Alternate Cosmology

[Yaarel]

The purgatory-reincarnation setting is interesting. I think it works better as a monotheistic setting. Since even the negative spirits have a relatively useful ‘job’ to do, thus are part of a more unified benevolent worldview. This monotheistic divinity is moreso an abstract force, like ‘light’ or spiritual gravity pulling humans and spirits upward toward good.

Describing various creatures as souls and spirits ascending or descending while reincarnating is fun.

 

[Yaarel]

Only thing here that doesn't make sense is why do you need any sort of polytheism at all? Seems more cohesive if there's just one god. All of the cleric/divine variety is provided by celestials.

As I read the thread, I am not the only one who saw this setting as more inherently monotheistic.

I concidered making it monothiestic, but I wanted competition between groups of angels and religions. The idea is each God is its own complex religion, with different ideas of what Sin is and the best ways for the living to expel it is.

The fact that the ‘divine’ is infinite and abstract, means, all finite creatures are unable to fully grasp the divine.

So, there would normally be different opinions about how to best implement the divine will. Thus different angels and so on with different schools of thought.

The most important dialectic would be between those who believe in Compassion helping others whether the others deserve it or not, versus those who believe in Justice helping only those that would do good things with this help. Then there are those in the middle, who believe in Mercy, who advocate a balance that discerns which approach is more helpful for a specific situation.

There would also be a perennial debate between those who prioritize the spiritual ideal and retreating from the material world, versus those who prioritize the material pragmatism with the duty to make the world a better place.

And so on.

These differences work because the monotheism is transcendent and multiple points of view are inherently necessary.

 

[Yaarel]

Compassion somewhat correlates with Chaotic Good. Justice with Lawful Good. And Mercy with Neutral Good.

‘Evil’ is essentially predation, that harms others to help oneself only.

 

[gyor]

Compassion somewhat correlates with Chaotic Good. Justice with Lawful Good. And Mercy with Neutral Good.

‘Evil’ is essentially predation, that harms others to help oneself only.

 Some of the greatest evils have been done in the name of a greater good, heck even in some cases with self sacrifices. Even evil can be selfless at time.

 Anywho I've giving it some thought and perhaps a kind of Henotheistic kind of Monotheism could work.

 Here is my idea, "God" is basically the Platonic ideal of good encompassing an infinate amount of good, in an infinate amount of ways, with an infinate amount of beauty, glory, and virtue, including virtues that would be seen by mere mortals and immortal beings as paradoxical.

 But as an infinate being that is already everything good and every possible good, its static and unchanging directly.

 But it gives off eminations, the gods, which are facets of God and independant from each other, like faces on diamond.

 Each god represents a different ideal of good, an infinate glorious understanding of that ideal of good, but only that good, for only God contains every type of good.

 Just as God has eminations, the gods have eminations, because the gods physically manifest as infinate celestial planes, so they work through the Domains, Domains are Angels who basically form when a god tries to understand and interact with mundane aspects of reality. The Domains functions as minds that are embodied by forces. This can make it harder fir them to interact on a conscious level with mortals and immortals, so the Domains have their own eminations, Solars.

 Solars are physically embodied by celestial flesh, which makes interacting with lesser beings easier, but they lack the relative omnipresence of God, gods, or even Domains, so they they too create emminations, Planatars, who in turn have Deva emminations.

 The other Celestials races are the gods attempts at creation via a method other them emminations of themselves, with Empyreans being their more successful, if still failed attempts at creating new gods (with Atropals being the more horrifically and sadier failures).

 Primordials are failed attempts at creating new material planed by the Angels and other Celestials, these failures end up unbalanced turning into different unique manifestations of what are functionally elemental planes. There are many Primordials of Fire for example, but while they are all elemental planes of fire, they all are unique takes on it.

 The Far Realms are alien realities that germinate in the Astral Darkness outside of the influence of God.

 They and their creations the Yugoloths and their mortal incarnations abberations are the only beings completely ourside of God, who is emminate in everything else, including even mad and horrifying Demons who are still apart of God's creation.

 The Far Realms are mad planes and Lovecraftian horrors, but not all are Evil, more Evil by lack of understanding reality. In fact in the rare case a Far Realm manages a even tiny grasp of reality it tend to lend to rare goodly and neutral Aberration species like Flumps appearing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

What you are describing reminds me of what little I remember about Hinduism, I never read deeply into it and it was a long time ago. But it an area that you might usefully research.

 

[gyor]

What you are describing reminds me of what little I remember about Hinduism, I never read deeply into it and it was a long time ago. But it an area that you might usefully research.

In some ways yes, but are Lovecraftian influences and Gnosistic influences as well, please a desires to make fiends and fiends and religions in D&D less one dimesional.

