First a plug for The Krit's Dynamic Deity Populated Pantheon:For religions in
Arnheim, I have been using The Krit's
Dynamic Deity Populated Pantheon to help make the kind of sophistication I want possible. Its an excellent set of scripts which I highly recommend. It enables you to restrict a cleric to specific domains, aligment, race, gender etc... depending on which "deity" they are following. The scripts are clean and well organized as well, so it has been enjoyable to work with.
What Arnheim has to offer:With a little bit of work, I have created 3 "religions" and 11 "gods" which together combine into (at present)
35 different possibilities for religous classes to choose from. There is also the "Atheist" option, but you can't cast divine spells if you are an Atheist. Druids, Clerics, Monks, Paladins and Rangers all fit into this system as religious classes (which is an extension from DDPP). If taboos are broken, alignment strays too far, or the charater simply loses faith they can lose their ability to level in the class, be unable to cast spells in that class, or even lose the use of certain divine abilities. An atonement spell was added to help wayward souls back on to the path.
Some background on Religions and Gods and Sects.To summarize, the main point is that I have constructed a bunch of religions, and organizations etc... that a player can belong to. Some of these are nested inside one another. And they have different relationships to one another.
The four basic religious supergroups (so far) are
Nature Worship,
The Mystery,
The Faith, and
Polytheism. The first three are religions, each different in its beliefs, priest class (druid/ranger, monk/cleric/ranger, cleric/paladin/range), and organization (organic, dispersed, centralized). Polytheism is a belief system that encapsulates a multitude of religions, gods, and divine forces. It is at present a vast category not fully defined beyond the 11 named gods, and alignment groupings of gods. Polytheism thus potentially includes many religions and sects within it so that players have the freedom to create new religions should they wish.. The Faith also has some diversity but is well defined with 11 sects, one for each patron (each coresponding to one of the named gods). Two of the sects are evil and have been expelled from the Temple of Light, and of the 9 remaining in The Temple, 2 are obviously good, and the rest ostensibly so. Neither Nature Worship nor The Mystery yet have any sects but theoretically could. And on top of religions and their sects, there are holy sites and organizations, a specific Temple for example. Players will be able to belong to these when I implement "home bases". Monks will have the choice of different monasteries (if I ever make them all
'> ). Druids can protect different sacred sites. Etc...
Cutting to the Chase:Since I first let players into Arnheim, characters of religious classes could convert others to their religion. In addition to accepting or rejecting the invitation, the convert has the choice (if it is relevant) to make a deep or shallow commitment. One can for example follow The Faith generally, essentially joining the religion while not devoting themself to any particular sect of The Faith. Religious classes are not allowed this wishy washiness, but I wanted to include some ambiguity for the other classes.
- One reason for putting Religious Conversion in the hands of the players was to legitimize this kind of roleplay without requiring a DMs blessing. Conversion is an in character act. PCs can't change religions by using a tool in an OOC lounge or simply declaring it and harassing a DM to make it real. Its a negotiation between priest and "flock". Only religious classes can convert others. And so they get some "currency" in the player base for this.
- The other reason was to facilitate competition between religions. (One inspiration to illustrate this is Fritz Leiber's description of Issek of the Jug and the Street of the Gods in Lankhmar ) So let it be known that conversions and religion membership is tallied, and ranked. Likewise those tallies go down for the religion that the convert leaves. Conversions are counted at a number of levels as well, including that of the priest doing the converting. So priests can compete with one another for the higher tally of converts.
This will be an important feature of Arnheim when I open it up to sand box style play in addition to the
DM'd events I was running this year. My goal is to build into the setting some core factions which players can join, and affect the world through. Conflict between wild characters and civilized characters is already built into the setting. The goal is to expand upon this, and enable competion outside of combat. As a religion gains converts it gains influence and power. Related is the ability for a player to establish a home base at a religious place a monastery, sacred grove, temple etc...
For example if the Druids are to repopulate Falkswoud (its currently used as a hunting ground by the Baron and his men and thus filled with wolves, bandits and goblins instead of higher numbers of fey, forest people and druids), they'll need to convert followers in Falkswoud and reestablish a sacred grove. Pitted against them are the Baron who supports The Faith and its Temple in Arnheim. Priests of the temple can convert the bandits of Falkswoud and encourage the building of villages along the Southroad. They will need to also gain some personal influence so as to convince the baron to hunt elsewhere rather than killing everyone.
I am working hard on getting Arnheim ready for this kind of sandbox play (in addition to prepping the next series of game nights that I'll DM). At present I don't know when sandbox play will be ready. I do need to wrap up this kind of dev soon (crafting and finihsing my "
rental system" is also on my list. the rental system actually relates to any home base not just inns and is fairly sophisticated and difficult to complete...) and finish of the Adermoer so I can run some more adventures there.
And I put all this out there for a few resons. One to let you know what i am working on. Two to get feedback. And, well, if anyone is interested enough to join me in working on it, please speak up. Consider this an informal appeal at team building.
Modifié par henesua, 30 octobre 2012 - 10:20 .
