I was wondering how other Eberron DMs addressed the divine in their campaigns. The gods are definitely alluded to, and it's not hard to implicate them, but how do you implement thier ambiguous nature into a campaign?
Much better then like the Realms where they're always mucking things up most of my characters would think.
The Silver Flame certainly exists, even speaks to the world, though only to Jaela directly.
You mean the Sovereigns? They don't walk the face of Eberron, not now anyway. There are legends however. This makes belief a matter of faith rather than fact. You as a DM can always make it fact.
In the minds of the faithful: They Obviously exist! You'd have to be Daft to even question their existence. Do the Plants Grow? Do Storms wrack the land? Does Iron become malleable when heated? It's all evidence that the Sovereigns and the Six are all around us!
I do like how the divine is addressed in Eberron, it's a break from the conventional and I like that clerics derive power through sheer belief and not from a diety.
The Silver Flame certainly exists, even speaks to the world, though only to Jaela directly.
I believe it is bad form to use her name directly. You should be using her proper title: Loli-Pope.
I believe it is bad form to use her name directly. You should be using her proper title: Loli-Pope.
... Huh? 'Loli-Pope'? WTF does that mean?
Anyway, I've never been a fan of meddling gods or divine intervention, so the fact that Eberron's gods may not even exist (and, in my version, do not) was a major plus. It's a feature, not a bug.
It bears noting that, according to the 'vanilla' 4e, the gods are also distant, and I believe the same is now true in FR after the Spellplague. Really, everybody else is just catching up to Eberron's awesome.
... Huh? 'Loli-Pope'? WTF does that mean?
Loli is short for "Lolita", the famous novel about a gentleman's questionable relationship with an underage girl.
Popularised in Japanese anime fandom enough that "Lolita Complex" is often shortened to "Lolicon" and popular young female characters are refered to as "Lolis", either jokingly or sincerely, depending on the level of disturbingness you're encountering on the internet venue you've stumbled upon.
Jaela Daran's a pre-teen (or thereabouts) and in most imaginations fairly pretty.
It's a fandom gag name that has emerged like LOBster for the fearsome deadly messiah of the Mournland, The Lord of Blades.
Loli is short for "Lolita", the famous novel about a gentleman's questionable relationship with an underage girl.
Popularised in Japanese anime fandom enough that "Lolita Complex" is often shortened to "Lolicon" and popular young female characters are refered to as "Lolis", either jokingly or sincerely, depending on the level of disturbingness you're encountering on the internet venue you've stumbled upon.
Jaela Daran's a pre-teen (or thereabouts) and in most imaginations fairly pretty.
It's a fandom gag name that has emerged like LOBster for the fearsome deadly messiah of the Mournland, The Lord of Blades.
Oh, right, that Japanese pedo thing.
Dude it is all about faith. People in tough times need something to believe in. They flock to whatever concept floats their boat the most. The Flame is intrigueing because like the Catholic faith their is an afterlife (of a sort) and you just don't cease to exist when ya die.
EB is cool because it is like real life, religion is about FAITH. Faith in something that you cannot explain and are not sure exists, but you believe it does. It makes the religions more real and fun and it does not make the gods seem like high level NPCs ready to be killed by demigod 30th level adventurers.
However the PCs never caught on. No suspicion, no reveal. Shame that.
Maybe you should try again with some random Changeling, always with a different face but in the same set of traveler's gear, constantly giving them gifts.
And after the reveal, you can have a great lesson learned: Beware of freaks bearing gifts.
I seem to recall that DM's PCs running in terror.
In my upcoming game, I have resolved to tie this in with the Creation Mythos and the Draconic Prophecy (which I also find limiting in its unfathomable, "not for the PC's to know, ever" form). Not to go into great, boring detail, but IMG, the Sovereigns do exist, they are part of the history and fabric of the Creation, and they communicate their conflicting desires regarding the direction of Creation via the Draconic Prophecy. They are still distant, but they are knowable the same way the prophecy is knowable.
Of course, I reserve the right to chuck this whole concept if the ECG presents me with something infinitely cooler. I have to keep my mind occupied while I wait, is all.
If the PC's go there and wade through all the demonkind, what will they find? A figment of their imagination?
A big statue of the Keeper that the demons have been bowing and scraping to for centuries because they think the Keeper is real.
I'm kind of your opposite, I suppose. I find it refreshing and, er, de-limiting? that the gods can't ever, ever be interacted with, because it gives more freedom to PCs in how to play their characters and interpret the gods' edicts (or more properly, the church's edicts).
...though I suppose that doesn't mean anything, since Tiamat was later revealed to not really be a god, she's a Rajah. Hrm.
