Scion Worship

[Chrys murphy]

I am currently working on rules for churches that worship scions - partly to
explain the hand of Azrai and partly so I can expand on the Sahuagin of the
Krakenstaur and their worship of the Kraken.

The basics are that the scion needs to hae Great or True Bloodline and
established Temple Holdings dedicated to his/her/it's worship. Multiply Bloodline
by Total levels of Temple Holdings & Divide by 100, this gives the total number
of Spell Levels priests of the scion can receive (Oh yes, Halve the total for
Great Bloodlines) and the Scion's Priests receive spells as if the Scion were a
DemiGod

As I said, this is just the rough 1st ideas, any comments/advice/help will be
gladly accepted.
I hope to have the finished rules up on Darkstar's netbook sometime in the next
few weeks.

[FRANKEN*RC]

> I am currently working on rules for churches that worship scions - partly to
> explain the hand of Azrai and partly so I can expand on the Sahuagin of the
> Krakenstaur and their worship of the Kraken.

I was just wondering do you really need those rules? I don't think
mortals should start playing gods.
About the hand of Azrai, they do worship Azrai not the gorgon and i
don't know if the church has priests (that is ones that can cast
spells)
And about the Kraken, so little is known about the beast that it is
very good possible that it truely is a divine being, that made his
home on the prime material plane and by being divine can grant spells
just like any god.

Ronald

[Taragin@sprintmail.co]

Right now I am running a "scion worship" temple domain in a PBeM game,
but the blooded regent has a tainted bloodline with a strength of 31.
Though I only have a temple (1) in an isolated Rjurik province, the
temple is gaining power through guild holdings throughout the Rjurik
Highlands and the realms of Anuire.
I'm not so sure about your letting mortals grant spells higher than 2nd
level (faith magic; 1st ed. DMG), but after all Cerilian scions do have
gods' blood, so who knows. Rather than using Tainted, Minor, Major, and
Great, why don't you use the actual numerical score to determine the
faith's power level.
- --
Alexander

“There is no dilemma that cannot be solved by a disciplined Cardassian
mind.� - Gul Dukat

[Taragin@sprintmail.co]

Trizt wrote:
> What about healing and such? just create a wizard spell which does heal a bit,
> say a second level spell which heals 1d6, but which takes 1hp from the spell
> caster (if the spell caster gets 0 or less hp due the spell, then it fails).
> This spell will be guarded and if stolen by someone, that person will be
> hunted down at any cost.

Now, now. Lets not go making up spells like this. After all, that's
what necromancers are for! We already have spells such as Bloodbridge
(2nd level; DRAGON), Empathic Wound Transfer, Graft Flesh, and Wound
Conferral (4th, 5th, & 7th; Complete Book of Necromancers), and many
others to help out those not wealthy enough to afford those
extortionistic priests of Hælyn. And no matter what those other regents
at the Council of Kings might say, Necromancy is the key to defeating
the Shadow World!

- --
Alexander

“There is no dilemma that cannot be solved by a disciplined Cardassian
mind.� - Gul Dukat

[hobbychest@pcsia.co]

BI> Now, now. Lets not go making up spells like this. After all, that's
BI>what necromancers are for! We already have spells such as Bloodbridge
BI>(2nd level; DRAGON), Empathic Wound Transfer, Graft Flesh, and Wound
BI>Conferral (4th, 5th, & 7th; Complete Book of Necromancers), and many
BI>others to help out those not wealthy enough to afford those
BI>extortionistic priests of Hælyn. And no matter what those other regents
BI>at the Council of Kings might say, Necromancy is the key to defeating
BI>the Shadow World!

I believe that at the Council of Kings, it was agreed upon that the
proper method of dealing with Necromancy was -"KILL THE NECROMANCER!"
As for the Shadow World, we send the stupid war hungry Anuirians and
Vos, funded by the Brechts.

Gerad ibn El Arrasi
Khinasi Representative on the Council of Kings

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Bryon Switala wrote:

> What about the Serpent? He/It is not a divine being, yet there is a church
> set up to worship him and the pathos of gods that have been created. Scoin
> Worship could work, but you would have to have a totally closed society that
> could or would not be effected by outside influance.
>
> Also don't the humanoids in the Maze worship the Minator?

No, the halflings who live in the Maze follow a local druid, who appears
to worship nature spirits rather than the god Erik.

As for the Serpent, he's always seemed to me to be a "special case." And
the Hand of Azrai specifically says that they worship Azrai, rather than
worshiping the Gorgon. I would be very hesitant to allow earth-bound
scions to be able to hand out clerical spells. I would say that they need
to have a BL strength of at least 100, maybe 150 before they reach this
level of god-power. And even then, I think that they are not actually
generating the power themselves, but rather channelling it from anther
source to their worshipers.

