Feel of the game: "Deities! How do they work?!?"

[the_taken]

One of the things that has been niggling at the back of my head for a while has been how to handle gods, demi-gods, archangels, devil kings and demon princes. One of the issues has been the handling of deities in previous iterations of fantasy games. (ref: Most D&D Clerics aren't polytheists)

Interestingly, 3e's Deities and Demigods splat book actually does have a section devoted to handling deities in different ways, in terms of what they're capable of, where their power comes from, and how they affect clerics. The standard is to have deities be a background option character take, while that splat book expands other options ranging from having deities be really powerful entities you can kill to end their portfolio, to offices in the natural order of the universe that must be filled, and deities being side effects of people believing in the same being really really hard (whether pre-existing or not).

Right off, I'm ditching the concept of certain character archetypes getting their powers from deities. The concept of a self-righteous religious zealot or mushroom smoking vegetarian that transforms into a bear because a man in the sky said they can may still exist, but devoting an entire chassis to having divinely pissed on characters gain appropriately thematic powers doesn't fly with me. If Avatar Roku can give you the power to belch purple fire, that doesn't mean he's the only avenue to gain that ability, just one way to do it.

So what does a divine blessing give you? It takes up a magic item slot, much like attuning oneself to a power site does. Gifts from the divine are like magic items that don't go away, unless you piss your patron off so much he stops letting you have it. This actually makes an interesting situation when compared to enchanters and buff specialists, who enhance their allies for a short time to make them better (and using up the chakra nodes to do so). Deities do the same thing with their followers!

So where do the class powers of the 'Cleric' come from? Well I'm not going to have a cleric class, though I will have a set of white mage style abilities and powers. Religion is going to be a portion of the character background, and for characters that really get into it, they can take start collecting blessings as magic items instead of magic swords and pants or what have you. Why mainly the divinely inspired could heal never made sense to me. Magic is magic, and anyone who studies the right avenue of magic should be fully capable to heal people with magic. That's the whole point to studying magic!

So how what do deities do? What purpose do they serve? How important are they? What I am considering is deity-hood being a side effect of being worship. That is, if a character is a celebrity, the more people that make shrines and wish the person success, the bigger the power they get from this. (I think this is the model used in Exalted). But this is optional, much like any other magical power. Characters that have the fame and renown can choose to fill a chakra node with their own divinity, and in short order become a deity. Semi-divinity can even be available to mid-level characters, so level 6 paladins (a character archetype now, not a class) can go stab Orcules before he becomes an immortal smash-god using whatever 'Evile!' method he thought would work. Once a character has acquired several 'divine' powers (a bunch of magic item slots) they can call themselves a god, and take actual god abilities that let them bless mortals (using up their magic slots).

[crasskris]

It takes up a magic item slot, much like attuning oneself to a power site does. Gifts from the divine are like magic items that don't go away, unless you piss your patron off so much he stops letting you have it.

Interesting idea, and actually the first implementation of 'granted until revoked' divine powers I've read that seems halfway workable.
Provided, of course, that the attainable powers follow the guidelines for good magic item design (expanding a build, not defining or enabling it).

[Ektagliaresia]

Placing divine abilities into virtual magic items sounds like a good way of implementing them; so, a Paladin is a Fighter with divine endowments and a Cleric is a Wizard who consorts with a god. It's easier to balance than making entire separate classes.

Some suggestions:

*While the gods shouldn't have a monopoly on something as broad as "healing", divine endowments should not exactly duplicate other abilities and items. There might not be a cleric class, but a divinely powered wizard will be different from his colleagues.

*Endowments can be purchased from your god by ritual sacrifice of the proper value, usually with a flavor requirement like "slaughter 3 black bulls (1,000 gp). You can also destroy magic items blessed by opposing gods to pay for them (and sacrifice enemy followers for the value of their endowments, if your god allows that sort of thing).

*Some divine spells still exist, in the form of rituals available to any follower, as long as they pay the price (special sacrifices, components, ritual purity, etc.).

