Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ericSHINRA 03-23-07, 12:11 AM	Edit: This may be better suited for the Deities and the Planes section but since it is concerning my homebrew campaign world I thought it best be placed in these forums. Does this not belong here? Ok, I've been wanting to create my own campaign world for a good deal of time now and I've tried a few times, incorperating ideas from previous incarnations into my latest effort. Above all else, I've struggled with the dieties and how their presence as well as that of the planes will affect my game. I don't want to focus on the Blood War or deal with extraplanar conflicts of Mindflayers and the like. I do want to have dieties or at least avatars/forces representing them but I'm unsure how to go about this process in the hope of coming up with something decent. My campaign world is somewhat in the ancient world, with influences from greek history and mythos. Anyway~ Does anyone have any advice for this kind of setting and how to handle the influence of dieties on the general populace and just who can cast divine spells?
Darth Syntax 03-23-07, 01:55 AM	Without a little more information on your world and the themes you want to play with in it, this is going to be a bit of a stab in the dark. However, your reference to the "Classical" model does give me something of a jumping off point, so lets see then . . . On The Gods Considering you wish to have echoes of Greek myth and religion, it might be a good idea to have the gods be relatively amoral beings. They might muck with the affairs of mortals, but usually as a means of furthering their own divine plans and plots. Mortals are, in a manner of speaking, game pieces. The Iliad is a great example of the gods using mortals to further their own personal, and often petty, conflicts. Fate might play an important role in your cosmology. The gods themselves should be beholden to it, and they should fear it accordingly. There may even be a debate among the gods about who rules the cosmos, Fate or this world's Zeus stand-in. This question might remain unresolved and be an issue both of divine concern and a central feature of mortal religion. Just as Fate would be the power behind the gods, it is worth noting that in Greek mythology there are many levels and kinds of gods. Some have wide-ranging influence, and others are rather small gods; gods of this spring or that forest, that sort of thing. If you want, exploring these lesser powers might prove interesting. Another thought would be to play up the conflicts between the gods, espiecally the sort of conflict that the Titan-Olympian war presents us. Perhaps there are mortals in the world who wish to free the deposed gods from Tartarus, not because they wish to unleash Chaos on the world or because they are evil, but rather because they believe that Zeus and his cronies are usurpers of the title of gods, and wish to bring about a restoration of the Titans. On the Cosmos It might not be a wholly bad idea to craft a cosmology unique to your world, one that might do better service to the Greek style cosmology you say you wish to evoke. You might only have one afterlife plane, a gloomy, dark place which all mortals go to when they die. Again, good and evil are not really all that important in Greek myth, so it makes little sense to have reward and punishment afterlives. On Priests The cleric class as presented in the PHB dosen't really make a lot of sense for this kind of setting, so you might want to have a look at the alternate versions in books like Unearthed Arcana. Priests might have to make regular sacrifices to the gods in order to remain in their good graces, and as the gods can be vain and petty, revoking divine power might be relatively common, even for very minor personal offenses.
bartleby42 03-23-07, 02:05 AM	Well, let me give you the three biggest rules, IMHO, of campain creation. This is the long answer, if you want the short and sweet of it all, just check the last rule, as that is the one that applies to you the most. If it ain't broke don't fix it --------------------------------------------- It's a hard lesson, but important. In many people's campains they feel the need to get everything "right". All of the fluff of the feats, PrCs and base classes must mesh flawlessly with the flavor of the campain world. This is a bad idea to try and do. It's an admirable goal, but your players will have a different vision than you will as such, even with restrictions, they will change the general vibe of your campain. Think of it as a recipe, you bring a the meat and the PCs are herbs and spices, you might have a particular dish in mind, but saying "No sage or thyme" won't mean you will have tandoori chicken. A good corollary would be "Don't change the crunch change the fluff!" Don't worry about having a Wu-Jen in your European setting, worry more about how the player can spin the concept of a Wu-Jen so that it can fit in well with your campain setting. This is also a very good rule to keep in mind whenever you think of making your own class, PrC, feat, spell, ect... First check if you can re-write the fluff and steal one. Now for the corollary that will mess you up "If it is really really broken, fix it." So yes, if your world has no gods, you should ban clerics, but only as a last resort. Don't do today, what can be done tomorrow ----------------------------------------- Yep, all of that stuff with making a detailed world for your PCs to play in, and having the cosmology figured out, is a lie. Make what you need and use it, anything else you make only do so if you like the idea and already had it, don't stress about it. Your players will have a better idea than you for some portion of the world or past of the said world. Don't sweat it, it's really not a problem, your PCs won't need to know who the Viscount of some far away country is, and you shouldn't work to figure it out. Make sure though that when a new part of your world is invented on the fly (as will happen often) that you write it down and let it become cannon. What is important, is important ------------------------------------------ This sounds silly, but it's really a good rule. Many people will tell you that you need to know the cycle of the moon and have a calender, and know every intimate detail of your pantheon and where they live before you can have a "well made campain world". They are all liars. All you need to have a well made campain world is an idea and everything you need. Okay, that sounds really silly, and like a waste of words, it's almost like saying all you need to do to make eggs is make eggs. But that is the point, if you are going to make eggs you don't have make toast, or hashbrowns, or sasauge(though it helps sometimes), you just need to make eggs. The only question is how do you like your eggs. So if you don't want to muck around with planar travel and have the gods take and active role, and would rather the planes were merely "Where you go when you die." Do it! You don't have to make an omelette if you want scrambled eggs. If you find yourself building parts of a world you don't want to build you won't care too much about it and it won't come into play, and anyway, you probally can't fold the omelette and it'll look like scrambled eggs anywho. Guess I have eggs on the mind, if I'm raveing and not being clear please tell me so I can clarify.
GoriceXII 03-23-07, 08:36 AM	I agree with what the other two said and so I'll throw in my own two cents' worth to add to it. I think that the main thing with deities in a game is that they either fit the story/main plotline/theme or they are irrelevant. For instance an example above used the Iliad. In the story of the Iliad particular gods side with Trojan or Greek and in fact the whole conflict is originally spawned by the activities of the gods! For instance if Zeus had not raped/seduced Leda in the form of a swan she would possibly not have given birth to the almost supernaturally beautiful Helen. If Eris goddess of discord had not brought the apple inscribed "To the Most Fair" to Olympus the goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite would never have quarreled and would never have gone to the exiled Paris to have him judge the dispute...and so on. So you have to decide: are your deities directly involved in your story like the above? Are they remote figures with the religious stuff mostly being possibly intrigues and plots involving the actual temples and organizations more than divine authority? As an example: Ishtar is an important deity in my game, and she has a major temple in the city that is at present a main focus of the game. While there is an entire pantheon I went with the notion that particular cities would be particularly devoted towards a particular god/goddess. Since it is a campaign largely about a war I thought that Ishtar would be an interesting goddess to have the main temple worship, and the fact that she is a goddess of other aspects of life as well implies that the temple is heavily involved with for instance such things as marriage rites, brewing and so on. Since Ishtar's consort Tammuz is a harvest deity the temple is also patron over the city's mills as well.