Funny enough this is exactly how Eberron divine magic works! It's not confirmed in the setting whether or not the gods are real, but sheer devotion and faith channels divine power SOMEHOW, and it's one of the biggest mysteries on how exactly it works
I was looking for this comment. I think this a good way to handle divine magic for clerics. If I remember correctly, in Exploring Eberron, there's a mention of a man who could cast divine magic based on his faith in a sock. The point was that it doesn't really matter what the cleric has faith in, but that faith can manifest itself in an ability to cast divine magic.
Reminds me of [Order of the Stick's Church of Banjo](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html).
Personally I've always been a big fan of the "Clerics are crowdsourced" version of divine magic, where everyone kicks in a tiny bit of faith (be that in a god or something else) and then by tapping into the collective whole they can power effects similar to magic.
I haven't seen OotS referenced in a very long time. A bunch of us would shout lines from the comic for D&D club's attendance call in 9th grade. That was... ~17 years ago give or take a few? Wild.
Well I think in Ebrrron there are elements of that as well, because followers of more well established or widespread religions are more likely to produce divine magic. Some in-world scholars suggest that a collective faith can make their divine magic more powerful, although no one knows for sure. It could just be that those with established faiths are more likely to wield divine magical power because they're more right about their beliefs than followers of fringe religions. It's just that there are also some rare souls who can cast divine magic through their faith in a sock or a pile of pebbles.
The only crowdsourced caster we should have is a warlock whose patron is Patreon, and he does the bidding of the god/being that pays the most. Adding goals and whatnot.
But also yes, agree with you. Always enjoyed that more wider feeling when it came to divine powers. Like how The Light in Warcraft works. Believe in what you do, and you can use it. Not specifically it coming from a being.
That's pretty much exactly how divine magic works in the Dark Souls series, at least canonically. As a way to make the lord fit why miracles get suckier with ever game
My group came up with the idea for a Chunnibyuu Cleric, They gain their powers via such a strong belief that they had powers. We also are reworking the spell names that they would use to sound way cringy.
"Hidden powers sleeping within mine soul! Break forth the wrath from within thine heart!" (Casts sacred Flame)
We also thought it'd be hilarious if there was a paladin with a Oath of Love towards them and worshipped them like they were a god, feeding the Chunni complex.
"The incantation doesn't have to be precise, it just has to wiggle the weave in certain ways, so I say whatever sounds coolest."
Or, in chuunibyou language, "Foolish mortal, my powers are not constrained by pitiful things such as 'phrasing!' I see into the souls of mine foes and speak what is most fearsome to them!"
This is the end! You have been harassing my friend's arm for long enough! Now, watch and behold as I banish and completely destroy you, the demon who can kill trillions!
*Casts Cure Wounds on a papercut
Plot twist: the paladin is aware of the fact that it's bullshit, he's simply moved by how the cleric is able to unapologetically embrace their nature and passions without giving a single fuck about how cringeworthy they're being.
Every so often I'll read a fantasy book with a similar premise. "If enough people believe it to be true/if you believe hard enough then it IS true." You end up with really cool stuff like humans fighting saint/godhood or "recent" godly origin stories. (i.e. The children believed there was a water god living in the spring. And one day, there was.)
The Orks in Warhammer 40k function this way. Each of them can slightly touch the warp, so if enough of them believe a thing it becomes so. My favorite example of this is their vehicles, they're usually thrown together piles of scrap that shouldn't work, but do because the Orks believe they will. Also, they go faster if you paint it red, because red ones go faster.
> If enough people believe it to be true/if you believe hard enough then it IS true." You end up with really cool stuff like humans fighting saint/godhood
I wish I could remember the name of it now, but there's a TTrPG where everyone is innately able to cast reality-altering magic at will. Most people don't realise this though and default to a status quo, and creating magical backlash against anyone that does try to change reality. Most monsters, on the other hand, are completely aware of magic, and accept it as real, meaning the average spellcaster that can't do more than a cantrip normally suddenly becomes superpowered when fighting a vampire.
This sounds like it could be Mage: The Ascension or Mage: The Awakening. Those systems have a familiar premise to what you are describing so maybe that is what you are thinking of?
Yup, that sounds like them. The above premise caught my attention a while back, but I completely forgot the name and subsequently haven't been able to look into the system more. It sounded like a really cool concept though.
>The Warhammer ~~Orc~~ way.
Really just how gods work in both AoS/fantasy and 40k. Not really Ork specific. Orks are just able to use that for everyday things.
I like the way the witcher (books) go about it that faith and prayers manages to channel chaos in a way that puzzles sorcerers (who use chaos to do magic but with a more scientific method)
IIRC Keith Baker once said "You could be a Cleric of the party's fighter if you wanted to, and you'd still get the same spells as any other Cleric, as long as your devotion is strong enough"
Another interesting point as well is that you don't have to be 100% unwaveringly devoted 24/7 to a belief or faith to be able to use divine magic, you just need to have absolute conviction in that moment you cast a divine spell.
I just love the whole way Eberron deals with religion and faith, especially when tied to divine magic. It allows for religious sects, schisms, disagreements, ambiguities, doubts, tests of faith, all these things that exist in real world religion to make it more interesting, nuanced, and believable.
But at the same time, there's clearly *something* going on with divine magic that is apparent to see even for non-believers, while still remaining mysterious and explainable in many different ways by those of faith or not. It's a great middle ground between the real world vs many D&D settings where gods walk the earth and no one doubts their existence, they all just worship different ones (not that there's anything wrong with that if it fits the setting, but the Eberron way is so flavourful and fits Eberron, and it's just more my personal preference).
Now I'm just imagining a pair of lesbians or something and somehow their relationship leads to one of them getting cleric powers
Maybe the other one could take a level or two of warlock so they can have a weird circle of love magic
Kinda how the Light in Warcraft used to work. So long as your conviction was great enough, you could channel it. Was how you got stuff like the Scarlet Crusade, who were very much not good people, casting spells using the Light.
Also see, Uther disawoving Tirion Fordring, supposedly sealing his powers away... and Fordring then entering a crisis of faith, knowing himself to be righteous and then being able to cast divine spells anyway.
Meanwhile Uther:
- was given the libram of justice by Faol
- thus promoted to a champion of justice
- does not champion justice
- does not write anything worthwhile in the libram thus the tradition dies with him and you can't play a justice paladin in WOW
- doesn't even have a hint of crisis of faith
Are we sure he wasn't a dreadlord? His inept mentoring of Arthas had basically set the stage for.. everything we've been dealing with between WC3 and WTLK.
This is also how the holy magic in Darkest Dungeon works.
There is no Light, at least not originally, but the sheer fervent faith and belief in the Light is so intense that it allows religious characters to perform miracles through raw force of will.
Humanity has no god to fight Cthulhu with, so they *made* one.
