I have altered the fluff, pray I do not alter it further.


Gamer Life General Discussion

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Silver Crusade Contributor

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Ba Dum Tish wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
DM Under The Bridge wrote:

I like the troll origin story.

I would also be very amused if the players learned the elves have been editing history from a wise old troll.

You might even say...

that the elves were...

is hit by various thrown objects

*waits for it*

*waiting for it*

in heap on floor

...trolling them...

slumps


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

YYEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!


Kryzbyn wrote:
YYEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

The Exchange

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Kalindlara wrote:
Ba Dum Tish wrote:
Kalindlara wrote:
DM Under The Bridge wrote:

I like the troll origin story.

I would also be very amused if the players learned the elves have been editing history from a wise old troll.

You might even say...

that the elves were...

is hit by various thrown objects

*waits for it*

*waiting for it*

in heap on floor

...trolling them...

slumps

BA DUM TISH!!


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Strange world, where the trolls don't troll, they tell the truth.

Now imagining them under bridges presenting the real truth to passers by. All trolls take oratory.

Lantern Lodge

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And in a university, a troll history teacher is trolling his elven pupil, finding it funnier than rending them.


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Kalindlara what have you done?!?!

Silver Crusade Contributor

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Freehold DM wrote:
Kalindlara what have you done?!?!

from hiding

I regret nothing!

hides from new salvo


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Freehold DM wrote:
Necromancy is a school of magic centered around the idea of replacing the life force of a formerly sentient being and replacing it with energy from the plane of shadow. If used on creatures that are already deceased it results in simple creations like skeletons or zombies, but when used upon a living being, it sometimes results in horrid creatures that need to sup upon the life they left behind, such as ghouls, vampires, and werewolves.

arcane magic and life force are inherently linked. A wizard or sorcerer can push themselves to cast spells using their own life force to the point of unconsciousness or even death, although this understandably unwise. Whether or not this is an aspect of necromancy is a hotly debated topic among spellcasters of all types, and using one's life force to cast certain powerful spells that alter reality itself, such as the infamous wish, usually results in disaster.

Divine magic is linked to music, usually vocal, as even the most fractious clerics agree that the gods sang the world into being- or to somehow make their way onto this plane. Orisons are usually referred to as hymns. This puts even the most open minded Cleric at direct odds with bards, as bardic music and spellcasting is considered to be stealing at best.


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Freehold DM wrote:
Necromancy is a school of magic centered around the idea of replacing the life force of a formerly sentient being and replacing it with energy from the plane of shadow. If used on creatures that are already deceased it results in simple creations like skeletons or zombies, but when used upon a living being, it sometimes results in horrid creatures that need to sup upon the life they left behind, such as ghouls, vampires, and werewolves.

So, if I read this right, you removed all the beneficial and benevolent parts of the Necromancy school and made it exclusively a school that deals with dark magic and malevolent forces?


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You're going to need to be more specific.


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Few magicians are actually able to cast spells. In everybody lies some sort of primal magical energy that isn't really understood. Some people can consciously manipulate this energy, focusing it into a power called ki, others use it to keep magical energy under control (allowing them to become spellcasters), and Barbarians can let this power loose, but most use it unconsciously. By training extremely hard, by being extremely motivated, or by being scary smart, one can become so good at something that they tap into this power, allowing them to transcend human capabilities. This sort of person is still a magician, just not a spellcaster. Any player character who doesn't use spells or ki falls into this category. The main result of this system is that Fighters, Rogues, and the like work off of anime/wuxia rules of physics. Which is why a properly trained swordsman can cut bullets in half and pose a legit threat to someone with an assault rifle - they are literally using magic to achieve that.


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Been thinking for a few days on how to put this, so I will have a go.

Vampires are absorbent.

Vamps in my setting have the grand conspiracies thing going, keep it quiet, don't be exposed, but that isn't the most interesting fact about them. These creatures are greatly influenced by their environment and what they encounter over time. Including what they ingest, but also what they touch - they soak in a great deal, especially over their long lives.