*While all gods have standards of behavior, divine endowments sometimes come with paladin-style codes of conduct.

*Some endowments can have short quests associated with them, like the 1e paladin mount.

*While divine endowments are immaterial buffs, gods can also bless their own magic items if a follower crafts the base item and requests it.

[crasskris]

While all gods have standards of behavior, divine endowments sometimes come with paladin-style codes of conduct.

Isn't it implicit that Hammerhead, the iron god of justice and chastity, has a more rigid standard of behavior than Egalita, the Hippie Goddess of Feeling Good About Yourself?

In other words: The powers traditionally granted to a Paladin had never a strong link with the code he had to follow. Adding extra requirements to divine powers seems arbitrary when magic items come without them.

[shadzar]

deities are those things that control the world. you try to do what you can to go unnoticed or not offend them, and hope they leave you alone or help you with prosperity.

[the_taken]

OK, so what is it about the distinction between the different classic DnD Divine classes that's supposed to make them both different from each other, but the same for all deities?

Obviously, the Paladin is a martial class with divine blessings, so Barbarians (if made a class), Knights, Soldiers, and what have you can all become Paladins by virtue of being virtuous. Their spell casting (which will be level appropriate) can simply be an aspect of taking white magic abilities when they become available instead of, say, elemental magic, or summoning, or what ever other magic there are. In fact, a Paladin may well be a blessed White Knight, while there are unsubscribing White Knights adventuring out there. Black Knights are opposite of White Knights, using curses and other dark magics instead of protections and healing, and there's no reason white they can't be blessed by a deity, if for different reasons.

The cleric is a little easier, as they are a wizard or some other mage with blessings. What really gets me is the way clerics are supposed to be good at weapon combat and magic, while wizards are only supposed to be good at magic. Actually, these probably have more to do with class design goals than anything else.

Now what about those that steal power from the gods? I don't think it's fair that people that kiss divine butt get powahz, and then some yahoo sneaks in and steals a blessing when noone is looking, but that's the whole point of stealing, isn't it?

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Now to come up with a list of deities. One of the things about this world is that people become more powerful by being worshipped. Infamy isn't enough, and in fact being an Evil git that eat people probably gets a diety more ill fate wished upon them, negating the effect of their worshippers. This is why the dark gods are all secret or forgotten gods, and demon lords go out of their way to obscure their identity, or garner as much good PR as possible.

Another aspect is the fact that people that are simply worshipped become gods, so the world will have history of people that get up in the morning and are suddenly divine. Their will also be situations where gods will fight and ungod each other, which I imagine would be like politicians getting into an arena and trading blows as a PR stunt, winner inspires more people to vote for (read: worship) them and takes support (read: worship) away from the loser. Kinda like how Chronos the Titan used to be the top dog of the world, but then his son got uppity and beat him to a pulp, and now everyone acknowledges Zeus as the king of the gods.

So what who makes up the roster of gods? One of things that is very important is the fact that the gods are all of at least certain level. While one can certainly be worshipped and become a proto or demi-god at low levels, an entity needs a certain number of vacant magic power nodes to fill with enough Deity abilities to become a god.

So the schmuck tier Princess Emma is worshipped because she's terribly pretty, and get some sort of divine power to be more princessy, while her father, King Dippity-Doo has the divine right to rule (he's level 4), and Hercules doesn't actual rule anyplace but does get to break the rules and do badass demi-god things (level 6), and Skullator (lvl9?) is a secret dark god with a cult that have been kidnapping people and turning their skulls into wine goblets for the sake of Evil. And then there's Lich King Blooddrake Von Bonesong, who is awesome and immortal, not just for being a Lich (11+), but because he's worshipped as the avatar of the undying will to persist in the world beyond the failing of the flesh.

[shadzar]

OK, so what is it about the distinction between the different classic DnD Divine classes that's supposed to make them both different from each other, but the same for all deities?

classic D&D only has one divine class....