Your Own Personal Pelor?

[Stormborn]

Given that Clerics in DnD seem to gain powers from worshiping a principle or an idea, regardless of whether or not that thing has a personality or ability to grant powers, can an admitedly psychotic individual gain powers by worshiping himself/herself?
I am thinking about taking the storyline of the old Punch and Judy shows and making it a kind of mystic story that is spreading. The main character, Punch, has overcome death and gained powers similar to a clerics by basicallybeing so absolutely sure that he is right. He is now head of a loose cult of followers whose motto is "Do what thou will, that is the whole of the law."
Even if he cannot gain powers as a cleric, could his followers?

 

[darkRitual]

Given that Clerics in DnD seem to gain powers from worshiping a principle or an idea, regardless of whether or not that thing has a personality or ability to grant powers, can an admitedly psychotic individual gain powers by worshiping himself/herself?
I am thinking about taking the storyline of the old Punch and Judy shows and making it a kind of mystic story that is spreading. The main character, Punch, has overcome death and gained powers similar to a clerics by basicallybeing so absolutely sure that he is right. He is now head of a loose cult of followers whose motto is "Do what thou will, that is the whole of the law."
Even if he cannot gain powers as a cleric, could his followers?

If the clerics gain power from their faith, then this would be plausible. Fiends do it all the time, although they rarely take levels in Cleric.

 

[Sir Elton]

If the clerics gain power from their faith, then this would be plausible. Fiends do it all the time, although they rarely take levels in Cleric.

Why would anyone worship someone who is narssistic (sp?) is beyond me. But then, that's what Flunkies do in BESM d20. Plus one of my favorite PrCs, the Thrallherd, also allows somebody to gain an army of slaves . . . oops, I mean flunkies.

 

[Nightfall]

For me, I wouldn't allow it. But then I'm kind of in the catagory "Unless you are already a god, it doesn't work." But then it depends on the setting/the DM.

If this is what you want, hey go for it.

 

[jester47]

Given that Clerics in DnD seem to gain powers from worshiping a principle or an idea, regardless of whether or not that thing has a personality or ability to grant powers, can an admitedly psychotic individual gain powers by worshiping himself/herself?
I am thinking about taking the storyline of the old Punch and Judy shows and making it a kind of mystic story that is spreading. The main character, Punch, has overcome death and gained powers similar to a clerics by basicallybeing so absolutely sure that he is right. He is now head of a loose cult of followers whose motto is "Do what thou will, that is the whole of the law."
Even if he cannot gain powers as a cleric, could his followers?

Wow, punch and judy combined with half way crowleyist sensibilties... weird...

Aaron.

 

[Torm]

One can't help but discuss religion, or religious theory and structure at any rate, when discussing this, so I hope the following doesn't offend anyone: The "Do As Thou Wilt" that is the primary tenet of the Church of Satan doesn't serve to bind it as an organization, as you might imagine - EVERYONE in a group with that as their only law believes THEY have a connection to "The Source" or whatever. The only way to earn rank in a group like that is through merit - service to the group, impressive demonstrations of skill, etc. I don't know if that code of behaviour would work for what you're talking about - usually cult leaders work off of having their flock believe they have some special connection to "the source" or some such. In which case, he'd likely have at least few rules for them, and possibly some of them would be just for them to prove they obey and believe in him.

I know its ironic, but a "Satanic" cult usually isn't Satanic, at least by their church doctrine. And if you think back on most cults that have ended up being recorded for the abuse of their members, and thus worthy of the term "cult", most of them have been usurptions of some other, more valid faith. The Jonestown victims were (trying to be) Christian. As were the Branch Davidians. The Church of $cientology (or, at the very least, the corruption within that organization) is a demonstration of the perfect way to use the good ideas in Dianetics in an exactly backwards way against people. And the Hale Bopp-ers? Well, who knows exactly - but neither they nor Do (their leader) were Satanists.

What I'm getting at is that probably the best way to work it, IMHO, would be to have the cult leader use a Good or at least neutral faith and say that he has received special revelation and has been chosen to lead a new following (probably indicating it to be separate from the older "corrupt" following.) He might start with some sort of minor ability with an arcane spellcasting class, using that to convince his new flock of his "truth". (Possibly his spellbook would be disguised as a special book of Holy study that was given unto him.)

I can't remember where I've seen them, but there ARE rules somewhere for empowering deities based on their followings - if I remember correctly (and admittedly I might not, as I haven't seen them in a while and didn't have a purpose for them in mind when I did) with as few as 15 devoted followers, a "god" can begin to bestow 1st level spells to a single Cleric. Maybe someone else remembers where the rules on that are?

 

[Macbeth]

old Punch and Judy shows
...
"Do what thou will, that is the whole of the law."

Wow, Crowley and Pnuch and Judy. You haven't, by chance, been reading 'V for Vendeta' have you? That's the only thing that I can think of that would put Punch and Judy and Crowley in your mind at the same time.

Regardless, cool idea. Depending on how you establish things in your campaign, this could work. If you've established that (like Ebberon) clerics gain power not directly from gods, but from some other source, then this should work.

However, I'd be a bit afraid that if you have an NPC do it, the PCs may do the same. Not sure how bat that would be, but having a PC draw power from himself might have bad repercussions.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I can't remember where I've seen them, but there ARE rules somewhere for empowering deities based on their followings - if I remember correctly (and admittedly I might not, as I haven't seen them in a while and didn't have a purpose for them in mind when I did) with as few as 15 devoted followers, a "god" can begin to bestow 1st level spells to a single Cleric. Maybe someone else remembers where the rules on that are?

You're probably thinking of FFG's Path of Faith. Like the whole Path series, it's a pretty good book, though I can't specifically vouch for the system of Power based on Worship.


Jeff

 

[Azul]

I had a cleric based on a similar idea a while back. He didn't worship himself per se, but rather he had a sui generis belief system. You see, he was schizophrenic so he heard voices and was quite delusional... and he utterly believed what the voices told him. He believed they were "spirits" speaking to him and paid homage to them. I played him as an archetypical raving madman loosely based on Rasputin.

This character description left the question of who exactly was granting him magic wide open for the DM (n.b. it was never answered). As the player, my opinion was that the sheer force of his faith in his delusional world granted him his divine magic. Alternately, just about any divine or infernal entity could pose as one of the voices in his head.

 

[Stormborn]

Wow, Crowley and Pnuch and Judy. You haven't, by chance, been reading 'V for Vendeta' have you? That's the only thing that I can think of that would put Punch and Judy and Crowley in your mind at the same time.

>CLIP<

However, I'd be a bit afraid that if you have an NPC do it, the PCs may do the same. Not sure how bat that would be, but having a PC draw power from himself might have bad repercussions.

No, haven't been reading V for Vendetta, I have it, but haven't read it. And trust me, pleanty of things wind up in my mind at the same time, some even stranger than that.

This is an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for some time. Don't know if I would ever do a campaign on it, my current one has to many cults and terrorists as is I don't want to add this one to the mix. I was thinking of possibly doing some kind of article on it, that the main reason I had questions about the rules. The point you make about the PCs doing it is a good one. I would never have worried about that with my players, but I can see how people would. Although I think you would have to be insane and played that way for it to work.