Inzeladun gods question

thormagni

Explorer
I'm looking for a god for my Undead Hunter character's background and didn't find anyone on the page that really fit the bill. I'd like a god (or goddess more likely) of the harvest, farms, fields, etc. Pastoral, green, peaceful. The god or goddess that farmers pray to. Something like, oh, Merrikka from the Greyhawk setting. Anybody in the pantheon that would cover that?
 

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thormagni said:
I'm looking for a god for my Undead Hunter character's background and didn't find anyone on the page that really fit the bill. I'd like a god (or goddess more likely) of the harvest, farms, fields, etc. Pastoral, green, peaceful. The god or goddess that farmers pray to. Something like, oh, Merrikka from the Greyhawk setting. Anybody in the pantheon that would cover that?

There aren't actual pages for them, but these fit the bill...

Ashanga Hob (Home, Hearth, Servants)
Kalen Hob (Earth)

You could alternately worship Wemusa because the fields are sown with life (seeds), they grow to fruitfulness and then die or are harvested, giving life to other creatures. You could hate undead because they are a perverse mockery of the cycle of life and death.

Or, you could take an existing God that you like and figure out a reason why a farmer would worship him/her/it. Makeup a background story, etc. Maybe the farmer used to be a soldier of Olanigan, but gave up soldiering to take up farming, yet still worships the Red God.
 
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Well, my thoughts on my character's background/motivation is that his mother was a humble (low-level) cleric to the god(dess) of the fields, living a peaceful existence in a small community. However a death-worshipping cult/cleric/cabal unleashed a horde of undead on the village. His mother, as the community cleric, fought valiantly to save the community but was overwhelmed. At the last moment, after exhausting all of her turns for the day, she gave her youngest son her holy symbol, and died allowing him to escape. Although "heroes" came and rescued him from the fields where he hid, it was too late for his family. Since then, he has pledged to destroy undead wherever he finds them and devoted his life to that cause.

So he wears his mother's holy symbol and carries her flail. Some might mistake him for a cleric. But he is a hunter of the undead (ranger.) He has little faith in the gods and less faith in their benevolence, but he still has long, one-sided conversations (prayers) with the god(dess) his mother worshipped. Assuming he lives to fourth level, his acquisition of divine spells will be quite the surprise to him.

Eventually, assuming we keep playing, I would like to prestige class him to a Foe Hunter from Masters of the Wild with a focus, of course, on the undead.

Fyrestryke said:
Or, you could take an existing God that you like and figure out a reason why a farmer would worship him/her/it. Makeup a background story, etc. Maybe the farmer used to be a soldier of Olanigan, but gave up soldiering to take up farming, yet still worships the Red God.
 

thormagni said:
Well, my thoughts on my character's background/motivation is that his mother was a humble (low-level) cleric to the god(dess) of the fields, living a peaceful existence in a small community. However a death-worshipping cult/cleric/cabal unleashed a horde of undead on the village. His mother, as the community cleric, fought valiantly to save the community but was overwhelmed. At the last moment, after exhausting all of her turns for the day, she gave her youngest son her holy symbol, and died allowing him to escape. Although "heroes" came and rescued him from the fields where he hid, it was too late for his family. Since then, he has pledged to destroy undead wherever he finds them and devoted his life to that cause.

So he wears his mother's holy symbol and carries her flail. Some might mistake him for a cleric. But he is a hunter of the undead (ranger.) He has little faith in the gods and less faith in their benevolence, but he still has long, one-sided conversations (prayers) with the god(dess) his mother worshipped. Assuming he lives to fourth level, his acquisition of divine spells will be quite the surprise to him.

Eventually, assuming we keep playing, I would like to prestige class him to a Foe Hunter from Masters of the Wild with a focus, of course, on the undead.

That's an awesome background! With that background tho, there's no reason that you couldn't use ANY deity and his mother was there as the local envoy to the village from a main city.

Maybe we should make up such a deity. Or, maybe Vince has one that never made it.

Alternately, if EnderTheElder is watching, he can fill us in on whichever Ingaran God(dess) would fit the bill. :)
 

whichever Ingaran God(dess) fit the bill

Fyrestryke said:
Alternately, if EnderTheElder is watching, he can fill us in on whichever Ingaran God(dess) would fit the bill. :)
;) ;)

Demeter, was the main goddess of crops in the Greek Pantheon. She is all of the following:
thormagni said:
A god (or goddess more likely) of the harvest, farms, fields, etc. Pastoral, green, peaceful. The god or goddess that farmers pray to.

But, you may also want to consider Persephone, Demeter's daughter, as she was also Hades' wife and thus served as the anthropomorphized (sp?) connection between life and death. However she was a minor personality in Greek myth (which you may prefer since a small cult IMO seems to fit you back story better then a large priesthood) and is best-known b/c of the "Rape of Persephone" myth that has been used as the inspiration for number of art and lit works. You may want to get Fyrestryke's ok before you use her tho, because . . . well I know something you don't at this point. :eek:

Another option would be to just worship Hades. Most classicists believe that Hades started out as a local fertility/earth god but as Greek culture progressed he became connected more and more w/ the end of life rather then w/ its beginnings (also explains why he is married to the daughter of the main nature-fertility goddess in the pantheon).
BTW although D&DG has him listed as LE, I strongly disagree (this is by far the biggest mistake they made w/ the Greek pantheon alignment in that book, although there are several others :\ ) and so I made a request that Vince change his alignment to LN for Inzeladun sometime ago (which I believe he did), so that may make Hades a more playable option.

