posted by White Blade View Post
    Your real issue is that in having a god of bureaucracy means that the government will always be much more similar to Confucian states, which have centralized governments vaguely like our modern ones, than to Western Feudalism, which is basically confederal warlordism. But often fantasy settings more resemble this anyway, since the writers are moderns native to the modern city state!
    I hadn’t thought of this but you are absolutely right. I tend to drift towards making things in my supposedly medieval world analogous to modern governments.

    Quote Originally Posted by White Blade View Post
    I think also you are underestimating the chaotic gods. The whole history of civilization until very recently has been the slow extinguishing of human's natural way of life and its replacement with state-forms born of sedentary agriculture. It was really not that long ago, even in incredibly densely packed Europe, when one could "head for the hills" and join a society that lived in tribal anarchies as humans have for ten thousand of years. Even into the eighteen hundreds, people who were kidnapped into Native American tribes often "went native" whereas the reverse was almost never the case (and the kidnappings did occur in reverse). Such societies would clamor for song, rain, and freedom.
    Wisely said. I should probably put more wilderness and more barbarians in my setting.

    Quote Originally Posted by White Blade View Post
    (Probably not animal husbandry though)
    Well Maylar lumped animal husbandry and hunting practices togethers. He wanted mortals to attribute killing lesser beings as the path to power and sustenance.
    But going beyond Maylar, I viewed animal husbandary as being tied to chaotic people because I really like the idea of Chaotic people riding through the steppes of Mongola, herding reindeer in Scandanavia or punching cattle In the American West.

    Quote Originally Posted by White Blade View Post
    By contrast, a world that's mostly truly conquered territory, that's bent either to agricultural or industrial purposes through human(oid) engineering is also one that's probably on the verge of mass democracy (there's no vent for the pressure states impose and the crowding makes states more dependent on cooperation). And in a mass democracy (or even a state negotiating avoiding that, as pre-19th century Britain or Bismarck's Germany), gods that center freedom and independence (like Zarthus) will be very popular. So it's only in relatively narrow circumstances (early age of exploration, games modeled on the American expansion into the West) that I think the chaotic gods would be genuinely on the outs with humanity.
    Wisely said.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Yakk's Avatar

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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    We can also use their alignment to say how they handle god-mortal interaction. In broad strokes:

    The Lawful deities believe that the pact that splits the mortals up into pieces should be maintained.

    The Good deities believe that the betrayal of their progenitor should not be repeated with the gods and mortals; the mortals matter.

    The Chaotic deities believe that the pact that splits the mortals up is fundamentally wrong.

    The Evil deities consider the mortals to be a resource to be maximized to generate power for their gods.

    Now, the Lawful deities understand that if mortals are perfectly balanced where they rule, and unbalanced elsewhere, that the result is unbalanced. And they seek the balance of the original pact.

    Possibly the treason of the CN deity means that she, as specified in the pact, should have her worshipers limited.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: My world is built on competing priesthoods, I'm not 100% that's a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by Scalenex View Post
    Then the Nine created humans to be the new dominant race figuring a race of people with a lifespan under a century was a safer bet. They figure any cockamamie scheme capable of destroying the world takes at least two centuries to unfold.
    The sad truth is that schemes able to destroy the world can take a few hours if too many people makes too many big mistakes.(Most undead catastrophes for example are harmless if managed well but if too many of the first people who encounters the problem are too much irresponsible and disorganized and incompetent then the undead ranks grows to a critical amount where they swarm the entire world. Another classical example is just someone opening a gate to another world and who do not have the power to stop the people from the other side from invading nor the idea to call those who would be able to then the people from the other side finish making a foothold in the invaded realm and starts making more portals and it becomes exponential trouble at that point (you also need all the surrounding people to not be suspicious of the one doing such irresponsible things or not willing to devote minimal efforts snooping regularly on the crazy))

    In fact shorter lifespans means that on average humans will be worse at managing those problems since they do not have as much experience with invasions from other planes and with undead swarms (since only their great great great grandparents met those so they have no clue on how to manage those problems or if they are even real thus explaining why they do not worry when someone gets the chalk for interdimensional portals made from those rare ingredients every elf still remembers by heart because of the previous terrible incident).

    So I hope for them that they do not have their beliefs proven false.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-07-02 at 04:17 PM.

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