I've tried to pull as much information about these deities(or deity) but they seem to be undefined.
This player is one of my oldest, and he likes to test limits and play unusual types. Recently he's created a cultist of the Speakers and wants to try a storyline where he's trying to apotheosis into a god of chaotic magic. Thankfully he's the player who works with the GM (me), and I know chaos magic because I introduced him to Mongoose Publishing Chaos Mage class. My favorite class, btw.
We did work out that Chaos and luck would be obvious domains he could pick, as well as the subdomain of Protean.
But I'm having some trouble deciding what this god would push him toward. I know the proteans seek to 'restore' the world to primal chaos, but interpret their god's words in radically different ways. I was thinking of having a protean lord be his character's intermediary, but its hard to get into the head of a CN entity without morals.
My question is what should I have him define his clerical role? I don't want to say 'do whatever' because that's lazy, and just makes his character a jerk to other PCs. the only thing I come up with is him radically opposing lawful outsiders like Axis's outsiders, devils, and lawful celestials. Any ideas?
I can imagine a cool ethos along the lines of "magic wants to be free", constantly at odds with regulation of magic, with formal orders of wizards and such. Someone who wants to see every person, every place, bursting with the casual use of innate magic.
That actually works really well. It not only gives me something to work with but it works with the splat book the Chaos Mage class comes from (wizards and chaos mages do not get along well.)
Thanks. =3
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There isn't a ton of information regarding the Speakers of the Depths, though it's insinuated that they might be the proteans' conceptualization of the Maelstrom itself as a living entity. The keketar choruses divine the Speakers' will and the myriad choruses guide the rest of the proteans. As such, I would actually hesitate in having a PC be a direct cleric of the Speakers of the Depths, and instead have them worship a protean lord as a sort of intermediary power and/or follow the guidance of a specific keketar chorus.
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There isn't a ton of information regarding the Speakers of the Depths, though it's insinuated that they might be the proteans' conceptualization of the Maelstrom itself as a living entity. The keketar choruses divine the Speakers' will and the myriad choruses guide the rest of the proteans. As such, I would actually hesitate in having a PC be a direct cleric of the Speakers of the Depths, and instead have them worship a protean lord as a sort of intermediary power and/or follow the guidance of a specific keketar chorus.
What I have found does state that Protean Lords are on par with Powerful Demons, so that would work. I could probably apply most of the same rules for worshiping a demon to a Protean Lord, minus the evil of course.
In regard to his character, I can see this Lord working to promote this chaotic type of magic over the laborious(IE boring) studies of wizards in some convoluted scheme to unbalance reality.
What you said does make sense, which I will bring up with my player. Already have an idea that could work, that this Protean Lord is a meddler and schemer. Think Tzeentch from warhammer 40k but on a lesser scale.
Does the character have a god yet (especially since they're a cleric)? I was just thinking that given the previous talk it'd be interesting to be a sect of Nethys. The sect that worships his scorched half, who believes that all of the lawful schools of magic with their order and rules are affronts to that half of the All-Seeing Eye. That they are eyes half blind in that the only see Nethys' human half. This character's sect might believe that they exist to restore balance to magic, that it is their duty to unleash the maelstrom that those who misunderstand the lesson of Nethys seek only to tame.
I have brought this up to him, and he was fairly adamant about worshiping something more atypical. This character he wants is not yet implemented into the story which is why we've been working out the kinks.
If this was my character I would have gone the route with Nethys, but as stated before, he wants to go in a more cultish direction without having to be chaotic evil.
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We did work out that Chaos and luck would be obvious domains he could pick, as well as the subdomain of Protean.
Liberation seems like another good choice, as it's pretty chaos-friendly.
Knowledge or Magic might make acceptable choices as well, depending on how you perceive the Speakers.
Radically opposing more lawful societies (such as those of Cheliax or Nidal), and institutions like slavery or caste systems (which Proteans would see as restricting individual potential) or laws that forbid literacy or weapon bearing or whatever to specific groups, would make sense for a devotee of the Speakers. Laws in general, particularly those that restrict behavior or limit advancement, would be deliberately (if perhaps subtly, there's no reason the chaos-servant needs to be an idiot!) undermined or subverted.