How can this be? Many of you are familiar with Forgotten Realms, where
the bodies of the dead gods can be found lying out somewhere in the
etheric plane. Well, Azrai is kind of like that. Only Azrai is an UNDEAD
god.

You see, instead of ending up in the etheric when he died, Azrai made sure
that his body ended up in the Shadow World, which obeys completely
different sets of rules.

Actually, I believe that Azrai currently exists somewhere caught in stasis
between dead and undead, so his body, while still a font of godly power,
is no longer directly controlled by his "mind" or "consciousness." His
consciousness, however, is still alive, and roams the Shadow World as the
Cold Rider, in search of a way to complete his transformation into an
undead god. The Cold Rider is therefore able to tap into and use some of
the power of his god-body, but not very much of it. There's plenty left
over in that reservoir, and those that have a very powerful bloodline of
Azrai can figure out how to tap into it as well.

That being said, I DON'T think that the remains of the other gods ended up
in the Shadow World. If they are anywhere, they probably ended up on the
etheric as well, or in their own little "heaven" realms. I think it more
likely that they completely disassociated their substances in the process
of destroying Azrai, and so their bodies simply don't exist any more.
Therefore, a similar "reservoir" does not exist for scions of other
derivations to siphon from and start their own little cults. Or it could
only be done via special dispensation from the current god, and I see no
reason why one of the gods would do such a thing.

So, the Hand of Azrai probably gets their spells from the Cold Rider (if
my ideas are at all valid, only further word from Ed et al. will let us
know for sure). Whether the Gorgon knows and/or cares about all of this is
another question. He may not have particuarly cared for Kriesha and
Belenik when they were humans, and sees no reason to worship them now. He
may be fairly happy to have Azrai back, unless of course he has become
completely monomaniacal and wants to become a god himself (not too
unlikely, I suppose).

So, why do Kriesha and Belinik put up with all of this? Partly, I think,
because they have no choice. Azrai was greedy; all the way up til the last
possible moment, he still thought that he could win, and even when he
realized that he was being defeated, he still chose to keep much of his
power to himself--less of his power was handed down to his inheritors than
to the other new gods. Therefore, in order to have as much power as the
other new gods, Belinik and Kriesha must tap into the power reservoir of
Azrai's undead body as well. They can't destroy it, or they loose a good
chunk of their power, and so they preserve it, but all the while trying to
prevent Azrai's reawakening, because if he DOES complete the task of
becoming undead, he may very well want his Blood back, and resubsume it
from them.

How's that for strange bedfellows? Paladins of Haelyn and Avani working
together with priests of Belinik to prevent the Second Comming of Azrai.
Sound like a campaign, anyone?

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Bryon Switala]

At 05:34 PM 11/12/97 +0000, you wrote:
>> What about the Serpent? He/It is not a divine being, yet there is a church
>> set up to worship him and the pathos of gods that have been created. Scoin
>> Worship could work, but you would have to have a totally closed society that
>> could or would not be effected by outside influance.
>>
>> Also don't the humanoids in the Maze worship the Minator?
>>
>But do the gain spells for their worship???
>

Yes, I do believe that the Serpents Priests Gain Priestly Spells.

I feel that there is the posibility that a group of human(oid)s can come to
believe so strongly in a given entity being godly that they will gain
priestly spells from faith alone. Yes, these spells will be low (1st/2nd
level) and hard to replenish, but the new believer will be able to get them.

This is how new religions and cults are created. At on time I played a
Priest of "HIM" the god of everything. I ended up pissing the other players
off when I keeped telling them that "HIM" created everything, was
everything, loved everything, knew everything, could do everything. I don't
understand why they didn't like me. ;-)

Bryon Switala
***********************************
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[hobbychest@pcsia.co]

BI>What might be used as a solution is that, the scion himself doesn't
BI>grant the spells to his priests, but a true deity who looks favorably
BI>on the scion.
BI>For example, a warrior regent of a LG alignment starts a temple
BI>dedicated to himself, the people learn to follow his ways and truly
BI>worship the fighter. Of course the fighter can't grant spells, but
BI>Haelyn can. And as it happens Haelyn looks favorably on the fighter
BI>because the fighters ideals are close to those of Haelyn. In effect
BI>the fighter becomes a sort of chosen of Haelyn, should the fighter
BI>keep up his ideals he might even become a demi-power under Haelyn.

I don't think many gods are going to look favorably on a mortal who
creates a church to themselves. The gods would be more likely to look
upon them as competitors and give them a nice lightning bolt from the
sky.

Robert Thomson