Killing Gods, Final Thoughts

There's a lot to write about deities and their place in D&D...so much so that it would be the epitome of easy to allow this series to spiral endlessly down endless digressions. As such, I think it's time to bring it to a close; I'm sure I'll have the chance to revisit the topic in the future.

For ease of reference:

Part 1

Part 1 Addendum

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The initial impetus for this series was Prince of Nothing's (probably facetious) comment on an earlier post:

I think if you could manage to distill the right approach to portraying S&S style deities in DnD, complete with a few examples, you'd be doing the OSR a huge favor.

Never one to pass up doing a "favor" for the OSR (!!) I set out in my normal meandering fashion, throwing out the odd barb and jab as is my wont. While I despair of having distilled "the right approach" to the subject of S&S style deities, the series has at least helped me to distill my own thoughts. Here then is what I believe:

While D&D draws inspiration from the Sword & Sorcery genre, for long-term play it is probably best to draw parallels to long form fiction...which S&S ain't. S&S generally applies to short stories, dealing with a particular situation that a protagonist must face. Many of D&D's major influences (Leiber, Howard, Moorcock) wrote in this form...the books of Conan or Elric or Mouser are compilations of short stories rather than actual novels. A distinguishing characteristic of the novel is that a protagonist changes over the course of the book; such is not the case with the short story. Elric is much the same asshole at the end of the series as he is in the beginning; Bilbo or Frodo, on the other hand, are changed drastically by the course of events in their respective novels. D&D can be played like short fiction (i.e. in episodic fashion) but PCs that survive are forced to change by the very rule system by which we play (a 12th level wizard or fighter or thief bears no resemblance to a 1st level character with regard to capability or responsibility). 

S&S deities are reflective of the genre, i.e. they serve the needs of the situation at hand whether you're talking the mysterious entity encountered by Jirel in Black God's Kiss, Arioch's whimsical cruelty in Elric of Melnibone, or the soon-to-be-beheaded naga in God in a Bowl. Attention to continuity and coherence are of secondary importance to telling the story of the protagonist's particular adventure of the moment. For the same reason, there's no single particular way gods are portrayed in the S&S genre: Crom may be a mythical non-entity for all his appearances in Howard's work, while Death is an incarnate being in Leiber's Nehwon setting.

D&D, however, is meant to be played as a campaign over a lengthy (perhaps endless!) period of time, and thus a coherent cosmology is imperative to the setting, in order to facilitate the players' engagement with the game. If the rules for the cosmology shift constantly, depending on the needs of the DM's "story," it works to break the players' immersion and undermine their faith in the DM as a fair and impartial arbiter of the rules. 

And D&D has rules for deities baked into the game. Every edition I've played or read, with the exception of un-supplemented OD&D, has some version of "gods" inherent in the system, followed and worshipped by clerics (Mentzer's BECMI tries to take them out, but then adds the Immortal rules, many of which are named/modeled after the same gods found in historic religions of the world). Finding the "proper way" to portray gods in the game is a non-issue when the rules for modeling divinities are already hard-coded into the system.

Essential Reading

SO...if there is no specific S&S way to portray gods, and D&D already has rules for modeling gods in the game, and if (as I propose) the best way to play D&D is long-term with consistent attention to  setting cosmology (to allow maximum familiarity and, thus, immersion of the players), what then do I postulate is the best way to write gods into adventures?

And, for this, I look to the early (pre-1982ish shift) adventure modules as my examples. Here are the conclusions I draw:

• Gods exist, they are immensely powerful (by PC standards) yet still fallible; there is no "eternal Supreme Being" in D&D, that role being taken by the Dungeon Master, who creates the entirety of the campaign setting, including the gods worshipped by the player characters.
• There are creatures that attempt to imitate and/or are worshipped as gods but who are not; likewise, there are priests that promote false practices and/or worship false deities. Such deceptions can be sniffed out by the simple fact that no spell powers are granted to these would-be clerics.
• Being that the gods exist, they may be encountered by the player characters. Being that the gods' power is an order of magnitude far greater than that of the PCs, the way and manner of such encounters should be commensurate with the capability of the characters, as defined by the game rules. Having the gods (mainly) inhabit the outer planes is an altogether practical approach, as planar travel is generally limited to high level characters.
• Divinities may still be encountered indirectly...through agents, avatars, and relics...even by low- to mid-level characters, and such encounters with divine forces often break standard rules (helping imply the immensity of the divinity's power). Examples include the chaotic chapel in The Keep on the Borderlands, the temples to the Elder Elemental in the Giant modules, the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and (of course) Lolth in Vault of the Drow. Being that D&D is a magical world and the PCs are bold adventurers, such indirect encounters may be more common than one might suppose...unlike actual encounters with divine entities.
• Given the rules as written, PCs can kill gods. Doing so should be damn near impossible, which is not the same thing as "impossible." The consequences of such a deicide would be profound: the permanent death of Lolth would eliminate the Drow as a meaningful threat both above and below ground (and would probably lead to their genocide at the hands of the other Underdark species). Such scenarios should never be taken lightly, and are probably best suited as a capstone adventure to a campaign that is coming to a close. Definitely nothing I'd want to see for PCs below name level.

And there it is: the end of this series. Probably NOT as specific as Prince wanted, but still some guidelines to follow. And I honestly feel I've said about all I have to say on the subject...for now. Though, as always, I am happy to field questions, comments, and discussion.

Pax.

: )

Killing Gods, Part 4

All right…that’s a long enough break since my last post on “killing gods.” More than enough. 

As a precursor, I need a moment to talk about the relationship between clerics and deities; I realize this will seem yet another digression, but it’s pertinent to the conversation. You see, this whole subject came up because I was unsatisfied with the way I feel (many) adventure designs of recent years have been unreasonable with their treatment of gods…but it’s quite possible that this trend (and my preferences) come in part from learning different styles of play. 

I will elaborate.

I’ve written before about the shift in perspective of What Exactly A Cleric Is that came about in 1983 with the publication of the Mentzer version of Basic. As I’ve recounted (often enough) this was NOT the brand of D&D by which I learned the game. The clerics in my first campaign (which I ran up till circa 1988) didn’t receive their spells from “the strength of their beliefs.” No. Un-uh. Spells come from the gods they worship…they are divine favors, pure and simple, miracles granted by higher powers. 

This is, of course, EXPLICIT in the text. The 1981 Moldvay Basic set described it thusly:

Since clerical spalls are divinely given, they do not have to be studied; the cleric need only rest and pray for them.

"Divinely given" is the key phrase here. I can understand if there is some confusion caused by the actual description of the cleric class in Moldvay; its text ("...they are trained in fighting and casting spells. As a cleric advances in level, he or she is granted the use of more and more spells...") could be interpreted as meaning that their magic is separate from their deity, that magical training is something only those who are initiated into the cult's higher secrets are taught. But unless Moldvay is speaking metaphorically (I don't think he is), the phrase divinely given in the Spell section makes clear just who is "granting" access to clerical magic...not higher level priests and patriarchs, but the god or goddess whom the cleric serves.

And Gygax is even more clear in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:

It is well known to all experienced players that clerics, unlike magic-users, have their spells bestowed upon them by their respective deities.

