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Thread: Sidhelien Spirituality
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01-14-2008, 10:01 PM #121
At 10:04 AM 1/14/2008, Thelandrin wrote:
>So, spontaneous wizards with druid spells? That class`ll be easy to design
I made them specialty wizards that focused on a Nature school of
magic and had a few different class skills geared towards a
teacher/scholar emphasis. There is a list of spells in that school
somewhere in the archives if you`re interested. Its fairly simple,
employs existing BR dynamics and some of the standard 3e mechanics,
so all in all I found it a pretty elegant solution. However, the
existence of a Nature school of magic was quite contentious, so be
aware that the materials are nestled in the midst of one of the
occasional BR debates and that if you use such a method some folks
might not like it much....
>I designed a quick feat to allow an Elf to become a druid without
>worshipping Erik and without getting regency from temples, but that
>was the extent of my manipulations.
Personally, I really don`t like the idea of Sidhelien druids in
BR. It strikes me as being on the same level as other "D&D
intrusions" into the setting that folks have wanted to include in the
past like Cerilian gnomes, or a ninja character class. But I would
be interested in your feat write up. How did it go?
Gary
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01-15-2008, 02:10 AM #122
It's in my house rules on the wiki: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind...les_Thelandrin. It's not a terribly good feat, I'll admit, but it served its purpose at the time I wrote it. It could probably be improved, but I think that someone else's input would be preferable.
As an alternative to wild shape, you could always use the elemental aspects mentioned in Unearthed Arcana instead of animal transformation. That would still keep with the elemental theme and, when you alter druids to channel the mebhaighl instead of worshipping Erik and allow them to use sources rather than temples, would present a suitably Sidhelien nature guardian. You could also swap out the druid's Nature's Stride for the Endurance feat (identical to Ranger 3) if you were worried about duplication of racial abilities.
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01-15-2008, 12:32 PM #123
I think I am relying on the same rule you are: Boxed Set -> BR Rulebook -> Character Classes (p12). The section that describes the priest class explicitly states that the lack of elven priests is due to a lack of elven deities:
"The Sidhelien have no deities at all (thus, Cerilian elves cannot be priests)."
The above seems to imply that if elven deities existed, elven priests would exist as well. This is the basis of my first assertion: that there is no inherent inability to worship among Cerilian elves. Again, the rules don't say they lack the ability to worship, it states they lack deities to worship.
As to my second assertion -- that Cerilia lacks deities that inspire the elven population to faith and worship -- not only is it a logical extrapolation of my first assertion but the history of the setting firmly supports it as well.
In short, when humanity first came to Cerilia, they sided with the elves and dwarves against the goblins and orogs. After they won that war, the winning side divided the land amongst themselves: the dwarves got the mountain regions, elves were to reside in the forests, and the plains were given to the humans. But after only a few short centuries of peace, humans betrayed the elves by invading their forests.
And they did so with the blessing of their gods.
Of the gods who came to Cerilia with the humans, only one offered elves any sympathy: Azrai. He came to them and offered them justice and retribution, tricking them into fighting on his side in the War of Shadow. Only at the end of the war did the elves realize Azrai's promises were nothing but lies.
History shows that elves have been betrayed time and again by humans and their gods. That's why they created the gheallie sidhe. That's why elven realms tend to close their borders to humans. And that's why I made the assertion that Cerilia lacks deities who inspire faith and worship among the elven population.
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Now, having said that.. the Battle at Mount Deismaar was 1500 years ago. Although there are many elves alive who remember that event, there are also elves who were born in the past few centuries. These younger elves didn't experience those betrayals first-hand. Life as it is today is all the current generation knows. It is conceivable that a young elf might be enticed to become a follower of Erik or Ruornil or Laerme.
I do agree with the notion of 'exceptions to the rule'. Especially when that exception is a player character or an NPC created by a DM for a campaign storyline.
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01-15-2008, 04:52 PM #124
Your argument seems to rest on the principle that if things were different, they would be different. Which is true, but not very interesting. As things are, could elves have divine spells to cast (which is the backbone of the priest class)? Putting aside the question of changing the setting, is the absence of elven gods a coincidence? Or is this bit of text just one in a long line of sloppy lines that can't be the reliable basis of an exegetical reading of the rules because it conflicts with other parts of the rules?
It would seem like if it were possible someone would have done it by now, and we have no evidence of that, despite plenty of exceptions to other rules. Gary's argument just seems stronger. There are plenty of opportunities for it to happen, the rules are filled with contradictions, yet this principle is never violated. Sure, it could be a coincidence. Perhaps if an elf diety revealed himself we would know for sure. But without that, the sidhe-seelie split and the division of arcane and divine that happens there seems to provide a clear exaplantion of why we never see that execption. Its just not possible.
Its not so starkly obvious that another reading is impossible, but the evidence is much stronger for the argument that elves are incapable of divine magic.
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01-16-2008, 01:46 AM #125
>The above seems to imply that if elven deities existed, elven
>priests would exist as well.
I`d agree that that one statement does imply exactly that. However,
it`s not the only source material that describes this situation, and
we are remiss to use the implication of one sentence and ignore the
direct statements made elsewhere, especially since this particular
implication can turn in so many ways:
In regards to the implications of that one statement, though, I would
ask why aren`t there any elven gods in the first place? They just
aren`t there for no reason? The gods of other Cerilian non-human
species are just `ported into the setting from the standard D&D
pantheons. We have Moradin and In some cases they are treated
slightly differently, but the simple fact of the matter is that if
Cerilian elves were meant to worship gods, they`d have gods. Even if
they weren`t able to become priests but could still "follow" gods (to
use that term in the way I`ve been suggesting for the sake of
clarity) then they could still have gods. There are plenty of gods
in various pantheons dedicated to abstract concepts like love and
nature and magic that would be appropriate for elves to follow--just
as they could follow the human gods who represent those things--but
there is a total absence of elven deities.
