Divine spellcasting in a monotheistic setting?


Advice


I'll start by saying this campaign is heavily, heavily based off Judeo-Christian "mythology", but is in no way intended to offend or mock anyone's beliefs. I'm a rather devout Christian myself, but tend to take things regarding my religion with a pinch of salt and so I'm generally unsure what may offend other believers. If I cause any offence with a topic so close to home, you have my absolute sincerest apologies. :)

So, in my campaign the players play as angels on Earth, agents of the hierarchy of Heaven, God being a sort of omnipotent, omnibenevolent but unknowable force somewhere up there. He guides and answers prayers in, yes, mysterious ways, and most importantly to the game itself, is the only being aside from Satan able to bestow spells upon His celestial worshippers.

However, I can't really think how this will work. I mean, in a polytheistic setting the god of nature can give clerics (for example) magic concerning water, growth, animals etc.
But with, ya know, God, shall I just say He gives ALL domains to whoever wants it? It just seems a bit unsatisfying and... Theme-less? I could split Him into different "aspects" and say "this one is for all aspects of battle, this one for the elements" and so on, but aside from the absolute religious nopes that this entails, having God as separate is just not what God IS, in Christianity or in my setting (let's not get into the Holy Trinity).

So yeah, any ideas with this particular problem?
Again, no offence meant in any way, shape or form, and I would much rather keep all discussion of real-world religion as out of here as possible, unless it's really necessary. Thanks! :D


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As far as I know, he is the god of everything. All domains would be his, except, like, Evil. You already said Satan exists and gives spells though, so that's solved.


An all-powerful God may have the ability to *grant* all Domains, but imperfect mortals may not have the ability to comprehend more than a small subset.

Use the various gods in the Core rulebook, and mentally replace 'Diety' with 'Sect'. To use Catholic Christianity as an example, Jesuits have access to one set of Domains, Benedictines have access to a different (possibly overlapping) set, etc, each depending on the part of the mind of God that they each focus on understanding.

Some Domains would not be available to any sect, and only be available to whatever evil priesthoods exist in your campaign.

If you want to avoid sects, then each priest chooses 'x' Domains (you may have to weight their values), based on what he can comprehend of God.


Domains can represent Ideas for clerics without gods, and the Judio-Christian god represents most everything or has specific angels or saints that represent specific values. Like how Saint Peter is the saint to pray for as a traveler...I think.

Regardless, just use saints and angels.


Yeah, really the only difference domain wise would be no evil for god and no good for satan.

I might not even include law or chaos, as I've always thought of the two entities as NG and NE respectively. I'm sure there are other domains that might not fit (like, destruction for god might be a stretch, and so might liberation for satan), but generally speaking they're fine.


Sounds like Green Ronin's Testament or Medieval settings.


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Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
I'm sure there are other domains that might not fit (like, destruction for god might be a stretch

someone needs to brush up on their old testament, methinks.

Grand Lodge

Mind, I do not know everything about Judeo-Christian Mythology. However, I would take "God" and remove Him from the equation. Instead, the clerics focus around the various Saints and Archangels (Satan/Lucifer was an Angel pre fall)

I would go through and pick 18 saints/archangels you like that match up to the 9 alignments (2 for each). Keep in mind, you may need to "stretch" some things to make this all fit, maybe even "make up" some saints for the evil alignments. The church seems reluctant to make evil people saints for some reason.


Just use Exe-communicated people and Heretics for that.

Galileo could be the Patron of Technology and make him a Chaotic Neutral "god stand in"


Granting all domains would make sense.

If you want a theme to help it make sense, look at Sufi beliefs. They consider the various aspects of God, and meditate upon these aspects. In the case of your game someone whotakes the plant domain would be attuned to the creator of nature aspect. Someone who took the glory domain would be attuned to the king of kings aspect.

When limited to a single god, that God must represent all things.


kikidmonkey wrote:
Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
I'm sure there are other domains that might not fit (like, destruction for god might be a stretch
someone needs to brush up on their old testament, methinks.

Beyond that, Satan is very liberating, until you get to Hell.


Master of the Dark Triad wrote:

Yeah, really the only difference domain wise would be no evil for god and no good for satan.

I might not even include law or chaos, as I've always thought of the two entities as NG and NE respectively. I'm sure there are other domains that might not fit (like, destruction for god might be a stretch, and so might liberation for satan), but generally speaking they're fine.

From my interpretations God would be LN and Satan would be CN rather than actually being good and evil. One puts down laws and says this is how the world works, Satan thinks x law is unnecessarily and convinces people to break it. Also means you don't "have" to make all the satan worshippers villains and all the god worshippers goody two shoes.