Still though, you're right. An Avatar could just be some sort of thoughtform creature, created to be the perfect avatar of the god in question by the people of absolute faith creating it.
I mean, the Keeper has a lair, and it's on the map. You can walk there. If the PC's go there and wade through all the demonkind, what will they find? A figment of their imagination?
Per the 4E ECG, during the war between demon and dragon a number of draconic champions were corrupted by Katashka the Gatekeeper and became the first dracoliches; one such being, Maziralyx, serves as the prakhutu of Katashka to this day. It's quite possible that the being in the Demon Wastes who has inspired the legends of the Keeper having a lair in the Wastes is, in fact, the first dracolich. Perhaps, in all this time, Maziralyx has become more than a monster, and truly embodies a concept. Or perhaps the two things are completely unconnected; the Keeper exists as a purely metaphysical concept present wherever death occurs, an idea that could never have a lair, and the dracolich that lairs in the Wastes is simply a shadow that has inspired myths.
I kinda hope avatars of the Sovereign Host & Dark Six are statted out at some point. Not the actual gods, but avatars of them. The existence of an avatar doesn't necessarily prove the existence of a god.
I hope this does not happen. I think statting out gods in FR really screwed the setting up in the long run. I think how FR handled their gods also screwed things up. I think having them be mysterious and enigmas is a better way to handle the gods.
Admittedly, this idea has been kicking around in my head since the one illustration in Faiths of Eberron that has what may be a Sahuagin-created aspect of the Devourer getting ready to smash a ship.
Per the 4E ECG, during the war between demon and dragon a number of draconic champions were corrupted by Katashka the Gatekeeper and became the first dracoliches; one such being, Maziralyx, serves as the prakhutu of Katashka to this day. It's quite possible that the being in the Demon Wastes who has inspired the legends of the Keeper having a lair in the Wastes is, in fact, the first dracolich. Perhaps, in all this time, Maziralyx has become more than a monster, and truly embodies a concept. Or perhaps the two things are completely unconnected; the Keeper exists as a purely metaphysical concept present wherever death occurs, an idea that could never have a lair, and the dracolich that lairs in the Wastes is simply a shadow that has inspired myths.
I like this idea. There's something Mysterious about it that makes me want to go and find out...
Don't you think it'd be cool to run into a powerful (yet very killable) monster based on the beliefs of some crazies? I didn't quite "get" them until running the Age of Worms path, where cultists create an avatar of the Ebon Triad (a mixture of three evil deities). Obviously those three gods weren't fused by the cultists, yet their faith and devotion spawned an awesome boss monster.
What a great idea! This works very well within Eberron and also makes room for some lovely twists when the cultists find out the thing has no qualms about eating them. I may steal that for my campaign.
I kinda hope avatars of the Sovereign Host & Dark Six are statted out at some point. Not the actual gods, but avatars of them. The existence of an avatar doesn't necessarily prove the existence of a god.
I would too. If only to have the material and the choice to use it or not. Again, I don't like the insistence that they don't exist - I prefer the possibility that they may or may not.
Since I adhere to the philosophy that the Sovereigns used to be dragons before the achieved this state, their remoteness is perfectly in keeping with draconic psychology.
I've always considered the Sovereigns and the Six to be roughly equivalent to the Ascended of the Stargate universe... not-quite-omnipotent but not really interested in using that power on such a passé plane of existence as the mortal realm, unless there was a really good reason.
Since I adhere to the philosophy that the Sovereigns used to be dragons before the achieved this state, their remoteness is perfectly in keeping with draconic psychology.
Hallowed be the quori?
Bullywug Jaffa KREE!
Ahh.. stargate infecting D&D. I like.
In many ways Eberron is the same. When luck is with you thanks to Olladra are given. When battle is given you pray to Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn. I'm sure that when a viking wanted safe travel they would pray to Thor give them good weather, if they got good weather then Thor clearly answered their prayer. When they got bad weather they made Thor angry.
In Eberron there is room for those that don't believe in the gods, and they'll point to same thing that a real world atheist would point to as proof of their non-existence. A believer in Eberron has faith because he sees the things a non-believer does, but sees them as a manifestation of a divine will without having to see the divine hand.
However, as players, we know that our PC's are just deluded saps. There are no gods. Any evidence we think we see to the contrary is just our imagination. Divine powers? We know it is just our misguided faith fueling those, or maybe the combined false hopes of the masses.
Some of us, as players, would like for our PC's not to be deluded saps. They are heroes after all, ideals of what we can be. I'd think that if one chooses a divine path for their character, one would like to believe that the path is not just pure foolishness from the get-go.