This is, of course, to a large extent meant to balance the thematic
role of elves as having access to arcane magic as opposed to divine
magic, but the profundity of that change is significant. I`ll not go
into any details about the whole theological "does believe create the
gods or do the gods create belief" thing, because it`s not all that
enlightening and I`ve already penned some thoughts about elven
psychology recently, but instead I`ll leave this bit off with this
thought: every other Cerilian species who have existed for less time
in the setting than the Sidhe have either developed gods or quickly
found that capacity. Not so for the elves despite several examples
and thousands of years to practise such belief.
Also, consider the Sie, the Seelie and the Unseelie. We know from
Bloodspawn that in ancient times the elves were able to cast divine
spells in a way that is comparable, if thematically a bit different,
to the 2e abstract religious manner of spell memorization using
"nature" as their focus, and it says in that text explicitly that the
ancient Seelie the capacity to cast divine magics was literally
ripped from those who became the Sidhe. (The Faeire Queen still has
wizard levels, but she lived in the time before the split, so the
exact nature of her magic is unclear.) The Unseelie are undead who
have definite clerical powers, also in contrast with the Sidhe.
Gary
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01-20-2008, 03:04 AM #126
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Nature Sense, Woodland Stride, Trackless Step, Resist Nature's Lure, Venom Immunity and Timeless Body are all obviously elven racial traits. Animal Companion and A Thousand Faces are also very appropriate. I consider the fact that every single druid class feature except Wild Shape makes an excellent elven racial trait to be a good argument for adding Wild Shape to the list of elven racial traits. This is especially true since people with lots of druid class levels can transform into elementals -- and in Cerilia, that is very appropriate for elves, and only elves should be capable of that. Therefore, IMC, every single elf in Cerilia has half their levels in a slightly-modified PHB druid class, as an inherent part of being an elf.
I don't see it that way at all. Instead, to me, human druids have always seemed merely wannabe elves.
Not as far as I'm concerned. They don't need to be priests to cast powerful magic, so the only reason to become one is if it seems like fun. Their committment to freedom from authority is so absolute that worshipping any being but themselves counts as a kind of moral suicide. IMO, they have nothing but contempt for those who seek power through subordination to the will of another -- which is precisely what gaining priest levels, especially pre-Deismaar, is all about. Having Azrai as a useful but never trusted temporary ally is nothing remotely like paying homage to him, or even believing he's a god at all.
I still think most of that acrimony was caused simply by an overly narrow interpretation of the word "school". If we'd just said from the start that it's supposed to be another "descriptor", like Mind-Affecting, Lawful and Sonic, rather than another "school" like Conjuration and Necromancy, there'd have been much less useless bloviating. =) I can see no possible objection to making a list of the sort of spells that elves like to cast.
Really? I can't think of any class which has ever seemed more appropriate to any race in any setting than thinking of the 3e PHB "druid" class as a convenient container for the inherent powers of the Sidhelien. I'd rather have Vos who couldn't be barbarians than elves who couldn't be druids -- as long as the term "druid" is used exactly as I have used it above, meaning the character class which consists of primary spellcasters who get their funky powers from being part of nature. I'd rather Cerilia have whole realms full of ninja gnomes with laser guns than Sidhelien who wouldn't rather kill themselves than worship a god.
In a way, then, I suppose I always have believed that elves inherently couldn't be priests, but I never thought of expressing it that way. The way you've phrased and supported "fundamental inability" strikes me as meaning they don't have the right adapter to plug into the godly wall socket, but some of them would like to. What I think is that the inherent psychology of elves renders them incapable of *wanting* to do so, irrespective of whether they would be able to if they did want to. I think they could get spells from gods if they wanted to, but the very concept of wanting to is wholly alien to what it means to be a Sidhe.
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01-20-2008, 03:22 AM #127
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Which is exactly why I think the explanation for why they don't have gods cannot be that they don't have access to the priest class, which is what your descriptions of fundamental inability imply to me. They have to not even have invented the idea of gods because they just didn't want to, where "didn't want to" is so overwhelmingly strong that it counts as "completely psychologically unable to." It's the concept of "following" that they have to be incapable of, not the act of having priest levels, or they would have prayer meetings even without gaining extra spells from them.
I knew I stopped reading Bloodspawn partway through many years ago, but I had forgotten why I stopped. Thank you for reminding me. Such a split in their natures is ridiculous to me: I think the Sie, Sidhe, Seelie and Unseelie are all just different names for the same people, who always were and still are complicated and inconstant. I think Sidhe is the only one they've ever used themselves, and the other names are just misspellings and misinterpretations by confused outsiders. In particular, I think the one and only difference between the "nice" Seelie and the "mean" Unseelie is that they are names humans give *to the same elf* depending on whether he tortures you to death that day or not.Last edited by ryancaveney; 01-20-2008 at 03:24 AM. Reason: line spacing
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01-20-2008, 05:24 AM #128
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01-20-2008, 09:39 PM #129
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And yet it goes a real long way towards explaining a lot of things about the elven nature.
I find it perfectly logical that the eixistance of the Sie and the split when the worlds "split" places the Sidhe and Seelie (via the Sie) as so strongly tied to the "world" that this "split" had to happen.
I especially like the part where only the queen "remembers" what happend, again a dramatic effect of the sudden "split".Duane Eggert
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