Philosophy Priests

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I have been searching for some different source for the powers of the cleric. Since I'm not a huge fan of gods, I thought of the good,
old philosophy priest from 2nd edition. This would suit my campaign-world (The Darkening) perfectly, as there are no gods
there at all.

However, I could use some help as to how the philosophy priest would work. How would the philosophy priest handle domains? What can he actually "worship"? Of course I could always come
up with the plain old ideas like "good", or "evil". But I need something with a little more depth and feel to it.

It is important, because the philosophy priests are going to play
a central role in Darkening. Arcane magic in Darkening is a variant
of the defiler in Darksun, only in Darkening the spellcaster draws
on sunlight to cast spells. Thus the campaign name. Instead of
a barren wasteland (Darksun) my campaign-world is plagued by
a constant state of dusk. Anyway, a little too much rambling, sorry.

Any ideas on philosophy priests?

 

[dvvega]

In my campaign world, there are gods, however there are thousands of gods. In fact there is a limitless supply of gods, with only one requirement. To be a god there must be worshippers.

Okay so that bit of information isn't 100% relevant to your question ... it's a lead up to why this is the case in my world.

The gods are philosophies, however the worshippers do not realise this. In fact throughout the ages, they have come up with gods to explain everything.

For example there is a bad crop this year - blame it on the god of famine, the sword produced by the weaponsmith is incredibly well made - bless the god of weaponmaking.

With this method, I have allowed the standard PHB cleric, they can choose 2 domains (of course DM approval required) and they live out their lives worshipping a "god". There is no good or evil as you'd expect. Yes certain people do evil things and cast evil spells, however the "god" they worship isn't inherently evil, it's just a behavioural pattern.

You can take this idea in your world, and allow priests to worship the idea of something. So for example if the armourer needs to make good stock, he prays to the "art of armoursmithing", if the bard needs to produce a masterpiece, he petitions the "power of song" and so forth.

Of course, this method means that everyone in the world has at least a passing knowledge of gods, and pays lipservice to them. Much like our modern society where a lot of people pray before dinner, however they do it because they were brought up that way, not because they actually believe.

 

[graydoom]

Perhaps they could "worship" something like truth or logic?
If you really want priests like this, it would be best for you to come with a couple domains just for these priests. Keep in mind that clerics don't have to worship a god, they can just choose two domains and follow their morals. This is what I think philosophy priests would do... they would choose the domains of Truth and Logica (or something like that) and be committed to those two abstract concepts.
You'd need to think up a couple more things for them to worship, of course.

 

[med stud]

I have such a system IMC, even though noone in the world actually knows it. They believe in the gods, but dont understand that the source of their powers is the belief in itself. So when people are worshipping the war god, it is their warlike mind that spawns powers in them. This leads to positive feedback, where the priest believes even more in the god, and so on. The reason why I did this is to allow for some dynamics within the churches; if a god could keep check on all her/his priests, he/she could just ban the opportunists.

Another model is that the world is built on a number of Truths, that are the same as the domains in the PHB. A priest is atheistic, but gains power from meditating and employing the Truths. To go back to the War priest in the example above, this priest could pursue the Way of the warrior in a certain way that eventually exposes the Truth of War to her. Her other domain could further define the priest; if it is Law, for example, she would walk the Way of the warrior in a very orderly fashion.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

My view of divine spells is similar to some fo the ideas already presented.

I see divine magic as being akin to arcane magic. The cleric (or other) uses faith and will power to achieve an effect in the same way that a wizard uses knowledge or a sorcerer uses force of personality.

I see the essence of the gods as being everywhere, so a cleric who is well contected to a god can manipulate that essence. Much like the FR concept of the Weave for arcane magic.

That way you aren't forced to assume that the gods spend their time personally seeing to every cure light wounds that is granted daily. Also, it makes the idea that certain clerics could develop new spells as wizards do make more sense. If the gods were directly responsible for the spells, then how could a cleric "invent" a new one?

Anyway, I think this model could easily be adapted so that the essence that the cleric uses is a manifestation of some philosophically truth that permeates the world instead of a particular god.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That way you aren't forced to assume that the gods spend their time personally seeing to every cure light wounds that is granted daily.

I tihnk it was the First Edition system where cleric spells 1st-3rd level came from the internal power of the cleric, through faith and meditation.

4th and 5th level spells were attended to by agents of the deity - extra-planar servants granted the cleric's petitions for these spells.

6th and 7th level spells were basically a Big Red Telephone to God, and if you were out of favour, He could simply deny them to you.

It also meant that a cleric on a plane where his deity had no influence was restricted to 1st-3rd level spell, 'cos the other ones required assistance he didn't have.

Demigods could only grant 5th level spells and Lesser gods 6th level spells, from memory.

Obviously a system like this would have to be modified for the 9 level system Divine spells use now, but I always like the flavour of it...

-Hyp.

 

[Axiomatic Unicorn]

I had completely forgotten about that, but now that you mention it, it rings a bell.

That is certainly a fine system, just not the one I choose to model divine magic in my game.

One of the cool things about the game: much of it can be defined however you wish, without really warping the balance.