Clerics and deities

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

That was definitely the idea with that, and hopefully losing a few spells that aren't in the DFRPG won't cripple it. Sample/preview here, the book's Web page here.

And here's a mini-review of the fine Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics book; there are likely more to be found through a search.

To the OP: I wouldn't overthink a purchase of this book; even if not a DFRPG supplement, the book offers a lot of great stuff for just a few coppers. There's plenty you can nab as-is, or use as inspiration and guides for creating your own cleric variants.

[Anders]

Where's the mini-review?

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Anders

Where's the mini-review?

D'oh. I just invented a new computer action: "Copy and forget to paste".

Get Religion with Dungeon Fantasy 7: Clerics

[Yssa]

The last PC I played was a cleric, and it was the most fun-to-create character I've ever made. I did read DF7, which helped me think about the variety of deities and religions that are possible, but character I created fit fully withing the DFRPG rules.

Beyond that, I'm going to respond to your question a little differently from others: not with resources but with an approach to character building.

I'd recommend starting with the deity/mythology/religion itself before you even look at the character build or cleric abilities. Ask yourself questions like these:

• What sort of god/gods is it?
• What is the creation myth?
• What are some tenets of the religion?
• What customs and rituals to followers practice?
• What phrases, expressions, idioms, oaths, curses, or prayers do followers use?
• What do followers see as their purpose in the world?
• How do other religions see them?
• How do lay people see them?

For my character, some answers were:

• She is a god of death.
• She was one among many Elders. When the other elder's killed her, it gave rise to the sacred rite of death and put the chaos of the Elders into the proper order of life.
• No being of flesh is sacred in life. No being of flesh lies unholy in the holy ground.
• Ease the suffering of the dying; bury the dead.
• "Praise the Holy Dead."
• To teach the living not to fear death; care for the dying; honor the dead. (Oh, and of course destroy undead creatures, as they go against the order of things.
• They are looked on with suspicion and fear by other religions and some lay people. They have been nearly wiped out by those who see them as evil. My PC was the lone survivor of a temple that was destroyed by a more "main-stream" religion.

These sorts of details dictate many ads, disads, quirks, skills, and spell choices. And even where the specific spell and skill choices are somewhat limited, having a clear understanding of the religion lets you play the character in a way that feels unique and nuanced.

(As a side note, I had to think about why a cleric who worshiped death would have a healing powers, seeing as that is the primary function of clerics in DFRPG. Finding a way to justify that within the dogma of the religion felt like the sort of thing actual religions do all the time. . .)

[Anders]

There's also GURPS Religion. It's for 3rd edition, but it has a lot of material about real-world religions and how to make fictitious ones.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Religion/

Only $12. *wink*

[Dalin]

I’ve used both DF7 and Hand of Asgard for my DFRPG games. I have always loved clerics. You could easily customize the FR pantheon for DFRPG. Many flavors of Evil are possible.

Please share your ideas here! I’m sure others will benefit, even if they’re not using the Realms.

[AllenOwen]

Originally Posted by Dalin

I’ve used both DF7 and Hand of Asgard for my DFRPG games. I have always loved clerics. You could easily customize the FR pantheon for DFRPG. Many flavors of Evil are possible.

Please share your ideas here! I’m sure others will benefit, even if they’re not using the Realms.

I will! Most likely I'll start a another thread on here.

[Jarl Wilm]

Originally Posted by AllenOwen

I can see where the edges betwixt GURPS DF and DFRPG are getting blurred here. Easy to do, as the rules are more or less the same...
I got my answer though; in fact DF 7 is what I'll be needing, and I'll be getting Hands of Asgard and DF 7 as soon as finances allow. I was just wondering about using DFRPG in a specific setting,since "old school" AD&D was also setting agnostic, like DFRPG is setting agnostic. But to do that would mean taking DFRPG out of it's framework a little, which I don't mind doing at all.

I've been musing on this a lot since philosophy of religion is my major. AD&D and the earlier systems weren't really "setting agnostic." The original materials assumed a vaguely medieval (Catholic) sort of cleric---that is, a monotheistic or dualist world. All clerics were identical, and calling yourself a "cleric of Thor" or "a cleric of Athena" or "a cleric of Teddy the Bear God" was what we in philosophy call "a difference without a distinction:" ---that is, an illusory difference only. All good clerics had identical spells and identical requirements (no edged weapons etc.) and got identical perks at higher levels (followers, tithes etc.) so the only real difference was whether you were a "good" cleric or an "evil" one--and evil clerics were always NPCs/monsters. There were no "neutral clerics;" Eldritch Wizardry introduced druids as the "clerics" of True Neutral, defending balance in everything. DFRPG seeks to emulate the "old-school dungeon crawler" experience, and thus took over that sort of cleric. If all "good" clerics respect everyone's excommunications, have access to the same spells, share the same advantages, disadvantages and skills, they really are the same religion. Unless you move beyond DFRPG and bring in different spell lists for different gods, they're all basically the same faith. After all, Muslims, Jews and Christians all worship the God of Abraham, but even they don't recognize each other's excommunications.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Yssa

(As a side note, I had to think about why a cleric who worshiped death would have a healing powers, seeing as that is the primary function of clerics in DFRPG. Finding a way to justify that within the dogma of the religion felt like the sort of thing actual religions do all the time. . .)

Sadly yes.

But really, I think the simplest fix for that in a D&D-like game is to realize the gods actually exist here, and therefore do not interact with each other in any way at all like real world religions do. They're more like neighbors, and the good (and to some extent evil) ones are all on the same side. There really [aren't] "separate religions", all the Good gods cooperate because that's the nature of Goodness, and clerics probably get their powers from the same fount of Good or Evil as the gods get theirs, not from any particular god anyway.

[Jarl Wilm]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Sadly yes.

But really, I think the simplest fix for that in a D&D-like game is to realize the gods actually exist here, and therefore do not interact with each other in any way at all like real world religions do. They're more like neighbors, and the good (and to some extent evil) ones are all on the same side. There really [aren't] "separate religions", all the Good gods cooperate because that's the nature of Goodness, and clerics probably get their powers from the same fount of Good or Evil as the gods get theirs, not from any particular god anyway.

That's one way. In Hinduism, many monistic or monotheistic teachers treat the various gods and demigods as expressions of the One. The gods could also be seen as intermediary beings between the One God and the mortal realm. And if I didn't teach this stuff, I might be content just to not think about it too much, which seems to have been the original plan in D&D.

I have just begun running DFRPG and had to move before my first campaign got to the point where anyone but me was asking these sorts of questions, but I think druids make a better template for polytheism than the "cleric." It seems the generic DFRPG cleric serves a deity that is source and patron of Light and Life, and has pretty much exclusive command of Life (Healing spells, with some Light and nourishment magic, wards against evil and harm, etc.) and not much else. Druids control weather, which is the realm of deities such as Thor, Zeus, Indra, Baal and so on. The Celts and Norse had god-talkers who didn't necessarily specialize in only one deity, as I understand it. Greek religion had their gods as separate and often competing, but still somehow part of the same extended family; I could see a priest of Zeus honoring the excommunication of a blasphemer of Artemis or Ares. But Socrates was executed for "introducing foreign deities" among other things, presumably because of his tendency to exclaim, "By the Dog, god of the Egyptians!" This leads me to see the "barbarian" religions as more similar than different, and if I had a player who wanted to be Norse-like my first impulse would be to suggest they be a "druid."