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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arjomanes" data-source="post: 7367142" data-attributes="member: 94951">How I run Chaotic clerics in my campaign (my campaign is a little different from boilerplate D&D):Actually let's approach it from the other end. . .So Lawful religions exist because the Law requires it. This is why all lawful religions are monotheistic in my campaign. The Law of the Lord is thus.  And they're very top-down and very jealous. The king converts and baptizes the nation, overthrows the idols, burns the temples, and executes the priests who don't switch sides. So that's easy. It's easy to be lawful in a lawful nation. It's hard to be anything else. Now chaos, why would you worship chaotic gods? Maybe it's tradition at this point, but those traditions came from somewhere. Why do you sacrifice puppies to Hecate at crossroads? To protect your travels (remember, drowning a puppy is how you give her a puppy. So find the cutest, most adorable one!) Same reason you have a shrine to her in your doorway, to protect you from evil spirits entering the home. You live in a cluster of buildings surrounded by woods in a world of monsters, demons, and evil curses. Or you live in a fantasy realm. Either way, you worship out of fear or out of a desire for power. Gods are just powerful monsters. Look at any polytheistic myth and you'll read about gods who took anything they wanted, who ravaged people, cursed them out of jealousy or to show them their place, who assisted whichever army sacrificed a bull for them or whatever. They were monstrous beings with immense power who could be warded against or placated, and who could give great gifts—even immortality—to those who won their favor. And those traditions, you don't do them just because they're written down in a book. You don't do them because they're prescribed. You do them because they work. It's problem-solving. Chaotic priests will follow rites and rituals and traditions because if they do, they please the deity. Hecate wants you to give her a puppy. Poseidon likes horses. You think Alexander the Great would have defeated the Persians in the Battle of Issus if he hadn't thrown his imperial chariot into the sea for Poseidon? No way.In the end, worship is a contract: you worship chaos for personal power and to win favor. You worship law for personal power and to win favor. You can either be part of a big hierarchical organization in a massive nation-state, or you can go it alone or with a couple friends with some horrible monster in the woods. The Almighty God of Law may be more powerful and more predictable than the Goat in the Wood, but it's not easy to become a Saint. Becoming the high priest of the Goat in the Wood may be a lot easier.</blockquote>

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