To provide some examples. A vamp was sealed in a sunken, rotten swamp city for a few hundred years. They took the rot into them, it grew inside them, hollowing them out and making them pustulent. This changed their abilities (and their mind), and didn't do anything for their formerly pretty face. Speaking of the mind, their isolation broke them mentally and made they very needy and wrathful, and with access to some low level psionics to lure people into the dungeon. When players encountered this vamp, it was very unusual, and it they didn't initially think it was a vampire.

Second, the lady of perfume. A courtier of the southern countries, used to the high life of pleasure behind curtains and wafting walls of burnt incense. She is also used to dominating all around her and has improved abilities here. Mentally, she is extremely strong and intolerant, which doesn't make her very patient. Of course she is influenced by the many works and performances she has been exposed to, but her pampered existence has changed her natural scent (incense, wine, sweat, faint touch of blood), and provides a somewhat intoxicating aura around her (many parties, much wine and dance over many decades). This takes this vamp closer into succubus territory, but it certainly makes tracking her easy.

The players should fight her Monday. Or maybe they will sensibly reconsider?


Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert wrote:
Few magicians are actually able to cast spells. In everybody lies some sort of primal magical energy that isn't really understood. Some people can consciously manipulate this energy, focusing it into a power called ki, others use it to keep magical energy under control (allowing them to become spellcasters), and Barbarians can let this power loose, but most use it unconsciously. By training extremely hard, by being extremely motivated, or by being scary smart, one can become so good at something that they tap into this power, allowing them to transcend human capabilities. This sort of person is still a magician, just not a spellcaster. Any player character who doesn't use spells or ki falls into this category. The main result of this system is that Fighters, Rogues, and the like work off of anime/wuxia rules of physics. Which is why a properly trained swordsman can cut bullets in half and pose a legit threat to someone with an assault rifle - they are literally using magic to achieve that.

I like it and I've heard a few similar ideas. One dm in fleshing out the magic and ki of his world, linked ki to druidic practices. Except monks had taken nature and shaped it, honing and focusing what was natural and flowed through all things, but which they used in a specific way. This use of ki went in three directions, the monk, ninja and samurai ki abilities. Taking levels unlocked more abilities (dm fleshed it out a bit) but by necessity you had to specialise.

In that, sorcery and wizardry were quite far apart, sorcery linking somewhat to druidism, but also meaning you were plugging into old ancestral blood powers. Quite a different source to wizard magic, the academic higher theory magic refusing to acknowledge the old sources and finding work arounds to get the juice intellectually.

Good game that one, the dm spread things out a bit from the initial fluff and we had the opportunity to find ancient teachings of long lost ki abilities. Including a fight where to fight ki draining vampires, the party ninja had to remove all his ki prior.


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Undead are a good thing.

See normally stuff that decays gets recycled into new living stuff. The energy that does this is negative energy, more correctly called decay energy. Undead, powered by this energy and hungering for the living, are agents of this process and arise naturally for it. They do, in fact, have a finite lifespan at the end of which their own energy destroys them to create more life.

Where things go wrong is when people tap into this process and create too many. Making a few is okay (though the fact that they are supposed to destroy life makes it inadvisable), but making something like an army tips the cycle too far in the decay direction. Fortunately that many undead will eventually turn on each other and re-balance everything.

But even worse is when there is too much life, where people are halting or reversing the natural cycling of decay. In those situations the natural arising of undead increases dramatically to correct the cycle. Better thing twice before curing that plague, or you might have a zombie apocalypse on your hands.


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Freehold DM wrote:
You're going to need to be more specific.

There's more to the Necromancy school than undead and negative energy and shadow spells. Just a quick scan over the lower levels of the list includes two spells that deal with rest and fatigue (one curing/preventing, one causing), one spell preventing death or unconsciousness, one spell connecting the lifeforce of two targets so one can know when the other is wounded or incapacitated, one spell that simply grants bonus HP, one that lets one target give HP to another when wounded, and one that preserves corpses in perfect undecaying stasis. That's just going up through 3rd level, quickly scanning through on my phone, likely missing a few, and not looking at anything outside the Wizard/Sorcerer list or any 3rd-party spells at all.

