Characters who follow the practices and ethics of a religious way of life with a strict devotion get an advantage in game. Bonuses are awarded to characters who maintain a minimum value of 8 in all of the traits pertinent to their religion, as listed above. Such characters are usually treated as embodiments of the virtues of their faith. They must strive to exercise their virtues during their daily lives; they attend religious services as much as possible, and must attend them on the high holy days of their religion every year. Many also maintain a very involved daily practice of personal prayers and rituals.
Religious characters receive benefits as follows.
Orthodox Galatian Church (OOC)*: +12 hit points
Penguernite Interpretation of the OOC*: +6 hit points, +4 damage
Cults of the Firstborn**: +4 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Phaetian Heresy***: +4 hit points, +6 damage
Galatic Imperial Cult: +4 hit points, +6 damage
Difficult Gods****: The angry gods’ gifts are highly individualized to the individual and to their plans for that individual; they can include blatant magical abilities and effects, like fire-breathing or mind control.
The Archmage Remembrance*****: +2d6 damage
Pyronism*****: +6 hit points, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Fairy Faith: +10 ft. base speed, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (either naturally or by magic)
Religion of the Two Kingdoms******: +6 damage, +2 hit points healed whenever they heal (naturally or by magic)
Elfin Pantheon: +10% experience whenever experience is granted
Hrumdail Orcs: +2d6 damage
Locorruil Orcs: +25% when receiving money (whether being paid, selling something, performing their occupation, just plain charity, or any other reason)
* The OOC and its Penguernite Interpretation both focus their worship on the various deities who rule Mount Orippus, who made the same journey the humans did in coming to Galatia, if by different roots. Mount Orippus, the ancient epic known as the Exiad relates, is where the first of them (they’ve added to their number since) settled and offered shelter to the migrating humans. The Orippan deities are King Zerus (god of the noble sky where sun and storms live in balance), Garfligga (god of courtly love, humor, and gnomes; Keilone and Kraljevic Blathus’s husband), Monarch Shertes (deity of marriage and its resultant intrigues in the night), Kraljevic Blathus (elfin god of beauty, light, poetry, and failed immortality; Keilone and Garfligga’s husband), Hrumdas (orcish god of righteous rebellion), Keilone (chivalrous ruler of those who die from some weakness of the body; Kraljevic Blathus and Garfligga’s partner), Thorthmes (god of cosmopolitan and well-traveled knowledge), Feronseta (deity of nature’s justice), Mosaifis (dwarfin deity of smiths and duels), Hathnar (minotaur goddess of all the pleasures and wisdoms of civiization), Eospanre (halfling deity of pastoral peace, quiet passion, and getting comfortably lost), and Mannike (human deity of victory). In case it isn’t clear, a ful half of the Orippan deities ~ Monarch Shertes, Keilone, Feronseta, Mosaifis, Eospanre, and Mannike ~ all have some form of nonbinary gender.
** The Firstborn embody the wild powers of nature: sky and wind, sun and fire, sea and water, mountain and earth. Shaped by the consciousness of the Old Peoples from the pooling and rushing currents of magic in a young Galatia, they are related to the spirits of places and plants and animals and such, but share also in the inhumanly grand concepts that mark the gods. They are Kellide of the Deep, Mithar the Azure Goddess, Zoleh the Flaming Sun, and the youngest of them, Zerus Sky-Ruler. Yes, the youngest of the Firstborn also rules over the Orippan pantheon.
*** The Phaetian Heresy split from the OOC more than five centuries ago, sparking a generation-long war with Phaetia which only ended when Dyonna Vezia, the Warrior Queen of Roses awed the Pharaoh of Aeytus and absorbed his kingdom into the Empire, renaming the new province after her new husband. Seyort developed chivalry under the Warrior Queen of Roses; recognizing the sequence of events that led to such a momentous event, Dyonna Vezia ended any official repression of the Heresy. Naturally, not everyone appreciated that decision, but the Heresy remains popular in Aeytus and Penguern, with a significant presence in Sardis as well. The Heresy focuses its worship on King Zerus and Queen Shertes, Thorthmes, Hathnar, and the non-Orippan deities Disonis (the boundary-breaking, paradoxical deity of rulership, magic, wine, theater, and madness; held supreme even over Zerus, who is said to have dominion over rulers themselves but not that which they hold, by the Heresy), Nafdes (the grieving ruler of all the dead), Shecire (the crossroads and threshold deity who will take you where you need to go, especially if you’re dead), Phaitos (the travelling god who smiths secrets), Nesthias (goddess of hearth and home), Phareya (the god who fell in love and lust with the horizon), Barestes (the feline deity of killing), Abesis (child-deity of wild luck), Scanerdus (Keilone’s less-chivalrous replacement in the afterlife), Anphrubitis (seductive death who judges you once you die), Apelpo (the evil dragon who breathes prophetic fire), Dimheteper (the deity who uses crops to heal), and Shorecles (crocodile god of advenure in the wetlands). In addition to Shertes, Disonis, Nafdes, Shecire, Barestes, Abesis, Anphrubitis, and Dimheteper are all nonbinary.
**** These gods aren’t worshiped as part of a unified religion with a general understanding of the divine. Rather, they are lumped together systematically because the various individuals and cults that worship the tend to rally around similar themes. If you want your character to worship one of these gods in this way but to have a slightly different set of special virtues because there is no doctrine or overall philosophy bringing the worshipers of these deities together, negotiate that with your GM; sounds like fun! The Difficult Gods are Disonis, Shecire, Barestes, Scanerdus, Apelpo, Freithnus (the fire that allows things to grow from the ashes, the panic and slaughter that allow civilization and its chivalry to grow), Locorrus (orc god of competitive merchants, commercial trickery, and strongarm tactics), Sorbutairus (fiery giant god of the freedom found in conflict, whether war or nature red in tooth and claw), Thiunatrus (old-fashioned draconic god who still preaches that might makes right), Herxmotor (sneakier, slipperier, less fiery, and smaller version of Sorbutairus; a wyrmtongue rather than a soldier), and Loldura (drow goddess of failure and resentment)
***** The only Galatian religion older than these two is the Cult of the Firstborn. They date back to 1200 years before humans came to Galatia the second time, and the practices, philosophies, ethics, and beliefs of the arrogant Archmages and the shadow-wielding Pyrons. The latter liberated the various races the former had either enslaved or created and then eslaved in a great war that led to a huge battle. Not much is known about them, and neither has been seen since to teach the realm what they were like.
****** The continent to the south, dominated by a realm of desert sands and ocean depths called the Two Kingdoms, plays host to a religion taking its inspiration from both Islam and William Blake, which preaches submission to the creative impulse within.
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