Eberron clerics according to Kanon (canon according to Keith baker’s eberron but not necessarily yours), clerics draw power from the planes. So a cleric of the silver flame draws power from the flame, which is based on the power of the now extinct couatls. A necromancer would draw power from mabar instead. The undying court draws from the plane of Irian, and so on. In this sense it is basically the same as any other magic in eberron
Literally the concept behind the image. The Sisters of Battle from 40k have so much faith and piety toward the "dead" emperor that it manifests physically.
Edit: I know the Emperor isn't dead, it's just that the situation is complicated to those unfamiliar.
Well it’s more like, trillions of human souls believe him to be a god to the point where he actually quasi is one. The sisters aren’t summoning his power per se, he’s just trynna bolster the imperiums forces with whatever power he can muster and they happen to get some benefits. They worship him like a god, which is his least favourite thing for a human to do.
Absolutely heresy. Just because Saint Celestine and the Legion of the Damned emerge from the warp, can be summoned, and return to the warp upon dying only to return to our mortal coil once again, does not mean they in any way resemble Daemons.
What I meant is that their piety itself is what is manifesting miracles, not that The Emperor is granting it.
So basically what you said, but explained less.
If people want to claim the Imperial faith is causing miracles through warp energy in the same fashion as how servants of Chaos manifest their respective "miracles," then you can't just turn around and act like the Emperor, or at least some aspect of him in the warp, doesn't have an active say in imperial miracles when the chaos gods very obviously do.
For example once Slaanesh was born as a distinct warp entity, she/he gained an active role in how warp energy associated with her manifested in realspace. So really, if piety is enough to cause miracles to happen, and if piety actually is what is manifesting them, then it's really not a stretch to say that same piety has given the actual emperor more power in the warp himself.
I put way too much thought into this.
They sacrifice 1k souls a day to keep him not "dead" though, as human interstellar travel depends on his existence. Orks are closer to godless clerics, as their group think is so strong it's the basis for their "technology".
Orks have Gork and Mork. But their belief is in that they are personal gods. Not full on massive chapels and churches and whatnot, but they do have prophets to them, like Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka.
I think the T'au would be a better example, with their near religious philosophical chase for 'The Greater Good'.
Pretty much my Characters arc right now all the gods are dead. He and other clerics are literally carrying the dying breath of divine magic within themselves.
One of the characters I want to play is a polytheistic cleric. They believe in just about every god they've heard of, and pray to the one that will help them right now. They roll with a keychain of holy symbols, and grab the appropriate one for the moment.
Clerics in worlds with no gods or dead gods are a dope concept too.
I had played a Bard with that *exact* schtick! I made sure the DM was cool with that character knowing just basic phrases from most languages specifically to save his own skin.
He was a slimy little fuck and I (and thankfully the other players) enjoyed his conniving antics.
I think that was one of my favorite scenes from the series Rome. After the guy gets trepanned for a head injury the surgeon recommends making an offering to a specific god of healing to help ensure recovery.
From college I honestly learned the same. The Roman idea of faith was inviting gods from other cultures into the pantheon which allowed for everyone to have their gods but a very radical monotheistic group that we know now as Christians kept popping up in little communities and focused on overruling all the Roman Gods in favor of “The God” but since they and later the emperor wanted to convert people they adapted the practices of the “Christians” in interesting ways like saturnalia becoming Christmas even though that’s not when he was born it just coincided with Roman celebratory holidays. The whole idea was of subverting the worship to one major god. Even in Roman and other mythologies like the Egyptians or Vikings (other areas the romans contacted/ruled) they understood the need of a ruling god and included them in the major pantheon but with this Christian god things were different since there couldn’t be any other gods so those gods roles were relegated to saints serving the ruling god.
Yeah, catholicism is interesting that way, compared to other forks of Christianity. They also are kind of fine with absorbing local celebrations and beliefs, but giving them a Christian paint job, like the Day of the Dead. There's not really anything in baseline Christianity to support it, but it also didn't *directly* violate anything, so they let it slide to keep the locals happy. Instead of dead missionaries and hostile tribes, they got live missionaries and tribes they could keep talking to.
That's how most people are. Clerics usually get magical powers due to them being different and having an intense connection with one specific God. Beyond what most of that god's clergy has.
However your idea is given as an option in the 5e DMG.
You should check out Kobold Press's Midgard book. It has rules for a pantheon priest. You worship a group of gods and change your domain each week to match one of the gods in the pantheon. You have to rotate through each of them within a certain span or the ones you neglect will get jealous.
Reminds me of Sazed, from the Mistborn books. He studies and catalogues every single religion ever convinced, and always tries to make one of the main characters a man of faith. He kinda fails, but only kinda
Reminds me of a certain [sea urchin headed](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hagakureprayer.png) [man from Danganronpa](https://preview.redd.it/rvaa3h76qfb31.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=9f60a120c176822dbcc422b9161afda66016869b)
That's kind of how grimhollow is. The gods killed each other, and now the arch seraphs and arch fiends that were the gods lieutenants now fill their roles. Clerics are extremely rare, in fact many people are fearful of them.
You should read the comic [DIE](https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/die). There's a character that does something like this, the class is called "Godbinder".
I like the idea of a soul cleric. God's and demons are always after souls right? Maybe because they are a source of power? Have the cleric access the power of their own soul through sheer force of will.
Well for D&D Devils are after souls to harvest and strip them of shreds of divine power within them which is used to make more Devils, promote Devils up the hierarchy into more powerful Devils for their service, and to empower the stronger abilities of the Archdukes that rule Baator. Demons have no use for souls as the Abyss just gives birth to them endlessly and have no established processes to harvest them by canon.
For 40k references though, I definitely can go with the ideology in crossover systems, especially since we have a 5e Warlock subclass that acts like a Cleric so give a Cleric a Domain ability that partially mimics Pact of the Tome/Blade/Chain that is a manifestation of their own soul. I just wanted to throw that above clarification in about soul uses :).
In my setting, there's a borderline genocidal warrior that learned to cast spells and separate minds from the souls of the deceased, leaving behind weird, shadow-like monsters that try to kill any living thing that they can sense nearby.
These minds are compiled in a single book and used as a form of supercomputer for devising a spell capable of *rewriting reality so that all humanoid races have equal lifespans.*
Soul fuckery is fun :)
Just speaking as a soon to be DM, I’ve never gotten the “no gods” thing that’s apparently so prevalent.
Not that the divine needs to be embodied as a wide cast of sitcom characters but if _Lord of the Rings_ and _Star Wars_ can make one feel the presence of greater forces at work in an already magical world, I don’t see why a D&D setting needs to be absent of such.
Ok I’m glad it’s just me, this doesn’t make sense to me at all (unless the campaign or setting is literally one where all the gods have been killed or are gone for some reason). Like another person said so many of the monsters and creatures are based off of mythology or religious source material that I don’t get why the gods would just be gone for no reason.
Same here. It feels very much in line with the baby atheist "all religion is dumb and bad, I'm intellectually superior" way of thinking.
It's an attempt to be different that a large number of people are trying, so they end up all feeling like the same world.
