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2015-10-09, 05:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2014
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- Los Angeles
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
Last edited by LudicSavant; 2015-10-09 at 05:55 AM.
Originally Posted by ProsecutorGodot
Nerull | Wee Jas | Olidammara | Erythnul | Hextor | Corellon Larethian | Lolth | The Deep Ones
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2015-10-09, 08:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
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- Protecting my Horde (yes, I mean that kind)
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
I too enjoy the Dragon Age setup. The following has spoilers for DA:I.
SpoilerI'm fond of the fact that Solas appears to be the Dread Wolf incarnate and he isn't anywhere near as powerful as he could possibly, as well as Flemeth is possessed by the dead goddess Mythal. As complete aside the DLC Trespasser has Solas explain what happened to the elven gods (here's a hint, the Veil is an artificial construct). This means something interesting for the Golden/Black City being in the Fade and the nature of The Maker.Last edited by Beleriphon; 2015-10-09 at 08:14 AM.
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2015-10-09, 08:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2013
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
Never played Eberron outside of Dungeons and Dragons Online, but I liked the Undying Court bit about the elves so much that I adapted a modified version for my game. Basically the planar ecology of my game is that there is Our World, and the Other World. The Other is like a hybrid of Asian spirit realm and European fey. There is no after life. Souls are made up of stuff from this realm, and when you die your soul returns there, if your actions, presence, or strength of conciousness left a big enough impression then you might retain sentience and continue to exist in a different form, but most people are subsumed back into the collective unconsciousness.
Elves are an exception. This is their realm and they always re-incarnate back and forth, but have vague memories of their time in the fey realm while they are in Our world. The elves hold this as a closely guarded secret, and it is very difficult for most people to travel to the Fey realm.
Dwarves believe that they return to the earth, and in a sense they are correct, they live long enough that most of their people retain consciousness of a form when they return, and they have magical means to communicate with them, making necromancers a important part of their culture. They also are the only race that do not cremate their dead in my setting. Most races cremate because at certain times of the year, untended dead re-animate. The dwarves use a method of embalming/mummification.
EDIT: I should make the Other be where the Gods reside...
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2015-10-09, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Gender
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
I made one low-powered campaign setting for 3.5 where the gods were originally titans (ala Greek mythology) created by the universe-creating fates, who only communicated with the titians through acts of creation and through their oracle (who was herself a titian).
Some rebeled against the fates, and others joined with the fates. The latter won with the former being killed. Afterwards the fates rewarded their followers by making them gods over various pre-human tribes (including threeish who were the direct decendants of their gods) and giving them a century to live with their people before requiring the new gods from departing.
Afterwards, gods could only interacted with their faithful via spells like contact outer plane or by empowering or disempowering divine classes (e.g. clerics). This put gods on undesirable positions, e.g. do I disempower my followers in a dangerous world because they're presenting their biases as my own?
One god had very few female clerics because the culture that worshiped him was fairly sexist, and while he wasn't happy about it, he expressed this by (litterally) empowering any woman who met his standards for clerics, rather than depowering every male cleric who refused to teach female acolytes.
A different god would disempower any cleric that advocated or fought for a non-cleric leader that tried to reconcile his followers with the decendants of a goddess he still hated, but wouldn't depower one for just working with an individual member of the rival race if they had a mutually acceptable goal (both races were frequently plagued by sea monsters).I consider myself an author first, a GM second and a player third.
The three skill-sets are only tangentially related.
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2015-10-09, 02:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
The story of Asmodeus the Paladin is the most interesting one I know, personally.
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2015-10-09, 04:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2012
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- Spring, TX
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Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
Link for the lazy. At least, I think that's what you're referencing.
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2015-10-10, 09:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
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Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
Every time someone asks about "most interesting [x] in RPGs" I come in yelling Glorantha. That's true here, too.
The thing about Gloranthan gods, in addition to everything written above, is that the world itself runs on their logic rather than on any laws of physics. The sky, the land and every creature in between works the way they do because of some god did something before time was invented and now we're stuck living in an echo of their timeless existence. The trick, as again outlined above, is that we can use rituals and magic to reach into that place before time and gently nudge things around to change the echo we experience today.
So every province within the Lunar Glowline experiences mild and pleasant weather all year round because an imperial expedition has a tradition of venturing out and punching winter in the face every now and then.Last edited by Comet; 2015-10-10 at 09:48 AM.
"What can change the nature of a man?"
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Guybrush Threepwood avatar by Ceika
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2015-10-10, 10:18 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2014
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2015-10-10, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2013
- Gender
Re: Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs
Reminds me of Oglaf, where you need to do something else (NSFW) to the spirit of winter to make spring come... I do find 'punching winter in the face' funny, like the 40K orcs got tired of magic and just started smacking Chaos around until reality does what they want it tkt.
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