No Love for The Blood of Vol? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 The_Stray Jun 21, 2009 7:19:47	Well, I'm annoyed. The EPG, otherwise a really cool book, mentions the Blood of Vol, and yet there is no support for it. No Channel Divinity Feats, no special magic Holy Symbol...the Traveler, one of the Dark Six, gets more love than the national religion of Karrnath. What gives, WotC?
#2 swgeek77 Jun 21, 2009 12:45:32	I noticed the lack of a Channel Divinity Feat for the Blood of Vol as well. I've been trying to figure out a well thought out and mechanically sound power to throw in there myself.
#3 Nived Jun 21, 2009 12:50:49	I'm disapointed by it as well, however I think its easily patched. From the PHB channel divinity feats I've been using Melora's Tide as a makeshift BoV channel divinity before the EPG came out. Though there is no relation between Melora and the Blood of Vol I considered regeneration an appropriate channeling of the divinity within.
#4 xi_mao Jun 21, 2009 18:34:06	I suppose that works. Makes more sense than, say, Raven Queen's Blessing. Right now I think likely candidates for Channel Divinity: Divinity Within are Melora's Tide Armor of Bahamut Berronar's Salve Ilmater's Martyrdom Generally anything that I can see as "Spiting the Gods and protecting the divinity within" can fall into likely candidates. I'm rather fond of the Martyrdom power myself, "Give of your blood, to protect your ally."
#5 hailstop Jun 21, 2009 22:01:03	I suppose that works. Makes more sense than, say, Raven Queen's Blessing. Right now I think likely candidates for Channel Divinity: Divinity Within are Melora's Tide Armor of Bahamut Berronar's Salve Ilmater's Martyrdom Generally anything that I can see as "Spiting the Gods and protecting the divinity within" can fall into likely candidates. I'm rather fond of the Martyrdom power myself, "Give of your blood, to protect your ally." There doesn't appear to be a Channel Divinity feat for Olladra either.
#6 Alex_ Jun 21, 2009 23:07:40	No Channel Divinity Feats, no special magic Holy Symbol...the Traveler, one of the Dark Six, gets more love than the national religion of Karrnath. What gives, WotC? Well it's not really the national religion these days. Kaius has been actively subverting its influence and even brands it greatest knightly order as terrorists. More of a size-able minority. Still important though, and definitely should have been worthy of a Channel Divinity feat and holy symbol item though.
#7 Siberys Jun 21, 2009 23:27:05	FR's Tymora's Coin seems appropriate for Olladra. That's a weird oversight, though...
#8 renchard Jun 22, 2009 9:11:05	Just use Righteous Rage of Tempus as the BoV divinity feat. That will bring its popularity right back.
#9 Siberys Jun 22, 2009 18:32:56	I was actually using that for the Mockery - The Mockery's Precision. I don't particularly care that it's broken. It's Frickin' Awesome^TM.
#10 xi_mao Jun 23, 2009 16:55:06	There doesn't appear to be a Channel Divinity feat for Olladra either. Hmm...I think someone at WOTC hates me...Blood of Vol is my favorite religion and Olladra is my favorite Goddess...
#11 Nived Jun 23, 2009 17:01:47	At least she gets a spiffy Holy Symbol, though I don't know about the changing face, I mean I might use it, but add "that the pips always add up to 9"
#12 xi_mao Jun 23, 2009 21:35:29	Very true...and I like the Idea that the pips always add up to 9... Hmm...Maybe I can use that as a story hook....Fortune telling Domino!:D
#13 Nived Jun 23, 2009 22:32:23	I don't know how much fortune telling you could do with it, with a double six set you'd only have two real configurations (unless you count 4-5 as different than 5-4, in which case you'd have 4). With a double nine set you'd have five configurations (or ten again if flipped). I just remember Faiths of Eberron specifically saying her holy symbol added up to nine, the number of the Sovereign Host deities.
#14 joni-san Jun 24, 2009 12:23:59	➈?
#15 RedRider Jun 24, 2009 12:52:49	I'd love to see Olladara and the Blood's Channel Divinity feats contained in some kind of brrata, but I could accept seeing the BoV detailed in a Dragon article. (With the overlooked Olladara Feat In errata or as a free feature on the WotC site.)
