My party's cleric is an advocate of mental clarity, and took Mind and Healing as his domains. He's all about counselling and arbitration--lots of diplomacy. I'd like the church to be allied with Pelor in SCAP. I'm stuck however, on the god. Do any human/demi-human gods have Mind and Healing as domains? Suggestions?
What campaign world? No Greyhawk deities spring to mind. Maybe you could brainstorm with him and invent an obscure deity. Perhaps from a faraway quasi-"oriental" location. Zuoken or Xan Yae from Greyhawk spring to mind as deities focused on mental prowess--but not healing. Perhaps you could use those as a starting point. If you want a real-world model, you could use Laozi (Lao Tzu) from Chinese tradition, an ancient philosopher who became (after his apotheosis) closely associated with meditation and various tantric or yogic techniques for achieving "mind over matter." He was also a patron of alchemy, and therefore closely associated with medicine. With a little tweaking and a new name, you're in business.
BTW, Downer rocks. I just wish I could go back and read the episodes I missed before I started collecting Dungeon magazine.
Nothing comes to my mind, either. When this comes up in my homebrew campaign I work with the player to design a minor deity that does what the player wants and fits in with the rest of the pantheon.
--Fang
Well if Pelor, one of the primal deity figures in Oerth, can bring Mayaheine in to exemplify the sun as the conquerer of the dark and defender of the light, I'm sure he probably has some Saint or Disciple who represents the idea that sunlight is wholesome and refreshing. Worthy of healthy, cozy, lizard-like basking in the sun kinda of meditation.
My suggestion is to come up with some lesser diety or have the player worship an ideal (if im not mistaken it can be done) ideals draw from multiple dieties and makes it much easier to set up politcal situations if you need too. a good ideal to worship is the ideal of cleaness(ritual cleanseing and the like) both mind and healing domains could be possible. however other ideals/principles could work as well. As it stands though I don't think a Mind/Healing god exists.
My party's cleric is an advocate of mental clarity, and took Mind and Healing as his domains. He's all about counselling and arbitration--lots of diplomacy. I'd like the church to be allied with Pelor in SCAP. I'm stuck however, on the god. Do any human/demi-human gods have Mind and Healing as domains? Suggestions?
Per my earlier post, here's a go at inventing an obscure deity of mind and healing for you, Kyle--feel free to alter it to fit:
DAESHA, Lady of Primordial Silence
Daesha was once the abbess of a remote mountain nunnery in the lands of the Far West, across the Gulf of Ghayar from the Sultanate of Zeif. It is said that the mountain she chose as her hermitage was afflicted with a hideous demon who afflicted all those who passed the night there with terrible, mind-shattering nightmares and madness. Daesha defeated the demon's curse by successfully meditating for 60 days and 60 nights in succession, never once sleeping during that time. At the sixty-first dawn, Daesha experienced a great spiritual awakening, receiving a vision of a time of primordial silence before the Great Wheel came into being, a time when there was but one spirit which had not yet fragmented into the myriad spirits inhabiting the bodies of sentient beings throughout the multiverse. Her mind guarded by the Primordial Silence of her vision, Daesha tracked the demon down to its cave below the highest peak and slew it with her bare hands, banishing it forever from the material plane. Then she charitably tracked down all of the poor victims of the demon, curing both their madness and their self-inflicted wounds. Afterward, she built a small hermitage, and in thanks for her deed, the ten villages at the base of the mountain each sent a pure virgin to become her disciple and learn the Way of Primordial Silence. In after years, her disciples spread her teaching, founding mountaintop nunneries and monasteries in many lands, and occasionally founding temples in the midst of bustling cities that served as peaceful retreats from the noisy, dusty streets. The establishments dedicated to her provide a quiet place for the troubled to contemplate the comforting truth of the Primordial Silence and seak wholeness of spirit, but also serve as infirmaries where the ill can seek wholeness of body, and sanitariums where those afflicted with madness can be restored to wholeness of mind.