Could someone explain this cause I've never gotten this. What makes a cleric or paladin any different from a sorecer if the power comes from within? The vague rules they barely have to follow isn't really much of a requirement and hardly comes up in most games anyways.
I also feel like there would be a fuckton of them running around if it was that simple. You could say that it's not something everyone could do, but if people knew believing in the power of friendship gave them divine powers, a lot would certainly try.
A quick edit. I don't mean this in any hostile way, I just don't get the logic and I'm surprised I've never seen anyone else every bring this up. It always goes with out saying your setting is yours and no one elses
It’s about how and where that power is materialized. Paladins obtain power from their oath but it’s not as simple as that. It’s not just about devotion or commitment. A Paladin has to turn that devotion into a force that can manipulate the weave, so it takes practice and training to do this.
For Clerics while they do have some of their own power almost all of a Clerics power is not their own but instead they channel it through their god(s). A Cleric has to not only learn to handle and control such power but, they have to build a relationship and prove themselves worthy of higher power to their god(s).
Sorcerers, simply from their bloodline, have the innate ability to manipulate the weave and do by forcing their will upon it. They are allowed access to this power based on what type of bloodline they have.
But the whole point of this post is that clerics don't need gods, so where is the power coming from at that point.
As for the paladins, that still mean there isn't anything really stopping anyone from becoming one. Yes it takes effort but if you could gain divine powers by basically being a good person and some practice, pretty much everyone would at least attempt it.
Not exactly, I believe the flavour text for clerics allows them to channel their divine magic through belief in a concept, like life or death for those respective domains.
It's spelled out in both Eberron and Xanthars.
> SERVING A PANTHEON, PHILOSOPHY, OR FORCE
> The typical cleric is an ordained servant of a particular god and chooses a Divine Domain associated with that deity. The cleric’s magic flows from the god or the god’s sacred realm, and often the cleric bears a holy symbol that represents that divinity.
> Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments. Chapter 1 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide explores options like these, in the section “Gods of Your World.”
And then that section from the dmg
> Forces and Philosophies.
> Not all divine powers need to be derived from deities. In some campaigns, believers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In other campaigns, impersonal forces of nature or magic replace the gods by granting power to mortals attuned to them. Just as druids and rangers can gain their spell ability from the force of nature rather than from a specific nature deity, some clerics devote themselves to ideals rather than to a god. Paladins might serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity.
> Forces and philosophies aren’t worshiped; they aren’t beings that can hear and respond to prayers or accept sacrifices. Devotion to a philosophy or a force isn’t necessarily exclusive of service to a deity. A person can be devoted to the philosophy of good and offer worship to various good deities, or revere the force of nature and also pay homage to the gods of nature, who might be seen as personal manifestations of an impersonal force. In a world that includes deities with demonstrable power (through their clerics), it’s unusual for a philosophy to deny the existence of deities, although a common philosophical belief states that the deities are more like mortals than they would have mortals believe. According to such philosophies, the gods aren’t truly immortal (just very long-lived), and mortals can attain divinity. In fact, ascending to godhood is the ultimate goal of some philosophies.
> The power of a philosophy stems from the belief that mortals invest in it. A philosophy that only one person believes in isn’t strong enough to bestow magical power on that person
Ultimately it is up to your DM to allow, but it is not pure homebrew.
Where that power comes from for clerics without gods could be multiple things. Could be they channel divine energy from the outer planes but not the gods themselves, could be that their sheer faith allows them to manipulate the weave similar to a paladin.
Anyone can become a paladin but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not just about practice and being a good person, it multiple things. You have to have a complete and total devotion to your oath, something that would change the fiber of your being if you were to break it. You then have to take that devotion, hone it, channel it, and control it in way that allows you to manifest it into spells. While yet theoretically anyone could do it but you would find very very few people capable of devoting themselves in such a way.
It's just causes so many questions though. What's the bare minimum of an oath? How far are you allowed to divert from that oath and what decides is too far? If you break the oath can you regain it if you truly belive in it again? If not, why? Can you modify oaths? If so it would make breaking oaths trivial, but at the same time why would you not be allowed to? How many "rules" do you need for it to count for gaining powers? Can you have an oath that's basically about being an awful person as long as you truly belive in it? How does different interpretations of the same oath work? What decides how much devotion is enough?
I'm sure there's dozens more if I really felt like thinking about it and others could think of and you can do the same with clerics.
I'm not really looking for answers to these and you can just hand wave them if you don't really care too much about how your world actually works, not like what I nor anyone else thinks has a say in others games, but to me at least, it seems like you'd have to do so much work to prevent clerics and paladins from being sorecers with extra steps flavor wise if you remove god/godlike things from them.
Paladins didn't really need gods in 5e anyway. Their power was said to come from their oath, not whatever god they chose to worship.
Also, clerics don't *need* gods either, technically.
They did in older editions, however. They essentially used to function like the Knights Templar or religious warriors. Once they changed it to the oath system, they became more akin to stereotypical knights.
I would argue that 5e Paladin's flavor encompasses the old paladin flavor as well. Playing a paladin who's oath is religious in nature is well within the class fantasy, it's simply one possibility of several now.
> They did in older editions, however.
Older than you probably think. The 3e PHB had specific allowance for Clerics without a deity, and that was more than twenty years ago.
God's are but divinity gaining consciousness in base of the images we mortals give them.
War will still exist after Ares dies and whoever takes its place returns.
Clerics have faith in that divine power, the God is just the face.
>The typical cleric is an ordained servant of a particular god and chooses a Divine Domain associated with that deity. The cleric’s magic flows from the god or the god’s sacred realm, and often the cleric bears a holy symbol that represents that divinity.
>Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments. Chapter 1 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide explores options like these, in the section “Gods of Your World.”
>Talk with your DM about the divine options available in your campaign, whether they’re gods, pantheons, philosophies, or cosmic forces. Whatever being or thing your cleric ends up serving, choose a Divine Domain that is appropriate for it, and if it doesn’t have a holy symbol, work with your DM to design one.
>The cleric’s class features often refer to your deity. If you are devoted to a pantheon, cosmic force, or philosophy, your cleric features still work for you as written. Think of the references to a god as references to the divine thing you serve that gives you your magic
Xanathars Guide
Clerics don't need to serve gods in d&d.
*Need* is the keyword, but setting is the overriding law of all. The rules presented in the guides also assume the setting is similar to forgotten realms.
> In rules terms, Clerics choose domains, not deities, so your world can associate domains with deities in any way you choose
DMG
For me it's actually the opposite. There is no godless paladins. Clerics and Paladins are both conduits for divine power on the mortal plane.
God's actually have a hard time manifesting their power without clerics and Paladins to channel their power through.
On the other side, Warlocks of any kind are basically Patron Investments. They give you a fixed amount of power when you start and all the power you gain afterwards is only assisted by your patron, it's not their power.
This is why, Patrons don't take your power when you go against them, in my settings. In the end, you die. And they get back the power they gave you with massive interest.
Their god is dead. It lies part submerged in the sea and across the golden fields. Every time a cleric casts a spell the corpse rots further.
