Torm vs. Tyr

[Mistwell]

I intensely dislike how it seems like a lot of 4E decisions are simply being based on nothing more than, "Huh? Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's implement it!"

Barely any thought put into it beyond an interesting concept. :\

Was it ever otherwise?

 

[The Little Raven]

Was it ever otherwise?

Well, with some of the things that came out during 2nd Edition, I'm sure that some people had the philosophy "This is a horrible idea! FIRE UP THE PRINTING PRESS!"

 

[Stogoe]

Well, with some of the things that came out during 2nd Edition, I'm sure that some people had the philosophy "This is a horrible idea! FIRE UP THE PRINTING PRESS!"

I love it!

 

[ascendance]

Now that Tyr is going out, is the Mulhorandi pantheon (and whatever the faux-Assyrian one was called) going to join him too?

 

[Torm]

Another thing to keep in mind is that Torm serves Tyr

An excellent point, and one that is giving Me pause about this whole matter of promoting Me to Greater Deity status - can someone tell Me how, exactly, they are supposed to justify that I will no longer be in the service of Tyr, and how I'm supposed to be God of Paladins when the abandonment of My own Duty as a Paladin of Tyr would leave Me in need of atonement for Myself?!

 

[The Little Raven]

An excellent point, and one that is giving Me pause about this whole matter of promoting Me to Greater Deity status - can someone tell Me how, exactly, they are supposed to justify that I will no longer be in the service of Tyr, and how I'm supposed to be God of Paladins when the abandonment of My own Duty as a Paladin of Tyr would leave Me in need of atonement for Myself?!

Because by slaying Helm, your lord forsook Justice for Vengeance, and he is no longer fit to be your lord.

 

[Green Knight]

There're a couple of scenarios under which Torm can take Tyr's place and still stay true to his ethos. Take the inevitable loss of worshippers that Tyr is bound to see as a result of this. Remember, Helm lost a ton of worshippers for far less (Maztica, which he didn't even order, and the Time of Troubles, where he was just following his ethos), whereas Tyr's actions were horrid and petty. So he's bound to suffer losses that would make the losses the Helmite Church suffered pale in comparison. That kind of loss could be enough to dip him into Intermediate God status (After all, who can trust Tyr's judgment anymore? Especially after misjudging his own friend so horribly that he killed him).

Then there's the enmity that'll be directed at his church from numerous sources, including natural allies. Ilmater and Siamorphe, formerly his servants, abandoned the House of the Triad. And their worshippers probably look at Tyr with antipathy now. Tymora's worshippers are doubtlessly less then thrilled with him, either. And of course, Ex-Helm worshippers must despise Tyr. And then there're those who worship the Triad as a whole. With the loss of Ilmater, there's no more Triad. And it isn't Ilmater who's going to be catching the blame from the likes of the Triadic Knights.

So not only has Tyr weakened his own position, but he's also burned half-a-dozen bridges, mostly with people who were and should be his allies. So one can see several results spinning off from that.

1) Tyr realizes that he's thrown the Balance all out of whack, and that the dislike that people have for him personally will keep it damaged. So being the staunch supporter of maintaining the Balance that he is, he gives up his position, passing it to Torm, and moves on to other worlds.

2) Ao punishes Tyr for doing a poor job. After all, Tyr's the one and only LG Greater God. It wouldn't do anything for the Balance if he were to drop down to Intermediate God status, or for him to be fracturing the Lawful side of the Balance when he can be replaced by someone who isn't so divisive.

There's also having Tyr simply leaving Faerun in shame and guilt over what he did to his friend Helm. Just a couple thoughts as to how Tyr can make an exit from Faerun.

 

[Faraer]

The stuff with the gods is especially distressing because it veers away from one of the design elements I always liked in Ed's writing: Namely, the tendency to play fast and loose with deities, cults, and the like S&S-fashion. The FR adventures and supplements reference a number of weird cults that lack the highly protagonist-style deities of, say, Troy Denning's books.

In the new Grand History events and novels like the Lady Penitent series, Wizards is presenting Realms gods as they were in the Avatar novels: definite, knowable characters with humanlike motivations who exist and act in linear time -- quite unlike how the rest of Realmslore shows them.

And the new pantheon seems to be putting schematic, minimalist top-down worldbuilding in place of the emergent, as-if-real, something-new-round-each-corner plenitude the Realms was built on. In the new divine classification, only (a reduced number of) greater and lesser gods are worshipped, thus -- as you say -- losing the fast-and-loose cults, and a great amount of richness, unless the remaining priesthoods are covered in new and compensating depth, which would defeat another of the new design goals.

These design principles are fine, but they aren't the Realms'.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

In the new Grand History events and novels like the Lady Penitent series, Wizards is presenting Realms gods as they were in the Avatar novels: definite, knowable characters with humanlike motivations who exist and act in linear time -- quite unlike how the rest of Realmslore shows them.

In general that I like, they're making them gods rather than Gods. Powerful entities not something stuck between the transcendant and the knowable. More like I've always had deities, only thing that could bring it more in line is to have them frequent the material plane in person where they have concentrations of worshipers.

And the new pantheon seems to be putting schematic, minimalist top-down worldbuilding in place of the emergent, as-if-real, something-new-round-each-corner plenitude the Realms was built on. In the new divine classification, only (a reduced number of) greater and lesser gods are worshipped, thus -- as you say -- losing the fast-and-loose cults, and a great amount of richness, unless the remaining priesthoods are covered in new and compensating depth, which would defeat another of the new design goals.

May never have used the Realms much but I always liked the plentitude of deities and imitated it wherever my campaigns were set. Moreover the FR pantheons were chock full of gods to give a makeover, new name, and throw into your own settings. I know I've done that fairly often.

 

[The Little Raven]

These design principles are fine, but they aren't the Realms'.

I'd argue that these principles are far superior, since they aren't "steal everything that's not nailed down," which is how the Realms have always appeared to me, previously.