Book of the Righteous pantheon in play

Hi,

I've been thinking I could use the gods featured in Green Ronin's excellent Book of the Righteous for the new city of Parsantium I'm developing, rather than using the D&D pantheon (3e or 4e version).

Do any of you have any experience of this book in play?

Cheers


Richard

No experience, but I absolutely love it, and plan to change the default 4e pantheon and model it after the BotR pantheon.

Cheers

We've been using Book of the Righteous in my Freeport campaign since April of 2005. It has been a valuable addition to the game. I find some members of the pantheon more interesting than others, but I am always impressed by the thought and level of detail that went into the whole book. I'd recommend it.

Is there anything in particular you want to know?


Morrow

I am using it in my homebrew and loving it.

Morrow said:

Is there anything in particular you want to know?
Morrow

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Yes. Which gods have you used the most in your campaign? Also, did you use the Great Church, and if so, how did this fit in? The city I'm working on is partly based on Byzantium so having one big cathedral dedicated to all the gods is quite appealing.

Cheers


Richard

The gods who have gotten the most attention in our campaign have been Tinel, Shalimyr, Maal, and Mormekar. Since ours is a Freeport campaign I added Harrimast, from Black Sails over Freeport, to the pantheon. He features quite prominently.

One of my players wanted to play a neutral cleric who thinks that the undead are just another stage of life, just as deserving of guidance and protection as the living. That concept doesn't fit with any of the BotR gods so I added Aster, the rebellious son of Maal and Naryne, to the pantheon. Aster's church is at odds with the rest of the pantheon and had particularly poor relations with the churches of Maal and Mormekar.

I haven't really used the Great Church much in this campaign. It exists, it just doesn't have much of a presence in Freeport, where most of the action of the campaign takes place.

Morrow

Morrow said:

The gods who have gotten the most attention in our campaign have been Tinel, Shalimyr, Maal, and Mormekar. Since ours is a Freeport campaign I added Harrimast, from Black Sails over Freeport, to the pantheon. He features quite prominently.

I haven't really used the Great Church much in this campaign. It exists, it just doesn't have much of a presence in Freeport, where most of the action of the campaign takes place.

Morrow

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Thanks. I also run a campaign in Freeport so I'm not surprised that you've ended up using Tinel and Shalimyr a lot, or that the Great Church doesn't feature too much.

Cheers


Richard

I'm using it quite extensively in my current d20 campaign (homebrew world)

The most prominent gods are Korak, (1 PC is a holy warrior of...), Thellyne (1 PC is a cleric of), Terak (1 ex-PC was a holy warrior of), and Naryne. The main bad guys are the Three Brothers, who seek their just do as members of the Divine.

In addition I took the ideas of the Tree of Life and the 5 fruits, and developed the idea of the Realms of Magic. I added another generation of fruit, between the one which spawned the gods and the one which spawned the mortals. The Fifth fruit of the first generation broke open and spawned Demons. While the Five fruit of the second generation spawned: Celestials (Angels), Infernals (Devils), Dragons, Few, and the Djinn (elemental beings). And from the seeds of eliwyn grew the creatures of the Green. The First war of the gods was fought between the Demons and devils on one side, and Djinn, Dragons, Fey, Green, and Celestials on the other.

There is no Arcane/Divine magic. Instead each realm of magic has it's own type of magic. And any individual can gain magic in 1 of two ways, through heritage or through a patron.

Elemental magic is about the primal powers of the universe. Elemental Patrons grant magic like the Sha'ir (Al-Qadim setting) who get familars called Gen who travel to the elemental plane and "retreives" the magic. Elemental heritage have an elemental creature of one sort or another and are basically sorcerers with an elemental focus (Fire is the El Fuego Adentro from Swashbuckling Arcana)

Fey magic is about illusion, charm, and stories/legends. Fey patrons grant their magicians the power of stories and song (Through the Glamour Mage from Swashbuckling Arcana) while those with few blood in their history are Bards.)

Draconic magic is very like arcane magic in standard d20. Dragons are most interested in knowledges and Names. They teach their casters how to use True Name magic (Tome of Magic) while blooded mages either learn how to access the collective memory of Dragons (Akashic from Arcana Unearthed) or become Sorcerers (as d20 but with no familiars or ability to enchant magic items)

Infernal magics are evil and nasty. Devils bestow spells upon their followers as Evil clerics, while Infernal blooded learn to manipulate the shadow in their souls (Shadow Mage)

Celestial magics are the magics of goodness and angels. Angels bestow healing powers upon their followers (Healer from Minatures Handbook), while Celestial blooded creatures are effectively Favored Souls from the Complete Divine

Green magic is the magic of nature. Druids have Eliwyn as a patron, while green-blooded creatures become Pyeryem Magic (From Swashbuckling Arcana)

Divine Magic is the magic of gods. Clerics have a god or the pantheon as a Patron, while divine blooded creatures are rare and (iassume) of Demi-god status.

Demonic magic is the magic of death, undeath and other things that subvert the natural order.

i have recently started throwing pieces of meteors in the form af a purple creature that has the effect of turning things into Abominations.

all in all the depth of Book of the Righteous really gave me great places to go while i was creating my world, my cosmology and the grand story i have to tell. I can't say enough good things about it.

anithri said:

I'm using it quite extensively in my current d20 campaign (homebrew world)

all in all the depth of Book of the Righteous really gave me great places to go while i was creating my world, my cosmology and the grand story i have to tell. I can't say enough good things about it.

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Anyone else?


Richard

I used Book of the Righteous for years. It was the default pantheon in my Shackled City and Age of Worms campaigns, and my group continued to use it after I moved out West when they ran Savage Tides.

Maal, Mormekar, Shalimyr, Terak, Urian, and Darmon saw the most use in our campaigns. We had a paladin of Maal and a cleric of Terak, then a Favored Soul of Mormekar and a Favored Soul of Shalimyr. Darmon was also the deity worshiped by our warlock/daggerspell mage, and I changed the Striders of Fharlanghn to the Striders of Darmon. Maal replaced St. Cuthbert as the primary good church in Cauldron, and Terak was the stand-in for Heironeous (the conflict between a good god of justice and a good god of battle was often quite interesting, as it led to a lot of struggles between one character seeking victory and another seeking justice). Our kenku druid revered Urian, as well, and a we had a wizard who hated Tinel (god of magic) for being selfish with his magical power. Mormekar replaced Wee Jas as the church in Cauldron, though I downplayed the magical side of Wee Jas and played up the whole "neutrality of death" aspect of Mormekar. Asmodus was mentioned some, and Naran played a major role in the campaign (taking on the role of the primary "Evil God" used in the campaigns), and most of the evil clerics secretly worshiped him. If you're familiar with the Age of Worms campaign, I used Naran instead of Hextor as the deity worshiped by Prince Zeech (Zeech was a blackguard of Naran, in fact).

I did not use the Great Church, however. While I wasn't opposed to it, I thought it was just as easy to use the rest of the pantheon, as there were many clear analogues to the Greyhawk deities and it fit in better with the polytheistic assumptions.