Paladin of Wee Jas...how to play it?

[Particle_Man]

I have a wish to try something different and Paladin of Wee Jas would fit the bill.

But Wee Jas also favours undead (which paladins generally turn or destroy) and has evil clerics worshipping her.

So what should my character's relationship be to the church of Wee Jas? Should I be more independant, and willing to slay evil clerics of Wee Jas and undead devoted to Wee Jas? Or do I focus on only going after non-Wee Jasian evils?

What if I then take the Ruby Knight Vindicator prestige class? They are meant to be servants of the church too, right? Or would I specifically serve an LG branch of the Wee Jas church, and ignore, or even oppose, LE branches?

Thoughts? Ideas? One I had was a man whose family was devoted to Wee Jas, and who swore to his father he would devote his life to her, but unlike his family, was opposed to undead and evil and such, so chose Paladin of Wee Jas. NOt sure how far it would fly, though, so it might need tweaking.

 

[Kristian Serrano]

The biggest misconception about Wee Jas' true nature is that she favors undead. In actuality, she doesn't. Wee Jas protects the dead in her original concept. However, in 3e they simply slapped on the death domain. Instead, to reflect her original concept, I gave her the repose domain. With the original concept, you should be able to play a paladin of Wee Jas without much of a problem.

As an example, I played a cleric of Wee Jas who was strongly opposed to undead in the Age of Worms AP, and there is a sect within Diamond Lake that exhibits a similar outlook as they protect the graveyard and sort of police undead activity.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'd say a paladin is from a lawful good congregations of the church -- who are unlikely to break bread with the lawful evil congregations -- and who sees the undead as a violation of his goddess' protection over the dead. So he is almost certainly an anti-undead, anti-necromancer crusader.

At the same time, she's the goddess of magic, and it wouldn't be out of place for a paladin of Wee Jas to be a learned sort, the kind of paladin who reads arcane tomes and has points in Spellcraft and Knowledge: Arcana. Cross-class a point in Use Magic Device and maybe, in a crisis, he could even start firing off a wand of magic missiles.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Talk to your DM about this concept, as his interpretation of how the church of Wee Jas works is crucial.

If you have a politically-minded DM, you could get a lot of juicy plotlines out of conflicts within the church, or between independent factions of the church (The Reformed Church of Wee Jas vs. the Orthodox Church of Wee Jas vs. the Divine Structuralist True Church of Wee Jas vs... See human history), which have to be negotiated delicately and really push the envelope's of your group's roleplaying skills. If you have a DM who prefers black-and-white situations, you could find your concept subverted, perverted, or ignored.

I see a lot of story potential here, myself, but the stories I see won't be ones everybody will automatically want to pursue.

 

[Kilmore]

Also, the fact that something is undead does not automatically mean that it cannot be Lawful Good or any other alignment. Perhaps there is a community of guardian spirits or good aligned ghosts and other phantasms that the Paladin is associated with. Such would not be considered abominable in that particular paladin's world view, though others may disagree.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Talk to your DM about this concept, as his interpretation of how the church of Wee Jas works is crucial.

If you have a politically-minded DM, you could get a lot of juicy plotlines out of conflicts within the church, or between independent factions of the church (The Reformed Church of Wee Jas vs. the Orthodox Church of Wee Jas vs. the Divine Structuralist True Church of Wee Jas vs... See human history), which have to be negotiated delicately and really push the envelope's of your group's roleplaying skills. If you have a DM who prefers black-and-white situations, you could find your concept subverted, perverted, or ignored.

I see a lot of story potential here, myself, but the stories I see won't be ones everybody will automatically want to pursue.

All good advice. The Catholic Church is a good example of this: Nominally one religion, but with wildly differing opinions and approaches between even close allies. (See the current pope and his predecessor.)

By not having them as separate entities, you get even more fun. Maybe Bishop Redskull is a Lawful Neutral bishop who hates the undead, but his superior, Archbishop Repose, is Lawful Evil and won't give financial or other aid for anti-undead campaigning, and Redskull needs Repose to be on good terms with him for other reasons, so the paladin's patron may sometimes not be particularly helpful, for reasons that will initially seem pretty opaque to the players.

I have a bit of fun with a similarly conflicted church hierarchy in my campaign and I really recommend this kind of stuff. It can be as lightly used or in-depth as a DM wants.

 

[Nightfall]

Find Dragon 350. It has a Core Beliefs: Wee Jas that I think you'll find extremely useful.

 

[Zaruthustran]

So what should my character's relationship be to the church of Wee Jas? Should I be more independant, and willing to slay evil clerics of Wee Jas and undead devoted to Wee Jas? Or do I focus on only going after non-Wee Jasian evils?

I agree with the others: just look at human history. Plenty of examples of groups claiming to worship the same god, yet killing each other in that god's name.

So go ahead and play a Paladin of a LG sect of Wee Jas, and slay whoever pings as Evil--regardless of who they claim to worship. In fact, especially if they claim to worship Wee Jas. Those heretics must be put to the sword!