culture/divine magic

[thullgrim]

how do you handle healing and raise dead in a culture that has no belief in divin beings. The closest they come is a little ancestor reverance but not enough to warrant granting of divine healing. My first thought would be sorceror type who have access to a limited spell selection dealing with healing/raise dead/ etc. Any other options?

Thullgrim

 

[Psiblade]

This is just a thought, but what about divine casters being able to channel energy from the planes or from nature. You could then still have fire or earth clerics able to tap into the positive energy plane for raise dead.

-Psiblade

 

[Tonguez]

You don't
Divine healing requires divine intervention so a culture who ignore the divine do not get the benefits of healing or raise dead. I'd use this as a plot hook by sending in a foreign missionary healer (maybe even the PCs) who starts performing healing 'miracles' and starts a revolution!

As a slight compensation I'd decree that the Medical (Healing) Skill of this culture is greatly advanced (they have the best surgeons in the world) and allow the heal skill to mimic the heal spell with an appropriate DC

 

[thullgrim]

let me get a little more specific. The dwarves believe that long ago their gods forsake them. They are under the impression the gods up and left them. Their have contact with outside races and cultures. It would seem hard to sustain a culture in a D&D world without some form of magical healing. I agree on the state of medical science though.

Thullgrim

 

[Nightfall]

Well I think you best bet is shamanism and/or some kind of Shintoism that will allow for druids or maybe a core shaman class. Otherwise I'd toss out raise dead spells and keep the healing stuff.

 

[WayneLigon]

I'd think dwarves, of anyone, would be able to sustain and even thrive in a D&D culture without magical healing. They live underground and despite all the hideous monsters that also live underground, a dwarven complex has got to be the best defended place on the planet. So they don't have to worry a lot about wandering monsters coming in to savage farmers and things like that.

They'd develop some advanced healing techiques, perhaps even some form of healing potion made from minerals. Dwarves are great with machines and the body is just a more complex machine; they'd figure out anatomy before almost anyone else save druids.

Or, they could go the ancestor-worship route to get access to 'divine' spells. Dwarves stereotypically revere their lineage; this just takes it further.

Or, they create a form of arcane magic that can heal, via tapping the positive energy plane. It might even be a very narrowly focused PrC that only gets healing spells.

 

[Voadam]

Godless clerics, a valid option in 3.0/3.5. They tap divine power but revere no gods.

This is only not an option if your campaign world is constructed to not support it (for instance, FR requires all clerics to worship a god).

 

[XCorvis]

If the gods abandoned them, the Dwarves still believe in them - they just don't worship them. They probably also expect nothing in return.

The dwarves may react in a couple ways: if the person raised is a dwarf, they may think that the gods have returned to them (in that they are allowing the use of divine magics on the dwarf). Or they might see it in a negative light - gods assist the other races, even to the point of helping a dwarf - but the gods don't help dwarves directly. If the person raised is not a dwarf, I think they'd be more likely to see it in the latter light.

 

[Aaron L]

It depends on your assumptions about divine magic as a DM. If divine magic is a manifestation of the gods granting some of their power to their chosen worshippers, then this culture has no divine magic, and would almost certainly have developed arcane spells capable of healing, albeit of a much higher level then their divine counterparts. Maybe Cure Light Wounds as a 6th level arcane spell.

Or you could have other sources for divine magic than gods. Elemental powers, philosophies, kami, etc.

 

[Dirigible]

You don't.(snip)

Tonguez, box. Box, Tonguez.

In one of my worlds, the human culture had killed its gods millenia ago. They received spiritual guidance from solists, people with the strength of will and belief to create mystical effects.