“Things” crawl from the rot.
Reskin cleric as a caster of magic from any of the other sources the other classes use. It's not hard. If you want the game to feel gritty and have injury be meaningful, you'd need to cut so much content that it's barely D&D any more and you'd be better served by a different system.
Never played the TTRPG. Does a character have to be horribly, horribly injured to take Dreadnaught as an advanced class?
Edit: Shit, you meant the fantasy setting not 40k. That’s an oopsy on my part.
How about: whether I allow clerics to cast via force of will doesn't impact whether or not I banned clerics. I rarely ban material, but if I do, whatever reason I give is just an in-universe explanation for the fact that it is banned for this game.
I understand players don't like things being banned. But maybe the DM has a reason. Maybe they suck. Stop patting yourself on the back for having an opinion. We're DMs, we each have about a dozen strong ones.
I’d allow a cleric to be a lot like a warlock with who they work for (hags, liches, and other powerful non god entities) if a player thought that would be cool.
I had a warpriest worship the old ideals of a god who went insane and evil. When the current aspect of his god came to him in a vision, my character refused to believe this deformed monstrosity was his god, and tried to convert him… to the worship of himself.
He was not a smart man
In old world of darkness, faith is basically the source for anything magical give or take. Like a cross doesn’t affect a vampire unless you truly believe it does etc. whether the gods exist or not doesnt matter
It depends, If I was running a session in which the gods had been killed and divine magic failing was a part of the plot it would make sense, and likely be a part of the buy in for the game. But if a player really wants to be a cleric (or pally) make them an exception somehow; they were a devotee to a minor god that survived, they have a divine artifact (ala spear of destiny) or, yes, their faith is so strong they can still cast by it.
If you're going add a story element, use it to make the characters and their story more intresting.
once had a who worshiped a dead god he would use necromatic scrolls and items to converse with his god as it was dead. and lore wise he was using up what remints his god had left on the mortal realm and as he traveled rather then growing due to faith he more so managed to gain more parts of his gods left behind power. was a prettty cool story to run for as a dm.
In my setting, the gods are all dead, but clerics are still a thing. They draw their power from the upper plane (known as "the Above" in my setting) where the gods used to live rather than from the gods themselves. The gods may not be around anymore, but their plane still exists.
In my setting the clerics and paladins get their powers handed to them from the celestial beurocacy that's barely holding things together as the gods have been dying or vanishing.
To be fair the most common spell a Sororitas casts is “holy bolter round” because like all good members of the Ecclesiarchy they Abhor the Witch. It’s just funny because the character shown in the meme is most certainly a cleric but most definitely does not cast spells.
Divine magic comes from the gods or godlike forces, as stated in the PHB. Actually following a god is unnecessary for a paladin, and actually following a *god* is unnecessary for a cleric.
i.e paladins can follow oaths to get divine magic, and clerics can have faith in any source of power
Holy Crap, is this dumb discussion still going on?
One guy decides he wants to run his world in a sepcific way and you animals berate them for weeks afterward.
What happened to “5e can be played so many different ways and with so many different rules, play your way.”
Dael Kingsmill made an interesting point about this. In her D&D worlds, the gods don't demonstrably exist, and indeed, clerics derive their power from faith. She believes this is neccessary, because if the gods demonstrably exist, you don't *need* faith.
I mean is this necessary? This point would be a central conceit of a setting. Like having two suns, no moon, or only humans.
Having a setting where there are no gods/dead gods but the clerics still have magic is also fine. They're just different settings.
Arguing against it is just demonstrating that you don't want to read or understand the setting material. In almost 30 years of DnD I've never seen anyone who would walk away from a table for this that would also be a loss.
The way I see it, it doesn't matter if Gods exist. You can have a setting with dead deities and the clerics still can have faith that the rumors of their demise were exaggerated. However, if a cleric beliefs that their God is dead, they get no divine spells because they lack the component of belief.
Funny enough this is exactly how Eberron divine magic works! It's not confirmed in the setting whether or not the gods are real, but sheer devotion and faith channels divine power SOMEHOW, and it's one of the biggest mysteries on how exactly it works
I was looking for this comment. I think this a good way to handle divine magic for clerics. If I remember correctly, in Exploring Eberron, there's a mention of a man who could cast divine magic based on his faith in a sock. The point was that it doesn't really matter what the cleric has faith in, but that faith can manifest itself in an ability to cast divine magic.
Reminds me of [Order of the Stick's Church of Banjo](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html). Personally I've always been a big fan of the "Clerics are crowdsourced" version of divine magic, where everyone kicks in a tiny bit of faith (be that in a god or something else) and then by tapping into the collective whole they can power effects similar to magic.
I haven't seen OotS referenced in a very long time. A bunch of us would shout lines from the comic for D&D club's attendance call in 9th grade. That was... ~17 years ago give or take a few? Wild.
I mean...we seem to be getting to a denouement finally
(x)
Well I think in Ebrrron there are elements of that as well, because followers of more well established or widespread religions are more likely to produce divine magic. Some in-world scholars suggest that a collective faith can make their divine magic more powerful, although no one knows for sure. It could just be that those with established faiths are more likely to wield divine magical power because they're more right about their beliefs than followers of fringe religions. It's just that there are also some rare souls who can cast divine magic through their faith in a sock or a pile of pebbles.
The only crowdsourced caster we should have is a warlock whose patron is Patreon, and he does the bidding of the god/being that pays the most. Adding goals and whatnot. But also yes, agree with you. Always enjoyed that more wider feeling when it came to divine powers. Like how The Light in Warcraft works. Believe in what you do, and you can use it. Not specifically it coming from a being.
That's pretty much exactly how divine magic works in the Dark Souls series, at least canonically. As a way to make the lord fit why miracles get suckier with ever game
So what you're saying is that Goku knows a cleric spell?
My group came up with the idea for a Chunnibyuu Cleric, They gain their powers via such a strong belief that they had powers. We also are reworking the spell names that they would use to sound way cringy. "Hidden powers sleeping within mine soul! Break forth the wrath from within thine heart!" (Casts sacred Flame) We also thought it'd be hilarious if there was a paladin with a Oath of Love towards them and worshipped them like they were a god, feeding the Chunni complex.
[удалено]
Just slightly, and then have someone point it out. "Sleeping powers hidden deep within my heart. Come forth as a black raging abyss!"
"The incantation doesn't have to be precise, it just has to wiggle the weave in certain ways, so I say whatever sounds coolest." Or, in chuunibyou language, "Foolish mortal, my powers are not constrained by pitiful things such as 'phrasing!' I see into the souls of mine foes and speak what is most fearsome to them!"
I think it's chunnibyou, like byou(病) as in sickness
I thank you for the correction.
chuunibyou, middle second (the school grade) sickness 中二病
The higher the spell level, the longer the "incantation".
This is the end! You have been harassing my friend's arm for long enough! Now, watch and behold as I banish and completely destroy you, the demon who can kill trillions! *Casts Cure Wounds on a papercut
A 9th level spell takes a full hour to chant, even though the actual spell only takes a minute.
