Take Not Thy Thunder From Us (GloG: Priest)

 The gods do not hoard their power to themselves. As we give to them, they give to us. Thus, we have the priests. It's a good thing too. Those gods are a fickle and inhuman bunch, but the priest will always help the people.

A Cleric to go with the last post's gods

Class: Shrine Priest

Starting Equipment: Ceremonial Robe, Ceremonial Mask

Starting Skill: 1) Ritual 2) Law 3) History 4) Farming 5) Nature 6) pick any

A: Offerings, Divine Magic, +1 MD, +2 spells (1-6)
B: Blessing, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-8)
C: Shrine, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-10)
D: Pantheon, +1 MD, +2 Spell (1-12)

Offerings
You know the rite by which magical power can be given to a monster to turn it into a god. Generally this requires a food offering and the worship of at least 10 people (excluding you).

Divine Magic
You can cast spells as given to you by the gods. Work with your DM to create a list of 12 spells. These spells are given by your patron gods and should be split up amongst them. For instance, a priest who worships Virs, the Serpent of Usan, and Ulorin, the goddess of wisdom, would have a spell list like the following:

1. Lock (Ulorin)
2. Knock (Ulorin)
3. Package Neatly (Ulorin)
4. Control Rain (Virs)
5. Extract Venom (Virs)
6. Stoneskin (Virs)
7. Compartmentalize Mixture (Ulorin)
8. Cure Wounds (Virs)
9. Saw and Plane Tree (Ulorin)
10. Scorching Ray (Virs)
11. Serpents of the Earth (Virs)
12. Land Gate (Ulorin)

Your patron gods are located in specific places. When you go to those places, you get your Miracle Dice. Keep track of which MD you get from which god. MD can only be spent to cast spells from the god who gave it. Each level, you get +1 Maximum MD and +2 spells. To level up, in addition to other requirements, you must go before one or multiple of your gods. You may only receive spells from gods present when you level up, but you can negotiate for which spells you get.

(At the DM's choice, you might get Sacraments (cantrips) from your gods, or have specific blessings and bans imposed by your gods. The DM may also change these features and your spells at will, as the gods change their fickle whims)

Blessing
By sharing a meal with someone, you can bless them, giving them 1 MD and the ability to cast one of your spells.

Shrine
You can construct a shrine to one of your gods which can store MD. It takes about a day to construct a 1 MD Shrine, which is little more than an idol under a roof. It does not fill automatically: you or another priest must confer the power of your god from his presence to this shrine. Excessive requests for power will probably draw ire.

(This allows you to build a shrine. You can always draw power from a shrine, even before you get this template, as can anyone who worships and presents offerings to its god. Most people don't call on divine power without reason, but you can't always count on your Shrine "keeping its charge")

Pantheon
You can use the MD of one god to power another's spell. MD used in this way have their depletion range increased by 1.

Stigmata

A Priest's spells are less dangerous than a Wizard's spells. After all, they were made by creatures who actually are magic, rather than some insane mortal grasping at power. However, they are designed for creatures of power, rather than for humans, and the spells are imbued with their nature. When MD roll doubles, the priest receives an inhuman mark of that nature (for instance, slit eyes or scaly skin for Virs). When triples are rolled, a more drastic mutation takes place. The priest takes [sum] damage (save for half) and receives a notable change with significant drawbacks and benefits (e.g., a snake tail instead of legs, loss of all teeth with the ability to swallow things whole, eyes that no longer see light but instead see laws). When the priest acquires too many stigmata, they stop being playable and instead become an avatar or aspect of the god or gods they worship.

Mechanical Notes on the Shrine Priest

Build your own wizard school! With the downside that you'll have to head back to home-base pretty often, or else travel around to several different home-bases to get the MD for the spells you actually want. Will probably make for a more domain based game. You could probably allow some "supplicate the local god and they give you temporary spells" for a more hexcrawl based one. I think that allowing divine cantrips would be good for either someone with a lot of different gods (so that they aren't crushed by being unable to use 80% of their spells) or someone with only one god (so that they aren't crushed by having to use their MD quickly and heading back to town).

The Priest's MD are probably interchangeable with Orison Dice, if you have those. So a commoner praying at a shrine could probably use it like that. While gods might get mad at the overuse of their power on shrines, if you do it right you could get more worshipers for your gods, which means more power for the gods, which means more power for YOU. So don't get mad when people take your MD. It's an Investment.