Laws that enforce notions of equality, or prevent slavery, etc. might be encouraged, and yet, proteans aren't specifically good, so it's equally possible that laws that allows those with greater strength to oppress those with less strength could be seen as liberating and 'natural' and right.
The nature of the story could determine whether or not such a character is going to be disruptive. A campaign based on undermining a restrictive society (such as Hell's Rebels or Council of Thieves), or one dealing with a freer sort of flow (such as Skull and Shackles) would be better than one about building a society (Kingmaker) or enforcing a status quo (Hell's Vengeance).
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I'm currently playing a protean-blooded arcanist who is more or less a "Fool for Ssila'meshnik' in the 'Fool for Christ' way of thinking. She isn't a cleric, but the assumption is that her current state of existence is the result of a bargain made to a particular protean chorus (the Chorus of Malignant Symmetry). Either the chorus or Ssila'meshnik itself has given her a vaguely defined task in the sense of 'Greed (Karzoug) cannot wake unopposed' but with no real clarity, no specific orders, and a sense of 'make of that what you will, have fun, sow discord, whatever maybe perhaps'.
For a cleric I'd tailor domains to fit a particular chorus or particular protean lord (and feel free to make some up if none of the named ones fit the intended PC). Assign domains according to flavor and run with it, flying by the seat of your pants. Off the top of my head, you could probably find decent rationalization for any of the following: Chaos (protean entropy, revelry, whimsy, riot), liberation (freedom, revolution), trickery (all but greed), destruction, luck (curse, fate, imagination), magic, madness (insanity), knowledge (espionage), travel.
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I could see how a mortal worshiping a protean lord could work (like maybe, one of these), but not directly receiving spells & divine power from the Speakers of the Depths. To me, that'd be like wanting a small glass of water and getting a mega-tsunami firehose in response... only the most powerful minds could hope to withstand exposure to that much Primordial Chaos.
(But then I can't even breach the Great Ossified IP Wall of Whot'See, so what do I know?)
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I could see how a mortal worshiping a protean lord could work (like maybe, one of these), but not directly receiving spells & divine power from the Speakers of the Depths. To me, that'd be like wanting a small glass of water and getting a mega-tsunami firehose in response... only the most powerful minds could hope to withstand exposure to that much Primordial Chaos.
(But then I can't even breach the Great Ossified IP Wall of Whot'See, so what do I know?)
Never saw this book before, but I just downloaded it and began reading it. definitely food for thought. If I don't pick something out of this it will give me something to emulate and create my own Protean Lord.
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Okay, thought I should give the results of this discussion:
After reading the Purple Duck's Protean Lords Of Porphyra PDF and discussing it with the player that wanted to be a Cleric of the SitDs, he agreed to instead take a Protean Lord as his patron, choosing the PL: Vestrivissia, who is sort of a theological cuckoo and her clerics pray over stolen holy items of other faiths and hold their rituals in the temples of other gods.
He loved the idea of having to pretend to be other faiths and desecrating other gods' holy texts. He loved it so much that he talked to our paladin player (who thankfully knows that paladins are lawful good, not lawful stupid), and worked on a backstory where his character saved the paladin when they were younger and made a promise to support each other despite their vastly different goals.
His character is a CG cleric, with Trickery and Chaos as his domains, and he has a habit of stealing clerical robes and holy items. He loves to play up being a cleric of Sarenrae when he gets to a new town and typically hides his face behind several masks he crafts so no one gets wise to him (think like non-magical Razmir masks).
We talked that the more people he tricks gives him a micro percentage of divine power, this is due to him actually covertly rewriting holy texts with a secret message that when chanted give him a little bit of the prayer's power.
Thankfully he isn't the kind of cleric player that tries to convert the others to his cult, and as long as he doesn't get the party involved in a lot of crime or sacrifice living creatures they turn a blind eye to his goals.