The DMG text (page 38) goes on for more than half a page detailing exactly how clerics receive their magic directly from their gods, either by being divinely empowered (1st and 2nd level spells), bestowed upon them through intermediaries (saints, angels, demigods, etc. for 3rd through 5th level spells), or granted by direct communication with the deity itself (6th and 7th level spells). It is not a cleric's "inner strength," "strong beliefs," or "mystical training" that allows the character to create miracles...it is the god itself. A cleric with no god receives no magic. Period.

As said, Mentzer changes this in his 1983 Basic rulebook...a book I never owned until the 2000s, and certainly not the book I learned to play with. But a subtle shift in thinking is evident in TSR's publications as early as 1982. I refer here to two classic modules published that year: N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God and B4: The Lost City. I imagine both modules might be held up as inspirations for the works of recent designers I cited earlier, examples of "sword & sorcery" style adventures featuring "godlike beings" who are nothing more than actual (non-divine) monsters needing to be killed...respectively a spirit naga named Explictica Defilus and the tentacled monstrosity known as Zargon. These false gods, whether through longevity and fear or powerful mind control, have created cults of worship around themselves, followers who hold them in awe and carry out their "divine will, much as one might expect of followers duped by a charlatan.

And yet both modules include actual cleric followers of these monsters...clerics with the ability to access clerical magic. N1 has multiple clerics of Explictica using spells of up to 4th level (7th level clerics). B4 features Darius, a 6th cleric (also with access to spells up to 4th level) of the "cult of Zargon" as one of the Big Bads of the adventure. None of these characters make sense under the rules of the game; none of these characters should have ANY spells whatsoever.

Contrast this with the backstory found in the 1980 module C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan:

Eventually a new Archon mounted the throne in Pontylver, one who claimed [lawful neutral] Alia as her patron. The Temple of the Correct and Unalterable Way grew in followers and prestige, and as time passed, Myrrha noticed that her peers and superiors were becoming increasingly arrogant and arbitrary....Myrrha saw they were falling into the heresy of believing that law is concentrated in the individual and not the community. Investigating, she discovered a well-kept secret: many members of the ecclesiarchy were no longer able to cast high-level spells, thus proving their estrangement from their deity!

If N1 was properly designed (that is, written to follow the instructions laid out in the rule books), neither Abramo nor Misha would have access to clerical spells above 2nd level (and maybe not even those) and Gareth Primo would have no magic at all because a spirit naga is not a god and, thus, not capable of granting spells.

That is the game, folks, and I honestly don't think it's "open to interpretation." But...perhaps because of "satanic panic" pressure over the pretending to worship strange gods (see the 1982 Mazes and Monsters where Tom Hanks plays a batshit-crazy cleric)...TSR started to move away from its own rules. Started to say, hey, being a cleric isn't really about worshipping a god, it's about your character's training and "strong beliefs" manifesting powers...you're just a magic-user in priest's clothing and it doesn't matter whether you're worshipping the One True God or some tentacled space slug that crashed on the planet a thousand years ago. We aren't teaching children about the worship of strange pagan gods...heavens, no! There is no god except God, these are just strangely deluded fantasy priests. Pay no attention!

And you see that carried all the way down to today's designers. From Jason Sholtis's magnificent Operation Unfathomable:

...clerics operate under the delusion that their deities actually exist (they do not!). In truth, clerics are merely a distinct variety of magic-user, devoted to one or more of the ten thousand Gods of Order. Clerics manipulate chaos to achieve their results through the mental constructs of their religious practices, rather than rote memorization of arcane mummery.

From 2017's Lamentations of the Flame Princess (James Raggi):

Cleric magic is divinely inspired, and is granted to Clerics through prayer. Whether these powers are granted to Clerics by higher powers, if these higher powers are what the Cleric believes them to be, or if all Cleric spells are merely ritualized forms of sympathetic magic, are all subjects frequently debated...

I would include the 2018 adventure The Red Prophet Rises in this mix of confusion, in which a heretical priest (Khazra), mistakenly worshipping an ancient vampiric entity, still (inexplicably) retains access to the spells of a 6th level cleric of "the Bull God." Why? Is the Obelisk that Thirsts a divine entity? No. Does it serve the Bull God? No. One would think spells would be withheld from the priest, if only to inform him of his delusional apostasy.  Guy uses a sword in combat anyway.

These authors (and others) seem to have been influenced somewhat by these later (post-1982) influences when it comes to explaining the relationship between clerics and their gods. Which is to say, there is little relationship, if any. Any failure of clerical magic can simply be attributed to the cleric losing faith in herself: it is not the deity that withholds magic, but the cleric's own psychological barriers to accessing a purely internal mechanism. 

I'm not a big fan of that interpretation. It doesn't jibe with the D&D I learned to play. It is not the AD&D of Gygax; it runs counter to the DMG and the information found in Deities & Demigods. And while I'll be the first to admit to being a stodgy, groggy, grumpy old man when it comes to my D&D, I'd even say that it's not very "Sword & Sorcery," either...despite what (many of) these authors hope to emulate.

Because as discussed in my first post on the subject, much of D&D is inspired by fantasy fiction of the pulp variety...and in pulp fantasy you see PLENTY of deluded cultists following charlatans and false gods, but they aren't getting any magical powers by doing so. False priests don't get spells: they use tricks and psychoactive powders or rule through fear and tradition and superstition. Real magic linked to worship is generally called sorcery and rightly so, as it is linked to the favors granted by demonic entities...but such infernal divinities are still "divine," supernatural and extra-dimensional. Only divinities grant divine powers: when Jagreen Lern or Elric conjure in the names of their chaos gods, THEN magical stuff happens. 

But maybe I need to rein in a bit and bring this all back around to the subject at hand ("killing gods"). There is, I think, a certain prevalence or attitude or orientation in the Old School Role-playing circles that has wandered far afield from the game as it was originally envisioned. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. But here's how I see it:

• As Mike Mornard writes, the original designers "made up some shit they thought would be fun." It involved exploring strange environs, finding treasure, building worlds. It was inspired and influenced by adventure fiction, much of it "fantasy" in nature.
• As a game, D&D has a system; it has rules. It models something (a fantasy world of adventure) and the rules are applied to the thing it models (the fantasy world of adventure) up to and including things like "how/why a cleric gets spells" and "how many hit points a god like Zeus might have."
• That divine architect that Elric is always searching for? The supreme being that orders the lives of even the gods of his world? D&D has that, too: it's called the Dungeon Master. And just like Elric's "supreme being" (who would be Michael Moorcock...duh), the DM is not a creature to be encountered by the protagonists (in D&D's case, the player characters). The DM creates the world but is not OF the world. What will be encountered are game constructs, up to and including the gods that inhabit the game world.
• As a constructed fantasy world D&D has a cosmology. As a game that models a fantasy world, that cosmology can be exactly and minutely defined...right down to just how much damage Thor can do with a hammer blow, or how many greater devils inhabit the 3rd layer of the Nine Hells...should such info ever become necessary for play.
• The game (D&D) has parameters (structure) of play. It has assumptions and expectations of how play resolves.  These expectations of play resolution are determined by 1) the rules, 2) the way the rules model the world, and 3) the fiction that inspires the game...in that order. Don't (for example) tell me "well, Gandalf used a sword!" The inspiring fiction (#3) comes behind the rules (#1) and the modeled fantasy world (#2).