Even another option would be to have you mother’s patron deity Demeter but have your patron deity be Persephone (good plot parallelism too since you have the mother worshiping the mother and the child worshiping the child). It was common for the lesser god/desses to be worshiped along side their mother/father deities when their portfolios matched up. For example, Asclepius (God of healing) had two daughters that were often worshiped in his temples: Hygieia (goddess of bathing) and Panacea (goddess of healing herbs).

Or you could have him worship all three (Demeter, Persephone, Hades) as it was not uncommon for even priests of a particular Greek god all the worshiped other gods w/ great if not equal reverence when it concerned the other god’s domain. So even if you only pick one you should probably pay a lot of respect to the others ;)

Here is one of my favorite mythology websites, Encyclopedia Mythica, for you to check out if you want: http://www.pantheon.org/

The Greek index for the site:
http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/greek/articles.html

Demeter: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/demeter.html
Persephone (I may be able to find a better one for her tomorrow): http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/persephone.html
Hades: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hades.html
 

thormagni said:
So he wears his mother's holy symbol and carries her flail. Some might mistake him for a cleric. But he is a hunter of the undead (ranger.) He has little faith in the gods and less faith in their benevolence, but he still has long, one-sided conversations (prayers) with the god(dess) his mother worshipped. Assuming he lives to fourth level, his acquisition of divine spells will be quite the surprise to him.

I don't know if it is important to put a name to the god. Do you plan to have long one sided conversations to the god(dess) during the game? Plus, if people see that you carry this symbol and you don't talk about it, it leaves an air of mystery around your character.

Don't forget, that depending on your wisdom score, you will be making sanity checks to cast spells. Muahahahahahaa!!
 

thormagni said:
I'm looking for a god for my Undead Hunter character's background and didn't find anyone on the page that really fit the bill. I'd like a god (or goddess more likely) of the harvest, farms, fields, etc. Pastoral, green, peaceful. The god or goddess that farmers pray to. Something like, oh, Merrikka from the Greyhawk setting. Anybody in the pantheon that would cover that?

Kalen Hob, the goddess of the earth, plants, farms, dirt, gems, metals, farmers, miners and all others who revere such things. She is the fertility of the land and the elderly mother of the people that inhabit it, such as the worms, treants, dwarves and moles. Rabbits and hares are holy to her in her peaceful aspects, which is a nurturing aspect of gentle fertility. However, she has an angry side, especially when she is roused to protect her young.

Her temples do not allow half-breeds, as they are deemed unnatural offspring and a sin against Kalen. She is associated with Timballayamu, who fathered her offspring: Kalendor, Olanigan, Na May, and Catemar. Some mythological stories claim a union with Asmodius produced Wemusa, but not all of her temples believe this.

She is the grandmother of Thomtain Hob, Ashanga Hob, Korint Hob and Marush Hob. Note that Kalen Hob, Kalendor Hob and Ashanga Hob are usually worshipped together as the grandmother, mother, and daughter motif is strong with them, as they are three generations of the same line of women.

She seeks the greatest good for the greatest number of her children. Her motto is, "You do not cast your seeds to the wind and hope they grow; you must plan, and plan well." Thus, her worshippers are usually lawful in nature.

She is an advisor to the god and to the people, a nurturer and counsellor. Although she believes there is only one way (the good way, no matter how difficult), she does little to stop evil. She does not believe in doing evil to achieve a good end, and although she may plead with the wicked to find the right path, she does not often oppose them actively. She rarely shows her hand and is the most mysterious of the gods, moving in the strangest of manners. If there is anything Kalen Hob does actively oppose, it is the unnatural forces that pollute her lands: She despises magic and undead. Magic is corruptive and the undead represent unnatural breaking of laws governing life and death.

Her followers do not consort with fiends or other evil creatures not of the earth. They do not create the undead or consort with those that do. They do not join in physical union with any race not their own. They do not eat unnatural (non-native) flesh. They do not sow the land with salt or any other substance that will ruin it for planting. They do not waste seed - either that for planting or their own. One the first day of each week, in rememberance that the beasts of the earth came from the same source that gave life to the mortal races, they eat no meat whatsoever. If they have food to spare and others are hungry, they share. One tenth of all that is grown must be given to those who are needier, unless there are none who are needier. If they pull treasures from the earth, two tenths of all they make in wealth must be given to those needier, unless none are needier.

The preferred weapon is the flail, which represents the tool used by farmers in the threshing of wheat from the harvest.

Will that work?
 

Sounds about perfect ... scribble, scribble, scribble.

InzeladunMaster said:
The preferred weapon is the flail, which represents the tool used by farmers in the threshing of wheat from the harvest.

Will that work?
 



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