will be their God, and they shall be my people. Is the writer who created the villain? All clerics are conduits of divine power. ooooh except over 7 Entire paragraphs in one book alone that disagree with you. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. In The Realms, there exists a singular being of absolute power--its name is Ao the Overgod. We tried to make him see how we are imagining a world from Greek mythology. This was common in my D&D 3e campaigns where someone would pick two useful domains (like War and Fire) and declare the character to be a cleric of the abstract concept of these things, rather than of a certain polytheistic deity. It only takes a minute to sign up. The player in this case was the wife of one of my players and she is a very religious evangelical christian. As such, I can understand where they might be coming from. A number of the Ainur descended to interact with Arda directly, known as the Valar and Maiar. It's not like The Realms where a powerful enough caster could Plane Shift over and have tea with their deity. FR wiki has: Lathander, whose title was The Morninglord, was a deity of creativity, dawn, renewal, birth, athletics, spring, self-perfection, vitality, and youth. Perhaps your cleric would like to spend time at or even found such a temple one day? and yet,in regard to belief values, the basic set continued with:"A cleric cannot use any weapon with a sharp edge; this is forbidden by the clerics beliefs! different gods, to which the player responded, "No.". So it's almost like - A Cleric doesn't need a God because they are focused on the Domain and its tenants.. And their focus on the Domain and its tenets (tenants are renters ;p) is why a deity chooses togrant the Cleric their powers. A person with beliefs as strong as your friend's may feel better about the setting when you provide them with Scriptural support. A first level cleric cannot cast any spells. "But even if a cleric did need to 'worship' a god, there is nothing to say that a DM is required to say, in contexts like Eberron,that the god exists. So, your friend's objection, while not popular amongst broader society, is pretty common amongst certain smaller subgroups of potential RPG participants. And it has nothing to do with whether they really exist or not. Is it appropriate to ask for an hourly compensation for take-home tasks which exceed a certain time limit? If these religions have clerics Or, they could simply try and ignore it, focusing on parts of the game they do enjoy. Quality Practices for Early Care and Education, OngoingTraining and Continuing Education, The Historical Significance of Juneteenth for Child Care. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. the living God with idols? That just confused the issue, so I ignored it.). But in most depictions of Drow society, the Church of Lolth serves in a theocratic role and would play a very large role in most Drow's lives. Look for common ground in your conversation with this player. their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no I'm actually glad now the question got reopened so you could submit this. My second suggestion was that we could use Eberron's model for Divine Magic. As long as there is always the possibility that the god is simply a man behind the curtain or they might be different interpretations of the same God, your player may be more willing to accept the game world. This is, ultimately, the approach that my player accepted. Religion (Int): The Clerics best Knowledge skill, and important to the theme of the class. We came to mutual understanding that while we are not heretics or blasphemers, he will not have fun if he will join us. What should I do about another player who randomly starts PVP? What are your ultimate goals? There may be one church that most people follow, and the party cleric is of this church. In our history, the Romans revered Mercury, and the Greeks Apollo. Lathander is a rather optimistic god, so maybe your character is young and naive and rushes into things without thinking. It took some careful explaining to, for example, explain to this person that Tieflings are not all automatically evil ("Their heritage is not their faultthey have free will, and if they wish to be good, they can" see: Deuteronomy 24:16). There are numerous other games where the GM's role isn't formally built as having the dominant say in how the game-cosmos is structured. I imagine one of your primary goals is to just have a game with (at least most of) your friends. I'm going to assume that your friend is a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, (or one of their offshoots) as those are the only common monotheistic religions I can think of. In D&D 5e, a paladin's powers comes from their Oath. His superiors are well suited to providing healing or resurrection, although at a price. Lathander's most important ceremonies are held at dawn, and involve drinking well water touched by the rising run. WebClerics were elite agents of gods, empowered beyond the capabilities of regular priests and sworn to follow and obey the tenets of their religion in ways that the average mortal I like the idea of letting them play with their mindset but use the normal rules, after all a character don't have to be right to be fun. Building Cathedral God Goddess Location Monastery Place Religion Previous Article That power doesn't necessarily have to be a god. I've always looked to the Greeks, especially. Clerics serve a powerful entity. on the rpg.se. He might also be a poet or artist in his spare time (and maybe not a particularly good one). How many players have responded positively to this approach in your experience? Your friend may feel