The power and faith of science

[Seth62]

So I was talking to my religious friend and she commented how it is like a religion and I was like What if.

So my question for the forum is Who are the gods of this pantheon so science.
maybe Albert Einstein Being Lawful Good, Charles Darwin is True Neutral.

Idk take it away guy I need help with this, Like what are there class levels and divine rank.

[eggs]

This thread can only be bound for great things.

But if you're modeling these after Leibniz or Newton or whoever, I'm pretty sure your whole array is going to be comprised of Experts and Aristocrats.

[Seth62]

Still you can do so much With the power of Science I want enlighten this World With the Power of Atom

[Morbis Meh]

I vote Erwin Shrodigner as CN... because he might just be there...or not

[Slipperychicken]

Ur-Priests. Ur-Priests everywhere.

For saints, you should be fine with a list of prominent Atheists and scientists. Primary holy book is the Origin of Species. Divine Focus/Holy Symbol is a slide-rule with the image of Charles Darwin's face on it.


Divine Rank = N+1, where N = total number of Divine Ranks in existence.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I vote Erwin Shrodigner as CN... because he might just be there...or not

No...Nikola Tesla is CN.

I vote Schroedinger for CE, because he kills cats.

[Morbis Meh]

No...Nikola Tesla is CN.

I vote Schroedinger for CE, because he kills cats.

but didn't you know cats are evil malicious beings that maul commoners everywhere?

[Seth62]

http://science.howstuffworks.com/inn...ntific-god.htm

Tesla all the way, lightning domain

[SwordChucks]

Nikola Tesla: Chaotic Awesome

Domains include: Lightning/Weather, Artifice, Chaos, Craft, Creation, Destruction, and strangely Peace (I can't find this domain but I remember something along these lines)

Of course he would have an opposite in Edison. Edison could be a god of similar divine rank or an Ur-Priest stealing power from other inventors.

[hiryuu]

Charles Darwin is True Neutral.

I would argue that Darwin is Chaotic Good. Have you ever read his writings? The man was violently opposed to the institutions of his day that were used to oppress other people and cultures. The idea of slavery so maddened him that he couldn't stand to be around slave owners and keep a calm voice.

[Ardantis]

Edison was an engineer and a businessmen who primarily oversaw other scientists. Ruthless, but fair, and clearly LN.

Here are a few more:

Richard Feynman~ CG

Charles Oppenheimer~ LG

Stephen Hawking~ LE (clearly a villain)

Jane Goodall~ NG

Richard Dawkins~ CE

And of course

Edison~ LN

[Seth62]

I feel Dr. Joseph Mengele the Nazi medical scientist is a good Lawful evil option

[Ashtagon]

No...Nikola Tesla is CN.

I vote Schroedinger for CE, because he kills cats.

No, you have it wrong.

Schrodinger's messenger is a somewhat nervous catgirl with one or more of blue, etherealness, and/or invisibility going on any any given moment.

[Morbis Meh]

Alright Domains for Schrodinger: Time, Celerity, Chaos and Trickery (may not be as apparent through his works but the man di have a mistress)

Favored Weapon: Box

[Starbuck_II]

Alright Domains for Schrodinger: Time, Celerity, Chaos and Trickery (may not be as apparent through his works but the man di have a mistress)

Favored Weapon: Box

Nah, Madness as the cat is neither dead or alive.
Also, regarding his experiment: "More specifically, quantum mechanics provides us with the accurate prediction that if this experiment is repeated many times (the SPCA would disapprove), half of the experiments will result in dead cats. "

However, now we can autopsy animals:
"Even without a mechanical recorder, the cat's death sets in motion biological processes that constitute an equivalent, if gruesome, recording. When a dead cat is the result, a sophisticated autopsy can provide an approximate time ,when Schrödinger's cat died because the cat's body is acting as an event recorder. There never is a superposition of live and dead cats. "

So the cat isn't both if the experiment is repeated now.

[nedz]

Euler. His domains are complex and his divine rank is 2.7182818284590452353602874713527...

[Snowbluff]

Ur-Priests. Ur-Priests everywhere.

For saints, you should be fine with a list of prominent Atheists and scientists. Primary holy book is the Origin of Species. Divine Focus/Holy Symbol is a slide-rule with the image of Charles Darwin's face on it.


Divine Rank = N+1, where N = total number of Divine Ranks in existence.

Oh god a practicing atheist.

[hiryuu]

This is fun and all, but now I'm putting serious thought into this.

I think an atheist in a D&D setting is feasible, and all it takes is doubting that "gods" are what they claim to be. Corellon can't offer up anything that's direct proof or evidence that he created elves. All we have is hearsay and apocryphal stories, for example, and strong belief in any philosophy appears to be able to create the same effects as worship of these entities.

