2nd ed., priest spheres: Cold Rider and Hand of Azrai

[Lee]

After a long time away, I have been running a small game with 2e rules for my son and some of his friends. It's a pretty informal game, using good ol' Keep on the Borderlands as a basis.

Long ago, I started collating lists of priest spells for all of the Cerilian gods. Lately, I have made it into a spreadsheet, including Tome of Magic and Book of Priestcraft spells. But, I do not have any info on priest requirements and abilities for any bad-guy priests for the Cold Rider, nor the Hand of Azrai from the Gorgon's Realm.

Has anyone done stuff for those?

[Fizz]

After a long time away, I have been running a small game with 2e rules for my son and some of his friends. It's a pretty informal game, using good ol' Keep on the Borderlands as a basis.

Long ago, I started collating lists of priest spells for all of the Cerilian gods. Lately, I have made it into a spreadsheet, including Tome of Magic and Book of Priestcraft spells. But, I do not have any info on priest requirements and abilities for any bad-guy priests for the Cold Rider, nor the Hand of Azrai from the Gorgon's Realm.

Has anyone done stuff for those?


Well, by the book, the Cold Rider isn't well defined. He's a menacing figure, but no one really knows what the Cold Rider is. I like Rich Baker's description: "like a drop of oil in a pond, an evil sheen that slowly spreads over the entire surface" (something like that). So as such, the Cold Rider has no priests and no defined spheres.

The Hand of Azrai is a priestess to "Azrai, Belinik and Kriesha", so her spells would come from the latter two.

That said, if you are running a game where the Cold Rider has evolved into a full deity, then you've got some options depending on what you think he is.


-Fizz

[Thelandrin]

According to developer notes, the Cold Rider is actually the last remnants of Azrai's divine essence (quite how he survived Deismaar at all is anyone's business).

I think it's less complicated to go with the Cold Rider as some sort of ascended Shadow World entity, personally, but as it grants no spells and apparently has no priests, it's not really much of an issue.

[Fizz]

According to developer notes, the Cold Rider is actually the last remnants of Azrai's divine essence (quite how he survived Deismaar at all is anyone's business).

I think it's less complicated to go with the Cold Rider as some sort of ascended Shadow World entity, personally, but as it grants no spells and apparently has no priests, it's not really much of an issue.

True, but that was never put into any official publication as far as i know. But in-game, no one knows what the Cold Rider is, is what i meant.

-Fizz

[Lee]

Somehow I missed the Baker notes until this week, I don't need to evolve CR into a deity yet.

I still want a bad-guy church, possibly human-run, behind the monsters. I missed the bit that HoA has Belinik & Kreisha links, too. I'll go with Kreisha/Belinik for powers & spheres, then.

Ooo, another chance to use my painted White Witch mini!

[Fizz]

I still want a bad-guy church, possibly human-run, behind the monsters.

Well, there's also the orog deity Torazan, or the Goblin deity Kartathok. I could see either of them having a cult of human followers under a different name.

-Fizz

[Thelandrin]

I think Kartathok is unlikely. Not only is he obsessed with goblin supremacy, he's also a non-human god and those gods have never tended to grant actual spells to followers not of their race.

[ebatalis]

What we are using in our campaign (which runs in role playing mode, not regent one, with various groups, players and game masters since 1999) is the following idea.

Cold Rider is indeed as mentioned above a creature that has overlordship somehow over the destroyed realm of Arborea aka the Shadow World. With his power he is plotting and corrupting (since I imagine this suits best to a corruptive force) from his seat of power. His power is immense in the realm of the Shadows, little though in Aebrynis.

Now lets do some ancient history class. There are various interpretations to the history of the old gods and how the ancient human empires fell to Azrai. One of them admits that Azrai may not have been evil and corrupted since day one. Maybe another entity (you name it) came along, and since he was sort of cast out, took advantage of it. Why not that power being a creature of Arborea all along? There is no recorded history (thank goodness) of Arborea, nor the creatures that may reside in there, hence a sourcebook, which came along later than the line of official products, and take my word give us no light.
Now if you put the dots together you will be able to figure what may come out of this.
(by the way, in our campaign it is now like 10 years of which the corruptive force of the Cold Rider has taken over the majority of the churches of Haelyn, since the Anuireans are the easiest to corrupt in my opinion. We can cast out the Vos I think, they dont need a driving force to get corrupted lately. By saying he has taken over the churches I dont mean that dark fires and portals are cast over Anuire, I mean that the church is been corrupted and the dogmas are been manipulated from within, in a more subtle way. Till time comes. Of course Haelyn knows, and stuggles, but it is that shitty pact the deities made that keeps him short handed.
Well yes you can use some other power, that will not change history at all, but rather give it another explanation. Noone will hold it against you. As much as it concerns that I can direct you to various novels of the L5R setting and maybe some sourcebooks to see how the corruptive nothing works, and even at the Prince of Lies novel to see how gods may come to think when it comes to pacts.

Now lets take it to the Gorgon. The rusty Prince.
If Raesene is the most powerful Azrai blood infested blood of darkness, you should look into its agenda. In my point of view he is a tyrant. An obsessive creature that wants to rule over Anuire and henceforth the world. In any way that my come to happen. That is very close to what you can see in the sourcebooks since Raesene already has under his control several realms, but he is not self ruling them, he is puppeting them. Why? Because he is not a ruler, he is a Tyrant, he wants other people to do the job, and he is over looking it. The first rule of a success, divide and conquer. Raesene in our campaign (plural, cause there are 4 Game masters and 4 groups playing) is that Raesene knows and feels, maybe has been in contact with the Cold Rider, and of course the late has offered an alliance, but the Prince denied, why? I will repeat myself, put the dots together. If the Cold Rider ever get his hands on Raesene he may get the vessel he needs to cross sides, and imagine. Raesene knows that in some degree.
Know the Hand of Azrai is another story. This is mentioned as a church, to "nothing". If you deem that they have powers, you must choose where those powers come from. Is it the "Nothing" (we can call like this the power that corrupted even Azrai), is it Kriesha? is it something else? (a fiend, the Cold Rider, you name it). No matter who gives this church power you can find good examples for them if you read how the priests and cults of Vecna work. You can make the parallelism (Greek word, I am very proud of it) easy.
Keep in mind the first rule of evilness (Evil turns upon itself). They can be priests you venerate anything under the protection of Raesene, (faith is the food of ignorant) and keep the masses pre-occupied. Dark creatures always need dark gods to bow down to.
This does not mean that they (Raesene and the priests that serve him) are in love. They are antagonists one way or another in some point. Keep that in mind, unless you want to make a very nice linear campaign where evil is sided with evil and drink beers, and good is shining and clean white.

Feel free to ask any more ideas and questions, I am here to brainstorm you. I am very glad that they are people who still look up to Birthright and have questions such as this.