The nine hells can't be copyrighted; or if so belong to Dante.Actually, the "Nine Circles of Hell" was definately Dante, but the whole idea that there is a heirarchy among devils and ranks below the Adversary was very much Milton's Paradise Lost. D&D has pulled a lot of great ideas and combined them with a lot of other really great ideas . . .
Medieval Catholic Church, IIRC.
IRL Lamashtu was a Mesopotamian demon godess that stole children and menaced pregnant women. She bears some resemblance to Lilith.
Nasty Nasty. Lilith was the queen of demons, So I could understand it as a goddess of moneters.
"When a recipe or formula is accompanied by explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable."What if we looked at the D&D Great Wheel like "the text directions," and the components of the D&D Great Wheel like "the recipe or formula itself"?
Wizards has very good and expensive lawyers. If they believe that they control that part of intellectual property, they probably do, at least well enough to make going to court over it expensive.
I don't think the analogy applies, anyway: That exemption from copyright laws exists so that you could copyright a cookbook, for instqance, but not claim copyright when people started serving your dishes or sharing recipes. A recipe or formula needs patent, not copyright, protection.In either case, even if a mirror-image of the Great Wheel was put together, there'd have to be a lot of dodgy name-changes that would make it no fun for anyone. While 'Abyss' is just a word, the full name 'Nine Hells of Baat'or' would be taboo. Similarly for non-mythologic planes like Bytopia. I'd rather see a new cosmology than a thinly-veiled rehash.
Our setting mythology seems to work well.
We have a recognised 'CORE' pantheon for all human cultures as well as a small 'Add-on' pantheon for the specific cultures.
These 'extra' deities comprise of ascended individuals, interlopers, offspring of other deities (inc mortal unions) and yes, demon princes, devil lords and other powerful outsiders recognised in numbers by a gven culture.
Kind of the reverse of the subset idea. Several core covering big things. Extras for cultural mores. Nothing mind-breaking unique, but works very well.
Anyone interested (here is our Kage religion):
http://home.austarnet.com.au/connors1/Religion%20Page.htm
I really need to learn how to add links here.
Medieval Catholic Church, IIRC.The nine hells can't be copyrighted; or if so belong to Dante.Actually, the "Nine Circles of Hell" was definately Dante, but the whole idea that there is a heirarchy among devils and ranks below the Adversary was very much Milton's Paradise Lost. D&D has pulled a lot of great ideas and combined them with a lot of other really great ideas . . .
The Catholic Church never taught that there were different layers to hell, or that individual demons/fallen angels of various levels of power served in a heiarchy beneath Satan, only that they existed and Satan was their leader. What the Catholic Church did do was to say that Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno were good catechetical tools for teaching aspects of the faith in an allegorical manner, but given the time period in question, many that knew these works were held in regard by the Church misunderstood this to mean that they were endorsed literally by the Church.
On top of all of this, in a lot of circles Satan was seen as the hero of Paradise Lost, directly in contrast to the desires of the author, who wrote the work originally to "justify the ways of God to Man," because the ways of Man cannot be justified to God. From a literary standpoint, Satan was a more interesting character than the young and, more or less, confused Adam.
All of this having been said, there have been members of the clergy that that have made mistakes in their portrayal of certain materials and canon beliefs. At various time periods there have been lapses in the dilligence of the seminaries as far as teaching the priesthood, especially after the Black Plague, after which many priests were poorly trained and given to teaching nearly as much folklore as actual teachings of the Church.
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The biggest problem with great wheel is alignmental geography. While it worked for the '80s "roleplaying by alignment" gaming and '90s cynical planescape, I think that creative people today have lots of potential to make a new and better multiverse
Then again, eberron cosmology sucks, new FR cosmology sucks... just about all of them are much worse then the great wheel. How good could a new one be?
I guess that if you make adventures in the planes good enough, the planes themselves will grow on people. Paizo made adventure paths that made all of us love the silly old greyhawk, which means they can do anything :D
How about "Paizo, the god of games and fantasy?" :)
--Ray.
Name them as you want, but is there any insight into how the pantheons of gods and demons affects divine spell casting?
For example, over in the Scarred Lands, they've established the history of their world to include Gods and Titans. Basically, it's the Gods who grant clerical spells while the worship of Titans grants druidic spells.
If you're making a pantheon from the ground up, I'd really like to see the opportunity taken to spell out how divine spells come in to play.
