Building Semi-Heroic Organizations in Dark Fantasy

[Jendekit]

I'm building a dark fantasy world based in part on the Diablo franchise, and want to have a few Grey Warden-esque organizations. IE: heroic in purpose, yet willing to do horrible, even villainous things in the name of their duty.

Only one of them has an official name thus far, but the rest have in-universe nicknames.

The organizations (and what I have for them thus far) are:

• Church of Thurzdan, a god of fire
• Church of Zarakal, god of the sun
• Necromancers, the only named organization and the most like the Grey Wardens
• Witch Hunters

Both churches claim to follow the one true god and that the other is an archdemon.

Necromancers, members of the Ordos Muerkon, are stationed outside the Burning Wound (a volcano that contains an open portal to the world of demons) and must deal with a never ending horde of demons spewing out of it. They utilize the dead as disposable soldiers, otherwise the world would have been overrun centuries ago. Occasionally recruit from insane asylums.

Witch Hunters are those dedicated to hunting down witches, warlocks, and those that worship demons.

That's about what I have, what can I do to further flesh them out?

[VoxRationis]

You've already established, in the case of the Necromancers, one of the important things which help make these organizations "semi-heroic" instead of "villainous but with heroic trappings": they exist in reaction to a legitimate threat and their efforts actually mean something. You'll want to make sure that these organizations are all doing things to fight real threats to the world, or at least to the ability of people to live reasonably full lives in the region of the world in which the setting is placed.


Incidentally, I think choosing to have only one group be named is probably a mistake. Anything that can be called a church has enough of an organization that the institution merits a name, and if you want recognition as a bona fide "witch hunter" rather than "itinerant slayer of old women," you probably want some institutional clout as well, or else the local villagers will probably not just accept your authority to wander around killing their elderly.

[Jendekit]

Incidentally, I think choosing to have only one group be named is probably a mistake. Anything that can be called a church has enough of an organization that the institution merits a name, and if you want recognition as a bona fide "witch hunter" rather than "itinerant slayer of old women," you probably want some institutional clout as well, or else the local villagers will probably not just accept your authority to wander around killing their elderly.

I should clarify, the Ordos Muerkon isn't the only named organization. It's just the only one mentioned that I've come up with a name for thus far. I'm considering looking into the lore of the W40K Dark Heresy rpg line for ideas on running the two churches.

[Vogie]

I like the idea of the Ordos Muerkon being a sort of "Night Watch" against the spawns of hell. The dual churches can certainly work, but Sun vs Fire seems an unusual dichotomy. However, the Witch Hunters seem leave a lot to be desired.

I could see the hunters being:

• A sister order to the Ordos Muerkon, like MPs or Internal Affairs, who are going after necromancers that leave the Ordos Muerkon, and turn that necromantic magic against the living. If Necromancy is accepted in the world, but only for the purposes of controlling the Burning Wound, then most of the Witches & Warlocks would be in the OM, and it's only when they leave, for whatever reason, (or not join in the first place), that they'd be in the rest of society.
• A group of non-religious mundanes that are looking to remove all of the Outsider influences in the normal world, similar to the Hunter: The Vigil ttrpg or the TV show Supernatural.
• A third religious order that is rejected by the other two churches. It could be a grassroots new belief, an established nonreligious philosophy-driven monastic order (a la Buddhism or the Jedi), or maybe a more nature-based belief system. It could range anywhere from a neighborhood watch-style enforcement all the way up to a full-on inquisition. This may also be the state-sponsored religion, which is losing ground against the two churches

[S@tanicoaldo]

Make the Church of Thurzdan and Church of Zarakal conflict be about how the think good should be done.

The god of the sun is peaceful and believes in peaceful resolution of the conflicts and diplomacy. They see the all-consuming fire god an evil and destructive demonic creature.

The god of fire is a proactive deity who believes evil and injustice must be actively fought against evil in holy wars and protests, they see the god of sun as a obese, lazy and trickster creature who only claims to be good but don't actually do anything to accomplish good deeds and is more than happy to just stand around doing nothing while evil spreads.