As originally conceived, Dungeons & Dragons was never about "telling stories." It was about playing a game of exploration and survival (adventure!) in a fantasy game world. However, some folks were quite unimaginative with how they worked within those parameters, creating murder-hobo funhouses of the poorest variety and this caused pushback in the form of front-loaded drama. We shall not wait for a story to emerge from our adventures! We shall make sure there is MEANING to these characters' (fake) lives!

Combine the success of that front-loaded drama (through company supported publications like Ravenloft and Dragonlance) with an imperative to cut anything perceived as controversial (i.e. impacting the bottom line) from a game now being marketed to children (this being the shift that began circa 1982), and one can readily see the consequences: we don't kill gods. We kill demons. We kill immortal liches. We kill creatures masquerading as gods. We kill surrogates in order to have our high stakes, high drama, emotionally invested play.

Because, originally, emotional investment in a character was mainly found in long-running (i.e high level) characters. And high level characters, by necessity, required greater challenges to stay engaged...tackling gods (modeled as part of the cosmology) and godlike beings (that giant ape from WG6) are a natural evolution of challenge for characters of the highest echelon, because lesser challenges don't cut it anymore. If you want to run a high level campaign, you're going to want to study up your copy of Sailor on the Seas of Fate because that's about "par" when it comes to suitable challenges. Good old Demogorgon has been a part of the D&D tapestry since 1976...and for good reason. 

[hell, I used to fight Demogorgon...on the playground...waaaay back before I ever laid eyes on ANY D&D book. Before I even opened my first box of the Dungeon! board game, even]

Not low level characters (I'm guessing).

Outside of WotC's latest-greatest editions, D&D designers have (mostly) moved away from front-loaded drama and railroad story arcs, but they've still passed some sort of threshold from which they can't seem to return. They want high stakes, high challenge, high weirdness in their adventure...but they don't want high level player characters. They want their players to continue playing "small ball" forever after, retiring (I suppose) should they ever, somehow, reach 8th or 10th level of play. "Too superheroic," is the refrain I hear. "The game is no fun after around 5th (or 6th or 7th) level."

Bull. Crap. But that discussion is for another post.

Throwing high level challenges (like godlings) into low level adventures is an attempt by designers to have their cake and eat it, too. It's an attempt to inject Elric-levels of amazeballs fantasy into the lives of grubby, Warhammer Fantasy-level adventurers in order to draw out low-level play while still keeping long-since-jaded players engaged with the game in front of them. Is that as bad as playing pre-generated snowflakes traveling the Dragonlance railroad? Absolutely not. But it's got to be grating after a while. It would certainly bug the shit out of me.

All right, that's it. I lied about this being the concluding post...just had too much more to say. The NEXT post will definitely be the conclusion to this series. 

Killing Gods, Part 3

All right, let's get this finished up...I've got other things to blog about: secret D&D languages, the uses of audible glammer, maybe even a run at "reviewing" Ravenloft (that was a pseudo-request). Buckle up, folks...this entry might be a looong one.

; )

When it comes to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, there are two inspiring sages that act as my guiding lights, two pole stars by which I steer my ship. They are Alexis Smolensk and Anthony Huso. There are other blogs that I read (and podcasters I listen to), but in the main, these two are the only external forces shaping my outlook on the game. If I had to name one more, Gary Gygax would, I suppose come in a distant third place. 

[does it seem strange to folks that Gygax isn't the brightest star in my AD&D firmament, despite being responsible for the game's existence? There is some precedent. I have it from strong authorities that Jesus is only the third-most important figure in shaping the Roman Catholic Church; the main individuals responsible for our religion (and, thus, all other Christian denominations descended from the western Church) are St. Paul (not even one of the Twelve!) and Thomas Aquinas]

Anyway, don't shake your head at me, Dear Reader; I have my reasons.

Longtime readers of my blog are surely well-acquainted with Alexis, I've mentioned the guy often enough. Huso, on the other hand, has a small enough presence on the internet (his web site has only been around since 2018) that while I'm certain I've mentioned him, he may have well fallen through the cracks of people's perceptions. He is an AD&D aficionado of the deepest stripe, and his blog deals at great length and fair eloquence with that specific rule set, the edition of D&D he's been running for his table since 2014 when he chucked his Pathfinder game for good. It is excellent reading.

However, that's not the reason I mention the man. In my last post on the subject of killing gods, I cited several published adventures of recent years that involved physical confrontations with gods, godlike beings, and pseudo-godlings, all of which were aimed at the low level adventuring party. I explained that I don't find these particularly reasonable, given the parameters of the D&D game as designed. My feeling is that D&D provides at least some guidelines (based in both instructional text and example adventure modules of the earliest origin) for how one ought to proceed with such scenarios and, baby, these ain't it. For me, it's a grating trend and, perhaps, even a disturbing one...there seems to be an aversion to high level D&D play while (at the same time) a longing for high stakes, epic adventure of the type that rightly belongs in the realm of high level characters.

Mr. Huso doesn't share this aversion (he's blogged his thoughts on high level campaign play...more than once) and has demonstrated how one might actually write a "god-killing adventure" with an absolutely exquisite book, a masterwork entitled Dream House of the Nether Prince. It is a lavish piece of art, as well as a fiendish, evocative adventure. It is, as far as I can determine, the single best gaming product I've purchased NEW for D&D since the reissue of the AD&D manuals a few years back. It may be the coolest pre-written adventure I've purchased since the 1980s. Certainly the best since Bruce Cordell's Return to White Plume Mountain (that was published in 1999), making it my favorite for at least the last 20 years.  

Yet I can't...well, I won't...review the thing. Because I haven't played it...I haven't experienced it. I can review a movie or a piece of music, but I can't give a true review of an adventure that I haven't run, because until I do run it, I can't say for certain if it's excellent or horrible or lost in translation from text to table. And there's just no way for me to run the thing at this point.

Huso's Dream House wasn't written for me...or (probably) for you, either. He wrote it for his own players, as a capstone adventure to finish seven years of AD&D play. It is a suitably epic dungeon, a mission to a massive fortress located in the Abyss, a refuge and "vacation palace" for Orcus, demon prince of the undead. The adversaries present in the adventure are truly staggering. The treasure to be looted is absolutely mind-blowing. The final confrontation might see PCs battling Orcus or Demogorgon or (perhaps) both. It is beautiful to behold. It is a pleasure to read (if, like me, you're "into demons"). It is suggested that no less than six characters of 14th level even attempt the adventure; Anthony's seven player group brought a party of ten, and many of them died, some in very permanent ways...you can read a summary of their venture on his blog.

It is an excellent example of what is possible with the D&D rules. A 135 page tour-de-force that puts H4: The Throne of Bloodstone (it's closest comparison) to shame. I really, really mean that. Dream House is a masterpiece created more-or-less by a single person, and it makes the entire Bloodstone line of TSR look paltry and hackish by comparison. The difference, however, is understandable when one considers Huso's book to be something lovingly created for his own group of players, not something churned out for the masses at a time when the company was just trying to stay afloat business-wise. I suspect a lot of people will balk at spending $50 (the price of its POD hardcover) for a niche product of a niche hobby, especially given its limited use in many (most?) campaigns.