I wrote this mostly thinking of independent gods. If you have a shrine priest that wants a god and that god's minor gods, you're gonna have to figure that out.

They Shall Be My People (Glog: the Practicalities of the Divine)

 

Everyone is a little bit magic, obviously. The gods made the everything with magic, and humans are included in that. Even if that weren't the case, the gods mess around with mortals enough that it gets into our blood. Them or dragons or fairies or whoever else. Everybody has at least half an MD in them somewhere. The issue is, most of the time they don't know what to do with it.

So, when people start getting together into villages and cities, building civilization and whatnot, one finds that there are tons of people running around with extra magic that they can't use, or at least can't use safely. What's more, there's a bunch of dangerous monsters that want to kill everyone. What's a village to do?

They make a god. They pool all their magic together, and they give it somehow to a magical creature that they found or made. Now their magic is in the hands of something that knows how to use it. Even better, they never have to risk doom using it themselves. Even betterer, they might've gotten one of those dangerous monsters that want to kill everyone on their side. Efficient!

It's risky of course. If you make a god, he might turn on you. A magic-rich creature like that might also lure in worse monsters. But there are safeguards. The humans could refuse to tribute their magic. Even a really bloodthirsty monster might not want to eat his power base (See: Demon Cults). Sometimes the ritual for offering magic also includes an effect making the monster more intelligent and humane, at least towards his villagers.

The god would probably use the magic he's given in a way that fits with his own nature. A dryad probably would be more inclined to miracles of fertility than hitting foes with a fireball, for instance. The god could probably give some magic back to the people in a more directed form as priestly spells. He could also probably deputize other minor gods, giving them magic just as he was given magic.

(Replace magic with food and money, monsters with bandits, and priests with lords, and gods with kings and you have a pretty good description of how palace economies are made)

(Of course, you could also use a wizard instead of a monster. Results vary.)

(One can make a fun analogy of monster-god:wizard-god::regular-king:philosopher-king. Insert that Lewis quote about Robber Barons and Omnipotent Moral Busybodies.)

(See my Previous Post for more cult ideas)

Angelarium

Example: Virs, The Serpent of Usan

Usan was a small village in an area plagued by demons. They were reasonable in number, but desperate for protection. Luckily, like many other villages, they knew a rite to infuse food with worship. Eating this food would bind a creature to the village and give them the power to serve as gods. Unluckily, all of the magical creatures around were to smart and hateful to accept. However, there was one hope.

An ancient, magical snake of subsapient intelligence and sluggish disposition laired in a cave to the north of the village. It was known to eat humans occasionally, but it was better than the demons who ate humans often. The villagers of Usan brought a whole cow to the mouth of the cave, and ritually slaughtered it, each partaking a small amount and leaving the rest for their (hopefully) soon-to-be god.

It worked. The serpent ate the cow whole and was suffused with the worship and magic of the village. With this power came intelligence, and something rather like gratefulness. Virs, as he was now called, emerged from his cave for the protection of Usan. His sluggishness remained, but he was enough of a deterrent that even without much activity his status as a guardian was secure.

One unintended fact was that, because Virs was basically just an animal with no distinctive powers before, as a god he was able to be rather generalist, granting blessings in war, rain, and fertility with equal power. Being a lazy and moody god, he passed a great deal of power onto priests to carry out miracles for him.

Virs, the Serpent God has stats as a Basilisk with 6 MD, or 10 MD when not supporting priests. He can shapechange into a human. He knows the spells Control Rain, Mighty Thews, Serpents of the Earth, Scorching Ray, Stoneskin, Extract Venom, Cure Wounds, and Monsterize. His priests each know 1-3 of these spells and have 1-2 MD. 

This has been my advertisement for having villages worship dragons and ghosts

God-kings Rule the World: a Short Response to Cosmic

Cosmic Orrery made a post yesterday about Wizards. 3d6 Polar Bears responded to them. I have a few thoughts on both. Unfortunately, blogger is a glitchy mess and I'm not on the Purple Server, so my comments will have to be extended into Content. Not very long content though.

Cosmic's post elaborates on the theme of Wizards and their Domains, and how well a cyclical model of tiny witch-kings creates to the standard dungeons and dragons milleu. It's perhaps not a totally original idea, but I have never valued originality terribly highly. I prefer things to be well-crafted and thought out, so I welcome a post which makes clear the uses of a setting assumption. My thesis is, I think, similarly obvious, but similarly useful: The Wizards that Cosmic describes don't need to be Wizards.

