philippos42 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
philippos42) wrote2012-12-26 07:29 pm
philippos42) wrote2012-12-26 07:29 pm
Entry tags:
clerics
One of the crazy things about Dungeons and Dragons, that prevents it from being more generally adaptable to different settings, is its treatment of theology, and by extension, of religion. (Well, I haven't played D&D in years, and not the current edition, so in modern terms I guess I mean Pathfinder.)
In D&D, there are real, powerful gods, and clerics are connected to them. If you want a cult where the god is (like in real life) sort of unknown, an open question, D&D doesn't represent this well. I think Eberron tried to be more ambiguous, but most of the time, there are gods, they are definite, their existence just is.
So--a culture that venerates gods with no unambiguous reality? Non-standard.
An empire where the god is the dead father of the present empire, like Rome? Nope.
A cleric of a cult that venerates something that isn't really a god (like the Sun, or a dragon) or may not exist at all (like a legendary hero)--not a cleric in game terms.
Nope, D&D has its particular theological rules, and your particular campaign may be even tighter.
It's limiting, and something I ran up against when I started playing it, because divine casters were expected to have an affiliation with and outlook on the supernatural that I did not expect, and not to have views that seemed reasonable to me in fantasy worldbuilding.
Bleh.
Something that came back to mind after a discussion about the cult of Sol Invictus. Not Saturn & Jove, not Sol Invictus, not the divine Caesar, not Jesus Christ, had clerics quite like those in D&D--as far as I know.
Funny way to set up something that spawned so many variants and settings.
In D&D, there are real, powerful gods, and clerics are connected to them. If you want a cult where the god is (like in real life) sort of unknown, an open question, D&D doesn't represent this well. I think Eberron tried to be more ambiguous, but most of the time, there are gods, they are definite, their existence just is.
So--a culture that venerates gods with no unambiguous reality? Non-standard.
An empire where the god is the dead father of the present empire, like Rome? Nope.
A cleric of a cult that venerates something that isn't really a god (like the Sun, or a dragon) or may not exist at all (like a legendary hero)--not a cleric in game terms.
Nope, D&D has its particular theological rules, and your particular campaign may be even tighter.
It's limiting, and something I ran up against when I started playing it, because divine casters were expected to have an affiliation with and outlook on the supernatural that I did not expect, and not to have views that seemed reasonable to me in fantasy worldbuilding.
Bleh.
Something that came back to mind after a discussion about the cult of Sol Invictus. Not Saturn & Jove, not Sol Invictus, not the divine Caesar, not Jesus Christ, had clerics quite like those in D&D--as far as I know.
Funny way to set up something that spawned so many variants and settings.