Some observation on the Deity mechanic
#ClericWeek
(all sentences here just reflect my personal opinion and experiences. Don’t take this as an absolute truth or anything.)
When you are a Cleric of a Deity of Healing and Restoration, don’t simply be a healbot. If all your character ever does is cast healing and buff spells without much own motivation you will be missing out.
Think about what it means to be able to bring people back from the dead etc. Even in a fantasy world this will give you some sway. Just see what Jesus did with the lame and the sick.
So you could become or Martyr, or offer your gifts only at a price. Only the worthy will get the privilege of your gifts.
For funzies, choose Trial by Combat as a your precept. Smite them, then heal them.
The Downtrodden and Forgotten, this one still is confusing to me, what does that mean? Is that basically a god of slaves? So your cleric would be Moses? If so, that is an amazing character concept and campaign hook. It could be a god of Thieves and other lowlife. This would reflect the truth of Torchbearer that all Clerics become Criminals during their career…
But yeah, what is this supposed to mean? What does it mean to you?
What Lies Beneath? What? What? WHAAAAAT? It’s driving me INSANE!
Okay, maybe that is the point because Lovecraft Mythos is the first thing that comes to my mind here. Other ideas would be elemental creatures that got sealed in the world (like the Eldrazi on Zendikar).
Both of these options however seem pretty Evil to me. What else fits into domain and how can you make this something Good/Lawfull?
How much overlap is there with The Downtrodden and Forgotten?
Edited for reasons.
Damian Jankowski Spoilers!
Have you read The Lies of Locke Lamora? If not, do so. The Nameless Thirteenth, the Crooked Warden, god of thieves would be a good fit for downtrodden & forgotten. He has two tenents:
1) Thieves prosper
2) The rich remember (that they are vulnerable, that they can be hurt, what it’s like to fear)
I didn’t spoil anything! Someone obviously has to die in a trial by combat.
Also, what lies beneath could be a god of dwarves or other peaceful, subterranian creatures. And/or of the wealth burried beneath the earth. And/or the land of the dead.
Or D&D4e’s Torog, the King that Crawls, patron of jailors & torturers, who is imprisoned in the underdark but who himself keeps many greater evils sealed away.
On the dwarf argument, i don’t think Dwarfes would think of themselves as beneath, others are above. But Torog was one of the things i was thinking of too.
Re: dwarves… yeah, I see where you’re going. But the dwarves might worship something even deeper than themselves. Or simply the stone beneath their feet. Or maybe the dwarves have been exiled from the deep places.
What Lies Beneath could also be primal/primitive forces. Don’t have to be elemental, per se– and don’t have to be evil, so much as “neutral/indifferent.”
Idas for a “Downtrodden and Forgotten” go, just from the top of my head.
– The Skygod of a slave race once powerful, now worshipped only by the chained one. His cleric is on a quest to free his people (yes, ok, Moses)
– The demon who lurks in the hearth of the more desperate of the men, ha creature of insatiable hunger and darwinian horror, their cleric bringing their words to the lowlies, not out of hope, but because their struggle will make them, and the god, powerful
– The Pure Godess of Compassion, the only one in the pantheon to look down, out of the golden teples, her cleric bound to ease the sufference of the poors.
– The Blood-Marked warrior god of Revolution, his mark red and black, his cleric a spokeperson for the rumbling masses of the oppressed, ready to take what it is their from the hands of their oppressors.
– The Child God, who looks after the small, the unconspicuos, the overlooked, his cleric a Gandalf-like figure that believe in the strenght of the simple
Pretty sure crucified/martyred Jesus Christ is a god of the Downtrodden and Forgotten, as well (Jesus is a good example of one god spanning multiple domains, since he also covers healing/resurrection, love/children, etc.)
What Deity mechanic is this? Is this in the Cleric’s book?
Yes.
Some ideas for a good/lawful What Lies Beneath
– The God of the Underworld, who keeps the secret of the underworld from reaching the sunlight, harsh and dutiful, his ears only hear the oath of the mortals, his cleric is an agent of purification and revenge against those secrets that has escaped
– The Godess of Fertility, watcher over the soil, the seed and the root, searcher of hidden springs, mother of snakes and patron of the renjuvinating sleep, her cleric a farming type, good with healing and growth.
– The Hooded Mistery, god of the hidden thought, who watches over the mortal for unconscious desires and steer them clear from evil, his cleric pray for his intercession, to uncover evil thought before they could clutch the heart of the rightfuls
– The Mandatory God of Deep Sea, a jovial fellow, who likes his domain calm and quiet (not like his stormy surface sister) and that welcome sailors in his palace when they drown, out of familiar guilt. His cleric is a sailor, who knows secret islands and harbours and watches against the surface Godess.
“Don’t take this as an absolute truth or anything”
I think you’re missing the point of playing a cleric.
Blasphemeeee!!!!
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In our seafaring campaign, my dwarf cleric worshipped What Lies Beneath… The Waves! The priests were called The Salted and worshipped the seas themselves and revered the tides.
Mind you, my dwarf was a bit of a heretic, worshipping the great behemoths that lurk in the depths of the ocean, rather than just the waves and shorelines.
Downtrodden and Forgotten (emphasis on Forgotten) could include the preservation and renewal of endangered or extinct species… or inspired from the book Tigana, it could be about the forgotten culture of an entire country that was wiped from everyone’s memory (and art and books all burned) by a powerful sorcerer, save for the exiled and dying few countrymen of a place that no longer exists.
What Lies Beneath could be about discovering the Truth of existence, if it is a Lie, ala Matrix, or uncovering the code or building blocks of creation from chaos.