Monotheological game world in 3.5

[billd91]

In a campaing I play in, the DM has established 6 gods. PC clerics pick one domain from the gods' lists and the pick one at will as a "personal ethos" domain. It's not that much of a problem having the PCs pick from a broader list of domains since they are, ideally, all balanced.
You could give the PCs a very narrow choice for one domain to capture the main essence of the god, and then let them choose any domain at all to reflect their perceived role in the church, their relationship to the church, their relationship to sects or saints, and so on.
It hasn't proven to be a problem in the game my friend runs. Seems to work out quite nicely.

 

[Kesh]

One option is to simply "package" the domains. If you want the War domain, you also get Luck and Air. It can be explained that certain domains are tied together, based on the relgion's dogma. ("Fate determines those who live and die in battle, those who remain standing and those who draw their last breath.")

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One thing you could do is demand your players make a 1-2 page character history, and use the words THEY write to assign the PCs their domains.

That way, they can't cherrypick their domains to uber their characters. The domains will reflect the PC concepts, not gaming the system.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Dragonstar lets clerics of the creator simply choose any two domains (other than chaos evil and a few others) and it hasn't broken anything yet.

Others have mentioned using "training" to separate domains and this is a good idea but it's important to remember that this need not imply a schism, separation or different theology from any other priests. It simply needs to refer to a different purpose. For instance, to take an example from history, mendicant Franciscan monks did not necessarily have a different theology or any different global beliefs than the knights Templar though one might say that, in a magical earth the Franciscans would get Animal, Plant, and Mysticism domains while the Templars might get War, Protection, and Nobility. The Franciscans were dedicated to different purposes than the Templars even though its likely that both would have said that they were serving the purposes of the same God and that it's at least possible that both the Franciscan and the Templar were serving those purposes equally well. To use a more indirect analogy, members of the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA all serve the purposes of the United States government and, to the degree that they do their jobs well, they serve those purposes more or less equally well. Yet if they trained clerics, it's likely that they'd all have different domain selections.

 

[Lokishadow]

Well....

Areas of specialty, or "schools" of study within the heirarchy. Basically, you have your war-priests (War and Protection or Healing), your scholars (Knowledge and Magic or luck), your judges (Law and Destruction [for meeting out punishment]), your guardians of the afterlife (Healing and Death, in order to keep those that should not die in the world of the living), etc.

Or you could just tell your players to come up with their areas of study and assign them a domain. Let them pick the other one.

 

[Gez]

Catholic monasteries were dedicated to a Saint, and you had a patron saint for everything under the sun... So you can adopt a similar system. A cleric that chose the War and Strength domains would be from the Brutusian Order, founded by St. Brutus; while a cleric that chose the Travel and Knowledge domain would be from the Wizonian Order, founded by St. Wizon.

 

[darkRitual]

One deity for each religion, like in real life. But, the problem there is you'd have to make it difficult, if not impossible, to actually detect/contact the gods. It kinda breaks the system to have a rabbi/bishop/guru/priest/shaman etc. just ask his deity for assurance that he's right.

Of course, people claim all the time in real life that X deity talks to them. We certainly don't have only one religion, rt?

 

[teitan]

I have been toying with an idea where the single god grants the regular spells but different angels or demons act as messengers granting the domain abilities and spells teaching the cleric a different aspect of the greater god and how the cleric is placed within the divine order...

Jason

 

[blargney the second]

I'm doing something similar myself! The kingdom the PCs come from has a standard D&D pantheon. The empire immediately to the south is monotheist, and there are various saints that are venerated.

Why limit yourself to just one, when inter-religious conflict has so much opportunity for conflicts?

-blarg

 

[Emperor Valerian]

Or simply have different versions of the same religion. Taking history, in the middle ages into the renaissance, you had Roman Catholics, Protestants, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Cathars, Templars, and all sorts of others. Same god, same religion, but different views on the worship of that god and his works.

And have each sect or viewpoint of the religion have different domains.

Example: There could be several various Knightly Orders to represent everything from the war domain to destruction and law. The most common sect could represent things hte average peasant would be concerned with... fertility and healing. Etc. etc.