What I hope to see is a SIGNIFICANT difference between clerics who worship different gods. I have major issues with the standard cleric from the PHB. Aside from minor differences in spell selection, there is little to distinguish one heavy-armor-proficient, simple-weapon-wielding party-healer from the next. Why is a cleric of a fertility goddess as effective in melee as the cleric of a war god? There should be as much differentiation between divine spellcasters as there is between barbarians, fighters, and paladins--all serve the party as a frontline combatant, but each has a unique flavor.
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Gods tend to be culturally porus, so the idea of variations of Dogma, of Heresies and of Schisms as well as regions overlapping of faiths makes for a more colorful and rich setting.
Dark Ages Europe alone has an abundance of churches religious wars and crusades. Gods in a setting shouldn't be window dressing, they should be a central core of a characters life, offering meaning and a philosophical compass for the follower.
I strongly agree. One core pantheon with cultural variations. I never understood how there could be seven different gods of fire and three of war in the same fantasy world. Look at all the variations of Christianity in our own world - they all believe in Jesus and the same god-of-all-creation - but there is plenty of room for disputes and clashes. Toss in Judaism and Islam who still believe in the same god and you've got 1/3 of the world believing in variations of the same deity. My point is you can get a lot of variation out of just a few gods. Spend time working out interesting churches and their dogmas and some juicy herecies. Mmmm ... I can smell the inquisitors roasting heretics already!
I strongly agree. One core pantheon with cultural variations. I never understood how there could be seven different gods of fire and three of war in the same fantasy world. Look at all the variations of Christianity in our own world - they all believe in Jesus and the same god-of-all-creation - but there is plenty of room for disputes and clashes. Toss in Judaism and Islam who still believe in the same god and you've got 1/3 of the world believing in variations of the same deity. My point is you can get a lot of variation out of just a few gods. Spend time working out interesting churches and their dogmas and some juicy herecies. Mmmm ... I can smell the inquisitors roasting heretics already!
Not quite as bad as that, in a fantasy world. Many of those real-world disputes could be solved with a simple commune spell, if we had such a thing.
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Toss in Judaism and Islam who still believe in the same god and you've got 1/3 of the world believing in variations of the same deity.
Very true.
Also, amongst the older, polytheistic religions, you had a similar thing going on--the religions (and languages and cultures) of the Persians, the Vedic Indians, Greeks, Roamns, Slavs, Celts, Hitties, Germanic tribes, etc. are all outgrowths from same, original culture/religion/language. So, variations on a theme can look very distinct over time as cultures separate, change and adapt--even if there is a familiar core at the center.
From today's Blog:
Desna, Song of the Spheres
CG goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck
Domains: Chaos, Good, Luck, Travel
Favored Weapon: starknife
What is a starknife? And how stabby is it?
Also, me likey. I like how many bases you managed to cover in 6 gods, without making any of them seem stretched or far-fetched.
And it did make me want to play a Cleric of the harvest god. (Well, Cleric/Ranger).
I was also wondering if demon princes, archdevils etc would be able to grant spells to followers in the new setting, or if they would be using the "spells are granted by a god in league with the other entity" method (which seems to be the current WotC standard).
What is a starknife? And how stabby is it?
Pretty darn stabby, I'd say. But as for what it is, well... that's just one tiny part of what the Player's Guide is going to be all about. :)
Creative Director
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I was also wondering if demon princes, archdevils etc would be able to grant spells to followers in the new setting, or if they would be using the "spells are granted by a god in league with the other entity" method (which seems to be the current WotC standard).
Demon princes and arch devils will be able to grant spells to their clerics.
Demon princes and arch devils will be able to grant spells to their clerics.
Cool! Any word on the power level (CR) of the fiend lords?
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Creative Director
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Demon princes and arch devils will be able to grant spells to their clerics.Cool! Any word on the power level (CR) of the fiend lords?
Not yet, but I can GUARENTEE it'll disapoint some folk. Working on Fiendish Codex I drove that point home several times.
That said... I'm really happy with how the Demonomicon articles are turning out. They're the best benchmark to estimate how we'll be handling demon lords in our world, I reckon.
The Asmodeus of our campaign world will be different than the Asmodeus you see in the Book of Vile Darkness or Fiendish Codex II. They'll both draw from the same myths for background, but they'll certainly be different stat-wise.Our Asmodeus is one of our core evil deities, for starters.
Is this more like the Kador/Asmodeus personality found in Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous (my personal benchmark for how religion should be done in D&D)?
Speaking of Book of the Righteous, I really loved the Holy Warrior concept (basically each god (regardless of alignment) has a sort of paladin but with slightly different abilities). Any chance you'll do something similar for Pathfinder?