#16 xi_mao Jun 24, 2009 16:02:52	@Nived - Actually I kind of thought of the story hook as: "Make a perception check. You notice your Domino of Olladra has 13 pips today." "But...It's supposed to always add to nine..." "I know.":D
#17 Nived Jun 24, 2009 16:16:59	Well that will only end in tears. But PC tears are delicious to DMs so I wholy approve.
#18 fourthdimensional Jun 26, 2009 11:10:15	Man, I really hope Wizards releases some content to fill this... Leaving out Olladra's Channel Divinity really sounds like an oversight. Blood of Vol may be as well.
#19 xi_mao Jun 27, 2009 5:34:44	I think Olladra was an oversight (Or possibly the people who wrote the EPG read that she spends part of her time as a Black Dragon and immediately pegged her as evil). I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.)
#20 ellorin Jun 27, 2009 5:58:42	I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.) I think I'll disagree here. Concidering that they are those who cheated humanity and denied it its destiny I don't see it. According to the Blood's doctrine(at least the one who actually recognises the existence of gods), if there's evil, then the Gods are it. We're far from Major Ends Justify the Means mentality-they believe that they are taking on the ultimate tyrants.
#21 RedRider Jun 27, 2009 7:28:11	I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.) This thought crossed my mind too, but if it was the reason it seems pretty misguided. -BoV is unaligned, and the PHB unaligned gods get CD feats. -BoV is a popular religion in Karrnath, so it's not an unreasonable choice for PCs. -"Angry at the gods" is a pretty cool element for heroes. -Aiming to lift humanity up from it's present squalor is a pretty noble goal. -A BoV worshipper isn't nescessarily at war with the gods. Possibly they may just see themselves as struggling to divinity against the gods.
#22 Gunpowder Jun 28, 2009 19:35:30	Well I posted this in the homebrew forum but I thought I might as well post it here as well. Blood for Blood As your blow connects you bolster your own divinity with the strength of the enemy. Encounter Divine minor action close burst 5 Target: you or one ally in range Special: Target must be bloodied Effect: until the end of the target's next turn, if the target hits with a melee or ranged attack he can spend a healing surge and gain temporary hit points equal to his healing surge value.
#23 xi_mao Jun 28, 2009 19:57:08	I think I'll disagree here. Concidering that they are those who cheated humanity and denied it its destiny I don't see it. According to the Blood's doctrine(at least the one who actually recognises the existence of gods), if there's evil, then the Gods are it. We're far from Major Ends Justify the Means mentality-they believe that they are taking on the ultimate tyrants. It's less of what the doctrines say and more what the writers of the EPG might have thought about the Blood of Vol. I wholly agree that according to Blood of Vol theory, the Gods are Tyrants that must be defeated to end the ultimate injustice, but I can't help but feel that the Writers of the EPG must have looked at the older info about the Blood of Vol and said "well...they're an evil religion for sure, but it says here that they're not evil...hmm...Let's give them evil treatment and not give them a feat to spite Xi Mao and his friends.":P
#24 AvonRekaes Jun 30, 2009 9:50:50	It's true. We all hate you.
#25 xi_mao Jun 30, 2009 15:05:41	It's true. We all hate you. I knew it!
#26 Gilo Jun 30, 2009 16:14:09	The EPG writers run out of space, they had to drop another CD, rolled a dice: Olladra got picked - bad luck
#27 tiwaztyrsfist Jun 30, 2009 21:20:30	You know what religion was missing that I wanted to see? The Becoming God. My absolute FAVORITE thing in 3.X Eberron. Now I have to come up with a channel divinity feat for it. Hmm... Something suitably artificerish.
#28 Gilo Jun 30, 2009 22:41:55	And what about the Path of Inspiration- thirteen million Riedran can't be wrong (or can they?)