[Yora]

Something interesting to do with witch hunters, which really isn't new but it works, is to make them proclaim and believe that they are serving one of the churches. But the church leaders are appalled by their methods and have decreed them to be heretics and to be expelled.The lay people don't really understand the theological reason behind it and often like what they do, and who is to argue when a dozen armed riders with a passion for killing comes through town?

With the churches, there is of course the possibility that both of them worship a demon. But if you want to use the setting for more than a single campaign with one party it would be hard to keep this secret and make it a surprise. (No Eberron players are surprised that the Blood of Vol is worshipping a lich and that king Kaius is a vampire. Those are the big selling points of the setting.)

One of my favorite bosses/villains is in Demon's Souls and also has to do with demons and churches.

Spoiler

Show

In the setting, demons have appeared and take over the land, which allows occult sages to actually cast real magic by drawing from their powers. Fortunately, God has given his priests and temple knights the means to fight back by granting them miracles. Of course, the priests are drawing from the same demonic power as the sorcerers.
One priestess found out and abandoned her faith in God. Instead she somehow got her hands on the soul of an archdemon and uses it as her source of power to create a sancturary for the outcast ghouls in the deepest pit of decay. The fight takes place in a church-like cave filled with worshipping ghouls that don't fight, and you have to fight her loyal paladin while the priestess calls you from the back to leave because they are no threat to anyone and don't have anything to steal. She can't really fight herself and once the paladin is killed you simply have to cut her down to take the archdemon soul you need to drive the demon god out of the world.

In Dragon Age, there is something like a catholic/orthodox church going on. Both Chantries worship the same god, but the White Divine and the Black Divine see each other as frauds and themselves as the only true head of the Chantry. Where they have power, the rules and teachings of the Chantry are quite different in the details.

[Dalinale]

One of the core groups the Ordos Muerkon recruit from might be a culture of itinerant nomads that are normally excluded from the dealings of the two dominant religions and are popular targets of the Witch Hunters. Their origin lies in very distant lands and their gods are wholly different then what is popular in most of the setting, to say nothing of the fact that they are perceived as clannish above else, and the Witch Hunters see them as allies of witches, malevolent undead, and demon worshipers. Some join the necromancer's to escape from this persecuted lifestyle, and some among them view such people as traitors; other bands, however, see the Necromancers as allies and are perfectly pleased to host and trade with them. Of course, inter-clan rivalries might encourage one band to cooperate with forces normally hostile to them to gang up on a rival clan.

This would help in a few different ways; it gives a possible background for members of the Necromancers and Witch Hunters, a weak group that the Churches have a reason to be antagonistic to, and fleshes out the setting overall, as they would be a group with as much a reason to hate the Churches and the Witch Hunters as the average individual would fear the demonic.


Another group of interest might be a formal order full of magical adepts who postulate that magics relating to life and death, or healing and necromancy, are the only true types of magic, as they manipulate man's inherent state; elemental magics, by contrast, are seen by them akin to how most would view demonic magic, and they have a utter loathing for users of non-divine magic outside of their closed society. The general philosophical line (with some variation among individuals) goes like this; the 'magics of life and death' promote civilization as a whole, while magic originating from nature makes man no different from nature, which they view as impure and a inferior state that must be fought against at every turn.

This results in situations in which members are willing to join up with Witch Hunters in order to kill a druid attempting to cleanse a fey domain ruined by demonic activity but will mislead them as to the location of the demon who did so, as it's likely that it will further rend through the countryside and kill a few more petty magic users.

This allows for a few things; it provides a group of individuals who would generally look like classical wizards who, for all intents and purposes, would be considered amoral and could provide Arcane magical support for the Churches. While they might have relationships with the Ordos Muerkon, they would not have similar goals by any definition sans the survival of humanity; for the Witch Hunters, they would be a group that would both help and obstruct them at times, and might provide a alternative philosophy for some. For the Churches, their relationship would be akin to historical Hermetic groups; while learned and wise, suspicious. In addition, some might consider tampering with demons; a disturbing thing, and one that is likely not patrolled heavily against within their organization.