For various reasons I am uncertain as to leaving her divine allegiance with Desna, given the make up of my group it would be slightly complicated.
What does anyone think about alternate gods, it needs to be a god of good and I think an Empyreal lord is probably not appropriate. That seems to leave
Shelyn
Sarenae
Iomedea
Cayleb Caydean
I am fairly certain Torag and Erastil won't work.
Any thoughts?
Shelyn is your best bet in my opinion, she is most like Desna out of those listed
For various reasons I am uncertain as to leaving her divine allegiance with Desna, given the make up of my group it would be slightly complicated.
What does anyone think about alternate gods, it needs to be a god of good and I think an Empyreal lord is probably not appropriate. That seems to leave
Shelyn
Sarenae
Iomedea
Cayleb Caydean
I am fairly certain Torag and Erastil won't work.Any thoughts?
Why is an allegiance with Desna problematic/complicated?
edit: Why would an Empyreal Lord not be appropriate either?
I just figured God-level Alien Butterflies creep them out:)
It is a problem that a player will almost certainly feel that because Arueshalae is a follower of Desna he is obliged to heavily interact with her , this will put pressure on him to act and roleplay (which is normally good) but when put under pressure he freezes , can't think of anything to do , wastes a lot of time and then feels really bad about it. So it will be a negative experience for everyone. Its a potential player issue rather than a character issue and I would prefer to avoid it so everyone has fun.
Empyrial Lords I don't have a real problem with , however I would probably have to explain them to my players and I could not think of any appropriate ones off the top of my head, also as lesser beings than gods more on the level of the Demon lords they did not quite seem appropriate , however if anyone has a good idea for one of them none of the above are show stoppers.
What about the Black Butterfly?
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It is a problem that a player will almost certainly feel that because Arueshalae is a follower of Desna he is obliged to heavily interact with her , this will put pressure on him to act and roleplay (which is normally good) but when put under pressure he freezes , can't think of anything to do , wastes a lot of time and then feels really bad about it. So it will be a negative experience for everyone. Its a potential player issue rather than a character issue and I would prefer to avoid it so everyone has fun.
Empyrial Lords I don't have a real problem with , however I would probably have to explain them to my players and I could not think of any appropriate ones off the top of my head, also as lesser beings than gods more on the level of the Demon lords they did not quite seem appropriate , however if anyone has a good idea for one of them none of the above are show stoppers.
I would ask the player in question how he would feel about having a special connection to a prominent NPC before making the assumption that it would cause a problem. I certainly understand that being put on the spot might not be a good experience for the player, but I've gotta believe he would like to have the choice, even if he doesn't know anything about it yet.
I would also tell the player that while a prominent NPC may have some kind of special connection with him, he should not feel too pressured to interact differently with them than anyone else. It's your job as the DM to make your players feel comfortable (though pushing them out of their comfort zone often helps them improve as players), and I'm sure there is a way to include Arushalae as written and not feel like you are over-pressuring your player. She may react in a demure or shy manner around the player, or avoid directly confronting the player until he initiates a conversation. She would certainly be drawn to him as they presumably share a deity, but she does not have to outright attach herself to his hip. In fact, until she feels out the party she is more likely than to to be distant and quiet which should take the pressure off the player and allow him to approach the situation on his terms.
The only reason I suggest going this route is because all of Arushalae's art has Desnan symbols, and two pieces of her gear are directly related to Desna. Her weapon is also a Starknife which is Desna's favored weapon, and her story is HEAVILY reliant on having been awakened during a dream she entered as a curiosity, and that's definitely Desna's territory. Re-writing her would be a significant undertaking.
But that's just my opinion.
I would probably try approaching the situation like Aldarionn suggests. Just be vague about what the specific connection to the important NPC is to the player. It could be given time to mentally prepare for a little bit of the spotlight, the Player might be able to shine!
Of course if the player tells you they'd be too uncomfortable, you can always change it to Sarenrae with a little reskinning and maybe reflavoring some of the Desna specific items or abilities she has.
Thank you for all the advice.
Talking to the player is sadly not one of the options based on you know actually knowing him if I thought it was I would already have done it he would think it a good idea then fail (in his opinion), feel EVEN worse and then be reminded every session until I had to write the NPC out . Oh and if I had to change things around because of him that would make him feel bad so
I make in other contexts significant efforts to centre plot elements on him (In fact these efforts would probably make this one worse as he would probably think it was one of my 'subtle' efforts), but there are ways to do it and very sadly as I like Aruashnee as written this is not one of them.
I tried subtly suggesting a different religion to the player as it was not central to his character concept but that sadly failed. I will go with Sarenrae and sadly that will probably mean finding different art. Still the first evidence of her will not turn up for a while as we are still in book 1 so I have time to prepare
Thank you thats another idea to think about
It's just my opinion, but it seems like the player in question may be a bit over sensitive.
I do not know the person, obviously, but I think completely re-writing prominent NPC's so that they have LESS to do with the player in question is a bit of a drastic step for the DM to have to take just so that one person isn't pushed outside of his comfort zone.
In the end you will do what you feel you have to, but I don't think I would do the same given the information you have presented so far. I think I would try to work with the player on re-defining his boundaries.
This is an interesting problem. While I don't know your players, I think you may be over reacting needing to change her god and thus character concept.
I don't think that worshiping the same god necessarily translates to needing more facetime with the character. If the character in question is a cleric then they can associate more behind the scenes where the character is teaching Arueshalae about Desna. This will give the characters a bit of a connection that doesn't really need to be played out.
Assuming the campaign traits were taken, one of the characters should already have an unknown connection with Arueshalae. This IMO should take precedence over similar worshiping.
That being said, the goddess of redemption is probably another really strong option for Arueshalae. Changing Arueshalae's starknife to a scimitar shouldn't be an issue, but anything else should be focused on healing and fire. Changing the starbow to a sunbow, and even keeping the same abilities, is entirely feasible.
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Not to perform dire rites of thread necromancy, but for an entirely unrelated reason, I'm reworking Arue to be worshipping Sarenrae. I think it fits far better to the themes of the AP, and since I'm decoupling the campaign traits from their paths, my wizard is the one with the link to Arue.
I have a few questions though, which is the reason behind the thread necromancy. There's not exactly a lot of Magic Items (at least as far as I know) that are linked to Sarenrae. Does ISG have specific magic items linked to Sarenrae? Or is there another eldritch tome containing these relics? Or do I need to do that work on my own?
Nothing particularly powerful in ISG for Sarenrae worshipers, so you'll need to make up at least some of them. I have not finished converting her yet as my PC's are only at the start of book 2 but when I finish it I can post her here
Sarenrae has pretty neat art in... Ummm... Blood of fiends, a red-skinned, horned tiefling in Sarenrae's colours. Certainly, she doesn't have wings, but you could do worse.
Switching Arue's allegiance to Sarenrae could make Vol 4 a little interesting when the PCs visit the city of Alushinyrra, given that the city's ruler Shamira has a strong (and much discussed) resemblance to the goddess. (vol. 4, pg. 75, last paragraph)
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@ Votishal: I know, I was thinking the same thing.
Okay, so I'll have to do some work. No biggy, just a little disappointing. Sarenrae is actually in my top 5 for the Golarion pantheon, so I was hoping there'd be some more.
Probably a +2 flaming burst scimitar for her melee, and then I've got to work on a Bow and two more things. Basically, all the desnan artifacts get the rework. Hmmm.