Set and Setting - II - Gods and Mythology

Set and Setting is a series of posts intended as aid in fleshing out a world by way of setting-specific rule design and reinterpretation.

Introduction

I don’t approach game design or campaign building from an unbiased angle (and, of course, no one does). There are aesthetic underpinnings to consider, themes, tones and moods that one aspires to evoke at the table and elements that I consider integral to a fantasy setting but that most outlooks would sooner gloss over, mythology and religion being two such ones.

The Opium of the People

Having mythology be a functional though not overbearing part of a game comes with its own set of challenges. Starting from the top, the typical player tends to be obdurately skeptical, a consummate realist to a fault, most of all when it comes to religion. The character that the player conceives of then can’t really help in being any different, it’s just the way of things.

For a running to break with the humanist perspective is exceedingly hard on the modern player. Like the matter of languages, one is setting oneself up for failure, friction and disappointment the moment the light of the torch of divinity starts serving as anything more than fuel for the spells of certain character classes.

As ever, mechanics can help bridge this disconnect; little markers to signal importance and draw a player into the world, adding some gameable sensitivity to these elements rather than sweeping them into the background or out of sight entirely, while specifically conforming to not intrude on agency, with rankling issues of prescribed behaviours and tenets remaining pillars of organized religion and projections of social mores but not actual manifestations of the will of the gods, never forcing a player to engage. Whatever advantages presented as small enough that the less religiously-inclined characters can turn their backs on the whole affair if they wish to.

The Gods Are Not Dead

"The criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.”

As humanity either came to tame the natural world or else achieve understanding of its workings, fewer corners remained to shine a light upon. What is more, for my purposes, the divide of perspectives on modern religion leaves much to be desired: either there never were any gods and whatever passes for their cult is deemed something sinister or we’re saddled with a super-entity that sees all, knows all, governs all. The former a barren wasteland, the latter a profoundly unenticing prospect for a game banking on freewill.

And yet the players are to be lowered unto a world devoid of criticism, where one of the main thrusts of Illuminism, the concept of humanity having conceived of gods and not the other way around has been shattered into as many tiny pieces as there are deities which - though distant and unknowable - roam and whose capricious fact of existence is something to be weighed, the golden rule rendered only into so much burnished brass.

Mine is the One True God

Reinforcing what I’ve proponed thus far, my platonic ideal of a sandbox is defined among other things by its fragmentary nature, immediately barring monotheism at the door, not on pains of being boring, too organized or monolithic (as any of these characteristics may or may not manifest themselves), but due to the fact that omnipotent beings bring very little to the table as they, wanting for nothing, can’t be bargained with, can’t be deceived, contended with, resisted or denied. This lays out a logic of submission and reliance on God’s munificence rather than any spur for fighting for one’s own destiny and steal the fire from the heavens.

Polytheism, by comparison, is vibrant and dynamic, given by nature to a shifting status-quo as each jealous, hubristic and all-too-fallible god jostles and conspires against the next, employing humanity to further its individual designs, leaving gaps that a canny mortal can exploit, with the implication of extreme violence too, as peace ill becomes the adoration of enbattled deities to whom we are but tools. Yet, none of these entities should be thought of as outright good or evil, rather the ends to appeasing them justifying means that will doubtlessly seem righteous to the scourger and wicked to the scourged.

Note that the theism word is used here in its broader sense, under which it is conceivable even for believers of a singular god whose claim includes the entirety of existence to still aknowledge other gods as peers to be contended with and toppled through conquest or assimilation, without ever denying the others’ divine nature or power.

Pantheons and Paintjobs

Religious affiliation is something that crosses other cultural boundaries, though deities may locally be worshipped in distinct fashion or a particular aspect may be preeminent among a demihuman race, divinity is something that trancends the racial divide.

I found the PHB’s take on the Cleric class adequate, already partly embracing pantheon-driven play by dint of having its features associated to a number of aseptic aspects of divinity that you’d find in pretty near all polytheistic religions, rather than enforcing a spread of names that at the end of the day would be chosen on the merits of mechanic bonuses rather than any character-building sentiment.

