Clerics with no gods

[Alzrius]

I allow godless clerics in my campaign, but I hold them to a higher standard.

Specifically, they need to state what they are worshipping; that is, what's granting them their spells. I try to encourage them to have it be something greater than themselves - a demon lord, a celestial, a non-sentient force, a philosophy, or what have you.

For me, it's about what they worship, why they worship it, and how they conduct that worship that's of primary importance in my game.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

If someone wanted to play a healer that did not worship the gods then I'd make up a new class for them; and that's exactly what I did when this happened. She was not as good of a healer as a cleric becasue she did not have divine backing, but it worked for the story and for the metagame.

Touche.

From a mechanics standpoint, what did you give her in exchange?

 

[fusangite]

Here's what I've always wondered. How does having clerical powers need to spring from a diety interact with gods of magic? Does all magic come from the magic diety? Does magic exsist independently, and they're more of the god of studying magic? What does being a cleric of a god of magic entail, and shouldn't that person be a mage instead?

This was a flaw in the Roman pagan magic system that Saint Augustine pointed out 1500 years ago; he was tlaking about luck and whether it was controlled by the god of luck or whether a portion of it is controlled by every god.

I think it's really up to every GM. In my worlds, wizards always have a patron god. This god, sometimes opposed by other gods, sometimes not, allows his followers to learn how to draw magic from the universe the way a minor divinity might (arcane magic). Other gods ration their power and only delegate specific powers to their followers that they directly request (divine magic).

 

[swrushing]

By the RAW, a cleric does not *have* to worship a deity. How often do you see this concept played?

How about for those Players who don't want to play a cleric because they don't like the whole "worship a god" thing? Is the non-god cleric an acceptable character?

Quasqueton

by default i require all divine casters to have a diety, even the rangers and paladins.

if a player really wanted to play a divine caster without being a worshipper, the change i would make is to give him a divine lineage and his divine abilities stem from his deific ancestor. he does not get divine favors because he is devout but because hye has that spark of divinity in him.

needless to say, such would factor mightily in the plot and storyline, whether the character chose to believe it or not.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

So it looks like the people who wouldn't want godless clerics feel that way for two major reasons:

- Deities have "balanced" combinations of domains and alignment, and being able to pick them freely could lead to a too powerful combination, or

- The game world has deities tied closely to the setting, and doesn't provide for characters to channel divine power without a god to receive it from.

Any other reasons people have run into?

The game Unknown Armies has magic-users similar to that idea of worshipping money. The characters gain magical power from ritually following obsessions and avoiding taboos, and their powers are directly related to the concept they venerate. There's adepts of alcohol, money, secrets, even pornography. It's very close in theme to the idea of "worshipping an idea".

There's also Avatars, who shape themselves to be as close to a given archetype (such as The Fisher King, The Merchant, or The Fool), and these correspond to the same idea, except that there's actually an ascended mortal who stepped into the role of the archetype they follow.

That's the one game where I've seen a lot of attention paid to having both people who worship an ideal, and those who worship someone who's the ultimate expression of that ideal.

 

[Turjan]

I have no problems with godless clerics in my game. Divine spells are the effect of a strong belief/faith, be it in the balance of nature, freedom, some deity or the Great Pumpkin. Acting against the code of the deity a cleric might believe in is equal to a crisis in his faith, and thus he loses his spells. Atonement is restoration of his faith. The system doesn't need any 'conscious entities' in order to work.

 

[ForceUser]

I generally think it's silly when people let their real-life prejudices affect their play.

Word. A guy I know loathes the French and dislikes Asian culture, so he won't play characters inspired by either. He always sits out the Oriental Adventures campaigns.

As some of you know, I prefer clerics who not only serve a deity, but do so with exalted grace and righteousness. I have no interest in portraying or allowing in my games non-religious clerics--religion is a subject too rife with possibility for epic stories to allow it to fall by the wayside. Check out Sepulchrave II's Tales of Wyre story hour to see what I mean.

 

[Terwox]

I really favor the idea of clerics (and paladins for that matter) who are granted their powers via their faith in a philosophy, rather than a deity.

My last big D&D game had no deities, only philosophy clerics -- gods simply didn't exist. I really preferred that approach. And yes, a PC was a cleric. (and mage/Mystic theurge, precisely, but hey.)

 

[painandgreed]

One campaign I ran, most of the clerics were simply clerics of good or evil essentially gaining their spells from the prime and negative material planes. They always got their spells and were pretty free to do as they pleased so long as they stayed good or evil. Clerics of gods existed too. They were more servants of the individual gods and could be called upon to preform duties at any time and might have issues getting higher level spells if their god was busy. This trouble was offset in that they god would actually give them information and aid above and beyond clerical abilities (as per DM) and in truely dire straights there was a chance that if called upon, they would actually show up or send aid to the cleric in question.

 

[Li Shenron]

By the RAW, a cleric does not *have* to worship a deity. How often do you see this concept played?

How about for those Players who don't want to play a cleric because they don't like the whole "worship a god" thing? Is the non-god cleric an acceptable character?

Quasqueton

The concept IMHO sucks... a cleric without a god is like a fighter without interest in combat or a rogue without hands. I have seen it used a few times (mostly on PbP however) and I think nearly 100% of the time the reason is because the players wants an advantage, such as an unavailable combination of domains or simply to be more "ethically free"; the cry "but it's my character concept!" always comes afterwards.

If it was for me, I would prefer to allow any domain freely (as long as it makes at least some sense) than see people strip the cleric class of its reason to exist only to get a game advantage.

Even the idea of "cleric of an ethos" doesn't make full sense to me. The best stretch I can accept is that of a cleric of a whole (small) racial pantheon, such as in FR being a cleric of the whole dwarven pantheon (except eventually the evil dwrven deities which actually oppose the pantheon).