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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 8272352" data-attributes="member: 2209">I use a mish mash of stuff.I start from a base that divine power is a power source and clerics and druids and such tap into it, they are different traditions of magic with a distinct power source from arcane (and psionic and such). Gods are not the source of divine magic, clerics can worship or not and the actual nature of gods is not certain, but there are beings called gods who might or might not be divine power beings. Since gods are not gatekeeping divine magical casters there can be things like a corrupt cleric of a good god or an overzealous inquisition paladin.Many people in world believe (and many churches preach) that gods are the source of divine magic and are of a specific nature with afterlife domains and such, though this is not necessarily actually the underlying reality.I use the Ptolus Holy Lothian Empire, with the official imperial religion of Lothianism the church of an ascended paladin. This allows a very byzantine/medieval D&D church base with a familiar montheistic/henotheistic feel.This is overlayed over many polytheistic areas the empire has assimilated or conquered, so there are many pantheons of old gods (Greyhawk, FR, Golarion, Real World ones, and many more fantasy ones). This allows a variety of god traditions including more traditional/classical polytheism where the gods demand rituals and sacrifices be performed for them, but not necessarily that people live according to any ideals as a follower of a specific god.I also have Lothian theological theories of how other or certain other gods are false, either made up or powerful non divine gods being worshipped as gods (what the Heldannic people call Zeus is just a storm giant and not actually a being like Lothian who is actually divinely empowered by his ascension). Lothian was martyred by a demon lord he unmasked who was masquerading as a Sun God, so false gods are a big theme for the Lothian church.I also have nontheistic traditions like strains of druidism where the focus is on nature and reincarnation and not nature gods. This could be room for things like varieties of buddhism or taoism, or pseudo religions like the Blue and Red temples from Saberhagen's Sword series.Also non theistic divine magic traditions so many secret societies have their own divine magical spellcasting traditions, like the Athenaeum which collects and protects and disseminates knowledge has a tradition of knowledge focused clerics.</blockquote>

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