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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mordane76" data-source="post: 1962799" data-attributes="member: 7172">I'm developing a plot for a homebrew world.  I'd like to be as non-committal as I can in this thread, because I intend to run this story on ENWorld once I've finished writing it.The basics: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The world has five gods: Sun, Earth, Nature, Rivers/Water, and Death. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The small city the story is set in is on a river, and is a major religous center for the Lord of Rivers.  By a pact with the family of high priests of this god, the eldest male member of the family is invested with a small portion of the essence of the Lord of Rivers.  This is not an openly known fact - it is a secret entrusted to the clergy of the Lord of Rivers, but not the laymen of the church or to outsiders. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the time of the story, there are only two male members of this family: the high priest, and his infant son.  Someone has murdered the high priest, and he cannot be brought back to life - the Lord of Death is a cruel, tyrannical god, and will not allow the resurrection of the faithful of other gods without some form of compensation.  In this case, he has flatly denied any request to allow the high priest to be restored to life. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">As the high priest is dead, and there does not appear to be a way to return him to life, the spark of divinity passes to the infant son.  However, the infant is very young, and has not even developed the ability to walk or speak, let alone manage a religion.  I've stretched the rules of Divine Rank a little, and the child does not receive the benefits that would allow him to speak and understand any language, or benefits that would make him more intelligent than a child his age.  Thus, control of the church has temporarily passed to the most powerful cleric other than the high priest. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The murderer is still at large. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The church has reason to believe that the murder was motivated by knowledge of this spark of divinity and how it passes, and thus fears that the infant may be in danger.</li> </ul>If this sounds like another story that has already been published, I apologize up front - I don't buy, or even generally read, published adventurers, and no infringement on anyone's material is intended, or even presently known about.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />The story will revolve around finding the murderer, uncovering his reasons, and possibly thwarting whatever/whomever may have put the murderer onto the high priest in the first place.How can I control divinations within the 3.5E environment such that this isn't simply a case of "Cast me an X, Y, and Q, and I'll have all the answers I'll need?"  I'm interested in ways that don't involve an draconian amount of DM fiat - stuff that works mostly with the rules as written.  Also, how can I make sure that there is a reason that the services of adventurers (the PCs) would be procured to solve this mystery instead of the resources of the church, who obviously would have access to the said divinations above?</blockquote>

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