#29 Tyranthraxus Jun 30, 2009 22:59:06	Were I speaking as my Thranite character, Id be gloating over the fact that the BLood of Vol offers only death to its idiotic followers ... that and no channel divinity feat
#30 ellorin Jul 01, 2009 4:02:46	Were I speaking as my Seeker character...I would have told you exactly the same thing(apart from the feat issue of course) .
#31 fiendish_dire_weasel Jul 03, 2009 4:56:25	I think one of my biggest dissapointments with the treatment of Eberron has been the neglect of the Blood of Vol. Listen of this from the ECS: Because of its focus on inner strength, the Blood of Vol appeals to people who are particularly driven or interested in personal improvement, and those who are disillusioned with the gods of other faiths. Who does that sound like? Sounds like adventurers to me! Blood of Vol is the perfect religion for PCs! Low on morals, high on self-centeredness, perfect! Even better they should be more than willing to throw around Raise Dead left and right! But does the Blood of Vol get full treatment? Nope. It is just idioticly reduced to some half-assed bad guy cult. I was hopeing this would be changed in 4E. Total dissapointment.
#32 JohnLynch Jul 04, 2009 7:35:00	Who does that sound like? Sounds like adventurers to me! Blood of Vol is the perfect religion for PCs! Low on morals, high on self-centeredness, perfect! Even better they should be more than willing to throw around Raise Dead left and right! Oh yeah. What I'm planning for my campaign I'm going to have a preacher for the Blood of Vol hand out a flyer to my PCs (which includes a cleric of the Silver Flame) proclaiming the holiness of the Blood of Vol :D One of my players was going to play a Half-Orc Ranger worshipper of Balinor until I told him the gods in Eberron are significantly less active than in other settings and that there are those who believe the Sovereign Host doesn't actually exist. He instead chose to be a compelete atheist (as far as the Sovereign Host is concerned anyway). So he'd be a perfect convert for the Blood of Vol. Although if I do get worshippers of Vol I'm torn between revealing the truth and crushing their fath or letting them spend an entire campaign worshiping the religion. There's something that I really like about having epic heroes of Eberron worshiping a religion led by an evil lich :D
#33 ellorin Jul 04, 2009 8:12:21	I wouldn't know your players, of course...but in our previous campaign there were 3 followers of the Blood(half the group), one a converted atheist. After 2/3 of the campaign they found the truth about the Blood of Vol. It didn't stop them from continuing to worship their religion-Vol was considered the most dangerous of heretics, her true followers thwarted at every opportunity. The point is what you reveal. What is the truth? Were they worshipping Vol? No, not really-they were being used, but that's another thing. Is Vol the Alpha and the Omega of the religion? Hell no-it's WAY more ancient than her. We all came to the conclusion that the true faith was theirs, Vol and her followers a corruption. Which is why I couldn't disagree more with Fiendish Dire Weasel's views. It's not portrayed as a bad guy evil cult(unlike it's original ECS depiction)-their religious leaders may be corrupted, but that doesn't invalidate the "common" Blood of Vol. And no, I don't consider the lack of a channel divinity feat a sign of neglection(not that that I wouldn't have welcomed one ).
#34 JohnLynch Jul 04, 2009 8:52:22	Vol was considered the most dangerous of heretics, her true followers thwarted at every opportunity. There is always that of course. I do like the idea of one of my players becoming the leader of a religion (regardless of what epic destiny they take). It would also set up the Emerald Claw as a wonderful enemy forever after. It's not portrayed as a bad guy evil cult(unlike it's original ECS depiction)- Agreed which I like. I'm very much an "alignment optional" person as either DM or player which is why I absolutely love the depiction of the Traveler and Blood of Vol in 4th ed :D Its perfect for PCs (especially some of my current ones. Even I had to pause for a second to think about whether or not one of my players could keep still be unaligned with some of the stuff he was doing).

