Getting the Gods into the Magic System

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by Gef

If needed, I grouped gods together to make one path; that's how I get around the variable size jurisdiction. For instance, the path of Mars AND Venus. There's also an a la carte method for gods who don't line up neatly with my spheres.

Thanks very much for the thoughts, Gef. I don't think I can group gods together for paths in a way that isn't arbitrary. There are actually some divine pairs that are always appealed to together (I counted them as one god among the 67), but otherwise, every deity is an independent operator.

There is also the issue of gods with very broad portfolios. For instance, Red Bull is a god of Agriculture, Drugs, Fire, Law, Fertility, the Sun, and War. He can consequently produce a very wide variety of supernatural effects.

You may have seen my Magic Vegas thread

Thank you - very interesting! Have you considered putting it up on the GURPS Wiki under fan settings?

[Gef]

>>>I don't think I can group gods together for paths in a way that isn't arbitrary.

My decisions were arbitrary, too, and in a lot of cases I had to make an arbitrary decision which version of mythology to work with. In some cases there's too much, in some cases lots of holes, but what matters is that the players buy it. I tried to follow family connections, frex father-and-son Suen and Shamesh from Babylonian, or otherwise look at gods that are appealed to in concert.

>>>There is also the issue of gods with very broad portfolios. For instance, Red Bull is a god of Agriculture, Drugs, Fire, Law, Fertility, the Sun, and War

Now this case I considered, and in fact used in the tradition of Ra. What you tend to see in real-world mythology is a series of titles for broad-portfolio gods to indicate which aspect is invoked, and in some cases these indicate syncretism of separate gods. In any case, keeping paths relatively consistent in scope means that some gods may simply have more than one path. So for instance Red Bull of the Sky gets Fire (also works for Sun), Justice (for Law), and Strategy (aspect of War), while Red Bull of the Field gets Agriculture (includes Fertility), Battle (different aspect of War), and Inspiration (because drugs come from agriculture).

>>>Thank you - very interesting! Have you considered putting it up on the GURPS Wiki under fan settings?

Never thought of that; I'll check it out. The reason I posted here was in the hope of generating discussion about certain aspects, such as:

*The spirit taxonomy which you need to work out in order for Summon, Bind, and Fetish to be useful

*The Skepticism mechanic (only needed in an Urban Fantasy setting)

*The incorporation of rules for tools and software from the tech books into path magic modifiers

*The pricing of fetishes and prepared spells and the assumptions from which they derive

Unfortunately, it's not terribly useful to discuss these things out of context, and presenting the whole setting causes a massive case of Too Long; Didn't Read. However, it's out there for the next guy who searches for a phrase like "path magic spirits," and I think my reasoning comes through well enough to make it easy to consider how changing some parameters could affect the whole. Since I've been running this thing for a few months, I really like the way it has come together. Took awhile for players to wrap their heads around it, but because I had a basis to answer their questions consistently, they're really starting to figure out what they can do and better, to consider the options available to NPC magicians in the game.

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Have you looked at the Divine Favor system?

What about the wildly varying breadth that different gods have? Do you think that would be a problem for the Divine Favor system?

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

What about the wildly varying breadth that different gods have? Do you think that would be a problem for the Divine Favor system?

Well, you're going to have to modify it. The base assumption is an all-powerful god, with high base cost as a patron, but you'll have some gods with lower base cost. Thus you might have Powerful God on 6, Intermediate God on 9 as an alternate, Lesser God on 12 as another alternate, and then other alternate abilities based on any of these 3. The trick will be to devise AA lists for each portfolio, which will not be exactly like path magic, but if you use path magic rituals as a guide, you should get heaps of limitation value to keep the AA's affordable. Or you could house-rule it and have a path skill for each god with God as Patron as a prereq. That handles the balance issue nicely; sure the path skill has the same VH cost whether for a lesser god of narrow portfolio or a god like Red Bull, even though Path of Red Bull has more rituals, but that's fair because the prerequisite patron advantage costs more.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

What about the wildly varying breadth that different gods have? Do you think that would be a problem for the Divine Favor system?

Have a look at 'Totem Spirits as Patrons' in Above the Flatline's Totem Spirits article (scroll down a bit). That may help.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Greg 1

Thanks very much for the thoughts, Gef. I don't think I can group gods together for paths in a way that isn't arbitrary. There are actually some divine pairs that are always appealed to together (I counted them as one god among the 67), but otherwise, every deity is an independent operator.

It could be that each Path is a particular grouping as determined by a college of magicians who created it. The groupings could then be due to internal logic, historical associations or the personal interests of founding members.

[Black Leviathan]

My most recent fantasy world I gave gods specific blessings they could grant. These blessings where I could manage them reflected the domain of the god. All of the blessings had a pact Limitation so you lost the power if you ever went against the God's teaching. Most could only be used once per day and required a concentrate maneuver for prayer.

If building Sorcery-style powers for 67 gods seems a little over the top I don't blame you, you could select a handful of spells for each of your Gods and allow the devout of your faith to learn them and use them irrespective of Mana level as long as they observe certain strictures of the god, nothing more onerous than a Code of Honor's restrictions.

[Greg 1]

Thanks very much for helping me think this through, folks.

Right now, I'm leaning towards letting wizards learn paths of ritual magic defined by what aspect of the world they offer control over, such as Path of Fire or Path of Healing. When they cast spells, they must call on one or more gods. They can then decide which gods to call on, with modifiers based on their standing with the god, the god's own agenda, and how well they weave the god into their magic ritual.

[Astromancer]

If it hasn't been said, go look at the decans in either GURPS Thaumatology or GURPS Cabal. The Lord's and Ladies ruling the Decans are easily adapted into gods. Or take a real world pantheon or pantheons you like and assign the Decans to the gods and goddesses.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

If it hasn't been said, go look at the decans in either GURPS Thaumatology or GURPS Cabal. The Lord's and Ladies ruling the Decans are easily adapted into gods. Or take a real world pantheon or pantheons you like and assign the Decans to the gods and goddesses.

He wants the gods to overlap, though and the decans really don't.