So there are two major competing Metareligions, the religion if the Clerics and gods and Celestials and Devils on one hand, and the Hierodules who worship the Succubi Monarchs (who have evolved beyond good and evil unlike regular Succubi), with Great Old One Warlocks functioning as a cluster of strange religions that worship beings like Far Realms, Primordials, and more direct connections to Gods and Succubi Monarchs then rational people concider safe.

In fact perhaps one of the central conflicits is between the Celestials & Devils on one hand and Succubi on the other.

I think I'd alter Night Hags into Night Courtesans, and have then beautiful instead of ugly, but otherwise using the same stats as Night Hags, but as a type of Succubi.

Heirodules wouldn't be simply evil, just Hedonistic and big on sensations.

 

[dave2008]

Those really aren't what I'm going for.

In general an interesting idea. Not my cup of tea, but interesting and well thought out. It reminds me a bit of the cosmology set up by Anne Rice in "Memnoch the Devil"

 

[Elderbrain]

Only thing here that doesn't make sense is why do you need any sort of polytheism at all? Seems more cohesive if there's just one god. All of the cleric/divine variety is provided by celestials.

Except that, per the rules, any being that grants Divine spells is itself a god, no matter what you call it. If a Celestial such as an Angel is able to grant spells to Clerics, it's a god and thus you no longer have a monotheistic setting. For a monotheistic setting only one being - the One True God - should be able to grant Divine spells (other beings could grant spells to Warlocks, since you don't have to be a divinity to grant those.) You could still have variety by allowing the One True God to grant more than the usual one to three domains - maybe It grants them all! (Depending on your conception of this God, you could disallow certain domains as being contrary to its nature, i.e the Death domain.) But you could tweak the rule if you wanted to allow the True God to channel His/Her/Its divine energies thru its Angelic servitors (I believe that AD&D 1st edition stated that low-level Cleric spells were granted by divine servants, so there is precedent here.) Whatever works for you...

 

[TwoSix]

Except that, per the rules, any being that grants Divine spells is itself a god, no matter what you call it. If a Celestial such as an Angel is able to grant spells to Clerics, it's a god and thus you no longer have a monotheistic setting. For a monotheistic setting only one being - the One True God - should be able to grant Divine spells (other beings could grant spells to Warlocks, since you don't have to be a divinity to grant those.) You could still have variety by allowing the One True God to grant more than the usual one to three domains - maybe It grants them all! (Depending on your conception of this God, you could disallow certain domains as being contrary to its nature, i.e the Death domain.) But you could tweak the rule if you wanted to allow the True God to channel His/Her/Its divine energies thru its Angelic servitors (I believe that AD&D 1st edition stated that low-level Cleric spells were granted by divine servants, so there is precedent here.) Whatever works for you...

Yea, for me, that's perfectly ignorable fluff. Gods, angels, devils, whatever other supernatural entities exist are there to provide background flavor.

 

[gyor]

Except that, per the rules, any being that grants Divine spells is itself a god, no matter what you call it. If a Celestial such as an Angel is able to grant spells to Clerics, it's a god and thus you no longer have a monotheistic setting. For a monotheistic setting only one being - the One True God - should be able to grant Divine spells (other beings could grant spells to Warlocks, since you don't have to be a divinity to grant those.) You could still have variety by allowing the One True God to grant more than the usual one to three domains - maybe It grants them all! (Depending on your conception of this God, you could disallow certain domains as being contrary to its nature, i.e the Death domain.) But you could tweak the rule if you wanted to allow the True God to channel His/Her/Its divine energies thru its Angelic servitors (I believe that AD&D 1st edition stated that low-level Cleric spells were granted by divine servants, so there is precedent here.) Whatever works for you...

The is only true of a cleric spells, a Paladin gets his divine spells from his oath, a Divine Soul as well as Angels their spells own spark of the divine, Druids can get their spells from Gods, nature spirits, our just nature itself. Rangers its a bit more vague, but its suggested in XGTE that Horizon. Walkers gwt their magic from the planes and Gloom Stalkers from the Darkness1,1 I think normal rangers just pull it from the Gods or Nature. In previous edition even none nature Gods could power a Rangers spells, but only Nature Gods could power Druid spells. In 4e it was Primal Spirits that powered the spells of Druids, Rangers, Shamans, Seekers, and Wardens. Actually they didn't call those spells then and it was called Primal Magic then

Primal and Divine Magic merged in 5e again after being split in 4e.

So there are sources of Divine Magic that aren't Gods even in 5e.

Of course one could argue that its the Gods that embue the Paladin Oaths with the magic that allows Paladins to cast spells and their is the question of who or what empowers Paladin Magic before a Paladin takes their oath at 3rd level.