And I still stand by that healing magic should technically have remained in Necromancy, given the school is normally defined as magic dealing with life and death forces.

It just seems from your description that these other aspects of Necromancy are being greatly played down or even excised, to the point of focusing completely on the negative energy, undead-creating/controlling, cold and blood and death-based portions of the school.

Dark Archive

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Orthos wrote:
other aspects of Necromancy are being greatly played down or even excised, to the point of focusing completely on the negative energy, undead-creating/controlling, cold and blood and death-based portions of the school.

A somewhat more consistent version of a necromancy school that focused on negative energy (which would be a hungering void that devours other forces) would have spells of cold (since cold is the draining of heat from a system), darkness (draining light), dispelling magic and removing curses (draining magical energy), etc. as well as some healing spells, such as remove disease (destroying hostile bacteria, parasitic infestations, tumors, etc.). It might also have some effects that do acid damage, representing not so much a chemical reaction, as pure entropic energy or 'decay' or (a more science-y explanation) through breaking down bonds in matter by draining the energy potential, perhaps tying into the waters of the underworld, if one wants to keep a liquid association to the 'acid' damage.

Creating disease is creating life, and that's all positive energy (although a version of necromancy that's all about life and death would have spells of positive energy as well as negative energy).

I've never gone so far as to actually do this, since every other product digs the hole deeper that necromancy and negative energy aren't anything consistent, just a 'theme' of 'blood and bugs and other icky gross stuff that has literally *nothing* to do with manipulating the forces of life and death.'

Same with products like the 3rd edition D&D Bard splatbook full of sonic and music-themed spells, pigeonholing the Bard more and more into a music-themed character, and further marginalizing anyone who wanted to make a Bard who wasn't entirely based on sound or music. They just kept digging that hole. Thankfully that particular trend (Bard = singer) has been ditched, and PF Bards can be dancers or orators or even comedians.

Perhaps another paradigm shift is needed before necromancers drift away from the 'eeevil NPC only' niche they've been increasingly shoved into.


Orthos wrote:
Freehold DM wrote:
You're going to need to be more specific.

There's more to the Necromancy school than undead and negative energy and shadow spells. Just a quick scan over the lower levels of the list includes two spells that deal with rest and fatigue (one curing/preventing, one causing), one spell preventing death or unconsciousness, one spell connecting the lifeforce of two targets so one can know when the other is wounded or incapacitated, one spell that simply grants bonus HP, one that lets one target give HP to another when wounded, and one that preserves corpses in perfect undecaying stasis. That's just going up through 3rd level, quickly scanning through on my phone, likely missing a few, and not looking at anything outside the Wizard/Sorcerer list or any 3rd-party spells at all.

And I still stand by that healing magic should technically have remained in Necromancy, given the school is normally defined as magic dealing with life and death forces.

It just seems from your description that these other aspects of Necromancy are being greatly played down or even excised, to the point of focusing completely on the negative energy, undead-creating/controlling, cold and blood and death-based portions of the school.

that would be a terrible exaggeration. this is the in world explanation of how wizards create undead-a very specific part of necromancy- not a massive change of how necromancy works. that said I am interested in expanding upon necromancy and going with my original idea of nigrimancy, of which necromancy as we know it would be a part. I want necromancy in my world to be a bit more dark science, but mostly I was thinking out loud.


Set wrote:
Orthos wrote:
other aspects of Necromancy are being greatly played down or even excised, to the point of focusing completely on the negative energy, undead-creating/controlling, cold and blood and death-based portions of the school.

A somewhat more consistent version of a necromancy school that focused on negative energy (which would be a hungering void that devours other forces) would have spells of cold (since cold is the draining of heat from a system), darkness (draining light), dispelling magic and removing curses (draining magical energy), etc. as well as some healing spells, such as remove disease (destroying hostile bacteria, parasitic infestations, tumors, etc.). It might also have some effects that do acid damage, representing not so much a chemical reaction, as pure entropic energy or 'decay' or (a more science-y explanation) through breaking down bonds in matter by draining the energy potential, perhaps tying into the waters of the underworld, if one wants to keep a liquid association to the 'acid' damage.

