[On topic - NO FLAMES!] God & Satan

[Blacksad]

Quark?

Anyhow, I'm intending to present all religions as equally valid - in this world, a cleric of Celtic or Norse paganism, for instance, would just as easily get access to spells. Though I'll likely limit them to being shamans (as per Green Ronin) and in addition not a lot will be encountered. Not too many druids in the Levant, after all...

But I'm not too sure how I'll handle that. Maybe make all the other gods intermediate, too.

Even if I think that it isn't a good book, you should check Deities&Demigods, it has the Norse pantheon in it, and perhaps asking U_K on appropriate Divine Ranks (DR) for the other.

 

[DanMcS]

With a couple exceptions (Quakers, for example), pretty much everyone thinks of everyone else as heretics.

And hell is exothermic http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.htm.

As for souls entering hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to hell.

 

[Voadam]

Andrew,

To answer your question about domains to give God and Satan

I would be sure to give God at least Good, Law, and Animal (he gives Adam dominion over all animals in genesis). Look at domains for the powers God gives not just what he represents or his aspects. Good domain can make blessed weapons etc.

Satan, I would give at least Trickery, Chaos and Evil.

If you give domains based on ultimate power (as you stated), then God has more than Satan.

I would suggest having clerics powers be based off of philosophy/church tradition rather than direct deity grant, it just seems more fun and can provide more options.

You might have to consider what alignments you wish to give them (is God LG or NG? is Satan CE or NE? NE can have LE clerics, CE can not).

Having Satan show up could be fun RP and is appropriate in a medieval folklore viewpoint (Many stories, legends, folklore about normal people encountering the devil and needing to deal with his tricks.) If you are focused on the crusades, however, this is a bit less appropriate flavor/theme wise. Also if you go with the more serious diabolism themes the devil is less a prankish character than a behind the scenes evil plotter RPG niche-wise.

 

[Tiefling]

It seems to me that Satan would be NE. He tricks people a lot, but doesn't he also stick to his word?

 

[Celebrim]

Posistioning God as just one of the pagans makes for a much more intuitive, much more tradiational D&D setting, but it also raises a number of side issues. If you intend to have the world somewhat resemble the historical of the period, the Judeo-Christian god is the process of monopolizing worship in a large portion of the setting - effectively and thoroughly destroying various pantheons as viable deities. (There are no practicing temples of Athena today, for instance.) This raises a variety of questions, some of which can safely remain 'behind your screen' but some of which will come into play especially if the PC's find themselves the servants of 'the many gods' that 'the one god is driving out'. (See the movie Excaliber).

Just what is the relationship between the many gods and the one god who claims to be the only God, and why are they allowing him to run roughshod over them? Is it senility? Is it weakness? Is it in fighting amongst themselves? What is the relationship between say the Norse narrative of Ragnarok and this one god who seems to be rewritting the future (and maybe even the past) of this world? Has Ragnarok already happened? Is this god Baldur - god of light, love, and beauty - returned to lead the people in a glorious new age? Are the many gods resisting or are they resigned to thier fate? The answer makes a big difference in what they have thier followers do. Perhaps they are actually conceeding the rights to the universe for reasons of thier own and cooperating with thier own destruction as deities. Were any of the other gods ever real or were they always side incarnations or misinterpretations of God, and now he is just visibly consolidating his power? In other words, why is God winning and what is he doing with the spoils?

If you still what an answer as to what domains God then has, you might start with Domains that are representative of a conjectural pagan proto-God - something like law, good, protection, storm, destruction, and war - and build up from there based on a the domains of a list of deities that have already gone extinct. Similarly, Satan may be defacto inheriting domains that God feels are beneath him - most notably evil and trickery. (Death God apparantly reclaimed after Cavalry, if he ever indeed conceded it, evidenced by the reference to Christ claiming the keys to Death and Hell - although it should be noted that Satan vehemenately (naturally) denies his defeat).

I strongly recommend reading Gaimen's 'American Gods' and Adam's 'Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul' for philosophical inspiration on what happens to a god when he dies (and why they might choose death).

I also recommend searching the archives of TheOnion.com for a humurous take on this subject. (In it, the various pagan deities sue God for violation of US anti-trust laws.)

Tiefling: If you were a trickster under no compulsion to keep your word, and you had a reputation as a liar, wouldn't you want stories to get leaked out about how you had a code of honor? Wouldn't that be especially tricky?

 

[WayneLigon]

Domains, Spells, etc

I guess the first thing to do is decide the 'truth' of the universe you're making, Since we're dealing with the Crusades and my notion of history is faulty, I might be a century or two to far one way or another with some ideas

1. Find out what stage the Bible was at, at the time you're setting this. If I remember right, the Bible we normally use today is still being assembled until it's closed at one of the large meetings (sometime in the 1500's?). Revelations might not be in there, along with some other things that haven't been taken out.

2. Read up on the Prodestant Reformation, since that'll tell you what Luther took out.

3. One post above mentions that early Judiasm took some time to go completely monotheistic: other gods might actually exist, but just be 'banned'm, depending on the version of 'truth' you want for the game.

4. Remember the Niphelim, the 'Giants in the Earth'. They're still around, since they also survived the Flood by unknown means. They might be a path to magical power of a 'Godly' nature.

Assuming we want Christian Magic of a type, the next thing to do is decide on the power level. If you want the standard D&D power level, with spells, domains, all the rest, then I think you could just go with God (Good, Law, Sun, Air, Travel) and Satan (Choas, Evil, trickery, Destruction, and Death) domain lists.

