Monotheistic Pathfinder

[Tarik Blackhands]

So I'm currently brainstorming a setting and one of the concepts I was toying with the idea that the PCs come from a nation where there is one capital G god (for simplicity, lets call him Deus). All other divine figures are presumed to not exist or are unknown.

Now, a lot of Pathfinder and its related classes (clerics, inquisitors, etc) are pretty heavily designed around there being multiple varied (demi)gods for there to be a proper variety. So the question I pose to you lot is how can you convert the pathfinder divine classes to work with a single god without necessarily gutting them entirely.

My ideas anyway:

1) Deus Almighty: Deus is almighty and covers all domains and alignment combinations aka basically everyone is a cleric of a cause.

2) Aspects of Deus: Rather than worshiping Deus in entirety, his divine casters instead choose a particular aspect of him to worship who in turn is treated as a deity of their own (IE Deus the Healer would be NG with Good, Healing, Protection, and Fire while Deus the Destroyer would be CN with Chaos, Strength, War, and Death domains as examples)

3) Saint Worship: Similar to the above but with the difference that rather than directly interfacing with Deus, divine casters instead work through a particular saint that embodies certain virtues of his. A convienent way to handle this would just be to have everyone pick an Empyreal Lord refluffed to a saint.

Any other ideas?

[Redelia]

Have you considered dualism? Then you could have a good deity and an evil deity, you can decide if one is not really a deity or not. Almost all domains are available from both.

[Threeshades]

It seems to me that a sort of hybrid of the first two would work well. A cleric could devote themselves to. A cleric chooses domains baded on what virtues in Deus's morality system they wish to emphasize in their lives.

It could also be a denominational thing. Different subsects interpret the deity's will in different ways, some see Deus as a vengeful god of war whose word is absolute and must not be disobeyed under any circumstance, while others see it as a benevolent god of healing who helps those in need as well as many other interpretations.

[rando1000]

All of those ideas have been accentuated in Judeo-Christo-Islamic teaching; I think any and all would be valid. In fact, different countries could gravitate more toward one of your three examples, making a more "real-world" feel and also allowing for some conflict between believers of essentially the same being.

Also, I would point out that prophets and wizards not affiliated with big G performed magic of sorts in Torah; you could easily have conflicting divine casters by simply stating they're drawing their power from a "different" source, never knowing that, in the end, there is only one divine source, and that in doing what they do, they too are somehow fulfilling divine will.

[Necroluth]

I am doing a similar thing in a campaign that I am soon to start. One of the civilized nations is strictly monotheistic, and they differentiated by their orders. Much like Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, and the other Catholic orders venerate and follow the examples of specific saints and holy figures, these orders follow the narrow teachings and examples of old high priests, heroes, and martyrs.

One thing I am doing to differentiate the cleric a bit (particularly within this religion) is to give all caster spontaneous domain spells and take away spontaneous cures. This means that those that follow a healing order are particularly respected, and no one asks the crusaders to patch up their scrapes.

[Tarik Blackhands]

Thanks for the responses

To Redelia:
Dualism isn't something I considered beyond the obvious of also having a (non-pickable for the same reason as evil alignments are usually banned) Satan figure. However for Deus in particular, I wasn't planning on there being uncertainty in his existence. It's a cool idea, but not something for the campaign which is preliminarily an Old World to New World type colonization one.

To Shades:
Denominations is a pretty slick way of handling the aspect strategy. Make up a variety of orders or churches that venerate Deus in varying ways (from a militant Knights Templar type organization to missionary type Jesuits, to scholarly type...blanking on an actual analogue to those, Benedictians?) It's certainly a more elegant solution in setting to what I proposed.

[MageHunter]

I guess change the rule that you must be within one alignment step. Or alternatively just make the deity alignment-less. Though it seems like a monotheistic deity is just true neutral. Rather than good or bad, they just are

[ShroudedInLight]

If you are going to do the whole God and Satan thing then just divide up the domains between them, with anything ambiguous belonging to both of them.

Deus gets Glory
Asura gets War

etc etc etc, two sides of the same coin to give Evil Casters a variety of reasons for following your standard satan figure. That opens you up to a variety of cults based on more things than just being EEEEEVIL. After all where-ever there is civilization you are going to find gambling, crime, and prostitution somewhere. Thus the PCs are likely to find agents of "evil" in a variety of locations other than ye standard boneyard full of necrophiliacs drinking blood from skulls.

[Tarik Blackhands]

ShroudedInLight wrote:

If you are going to do the whole God and Satan thing then just divide up the domains between them, with anything ambiguous belonging to both of them.

Deus gets Glory
Asura gets War

etc etc etc, two sides of the same coin to give Evil Casters a variety of reasons for following your standard satan figure. That opens you up to a variety of cults based on more things than just being EEEEEVIL. After all where-ever there is civilization you are going to find gambling, crime, and prostitution somewhere. Thus the PCs are likely to find agents of "evil" in a variety of locations other than ye standard boneyard full of necrophiliacs drinking blood from skulls.