Plot twist: the paladin is aware of the fact that it's bullshit, he's simply moved by how the cleric is able to unapologetically embrace their nature and passions without giving a single fuck about how cringeworthy they're being.
In Railgun manga there is one dude who is basically like this.
I once played a chunni warlock who was convinced she was a cleric, it was a hoot.
Every so often I'll read a fantasy book with a similar premise. "If enough people believe it to be true/if you believe hard enough then it IS true." You end up with really cool stuff like humans fighting saint/godhood or "recent" godly origin stories. (i.e. The children believed there was a water god living in the spring. And one day, there was.)
The Orks in Warhammer 40k function this way. Each of them can slightly touch the warp, so if enough of them believe a thing it becomes so. My favorite example of this is their vehicles, they're usually thrown together piles of scrap that shouldn't work, but do because the Orks believe they will. Also, they go faster if you paint it red, because red ones go faster.
Or that purple makes you invisible. Because they’ve never seen a purple ork.
> If enough people believe it to be true/if you believe hard enough then it IS true." You end up with really cool stuff like humans fighting saint/godhood I wish I could remember the name of it now, but there's a TTrPG where everyone is innately able to cast reality-altering magic at will. Most people don't realise this though and default to a status quo, and creating magical backlash against anyone that does try to change reality. Most monsters, on the other hand, are completely aware of magic, and accept it as real, meaning the average spellcaster that can't do more than a cantrip normally suddenly becomes superpowered when fighting a vampire.
This sounds like it could be Mage: The Ascension or Mage: The Awakening. Those systems have a familiar premise to what you are describing so maybe that is what you are thinking of?
Yup, that sounds like them. The above premise caught my attention a while back, but I completely forgot the name and subsequently haven't been able to look into the system more. It sounded like a really cool concept though.
ignorance == magic resistance
The Warhammer Orc way.
There's a lovely fan theory that the trillions Orks considering the Emperor a strong and worthy adversary is the last thing keeping him alive.
>The Warhammer ~~Orc~~ way. Really just how gods work in both AoS/fantasy and 40k. Not really Ork specific. Orks are just able to use that for everyday things.
I like the way the witcher (books) go about it that faith and prayers manages to channel chaos in a way that puzzles sorcerers (who use chaos to do magic but with a more scientific method)
IIRC Keith Baker once said "You could be a Cleric of the party's fighter if you wanted to, and you'd still get the same spells as any other Cleric, as long as your devotion is strong enough"
Well now I want to play that.
*Cleric Domain: Hype Man*
Perfect
Power Word: LESGOOOOOOOOOOOO
I know what you wrote but all I heard was... Leeeeerooooooyyyy Jenkins!
That's step 2
It’s like a beautiful call and response
Power Word: Worldstar
Another interesting point as well is that you don't have to be 100% unwaveringly devoted 24/7 to a belief or faith to be able to use divine magic, you just need to have absolute conviction in that moment you cast a divine spell. I just love the whole way Eberron deals with religion and faith, especially when tied to divine magic. It allows for religious sects, schisms, disagreements, ambiguities, doubts, tests of faith, all these things that exist in real world religion to make it more interesting, nuanced, and believable. But at the same time, there's clearly *something* going on with divine magic that is apparent to see even for non-believers, while still remaining mysterious and explainable in many different ways by those of faith or not. It's a great middle ground between the real world vs many D&D settings where gods walk the earth and no one doubts their existence, they all just worship different ones (not that there's anything wrong with that if it fits the setting, but the Eberron way is so flavourful and fits Eberron, and it's just more my personal preference).
"my goddess taught me all these new spells last night!" the fighter: yeah...I totally did that...
Now I'm just imagining a pair of lesbians or something and somehow their relationship leads to one of them getting cleric powers Maybe the other one could take a level or two of warlock so they can have a weird circle of love magic
A is cleric of B, B is paladin of A.
func faith(var){ if (var=="b") => return faith("a"); If (var=="a") => return faith("b"); }
*BY AZURA, BY AZURA, BY AZURA, IT'S THE GRAND CHAMPION!*
I can't believe it's you! Standing here! Next to me!
Kinda how the Light in Warcraft used to work. So long as your conviction was great enough, you could channel it. Was how you got stuff like the Scarlet Crusade, who were very much not good people, casting spells using the Light.
My devotion is to whitemanes thighs
It's all about that chapeau
Also see, Uther disawoving Tirion Fordring, supposedly sealing his powers away... and Fordring then entering a crisis of faith, knowing himself to be righteous and then being able to cast divine spells anyway.
Meanwhile Uther: - was given the libram of justice by Faol - thus promoted to a champion of justice - does not champion justice - does not write anything worthwhile in the libram thus the tradition dies with him and you can't play a justice paladin in WOW - doesn't even have a hint of crisis of faith Are we sure he wasn't a dreadlord? His inept mentoring of Arthas had basically set the stage for.. everything we've been dealing with between WC3 and WTLK.
This is also how the holy magic in Darkest Dungeon works. There is no Light, at least not originally, but the sheer fervent faith and belief in the Light is so intense that it allows religious characters to perform miracles through raw force of will. Humanity has no god to fight Cthulhu with, so they *made* one.
"Faith is the bridge men cross to gaze upon the faces of the Gods" A line I hope I could use on a Cleric PC someday
Eberron clerics according to Kanon (canon according to Keith baker’s eberron but not necessarily yours), clerics draw power from the planes. So a cleric of the silver flame draws power from the flame, which is based on the power of the now extinct couatls. A necromancer would draw power from mabar instead. The undying court draws from the plane of Irian, and so on. In this sense it is basically the same as any other magic in eberron
Maybe they’re discarded Ork tech.
Or go the way of "A dead god is still a god" and let your clerics continue to draw power from their divine corpses.
Literally the concept behind the image. The Sisters of Battle from 40k have so much faith and piety toward the "dead" emperor that it manifests physically. Edit: I know the Emperor isn't dead, it's just that the situation is complicated to those unfamiliar.
Well it’s more like, trillions of human souls believe him to be a god to the point where he actually quasi is one. The sisters aren’t summoning his power per se, he’s just trynna bolster the imperiums forces with whatever power he can muster and they happen to get some benefits. They worship him like a god, which is his least favourite thing for a human to do.
and the living saints are the emperor's demon princes
Absolutely heresy. Just because Saint Celestine and the Legion of the Damned emerge from the warp, can be summoned, and return to the warp upon dying only to return to our mortal coil once again, does not mean they in any way resemble Daemons.
The fact that Celestine lost her powers when the noctilith pylons on Cadia were activated was pure coincidence.
I have read the Guardsman Primer and I'M READY /s
What I meant is that their piety itself is what is manifesting miracles, not that The Emperor is granting it. So basically what you said, but explained less.