If you want a more 'historical' magic system, do everything with Feats and Granted Powers. A cleric of God could use a lot of the weird new Extra Turning-powered Feats in Defenders of the Faith then every other level gain some kind of granted power, but no actual 'spells' with the possible exceptions of the 0-level spells and the Healing stuff.

For the Disloyal Opposition, use the Witch class in the DMG with it's mix of Arcane and Divine spells. Demons, devils, spirits, etc, can be bargained with by the summoner (usually with disasterous consequenses).

You might want to look at the Ars Magica system (latest edition) for ideas as well.

 

[terminader]

Interesting thread! Great dialog!

My 2 cents. I think J.R.R. Tolkien presents an interesting picture of how God and Satan, angels and demons relate (in a fantasy world) in the Silmarillion I recommend checking it out. Essentially the greater Maiar (angelic beings) are like dieties ruling over various domains of creation - be they good or bad, and lesser Maiar are beings like Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, the Balrogs, etc. Eru (God) doesn't really enter the world except through the actions of his servants, the Maiar. So dieties would be greater angelic beings, and all other creatures with significant supernatural power would be lesser angelic beings. With some modification I think this view could be fit to a more real-world setting.

Next, the book "God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict" by Gregory Boyd is an excellent analysis of how the Biblical writers viewed God, other dieties, Satan, angels and demons. A poor mans summary would be that God created Satan only slightly less powerful than Himself - thus Satan isn't totally delusional in his attempt at rebellion against God. This also explains why all the Biblical writers talk of spiritual conflict as very important - and not the joke it would be if God were infinitely more powerful than his enemies. It is also an excellent investigation of problem of evil but that is tangential to this topic. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested.

Blessings on your efforts!
-Term

 

[Rhialto]

What is today the Catholic Bible was hammered out (and I mean that almost literally) during the Nicean Council, than finalized by St. Jerome, with various revisions happening over the years. It consists of the Protestant Old and New Testaments, and a group of 14 or so books called the Apocrypha. Classically these are the books of Judith, Tobit, Maccabees 1 and 2, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and various additions to Esther, and Daniel (all of which were declared canonical by the Roman Catholic Church during the reformation), as well as the First book of Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, and the rarely seen anti-apcolypse Esdras 2. Eastern Orthodox churches had as well the 3rd and 4th books of Maccabees, and the 151st Psalm.

Now the reasons why these books were left out of the Protestant Bible (or rather, the several Protestant Bibles...) is a rather tangled story. You see, none of these books are found in the Jewish Torah, and so many scholars (St. Jerome among the first of them) considered them of dubious theological value. Many strict Protestants will tell you that the apocryphal books are full of all sorts of evil, perverted things. And they are, to be blunt, talking out their wazoos. The Apocryphal books are found in various copies of the Greek Septuagint, a work written by Greek Jews for easy reading. They aren't full of vile secret Satanic messages--the Greek version of Esther is actually MORE pius than the Hebraic version, which mentions God a record number of times in the Bible--zero.

So what difference would this make for the PCs? Very little. The Apocrypha includes some interesting stories, but there's not much groundbreaking theology in it (with maybe the exception of the 2nd book of Esdras, which never got spread around very much as the result). They back the standard virtues--loyalty to God, faith and good clean living.

Now, if your PCs are say Coptic Christians from Ethiopia, things get interesting...

 

[Dogface]

I suppose you realize that many other groups of Christians (including the Catholic Church, various other Protestant denominations and the Greek and Eastern Orthodox churches) actually do consider the Mormons and Quakers to be heretics, don't you? [/B]

But many of us don't hold it that much against them these days. When bad comes to worse, a priest can be counted on to pull out a variation on the standard "There are heretics and pagans with better chances for salvation than some of us who are here today." sermon.

 

[Dogface]

Re: Domains, Spells, etc

I guess the first thing to do is decide the 'truth' of the universe you're making, Since we're dealing with the Crusades and my notion of history is faulty, I might be a century or two to far one way or another with some ideas

1. Find out what stage the Bible was at, at the time you're setting this. If I remember right, the Bible we normally use today is still being assembled until it's closed at one of the large meetings (sometime in the 1500's?). Revelations might not be in there, along with some other things that haven't been taken out.

Everything that is in the modern Roman Catholic Bible would have been in the Bible of the Crusaders. The closure of the Canon "officially" happened at the Council of Trent (1500s--right on the ball), but that closure was nothing more than a statement that all the books that had been in it for the last 1,000 years were still in it. (In the East, it has never been "officially" closed, but more than 1500 years of continuity pretty much has sealed it.)

2. Read up on the Prodestant Reformation, since that'll tell you what Luther took out.

Martin Luther actually ended up taking out nothing (although he wanted to delete the Epistle of James--he called it "an Epistle of straw") It was his successors that got to cutting away at things in a big way. The books they cut were all from the Old Testament, in any case.

3. One post above mentions that early Judiasm took some time to go completely monotheistic: other gods might actually exist, but just be 'banned'm, depending on the version of 'truth' you want for the game.

By the Crusade era, Judaism had been monotheist for at least 2,000 years, and after the Nazarites (Christians) showed up, they got even more radically monotheist.

For the Disloyal Opposition, use the Witch class in the DMG with it's mix of Arcane and Divine spells. Demons, devils, spirits, etc, can be bargained with by the summoner (usually with disasterous consequenses).

Unless one wishes to use a "big tent" view of Islam. It was mostly the West that came to the conclusion that Islam was a religion started by Satan (or Dispater). In the East, at least some theologians were of the opinion that it was some sort of Jewish or Christian heresy. Thus, there is some sort of historical precedent for Christians seeing Muslims as being "like us but misguided" instead of "Satan-loving scum".