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

The_Stray

Jun 21, 2009 7:19:47

Well, I'm annoyed. The EPG, otherwise a really cool book, mentions the Blood of Vol, and yet there is no support for it. No Channel Divinity Feats, no special magic Holy Symbol...the Traveler, one of the Dark Six, gets more love than the national religion of Karrnath. What gives, WotC?

swgeek77

Jun 21, 2009 12:45:32

I noticed the lack of a Channel Divinity Feat for the Blood of Vol as well. I've been trying to figure out a well thought out and mechanically sound power to throw in there myself.

Nived

Jun 21, 2009 12:50:49

I'm disapointed by it as well, however I think its easily patched. From the PHB channel divinity feats I've been using Melora's Tide as a makeshift BoV channel divinity before the EPG came out.

Though there is no relation between Melora and the Blood of Vol I considered regeneration an appropriate channeling of the divinity within.

xi_mao

Jun 21, 2009 18:34:06

I suppose that works. Makes more sense than, say, Raven Queen's Blessing.

Right now I think likely candidates for Channel Divinity: Divinity Within are
Melora's Tide
Armor of Bahamut
Berronar's Salve
Ilmater's Martyrdom

Generally anything that I can see as "Spiting the Gods and protecting the divinity within" can fall into likely candidates. I'm rather fond of the Martyrdom power myself, "Give of your blood, to protect your ally."

hailstop

Jun 21, 2009 22:01:03

I suppose that works. Makes more sense than, say, Raven Queen's Blessing.

Right now I think likely candidates for Channel Divinity: Divinity Within are
Melora's Tide
Armor of Bahamut
Berronar's Salve
Ilmater's Martyrdom

Generally anything that I can see as "Spiting the Gods and protecting the divinity within" can fall into likely candidates. I'm rather fond of the Martyrdom power myself, "Give of your blood, to protect your ally."

There doesn't appear to be a Channel Divinity feat for Olladra either.

Alex_

Jun 21, 2009 23:07:40

No Channel Divinity Feats, no special magic Holy Symbol...the Traveler, one of the Dark Six, gets more love than the national religion of Karrnath. What gives, WotC?

Well it's not really the national religion these days. Kaius has been actively subverting its influence and even brands it greatest knightly order as terrorists. More of a size-able minority.

Still important though, and definitely should have been worthy of a Channel Divinity feat and holy symbol item though.

Siberys

Jun 21, 2009 23:27:05

FR's Tymora's Coin seems appropriate for Olladra. That's a weird oversight, though...

renchard

Jun 22, 2009 9:11:05

Just use Righteous Rage of Tempus as the BoV divinity feat. That will bring its popularity right back.

Siberys

Jun 22, 2009 18:32:56

I was actually using that for the Mockery - The Mockery's Precision.

I don't particularly care that it's broken. It's Frickin' Awesome^TM.

#10

xi_mao

Jun 23, 2009 16:55:06

There doesn't appear to be a Channel Divinity feat for Olladra either.

Hmm...I think someone at WOTC hates me...Blood of Vol is my favorite religion and Olladra is my favorite Goddess...

#11

Nived

Jun 23, 2009 17:01:47

At least she gets a spiffy Holy Symbol, though I don't know about the changing face, I mean I might use it, but add "that the pips always add up to 9"

#12

xi_mao

Jun 23, 2009 21:35:29

Very true...and I like the Idea that the pips always add up to 9...

Hmm...Maybe I can use that as a story hook....Fortune telling Domino!:D

#13

Nived

Jun 23, 2009 22:32:23

I don't know how much fortune telling you could do with it, with a double six set you'd only have two real configurations (unless you count 4-5 as different than 5-4, in which case you'd have 4).

With a double nine set you'd have five configurations (or ten again if flipped). I just remember Faiths of Eberron specifically saying her holy symbol added up to nine, the number of the Sovereign Host deities.

#14

joni-san

Jun 24, 2009 12:23:59

➈?

#15

RedRider

Jun 24, 2009 12:52:49

I'd love to see Olladara and the Blood's Channel Divinity feats contained in some kind of brrata, but I could accept seeing the BoV detailed in a Dragon article. (With the overlooked Olladara Feat In errata or as a free feature on the WotC site.)

