Post by hengest on Apr 6, 2021 18:22:46 GMT -5
A personal reply to this post by @bestialwurst, in which he discusses the origins of setting gods as (my term) alien astronauts.
It seems the gods in-game are often some kind of super-beings, but still finite.
So:
-we often have the gods semi-handwaved as distant "granters" of clerical spells
-such origins of gods (alien astronauts, etc) as in the post I'm responding to are not unknown in the world and as supposition although, to my knowledge, they are relatively rare in-game (and I like the write-up I linked to). The gods are neither divine nor infallible, simply "super" next to the humans who consider them to be gods.
A twist might be the following. Not sure that this has been done anywhere, let me know if it has:
-divine and arcane magic merged / not distinguished
-spells gained neither through prayer nor study, but are granted directly by a local NPC known personally. Likely a monarch who is a regular NPC in every way but who is distinguished from other powerful figures by exactly this ability, to grant spells on request. Prsumably this person cannot actually cast spells, only grant them. A kind of delegation of power that the delegator cannot actually use.
So a party might have a FM who is a relatively free agent and an MU / cleric who is bound (for power) anyway to this specific party.
Vancian, cast and "forget," but no spells for starting PCs. Relationship must first be established through some degree of heroism, accomplishment. OR, in fairy tale tradition, a soldier is "discharged" and instead of pay, gets a spell or two granted and is sent off into the world...
I see this monarch not as an emperor or a local chieftain of a tribe of 50 people, but likely a kind of petty king. That sounds like a good place to start, although I can see it working at various levels of power for the monarch.
This could create a different dynamic within parties and between PC and NPC.
(I'm putting this under Fairy Tales for now because I can see it fitting into that kind of setting, may move it later, depending on responses and further thoughts from me.)
It seems the gods in-game are often some kind of super-beings, but still finite.
So:
-we often have the gods semi-handwaved as distant "granters" of clerical spells
-such origins of gods (alien astronauts, etc) as in the post I'm responding to are not unknown in the world and as supposition although, to my knowledge, they are relatively rare in-game (and I like the write-up I linked to). The gods are neither divine nor infallible, simply "super" next to the humans who consider them to be gods.
A twist might be the following. Not sure that this has been done anywhere, let me know if it has:
-divine and arcane magic merged / not distinguished
-spells gained neither through prayer nor study, but are granted directly by a local NPC known personally. Likely a monarch who is a regular NPC in every way but who is distinguished from other powerful figures by exactly this ability, to grant spells on request. Prsumably this person cannot actually cast spells, only grant them. A kind of delegation of power that the delegator cannot actually use.
So a party might have a FM who is a relatively free agent and an MU / cleric who is bound (for power) anyway to this specific party.
Vancian, cast and "forget," but no spells for starting PCs. Relationship must first be established through some degree of heroism, accomplishment. OR, in fairy tale tradition, a soldier is "discharged" and instead of pay, gets a spell or two granted and is sent off into the world...
I see this monarch not as an emperor or a local chieftain of a tribe of 50 people, but likely a kind of petty king. That sounds like a good place to start, although I can see it working at various levels of power for the monarch.
This could create a different dynamic within parties and between PC and NPC.
(I'm putting this under Fairy Tales for now because I can see it fitting into that kind of setting, may move it later, depending on responses and further thoughts from me.)