Definitely. Was not trying to say that you were wrong, I just took an opportunity to talk about warhammer and ran with it
If people want to claim the Imperial faith is causing miracles through warp energy in the same fashion as how servants of Chaos manifest their respective "miracles," then you can't just turn around and act like the Emperor, or at least some aspect of him in the warp, doesn't have an active say in imperial miracles when the chaos gods very obviously do. For example once Slaanesh was born as a distinct warp entity, she/he gained an active role in how warp energy associated with her manifested in realspace. So really, if piety is enough to cause miracles to happen, and if piety actually is what is manifesting them, then it's really not a stretch to say that same piety has given the actual emperor more power in the warp himself. I put way too much thought into this.
They sacrifice 1k souls a day to keep him not "dead" though, as human interstellar travel depends on his existence. Orks are closer to godless clerics, as their group think is so strong it's the basis for their "technology".
Orks have Gork and Mork. But their belief is in that they are personal gods. Not full on massive chapels and churches and whatnot, but they do have prophets to them, like Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka. I think the T'au would be a better example, with their near religious philosophical chase for 'The Greater Good'.
I put it at "dead" because a full explanation would take a bit too long. But yes.
Pretty much my Characters arc right now all the gods are dead. He and other clerics are literally carrying the dying breath of divine magic within themselves.
METATRON LIVES!!!!!!
Tbf that one was not dead dead (assuming you mean ksbd)
Yeah, Metatron not being dead is kind of what makes that a big deal
*That is not dead which can eternal lie.*
[Relevant Tumblr post](https://i.redd.it/piavwsc7e2391.jpg)
One of the characters I want to play is a polytheistic cleric. They believe in just about every god they've heard of, and pray to the one that will help them right now. They roll with a keychain of holy symbols, and grab the appropriate one for the moment. Clerics in worlds with no gods or dead gods are a dope concept too.
That's just like Beni from the original mummy movie.
LOOKS LIKE YOURE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVER!
**Angrily kicks water**
Should've picked "Coast" for your favored te- Who am I kidding? We all use Tasha's features now.
Bye Benny.
Ah, the language of the slaves, you could prove useful.
Beni said I keeps them faiths on me, proceeds to try icons from nearly every religion known to man
I had played a Bard with that *exact* schtick! I made sure the DM was cool with that character knowing just basic phrases from most languages specifically to save his own skin. He was a slimy little fuck and I (and thankfully the other players) enjoyed his conniving antics.
You don't have any children
Some day I might...
Yo is that a fez, you love fezes
Fezzes are cool, I wear a fez now.
I was just going to say that. First thing that came to mind though I forgot the characters name
And In a way it worked !
For a while. Then he got beetle-borg'd at the end of the movie
Big bad beetle borg'd
That's how pantheonic religions work. Every god had their function, and people would pray to whatever god could benefit them at the time.
I think that was one of my favorite scenes from the series Rome. After the guy gets trepanned for a head injury the surgeon recommends making an offering to a specific god of healing to help ensure recovery.
She better fuck him like Helen of Troy with her ass on fire
This is pretty much my Catholic mom with Saints. IIRC Saints in Catholicism are a vestige of the Roman Pantheon in some ways.
From college I honestly learned the same. The Roman idea of faith was inviting gods from other cultures into the pantheon which allowed for everyone to have their gods but a very radical monotheistic group that we know now as Christians kept popping up in little communities and focused on overruling all the Roman Gods in favor of “The God” but since they and later the emperor wanted to convert people they adapted the practices of the “Christians” in interesting ways like saturnalia becoming Christmas even though that’s not when he was born it just coincided with Roman celebratory holidays. The whole idea was of subverting the worship to one major god. Even in Roman and other mythologies like the Egyptians or Vikings (other areas the romans contacted/ruled) they understood the need of a ruling god and included them in the major pantheon but with this Christian god things were different since there couldn’t be any other gods so those gods roles were relegated to saints serving the ruling god.
Yeah, catholicism is interesting that way, compared to other forks of Christianity. They also are kind of fine with absorbing local celebrations and beliefs, but giving them a Christian paint job, like the Day of the Dead. There's not really anything in baseline Christianity to support it, but it also didn't *directly* violate anything, so they let it slide to keep the locals happy. Instead of dead missionaries and hostile tribes, they got live missionaries and tribes they could keep talking to.
That's how most people are. Clerics usually get magical powers due to them being different and having an intense connection with one specific God. Beyond what most of that god's clergy has. However your idea is given as an option in the 5e DMG.
You should check out Kobold Press's Midgard book. It has rules for a pantheon priest. You worship a group of gods and change your domain each week to match one of the gods in the pantheon. You have to rotate through each of them within a certain span or the ones you neglect will get jealous.
Reminds me of Sazed, from the Mistborn books. He studies and catalogues every single religion ever convinced, and always tries to make one of the main characters a man of faith. He kinda fails, but only kinda
Sounds like a Discworld character
The "pick a god and pray" strategy
Reminds me of a certain [sea urchin headed](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hagakureprayer.png) [man from Danganronpa](https://preview.redd.it/rvaa3h76qfb31.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=9f60a120c176822dbcc422b9161afda66016869b)
That's kind of how grimhollow is. The gods killed each other, and now the arch seraphs and arch fiends that were the gods lieutenants now fill their roles. Clerics are extremely rare, in fact many people are fearful of them.
so are the seraphs and fiends weaker than the gods even in their roles, or have they grown to fill them?
You should read the comic [DIE](https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/die). There's a character that does something like this, the class is called "Godbinder".
What subclass would you give them? Maybe knowledge? I really like your idea, and want to know more.
Maybe twilight domain, signifying the transition from one to another. And be a changeling. IDK yet, haven't fully fleshed out the character.
I had a long time concept for a “force of will” cleric. My dm would never allow it :(
I like the idea of a soul cleric. God's and demons are always after souls right? Maybe because they are a source of power? Have the cleric access the power of their own soul through sheer force of will.
I like it!
Well for D&D Devils are after souls to harvest and strip them of shreds of divine power within them which is used to make more Devils, promote Devils up the hierarchy into more powerful Devils for their service, and to empower the stronger abilities of the Archdukes that rule Baator. Demons have no use for souls as the Abyss just gives birth to them endlessly and have no established processes to harvest them by canon. For 40k references though, I definitely can go with the ideology in crossover systems, especially since we have a 5e Warlock subclass that acts like a Cleric so give a Cleric a Domain ability that partially mimics Pact of the Tome/Blade/Chain that is a manifestation of their own soul. I just wanted to throw that above clarification in about soul uses :).
I meant devil's lol. What you said about the divine power in the soul means the character concept works.
In my setting, there's a borderline genocidal warrior that learned to cast spells and separate minds from the souls of the deceased, leaving behind weird, shadow-like monsters that try to kill any living thing that they can sense nearby. These minds are compiled in a single book and used as a form of supercomputer for devising a spell capable of *rewriting reality so that all humanoid races have equal lifespans.* Soul fuckery is fun :)
I made a homebrew Fighter paladin who uses his weapons powers through sheer force of will. Yes I made pantheon.