I mean that they need not be scholarly, old magicians, or even skeletal liches. Rather, one can include quite a variety. Ambitious prophets of gods, dark or light. Sword-Saints with magical blades that can cut down 20 men. Some other third thing. All these are likely to seek out magic and wealth, carve out their domain, and fall like lightning. You could probably call them Wizards if you like. But it seems like the powerful tend to blur into each other. If your sword-saint can summon spirit-lightning, he's not so much different from a sword-using wizard. Kill Six Billion Demons has a lot of examples.

Can you spot the Wizard?

 So maybe it would be better to think of them in more general terms. They are simply the Powerful, the god-kings. Some have a scholarly bent, some make secret deals with awful powers, some use swords, some sneak unseen, all are terribly good at killing. All of them are gonna build weird dungeons, make weird creatures, leave weird artifacts, send you on weird quests, and make satisfying noises when you shank them. History is littered with their bodies.

Martial (and other) Arts: Inner Planets

Locheil on the GLOG discord had a good idea:

So I've decided to write it. Since it's in the GLOG discord, I'll obviously write it as GLOG classes. But I think it would probably work best as half-classes, 2 templates with a delta requirement.

(the deltas preclude magically guaranteed outcomes, so an actual prophetic dream doesn't count for the Lunar Arts, and a magic rock that makes people view it as valuable doesn't count for the Mercuric Arts)

Lunar Arts

Δ: Have a dream of yours literally come true, by chance or by effort (ask your DM for random dreams)

A: Select an art form. Works you make in that medium can either provoke an emotion of your choice, or make those who view them for more than d6 rounds save or fall asleep and have dreams of your choice. Artworks must be prepared as a downtime action (whether painting a picture, writing a song, etc.)

B: Gain an MD and an Illusionist spell. You regain this MD by meditating on the moon, and cannot regain it on nights of a new moon.

The Lunar Arts are practiced in urban monasteries by artist monks who sleep based on the moon, rather than the sun, and who record their dreams.

Mercurial Arts

Δ: Trade or sell something for 10 times its worth

A: Once per day, you can convey an impression telepathically to someone you've met before, regardless of distance. If it wouldn't work, its not expended. You can also run a marathon at your normal running speed. You'll be exhausted at the end, and if you are carrying significant weight you can only run half as far.

B: You can squeeze through any space that can fit your skull, and learn an (expensive, illegal, toxic) recipe for a potion which will cause 1 lie you say to be fully believed by anyone who hears it.

The Mercurial Arts are practiced by itinerant monks, who have no qualms about profiting off their expertise, and are generally mistrusted.

Venerian Arts

Δ: Have 3 people in love with you at once, or perform a really significant sacrifice for the person you love most (DM will tell you if this has happened, don't do something little and then pester the DM)

A: You learn a rite by which you can bless a field, orchard, or vineyard to provide triple its normal produce. Its kinda gross though. Requires one other person.

B: Your knowledge of anatomy qualifies you to be a surgeon. Increase your damage with unarmed attacks and knives by 2 steps (1 → d4, d4 → d8). You can bless an additional field etc.

The Venerian Arts are learned by temple prostitutes and certain farmers. They ritually drink vinegar, and meditate with incense and the music of stringed instruments. Obviously they are highly sought after.

Solar Arts

Δ: Ingest a pound of gold over a period of seven days, and meditate for the whole seventh day

A: For feats of strength (but not attacks) you count as Strength 20. Reduce this effective strength by any amount to produce a blast of blue chi dealing twice that much damage, which cannot miss. You have to wait a round before using this again. Reducing it by more than 10 takes a round to charge. Recovering this strength takes a day of meditation (sunup to sundown).

B: Reduce your effective strength by any amount to fly for 10 minutes per point at your regular running speed.

The Solar Arts are practiced in isolated monasteries, which are attended and patronized by noble second sons. While the monasteries are actually pretty spiritual, the threat of 20+ flying laser warriors who can punch through an oak portcullis means that temporal powers don't tend to cross them.

Martial Arts

Δ: Fight 10 men to the death.

A: You cannot fumble with any weapon.

B: Any group you lead counts as half the size for logistical purposes, and twice the size for positioning purposes (i.e. flanking and sieges etc.)

You don't need me to tell you who practices martial arts.