[C.E.T.] Divine magic musings. (Hellcow always welcome) [Archive] - Wizards Community

[C.E.T.] Divine magic musings. (Hellcow always welcome) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
stone_dog
09-19-07, 10:01 PM Just to share a post from another forum.

I come from the school that the power for divine spells originates in the Outer Planes and are channeled through deities to reach the material plane and give power to their followers. Deities can cut this power off, but they aren't a font of it. They don't create Outsiders either, even though Outsiders sometimes follow them.

Eberron is the same way except for a few basic differences. One, there are no alignment planes and the source of spiritual energy is manifest in the corpses of the Progenitor Dragons Syberis, Eberron and Khyber. This means that there is no basic alignment frequency for clerics to have to attune to. Neutral Good energy from Elysium can only be tapped by people who are relatively aligned with Neutral Good principles. Energy from Syberis or Eberron or Khyber can be tapped by anybody with the will and faith to do so.
Two, since the Prime Material is the source of spiritual energy, there is no way for a god to cut it off. It is everywhere. They can either channel it or not according to their will or not and who can argue with a god about who gets power and who doesn't?
Three, the gods either live on the Prime or they live somewhere else and so far nobody has been able to prove if they live on an outer plane or not. A few of them actually live on the Prime though and claim knowledge of the others. If the Sovereigns and the Six don't live on the Prime then they are probably someplace else that is more constant than the shifting cosmology of Eberron.

So there are three ways to tap into divine energy in Eberron.

One is be a cleric of an existing god or pantheon. Yeah, some people say they don't exist and I like to wonder that too, but they probably do. This is the easiest and most common way, but is still pretty rare. Power channeled through dieties comes with all the baggage of domains and glowing under certain spells, but doesn't come with the same restrictions as other worlds.
Why? There are lots of answers. In the case of the Silver Flame there is the idea that the demon within the flame whispers corruption and manages to keep power flowing to its chosen pawns once in a while. This is heresy, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. In the case of the Undying Court there are some bad seeds there too who have use for certain clerics to keep having power. In the case of the Blood of Vol... well, I can't think of a way to be MORE corrupt than being a selfish worshiper of your own life who reveres the undead as martyrs on the crusade against mortality or secretly being a fanatic follower of an ancient lich. Or you can go with case two and not really realize it.

In case two, you can be a cleric of abstract principles. This is a cleric with an ethos and faith to follow, but with no deity backing him or allegiance to a church. These examples are relatively rare because it is harder to carve out a place for yourself than it is to ally yourself with a god or religion. Kudos. You've joined the ONE other character in the setting who is named and noted to have this ability. there are rumors of others, sure, but nobody of any fame or standing. Sometimes though you have the faith of a thousand suns and can cast spells calling yourself a cleric of the whatever, but when it comes down to it your power is coming from someplace else. How you react to that is up to you and the DM when you cast Commune or Contact Other Plane.

Paladins can do either of these too, but they have a different and higher calling. They are rarer even than clerics and have a more stringent connection to honor and virtue. Whether their power flows only through LG deities or from a rarefied form of Syberis emanations or they have managed to tap into the power of Syrania isn't certain, but something about the makeup of their power is markedly different than clerics.

The third way is to be some sort of druid. Druids track their lore back to when the ancient dragon Vvaraak taught orcs about the nature of the world and how to tap into the power of the three dragons directly. All druidic magic is in some way a variant of these ancient techniques and even rangers share a removed version of these skills. Druids have no lifting of the alignment restrictions that clerics enjoy, so I explain this as the mindset these techniques demand is incompatible with any philosophy that doesn't advocate some aspect of neutrality.
androkguz
09-21-07, 07:05 PM Alow me to make an empty post just to mark this thread for which I wanna talk... later...

:D

I'll be back

Edit: nevermind, i really won't be back
Alex_
09-22-07, 03:52 PM I go with the "enlightenment" being the principle difference between Divine magic and other types.

Divine magic/arcane/psionics/etc are all drawing from the same forces that make up the multi-verse. The difference is how it's invoked/harnessed/channeled/manifested, a process which can alter its properties.

The divine caster does it through a certain belief of the multiverse and their place in it. They realize on a certain level that there are things greater than they once knew. Not simply more or different things than they knew, but greater things, and they become devoted to these things. Whether the thing actually exists or not as they believe they do is irrelevant. It's that devotion to the concept and the ideal that allows them to harness powers of the multiverse.

Deities, leaders, philosophies, goals, and forces are what the caster believes in. Whether they exist or not as the people believe they do doesn't matter. However, it generally is easier to believe in and devote yourself to something when lots of others do- like an established faith or philosophy (Path of Light or Keepers of the Past), and even easier when it's tied to something you can see or anthropomorphize (the Flame, the Undying, Blood, The Sovereign Host/Six, Lord of Blades, etcs).

Clerics of the Lord of Blades has power, not because the Lord of Blades has divine ranks, but because they believe in him so much. Clerics of the Valenar (Keepers of the Past) have no real deities, but believe so much in the history and accomplishments of their people, they can do great things.

I also make a distinction between Paladins and most other divine casting classes. The Cleric, Favored Soul, Druid, and other classes are generally devoted to complex concepts with a certain cosmology, or a deity with a portfolio, or philosophies with multiple consequences. There may even be various means of approaching these ideas. Paladins, however, are devoted to one thing above all else: the alignment they represent, and follow it very strictly.

