Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Naderion 02-26-08, 08:36 AM	In my campaign setting, I want the clerics of each faith to be distinct from each other in the abilities they have access to. Domains do the job, even though not overly impressive, but when a deity offers access to 5 or more domains, you end up with 5^2 = 25 possible combinations of domains, and with the basic stock of spells available to every cleric, I somehow don't think priests of a given faiths appear to have their own signature spells. Usually, all good deities grant access to the good domain and so on, but I have 15 good deities and 11 evils ones, there's nothing faith-specific about them as would be the case with the death or moon domain. So I thought, that I could remove the domains from just some of the deities, but have them remain for others. It's something different if a god is the chaotic deity of furious rage and destruction, or just the chaotic deity of joy without worries. And cold-hardedly ignoring the suffering of unbelivers is another degree of evil than to promote tyranny and genocide. My idea is to have the alignment domains only for those deities, where it is an active part of their teaching and not just the category in the alignment-raster the deity would fall in. Any thoughts of this?
Orchomenos 02-26-08, 09:21 AM	Sort of a 4th and 5th alignment on the good-evil axis? You would have Exalted or Holy, Good, Neutral, Evil and Vile or Unholy... Would you keep the Law and Chaos Domains for everyone? You could add the Axiomatic and Anarchic alignments...
Naderion 02-26-08, 01:50 PM	No, alignment would all stay the same. Deities with a strong emotional focus are chaotic, those with a strong focus on reason are lawful. Benign goods that stand for compassion are good, those who promote selfishness are evil. But take for Example Laduger. He's lawful evil but he it's not really part of the believes of the worshipers to do evil. They just don't care and are passively evil. On the other hand, Lolths strongly promotes Chaos and actually requires of her worshipers to betray and backstab and as long as something leads to discord and confusion, Lolth is pleased. She's promoting an active chaos. But I don't think any Sehanine cares at all when her followers like to keep their homes tidy or don't feel like acting on their every whims. So, in the examples, Laduger would grant access to the Law domain, but not to the evil domain, as Lolths would grant access to the caos domain, but Sehanine would not.The domain is only included with the deities, when the domain is really an important part of their philosophy, not just a general tendency of the deity.