[Snowbluff]

This is fun and all, but now I'm putting serious thought into this.

I think an atheist in a D&D setting is feasible, and all it takes is doubting that "gods" are what they claim to be. Corellon can't offer up anything that's direct proof or evidence that he created elves. All we have is hearsay and apocryphal stories, for example, and strong belief in any philosophy appears to be able to create the same effects as worship of these entities.

Yeah, this could be a lot of fun, but doubting beings who undoubtedly magical at the very least in a setting where magic is used to make things on a regular basis is not something that would work out very well.

I like the following philosophy idea. Kind of the way wizards are intelligent with maths and esoteric formulae, a Cleric can deduce with philosophy a functional understanding of the universe.

[Slipperychicken]

I like the following philosophy idea. Kind of the way wizards are intelligent with maths and esoteric formulae, a Cleric can deduce with philosophy a functional understanding of the universe.

It's called Archivist. They don't get their powers from Gods, and use the same mechanics as Wizards, only with Divine spells.

[Snowbluff]

It's called Archivist. They don't get their powers from Gods, and use the same mechanics as Wizards, only with Divine spells.

They work pretty the same way as wizards. Formulae. What I am thinking is more like Cloistered Clerics that follow and develop a philosophy.

[hiryuu]

Yeah, this could be a lot of fun, but doubting beings who undoubtedly magical at the very least in a setting where magic is used to make things on a regular basis is not something that would work out very well.

I like the following philosophy idea. Kind of the way wizards are intelligent with maths and esoteric formulae, a Cleric can deduce with philosophy a functional understanding of the universe.

No one would be doubting they were magical.

At all.

That would be a fool's errand. Since clearly, they are magical beings of a sort. Rational skeptics aren't typically that dense.

The doubt is if they really are who or what they claim to be, because they can't produce evidence they created anything other than the myths of their followers. Especially since they have a lot of contradictory claims and stories on their own ends (Garl Glittergold vs. Kurtulmak's account of the same story, as an example).

[Xodion]

This kind of thing would probably be funny in a short/one-off campaign, but it would get old quickly.

Also, why is everyone putting Tesla as CN? He was so introverted, he has to be TN - Heisenberg should definitely be CN :P

[Snowbluff]

No one would be doubting they were magical.

At all.

That would be a fool's errand. Since clearly, they are magical beings of a sort. Rational skeptics aren't typically that dense.

The doubt is if they really are who or what they claim to be, because they can't produce evidence they created anything other than the myths of their followers. Especially since they have a lot of contradictory claims and stories on their own ends (Garl Glittergold vs. Kurtulmak's account of the same story, as an example).

Well, without any evidence that they AREN'T truly divine beings of any sort, this might be hard. Considering that people can live for hundreds of years, I think the deities would have enough people that could vouch for their last 500 years or so of miracles to assist in substantiating their claims. Hey, it's not evidence, but it would go a long they keep doing miraculous things, there is no denying their Divine statuses.

Besides, who would keep track of this sort of thing other than there followers? Even if 2 gods stories are in conflict, one of them is likely to be right regardless.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Why is Tesla Neutral Anything? Going by some of his quotes, the man was clearly operating under a deeply humanist philosophy and wanting to do the most good possible for the most people, With SCIENCE!

He's clearly Chaotic Good.

[Duke of Urrel]

Good ideas, except for making Stephen Hawking LE. You'll have to justify that! I couldn't understand THE BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME either, but I'm not going to blame Hawking. (Lawful-Evil actually fits Steve Jobs better, from what I've heard: a genius, but also a tyrant.)

I believe the main conflict among scientists runs along the Law-versus-Chaos axis rather than the Good-versus-Evil one. They're all about Knowledge, and they themselves seem a little surprised when something they discover turns out to be amazingly helpful or harmful to the human species. (Look at Robert Oppenheimer's reaction to his own invention of the atomic bomb.) But Law versus Chaos – that's a big deal. Einstein said: "God does not play at dice." But Schrödinger and Heisenberg said: "Oh yes, he does (as far as we can ever know)."

In a world filled with meddling deities, I think the scientific approach is to come up with a political history, a psychology, an anthropology, and an evolutionary history of divine beings. If we can understand them, we can better learn how to deal with them, right? And who created the gods, anyway? Imagine how many mysteries we could explain if we knew that!

We can also imagine that in the world of D&D, the history of science has taken a rather different direction than ours. In their world, crazy old Doktor Faustus was correct: You can summon earth spirits – if you mix the right materials and utter the right invocation. Many of their experiments have led to different conclusions from ours, which is why they have magic and we have advanced technology.

