MyD20 Lite: The Role of Gods...

Good Evening, All:

Here's another snippet from the MyD20 Lite Referee's Guide. In this particular case, I'm exploring the role of Gods and Pantheons from the perspective of the Referee. Please read through this and let me know if you have any questions, comments and concerns.

The role of Gods in most fantasy campaigns tends to fall into one of four basic categories: monotheism/dualism, one common pantheon, multiple regional pantheons and the use of religious organizations instead of individual gods. As the Referee, one of your decisions is to decide on which approach to take for your campaign. A great majority of campaign settings typically promote the concept of one common pantheon. For the purpose of discussion, however, the other three types are also presented in this section.

Monotheism and Dualism
Campaign settings cast in this particular model typically reflect the monolithic presence of a single church devoted to one God, much as the Roman catholic Church existed in the late Middle Ages in Europe. In such a setting, those spellcasters that do not worship the single God of the setting are arcanists, and do not have access to divine magic. The social role of arcane spellcasters is seriously impacted by this association, even if they are devoted to the single God of the setting.
As an interesting variant of this concept, two Gods vie for the souls of the mortal world, each diametrically opposed to one another. This alleviates the social pressure on arcane spellcasting characters, as now there are two sources for divine magic. Due to their opposed nature, one of these Gods is often portrayed as Good, while the other is seen as Evil.
Before making a decision to develop a campaign setting under this model, Referees should discuss the matter with their players. Some people may feel that this arrangement reflects their own personal beliefs, and may have strong feelings regarding the depiction of something resembling their own beliefs within the context of a fantasy game.

One Common Pantheon
This is the most common model used to depict deities in published campaign settings. In essence, these campaign settings describe the presence of five or more (sometimes over a hundred more) deities, all worshiped individually as part of one gestalt pantheon. Each deity in the pantheon embodies one or more archetypes or aspects of the world, and are often drawn from or inspired by historical and mythological pantheons from various Earth cultures. In some cases, archetypes unique to fantasy settings have evolved to handle the presence of races and professions that are common to fantasy literature, but did not exist historically.
As a Referee, should you decide to use one common pantheon, it is suggested that you identify ten to twenty different archetypes you wish to include in your campaign and then build from there. As mentioned previously, you could easily review historic and mythological pantheons for inspiration, and possibly even use the deities you find directly.

Multiple Regional Pantheons
Another common practice in published campaign settings is the use of multiple regional pantheons. For example, many settings have one large common pantheon, supported by smaller racial pantheons. (Frequently, fantasy races are divided into separate regions with their own cultures, which lends itself well to a regional pantheon concept.) Alternately, a setting that emulates different Earth cultures will also include regional pantheons, one for each culture, to give these regions their own unique identity.
When using multiple regional pantheons, it is recommended that each region have a fairly small pantheon, to make it easier for you as the Referee and for your players to keep things straight. Too many gods in too many separated pantheons can easily lead to confusion.

Religious Organizations
As a final note, a few published campaign settings have forgone the use of deities and pantheons, and instead used religious organizations in their place within the context of their worlds. Such organizations may be modeled after real-world religions, or may take a more fantasy-oriented bent to them. The influence of such organizations tend to be much less pervasive than a divine pantheon, extending only so far as the originating culture has spread. This particular model suggests adventures based on political intrigue within the hierarchy of an organization, as well as the interaction between various organizations. With no omnipotent, omnipresent deity actively involved in the matters of mortal men, there's a lot more room for story lines that involve the darker aspects of human nature where secular power is concerned.
Bear in mind, however, that should you, as Referee, decide to pursue such a setting, you should check first with your players to make sure that they are comfortable with the religious organizations you decide to implement in your setting. As with the One God concept above, fantasy game elements that bear too much of a similarity to strong personal beliefs may make one or more player-characters uncomfortable.

Enjoy,
Flynn

Hammersong's Legacy: The Gods of Cameria...

Good Afternoon, All:

Today, I completed detailing the two warring pantheons of the Hammersong's Legacy Campaign Setting. I have divided the selection into three parts. The Gods of the New Order are those that survived and won their fight. (Using Greek mythology as an analogy, these are essentially the Olympians of the setting.) The Fallen Sisters are the two goddess-siblings of the New Order that fell during the War of All Gods. The Gods of the Elder Courts were the inattentive and destructive gods who fell in battle to their divine children. (In Greek mythology, these would be the Titans of the setting, although I use the phrase Elder God throughout the text to refer to them.)

The Gods of the New Order are the current, active divine patrons; the victors of the War of All Gods. In the text, I've described them briefly, providing some details on how they are worshipped and the doctrines they teach, as well as list their favored weapon.

