I am preparing a set of upcoming encounters for my players to take place in an entrance to an ancient, hidden temple of Erastil beneath a fortress.
This temple houses wards and spells designed primarily to keep something very bad from escaping, but remains accessible to those who adhere to the faith and customs of Erastil.
That's the idea in any case.
To that end, I want to build a set of "trials", taking inspiration from "The Last Crusade's" set of challenges. The trouble I am having is coming up with a set of magical and mundane obstacles that test potential entrants' ability and willingness to follow "Erastil's Way"
Erastil is a Lawful Good deity of hunting, community, agriculture, and tradition. His faith, in general terms, espouses:
- Loyalty to friends, family, and the wider community
- Serving the needs of the many over the few
- Respecting the traditions, teachings, advice, and instructions of elders
- Embracing the responsibility and sanctity of family, marriage, and parent-hood
I already have an idea for one of the challenges, in which the characters are faced with safely crossing a trap-ridden room. The eldest of the characters, however, receives a vision of a stag, safely traversing the room while following a specific path. The challenge here is for the elder to take responsibility, and for the younger party members to place trust in their elder.
However, I am having trouble coming up with more challenges that align with a "test of the faithful" for Erastil's followers.
So now I turn to you, wise ones. How else may the Elk-Father test his flock?
Golarion deities aren't much on "test of faith" since they have real tangible effects on the world, like granting spell casting to divine casters.
I suspect that rather than "tests" they have some puzzle relating to obscure pieces of lore relating to the religion of Erastil that most people wouldn't know, but an initiate of the religion would (however I'm not sure what those things are).
Of course, there are also things like Detect the Faithful spell which allows a divine spell caster to know if someone is an adherent to their religion. So it's not even really necessary to administer any sort of "test" as one can just magically know.
The idea is not really to test a potential entrant's belief in Erastil himself, but rather their dedication to his ideals.
Meanwhile, Detect the Faithful can still fail to detect spies or heretics, depending on the beliefs of that individual.
Therefore the only full proof way to determine an individual's "piety" in this case is to force them to effectively put their money where their mouth is through their actions.
While I get your point that tests like this aren't the norm in Golarion for a number of valid reasons, I am asserting some "creative interpretation" for the sake of foreshadowing potential developments later in the campaign, give the players some opportunities to role-play, draw on some of their characters' backstories, and allow them to learn more about Erastil (who I plan to feature as a prominent figure in the ongoing story)
So I guess what I'm saying is... Valid points. It's just that I'm going for something that perhaps deviates from "Golarion as written".
Detect the faithful can fail to detect spies or heretics, but they would need to know which faith they're trying to infiltrate. If you had a temple with no signs that it was dedicated to a particular deity, someone could use the spell to find the faithful without anyone being able to pretend to worship the correct deity since they wouldn't know which deity to pretend to worship.
Perhaps rather than a set of trials you could have a cleric who encounters the party and sets up situations to evaluate what kind of people they are.
I should point out that when it comes to punishments involved with failing the tests you should be careful since people can always fail due to misinterpretation (ex: the character thinks that they have to try to follow the stag within cover as if they are hunting it.)
For a less related challenge you can invoke the ideas of hospitality, especially to the elderly. This can be done by having the players find an injured old man near the temple and helping him out gives a clue or finding what seems to be a village elder part of the way through the temple and putting his safety before that of the party is a key to solving a puzzle.
I should point out that when it comes to punishments involved with failing the tests you should be careful since people can always fail due to misinterpretation (ex: the character thinks that they have to try to follow the stag within cover as if they are hunting it.)
For a less related challenge you can invoke the ideas of hospitality, especially to the elderly. This can be done by having the players find an injured old man near the temple and helping him out gives a clue or finding what seems to be a village elder part of the way through the temple and putting his safety before that of the party is a key to solving a puzzle.
Or, building on this, perhaps have several places in the temple where PCs can help the animals that live in the temple (God of wild places, after all).
Or, building on this, perhaps have several places in the temple where PCs can help the animals that live in the temple (God of wild places, after all).I should point out that when it comes to punishments involved with failing the tests you should be careful since people can always fail due to misinterpretation (ex: the character thinks that they have to try to follow the stag within cover as if they are hunting it.)
For a less related challenge you can invoke the ideas of hospitality, especially to the elderly. This can be done by having the players find an injured old man near the temple and helping him out gives a clue or finding what seems to be a village elder part of the way through the temple and putting his safety before that of the party is a key to solving a puzzle.
If you want to go all the way you can make the journey to the temple the test itself, what a better way is there to test the values of someone than when they don't know they're being tested. The problem is that if you go that route you might not be able to use more mythical occurences depending on the setting of the game in general and the area surrounding the temple.
Another thought on one of the tests:
Entering into the next room of the temple, the party receives instructions from a celestial being sworn to Erastil's service that they must enter an "astral state" that will project their consciousness into an illusory scenario:
Within, they encounter a village preparing for a hard winter season. However, the villagers have spotted a great beast wandering the forest.
Killing the monster and bringing back its carcass would provide the village more than enough food for the season, and so the villagers urge the party to hunt the creature for them.
The next section could involve some skill checks using the rangers' tracking skills, and possibly use the chase rules as the party closes in on the beast before they finally fight the creature. As the party are close to finishing it however, the assumed animal cries out for mercy, saying that she has cubs/foals/children that she must provide for. They will surely die if she isn't there to provide for them!
The reality is that there is no right or wrong answer to this dilemma.
When the party emerges from the scenario, they are questioned one way or another by the celestial, who challenges them to explain why they did what they did, whether they chose to let the animal go free and potentially let the village starve, or whether they slaughtered the creature to insure the village's survival.
The real test here is for the party to acknowledge the difficulty of deciding on this difficult dilemma: Providing for your family and community means striking a delicate balance with how you interact with the resources around you, as well as the needs of others who may not belong to your community.
Thoughts?
Here's one I used elsewhere.
The March of the Fire Ants. There are walls of fire funneling them toward a door. If they go single file, they will take no damage from the walls. The last through the door gets a wand of cure light wounds with 6 charges left.
You can see how selfish jerks will get burned.