Creating disease is creating life, and that's all positive energy (although a version of necromancy that's all about life and death would have spells of positive energy as well as negative energy).

I've never gone so far as to actually do this, since every other product digs the hole deeper that necromancy and negative energy aren't anything consistent, just a 'theme' of 'blood and bugs and other icky gross stuff that has literally *nothing* to do with manipulating the forces of life and death.'

Same with products like the 3rd edition D&D Bard splatbook full of sonic and music-themed spells, pigeonholing the Bard more and more into a music-themed character, and further marginalizing anyone who wanted to make a Bard who wasn't entirely based on sound or music. They just kept digging that hole. Thankfully that particular trend (Bard = singer) has been ditched, and PF Bards can be dancers or orators or even comedians.

Perhaps another paradigm shift is needed before...

set's stuff remains a great inspiration, and gets me thinking about necromancy in other ways.

Lantern Lodge

Kelsey Arwen MacAilbert wrote:
Few magicians are actually able to cast spells. In everybody lies some sort of primal magical energy that isn't really understood. Some people can consciously manipulate this energy, focusing it into a power called ki, others use it to keep magical energy under control (allowing them to become spellcasters), and Barbarians can let this power loose, but most use it unconsciously. By training extremely hard, by being extremely motivated, or by being scary smart, one can become so good at something that they tap into this power, allowing them to transcend human capabilities. This sort of person is still a magician, just not a spellcaster. Any player character who doesn't use spells or ki falls into this category. The main result of this system is that Fighters, Rogues, and the like work off of anime/wuxia rules of physics. Which is why a properly trained swordsman can cut bullets in half and pose a legit threat to someone with an assault rifle - they are literally using magic to achieve that.

I had a similar idea. In fact, mortal can draw power from how the plane are interacting with each other at their crossroad, the Material plane (and the Plane of shadow, in y homebrew cosmology, but I disgress)

Magic user use their planar resonance field to weave and store spell.
Other use it thanks to their cunning (Investigator), their bravery (Gunslinger and swashbuckler) or by charles atlas superpower (Fighter, barbarian).

In fact,this work like a bit like Earthdawn pattern.


Took the words right out of my mouth. Earthdawn is cool.


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Couple of things from my homebrew world:

1. Druids are very very rare due to persecution. This is because druids' worship of nature is tied to worship of the old pantheon of the Beast Gods, which were overthrown by the new pantheon of the Quinsaelia (The Enlightened Ones). One of the evil gods (Shaeleen, Goddess of Hatred and Suffering) even has a sect of inquisitors whose sole purpose is to find and kill any remaining druids.

2. The most powerful state in the world is the hobgoblin Kumerian Empire, which controls 60% of Gajalae - the largest continent in the world. The Kumerian Empire is perpetually at war with the remaining nations of Gajalae due to its constant aggression and desire to conquer the entire continent.

3. I have the beginnings of a framework for ritual and cooperative magic, but nothing yet concrete. One of the preliminary ideas I had was that ritual magic is a way for lower level spellcasters to cast spells of higher level than they'd normally be able. I also want to incorporate the idea of powering or enhancing magic by tapping into the energy of the world's ley lines, but don't have any ideas for mechanics for such a thing yet.


COOL XEXYZ

Also, awesome name. First video game I actually owned for Nintendo. I prefer the funky japanese ending to the american one.


A variant of the undead are good. Undead outbreaks, horrific vampires/ghouls going on a killing spree and undead invasions (courtesy of necromancers or liches) serve only to push (generally neutral) people towards the anti undead lawful "good" religions. Thus cementing the power and grip these religions have over the populace and upending any sort of balance. This new-found power soon leads to corruption, abuses and persecution of other faiths as more and more faiths become declared beyond the pale (chaotics first, then the neutrals, then other good faiths).

