Jack Daniel
dice-universe.blogspot.com
In my campaign world, Christianity is one of the major religions. All I had to do was say so, and that was that. No challenge, no big deal."Christian clerics may choose any domain that does not conflict with their alignment. The cleric class may be lawful good, neutral good, or chaotic good." Apply the same restrictions to the ranger and the druid, rename the druid to mystic, friar, abbot, or whatever, and leave the paladin be.
RE: magic, in my world, needed special treatment like any other campaign world that comes up with its own explaination for magic. Since I run a steampunk/swashbuckling world, I wanted an explaination that fit the 1790s science lingo, so I came up with a new fundamental force that permeated the world, the Supernatural Force, analogous to the Gravitational or Electromagnetic Forces. Instead of magic being a manipulation of some distant planar energy, or even mysterious "natural energies," it's simply a propery of the universe I game in. To a native of this dimension, "God made things that way."
It is perfectly acceptable to create a fantasy world where magic is not evil; GURPS Fantasy's world of Yerth took a nice approach, but in that world, Christians from the real world get beamed to a world of magic and have to adapt. I would contend that in a world where magic is part of nature, the Christan religion that evolved on such a world would simply carry a different dogma regarding magic. Wizards and sorcerers can be good or evil; the ones you have to watch out for are the ones consorting with demons and false gods. The Bible in such a world would specifically condemn black magic, faithfully relate the stories of the prophet's miracles, and probably be largely neutral with regard to good applications of supernatural force.
Now, in my campaign there are two routes to magic, the internal manipulation of supernatural force, and an external power granted from another entity. Magic can be channeled internally through the mind, body, or spirit, resulting in either psionics, chi, or wizardry, and it's no more evil than a wire channeling electric current. External ability is practiced by divine miracle-workers, and by sorcerers.
The divine miracle workers (cleric, paladin, ranger, and my druid replacement, the mystic) recieve their powers from God. They're about as common in my campaign world as the Istari to Middle-Earth... well, more like prophets and saints in the real world. Most ordained ministers are experts (for theologians) or warriors (for crusaders). The adpet class would represent a faith-healer with little church training, or someone who was not ordained.
Sorcerers presented an interesting challenge, but I knew what I wanted to work with here. First off, for good sorcerers, I wanted to inject a little Middle-Earth flavor; Gandalf was an angellic spirit in disguise. "Wizards" in that world worked divine spells of a sort. With that in mind, I created the idea of three types of sorcerers, who recieved arcane spells from higher spirits ("sorcery" in the original, and Biblical definition I might add, means consorting with spirits. A summoner/conjurer is a sorcer archetype). Good sorcerers, or magi, recieve power from an angellic agent in exchange for a vow to fight evil. Neutral sorcerers, called druids in my world, make bargains with powerful fey for their spells. Evil sorcerers, the warlocks, sell their souls for magic. Warlocks totally replace evil clerics in my world, so they can access either the wizard or the cleric spell list (but not both at once, sort of like OA sorcerers and the wizard/wu jen dichotomy). As an added flavor bonus, sorcerers recieve one cleric domain, depending their patron spirit.
RE: magic, in my world, needed special treatment like any other campaign world that comes up with its own explaination for magic. Since I run a steampunk/swashbuckling world, I wanted an explaination that fit the 1790s science lingo, so I came up with a new fundamental force that permeated the world, the Supernatural Force, analogous to the Gravitational or Electromagnetic Forces. Instead of magic being a manipulation of some distant planar energy, or even mysterious "natural energies," it's simply a propery of the universe I game in. To a native of this dimension, "God made things that way."
It is perfectly acceptable to create a fantasy world where magic is not evil; GURPS Fantasy's world of Yerth took a nice approach, but in that world, Christians from the real world get beamed to a world of magic and have to adapt. I would contend that in a world where magic is part of nature, the Christan religion that evolved on such a world would simply carry a different dogma regarding magic. Wizards and sorcerers can be good or evil; the ones you have to watch out for are the ones consorting with demons and false gods. The Bible in such a world would specifically condemn black magic, faithfully relate the stories of the prophet's miracles, and probably be largely neutral with regard to good applications of supernatural force.
Now, in my campaign there are two routes to magic, the internal manipulation of supernatural force, and an external power granted from another entity. Magic can be channeled internally through the mind, body, or spirit, resulting in either psionics, chi, or wizardry, and it's no more evil than a wire channeling electric current. External ability is practiced by divine miracle-workers, and by sorcerers.
The divine miracle workers (cleric, paladin, ranger, and my druid replacement, the mystic) recieve their powers from God. They're about as common in my campaign world as the Istari to Middle-Earth... well, more like prophets and saints in the real world. Most ordained ministers are experts (for theologians) or warriors (for crusaders). The adpet class would represent a faith-healer with little church training, or someone who was not ordained.
Sorcerers presented an interesting challenge, but I knew what I wanted to work with here. First off, for good sorcerers, I wanted to inject a little Middle-Earth flavor; Gandalf was an angellic spirit in disguise. "Wizards" in that world worked divine spells of a sort. With that in mind, I created the idea of three types of sorcerers, who recieved arcane spells from higher spirits ("sorcery" in the original, and Biblical definition I might add, means consorting with spirits. A summoner/conjurer is a sorcer archetype). Good sorcerers, or magi, recieve power from an angellic agent in exchange for a vow to fight evil. Neutral sorcerers, called druids in my world, make bargains with powerful fey for their spells. Evil sorcerers, the warlocks, sell their souls for magic. Warlocks totally replace evil clerics in my world, so they can access either the wizard or the cleric spell list (but not both at once, sort of like OA sorcerers and the wizard/wu jen dichotomy). As an added flavor bonus, sorcerers recieve one cleric domain, depending their patron spirit.