#16

xi_mao

Jun 24, 2009 16:02:52

@Nived - Actually I kind of thought of the story hook as:
"Make a perception check. You notice your Domino of Olladra has 13 pips today."
"But...It's supposed to always add to nine..."
"I know.":D

#17

Nived

Jun 24, 2009 16:16:59

Well that will only end in tears. But PC tears are delicious to DMs so I wholy approve.

#18

fourthdimensional

Jun 26, 2009 11:10:15

Man, I really hope Wizards releases some content to fill this... Leaving out Olladra's Channel Divinity really sounds like an oversight. Blood of Vol may be as well.

#19

xi_mao

Jun 27, 2009 5:34:44

I think Olladra was an oversight (Or possibly the people who wrote the EPG read that she spends part of her time as a Black Dragon and immediately pegged her as evil).

I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.)

#20

ellorin

Jun 27, 2009 5:58:42

I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.)

I think I'll disagree here. Concidering that they are those who cheated humanity and denied it its destiny I don't see it. According to the Blood's doctrine(at least the one who actually recognises the existence of gods), if there's evil, then the Gods are it. We're far from Major Ends Justify the Means mentality-they believe that they are taking on the ultimate tyrants.

#21

RedRider

Jun 27, 2009 7:28:11

I think Blood of Vol was purposefully not given a Channel Divinity feat because it's intentions can be read very easily as Evil. (I'm going to destroy all of the Gods so that Mortals may ascend to Godhood? Major Ends Justify the Means mentality there.)

This thought crossed my mind too, but if it was the reason it seems pretty misguided.

-BoV is unaligned, and the PHB unaligned gods get CD feats.
-BoV is a popular religion in Karrnath, so it's not an unreasonable choice for PCs.
-"Angry at the gods" is a pretty cool element for heroes.
-Aiming to lift humanity up from it's present squalor is a pretty noble goal.
-A BoV worshipper isn't nescessarily at war with the gods. Possibly they may just see themselves as struggling to divinity against the gods.

#22

Gunpowder

Jun 28, 2009 19:35:30

Well I posted this in the homebrew forum but I thought I might as well post it here as well.

Blood for Blood
As your blow connects you bolster your own divinity with the strength of the enemy.
Encounter Divine
minor action close burst 5
Target: you or one ally in range
Special: Target must be bloodied
Effect: until the end of the target's next turn, if the target hits with a melee or ranged attack he can spend a healing surge and gain temporary hit points equal to his healing surge value.

#23

xi_mao

Jun 28, 2009 19:57:08

I think I'll disagree here. Concidering that they are those who cheated humanity and denied it its destiny I don't see it. According to the Blood's doctrine(at least the one who actually recognises the existence of gods), if there's evil, then the Gods are it. We're far from Major Ends Justify the Means mentality-they believe that they are taking on the ultimate tyrants.

It's less of what the doctrines say and more what the writers of the EPG might have thought about the Blood of Vol. I wholly agree that according to Blood of Vol theory, the Gods are Tyrants that must be defeated to end the ultimate injustice, but I can't help but feel that the Writers of the EPG must have looked at the older info about the Blood of Vol and said "well...they're an evil religion for sure, but it says here that they're not evil...hmm...Let's give them evil treatment and not give them a feat to spite Xi Mao and his friends.":P

#24

AvonRekaes

Jun 30, 2009 9:50:50

It's true. We all hate you.

#25

xi_mao

Jun 30, 2009 15:05:41

It's true. We all hate you.

I knew it!

#26

Gilo

Jun 30, 2009 16:14:09

The EPG writers run out of space, they had to drop another CD, rolled a dice: Olladra got picked - bad luck

#27

tiwaztyrsfist

Jun 30, 2009 21:20:30

You know what religion was missing that I wanted to see?

The Becoming God. My absolute FAVORITE thing in 3.X Eberron.

Now I have to come up with a channel divinity feat for it. Hmm... Something suitably artificerish.