Or think of all the scientific theories that have been proven wrong (like Kepler's theory that the five Platonic solids: icosahedron, dodecahedron, double pyramid, cube, and tetrahedron – or if you will, the d20, d12, d8, d6, and d4 – fit neatly inside the spheres of the six known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). What if theories like these had turned out to be right? What if fire really were made of phlogiston? What if acquired physical traits really were generally inherited by offspring? What kind of a world would we live in then?

A great source of fantasy-science ideas is Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Check if out if you're not familiar with it. The physics of discworld light (and the color of magic, octarine) is fascinating, as are such gems as retrophrenology. (Yes, you can look that up online.)

[hiryuu]

Well, without any evidence that they AREN'T truly divine beings of any sort, this might be hard. Considering that people can live for hundreds of years, I think the deities would have enough people that could vouch for their last 500 years or so of miracles to assist in substantiating their claims. Hey, it's not evidence, but it would go a long they keep doing miraculous things, there is no denying their Divine statuses.

Besides, who would keep track of this sort of thing other than there followers? Even if 2 gods stories are in conflict, one of them is likely to be right regardless.

Evidence for a negative and Pascal's Wager. No evidence gods are who they say they are (and in fact, since you can have a cleric without a god, there's no way a god can prove that it's the one fueling the cleric, either!), they could be elaborate con artists running a shell game. I can go with this all day, but that's not the point. I'm not even saying the gods aren't gods. They may very well be. The point is that there's room for doubt, and where there's room for doubt, there will be doubters, and the way the D&D universe is usually set up, they can have clerics of their own that can pull off the same tricks a priest can.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Well, without any evidence that they AREN'T truly divine beings of any sort, this might be hard. Considering that people can live for hundreds of years, I think the deities would have enough people that could vouch for their last 500 years or so of miracles to assist in substantiating their claims. Hey, it's not evidence, but it would go a long they keep doing miraculous things, there is no denying their Divine statuses.

To expand on hiryuu's point, consider: A high level cleric, let's say 15th, can create things out of thin air, can polymorph inanimate materials into living things, can scry on other people and listen in on their conversations, infuse allies with spellcasting abilities, and do many other amazing things. Many of the things he does would be considered godlike by low-level people unfamiliar with the capabilities of high-level clerics. In fact, those things are fairly godlike: the gods are known for creating the world, creating races, listening to prayers, granting magic to followers, and so forth. Sure, they can do things clerics can't (e.g. make fertile undispellable creatures), but then a 17th-level cleric can do lots of things that that cleric above can't do.

And besides that, nothing a god is known for doing is really different from what spellcasters can do, they just do it better. Casters take extra actions, gods have dozens of free actions per round; casters SoD people, gods do it from different planes. Casters divine the future, gods see the future with perfect accuracy. There's nothing separating a god from a very very very very powerful spellcaster in theory at all, particularly when four more levels gives our sample cleric epic spellcasting to duplicate many of the gods' tricks.

So a D&D skeptic/atheist/rationalist doesn't deny that people claim that Moradin forged the dwarves out of stone and iron, or even deny that it actually happened, he just says "Big deal! Powerful spellcasters can make dwarves or mindrape people into thinking they did too, and if I worshiped the ground an epic wizard walked on, he could give me power too; you'll need to do better than that to convince me that you're better and more worthy of worship than a level 100 human wizard. At least that wizard is human, for all I know you're actually a mind flayer in disguise who started a brain-harvesting cult and got lucky." And so on and so forth.

Besides, who would keep track of this sort of thing other than there followers? Even if 2 gods stories are in conflict, one of them is likely to be right regardless.

As the old saying goes: "There are three sides to every story. Yours, theirs, and the truth." Considering that there are a lot more gods than just those two, any of whom might want to make one side look better or worse for various reasons, trusting the clergy of either god to have an unbiased view isn't the best approach.

[Snowbluff]

Well here's this. You have to trust something at one point. Any and all information can be falsified.

Let's take this to a comparison. Mr. Obama is the President of the United States. You know he is the president. What does he do? Unless you work closely with him, you have no idea at all. Seriously, all of the information that get's from what he does that gets to you can be changed at any point by any one down the line.

Thinking the gods of DnD are not gods is thinking that the President is not the President. Whether or not they did their deeds is not important, since those are easily faked/lies, but they carry the traits that, in their universe, define them as deities. If you don't believe so, you would be the DnD equivalent of an insane Conspiracy Theorist.

A little off my point, if Wisdom is tied to sanity (YMMV), being one of the insane theorists would not allow you to have the Wisdom to be a cleric.

[nyjastul69]

Heisenberg should definitely be CN :P

We can't be certain about that. The more precisely we know what his alignment is on one axis, the less precisely we know what his alignment is on the other axis.

I also agree that Tesla should fall on the good side of the alignment axes. I'm not sure whether it would be C-G or N-G, I don't think L-G fits though.