Some of us, as players, would like for our PC's not to be deluded saps. They are heroes after all, ideals of what we can be. I'd think that if one chooses a divine path for their character, one would like to believe that the path is not just pure foolishness from the get-go.
I think this is where something important comes in, the PCs, nor NPCs are necessarily deluded saps. The only thing we know as players, and the characters know, is that the gods don't directly interact with the world, at least not as specific manifestations of godly might. Aureon isn't out having half divine children with random mortals like Zeus, nor is Dol Arrah wandering about Khorvaire smashing bad guys like Thor does in Midgaard.
That doesn't mean they don't empower they're followers, its just they don't interact with them. Its not like in FR where not believing in Bane is just goofy since he can walk over to your house and it over. The Traveller appears in tales, same the Mockery or the Keeper, but none of them are going to show up in Sharn and have a royal rumble with Aureon and Dol Arrah. This doesn't make them any less real, it just makes them less provably real.
That doesn't mean they don't empower they're followers, its just they don't interact with them.
If this is the case then that is fine with me. However, I believe the dominant fluff and KB's assertions are that the gods don't empower their followers.
If this is the case then that is fine with me. However, I believe the dominant fluff and KB's assertions are that the gods don't empower their followers.
I think this is largely ambiguous in the setting. It could be the belief and faith of the followers, our it could be a distant non-communicative divine power source. Either could be right or wrong at the same time. I tend to view it personally as non-existent or completely non-active in the world.
That doesn't mean they aren't real, I wouldn't consider a character that follows the Sovereign Host a clueless rube any more than I would consider a viking to have been a clueless rube. They have their faith, and I can't prove that its wrong so why bother.
In the end, it's up to the DM. The Sovereigns could be ascended dragons. They could be cosmic beings that existed alongside the progenitors (who themselves may have been literal or metaphor). Or they could be pools of energy waiting to be tapped, incapable of action on their own. We know that the priests who believe in them have power. We know there are angels and demons who believe in them. Everything else is uncertain... a mystery for each DM to answer in his or her Eberron.
... a mystery for each DM to answer in his or her Eberron.
And there is the main reason for me to love Eberron as a campaign setting...
What is clear is that there are sources of divine power that can be tapped by people of great faith. What is far less clear is if any of these sources of energy are sentient, anthropomorphic beings that are capable of influencing the world directly save through the actions of their followers. The Silver Flame is a pool of pure energy created by the couatl and it holds the Overlords of the Age of Demons at bay. The paladin of the Silver Flame draws his powers from this source of energy. This much is certain. But the degree to which the Flame is aware of the paladin, to which it could somehow influence the world without him, is far more open to debate. So looking to the Sovereigns, you end up with the same question. The Sovereigns are certainly a source of power. A faithful priest who prays to Dol Dorn can draw on divine strength that empowers his warlike endeavors. He BELIEVES that Dol Dorn is watching him and watches all wars, and that Dol Dorn's hand is present whenever blades are drawn, and it is this faith that gives him strength. Perhaps he is correct. Perhaps every critical hit is the result of Dol Dorn's favor, every roll of 1 the laughter of the Mockery. Or perhaps the Sovereigns and Six are impersonal sources of energy, aspects of the collective unconscious created by mortal belief in these concepts, forces that can be channeled for these purposes but cannot act on their own.
In the end, it's up to the DM. The Sovereigns could be ascended dragons. They could be cosmic beings that existed alongside the progenitors (who themselves may have been literal or metaphor). Or they could be pools of energy waiting to be tapped, incapable of action on their own. We know that the priests who believe in them have power. We know there are angels and demons who believe in them. Everything else is uncertain... a mystery for each DM to answer in his or her Eberron.
Hi Keith! I'm wondering if maybe you can clear something up for me regarding the divine power source and Eberron.
In the PHB, Clerics and Paladins are said to not get their power from gods, but rituals. Apparently, you undergo training, go through a process, and are then invested in power by the church. How does this jell with the concept that faith=power? It certainly helps with the cases of priests going bad, because the PHB says that once you have the power you always have it and nothing can take it away from you (Even no longer believing in your faith).
There is a cevate that some Clerics are invested with power directly by their gods, and I think all Invokers invest themselves with power from a personal connection, but most Clerics and Paladins these days are just trained to be radiant-spewing healing death machines.
Do you think Eberron will ignore the training aspect? What does this mean for the previously untrained local-priests that might be able to do small miracles Like a blacksmith that just happens to be a priest of Onatar because everyone comes to him to ask for Onatar's blessing? And the blessing actually works. Would that be represented by him being a limited ritual caster without actually having been trained in ritual casting or needing a ritual book?