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Is this more like the Kador/Asmodeus personality found in Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous (my personal benchmark for how religion should be done in D&D)?
Speaking of Book of the Righteous, I really loved the Holy Warrior concept (basically each god (regardless of alignment) has a sort of paladin but with slightly different abilities). Any chance you'll do something similar for Pathfinder?
Nope. Our Asmodeous is going to be something we detail from the ground up. It'll certainly have similarities to other incarnations of Asmodeus in the game in various sourcebooks, though, since it's drawing its lore from the same source.
We certainly might do something similar to Holy Warriors in Pathfinder. It's probably more likely that we'll do something like this for the martial gods, thoguh, and not for all of them. But that's probably still a ways down the road yet.
I could almost see a unified celestial realm. There is not need for an entire alignment aspected plane when you can do that with the individual domain of each deity. The general cosmology would be more akin to Asgard or Olympus.
I have found that from the point of view of new players, a simplified cosmology works best, at least for the initial presentation. You can also expand upon it later.
Just popped by to sound a note of approval at the deities persented in the PF blog. These are gods I can work with.
For the Rise of the Runelords PbP game I've got going at EN World, I've recruited and settled on five players. One is interested in playing a cloistered cleric and another would like to play a paladin and is leaning toward Abadar. The potential paladin player has asked which temple in Sandpoint will be the temple being consecrated in Burnt Offering's opening. Are you able to say which temple it is?
The potential paladin player has asked which temple in Sandpoint will be the temple being consecrated in Burnt Offering's opening.
James, I believe, has said that the temple in Sandpoint is devoted to six deities. I'm guess they're the six from the Ye Gods! blog entry.
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Creative Director
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For the Rise of the Runelords PbP game I've got going at EN World, I've recruited and settled on five players. One is interested in playing a cloistered cleric and another would like to play a paladin and is leaning toward Abadar. The potential paladin player has asked which temple in Sandpoint will be the temple being consecrated in Burnt Offering's opening. Are you able to say which temple it is?
Yeah; the temple in Sandpoint has shrines to all six of the gods detailed in the Ye Gods blog we posted recently. It's the one that's being consecrated. Of those six... Sarenrae's the one who probably has the most paladins. Her paladins are a bit more regimented and strict than the majority of her faithful, of course (she's NG, after all), but she's also the one who's got the most paladin-friendly ehtos (the smiting of undead and demons being a big part of her dogma).
Abadar's probably got some paladins too, but they're likely to be more along the lines of those paladins who are carreer soldiers who are more into the letter of the law than the spirit of it.
So yeah. I'd go with Sarenrae if I were rollin' a pally.
Abadar's probably got some paladins too, but they're likely to be more along the lines of those paladins who are carreer soldiers who are more into the letter of the law than the spirit of it.
Thanks for the reply, that's useful info!
The guy doing the paladin is interested in playing the phariseean style of LG--a knight who's into the letter of the law vice the spirit of the law. I haven't confirmed this with him, but I'm guessing that's why he picked Abadar. I know that when I saw him leaning toward Abadar, and also knowing that he'd expressed interest in the Blackguard PrC for later levels, Abadar seemed a good fit.
Thanks again for the great customer service in the form of this thread and the Pathfinder blog. I've encouraged my players to come read the blog.
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So yeah. I'd go with Sarenrae if I were rollin' a pally.
Okay, so I'd have to be a nutbar and go with a pally devoted to Shelyn, myself. Love being the root of all good, and all. ;)
I could see paladins of Erastil existing, though. As god who's portfolio includes family, I'm sure he'd have some adherents that are as protective as a lioness defending her cubs. :)
Okay, I really can't wait to learn more about the pantheon in Runelords. I'm glad you focused on some of the less glamorous gods.
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What about a cosmology based on the Membrane Theory of space-time relationship? Basically, M-Theory says that for the Grand Unifying Theory and the Big Bang to both be true then there would have to be 9 spatial dimensions, 1 time dimension, and a special 11th demension. So even though we only sense four of these dimensions ( up/down, left/right, forward/back, and time) there could be creatures that exist in a separate plane made up of the other demensions (gods, demons, spirits). Some of these planse could even overlap. Some creatures could exist on more than one plane at the same time. While we humble humans exist in only three spatial demensions, gods could exist on all nine spatial dimentions, with lesser gods, angels, demons, and other stuff inbetween, with the more dementions a creature exists on directly related to their power.
