Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
Hmm, when I shake up religion I do one or more of three things:
1.) Get rid of the gods. Nuff's been said about that. Personally I find it the easiest, but the least satisfying in terms of actually forcing players to act differently and opening up new story-telling possibilities. Some people do do it very well.
2.) Bring the gods in much much closer. This to me is the most work, but also the most likely to freak players out. Three methods for this:
A.) Go Greek. Have people actually have gods for parents. With avatars striding the battlefield from time to time, disguising themselves as things in the landscape all the time, and, frequently, actually possessing NPCs and PCs giving them insane benefits and weird motivations. DnD is pretty much set to do this, it's just that for someone reason noone has beyond the odd episode in FR.
B.) Go literal Pantheist. When the mythology says that Gaea is the Earth, have that be literally true. Requires a lot of work, but is in some ways the most mind-blowing. Watching PCs working through the implications of actually living on a god is pretty intersting. Oathbound did this best as the god that was being lived on had been trapped in planet form by all the other deities that existed, and there were all sorts of odd consequences as a result of his leaking out. Most obviously that many of the major players on the world were parts of him or his servants, but secondarily there were interesting effects to breathing deity.
C.) Go Animist. The idols are actual deities. There are also smaller less cool deities in just about everything. This is more or less the middle way. There are ways to run this with mere style and fluff modifications to normal rules and the addition of siginificant divine monsters. Testament had good material for this, but it's mostly underexplored in DnD. Exalted is great for it, though IMO it does too little to locate gods in their actual vessels of worship.
3.) Don't so much mess around with the gawds as the way magic and worshippers interact with them. This basicly goes to mucking about with the heart of the cleric class. This area probably has the most room for real creativity. Some ideas:
Give everyone access to significant divine rituals. Clerics may have special relationship, but anyone can perform a sacrafice, worship, and gain access to miracles. This functions best if you are also willing to muck around with assumptions about items.
Make the source of clerical magic other human beings. Gods and/or belief power it, but it's actually your higher ups and founders in the church that control it. Make clerics go political for their magic. Have Bishops foul up and make horrifying mistakes on what's needed for a situation. Develop insanely twisted politics as various orders work to develop innovative new ways of worshipping the almighty and harvesting the sweet sweet power that is divine magic.
All of that's a start.
1.) Get rid of the gods. Nuff's been said about that. Personally I find it the easiest, but the least satisfying in terms of actually forcing players to act differently and opening up new story-telling possibilities. Some people do do it very well.
2.) Bring the gods in much much closer. This to me is the most work, but also the most likely to freak players out. Three methods for this:
A.) Go Greek. Have people actually have gods for parents. With avatars striding the battlefield from time to time, disguising themselves as things in the landscape all the time, and, frequently, actually possessing NPCs and PCs giving them insane benefits and weird motivations. DnD is pretty much set to do this, it's just that for someone reason noone has beyond the odd episode in FR.
B.) Go literal Pantheist. When the mythology says that Gaea is the Earth, have that be literally true. Requires a lot of work, but is in some ways the most mind-blowing. Watching PCs working through the implications of actually living on a god is pretty intersting. Oathbound did this best as the god that was being lived on had been trapped in planet form by all the other deities that existed, and there were all sorts of odd consequences as a result of his leaking out. Most obviously that many of the major players on the world were parts of him or his servants, but secondarily there were interesting effects to breathing deity.
C.) Go Animist. The idols are actual deities. There are also smaller less cool deities in just about everything. This is more or less the middle way. There are ways to run this with mere style and fluff modifications to normal rules and the addition of siginificant divine monsters. Testament had good material for this, but it's mostly underexplored in DnD. Exalted is great for it, though IMO it does too little to locate gods in their actual vessels of worship.
3.) Don't so much mess around with the gawds as the way magic and worshippers interact with them. This basicly goes to mucking about with the heart of the cleric class. This area probably has the most room for real creativity. Some ideas:
Give everyone access to significant divine rituals. Clerics may have special relationship, but anyone can perform a sacrafice, worship, and gain access to miracles. This functions best if you are also willing to muck around with assumptions about items.
Make the source of clerical magic other human beings. Gods and/or belief power it, but it's actually your higher ups and founders in the church that control it. Make clerics go political for their magic. Have Bishops foul up and make horrifying mistakes on what's needed for a situation. Develop insanely twisted politics as various orders work to develop innovative new ways of worshipping the almighty and harvesting the sweet sweet power that is divine magic.
All of that's a start.