For now the efforts contained herein flow in that vein, by making a show of coopting divinity on one hand and then keeping it as generic as possible with the other, something that might seem a bit like cheating the premise but, alas, such heavy lifting is not the purpose of this post. Naturally, the whole system that follows, all of its methods and possibilities, are yet as near to working titles as can be, that may and ought to be better defined in the future. If the concept gains traction at the table, progress can then be made from generalist to specific archetypes of divinity and individual deities as time and inspiration allows.


The Crunch

Rather obviously – and doubtlessly an idea that I’m shackled to return to – the chaos inherent to the roll of the polyhedron has to be to the DnD player what the inscrutable wiles of divinity would have been to premodern man.

The raw basis for this sprung from a reconceptualization of the Inspiration mechanic from the latest edition (which the GM dispenses in very much the same fashion a god would), which I found inadequate and don’t ever plan to use, thinking this up in its stead.

Divine Blessing

As quantifiable interventions of the divine go, blessings come as the most minor protection or guidance, the character becoming aware of only the slightest hint of a presence. True miracles, in the guise of spells, are the preserve of the conduits of divinity known as Clerics.

Divine blessing, if granted, allows a re-roll of the dice associated to a discrete event. Note that the call for divine aid must be made in-game before the initial roll result is known and that the reroll, though optional, must stand if used even if worse.

Calling upon divine aid

- Once per game session, immediately prior to any roll (whether an action, a save or a damage roll), a character may expend his minor action or a reaction voicing a call to invoke the aid of one among the gods (Charisma check, variable DC).

It is singularly important to underline that an action of some sort is expended by the character, as it mechanically associates the act to the game world, lending it substance rather than it being a “boardgame bonus”, waiting in the wings to be expended at the whim and necessity of the player. This means that if the character is gagged, silenced or suffering from a bad case of slit throat, favour cannot be called upon.

Petitioning the lord with prayer

As a matter of course deities are fickle and unpredictable, their plans inscrutable, their attention difficult to hold for long and their aid best not relied upon in any but the direst of circumstances.

- A character may only safely call upon a given god for aid once per game session, additional calls being made at Disadvantage, with any natural ‘1’ results interpreted as per 2).

- Ritual observance at a temple or prayer at a shrine will grant Advantage on the next appeal made by the character.

1) Characters calling upon a deity they’re favoured by (DC 10):

- On a 1: call unanswered; character fallen out of favour with deity.

- On success, a blessing is granted, otherwise call goes unanswered.

- On a 20: blessing granted and an additional blessing may be called upon, with no need for a roll.

2) Character is desperate enough to adress a deity to whom he has no bond (DC 20):

- On a 1: enraged deity lashes out: roll on the death & dismemberment table as the character is met with divine punishment, interpreting the result into something appropriate to the beseeched god (hit by lightning, ravaged by plague, struck blind, drained of strength by poisonous miasma, withered at the limbs, etc.)

- On success, a blessing is granted, otherwise call goes unanswered.

- On a 20: character’s pleas strike a chord and find favour with the god: Roll is granted divine blessing and the character henceforth becomes favoured by the petitioned deity.

3) A character adresses a deity whom he has wronged in the past (DC 30):

- Any result but a success will mean the deity mercilessly smites the supplicant.

Finding favour with the gods – terms of appeasement

Before a bond can be formed with a deity, appeasement must be willingly procured by the character. Yet, as the unfathomable designs of gods are not readily decipherable, once the character has vocally declared his allegiance to a god, the referee proceeds to make an occluded roll on the table below and note the result that comes up, the bond only taking place once the character has accomplished the demand dictated by the roll.

Currying favour with multiple deities of the same pantheon offers a way to hedge one’s chances of having aid to call upon in times of trouble though, deities being jealous and conniving masters, it comes as implied that any developed pantheon will carry some mutual exclusion.