Also I just finished Geroge R. R. Martin's Feast of Crows and love the seven faced god. The Maiden, the Mother, the Crone, the Warrior, the Father, the Smith, and the Stranger are all diferent faces of the same god. These roles represent all of the things a good god should be; innocent, nuturing, wise, brave, just, hard working, and custodian of the dead.
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I am a HUGE fan of demon lords, archdevils, arch angels, and the like. They will definately have a place in our campaign world.
Of all Demonlords I hope that Orcus will get the proper Treatment. After all, he is Celebrity! Forget the two headed shizo, old doghead or this abominable slimebag.
But give Orcus his due!And don't get try to kill him. He only will come back meaner and stronger!
I am a HUGE fan of demon lords, archdevils, arch angels, and the like. They will definately have a place in our campaign world.Of all Demonlords I hope that Orcus will get the proper Treatment. After all, he is Celebrity! Forget the two headed shizo, old doghead or this abominable slimebag.
But give Orcus his due!
And don't get try to kill him. He only will come back meaner and stronger!
Demogorgon is WotC owned, anyway, right? Yes! No more baboon-boy, dredged from the darkness Gygaxian nightmares! Long live (uhm, un-live?) Orcus!
Oooo... perhaps Orcus as a real god, not "just" a demon lord? God of the dead and undead. Of course, as I understand it, "demon lord" and "god" are going to be more interchangeable in Pathfinder's world (which I like!).
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Hhhmm... I read the deity blog entry just a few minutes ago. I also read postings in this thread.
As much as I like the concept of more differentiation between deities (someone in here mentioned it: making clerics of different deities feel more different), as much I feel alarmed: Your efforts described here rather sound as if you tried to bring up something completely new.
Many people here will follow you blindly wherever your setting leads. Many people here won't give up their FR, GH or home brew setting, though. Please consider these readers' interests in the creation of your setting.
I appreciate improvement (there is room for it), but please let it be usable in other settings without need of a "conversion manual".
Thanks!
Günther
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Okay, so I'd have to be a nutbar and go with a pally devoted to Shelyn, myself. Love being the root of all good, and all. ;)
I don't think that's nutbar. Shelyn does have paladins, after all, since she's NG. Think really really chivalrous for a Shelyn pally (that whole courtly love thing). And yes, most of Shelyn's pallys are males, while most of her clerics are female. And almost all of them have ranks in Craft or Perform (since she's also the goddess of music and art).
Also, Shelyn is really big into the whole "beauty comes from within" thing, so most of her clergy are just plain nice people. They're not just pretty on the outside. And, in fact, one does not need to be physically attractive to be a cleric or pally in the faith, nor does the church try to hide those who aren't pretty on the outside.
Oops, sorry, I'm rambling. Can you tell Shelyn was my main (okay, only) contribution to the pantheon? ^_^
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Although we're going to eventually provide a LOT of detail for our deities, we aren't rewriting the cleric class. A cleric in the Pathfinder world works the same way rules-wise as a cleric from Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms. The flavor will be all different, but they'll still have the same abilities, so converting Pathfinder adventures to other game settings will be no more difficult on this front, say, than converting Age of Worms to Forgotten Realms.
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I don't think that's nutbar. Shelyn does have paladins, after all, since she's NG. Think really really chivalrous for a Shelyn pally (that whole courtly love thing). And yes, most of Shelyn's pallys are males, while most of her clerics are female. And almost all of them have ranks in Craft or Perform (since she's also the goddess of music and art).
Also, Shelyn is really big into the whole "beauty comes from within" thing, so most of her clergy are just plain nice people. They're not just pretty on the outside. And, in fact, one does not need to be physically attractive to be a cleric or pally in the faith, nor does the church try to hide those who aren't pretty on the outside.
Oops, sorry, I'm rambling. Can you tell Shelyn was my main (okay, only) contribution to the pantheon? ^_^
My jaw just dropped. Mike, I am absolutely thrilled with this--this is the kind of "deity of love" that I would have designed for my own campaign. Seriously.
You just helped sell this setting to me. I've been pretty ambivalent about the new setting (no, nothing wrong with what little I've read thus far, new settings are just a hard sell for me--I'm rather particular in that way). However, it's little things like this that bring me to the realization that it's in good hands.
I'm getting giddy, I can't wait for Pathfinder to come out. :)
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My jaw just dropped. Mike, I am absolutely thrilled with this--this is the kind of "deity of love" that I would have designed for my own campaign. Seriously.
You just helped sell this setting to me. I've been pretty ambivalent about the new setting (no, nothing wrong with what little I've read thus far, new settings are just a hard sell for me--I'm rather particular in that way). However, it's little things like this that bring me to the realization that it's in good hands.