Why limited? Because, despite a lot of excellent info on demons and a lot of new/unique monsters and treasures, the adventure is written for the type of adventuring group that most DMs simply don't have. There are no pre-generated characters included with the thing, and I can see why: because just handing someone a character sheet with a 15th level paladin or wizard won't make the player a savvy veteran of the kind needed to navigate this level of challenge. A group with years of experience working together in cooperation would find it a rough go of it...but then, they ARE tackling a unique demonic god in its lair. Such scenarios should be limited, niche, and incredibly difficult. 

Gygax was the first person to put encounters with gods into published adventures: the Elder Elemental (in G1 and G3), Blibdoolpoolp (in D2), and Lolth (in D3). There are two things that all these have in common:

1. These encounters are all potential in nature; none of these encounters with godlings are mandated, and all may be avoided. 
2. The adventures in which they are found are the pinnacle of what I call "hard core" Dungeons & Dragons. The novice ("N") series are clearly for beginning players. The intermediate ("I") series are fine for any group already versed in the game (i.e. players that know how to play and cooperate). The special ("S") series are random, rule breaking adventures, that provide enough weirdness to stymie experienced players or give novices a "puncher's chance." But the six modules that make up the G-D series are absolutely punishing adventures, any one of which will TPK a party that fails to operate at a high level of strategic play. 

And I find it fascinating how those godling encounters "ramp up" over the course of the series. In the G modules, the most a party might expect to encounter is an eye or tentacle that will drive a PC insane or drag them screaming to oblivion. In D2, a PC might actually encounter the goddess (on her own home turf) and might be able to treat with or bargain. In D3, the party has a chance to confront a goddess on their own plane, with the potential for actual combat and the possible destruction of her avatar. This is no naga masquerading as a god (as in N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God)...Lolth is the real deal. 

These scenarios work within the parameters and expectations of D&D play. A party of mid-level adventurers...and to me, 8th to 10th is still only (high) "mid-level"...should not be confronting creatures of godlike power. The encounters in G3 and D2 are more in line with "traps:" really rough traps that are best avoided.  Only in D3 (an adventure for characters of level 10-14) should a confrontation with a demon queen be possible, and only in the most limited of circumstances: outside her home plane, away from the bulk of her power base. Again, Lolth is not the point of the module; exploring the Vault and dealing with the threat of the Eilservs clan is. The goddess might even be a potential ally given the transgressions of Eclavdra and her ilk, though this is not an explicit suggestion of the module.

But again, it is in adventures like these that we see the power and majesty of the D&D game. In the first part of this series I wrote how, of all the sword & sorcery fantasy that influenced D&D, only Leiber and Moorcock display their protagonists in actual interaction with divinities. PCs allying themselves with Lolth, bargaining for leniency from Blibdoolpoolp, or being used as pawns by Orcus (in Huso's book) all exemplify scenes one reads in those S&S fantasies...and while a divinity being willing to treat with mortals speaks to the fallibility (and vulnerability) of the divinity in question, it is really only those characters with world-shaking power (like Elric) who have the capability to bring actual destruction to such entities.

And this is of particular importance to the default setting of Dungeons & Dragons, because under the terms of the game, these are no "false gods." These demon queens and princes are gods that are worshipped, that are followed by devout clerics, and to whom they may bestow spells. And yet they are not safe from destruction! Player characters thus have the power to alter the cosmology of the campaign  setting and impact the reality of the game world in drastic ways. What happens to the Drow clerics of Lolth if Lolth is destroyed on her home plane? Do they cease to be a threat altogether? Doubtful, but her death (if achieved) will surely change Drow culture at a fundamental level.

That's the opposite of de-protagonizing players. 

And that, perhaps, is what I find lacking about some of these other OSR offerings that involve encounters with deities, quasi- or otherwise. There's a certain sort of "enforced smallness" that comes along with placing PCs in situations in which they are absolutely, hopelessly outclassed by a power beyond mortal comprehension. It should be hard for the PCs to even encounter such a being. Barring a long and arduous journey through miles of hostile environment and unnumbered foes to the god's most sacred (and well-guarded) temple, nothing short of a complicated ritual/sacrifice should allow access to such a being on the Prime Material Plane. And as bodily travel to the outer planes is generally outside the reach of low-mid level characters, such encounters should be an extremely rare and wondrous thing...if possible at all.

Okay...perhaps one more post on the subject (to conclude) is needed.

Killing Gods, Part 2

Man, I've got a half-dozen Real Life Important things on my plate today and if I don't get this damn post started, I don't know that I ever will. SO, without further ado, let's get down to the deicide!

The first god I ever killed in D&D was Thor.

To be clear, I was DM'ing at the time, not playing, but I am far more responsible for Thor's death than any of my players. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I was absolutely responsible. This was circa age 10 or so, on the playground, which meant we were still only a couple years into D&D play; at the time we had not yet discovered there was separation between editions of the game, and I was running my game with a combination of B/X and the AD&D Monster Manual and (occasionally) the DMG. My buddy had just acquired a copy of Deities & Demigods (the post-Moorcock/Lovecraft version) and we were anxious to put it into play. Since one of my earliest PCs in the game had a rather high-level thief who had no problem whupping up on normal challenges, I figured Thor would be the perfect encounter to put the dude in his place.

Dead duck

Now, I can't remember the exact circumstances of the scenario (this was some 35 years ago) but I can remember the outcome: Jason managed to piss off Thor (probably after I had pissed off the PC), whereupon Thor used Mjolnr to hit the thief with a 100-die lightning bolt. The thief's ring of spell turning reflected the bolt, Thor failed his saving throw, and was utterly disintegrated by the thing. If I remember correctly, Sneakshadow looted the thunder god of his mystic hammer, but I am 100% certain he never wielded the weapon (he was a thief after all, and rather small in stature for a human). 

I can also recall, later, reading the ring of spell turning description in the DMG and its specific stipulation (unlike the Cook Expert set) that magic item powers could not be turned and thinking: "darn, I screwed that up!" However, at no point do I remember thinking to myself, "hmm, maybe I should not have sent a greater god to fight a player character."

Deities & Demigods isn't a Monster Manual, but it's written like one...it has alphabetical entries for gods, each with a little illustration, a brief description, and a stat block. This is the exact same setup as any of the AD&D monster books. I'm sure I never even bothered to read the instructional text at the beginning of the book (explaining 'this isn't a Monster Manual') because I can remember reading all that for the first time (and loving it) after I purchased my own copy of DDG later in the form of Legends & Lore, sometime around age 11 (i.e. in 1985, before my 12th birthday). By that time, Jason had become a "Born Again" Christian and was no longer allowed to play D&D...though, perhaps, if his mother had been aware of his history with destroying pagan deities, she would have relented a bit.