Undead are good... at bringing the inquisition to power. Or the pallies and clerics now entrusted with near absolute power in protecting the commons (and having the divine juice to make it so no. 1), take on a committee of public safety vibe.

Silver Crusade

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DM Under The Bridge wrote:
(...) This new-found power soon leads to corruption, abuses and persecution of other faiths as more and more faiths become declared beyond the pale (chaotics first, then the neutrals, then other good faiths). (...)

Heh, given my campaign setting's approach to neutrals...

I take more of a 'When the round table is broken, all knights must throw in with Modred or Galahad. Middle things are gone.' approach though.

Its kind of great to watch good aligned characters squirm a bit when they hear apocalyptic pronouncements from the good guys that in the end, the Big Good will 'put an end to all that is not good.'

There's kind of a good quote for it.

C.S. Lewis in Perelandra wrote:


“As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it is also dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable. Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played.”

That being said, I built part of my campaign setting as a rejection of soft-headed thought processes like Good and Evil being equal, or Neutrality being 'good.' The old Planescape/2e 'too much good is evil' bs.

I've found when you stop treating Neutral outsiders as unaffiliated and start treating them as guys who are intentionally trying to not resolve things for the good of all, you start seeing them for the jerks they are.

I find the ole 2e Rilmani more useful for this, but my players have developed no love for aeons (who they tend to view, interesting to me, as self-righteous philosopher a$$holes).

Conversely, they tend to view good outsiders as a strange mixture of nice guys and terrifyingly powerful entities who are almost alien to them. So, I guess I'm hitting my mark a bit.


My campaign setting is a mash up of a bunch I really like including Ptolus, Golarion, and Freeport.

Centaurs:

Iobaria as seen in Reign of Winter still has them in plenty as the dominant race, but they are Amerindian Apache and Comanche based and not steppes/Mongol/eastern european flavored.

Main continent has greek ones, both the Chiron inspired goodish ones and the warcraft traditional greek bloodthirsty barbarian based ones.

Nyambe/Garund has zebrataurs and the rhino-big blocky guy ones from one of the creature collections. Wemics too.


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While some say that clerics get their power from gods they actually get it from tapping into divine power directly through specific magical traditions. All clerics are godless whether they know it or not, they are simply magic users that tap into a different type of power than arcane casters.

Gods worshipped by clerics may be actual gods, misunderstood gods, outsiders powered by divine power, powerful outsiders, powerful beings like dragons or giants or aberrations, or even complete myths. If they master their magical tradition they get their power. There are also organizations not devoted to god worship that practice divine magical traditions.


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An old one that I quite like. Ur priests, those that can steal power and spells directly from the good, serve to prove the gods aren't as divine and all-powerful as they think and expose the "mechanics" behind divine magic (and how the line of holy power can be hacked). They face immense persecution and even good faiths look the other way if evil is hunting them down in witch-hunts given what their powers actually expose. You cannot trust what the faiths have to say about them, but they are very interested in flying under the radar and not in outright blatant "evil".

The general rules of divine influence also get broken around them, with celestials and others teleporting in to kill them if they are exposed and manage to initially flee the clutches of a church. Basically they are divine whistleblowers. :D


Some of this anti-religious sentiment has the distinct perfume of the GM's dislike of real world religion.


Jaelithe wrote:
Some of this anti-religious sentiment has the distinct perfume of the GM's dislike of real world religion.

Some of this anti-religious sentiment perfectly accords with my players' views of religion. Cults are a bad-guy staple for villains and enemies in D&D. Some groups like to bat higher than mere cults, so a dm can provide plenty of plots, conspiracies and power grabs for the players to foil.

Having said this, the Ur-priests are not the "good guys". :}


DM Under The Bridge wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:
Some of this anti-religious sentiment has the distinct perfume of the GM's dislike of real world religion.
Some of this anti-religious sentiment perfectly accords with my players' views of religion.

I have no doubt. Your statement, however, doesn't refute mine.

Silver Crusade

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Jaelithe wrote:
DM Under The Bridge wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:
Some of this anti-religious sentiment has the distinct perfume of the GM's dislike of real world religion.
Some of this anti-religious sentiment perfectly accords with my players' views of religion.
I have no doubt. Your statement, however, doesn't refute mine.