Daesha is commonly depicted as a six-armed androgynous being in gossamer robes, seated in the lotus position upon the skull of a hideous demon. Two of her hands rest in gestures of meditation. A third is outstretched with an empty palm, representing the gift of Primordial Silence. The others her others bear a candle (for enlightenment and spiritual healing), a ginseng root (for bodily healing), and the seed pod of a lotus (for wholeness of mind). Her human eyes are closed, but the "wisdom eye" set in her forehead is wide open, seeing all in its true guise.
Alignment: LG (LN)
Portfolio: Sanity, medicine, spiritual calm, compassion
Domains: Mind, Healing, Law
Favored Weapon: Three-piece staff (from Oriental Adventures; represents "mind" "body" "spirit", the triune wholeness)
Daesha counts many monks among her worshippers, as well as those who have been cured of madness by her servants, or those who have faced madness and held on to sanity with the aid of her teachings.
Per my earlier post, here's a go at inventing an obscure deity of mind and healing for you, Kyle--feel free to alter it to fit:
DAESHA, Lady of Primordial Silence
Daesha was once the abbess of a remote mountain nunnery in the lands of the Far West, across the Gulf of Ghayar from the Sultanate of Zeif.
Pretty darn good Peruhain. A Mind oriented deity definitely brings the Bakluni to mind in a Greyahwkian environment.
I am intrigued as tho why you chose a very Hindu-esque motif? I had always gotten the impression that the Bakluni were very Arabian/Islamic/Persian/Parthian in flavor. I know that there is some non-canon Greayahwk material that adds a more Far Eastern touch to the off-the-map-to-the-west reaches of Greyhawk, but, considering the rarity of encountering devotees of Bakluni-as-presented, I have always seen their worshippers in the Flaness as about as common as Buddhists in medieval Europe.
Per my earlier post, here's a go at inventing an obscure deity of mind and healing for you, Kyle--feel free to alter it to fit:
DAESHA, Lady of Primordial Silence
Daesha was once the abbess of a remote mountain nunnery in the lands of the Far West, across the Gulf of Ghayar from the Sultanate of Zeif.
Pretty darn good Peruhain. A Mind oriented deity definitely brings the Bakluni to mind in a Greyahwkian environment.
I am intrigued as tho why you chose a very Hindu-esque motif? I had always gotten the impression that the Bakluni were very Arabian/Islamic/Persian/Parthian in flavor. I know that there is some non-canon Greayahwk material that adds a more Far Eastern touch to the off-the-map-to-the-west reaches of Greyhawk, but, considering the rarity of encountering devotees of Bakluni-as-presented, I have always seen their worshippers in the Flaness as about as common as Buddhists in medieval Europe.
Actually, I was thinking of the land beyond the Ghayar Gulf, as described in the adventure a few months back featuring the strange monastery that appears only during storms--it had backstory on this region, which I'm not sure fits Greyhawk canon, but made the area out to be more East Asian in flavor.
So Daesha is not really a Bakluni deity, though she may have disciples in the great entrepots of the Baklunish lands.
My thought would be that her religion is an obscure one, but that it has a small but devoted following that has carried it along the trade routes, across through Ket, down through Bissel and Keoland, and across the sea to Sasserine. (There might be a small refuge of Daesha on a nearby mountain, a place where people can go to escape the subtropical heat of the port, and contemplate the stillness of life in beautiful gardens filled with bougainvillea vines tea trees and bird of paradise flowers.
The "hindu-esque" motif was more a mix of Buddhist/Daoist/Hindu in inspiration--I was thinking of Zen contemplatives as well as practitioners of yoga, and of Daoists and their ability to meditate their way to immortality. And the imagery just sort of popped into my mind--probably because I'm currently planning a history class that involves some discussion of Buddhism.
Greyhawk is a pretty mix and match fantasy world, and it absorbs just about anything you can dream up, if you put the right backstory behind it.
Glad you like it! I may have to adapt it for my own campaign too.