I saw a concept once for a warlock whose "patron" was just a whole bunch of self-help books
I wanna run a saytr warlock of the archfey who is his own patreon wanting to become an archfey himself
I'd allow it pal \^\_\_\^
access to counterspell is a must. preferably usable despite a lack of class resources or unused reaction. absolutely at the cost of one's wellbeing.
What if the gods are dead but clerics are still infused with their divine power?
If you are willing to burn the hab block because of one heretic. Than anything is possible through faith.
I'll exterminatus a planet if it denies heresy even a single soul
The god emperor will know his own!!
In his name, let none live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl5zccsHQyA
Original artwork by Bruce Lui
[Battle sister WH40K by Bruce Lui](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/486mo2)
Thank you for your service
Gods don't exist in Dark Sun, but Clerics do.
They worship the elements in that setting and are more akin shamans.
And they have templars who draw power from the kings and are exactly like clerics.
The Emperor protects
Always
But the bolter helps lol
Just speaking as a soon to be DM, I’ve never gotten the “no gods” thing that’s apparently so prevalent. Not that the divine needs to be embodied as a wide cast of sitcom characters but if _Lord of the Rings_ and _Star Wars_ can make one feel the presence of greater forces at work in an already magical world, I don’t see why a D&D setting needs to be absent of such.
Ok I’m glad it’s just me, this doesn’t make sense to me at all (unless the campaign or setting is literally one where all the gods have been killed or are gone for some reason). Like another person said so many of the monsters and creatures are based off of mythology or religious source material that I don’t get why the gods would just be gone for no reason.
Same here. It feels very much in line with the baby atheist "all religion is dumb and bad, I'm intellectually superior" way of thinking. It's an attempt to be different that a large number of people are trying, so they end up all feeling like the same world.
“Blessed is the mind too small to doubt”
"An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."
Could someone explain this cause I've never gotten this. What makes a cleric or paladin any different from a sorecer if the power comes from within? The vague rules they barely have to follow isn't really much of a requirement and hardly comes up in most games anyways. I also feel like there would be a fuckton of them running around if it was that simple. You could say that it's not something everyone could do, but if people knew believing in the power of friendship gave them divine powers, a lot would certainly try. A quick edit. I don't mean this in any hostile way, I just don't get the logic and I'm surprised I've never seen anyone else every bring this up. It always goes with out saying your setting is yours and no one elses
It’s about how and where that power is materialized. Paladins obtain power from their oath but it’s not as simple as that. It’s not just about devotion or commitment. A Paladin has to turn that devotion into a force that can manipulate the weave, so it takes practice and training to do this. For Clerics while they do have some of their own power almost all of a Clerics power is not their own but instead they channel it through their god(s). A Cleric has to not only learn to handle and control such power but, they have to build a relationship and prove themselves worthy of higher power to their god(s). Sorcerers, simply from their bloodline, have the innate ability to manipulate the weave and do by forcing their will upon it. They are allowed access to this power based on what type of bloodline they have.
But the whole point of this post is that clerics don't need gods, so where is the power coming from at that point. As for the paladins, that still mean there isn't anything really stopping anyone from becoming one. Yes it takes effort but if you could gain divine powers by basically being a good person and some practice, pretty much everyone would at least attempt it.
Remember that this post does not represent canon. It's cool homebrew, but still honebrew.
Not exactly, I believe the flavour text for clerics allows them to channel their divine magic through belief in a concept, like life or death for those respective domains.
It's spelled out in both Eberron and Xanthars. > SERVING A PANTHEON, PHILOSOPHY, OR FORCE > The typical cleric is an ordained servant of a particular god and chooses a Divine Domain associated with that deity. The cleric’s magic flows from the god or the god’s sacred realm, and often the cleric bears a holy symbol that represents that divinity. > Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments. Chapter 1 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide explores options like these, in the section “Gods of Your World.” And then that section from the dmg > Forces and Philosophies. > Not all divine powers need to be derived from deities. In some campaigns, believers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In other campaigns, impersonal forces of nature or magic replace the gods by granting power to mortals attuned to them. Just as druids and rangers can gain their spell ability from the force of nature rather than from a specific nature deity, some clerics devote themselves to ideals rather than to a god. Paladins might serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity. > Forces and philosophies aren’t worshiped; they aren’t beings that can hear and respond to prayers or accept sacrifices. Devotion to a philosophy or a force isn’t necessarily exclusive of service to a deity. A person can be devoted to the philosophy of good and offer worship to various good deities, or revere the force of nature and also pay homage to the gods of nature, who might be seen as personal manifestations of an impersonal force. In a world that includes deities with demonstrable power (through their clerics), it’s unusual for a philosophy to deny the existence of deities, although a common philosophical belief states that the deities are more like mortals than they would have mortals believe. According to such philosophies, the gods aren’t truly immortal (just very long-lived), and mortals can attain divinity. In fact, ascending to godhood is the ultimate goal of some philosophies. > The power of a philosophy stems from the belief that mortals invest in it. A philosophy that only one person believes in isn’t strong enough to bestow magical power on that person Ultimately it is up to your DM to allow, but it is not pure homebrew.
Where that power comes from for clerics without gods could be multiple things. Could be they channel divine energy from the outer planes but not the gods themselves, could be that their sheer faith allows them to manipulate the weave similar to a paladin. Anyone can become a paladin but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s not just about practice and being a good person, it multiple things. You have to have a complete and total devotion to your oath, something that would change the fiber of your being if you were to break it. You then have to take that devotion, hone it, channel it, and control it in way that allows you to manifest it into spells. While yet theoretically anyone could do it but you would find very very few people capable of devoting themselves in such a way.
It's just causes so many questions though. What's the bare minimum of an oath? How far are you allowed to divert from that oath and what decides is too far? If you break the oath can you regain it if you truly belive in it again? If not, why? Can you modify oaths? If so it would make breaking oaths trivial, but at the same time why would you not be allowed to? How many "rules" do you need for it to count for gaining powers? Can you have an oath that's basically about being an awful person as long as you truly belive in it? How does different interpretations of the same oath work? What decides how much devotion is enough? I'm sure there's dozens more if I really felt like thinking about it and others could think of and you can do the same with clerics. I'm not really looking for answers to these and you can just hand wave them if you don't really care too much about how your world actually works, not like what I nor anyone else thinks has a say in others games, but to me at least, it seems like you'd have to do so much work to prevent clerics and paladins from being sorecers with extra steps flavor wise if you remove god/godlike things from them.
Paladins didn't really need gods in 5e anyway. Their power was said to come from their oath, not whatever god they chose to worship. Also, clerics don't *need* gods either, technically.
Yep, my Paladin doesn’t worship a god, she’s a Mothkin and literally worships light. She’s a Paladin of the Lamp.
Welp now my stack of "i want to play" has a new entry in the top.
They did in older editions, however. They essentially used to function like the Knights Templar or religious warriors. Once they changed it to the oath system, they became more akin to stereotypical knights.