• Gods of the New Order
• Cerberos, the Vile Crusader
• Entropea, Mistress of Chaos and Corruption
• Herea, Mother of the Hearth
• Lorae, Mistress of Mysteries
• Oceanus, the Sea Warden
• Sandamos, the Grand Tyrant
• Soleron, the Sun Lord
• Terantha, the Earth Mother
• Verdantis, the Green Lord

Here's an example of a god's write-up:

Verdantis, the Green Lord
Verdantis is the god of flora, fauna and the elements. Those who honor the wild creatures of the world and the raw energies of the elements revere the Green Lord. He is typically honored within stone circles and simple shrines in the wilderness or near large sources of elemental energy. The lessons that Verdantis teaches his followers include:

• All living creatures should strive to live in harmony with the natural world. Respect for all life is a sacred responsibility.
• The devout should support works and deeds that promote and preserve harmony with the natural world. In fact, one must take action against those who harm or destroy nature, or otherwise upset the harmony of the wilderness.
• Suffer not the existence of undeath, for they are accursed and defile the world.

Verdantis's favored weapon is the quarterstaff.

The Fallen Sisters represent a conundrum for the Referees to have fun with. There are isolated groups of followers of these two goddesses that desperately want to see them return to their ascended state. However, anything they discover that could work to restore their goddess may also be used to return an Elder God to the world as well, should it fall into the wrong hands. There's plenty of adventuring opportunity here to be exploited by the enterprising Referee.

• The Fallen Sisters
• Sheranea, Lady of Woes
• Vaeleria, the Shieldmatron

The Gods of the Elder Courts are more primordial and ancient. I went with a lot of elemental and emotional foundations with this pantheon, and simply described the types of creatures they created, as well as the type of followers they typically had. The descriptions of followers can inform adventure creation for tales involving the agents of the Elder Gods that seek to restore their divine patron to a position of power in the world once again.

• The Gods of the Elder Courts
• Aqualea, Lady of the Eversea
• Bibanos, the Devourer of Life
• Cardeus, Lord of Strength
• Fuerios, Lord of the Emberrealms
• Khorethia, Lady of Song and Wind
• Kuro, the Rage Lord
• Meranoth, Lord of Lords
• Ostarea, Goddess-Queen of Arborea
• Psyche, Mistress of Dreams
• Serpentea, Queen of Serpents
• Teranos, Lord of the Deepmantle
• Tortura, Maiden of Torment

And I'll close with an example of a write-up on an Elder God:

Meranoth, Lord of Lords
The eldest of the Gods of the Elder Courts, the Great Kinslayer was the one to rise up and slay his father, the First God, Celestus. God of kings, sovereignty and murder, Meranoth's creations were often noble creatures filled with pride and deadly talent. Followers of the Lord of Lords were often tyrants, warlords or assassins, and generally braggarts as well.

Enjoy,
Flynn

Hammersong's Legacy: Blood of the Gods...

Good Morning, All:

Below is the initial section on the Blood of the Gods to be included in the Hammersong's Legacy Campaign Sourcebook. Inspired by the Open Content from the SRD referenced in Malhavoc Press's Requiem for a God, I have had to change a few terms and rewrite the non-mechanics portions of this text due to a Product Identity clause regarding the term "godsblood". Now I use the terms "blood of the Gods", "Gods' Blood" and "ichor" interchangably in the document.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Blood of the Gods

With the death of so many gods on the lands, in the seas and in the skies of Terantha, the world has suffered from its over-exposure to the flesh and blood of these dying divinities. Suffused with the divine essence of slain gods, this rarefied fluid, sometimes referred to as "ichor" or "Gods' Blood", possesses wildly chaotic and corruptive magical power. The Agents of the Elder Courts, as well as those devoted to the Fallen, collect what Gods' Blood they can in holy receptacles which are then stored in reliquaries, awaiting its use in obscure rituals or the creation of potent artifacts.

The nature of Gods' Blood varies with the divine traits of the slain god. Blood of the Gods can range in appearance from a crystal-clear fluid or green glowing ooze to a thick, cold pitch-like substance. Blood of the Gods is typically harvested from small pools, barely larger than a bowl in size, where it has oozed out of Gods' Flesh. By its very nature, adventurers should expect to find such pools within close proximity of a sizable mass of Gods’ Flesh, although it may not reveal its presence save under specific circumstances related to the portfolio of the slain deity.