I'm getting giddy, I can't wait for Pathfinder to come out. :)
I'm glad to have found a way to make you happy. ^_^
Medieval Catholic Church, IIRC.The nine hells can't be copyrighted; or if so belong to Dante.Actually, the "Nine Circles of Hell" was definately Dante, but the whole idea that there is a heirarchy among devils and ranks below the Adversary was very much Milton's Paradise Lost. D&D has pulled a lot of great ideas and combined them with a lot of other really great ideas . . .
Try Zoroastrianism.... much of modern christianity's view of angels and devils/demons comes from Zoroastrianism, which held the good and evil were both coexistant and mutually exclusive. Every good element (angel) had a corresponding evil element within a very strict hierarchy. They had the whole angel/demon thing going long before christianity did.
Demon princes and arch devils will be able to grant spells to their clerics.
GREAT! I started writing an adventure some days ago where the village priest went over to serve an evil deamon or devil. So this is just what I was looking for!
I also want to see that the gods are worshiped and looked upon differently from region to region.
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Long live (uhm, un-live?) Orcus!
This is it, you are on the right way to become a new diciple!
Oooo... perhaps Orcus as a real god, not "just" a demon lord? God of the dead and undead. Of course, as I understand it, "demon lord" and "god" are going to be more interchangeable in Pathfinder's world (which I like!).
That would be a good idea!
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Creative Director
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Oooo... perhaps Orcus as a real god, not "just" a demon lord? God of the dead and undead. Of course, as I understand it, "demon lord" and "god" are going to be more interchangeable in Pathfinder's world (which I like!).
That would be a good idea!
We've already got gods of the dead and undead, and Orcus has classically been a demon lord, so that won't be changing.
Darn!
Just going to throw my opinions out there -- I really like what K. Baker did in Eberron in regards to religion. He gives it that realistic ambivalence . . .are the gods real? Are they not? I like that touch more than I like Torm coming down to battle Bane.
Once again, I'll point to the religion of the Elder Scrolls video games, which I really like. The entire continent is under the rule of a very Roman-esque empire, and their official gods are the Aedra. They're typically good aligned, but there's a lot of people who look around and don't see any proof that the Aedra are real, so there's debate about them being "true" gods or not.
Then there are the Daedra, which serve as that setting's demons (more or less). There are all sorts of daedra, from very, very minor ones to the Daedra Lords. Wizards and priests often call upon daedra through spells, and the Lords have been known to take an active role in shaping world events. Therefore, everyone knows the Daedra are real, although there's a lot of debate over whether they are really "gods" or not (as opposed to "just" Lords of the Daedra; in the end it's just the opinion of the individual; the names are somewhat interchangeable). It's an interesting mix of certainty and uncertainty when it comes to matters of faith.
Of course, this is compounded further by the fact that, while virually all lesser daedra are quite vicious and evil, the Lords range widly in their attitudes. Many are evil, as well, but others seem quite neutral or even good. Many of them have a history of taking strange, often conflicting actions whose "goodness" depends solely on the interests of the viewer (one of the Daedra killed and ate a high elf god, but used his voice to lead a group of elves to the "promised land"; high elves see this as completely evil, but the dark evils {who aren't evil in this setting} see it as a sign of their god's love and devotion).
Of course, the Elder Scrolls have no alignment mechanic, the presence of which in D&D makes integrations of those themes and elements difficult.
Orthodox and what?
Granted, I hate it when i have to admit I need a dictionary, but if I can assume heterodox means what I think it means, then this would be a situation where I can site that Eberron did something right in regard to religions. By removing alignment restrictions in regard to which deities one may follow. I mean we can take two people one of LG and one of CE alignments, and have them both worshiping the same god. Both of their views are different, but both of their views are still valid.
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Orthodox and what?
Granted, I hate it when i have to admit I need a dictionary, but if I can assume heterodox means what I think it means, then this would be a situation where I can site that Eberron did something right in regard to religions. By removing alignment restrictions in regard to which deities one may follow. I mean we can take two people one of LG and one of CE alignments, and have them both worshiping the same god. Both of their views are different, but both of their views are still valid.
Sorry, a heterodox faith is one that follows what the main body of the faith considers to be a heresy. For instance, in my home campaign all of the churches say that pact magic (Tome of Magic) is evil, except for an offshoot of the God of Honor's church who claim that while their diety has no control over vestiges he oversees ALL oaths, contracts, and pacts. Multiple beliefs within the same faith that don't really get along. ;)