In the PHB, Clerics and Paladins are said to not get their power from gods, but rituals. Apparently, you undergo training, go through a process, and are then invested in power by the church. How does this jell with the concept that faith=power? It certainly helps with the cases of priests going bad, because the PHB says that once you have the power you always have it and nothing can take it away from you (Even no longer believing in your faith).
Do you think Eberron will ignore the training aspect?
I don't think that it's specifically called out anywhere, but I'd ignore it. The "training" concept is important in a world in which the deities are active forces in the world. First you have the concept Rich Burlew calls out in The Order of the Stick, that with all the clerics and paladins out there, if each one had a personal line to the deity, it's going to get pretty darn annoying to be a god. Second you have that issue of "If the god directly empowers the follower, how can you ever have clerics go astray?" So specifying that the cleric's power DOESN'T come directly from the god avoids this issue while still allowing gods to walk the world.
In Eberron, however, the distant gods make both of these issues moot points. We don't know if the gods actually exist - therefore, we don't know if they are empowering the clerics directly or not. Again, while this issue isn't addressed directly (and to be honest, I hadn't even noticed it in the PHB until you brought it up), the flavor of the Eberron religions remains the same - specifically the idea that the blacksmith may call on Onatar's blessing despite having no formal training. So the short form is that I see no reason to change cour approach to the divine in 4E Eberron. There are sources of divine energy out there, which may or may not be deities. Great faith can allow the faithful to tap into this power. In some religions, the organized priesthood may undergo training to help them accomplish this - but that doesn't change the fact that the untrained peasant could still draw on divine power if his faith is strong enough.
Beyond this, in general I wouldn't let off-hand comments like "Clerics need training" keep you from exploring a concept you like. Recently I've been playing a deva avenger. My concept is that he's actually a human peasant who's been empowered by the vengeful spirits of those killed by the bad guys in the campaign... that his Armor of Faith represents the spirits themselves flowing around him and shielding him from harm, that his Memories of 1,000 Lifetimes are actually the memories of those spirits, not his own memories, and so on (and as a result, he's not white and purple). Mechanically he's a deva, but for purposes of the story he's an empowered human. The mechanics should help you tell stories - if you want to tell the story about the holy blacksmith and you can't because the PHB says "Clerics must be trained", for goodness sake, tell your story.
That's kind of orthogonal to his point. The first epic-tier module has you meet the Raven Queen face-to-face - how do you adapt that for Eberron? ...Neither of those carry quite as much weight as actually meeting, in person, the god of death and the afterlife.
Well, as one of the creators of the setting, one reason we chose to have the distant gods was because if you want such an encounter, you can already have it... in core, or in FR. The point with Eberron was to do something different - to make the gods something vast and unknowable, to facilitate stories that work better when the gods don't directly interact with mortals. I like Trojan War scenarios. I enjoyed the Time of Troubles. But for me, the concept of a god is diminished when it is something that you can meet, when you can shake Death's hand or punch him in the nose. I like the idea that Death is too vast to be contained in an anthropomorphic form. Death is all around you. It was with you from the moment of your birth, and it will be there waiting when you finally fall. You are ALWAYS face to face with death, and it is only in those moments of fear and mortal danger that you know it. When you meet the marut or angel who calls herself the Voice of Dolurrh, she is not Death Itself. You couldn't destroy the concept of mortality by defeating her in battle. Yet she is cloaked in its might and majesty. You can feel the power of death swirling around her, see the ways you might die reflected in her eyes. She is not Death, because Death is too vast a concept to be contained in one form... but she is the voice it will use to speak with you. She's the burning bush - the shadow the force uses to communicate with you, since it is too vast to interact with you directly.
For me, this makes the deity more imposing. It's not just an epic monster - it is a fundamental force of reality itself, something that you cannot challenge with your sword. And if you DO want a mighty force of death you can challenge directly, you could use Katashka the Gatekeeper (the overlord of death and undeath), or Miziralyx (the aspect of the Keeper from the Demon Wastes).
But the short form is that an adventure that involves directly interacting with gods won't translate as well to Eberron because Eberron specifically chose a different path from the other settings... for the precise reason that you could already tell those stories in those other settings, and we wanted to support different sorts of stories.
But, of course, if you WANT the gods to be concrete and anthropomorphic, no one's stopping you from making stats for the Sovereigns. You won't get it in the official material, and I won't be doing it in my games, but I doubt Aureon will intervene to stop you. ;)
Good summary. So the short version is that the Death's Reach adventure as written isn't easily ported to Eberron... because it really is meant for a different setting and a different mindset. I guess that shouldn't be surprising, since any number of adventures about savage, marauding, elf-hating orcs or battles between a half-dozen superpowered mages suffer from similar problems. I think that's good, frankly - it helps drive home the idea that you're actually getting something new and different by playing in a different setting.
