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Religion is wonderfully weird. I'm not a very religious person, but I love all the tradition and oddness of ritual. I feel that the flavor of religious practice is sometimes missing from games and this is my attempt to fix that.
I envision every clerical domain as having a different style of prayer, and each domain comes with a bit of sacrifice; something the cleric commits to, which connects him to his deity. The religious act separates the Cleric class from the ordinary clergy, who don't do magic. This isn't meant as a mechanical change, really, just flavor.
A few I've come up with:
Air
Prayer: Air clerics climb a high place and meditate silently in the wind. They climb a tree, or up on a rock, or sit on a stool if they're trapped indoors (which they hate).
Sacrifice: Frequent fasting; air clerics tend to look pretty gaunt.
Animal
Prayer: Wear animal skins or horned headdresses, dance and caper while imitating animals, growl and howl, paw the earth, etc.
Sacrifice: Eat no cooked food.
Chaos
Prayer: Slip into an ecstatic trance, writhing and gibbering as chaos takes over.
Sacrifice: losing control sometimes, occasionally drifting into trance states at random.
Any ideas? I would love a brainstorming session on this.
Have you read Inner Sea Gods? They actually do say what's involved in prayer. In fact, the book also introduced a feat called Deific Obedience, which allows a character to do a one hour prayer ritual to gain boons. The book lists details of the ritual and the boons for each core god
I am not a fan of defining prayer based on domain. I think a god's prayer should depend on the god themselves, especially considering that even gods with similar domains can have completely different viewpoints on those domains.
Inner Sea Gods is definitely on my (ever-expanding) wish list. I chose to make them domain-based to make the clerics of the same god different.
One wilder cleric might be devoted to Erastil's animalistic aspect while another more civilized sort might venerate the community's protector, and worship very differently.
Have you read Inner Sea Gods? They actually do say what's involved in prayer. In fact, the book also introduced a feat called Deific Obedience, which allows a character to do a one hour prayer ritual to gain boons. The book lists details of the ritual and the boons for each core god
I am not a fan of defining prayer based on domain. I think a god's prayer should depend on the god themselves, especially considering that even gods with similar domains can have completely different viewpoints on those domains.
Seconded. An Asmodean Fire cleric will have a vastly different set of prayers than, say, one devoted to Saranrae.
It might also differ by region too. I use the core gods in my homebrew but said world is highly influenced by RW eastern Europe. As such Saranite clergy wield cutlasses and dance like Russian folk dancers.
Saranite prayers then in my game are more about recitation using a string of beads w/holy symbol similar to a crucifex. They face east (morning) or west (evening) and chant the Devotions of the Light over each bead.
But yes, the Inner Sea Gods would serve you well here.
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I imagine my character reading off a grocery list of spells.
"Oh and add a Heal too. Never know when little Timmy the Fighter is going to need all his blood put back in. Kay, thanks Aroden. Be praised and such."
Irori: you go through tai-chi like katas
Iomedae: meditate over your sword recounting the miracles
Saranrae: ritualized dancing and uulating?
I'd be more interested to see what studying spells looks like for wizards.
Torag: Gather ritual objects, disassemble and remake them while pondering their structure.
Calistria: Sing or chant while sampling intoxicating drink, incense, or other substances, or engage in tantric companionship
I've always imagined wizards using their book as a reference while they mumble and gesture and cast a really long spell, which they "save up" and complete some time later that day as a standard action.
Like I mentioned before, defining all the core god prayers may be redundant as Inner Sea Gods does so in great detail while also allowing individual worshipers to vary the ritual depending on local culture, location, and available resources.
The other gods, however, would be very worthy of a thread. I honestly wished Inner Sea Gods defined the rituals and practices of Razmir as if he were a real god.
Really I just wanted a lot of homebrewed ritual prayer ideas. I understand that "Inner Sea Gods" exists, but I don't always play in Golarion, and this is a homebrew board.
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Really I just wanted a lot of homebrewed ritual prayer ideas. I understand that "Inner Sea Gods" exists, but I don't always play in Golarion, and this is a homebrew board.
I don't always play in Golarion, but when I do, it's always Epic level.