For a kid to make such a mistake is pretty understandable...even older players can probably be forgiven for making lazy assumptions when confronted with a book with a similar format (and thus skipping over the pertinent parts of the introduction). The DDG was written the way it was to update the prior OD&D supplement Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes (Supplement IV) for the "Advanced" D&D format, and it is a decent emulation of the style in which Supplement IV was presented. So why did authors Rob Kuntz and Jim Ward provide god stat-lines when ambitious players were certain to treat them as challengeable monsters? The answer is in the Foreward to GDG&H:

This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the "Monty Haul" DM's. Perhaps now some of the 'giveaway' campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are. This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters. When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th level Lord seriously?

There it is: the book was meant to be a crack-down on what was deemed to be some of the "excesses" (as they saw it) of certain campaigns. By providing statistical representations for both literary heroes (Elric, Conan, Vainamoinen, etc.) AND the gods of various pantheons, D&D players would have a scale of comparison against which to measure their own characters and campaigns.

Which, I suppose, could be an admirable goal...if D&D wasn't a completely different animal.

The first
"monster manual"

D&D didn't really seek to emulate/model a particular setting (with an implicit scale) nor, really, a particular genre of fantasy. Elric's multi-verse spanning adventures are very different from Conan's down-and-dirty conflicts, and both pale in comparison the the physical might displayed by John Carter on the surface of Mars. D&D sought to provide rules for creating fantasy adventures - and it succeeded at that! - but it never meant to constrain or limit the players' imaginations. Telling players three years after the fact that they were "doing it wrong" was a ridiculous attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. Scale should have been baked in from the get-go if that had been the intention, instead of assuming similar minds and attitudes...and who's to say the attitude wasn't similar anyway? Both Gygax and Arneson had plenty of "wa-hoo" in their own campaigns.

But back to the discussion: regardless of what one thinks about the outrageousness of fighting...and potentially slaying...divine entities, it is absolutely clear that the D&D game provides explicit rules for doing just that! At least up through 3rd edition (the last edition for which I purchased a Deities & Demigods book), textual instruction has been provided that enable DMs to run gods as encounters against player characters. Certainly, each edition to do so (OD&D, AD&D, BECMI's "I" rules, 3E) have made the prospect more and more daunting, giving divine beings ever greater abilities...and yet, the game has never simply come out and said "nope, can't be done." The gods remain ever vulnerable to mere mortals.

[forcing a deity to make a saving throw at all...even if the chance of failure is only the 5% probability of rolling a "1" on a D20...is saying that the being is as fallible as any human. 'To err is...' and all that jazz]

And as said, the D&D game supports this type of play. It's own fiction (I admit to only having read Dragonlance and the Gygax-penned Greyhawk novels) encourages this type of play. And multiple adventure modules from D&D's "golden era" (pre-1983) provide examples of how such play might be handled.

In a reasonable fashion.

And I guess that's the part that has (recently) found my prickly hide to be chapping...well, one part anyway. The unreasonableness of the encounters being given. Or...perhaps...not even the unreasonableness of the scenarios, but the disconnect I see between the game and the...the...

Hmmm. It's not "style." Or "fiction." It's more of an attitude or outlook. An orientation. Folks want to play D&D in a particular way, a particular fashion. Okay, that's cool...that's fine. It's still D&D. But then they want to have these god-encounters that aren't reasonable...at least not in the manner of the game as designed.  

Hmm...I'm having a hard time expressing this. 

Let me try a different way. I've heard people say: "If my DM put a wight in a first level dungeon, I'd punch him in the face" (or words to that effect). Okay, great...I get your point, and it's a reasonable one given the parameters of the game as written. Low-level adventurers don't have the abilities to confront such a creature. Low-level adventurers don't have the abilities to confront a LOT of creatures.

SO...why would you put a god or godling in any sort of low level adventure?

Halls of the Blood King (levels 3-5)

Palace of Unquiet Repose (levels 3-5)

The God That Crawls (levels 1-2)

Operation Unfathomable (levels 1-?)

There are others...of course there are others, there are always others. These ones just spring immediately to mind, and I'm too lazy to go hunting up others. 

[that's another part of the hide chapping: I've lost track of how many low-level adventures see players encountering godlike beings. It's become such a regular choice for scenarios, it could be included in Moldvay's list of standard scenarios (page B51) between "Fulfilling a Quest" and "Escaping from Enemies." Call it "Confronting Godling Made Flesh" or something]

An adventure that pits a party of 4th level characters against "The Lord of All Vampires" is not, to my mind, a reasonable execution of the D&D system as intended, nor is an adventure that finds a party of 1st and 2nd level characters accidentally wandering into the lair of "Shaggath-Ka the Worm Sultan." It belies the dynamics and expectations implicit in the game's design. Yes, I'm sure that some (like the authors of these adventures listed) would beg to differ...as I wrote previously, this is all my (strong) opinion. So, I'd imagine some folks (those I haven't hopelessly offended) are wondering what I'd put forward as a reasonable adventure involving a godling?

Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Q1 is not, of course, one's only tussle with Lolth, the demon queen of spiders...she first appears in Gygax's own D3: Vault of the Drow as a god made flesh, dwelling incarnate in the lowest level of her chosen people's greatest shrine (although why she's there is never explained). To be sure, Q1 is a flawed adventure, but I've found it to be a very fun adventure in play, and a rather solid example of possible "god fighting" in D&D. 

Note the high level: 10-14 is pretty darn high for AD&D. My very over-powered bard was something like 15th level (max levels for fighter/thief) when I tackled Q1, but the character's total x.p. was equivalent to a fighter of 11th or 12th level. 14th level spell-casters have close to 30 spells per day to play with (more, for high WIS clerics), and all such characters have a ton of resources, both magical and mundane, to draw upon. Attacking an arch-devil or demon prince (or queen) in its lair is a legitimate challenge for D&D characters that have otherwise grown too big for their britches.

Beefy monster

"Come on, JB, Sutherland's adventure is the height of cheesiness...you're just being nostalgic here!" Not at all. Given sufficient time adventuring, PCs will acquire resources such that normal logistical problems no longer apply: the ability to create food and water. Bags of holding and portable holes. Magical mounts and constructs that can carry immense burdens, rarely (if ever) tire, and that can bypass obstacles by flying. Magical means of entry and egress - or escape! - including teleportation, passwall, word of recall. And, of course, the power to bring fellow party members back to life whenever it suits them. Some Dungeon Masters recoil at the thought of their campaigns getting to such a level, it no longer resembling a game of "scurrilous rogues" in running battles with lizard people while trying to hide a gemstone up their nostril. That's right: it doesn't. High level characters have graduated from such grubby affairs and require larger challenges to test their abilities.

Planar travel becomes an option at high levels, and rightly so...because other planes provide the opportunity for DMs to throw the greatest challenges at PCs. And I'm not just talking encounters with gods and godlings...on other planes, all bets are off with regard to what might be thrown at PCs. Different physics, different rules, screwing with spell effects, reducing or limiting magical abilities. Pocket dimensions and demi-planes provide all sorts of justifications for strange, non-book monsters and unique, fantastic treasures. Q1's problem (in my opinion) isn't one of steam-powered spider ships; rather, it's too many damn bugbears and coin piles...the adventure could be even weirder and stranger than it is (though the demonweb map itself is a rather beautiful thing). Talking about D&D's literary roots, Moorcock's Elric stories provide excellent examples of just how weird and messed up things get when you start skipping around the multiverse...and just how much trouble PCs can get into when their magic and magical items stop functioning the way they're accustomed to on the Prime Material plane.