Different authors, different stories, different themes.

Someone could make a counter argument about my campaign setting. I don't cotton to no neutrals, and there's no 'spirit of nature.'

Hell, they could make one against the Forgotten Realms and Planescape, where atheists apparently end up mortar in a wall in hell or devoured by Asmodeus the King of Devils.

DMs, and writers, often put message in their stories. As long as they're honest about it, and still tell a reasonable story and keep their players entertained, well...


Spook205 wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:
DM Under The Bridge wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:
Some of this anti-religious sentiment has the distinct perfume of the GM's dislike of real world religion.
Some of this anti-religious sentiment perfectly accords with my players' views of religion.
I have no doubt. Your statement, however, doesn't refute mine.

Different authors, different stories, different themes.

Someone could make a counter argument about my campaign setting. I don't cotton to no neutrals, and there's no 'spirit of nature.'

Hell, they could make one against the Forgotten Realms and Planescape, where atheists apparently end up mortar in a wall in hell or devoured by Asmodeus the King of Devils.

DMs, and writers, often put message in their stories. As long as they're honest about it, and still tell a reasonable story and keep their players entertained, well...

I agree with everything you said. I made an observation, not a condemnation.

That's why we find campaigns, if possible, in which we're comfortable.


I like to make gods about as powerful as powerful mortals (around level 6 in Pathfinder terms). And possibly kill-able. That could say that I distrust authority, but I think it says I find powerful people boring (unless they're comedic) even obliquely.

Silver Crusade

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My deities range all over.

I've got small gods based on belief.

Larger true gods who are both humanlike, but also not.

Cthonic elder deity things who have no real power, but are still there.

Two ancient proto-deities. Their father who is a sort of disinterested demiurg. And perhaps a guy above the demiurg fellow.

Also every being on the planet is apparently composed of parts of the two elder proto-deities but may or may not be.


Spook205 wrote:

My deities range all over.

I've got small gods based on belief.

Larger true gods who are both humanlike, but also not.

Cthonic elder deity things who have no real power, but are still there.

Two ancient proto-deities. Their father who is a sort of disinterested demiurg. And perhaps a guy above the demiurg fellow.

Also every being on the planet is apparently composed of parts of the two elder proto-deities but may or may not be.

As sensible as cosmology as any other.

Lantern Lodge

About religion in Mundus :

Human worship mainly these pantheons :
The old gods, worshiping the 12 Kings and queen plus a thirteen trickster god. This pantheon is inspired by classical Greek mythology.

The new gods, which is a dualistic religion. This one is a strange mix of Daoism and Zoroastrism, worshiping two principle, a god and an goddes; eternally bickering, fighting sometimes cooperating. Think a giant squabble between Sarennae and Asmodeus.

The 7 champions from the north.
They worship 7 heroes which underwent an apotheosis thanks to their bravery and (sorry for the word) badassitude.

In the burned lands (Darkest Africa type), depending to the ethnic group, you can have worship of the Orisha (similar to the real world Yoruba religion), some animism.

There is also the One god, which worship include burning infidel, burning book contrary to the faith and exterminating the non-humans and the unbeliever.
This religion is a path of inspiration like religion.

Elves are pantheistic.

Dwarves worship their ancestor.

Orcs are animist and druidic.

Hobgoblin believe in reincarnation and Apotheosis, when one break the circle to fuse with the universe.

Tengu worship the spirit in all things, called Kami.

Ratfolk have a strange religion, a weird syncretism.

Merfolk are druidic.

Sahuagin and catfolk have a very bloodthristy religion, similar to the aztec one, worshiping the sun (for sahuagin, the dusk and dawn, as feeding period).

Lizardfolk have a shamanistic religion, as boggard.

Scarab Sages

Are the sahuagin and catfolk following the *same* religion or just a very similar worship for the sun figure? If the same, where in the antiquity did the two very diverse races run together with their spirituality?

