Post/Author/DateTime

Post

#1 malkav666 Jul 15, 2008 11:12:30

I have started and am currently in the process of worldbuilding for my recently born 4.e campaign. I decided a custom pantheon was in order and have been slowly plugging away ont he deities and details on their clergy. I play with 3.x alignments so any references you see in the description that relate to 3.x alignments will have to be adjusted if you use the new alignments. But I guess what I am looking for is a little feedback. Do the DMs here feel that this would be a valid representation of a neutral goddess devoted to death? Do you feel that the restrictions placed upon the clerics of this faith are too restrictive to make them viable? I don't usually share my metafiction as it relates to my campaigns but I have gotten an extremely positive response from my players thus far in the first few sessions and several of them have displayed an interest in this deity in specific, and I would like it to be at least playable and perhaps interesting or intrigueing for the players as it is a story driven campaign. So I will post her here. If any of you homebrew cats have any advice to make her more viable or perhaps even interesting I am all ears. Thanks, Malkav Start description: Dulcinea Alignment: LN (unaligned if you use 4.e alignment) Influences: Death (removed 3.x domains and favored weapons, but if you would liek them for your 3.x game PM me and I will give you the ones I picked or you could just as easily make up your own) Description: Dulcinea is widely revered, but narrowly worshipped. She is a major god and is viewed as the claimer of all things in due time. Shrines and temples to Dulcinea can be found almost anywhere. It is very customary to have at least a shrine or statue dedicated to her in most graveyards or other burial sites. Dulcinea is tasked with housing the spirits of the dead until they meet with whatever fate may hold for them in the Afterworld. As a standing tradition those following the path of ends and worshipping Dulcinea tend to be mostly pascifists. Those that do take arms never do so in the name of the church, as Dulcinea's congregation is forbidden from taking sides in largescale conflicts. It is their long held belief that all living things die, and that each being's death is unique and worthy of respect. They don't typically use rituals that will bring a soul back from the Afterworld unless the need is great. Even then each priest in the service of Dulcinea by religious decree is only allowed to use such magics one time in their life, and the cost to the church for deploying such magics is for the priest to offer his own life in exchange for the right to sway the fates. So it is rare indeed for a priest of Dulcinea to use rituals that involve resurrrection or the like as their own life will be forfeit as direct result of using those magics. Even so, all practitioners of Dulcineas' faith are taught the rituals that give life as soon as they are powerful enough to master them. The faith views that just because that choice is a difficult one to make, does not mean that that the tools that would enable one to make such a choice should be withheld. Dulcinea's religious stronghold is in the Arken'Barad Mountains in the land of the demon people to the East of Elasia. It is known only as "The Stair". It is a staggeringly large necropolis built into the crater of a sleeping volcano named Vizzuhd Krish (Which translates into common from the daemon tongue as "Death Vault"). Here they have a temple and monastery built into the side of mountain just below the caldera of the volcano made out of various igneous stones and black and grey volcanic glass. The monks and priests living there have built antechambers along the side of an enormous carved and spiralized staircase down the sides of the caldera and into the mouth of the volcano itself. They keep many high profile and powerful dead beings buried there. Any gravesite that has dead slumbering there that are potential targets for dark rituals of undeath, grave robbery, or individuals whose knowledge even in death would cause considerable disharmony if forces were used to speak through the Verge to those spirits directly in the Afterworlds, stand the chance of Dulcineists moving the body to a safer resting place. "The Stair" (often called the "Tombstone Stairwell" in common tellings) is just the largest and most protected site that the Dulcineists keep. There are however many smaller lower profile vaults kept elsewhere. One interesting fact about The Stair is this: without fail, all priests and paladins of Dulcinea's faith are eventually stored there. There have been countless retellings of Dulcineists showing up to claim one of their recently fallen, even with no communication to the church. They just come after and claim the body. No one outside of the highest reaches of Dulcinea's following knows exactly what magics are being deployed to alert the orders of a particular priest's falling. It is one of the larger mysteries surrounding the religion and it is one that many kingdoms have tried to buy or otherwise obtain from the religion only to be met with failure. Many common folk whisper that the Goddess is always watching and speaks directly to her clergy of the deaths. But that still doesn't explain the whole scenario. The Stair is in a very remote region in the demon kingdoms. To travel to most locations from there would take months. In many tellings of Dulcineists claiming their own, they show up mere days after the death to claim the body. Meaning that the order either has powerful foretelling magics, or powerful traveling magics. Both of which are highly sought after by leaders for governmental and