Sorry; couldn't resist :)
Anyway, each of the gods would have different rites based on their portfolio as well as domains, culture of the clergy, etc. If you're looking for a defined list - Inner Sea Gods. If you're looking for non-core gods, core gods in a non-core setting or something else entirely you could easilly invent your own.
Start first with: what do you imagine a traveling cleric of god X needing with them to pray? Is it just the deity's holy symbol? A preferred weapon? An additional mundane item like a bowl, rug or tome?
Next, consider the deity's portfolio: law vs chaos, good vs evil, portfolio concerns such as farmers or undeath, and finally their standard domains. Each of these would influence HOW the PC might pray. Lawful gods would have some rote chant while chaotic might have more like a suggested state of mind.
Finally consider the culture of the clergy. This will influence the process as well. Consider 2 clerics of Pharasma; one from a primitive barbarian tribe in the hills with another from the heart of Absalom. While the civilized priest might spin a prayer disk on a portable altar while humming a litany of funerary rites, the more barbaric priest might simply recite the same litany over the skulls of his tribal enemies.
What's your homebrew like?
What's your homebrew like?
A lot like Hyboria. The civilized countries are Iron-age city states with a lot of wilderness tribes around them. The north is Norse-inspired, but with mountaineers instead of sailors, while the south is sword-and-sandal pulp. Gods number in the hundreds, with players encouraged to make up their own, but the main bunch are called the Weavers (based on the Norns) Thunarr, a thunder god, Greenman, a nature god, Mir, an animal god, and Morrigan, a death goddess.
I can imagine clerics of Thunarr holding their favored weapon, a sunsword, while wearing their ceremonial brown vest and chanting "AAAAHHHH-EEE" to the "Lords of Light(ning)"
Just a thought.
Seriously though, if the PCs are encouraged to make up their own private god and have hundreds to choose from, make THEM think up how they pray.
I have a blind-ish Oracle who worships our Goddess of Lore. To roleplay an augury I was casting, I described my actions along the lines of Chinese calligraphy and 'ink and wash' painting. It fit the theme of what I was going for and prompted the other players to ask me what I was miming with my hands.
A great way to find inspiration is in other literature. The Kingkiller Chronicles has the Heart of Stone, "a state of conscience where the "user" abdicates from all his beliefs and opinions, forgetting all his emotions and prejudices", and the Spinning Leaf, "a mental state where the user simply "goes with the flow", letting his mind free to wander wherever it wants, talking and doing things without thinking twice about it, just doing it, no thinking". These are instantly the opposites Lawful and Chaotic. In Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, the main premise in meditation-oriented magic is that you must capture the five senses with your foci. In player terms, a LG cleric might use pure water for taste and homemade lye soap for smell, while a druid might prefer raw meat for taste and freshly snapped evergreen twigs for smell.
The key is for your player to get into the mindset of a believer and figure out the trappings he/she would associate with such a belief. History of the God/dess, portfolio, domains, and alignment are all equally important. One war God might requite minor blood-letting while another may prefer ritualistic cleaning of weapons.
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Chaos
Prayer: Slip into an ecstatic trance, writhing and gibbering as chaos takes over.
Sacrifice: losing control sometimes, occasionally drifting into trance states at random.
Since I have always defined Chaos with regard to an individual as being "Power generated from Within as opposed to drawing Power from Without (which is the nature of Law)," and since what you describe is an awful lot like real-world religious groups like the pretty-darned-Lawful Shakers, might I suggest this (yes, I recognize the suggestion of devotions based on domain has already been passed over in favor of devotions by deity, but still):
Chaos
Prayer: Spend an hour creating something, destroying something, or doing things like this man is suggesting.
Sacrifice: Enduring the inevitable dislike of the authoritarian and humorless, and the logical consequences of marching to the beat of one's own drummer.
ALSO: I had an idea for a Davening feat - I'm not willing to share it in full here due to this, but basically, you could opt to incorporate an exceptionally vigorous version of that motion during your prayers as a further show of devotion (and perhaps attempt to stir up revelations) - the downside is that you're really dizzy for a long time afterwards, but you get a semirandom number of bonus spells that day.