#28

Gilo

Jun 30, 2009 22:41:55

And what about the Path of Inspiration- thirteen million Riedran can't be wrong (or can they?)

#29

Tyranthraxus

Jun 30, 2009 22:59:06

Were I speaking as my Thranite character, Id be gloating over the fact that the BLood of Vol offers only death to its idiotic followers

... that and no channel divinity feat

#30

ellorin

Jul 01, 2009 4:02:46

Were I speaking as my Seeker character...I would have told you exactly the same thing(apart from the feat issue of course)

#31

fiendish_dire_weasel

Jul 03, 2009 4:56:25

I think one of my biggest dissapointments with the treatment of Eberron has been the neglect of the Blood of Vol. Listen of this from the ECS:

Because of its focus on inner strength, the Blood of Vol appeals to people who are particularly driven or interested in personal improvement, and those who are disillusioned with the gods of other faiths.

Who does that sound like? Sounds like adventurers to me! Blood of Vol is the perfect religion for PCs! Low on morals, high on self-centeredness, perfect! Even better they should be more than willing to throw around Raise Dead left and right!

But does the Blood of Vol get full treatment? Nope. It is just idioticly reduced to some half-assed bad guy cult.

I was hopeing this would be changed in 4E. Total dissapointment.

#32

JohnLynch

Jul 04, 2009 7:35:00

Who does that sound like? Sounds like adventurers to me! Blood of Vol is the perfect religion for PCs! Low on morals, high on self-centeredness, perfect! Even better they should be more than willing to throw around Raise Dead left and right!

Oh yeah.

What I'm planning for my campaign

I'm going to have a preacher for the Blood of Vol hand out a flyer to my PCs (which includes a cleric of the Silver Flame) proclaiming the holiness of the Blood of Vol :D

One of my players was going to play a Half-Orc Ranger worshipper of Balinor until I told him the gods in Eberron are significantly less active than in other settings and that there are those who believe the Sovereign Host doesn't actually exist. He instead chose to be a compelete atheist (as far as the Sovereign Host is concerned anyway).

So he'd be a perfect convert for the Blood of Vol. Although if I do get worshippers of Vol I'm torn between revealing the truth and crushing their fath or letting them spend an entire campaign worshiping the religion. There's something that I really like about having epic heroes of Eberron worshiping a religion led by an evil lich :D

#33

ellorin

Jul 04, 2009 8:12:21

I wouldn't know your players, of course...but in our previous campaign there were 3 followers of the Blood(half the group), one a converted atheist. After 2/3 of the campaign they found the truth about the Blood of Vol. It didn't stop them from continuing to worship their religion-Vol was considered the most dangerous of heretics, her true followers thwarted at every opportunity. The point is what you reveal. What is the truth? Were they worshipping Vol? No, not really-they were being used, but that's another thing. Is Vol the Alpha and the Omega of the religion? Hell no-it's WAY more ancient than her. We all came to the conclusion that the true faith was theirs, Vol and her followers a corruption.
Which is why I couldn't disagree more with Fiendish Dire Weasel's views. It's not portrayed as a bad guy evil cult(unlike it's original ECS depiction)-their religious leaders may be corrupted, but that doesn't invalidate the "common" Blood of Vol. And no, I don't consider the lack of a channel divinity feat a sign of neglection(not that that I wouldn't have welcomed one

#34

JohnLynch

Jul 04, 2009 8:52:22

Vol was considered the most dangerous of heretics, her true followers thwarted at every opportunity.

There is always that of course. I do like the idea of one of my players becoming the leader of a religion (regardless of what epic destiny they take). It would also set up the Emerald Claw as a wonderful enemy forever after.

It's not portrayed as a bad guy evil cult(unlike it's original ECS depiction)-

Agreed which I like. I'm very much an "alignment optional" person as either DM or player which is why I absolutely love the depiction of the Traveler and Blood of Vol in 4th ed :D Its perfect for PCs (especially some of my current ones. Even I had to pause for a second to think about whether or not one of my players could keep still be unaligned with some of the stuff he was doing).