militaristic reasons. In fact many governments in Elasia and beyond do not even allow Dulcineists in the city do to this lack of information sharing. In fact, many priests have been subject to capture and mental probing (and in some cases assassination to try and pry the secrets) to gain the order's secrets. No one has found out the secrets thus far (or it least if someone has, they are being very quiet about it). The clergy of Dulcinea is broken into three major sects: Guardians of the Veil is the first sect. It is mostly a militaristic sect, and it's primary concerns are guarding the passage of bodies to and from vaults, and the protections of those vaults in and of themselves. Their other major tasks include the seeking of and destruction of all undead creatures. Dulcineists view undead as direct affront to the deific influences of their Goddess. They will spare no cost or effort to see undead eliminated wherever they may be. Secondarily this order protects lesser non-vault gravesites as they find them. They often will join adventuring parties who travel so they can make circuit and help maintain cemetaries where they find them, and to help bury any dead that may be laying about. Respect to a being's place of rest is very important to this order, and they will take arms over this belief. The second sect are simply referred to as "Keepers". These are the traveling clerics and non-guardian holy warriors of Dulcinea's congregation. They come and go without apparent ryhme or reason and often make pilgrimages to many of the vault sites that the other orders make their homes in. They often maintain the shrines in large graveyards dedicated to Dulcinea and often help maintain the burial sites themselves. It is not uncommon for them to adventure with a group as part of a pilgrimage, but its just as common for members of this sect to choose a gravesite and stay there for life. The final order of this religion are the Afterseers. They make their homes in vaults and rarely travel outside of them. The selection process for these Afterseers is unknown outside of the sect itself. But they have been known to travel great distances and suffer great pains to reach potential candidates for this order. This order runs the rest of the clergy from an administrative standpoint. All members of this faith "on church business" are on task because of a directive obtained from this sect. The Afterseers hold the unique right of being able to speak to those beings at rest in a given vault through the Verge, directly in the Afterworlds. No other members of this faith may deploy magic or rituals to contact and dead held in a vault other than the Seers themselves. To do so is to forfeit your life and have your body fed to the mountain (dumped into the magma core of the volcano, which is a serious grievance, as that is where the order disposes of undead. It is said among Dulcineists that being fed to the mountain prevents you from reaching your final destination and leaves you in a lightless, senseless limbo with all of the other abominations). This religion only celebrates two holidays. The Day of Debts, which is celebrated in the Spring by the planting of flowers and solemn singing and chanting of the priests and holy persons of this religion. It is forbidden to shed blood or eat meat on this day, as it marks the birthing of life and the signifigance of the debt that is incurred in the act of birth. Every living thing born creates this debt upon it's lifesparks completion. And all things pay that debt when it becomes due. The day before this celebration is almost a holiday in and of itself. Members of this faith go out and are encouraged to partake in whatever pleasures that can be had and spread thier seed (sexual context) as far as can be spread. The second holiday is the called in the old tongue "Aluum Avrscicus Morte" (many a scholar argues the translation of the exact phrase, but it is commonly agreed that it means one of three things, or perhaps all three. Many prophets and Gods employing old tongue often tied duality in meaning or definition into their scripts. The three translations are as follows: "death of day", "death as a day", and "day of the death"). On this day which is celebrated in accordance to astrological signifigance (alignment of all three of Elasia's moons creating a triple lunar eclipse. The moons' lunar cycle has this happening about once a century, with every fifth century enjoying two such alignments. One at the start and one at the end.). On this day, the vaults are opened, and the Afterseers come out and select random individuals from those gathered and let them ask a question, that they then ask the dead housed in their vault for the answer to. If the dead housed there know the answer then they return to the individual who asked the question and give them the answer in explicity. These questions and answers are not documented in the vaults' libraries (in all other circumstances, other than this holiday, all communications with the dead are closely documented and kept in secure libraries) and at the end of the holiday any seer that answered a question is killed, and taken to a special vault that does not participate in this holiday. It is viewed as part of the church's role in maintaining the natural balance of things. No question is turned aside, and no individual asking a question would be turned aside regardless of intent or reputation. Most vaults are in very difficult to reach locations and this obscure holiday draws very few petitioners. Each vault will answer a maximum of three questions. In the event that there are more than three petitioners at a given vault wish to ask a question, the order resolves who gets to ask by lottery.