I like the idea of playing up a marut or angel of Dolurrh more and more, now that I think about it. Especially if this individual angel is within reach of the players being able to kill it, yet is completely unconcerned about this fact; "You can destroy me, but you would gain nothing of it. You cannot slay death itself." It'd be like breaking a rock in half and claiming to have defeated the earth.
IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!
Would it be out of place though if the people of Eberron had myths for their deities? Like the Norse had the story of how Thor once dressed as a woman to get back his hammer when Thymr stole it? Or how the Greeks used the story of Persephone to explain seasonal changes?
Probably not.
The above story could be a metaphorical story about the natural destructive forces of nature destroying civilized agriculture leading to civil unrest.
Or it could be a literal story that the devine being The Devourer raped Arawai which led to the birth of The Fury.
Perhaps, given the belief of the Dragons of Argonessen that the Sovereigns are culture heroes below their own 'true' gods that the dragon who became The Devourer actually did **** the dragon that became known as Arawai sometime during the Age of Demons.
Don't forget that the Sovereign Host practices religious assimilation, often absorbing different culture's religious beliefs into their own (after all any gods those savages worship are just the Sovereigns by another name) some of these assimilated culture's myths will have been integrated into the religion's teachings along the way. Whether they are meant to be metaphorical or literal would vary by region.
Would it be out of place though if the people of Eberron had myths for their deities?
Not at all. We've already mentioned some of these - the aforementioned **** of Arawai, Aureon's Shadow, the betrayal of the Mockery, the deceptions of the Traveler, and the various domestic relations of the Sovereigns and Six. We just haven't gone into great detail. But I'd assume that there's a great many myths associated with the Sovereigns and Six, varying by culture. The fact that they ddon't physcially manifest in the world shouldn't interfere with allegorical tales - any more than our developing myths in our world without being able to physically chat with the gods.
One problem though is that it makes using modules such as Death's Reach a bit more problematic. I mean, you're actually meeting the Raven Queen in this one. :-)
So you change it to be an angel or something that claims it's the essence of whatever god (The Keeper, I suppose, would be the equivalent to the Raven Queen in Eberron?), and the adventure proceeds. Just because the adventure says that you meet a god, doesn't mean it has to stay that way. An extremely powerful, immortal creature that is the voice of the deity in question (kinda like the Mouth of Sauron) could suffice just as well without losing anything.
Of course, they also believe that lakes are the Traveler's footprints...
The moral of the story: If you met a god...would you know? And if so...what would you do? We just tried to stay the HELL away from him. He was toying with us for some reason (Might have to do with a Cult of the Dragon Below prophesy we discovered.) but we didn't want to stick around to find out.
In one game we met the Travller once. Well we thought it was the Traveller. It was stupidly powerful and liked to tease us along but honestly left us to our own devices. When one of the PC's confronted our 'guest' all it did was grin at him and disappear.
The moral of the story: If you met a god...would you know? And if so...what would you do? We just tried to stay the HELL away from him. He was toying with us for some reason (Might have to do with a Cult of the Dragon Below prophesy we discovered.) but we didn't want to stick around to find out.
At least he never said:
"SUBCREATURES! GOZER THE GOZERIAN, GOZER THE DESTRUCTOR, VOLGUUS ZILDROHAR, THE TRAVELLER HAS COME. CHOOSE AND PERISH."
"Ray! When somone asks you 'are a god' YOU SAY YES!"
I always thought of Gozer as more of a daelkyr (even if it did call itself The Traveler).
"Ray! When somone asks you 'are a god' YOU SAY YES!"
:D
But yes, Gozer is more of a Daelkyr than the Traveller...but, I can see a Daelkyr impersonatig the Traveller and giving that speech.
At least he never said:
"SUBCREATURES! GOZER THE GOZERIAN, GOZER THE DESTRUCTOR, VOLGUUS ZILDROHAR, THE TRAVELLER HAS COME. CHOOSE AND PERISH."
Are you the Keymaster??
Hmm what would the stats be for a Gargantuan marshmallow golem....
Courtesy of Xaxor and the Eberron Motivational Poster thread. Art by Lim Guo Liang
That is the most awesomest thing I have ever seen.
You as a DM never have to decide.
I also really think it's important to say that you DON'T have to answer the question for weather or not god exists.
You as a DM never have to decide.
Have to, no. I wanted to, however.