that, if they accept those gods in your game, they may be punished by their God for doing so. That'll be setting dependent also, and up to DMs and all that. You will need to play the game in a homebrew setting that does not pay too much attention to religion, though you can generally use published modules if you'd like, provided you scrub them of religious imagery first. Who knows. WebDoes just having the faith make you a cleric? I tried to explain that it's a fictional universe in which there are different gods, to which the player responded, "No.". There are lots of other systems that would work, though, and some that are especially interesting to players with monotheistic religious beliefs (e.g. What most of us did was explain the polytheistic aspects away by saying that the various "gods" in the game are just different aspects of the One God. Early binding, mutual recursion, closures. (We are all adults, and all have played various editions of D&D, and various RPGs, over the years. How to deal with a player who refuses to learn the description of their spells and abilities? DnD Real world religions have been part of the game in all its incarnations. Out of the Faernian and Greyhawkian pantheons, which magic deity would be a good fit for a specific witch-hunting cult? The Cleric does not have to know they are serving an entity. unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, Is that strictly required? I have tried playing for, with, and GMing for that player in FATE 2.0 as well as a variety of homebrew systems and that often went fine. So the players are provided magical powers, by a mediator of some sort. This gave my friend a model they were more okay with. 100 100 Interesting Temples and Monasteries By Dndspeak April 10, 2019 No Comments 1 Min Read One hundred amazing temples and monasteries that your players can make a pilgrimage to! These are full world views, not quirks. It only takes a minute to sign up. "I believe they do not exist but will worship them anyway as if they do' comes across as 'I believe they do exist but do not want to sound like an idiot for insisting they do. I keep seeing people bring up the Drizzt series and the godsforsaken Lady Penitent books, yet no one has bothered to bring up the War of the Spider Queen? You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk birddivebombing youwhile carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere. We play these games to have fun, not to get into an argument each time play starts. We were confused, because of the out of context use of that quote, sadly, we could not reconcile with the Catholic. proviso that it was fine for their character to be convinced that any Role-playing Games Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. Maybe you gain your power by tapping into the collective of all humanity, like a vault of souls, or you are a white mage with a line to the posative plane, or maybe like some wise men, you just have an understanding of divine things most people lack, and this gives you the power to tap in. That's all we're doing). Your argument here is that every single fighter must have been trained; there's no room in your world for self-taught fighters, and you deny any player who wants to be a prodigy to whom these things come naturally. The full quote was: "No, a cleric doesnt need to worship a god. Another approach I've used successfully is to allow clerics and paladins to embody principles, rather than deities. In fact, ascending to godhood is the ultimate goal of some philosophies. You mention problems with Clerics and Paladins. Keep the system but change the setting a little. the god Ajax is called Saint Ajax. In my first 5e campaign, I didn't find a deity that I liked in Faerun. There's no escaping that the Cleric class entry is full ofrules referencing your chosen deity, it's hard to pretend those aren't there. Telling you who the deities are or are not is beyond the player's level of contribution unless you the DM (per examples above) are amenable to a change in the deity line up - and for that matter, unless your other players buy in as well since they are interested parties. Simply saying no can create antagonisms where they can be avoided, simply saying OK can lead to confusion and arguments. Let me compose music about your DnD worlds! That series has been responsible for a lot of Drow PCs over the years. Spellcasting: As a conduit for divine power, you can cast cleric spells. Cleric | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Fandom god. What is the difference between a god and a primordial? There are no clerics of concepts or other divinities in the Realms (there may be priests of such things, but there is no god to grant them power). Now, this isnt to say I cant enjoy fiction with divine beings in it. What are these planes and what are they doing? Don't play until this is settled. In Marvel Comics, the Universe is a Cosmic entity named Eternity. In this instance I would recommend one of two things, possibly both. What steps should I take when contacting another researcher after finding possible errors in their work? DnD 5e - Cleric Subclass Breakdown Cleric Backgrounds This section does not address every published Maybe they decide the only way for mortals to channel divine power is with a god's help. they don't, other religions can exist side by side with sort-of fine. One of the Valar turned evil, taking many of the Maiar with him. I haven't encountered this explicit situation where a religious player is unwilling to adapt, but I've experienced plenty of other scenarios where people were resistant to the unknown, the unfamiliar, or something they believed was "wrong" for various reasons. Unfortunately, if