Lantern Lodge

It is very similar.
Not the same god as the supreme god in catfolk is a dualistic figure and the supreme god in sahuagin is a figure called the Great Hunter.

Silver Crusade

I've always found it interesting from a fluff design perspective what the deities are. It helps to show what a given society values or considers less important. Or even what they consider ubiquitous. Or how they value something.

I've two war gods, one representing justice, nobility, fair governance, and one essentially representing 'the ends justify the means' in all fields and not just warfare.

My love goddess is Lawful Good and inextricably tied with family, childbirth and death. She is also the sea goddess, and the ocean is tied with death and the other world. Undead who come into contact with the ocean are destroyed. Premartial relations are something practically nobody does in my world.

My chaos goddess isn't worshipped so much as placated, with the intention of keeping her fickle interests elsewhere.

I have no goddess of music.

My goddess of destruction is tied to volcanoes and fire, so much so that that funerals by cremation are considered an activity of utmost last resort behind sky burial (or in other words putting bodies up on platforms for birds to eat).

I have no nature deity, but I have a god of trees.

My earth god is the god of order, and only takes on the duties tied in with farming (which he shares with the life/death love goddess and the destruction goddess) because of the natural progression of the seasons.

Lantern Lodge

So your gods have multiple aspects ?

Silver Crusade

ElderNightmare wrote:
So your gods have multiple aspects ?

Yeah, with occasional 'sharing.'

My destruction/volcano/fire goddess for example despises life, fertility and growth, but by her passage enriches and renews the land, making her subservient to her direst enemy, the love/ocean/marriage/rebirth/death goddess.

The earth god tends to rule over more sundry farming aspects and rites, as opposed to a global ideal of fecundity, taking more of an operator's approach to farming.

The war gods are brothers, are ostensibly at odds with one another, but at times their clergies appear almost affable. A lot of their mythology gives them a sort of Loki-Thor relationship.

My chaos goddess and travel goddess are both tied to the ideas of gambling as the travel goddess is cursed to wander because she beat the chaos goddess in a game of chance.

If you want a marriage, you need to go to the love goddess or the earth god, since the earth god also rules over laws and contracts.

These guys are the 'true gods' who rely on no belief, they do their duties, and while some of them have spent time with mankind, there is a concern that there may be more of them then people know about or worship.

In addition, there are four ancient deities (analogous to titans), who were appointed by the world's demiurg to rule over the polestars of Conflict, Life, Death and Balance respectively, whose powers were taken by the current gods (war gods both got conflict, life/death goddess got life and death, balance went to the three fold god of magic), but who are still out there somewhere, doing something.

On top of that two ancient supposedly deceased deities of Good and Evil who were sons of the world's creator. The dead memories of the Evil god apparently show up occasionally and try to wreck crap, and what's left of the Good god will supposedly wake up and usher in an apocalypse where 'all that is not good will end.' These gods are supposedly what the current gods are formed of, but are alternatively referred to as still existing or not, or their 'wills' guide people.

Above them, the world's creator who supposedly hasn't done anything except make the world.

And above him, theologians philosophize a guy who supposedly commissioned him to make the world in the first place.

Mixed into this, there are also primitive deities who are created from ideas and belief who have stupendously narrow focuses, and mount such personages as a flying god-axe who flies through a jungle who is the god of axes that fly through a jungle, and a kaiju sized god who's domain is 'battling evil extraplanar beings of great size.'

Or as past players players dubbed his domain 'Godzilla beats Cthulhu.'

Lantern Lodge

Spook205 wrote:


The war gods are brothers, are ostensibly at odds with one another, but at times their clergies appear almost affable. A lot of their mythology gives them a sort of Loki-Thor relationship.

Reminds me the Hextor/Heironeous relationship from greyhawk.

Silver Crusade

ElderNightmare wrote:
Spook205 wrote:


The war gods are brothers, are ostensibly at odds with one another, but at times their clergies appear almost affable. A lot of their mythology gives them a sort of Loki-Thor relationship.

Reminds me the Hextor/Heironeous relationship from greyhawk.