But that's not low-level stuff. Elric is sometimes accompanied on his extraplanar adventures by low-level characters and (spoiler alert) things usually go very, very badly for them; insanity and death are both par for the course. Which is as it should be. Your high level party isn't going to get any positive results out of taking a small army of men-at-arms into the demonwebs, nor should they. Soldiers have their place in the D&D world, but planar invasions of a demigod's home plane ain't one of them. Such an scenario shouldn't be a place for any character with less than a million experience points. Literally.

Okay, that's enough for Part 2. Part 3 coming up!

[here's Part 1 and Part 1b for those who missed them]

Killing Gods, Part 1

The other day, in the comments on my Whimsy Addendum, I decried a trend I've seen in a lot of adventure material recently, which is: players encountering (and fighting with) "gods." Part of my annoyance has been with regard to overuse of the scenario (welp, here's another adventure where the main antagonist is a fallen deity...) and part of it has stemmed from the execution: how such encounters are portrayed and used in these adventures. 

And the good Prince of Nothing took umbrage and issued me a challenge, writing:

I think if you could manage to distill the right approach to portraying S&S style deities in DnD, complete with a few examples, you'd be doing the OSR a huge favor.

Wait...what? This is on me?

Set aside from the moment any notion of me doing the OSR "favors" (ridiculous to think they'd take any advice from me, even if I wanted to give it!)...what the hell qualifies me as the authority and resource for this particular subject? I'm just a blogger that runs his mouth...er, keypad...a bit too much with long-winded meanderings. 

On the other hand, I have fought a god or two.

*sigh* Challenge accepted. 

I'd like to first start out with a discussion of the inspiration behind this particular idea, this claim that it is O So Very Sword & Sorcery for grungy, pulp heroes to be going toe-to-toe with gods and godlings. So let's crack out our fantasy literature and take a look. Never mind that these are stories, not games...we understand that these stories are the impetus and foundational pieces for Dungeons & Dragons play. And it's always useful to have a firm handle on one's source material.

First up, everyone's favorite barbarian: Conan. One gets the impression that the gods of Howard's Hyborian age are fairly mortal (much like the Norse gods)...if Conan stuck Crom with 3' of  good, Hyrkanian steel, he'd probably die. However, we never encounter Crom in Howard's stories, perhaps because Crom is an actual deity. Conan kills some godlike frost giants, an ancient "god in a bowl" (appears to be a naga, much like the one in module N1), and an alien time-traveller that resembles a small elephant. These aren't gods: they're monsters. In the bluntest of D&D terms, they are meant to be slain and looted. 

Elric gets prepared to
throw down with the
god of lizards.

Next up, we'll look at Moorcock's albino sorcerer, Elric. He fights all sorts of gods. The "Burning God." Balo the Jester of Chaos. In the end, he is responsible for the death of ALL the chaos lords (gods) including his own patron, Arioch. Except that, actually, he's not doing the killing. It's his Most-Powerful-Artifact-Weapon-In-The-Multiverse (Stormbringer) that is doing the actual soul-sucking, not Elric. In the final battle he does a one-shot spell that summons a multitude of Stormbringers (Stormbringer has siblings), and they fly around killing all the gods. Stormbringer, as an artifact, was forged to slay gods (and to "keep in check" higher powers). It's a plot point of the books. Do your D&D characters carry such an artifact weapon? 

Okay, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. Haven't read as much of them as I'd have liked, but I can't remember them KILLING any gods. Running afoul of them, getting mixed up with them, fleeing their wrath or being cursed by them...sure, all that. But mortal combat (i.e. the hit point draining kind)? No, I don't think so.

Karl Wagner's Kane...well, I've only had the chance to read Bloodstone, and it's been a while. If memory serves, Kane "kills" a super computer masquerading as a deity. Machines break...they are mundane/mortal, not supernatural. Maybe. I get a little depressed thinking about Wagner; he died so young (age 48, alcoholism). 

I don't remember any hero versus god action in Clark Ashton Smith, but I probably haven't read enough of him. I have C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry ordered from Amazon, so apologies if she kills a bunch of godlings and I failed to mention it...haven't yet had the chance to read her stories.

H.P. Lovecraft isn't really an S&S writer, but there's no denying his writing's had an impact on D&D and many OSR offerings. Lots of extreme, alien gods walking amongst men in HPL's stuff. But people don't fight them. They get killed and eaten by them, or possessed, or driven insane. It's not really mano-a-mano. Well, except for a certain Norwegian sailor, who's ship-to-kaiju combat was absolutely NOT stolen by Disney for the climactic battle in The Little Mermaid against the giant octopoid entity. Nope, no way...that scene is straight out of Hans Christian Andersen. Regardless, it's one exception to a multitude of non-combats.

How about non-S&S literature...say, Tolkien's Sauron and all his knockoffs (Donaldson's "Lord Foul," whatever the hell Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan use, etc.). They're "gods" right? And the good guys fight and defeat them?

Well, no. At least in Lord of the Rings, Sauron is never confronted directly, and he's not killed so much as "dispersed" by the Ring's destruction. But perhaps he could have been, when he was mortal. Morgoth was wounded by Feanor with a mortal weapon, after all (elf weapons in Tolkien aren't, strictly speaking, "magical" but, rather, gear of exceptional craft). If he could wound Satan with nothing more than courage and a well-made blade what could the elf lord have done with a typical D&D magic weapon...something invested with supernatural power by a wizard?

Pullman's His Dark Materials (in which a couple kids kill old man God) hardly bears mentioning; not really the same genre. Neither is Piers Anthony's "Immortal Incarnate" series. Dragonlance I'll discuss when I talk about god-fighting in gaming proper. Probably I'm leaving out some (or a lot) of stuff, but I just don't read much fantasy anymore. And, anyway, one would think that "Awesome Confrontations Between Man and Godlike Being" would kind of stand out in Ye Old Memory. I used to read a lot of fantasy, and there ain't much popping up there.

SO...from whence this desire (in D&D) to fight/kill gods?

Just what are these "gods" in fantasy literature? I mean there's GOD, of course (omnipotent, omniscient, unknowable, and unavailable...more a force/influence than a being). Then there are 'the gods,' like the Greek/Norse pantheons (or Babylonian...currently reading Ship of Ishtar)...entities that are uber-powerful, live in a different realm, but have feelings/needs/thoughts that are recognizable by humans. There are supernatural entities from other dimensions/planets (Cthulhu, strange "intelligences," etc.). And then there are mortal beings of immense power that are worshipped as gods, but don't necessarily grant any special favors or divine influence...they simply inspire awe/reverence in lesser mortals (though the same could be said...on a grander scale...of ALL the various "god types" listed).