your player is vehemently opposed to the very concept of pantheism, you probably won't be able to convince him otherwise. with crippling level adjustment issues. For raw world building you can try Microscope. Learn more about child care in public policy, access advocacy resources, and receive updates on ways to engage in the effort to change the child care landscape. When our expectations were in conflict, sometimes we were able to discuss and reach a compromise or a better understanding of the situation. This is the setting in which King Arthur lived, and of course slew a dragon. Not sure this method could be easily replicated but I tried without much expectations and it went well in the end. For what partnership has How can I deal with a player trying to insert real-world mythology into my homebrew setting? A rule learned by hard experience over the years: bad gaming is not better than no gaming. It's unlikely but a possibility. They objected to magic so the GM decided that, while the metatypes varience was still present, there would be no magic in the game and also no technomancy. Eberron has a couple religions that dont have any kind of divine entity at all, and the gods of that setting (probably) dont even actually exist. Also from the same section on page 13 of the DMG: it's unusual for a philosophy to deny the existence of deities, although a common philosophical belief states that the deities are more like mortals than they would have mortals believe. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world. A Modest Proposal for answers that aren't backed up, there is/was much discussion about this sort of thing with the Harry Potter series, for example, Anatomically Correct series on Worldbuilding, Statement from SO: June 5, 2023 Moderator Action, Starting the Prompt Design Site: A New Home in our Stack Exchange Neighborhood. Of special note is R. A. Salvatore's series, The Legend of Drizzt, following a Drow Ranger protagonist, which is at 37 books at time of writing and still going. You should definitely be willing to be flexible, but there's only so much flexibility you can afford before you start making the kinds of large changes you've mentioned you want to avoid. @enkryptor hello, while these may are helpful guidelines I can not deduce where your expertise comes from - which is a requirement for this kind of answers on, You've got some good ideas here, but they really do need to be backed up per our. There have been some decent sourcebooks focusing on D&D religions in the past, such as Faiths and Avatars and Deities and Demigods, but to explore D&D religions, it might be more appropriate to read D&D novels. The class is a full spellcaster with a powerful and versatile spell list, capable of wearing medium armor and using a shield. Well because of my beliefs in science over religion, I am opposed to the concept of a higher power creating and influencing the world. #1 Aug 13, 2020 DnDNewper View User Profile View Posts Send Message Adept Location: Ottawa Join Date: 12/19/2018 Posts: 920 I know that the clerics gimic is Australian ex-priest convicted of child sex abuse pleads guilty to If your player isn't interested in exploring those kinds of situations, then maybe RPGs aren't their kind of game, and that's OK! If there's some push back point out that it's the same thing in the real world. I could have tried to imagine an entire fictional monastic order around this central conceit. God said, 'I will make dwelling among them and walk among them, and I Congratulations, you just brought a deity into existence through your devotion! Join. Are there any published maps of Rhymanthiin and also 'The Path of Light' linking it to the Misty Forest? We used two different methods that both worked with this particular player: We played games-- including the 3.5 revision of Return to White Plume Mountain, which required only a minor change to the legacy weapon effects of Wave-- with no Clerics or things like that and they played a paladin and it was fine (paladins in 3.5 are devoted to Lawfulness and Goodness, religion has nothing to do with it). D&D is not a game about letting other people tell you who you are and what you believe in. You also have countless real-world history books as your sourcebooks. If things are left ambiguous or open to interpretation, for example he might have been a god, or he was simply a powerful wizard or sorcerer, I find I can roleplay as my non-religious character better, as opposed to being told that no, he is an actual god, not a spellcaster. Whatever approach you take, you need to make it clear to this player that they hold no veto over other players' choices. Although he was not in particular a devotee of Brigid, he did honor and celebrate the Triple Goddess, and his own research and experience were used in asking, what would this cleric of this goddess be like in a world where monsters were real and religion and magic were tangible? Alternative to 'stuff' in "with regard to administrative or financial _______. The characters think they live in generic medieval fantasy land but actually they live on the inside of a giant cylindrical space station as slaves / test subjects for the scientists who live inside the station and secretly observe things with advanced technology and are studying 'bio energy upgrades' and also presumably nanites and pharmaceuticals. 2022 Catalyzing Growth: Using Data to Change Child Care, Building Well-Being & Connections for the Child Care Community. Regardless, let's switch back to the topic of 'what if' a player wants to play a more philosphical or mystical cleric in DnD: for that, I would like to use a metaphor to explain how a DM or player can interpert it.