You could make various "orders". Different orders would focus on different goals and beliefs, similar to how Dominicans may be different from Franciscans, which may be different than Jesuits or Carmelites, etc.

The different orders could have their own organizations, and each could be associated with a number of domains. That could give more structure beyond just "pick any two domains", and it would also make some interesting factions for your setting.


Thanks for the ideas everyone, great stuff!

I think I'll write it as separate Orders (thanks, Rufus!) all worshipping the same god together but separate aspects of Him. The head of each Order will be a saint or archangel, and worshippers can be granted magic based on which Order they belong to.
I'll revive this thread soon with ideas for the individual Orders.

I really like the idea of underlying political strife between the Orders too, and I have the perfect place for that in my campaign.

Thanks again, I knew I could rely on the boards! :D


Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. Here are the orders I've thought up, and I'd love any opinions as to balance and flavour.
Each focuses on a different aspect of God, aside from the Ordo Nubis, which no one really likes but performs the dirty work the others see themselves as too pure to do. All sorts of rumours surround them, like they consort with devils to battle against greater evils.

Order of the City (Ordo Civitatis): Artifice, Community, Glory, Knowledge, Law, Protection, Travel

Order of the Cloak (Ordo Nubis): Charm, Darkness, Death, Knowledge, Liberation, Madness, Trickery

Order of Creation (Ordo Genesis): Artifice, Earth, Fire, Knowledge, Law, Rune

Order of the Green (Ordo Viridis): Air, Animal, Chaos, Earth, Healing, Plant, Sun, Weather

Order of the King (Ordo Regis): Destruction, Glory, Law, Nobility, Protection, Strength, War

Order of Peace (Ordo Pacis): Charm, Community, Healing, Knowledge, Liberation, Protection, Repose, Sun

Order of the Primeval (Ordo Initii): Air, Chaos, Darkness, Earth, Fire, Scalykind, Sun, Void, Water

Good and Magic available to ALL
Evil available to none.


Just have different aspects of God being worshiped by different religions, just like in the real world. Jewish, Christian and Muslim all branched off the same religion originally. Over time they grew into seemingly completely different religions. Also within each religion there are various sects and orders to further separate things. God being infinite and man being finite it is almost inevitable that this will happen.

The other thing that will allow more religions in a monotheistic setting is allowing philosophies to power divine spell casting. A real world example of this would be Buddhism. This would work well for the neutral religions. God would be the source of the good religions. Satan would be the source of power for evil. Philosophies would be the source of neutral religions. Because there are no neutral gods the main conflict will still be between good and evil. While a neutral divine caster can be individually powerful and persuasive, there will be no unifying force to unite them.

The difference the campaign world would have from the real world is that magic works. This means that God or his agents have more influence and will probably intervene if things get too out of hand. This will mean that while there are religious differences outright religious wars between the good religions will probably be kept at a minimum, if not prevented completely. It is kind of hard to call for a crusade against the infidels when God tells you to knock it off and behave yourself.


The 3.5 Deities and Demigods book does have a back section for talking about monotheistic religions, and even give a sample monotheistic Goddess as a reference.

Grand Lodge

I've always found this to be a fascinating subject. How to fit monotheism into a game can be tricky. I've been slowly working it into my home campaign. Taking something from real world monotheism makes it even harder.

Green Ronin's Testament and Medieval have both been mentioned. They are great resources for this. I would like to suggest maybe looking at Paradigm Concepts' Witch Hunter game. It is set in an alternate history and is based off of judo-christian traditions. However, it adds in the nice touch that Even if there is one "God" that there are still other immensely powerful beings that exist outside of His conflict with the Adversary that are capable of granting power to people. Historicly, people did believe much along the same lines. They might believe that their gods were the right gods, but did not necisarly think that the gods their neighbors worshiped didn't exist.

I would like to add a few thoughts on domain options. I think that Law should be one of God's domains even if He is not specically being portrayed as a lawful aligned deity. It sits well with a lot of things, particularly from the Old Testament. Also, Law allows for "coruption" in the church. This is where you get someone who is following the tenets of the faith but not their intent. Also, I would suggest not putting in some domains to which there is nothing in the mythology to particularly support it. Keep in mind, that a lot of the domains flavors come from more polythesic mythologies. For example, there is nothing really in the Bible to suggest the Hebrew god has a particular affenity for cold (of course it is also set mostly in a desert), where as it is easy to see how some viking deity would have such a domain. Admittedly, patron saints might be able to help more with that issue.

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