A Paladin of Slaughter may align him or herself with a church, but they hold more belief in Chaotic Evil as a necessary force/ideal than they do in any church authority, the institution of the church itself, or even the deity the church serves. Same goes for a Paladin of Honor and their Lawful Good ideals.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
stone_dog 09-19-07, 10:01 PM	Just to share a post from another forum. I come from the school that the power for divine spells originates in the Outer Planes and are channeled through deities to reach the material plane and give power to their followers. Deities can cut this power off, but they aren't a font of it. They don't create Outsiders either, even though Outsiders sometimes follow them. Eberron is the same way except for a few basic differences. One, there are no alignment planes and the source of spiritual energy is manifest in the corpses of the Progenitor Dragons Syberis, Eberron and Khyber. This means that there is no basic alignment frequency for clerics to have to attune to. Neutral Good energy from Elysium can only be tapped by people who are relatively aligned with Neutral Good principles. Energy from Syberis or Eberron or Khyber can be tapped by anybody with the will and faith to do so. Two, since the Prime Material is the source of spiritual energy, there is no way for a god to cut it off. It is everywhere. They can either channel it or not according to their will or not and who can argue with a god about who gets power and who doesn't? Three, the gods either live on the Prime or they live somewhere else and so far nobody has been able to prove if they live on an outer plane or not. A few of them actually live on the Prime though and claim knowledge of the others. If the Sovereigns and the Six don't live on the Prime then they are probably someplace else that is more constant than the shifting cosmology of Eberron. So there are three ways to tap into divine energy in Eberron. One is be a cleric of an existing god or pantheon. Yeah, some people say they don't exist and I like to wonder that too, but they probably do. This is the easiest and most common way, but is still pretty rare. Power channeled through dieties comes with all the baggage of domains and glowing under certain spells, but doesn't come with the same restrictions as other worlds. Why? There are lots of answers. In the case of the Silver Flame there is the idea that the demon within the flame whispers corruption and manages to keep power flowing to its chosen pawns once in a while. This is heresy, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. In the case of the Undying Court there are some bad seeds there too who have use for certain clerics to keep having power. In the case of the Blood of Vol... well, I can't think of a way to be MORE corrupt than being a selfish worshiper of your own life who reveres the undead as martyrs on the crusade against mortality or secretly being a fanatic follower of an ancient lich. Or you can go with case two and not really realize it. In case two, you can be a cleric of abstract principles. This is a cleric with an ethos and faith to follow, but with no deity backing him or allegiance to a church. These examples are relatively rare because it is harder to carve out a place for yourself than it is to ally yourself with a god or religion. Kudos. You've joined the ONE other character in the setting who is named and noted to have this ability. there are rumors of others, sure, but nobody of any fame or standing. Sometimes though you have the faith of a thousand suns and can cast spells calling yourself a cleric of the whatever, but when it comes down to it your power is coming from someplace else. How you react to that is up to you and the DM when you cast Commune or Contact Other Plane. Paladins can do either of these too, but they have a different and higher calling. They are rarer even than clerics and have a more stringent connection to honor and virtue. Whether their power flows only through LG deities or from a rarefied form of Syberis emanations or they have managed to tap into the power of Syrania isn't certain, but something about the makeup of their power is markedly different than clerics. The third way is to be some sort of druid. Druids track their lore back to when the ancient dragon Vvaraak taught orcs about the nature of the world and how to tap into the power of the three dragons directly. All druidic magic is in some way a variant of these ancient techniques and even rangers share a removed version of these skills. Druids have no lifting of the alignment restrictions that clerics enjoy, so I explain this as the mindset these techniques demand is incompatible with any philosophy that doesn't advocate some aspect of neutrality.
androkguz 09-21-07, 07:05 PM	Alow me to make an empty post just to mark this thread for which I wanna talk... later... :D I'll be back Edit: nevermind, i really won't be back
Alex_ 09-22-07, 03:52 PM	I go with the "enlightenment" being the principle difference between Divine magic and other types. Divine magic/arcane/psionics/etc are all drawing from the same forces that make up the multi-verse. The difference is how it's invoked/harnessed/channeled/manifested, a process which can alter its properties. The divine caster does it through a certain belief of the multiverse and their place in it. They realize on a certain level that there are things greater than they once knew. Not simply more or different things than they knew, but greater things, and they become devoted to these things. Whether the thing actually exists or not as they believe they do is irrelevant. It's that devotion to the concept and the ideal that allows them to harness powers of the multiverse. Deities, leaders, philosophies, goals, and forces are what the caster believes in. Whether they exist or not as the people believe they do doesn't matter. However, it generally is easier to believe in and devote yourself to something when lots of others do- like an established faith or philosophy (Path of Light or Keepers of the Past), and even easier when it's tied to something you can see or anthropomorphize (the Flame, the Undying, Blood, The Sovereign Host/Six, Lord of Blades, etcs). Clerics of the Lord of Blades has power, not because the Lord of Blades has divine ranks, but because they believe in him so much. Clerics of the Valenar (Keepers of the Past) have no real deities, but believe so much in the history and accomplishments of their people, they can do great things. I also make a distinction between Paladins and most other divine casting classes. The Cleric, Favored Soul, Druid, and other classes are generally devoted to complex concepts with a certain cosmology, or a deity with a portfolio, or philosophies with multiple consequences. There may even be various means of approaching these ideas. Paladins, however, are devoted to one thing above all else: the alignment they represent, and follow it very strictly. A Paladin of Slaughter may align him or herself with a church, but they hold more belief in Chaotic Evil as a necessary force/ideal than they do in any church authority, the institution of the church itself, or even the deity the church serves. Same goes for a Paladin of Honor and their Lawful Good ideals.