Different fantasy writers have tackled divinities in different ways (duh, JB) but, perhaps surprisingly, I feel a lot of authors take the approach of their being but one GOD (in the monotheist sense), perhaps with various demons and pretenders, but those certainly aren't necessary (Poul Anderson's Three Hearts, Three Lions is S&S and doesn't require any such entities). Certainly Tolkien is all Christian analogue with fallen angels and whatnot, but Howard's, too, stuff has a mostly Christian (i.e. monotheistic) vibe to it. Even his Conan stuff...while I joked before that Crom was probably mortal enough for Conan to slay, the fact is Crom never actually appears (and neither does Set or Mitra, etc.), nor do those gods grant any sort of "divine powers" to their devotees. Either they are false gods (as would be the typical monotheistic point of view) and their priests simply sorcerers, magicians, and charlatans OR they are just names/aspects of the One True God who (generally) stays out of mortal affairs, allowing folks to exercise free will.

And it makes sense that these writers would take this tack: American pulp writers of the early 20th century were, of course, individuals steeped in Western (generally monotheistic) cultures. They're just writing a fantastical version of the world they grew up in, some with reverence though plenty without.

[writers that leave out questions of divinity from their fantasy work at all...like Vance and Zelazny...I chalk up in the same monotheistic category...the lack of a demiurge points to/emphasizes its existence. Regardless, no one is fighting gods in those books]

There ARE outliers, however, and three of them have had an immense impact on the Dungeons & Dragons game: Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, and Howard P. Lovecraft. Leiber's world of Nehwon is filled with gods of the "pantheon" variety; so is Moorcock's Young Kingdoms (although antihero Elric is always searching for a Grand Designer behind it all). HPL, of course, gives us all his crazy-ass Star Children from the far reaches of space. Of these three authors, I'd judge Leiber and Moorcock to have had the greatest impact on the game as far as "cosmology" is concerned. That being said, I think in all three authors' cases a major takeaway from their stories is: the gods are NOT to be futzed around with.

You don't fight them. You're not going to kill them. You certainly don't loot their bodies.

All of which runs quite counter to D&D's credo.

But I'll be talking about that in my follow-up post, which will be specifically focused on god-fighting in D&D.

: )

Morality & Justice

AKA What I Learned from Saint Cuthbert

Yes, another post about alignment in Dungeons & Dragons.

My last post on the subject (just reread it this morning) is a good example of just how far down the rabbit hole one can fall when one spends an inordinate amount of time theory-bashing, putting the cart before the horse when it comes to world building ("cart") and running ("horse"). NOW...well, I've been running the game for a couple-three weeks, and I just wanted to share my experience. 

When we started this up, I decided to simply ignore the entire concept of alignment until such time as it became "necessary" to the game. There were a number of reasons I made that decision, but the main one had to do with laziness: I am running Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1E) for small children, and I didn't relish the idea of putting a 9 point alignment system in terms they could understand (i.e. in a meaningful, playable way) when the concept is A) pretty shaky anyway, and B) mechanically meaningless. Besides which, as a parent to these small children, it's already my job to instill in them a sense of right and wrong, and I don't need to confuse that message with the artificial concepts of a game...especially a game that (often) celebrates murder and robbery.

We are, after all, Christians, and the main lesson of Christ is to love everyone (including one's enemies) as much as you love yourself. I'll be honest, I've been less rigorous in my proselytizing as I probably should be (given that we haven't been to Mass since February) but I try to point out examples as they come up in daily life. And they both understand that D&D is a game and that stabbing people is a "no-no" without me needing to throw down a disclaimer at the beginning of each session.

But rather than confuse things in their mind...forcing them to shift their paradigm of thinking when we're deep in the throes of imagining and expecting them to compartmentalize...instead of that, I've simply tried to create a bit more richness to the game world and pay closer attention to the depth of choices that abound AND the consequences of those choices.

Some examples:

The players were ambushed by a half-orc (read: "mutant") thief and his mountain lion pets while conducting a raid of the old goblin fort where the mutant made his home. The players won the fight, reducing the thief to negative one hit point which (per AD&D rules) left him alive. They then ministered to his wounds so he would survive, and took him hostage...for a time. What they found was that they had little use for an NPC who bore a great deal of resentment for the party (they'd invaded his home, killed his pets, robbed the place...not to mention beating the crap out of him); any "gratitude" he might have had for sparing his life was tempered by the overriding desire for revenge on his oppressors! 

The players on the other hand, were clearly loathe to murder an unarmed captive...what to do with the guy? Enslave him? Keep feeding him like a pet? After a couple-four days at the village where the players were staying, the town Elder asked the players to resolve the situation as it was making the locals decidedly uncomfortable (for a number of reasons). So they took him to the edge of town and let him go...basically banishing him into the wilderness, charging him with keeping his nose clean. This small mercy would give them a spot of trouble later, but in the end it was a decision they could live with.

In a later game session, the players were able to end their personal feud with a certain goblin tribe through a combination of negotiation and concession, sparing additional bloodshed (on both sides) and creating the possibility of allies while somewhat mitigating a local threat AND advancing their own goals.

In Saturday night's game, the players came upon a village that had been recently devastated by a band of gnoll raiders. Literally (per the adventure) there is NO ONE LEFT ALIVE in the place, except the gnoll chieftain (and his dog) who was abandoned by his own people for being too wounded to travel/fight. The players captured him pretty easily and, after getting what info out of him they could, were discussing what to do with him. I had the henchman magic-user blow him away with her single (unused) magic missile spell. She had, after all, been hired in this very village by the PCs a month earlier...she'd known these people and enjoyed their company, and this creature had led his people here to rob and slay every single man, woman, and child in the place. Killing him was justice for an unrepentant monster (who was only bitter at being left behind).

None of this has anything to do with alignment.

The plot of the adventure module (which I still plan on blogging about, one of these days) is that one ancient artifact of "good" (The Sentinel) has a beef with another ancient artifact of "evil" and wants the players to carry it into a final confrontation. But when one examines the reality of the artifacts' histories, it is clear they were simply created by two rival nations who were at war with each other...a war that has long since ended and which was won, rather peaceably, by the "evil" side (one kingdom being subsumed into the other). The sentient "good" artifact wants to be wielded by creatures of good alignment (and uses the know alignment spell to discover the proper person)...if PCs are unwilling or unable to use the item, the adventure provides a wandering 10th level ranger lord to which they can dispose of the thing...but this part of the narrative is completely unnecessary to the scenario. All it does is penalize (i.e. "You can't go on the adventure") players who don't buy into the module's heavy handed morality. Characters of evil alignment (not to mention druids, thieves, assassins, and bards, all of whom the Sentinel ignores) need not apply.

And considering the item's raison d'etre and purpose (a mutual destruction suicide run) the alignment of the wielder has zero impact on the possible outcomes. It doesn't even mean anything as far as forcing the players down a specific railroad: the item itself has an incredible 38 personality (the sum of its intelligence and ego). To put that in perspective, the Sword of Kas only has a 34 personality, and "will certainly attempt to control whomever takes it as his or her own." (DMG161) If the Sentinel wants to force the PCs to do its bidding, it has no need to appeal to their "better natures;" it can simply seize control, in what I'd argue is a typical hazard of D&D.

[Blackrazor's personality is only 33]

The POINT being (man, I wander) that alignment is easily removed from the adventure...and from the game...and isn't really missed. This is perhaps even more clear when one examines the second module in this series (UK3: The Gauntlet) and find the PCs in parley and allied with a lawful evil fire giant family.