A mundane priest, being but dimly aware of the needs and appetites of his god, has only a low (~10%) percentile chance of grasping the demand, yet will endeavour to assist a character on his path, insomuch as it might benefit his temple. Only by securing the services of an haruspex, oracle, prophet or soothsayer will the chance to interpret and unshroud the exact nature of the appeasing demand be improved (~65%), although at a price.

d12	Appeasing Demand
1	Human sacrifice
2	Animal sacrifice
3	Votive Offers (d1000 sp)
4	Food sacrifice (d100 days)
5	Fasting (2d4 days)
6	Destroy rival temple
7	Desecrate rival shrine
8	Slay worshippers of rival god (d8)
9	Erect new temple
10	Consecrate new shrine
11	Convert followers to patron’s worship (d8)
12	Destroy abomination (CR = Level +/- d4)

Closing Thoughts – Theogonies in the Sandbox

Origin stories are always ‘shallow end of the pool’ affairs, bloated as our contemporary fiction is with them. I’m more interested in the kinetic facet of mythology, such that cohesion, consistency and sole narratives become reduced to matters of no import. Through the ages, historical religions rubbed shoulders with plenty of bizarre mythologies, sects, pseudocults and heresies, many so thoroughly alien or else distorted through the lenses of time that a modern person couldn’t have made them up if wanting to.

As theogonies go, I can be sated with the derivative conceit that a seeding supra-entity (or entities), who or whatever it may have been, has long since departed beyond the pale, leaving in place a bevy of demiurges to reign in perpetuity. These descendants of the primordial entities, akin in methods to the demons that historical monotheism did eventually reduce them to, exist and are real enough to want for things, yet too distanced from the mortal coil to make their passions manifest for more than fleeting instants, requiring belief and adoration to sustain their very existence. Whatever paltry bounties they can grant their charges always a disproportionally small shard of the belief vested in them.

Even the eldest among these who, persisting in the madness of signalling through smoke to colonies of termites, managed to impose their will to man, found their message distorted, obscured or simply thwarted through ages of unrelentingly ritualized devotion. Far from moral beings, their survival operated by brutish, mean and predatory – nigh-biological – precepts: amass followers, gain strength from displays of devotion, grant back as little as possible, slaughter or convert the faithful of competing deities.

The polytheistic memeverse of godhood then, despite the muddying of the waters between creation and created and the literal qualification of divinity, is still to be chained to a lifecycle of birth, ascension, decline and death, as it carries within it an implicit hierarchy that fractured and isolated worship lacks to sustain: if a hill tribe constitutes the whole foundation of belief keeping an idol potent, the godling is done for once its home is invaded by raiders from the plains and all of its followers killed or scattered, divine intervention then but a mere celestial stalemate, for the others, they brought along their own gods too.

Finally, even granting that gods do exist, the reasoning that proves rational past the fact becomes that man can turn to one against another. You can topple their idols, cut open their priests’ throats and trample their vestments under feet and hoof, tear down their altars and torch their places of worship. The one thing you cannot deny them is their very existence. For as you’re doing all this, you’re doing it, knowing or unknowingly, at the behest of some other entity, one that intercedes on your behalf, keeping you from being struck dead where you stand.

Yes, there are spurious gods, formless voids masquerading as matter, deceiving the pure.

Yes, there are charlatans and false prophets, herding the gullible.

Yes, there are clay-footed impotent idols, plying the ragged and desperate.

Yes, there are tainted and debased cults of adversarial forces, feeding from the wicked.

Yes, there are a million things that will break and founder and fail, and most of it at the whim of some immortal child to prevent or bask in detached amusement. You can bargain with some, plead to others or damn them to places where immortals fear to tread. But you cannot apease them all. And so the existence of supernal ones tilts the plates of the balance ever back and forth between imperiling humanity by making it a tool of their collected whims and preserves it from the rigours of the natural sphere, which they may fracturedly influence but never wholly control.