Corellon Carnivorous

[robin_d_laws]

Comments

[nottheterritory]

Fortunately the pipe for this has already been laid, in at least two directions.

I happen to have a war game that covers galley warfare - I even know what a diekplus is... although I might get it mixed up with a periplus if I'm not paying attention. Ironically though, the publishers reckoned Salamis itself was too big for the default package - it got it's own module which I never ended up buying.

[lhn]

Still, the term got me to thinking about ways to introduce moral ambiguity to the D&D gods. Our campaign, with its setting defined cooperatively and on the fly, uses historical deities like Amun-Ra, at least one original fantasy god, as well as the off-the-shelf TSR/WotC mythos. There are good reasons for the published versions to be morally clear-cut, but I like to increase the range of dramatic choices by muddying the waters. I’ll have to look out for opportunities to give the D&D gods darker aspects: say hello to Avandra Chaos-Bringer, Erathis Jailer, and Bahamut the Hungry.

If there are evil gods in the campaign, will those be given lighter aspects to add similar ambiguity?

[robin_d_laws]

Cosmic balance depends on it.

[armadillo_king]

I'm a proponent of this, particularly for Grumush the Protector.

[ext_37604]

Actually, I've been pondering an alternative writeup for orcs where Gruumsh was once god of Freedom, half-blinded by Corellon as part of a maneuvre to free the elves from the whip of the Tieflings. Up until then, orcs were just another race of humanoids, but the ambush drove Gruumsh mad, and took his prized, beautiful orcs with him.

Well, that's the short version, anyway.

[hongxiquan]

I think the belief in a rational god that filters into the D&D religious mindset that might be inescapable for some players. Especially with 4th edition, powers are supposed to work (barring the d20 roll). Though with that change you could basically eliminate evil gods, especially if you combine the racial gods.

[ex_khyungbi]

This is an awesome idea. I like how Green Ronin's 3e "Egyptian Adventures" handled it by stating that clerics could be of any alignment and it just meant they had a different interpretation of the god's will. Remote, inscrutable gods are definitely a must-have for any historical campaign, at the very least.

[kent_allard_jr]

Huh, I never heard of the Classical Greeks practicing human sacrifice (the whole myth of Tantalus doesn't make sense if they did), although there's evidence of it in Mycenaean times.