It's probably not a bad idea overall, but primarily I intend for the "antagonists" so to speak to be the filthy pagans over in the New World who may/may not worship (and still be empowered by) the Golarion pantheon. Still, time's something I got plenty of so I could certainly make a proper split between Deus and Santa (although with more details to the former since he's an actual PC option).

[Xuldarinar]

Consider the Athar, though not of pathfinder. The revere an entity known as the Great Unknown, and all other deities are viewed as just outsiders and pretenders. Of course, in that they get resistance to divine magic instead of divine magic.

[MageHunter]

My problem with good and evil getting domains though is that it might prevent good clerics from getting the war domain. (Or other things like that)

Rich Burlew (OOTS Creator) has a sample creation world with two neutral deities, so you can choose what fits you best, and still be good or evil.

[Arbane the Terrible]

My first thought when I heard this was "Have fun with The Problem of Evil", because I am a cynic.

OTOH, nothing in your initial post implies that Deus is inherently Good, so that's not the problem it is in real-world monotheisms.

Given that, all three of your initial ideas sound like potentially good ways to handle it.

[Wheldrake]

If you are going to do this, why not go all the way and use real-world religions? Publishers like Paizo can't do this in published content (though some did, back in the early days of RPGs, like Chivalry and Sorcery) but you certainly can in a home game. Make it a semi-historical setting with fantasy elements, like Ars Magica

And keep in mind that some of the bitterest conflicts will be between different ways to worship the same God. And also that the concepts of good and evil can and must co-exist within each camp.

Saint worship can provide a little variety. And the plethora of demons and devils facing a Christian God figure would certainly keep going a lot of variety in vile cults to destroy. You'll just have to be careful of the occasional player who resents his own heart-felt religion being caricatured in an RPG.

[UnArcaneElection]

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

{. . .} Still, time's something I got plenty of so I could certainly make a proper split between Deus and Santa (although with more details to the former since he's an actual PC option).

So . . . is the adversary in your world goimg to be tempting the followers of Deus with promises of presents and images and tales of cute artiodactyls?

Wheldrake wrote:

If you are going to do this, why not go all the way and use real-world religions? Publishers like Paizo can't do this in published content (though some did, back in the early days of RPGs, like Chivalry and Sorcery) but you certainly can in a home game. Make it a semi-historical setting with fantasy elements, like Ars Magica

{. . .}

Actually, they can, although arguably it's highly risky: Steven Jackson Games has even been doing this in the 2000s with GURPS Banestorm.

[Threeshades]

Wheldrake wrote:

If you are going to do this, why not go all the way and use real-world religions? Publishers like Paizo can't do this in published content (though some did, back in the early days of RPGs, like Chivalry and Sorcery) but you certainly can in a home game. Make it a semi-historical setting with fantasy elements, like Ars Magica

That's a strange leap of logic. When someone comes up with a polytheistic pantheon do you also suggest to them to just use the egyptioan/greek/norse/hindu pantheon and make it a semi-historical setting?

[Tarik Blackhands]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Tarik Blackhands wrote:

{. . .} Still, time's something I got plenty of so I could certainly make a proper split between Deus and Santa (although with more details to the former since he's an actual PC option).

So . . . is the adversary in your world goimg to be tempting the followers of Deus with promises of presents and images and tales of cute artiodactyls?

Nah, that's just me having a bit of fun with the fact Santa is a couple of swapped letters away from Satan.

@Wheldrake

I'd rather not just import actual christianity/Catholicism simply to avoid issues with my players and to avoid looking bad since there's a lot of history buffs in my group who won't ever let me live it down if I mess up on some old order or something (Part of the reason I wouldn't want to run a Star Wars game with them too).

Still, thanks for all the responses everyone, this is all quite helpful for refining my ideas.

[Eldred the Grey]

This was something that I was toying with for a world sort of built off dark age Scotland. Using the 4 countries that made it up at the time using one overarching God but with local Saints/Heroes/Martyrs/Ancestors helping define the nations individuality. Each of the local aspects grant a limited amount of domains to accentuate a myth of the deity and the nations individual cultures.

EtG.

[The Raven Black]

I think the third option is the best

[Dasrak]

I recently started running a homebrew setting with monotheistic religions. My solution was to decouple alignment and morality completely. The good and evil alignments are renamed holy and unholy, and unless you're a Cleric or some other class that gets an aura class feature you're true neutral. The monotheistic religions have the same problem that real world religions do: it's impossible to locate or contact god, but no shortage of mortals and outsiders that claim to speak for him. Even angels are confused on the matter, and they are all the more zealous for it. The monotheistic faiths offer most domains, and all of them are holy-aligned.

However, there are still those who reject this one god and instead venerate powerful outsiders or other cosmic forces. These function more like your standard Pathfinder gods, with a small selection of domains and subdomains. In my world they tend to be small regional faiths or cults. This is a broad category, covering everything from demon worshipers to nature worshipers to ancestral worship. Having cults whose religious strictures are diametrically opposed to the prevailing monotheistic faiths lets me add more depth and nuance to the setting. It also gives greater purpose to the existence of inquisitions. There really are dangerous cults who wield divine powers are reject the religious tenets of the prevailing faiths.