Any who imbibe the blood of the Gods from the source, or bathe in the fluid should there be enough present, for the first time are affected as though by a heal spell, and may gain additional benefits as befits the divinity from which it sprang. However, once a creature has been exposed to a particular deity's divine ichor, the creature no longer gains any curative benefit from further exposure. The more Gods' Blood that a character is exposed to at any one time, the greater the chance that the character may gain a temporary supernatural ability. These abilities range from a small spell effect to an extended lifespan or a temporary immunity to a specific type of damage. The closer a creature follows the tenets of the fallen deity, the more powerful the temporary ability. The details of such are left to the discretion of the Referee, although the table below provides some suggestions based on the god from whom the blood originated.

Once Gods' Blood is removed from its source, it loses some of its vitality. Those who drink it or bathe in it after it has been removed only gain the benefit of a cure serious wounds spell. As with fresh blood of the Gods, the curative effects do not occur with subsequent exposure.

Any creature that exposes himself to the blood of the Gods too frequently can lead to Gods' Blood poisoning. If the creature bathes twice in Gods' Blood or imbibes more than a pint of the substance in any six month period, he must make a saving throw or suffer an energy drain of four experience levels (for class-based characters) or hit dice (for monsters). If the saving throw succeeds, the creature gains a temporary ability as normal.

With Regards,
Flynn

Hammersong's Legacy: Of Gods and Mortal Souls...

Good Afternoon, All:

Below are some thoughts on the general nature of the Gods in the Hammersong's Legacy setting.

There is no individual god or goddess that governs death, as all deities govern the souls of the mortals that follow them. Those unfortunates that choose not to follow a god or goddess of the Manors Divine find their souls forfeit. Such aimless souls are one of the two major sources of the undead that haunt the realms of Terantha. (For the curious, I would like to mention that the second major source of undead on the Plane Prime are those who die while cursed. There are a number of minor sources of undead as well, too numerous to list here, but these two are the most prolific of reasons behind the existence of undead.)

Among the more scholarly of sorts, it is known that other gods and goddesses do exist, but they hold no power within the Plane Prime. Priests of such divine powers may be encountered on other planes of existence, but are rarely found in the realms of Terantha, unless they have had occasion to become lost among the planes, and have found their way to Terantha as opposed to their own native plane of existence. Such mortals, if unable to return to their own native realms, are typically forced to court a god or goddess of the New Order, unless they have some heretofore unknown means of maintaining contact with their previous divinity of choice.

Then, I decided to expand on what happens to souls upon death:

Within the realms of Terantha upon the Plane Prime, the gods place significant value on preserving the souls of their faithful. Many mortals, to avoid their souls being lost forever to the curse of undeath upon the moment of their death, choose a particular god or goddess of the Manors Divine to follow. Indeed, in many communities, this choice is one of the first acts a child is allowed to perform of their own free will, although some allow more freedom of choice in these regards than other communities permit.

Ultimately, the divine relationship between a god and a mortal follower culminates when the mortal dies and passes from this world. The god or goddess often sends their sacred servitors to collect the soul of their fallen faithful shortly after the mortal has passed on. This usually occurs after three days have passed, either at dawn or dusk, depending on the whim and predeliction of the deity in question. For the undecided, undeclared, or accursed, their souls remain trapped within the Plane Prime, doomed to haunt the mortal realms Plane Prime until such time as they are eventually released their imprisonment on this plane through the works and deeds of others.

In the days before a god or goddess lays claim upon a soul, any priest with the appropriate spells can likely restore that person to life, should that soul so determine to return to the land of the living. However, once a god claims the mortal’s soul, only the devout priesthood of the deity that claims the soul can make such a request of the deity. Frequently, such requests of the god or goddess often come at a price, such that life is restored to the fallen mortal in exchange for a quest in service to the god and his followers. The god will typically place the raised mortal under the effects of a divine compulsion, which is only removed upon the completion of the deity's quest of service.

What, then, should one know about changing gods within the setting?

Although such efforts are rare, should a mortal decide to change his declaration of allegiance from one god to another, they must simply find a cleric of the god or goddess of their intended faith, and undergo a simple ritual of atonement that binds them from that point forward to the god of their choice. It is the nature of this ritual which allows the new god to acknowledge the mortal's decision, and accept the responsibility of harvesting the mortal's soul upon their death. The unwise should be warned, however, that the priest casting this spell may first assign a quest to the atoning mortal to allow them the opportunity to demonstrate their new convictions and dedication to their new god or goddess. It is unlikely that the quest will be easy for anyone who is returning to a god or goddess that they have once cast aside for another.

This shouldn't change the rules so much as provide some flavor and adventure opportunities regarding the relationship between gods and mortals. What do you think? How do you handle such elements in your game?

With Regards,
Flynn