D&D General Clerics and Divine Ascension

[Arch-Fiend]

so this is going to be a short one, im mostly just sharing an idea that crossed my mind and people are probably going to mostly be like "thats cool" or "thats not for me", and "heres what the books say", or "heres what i do", or "why would you even play a game at this level"

i dont know what the official statement is in ANY edition of D&D on divine ascension of clerics, but essentially what a cleric is, is a servant of a god among the planes (mostly material plane) so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have them become different gods (maybe servitor gods) considering they are a cleric. sure you can just wing the narrative and the mechanics still work, but if you play a cleric you arnt there just for the rules, the role matters somewhat (probably). so what to do?

well to me its kinda obvious and i thinking about other divine casters in editions such as 3e such as favored soul, which is a class where you are basically a lesser avatar of a god. if your running a campaign and you for some reason want to continue playing the game when your players characters rise to godhood; or you just want to have a closing narrative, and no other options seem appealing, heres an option, the cleric becomes their patron deity. basically the essence of the cleric and the deity merge, the alignment of the deity now becomes the alignment of the cleric and that players character now dictates the behavior of that god. this also opens up room for slight shifts in gods alignments over time as the most significant servants of them whom they allow to maintain their powers can be new influences on the direction of the religion.

not a super fleshed out idea or anything, just a passing thought i think it might be interesting to some.

 

[dave2008]

Interesting, but why would the god want to do this?

 

[Mirtek]

Deities raising favored servants as servitor minor deities is not unusual

 

[Maxperson]

I don't see any deity ever allowing that. Non-good ones would kill the upstart before the servant could take them over, and good ones would limit the upstart to prevent it. Allowing it to happen in essence kills the god and I don't see gods as particularly suicidal.

 

[Leatherhead]

I don't see any deity ever allowing that. Non-good ones would kill the upstart before the servant could take them over, and good ones would limit the upstart to prevent it. Allowing it to happen in essence kills the god and I don't see gods as particularly suicidal.

Naw, they do that all the time.
For instance: Tempus, the God of War from FR, actually promoted one of his servants, The Red Knight, into a deity just to help out against Garagos, who was recently resurrected during the Time of Troubles.

 

[Maxperson]

Naw, they do that all the time.
For instance: Tempus, the God of War from FR, actually promoted one of his servants, The Red Knight, into a deity just to help out against Garagos, who was recently resurrected during the Time of Troubles.

You didn't understand me. I'm not talking about promoting someone to servant level. I'm talking about the OPs idea that the servant becomes the god and takes over. No god would ever allow that.

 

[Coroc]

Promotion to lesser godhood or even creating a new domain for whatever class (it does not have to be a cleric impov) could be the end of a campaign or retirement for that character but never the less the character becomes a NPC instantly. It is a beautiful epic ending for a PC character but an ending it is.

You may ask why? Why not allow the player to play a god? Because rule 0. A god in the campaign world could alter things at will, how a is a DM to handle this?

DM: "...the party enters a small city"
Player of the deity char: "... except there is none I just whisked it form existence, together with all records of it that ever were and all pictures of it someone has drawn and all memories people had about visiting it and also of every - now nonexistent - being who inhabited it.

Because this is what, maybe not demigods, but eventually already lesser gods could do. Intermediate gods could do that for sure. Greater gods could wipe out a world and major gods could create something like a multiverse. And what they could create they could destroy.

But even if the DM handles above pathetic situations, what could still be a challenge for a character who is de facto indestructible and immortal? The conditions in D&D (in former editions) to kill gods were extraordinary, and I think you could not totally wipe them out, so they could not thoroughly die their essence would exist on somehow, as far as I understood.

 

[Maxperson]

Promotion to lesser godhood or even creating a new domain for whatever class (it does not have to be a cleric impov) could be the end of a campaign or retirement for that character but never the less the character becomes a NPC instantly. It is a beautiful epic ending for a PC character but an ending it is.

You may ask why? Why not allow the player to play a god? Because rule 0. A god in the campaign world could alter things at will, how a is a DM to handle this?

DM: "...the party enters a small city"
Player of the deity char: "... except there is none I just whisked it form existence, together with all records of it that ever were and all pictures of it someone has drawn and all memories people had about visiting it and also of every - now nonexistent - being who inhabited it.

Because this is what, maybe not demigods, but eventually already lesser gods could do. Intermediate gods could do that for sure. Greater gods could wipe out a world and major gods could create something like a multiverse. And what they could create they could destroy.

But even if the DM handles above pathetic situations, what could still be a challenge for a character who is de facto indestructible and immortal? The conditions in D&D (in former editions) to kill gods were extraordinary, and I think you could not totally wipe them out, so they could not thoroughly die their essence would exist on somehow, as far as I understood.

Except that gods are not allowed to act that way directly on the material plane. They send avatars if they want to go to the material plane, except for demigods which are essentially avatars already and can't do the things that you do. The avatar of a more powerful god is basically a demigod in power and can be killed. It's very possible, though more difficult, to run adventures with PC gods.

 

[Coroc]

Except that gods are not allowed to act that way directly on the material plane. They send avatars if they want to go to the material plane, except for demigods which are essentially avatars already and can't do the things that you do. The avatar of a more powerful god is basically a demigod in power and can be killed. It's very possible, though more difficult, to run adventures with PC gods.

Yes of course, avatars that would be the normal way for npc gods. For our PC, what would be his home plane? If prime, then he could totally do all that stuff.

And with the "not allowed", it is rather basically a mutual agreement between gods of different alignment in a pantheon, as far as I have read somewhere, which is easily enforceable by another god changing things back the moment one god changes things in a direction (which requires both gods to be of same rank though).

 

[Maxperson]

Yes of course, avatars that would be the normal way for npc gods. For our PC, what would be his home plane? If prime, then he could totally do all that stuff.

All of the gods can do that if they chose. It would be near instant suicide to do it, though.

And with the "not allowed", it is rather basically a mutual agreement between gods of different alignment in a pantheon, as far as I have read somewhere, which is easily enforceable by another god changing things back the moment one god changes things in a direction (which requires both gods to be of same rank though).

Not between a few gods. All of the gods of all pantheons have agreed that the prime plane is untouchable like that, under pain of death by every other god coming after you. Between hundreds of greater and intermediate gods, plus Ao and other over gods all coming after you, your lifespan if you choose to break it is shorter than a Mayfly.