Its a common thing I think in DnD settings. You have various war deities and have to have them involved with one another, but still at loggerheads.

The Norse had practically every deity involved in war in some way. Odin, Thor, Tyr, and so forth. DnD simplified this to Tyr being a god of 'justice' and Thor filling in the war god shoes.

Sovereign Court

Well, in Golarion, Asmodeus killed his brother Ihys who is the closest thing you have to the abrahamic god. That is the only time he cried.

Silver Crusade

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Hama wrote:
Well, in Golarion, Asmodeus killed his brother Ihys who is the closest thing you have to the abrahamic god. That is the only time he cried.

I think Mr. Jacobs is going for a sort of free will vs the law, angle with the Asmodeus vs Ihys thing. Ihys apparently was the proponent of free will and exercise, and presumably Chaotic Good, in line with what we've seen of Mr. Jacob's preference for chaotic alignments.

Having his free will god around to give orders or suggestions might to him negate the point of a 'free exercise.' I don't agree with that logic, but I can see where he's coming from with it.

Personally, I've found Golarian has some pretty weak fluff on the deities, and my questions to Mr. Jacobs on the ask him thread, has cemented me in that belief since nearly every question along those lines gets a sort of philosopher's wink and a 'wouldn't you like to know' thing. It makes me think less he has a plan for how it works and more that he doesn't want to get held down by what I surmise would be viewed as 'restrictive mechanics that get in the way of story.'

Gods get killed, but we don't really see a mechanic for it (in most real life mythologies where gods die they seem to follow a set of rules at least), we aren't supposed to rate them in power but Rovagug has amazing Gary Stu cthonic horror powers. Etc. etc. etc.

Golarian's a philosophical dystopia. You're eaten one way or another. The gods there are literally incapable of helping you because they're the kind of deities who I designed mine expressly not to be.

The 'gods as nations' thing.

Saranae for example is basically just the ruler of a country that uses different currency and where the average citizen wears a halo. There's nothing otherworldly about her. Devils can apparently zip in, and assuming they get past the guards, can scoop people off and drag them off to the Hells with no real punishment.

She's no more deserving of divine awe then the king is when he has trouble dealing with goblins stealing cows.

I try to have my gods feel more like, well, gods. And less like incompetent bumbling morons who exist just to give your cleric his spells while the PCs comment on how they 'really' are saving the day.


Spook205 wrote:
ElderNightmare wrote:
So your gods have multiple aspects ?
Yeah, with occasional 'sharing.'

While very different, it kind of reminds me of this thing that I made one time.

Dark Archive

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ElderNightmare wrote:
Spook205 wrote:


The war gods are brothers, are ostensibly at odds with one another, but at times their clergies appear almost affable. A lot of their mythology gives them a sort of Loki-Thor relationship.

Reminds me the Hextor/Heironeous relationship from greyhawk.

The Scarred Lands setting had a few like this as well.

The NG goddess of healing, the sun, compassion, etc. was sister to the NE goddess of the moon, darkness, madness, trickery and death, and while their clergies fought like crazy, they had stood against the Titans together, and seen two of the Titan sisters tearing each other apart during the final battle, and their eyes met over the battlefield and they each withdrew, agreeing silently that however their story ended, it wouldn't end like that...

They even had a syncretic church together, in the northern lands, despite being utterly at odds on most individual tenets.

The warring gods of the dwarves and the dark elves in that setting were also former best friends, and shared certain aspects, so much so that they could almost be seen as two halves of a single god (or differing aspects of the chivalrous forge-god, dragged by circumstance in opposing directions).

Lantern Lodge

How shameful I have not read about the scarred lands.
I shall correct this.


Spook205 wrote:
And less like incompetent bumbling morons who exist just to give your cleric his spells while the PCs comment on how they 'really' are saving the day.

I like gods who are incompetent, bumbling morons, but not all of them: just enough for fun.

And I usually give a reason for why gods don't do their own work, usually either "gods aren't powerful enough to do everything" or "they're too busy almost literally holding up the universe". Or both.

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