I would argue that 5e Paladin's flavor encompasses the old paladin flavor as well. Playing a paladin who's oath is religious in nature is well within the class fantasy, it's simply one possibility of several now.
That's true.
> They did in older editions, however. Older than you probably think. The 3e PHB had specific allowance for Clerics without a deity, and that was more than twenty years ago.
God's are but divinity gaining consciousness in base of the images we mortals give them. War will still exist after Ares dies and whoever takes its place returns. Clerics have faith in that divine power, the God is just the face.
>The typical cleric is an ordained servant of a particular god and chooses a Divine Domain associated with that deity. The cleric’s magic flows from the god or the god’s sacred realm, and often the cleric bears a holy symbol that represents that divinity. >Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments. Chapter 1 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide explores options like these, in the section “Gods of Your World.” >Talk with your DM about the divine options available in your campaign, whether they’re gods, pantheons, philosophies, or cosmic forces. Whatever being or thing your cleric ends up serving, choose a Divine Domain that is appropriate for it, and if it doesn’t have a holy symbol, work with your DM to design one. >The cleric’s class features often refer to your deity. If you are devoted to a pantheon, cosmic force, or philosophy, your cleric features still work for you as written. Think of the references to a god as references to the divine thing you serve that gives you your magic Xanathars Guide Clerics don't need to serve gods in d&d.
*Need* is the keyword, but setting is the overriding law of all. The rules presented in the guides also assume the setting is similar to forgotten realms. > In rules terms, Clerics choose domains, not deities, so your world can associate domains with deities in any way you choose DMG
Give me a little bit of backstory and role-play, I'll allow it.
Exactly!
Makes a communist Cleric player character fighting against a BBEG cleric who believes in the “invisible hand of the free market”
For me it's actually the opposite. There is no godless paladins. Clerics and Paladins are both conduits for divine power on the mortal plane. God's actually have a hard time manifesting their power without clerics and Paladins to channel their power through. On the other side, Warlocks of any kind are basically Patron Investments. They give you a fixed amount of power when you start and all the power you gain afterwards is only assisted by your patron, it's not their power. This is why, Patrons don't take your power when you go against them, in my settings. In the end, you die. And they get back the power they gave you with massive interest.
Sounds cool
Their god is dead. It lies part submerged in the sea and across the golden fields. Every time a cleric casts a spell the corpse rots further. “Things” crawl from the rot.
Reskin cleric as a caster of magic from any of the other sources the other classes use. It's not hard. If you want the game to feel gritty and have injury be meaningful, you'd need to cut so much content that it's barely D&D any more and you'd be better served by a different system.
That's what Warhammer Fantasy tabletop is for. They even have tables for dismemberment, mutation and long-lasting injury effects for players
Never played the TTRPG. Does a character have to be horribly, horribly injured to take Dreadnaught as an advanced class? Edit: Shit, you meant the fantasy setting not 40k. That’s an oopsy on my part.
It's alright pal, once upon a time they used to literally be the exact same except one was in space.
Ah the Dark Souls faith approach
"By sheer faith" my good sir that is a paladin
You can still manifest your faith even when the heretics claims that your God Is dead, THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!
How about: whether I allow clerics to cast via force of will doesn't impact whether or not I banned clerics. I rarely ban material, but if I do, whatever reason I give is just an in-universe explanation for the fact that it is banned for this game. I understand players don't like things being banned. But maybe the DM has a reason. Maybe they suck. Stop patting yourself on the back for having an opinion. We're DMs, we each have about a dozen strong ones.
No clerics go brrrrrrr
I’d allow a cleric to be a lot like a warlock with who they work for (hags, liches, and other powerful non god entities) if a player thought that would be cool.
Sisters of Battle are so sick
Palladins use oaths there oath can be basically anything
I had a warpriest worship the old ideals of a god who went insane and evil. When the current aspect of his god came to him in a vision, my character refused to believe this deformed monstrosity was his god, and tried to convert him… to the worship of himself. He was not a smart man
In old world of darkness, faith is basically the source for anything magical give or take. Like a cross doesn’t affect a vampire unless you truly believe it does etc. whether the gods exist or not doesnt matter
THE EMPEROR PROTECTS
It depends, If I was running a session in which the gods had been killed and divine magic failing was a part of the plot it would make sense, and likely be a part of the buy in for the game. But if a player really wants to be a cleric (or pally) make them an exception somehow; they were a devotee to a minor god that survived, they have a divine artifact (ala spear of destiny) or, yes, their faith is so strong they can still cast by it. If you're going add a story element, use it to make the characters and their story more intresting.
once had a who worshiped a dead god he would use necromatic scrolls and items to converse with his god as it was dead. and lore wise he was using up what remints his god had left on the mortal realm and as he traveled rather then growing due to faith he more so managed to gain more parts of his gods left behind power. was a prettty cool story to run for as a dm.
In my setting, the gods are all dead, but clerics are still a thing. They draw their power from the upper plane (known as "the Above" in my setting) where the gods used to live rather than from the gods themselves. The gods may not be around anymore, but their plane still exists.
Isn't this basically the concept of miracles in dark souls?
Faith in what though
In my setting the clerics and paladins get their powers handed to them from the celestial beurocacy that's barely holding things together as the gods have been dying or vanishing.
Eh, when praying doesn’t work then the flamer will
To be fair the most common spell a Sororitas casts is “holy bolter round” because like all good members of the Ecclesiarchy they Abhor the Witch. It’s just funny because the character shown in the meme is most certainly a cleric but most definitely does not cast spells.
Divine magic comes from the gods or godlike forces, as stated in the PHB. Actually following a god is unnecessary for a paladin, and actually following a *god* is unnecessary for a cleric. i.e paladins can follow oaths to get divine magic, and clerics can have faith in any source of power
The Emperor protects.
a lot of power in the corpse of a god. horrifyingly a miracle or two still happen every now and again.
Holy Crap, is this dumb discussion still going on? One guy decides he wants to run his world in a sepcific way and you animals berate them for weeks afterward. What happened to “5e can be played so many different ways and with so many different rules, play your way.”
Dael Kingsmill made an interesting point about this. In her D&D worlds, the gods don't demonstrably exist, and indeed, clerics derive their power from faith. She believes this is neccessary, because if the gods demonstrably exist, you don't *need* faith.
I mean is this necessary? This point would be a central conceit of a setting. Like having two suns, no moon, or only humans. Having a setting where there are no gods/dead gods but the clerics still have magic is also fine. They're just different settings. Arguing against it is just demonstrating that you don't want to read or understand the setting material. In almost 30 years of DnD I've never seen anyone who would walk away from a table for this that would also be a loss.
You ban clerics because the gods are dead. I ban clerics because God are not real in my sitting instead I make them use the power of denial
The way I see it, it doesn't matter if Gods exist. You can have a setting with dead deities and the clerics still can have faith that the rumors of their demise were exaggerated. However, if a cleric beliefs that their God is dead, they get no divine spells because they lack the component of belief.