[UPDATED] Green Ronin Finds Religion In D&D 5E's BOOK OF THE RIGHTEOUS

Back in the early days D&D 3rd Edition, Green Ronin released two books for the game which I adored and still have to this day. One was the Book of Fiends: Legions of Hell (a supplement which was followed up by Armies of the Abyss). The other was Aaron Loeb's Book of the Righteous, an enormous 300+ page tome crammed full of religions to use in your D&D game. It detailed the churches, the rituals, the beliefs, and more behind a detailed pantheon of over 20 churches.

Back in the early days D&D 3rd Edition, Green Ronin released two books for the game which I adored and still have to this day. One was the Book of Fiends: Legions of Hell (a supplement which was followed up by Armies of the Abyss). The other was Aaron Loeb's Book of the Righteous, an enormous 300+ page tome crammed full of religions to use in your D&D game. It detailed the churches, the rituals, the beliefs, and more behind a detailed pantheon of over 20 churches.


BotR.jpg


UPDATE: This Kickstarter is now live.

So the book is coming to Kickstarter soon, and the new rules material will be written by Robert J. Schwalb, one of D&D 5E's designers (Schwalb produces his own current RPG, Shadow of the Demon Lord). Green Ronin, of course, is the company which brought you Out of the Abyss for D&D 5E. This book definitely won't be lacking in 5th Edition pedigree!

The original version contained these religions, each detailed with a half dozen pages on myths, workings, churches, orders, and more.

The Old Gods. The Eyes of Urian, The Foundations of Rontra, The Basins of Shalimyr, The Druids of Eliwyn, The Followers of the Nameless One.

The Gods of the Tree. The Healing Halls of Morwyn, The Temples of Terak, The Vineyards of Zheenkeef, The Scriptoriums of Tinel, The Sacristies of Mormelcar.

The Gods of the Womb. The Courts of Maal, The Houses of Darmon, The Lyceums of Aymara, The Guildhalls of Korak, The Hearths of Anwyn.

The Three Sisters. The Dark Sister, The Red Sister, The Golden Sister.

The Evil Gods. Asmodeus, Canarak, Hellos, Naran, plus some evil and heretical cults.

The original book also contained an overall cosmology, using religions in a campaign, and a bunch of rules including feats, spells, domains, magic items, artifacts, and creatures.

Below is a peek at the D&D 3rd Edition version, detailing one of the churches in the book. You can look at the whole 11-page church here (PDF); below is just a couple of excerpts. Obviously the 5E version will be redesigned for the current game and if Kickstarter does it's usual thing might have awesome stretch goals for new colour art and cool stuff like that (just conjecture on my part).

More as and when I hear it!


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Papercut

First Post
Yes it is. Weird it's like a wotc book not from wotc. almost. Kinda?
BotR is a snazzy book, well worth updating to 5e. Note that there is a 3.5 pdf level, I expect that is their PF offering. Who knows, maybe if enough people show support they will offer to tweak it out a bit to PF proper or have a conversion guideline.
 

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RodneyThompson

First Post
I'm really jazzed to be a part of the project, and really hope everyone else is excited, too! Book of the Righteous was extremely influential in my development as a DM and as a game designer. It came out at just the right time for me, and was what I used as the pantheon for my 3rd Edition Shackled City and Age of Worms campaigns (which I ran in a homebrew world populated by locations/supplements from a bunch of different OGL publishers).

I'm also excited because it's one of those books that I always kind of envisioned while we were designing the 5th Edition core books; cleric domains and paladin oaths, for example, could carry the weight that prestige classes did in the original Book of the Righteous, and do it earlier and more naturally in a character's lifecycle. My players in 3E always felt like prestige classes were so far away, so I ended up homebrewing some deity-specific feats for them so they could take more advantage of the pantheon mechanically. I'm pretty jazzed at the idea of my players being able to remake their characters and just use the base classes plus new subclass material.
 


Azgulor

Adventurer
How different could a Pathfinder version be from the 3.XE version?

Have the people asking for a PF version seen the 3.XE original version?

Yes, and I'd still like a Pathfinder version.

The BotR is one of my RPG favorites and a treasure of my collection. A straight port probably wouldn't offer significant differences, but PF has evolved steadily on its own and there is new design space that could apply to a PF-version of BotR mechanics-wise. There are things like some of the mechanics that appeared in Inner Sea Gods, there are different divine-powered classes, there are archetypes, etc. I could easily see how BotR could further detail and differentiate the various gods & faiths using such mechanics.

These are all things that may be far beyond what Green Ronin is hoping to achieve with this kickstarter. For the 5e fans, I hope the kickstarter is successful as the book is a great resource.

However, even as a BotR fan, I have no interest in 5e, so a kickstarter that only provides a 5e update isn't going to entice me to back the book.
 
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