But what of clerics and deities and extra-planar cosmic struggles? Because those things are often cited as reasons that alignment makes sense and should be retained (some have said that alignment ONLY makes sense because of this). But I've been thinking long and hard about clerics and religion and theisms (poly- versus mono-) lately and I had a bit of an epiphany the other day, spurred in part by a recent post at Grognardia: one does not need rival gods to have a multitude of competing temples and religions. Even in the medieval Catholic church, you have different orders, different saints, different motivations, not to mention multiple schisms, scandals and heresies.

Why do all clerical spells look the same (as opposed to water magic from sea gods and battle magic from war gods and whatnot)? Because they're all coming from the same divine source. The "lords of light" in my campaign are simply a collection of ascended saints and holy men. Saint Cuthbert, for example (if I ever decide to throw Hommlet into my world). But while a seaside fishing village may have a church dedicated to Saint Barto of the Depths (or whatever), and the people pray to him like travelers rubbing their medals to St. Christopher, everyone understands that their patron's power comes from a "higher source."

[where does this leave traditional "evil high priests" and their underlings? In the realm of demon worshippers and satanists (diabolists), I suppose, performing twisted "miracles" (reversed spells) due to the nature of their patrons. Does that make their patrons as powerful as God Almighty? Hardly. The evil cleric's magic is (for the most part) destructive in nature while the good cleric's heals, restores, and extends life. In the final race for supremacy, Good can be expected to outlast Evil]

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: I'm finding less and less need for alignment...for any reason...in my game. 

Issues like paladins' alignment restriction can be accomplished through oaths and vows; their penalties are, after all, based on behavior and actions taken. Assassins and thieves, purveyors in murder and theft respectively, need no artificial stamp of "evil" and "non-good" as their professions speak for themselves. Things like whether or not a patriarch will heal a character can be judged by what purpose such restoration will serve, regardless of what "alignment" is noted on the character sheet. Likewise, sentient magical items can decide for themselves whether or not a character's motivations fit their own.

[with regard to other magic items with effects based on alignment...a libram of silver magic versus one of ineffable damnation, for example...I think it's fine to allow use to any character, especially as no character can benefit multiple times from a work of the same type. Other items, like a talisman of pure good (or ultimate evil) are fairly self explanatory in their function, regardless of the existence of "alignment"]

In closing this post, I think it's important to consider that "heroism" may be more a matter of reputation than inherent propensity for good (or evil); heroes are known for their press releases far more than even their actions. After all, how many folks in the D&D world actually get to witness the party's fight with the dragon? Sure, sure, the PCs have the thing's head (and hoard) to show for their prowess, but tales of their battle might well be greatly exaggerated (and/or "spun") by the party itself...especially if less-than-heroic means were used to slay the beast. I am reminded greatly of Reid's Rangers, a band of NPCs from the Rifts RPG sourcebook The Vampire Kingdoms. Considered legendary heroes by the local population for their exploits in fighting blood-sucking extra-dimensional entities, they are (to a man) of evil and anarchist alignment, a group consisting of sadists, bullies, drunks, necromancers, and megalomaniacal narcissists. Still, because of their reputation they remain beloved by the people; it's one of my favorite write-ups in any RPG ever.

Removing alignment (as a system) from my game has not stripped it of meaning, nor caused players to devolve into murder-hobo lifestyle. BUT (and, yes, I want that "but" emphasized) this is mainly due to the PCs' actions having consequences in the campaign world. Behavior matters; reputation matters. Villages are not unlimited spawn points for hirelings, goods, and services...NPCs are not (all) nameless/faceless masses. Sentient monsters (like goblins) are not motive-less kills-waiting-to-be-tallied. Relationships matter, and issues of morality, justice, and honor all all tied up in those relationships.

At least, that's what I'm finding in my game.

Gods of Krynn

In looking through the Dragonlance material, I find the thing is...mm..."problematic" in its relationship with and treatment of gods and religion. Which is a little ironic, given just how IMPORTANT the whole concept of divinity (and its role) is to the unfolding story.

Let's review for a moment: like many "vanilla" fantasy settings, DL has the usual, trope-riddled pantheon of multiple gods of various alignments (good, neutral, and evil) connected to their various spheres of interest (magic, farming, war, elves, etc. ad nauseam). As per standard D&D, these various powers grant spells to their most devout followers (clerics) whose job it is to...um...kind of "spread the good news" to the peoples. Well, at least the followers of the good deities. The neutral deities (like Gilean/Astinus or the dwarf god Reorx) appear to be more "take it or leave it" types with no interest in proselytizing or drumming up interest in their worship. And the evil deities' clerics are more bog standard villains of the Evil High Priest variety (i.e. mustache twirling villains who, if anything, appear to be jealous of sharing their power and standing).

[with regard to this treatment of neutral and evil deities, you need to remember and consider the context of the setting. Dragonlance was originally written and developed for 1st edition (pre-Unearthed Arcana!!) AD&D. In AD&D there aren't any "neutral" clerics (only druids, which Dragonlance doesn't appear to have). And as for "evil" clerics, there is only ONE named in the entirety of the original trilogy (Verminaard) and he gets disemboweled in the first book. The adventure modules have more (including Verminaard, who is supposed to survive through most of the series), and even changes main bad guy Ariakus from a wizard to a cleric]

[it's also worth noting that pre-UA did not allow non-human player characters to become clerics, with the exception of half-elves and half-orcs. Since DL dispenses with setting-specific IP, there aren't any Tolkien orcs (nor half-orcs) in the game, and half-elves are portrayed as extremely rare (there's only one - the protagonist, Tanis - and he's a fighter)]

Where DL gets credit for changing the "standard trope" is making a post-apocalyptic world where "true clerics" have disappeared from the world. The gods have literally abandoned the people (no more spells for clerics) which has made for a rather grim and perilous fantasy world. Reconnecting the people with their gods is a major plot arc of the novels.

*DEEP BREATH* Now, I have written about this "subversion" before, and some of the reasons I find it problematic...I'm not going to rehash those here. Instead, I'm going to talk about more underlying problems to the world building; things I feel I need to address before any sort of reclamation project.

First, let's talk about clerics specifically: just what the heck are they? What do they represent? Look I realize Dragonlance is the fantasy equivalent of space opera (where explaining FTL travel, for example, isn't important or integral to the story being told), but I've grown beyond the point where I can be satisfied with "it's just D&D; there are clerics" as a definition. No. Clerics and their faith and the gods are MAJOR POINTS OF THE SETTING (in both the novels and the adventure modules!); I can't just "write them off."

So just what do they do? What are they for? WELL...in the novels, they appear to fill the same role we see priests and preachers of our modern world: they counsel people and lecture people and comfort people and help guide people to positive life choices (and again, please note this is only with regard to good-aligned clerics). They have temples where they live and worship and pray, though they also do "outreach" to other parts of the world/environment. Villages and small towns have lone clerics and small churches around whom the entire community congregates; larger towns and cities have larger places of worship and multiple options of faith: whether you're talking pre-Cataclysm (note the descriptions of Istar in the Legends trilogy) or post-Cataclysm (see the Seekers of Haven in DL1). Despite being polytheistic, it's still comparable (i.e. recognizable) to our churches of today.

Except that this is D&D. That's not what priests...well, clerics...do. They go out on adventures. And while Goldmoon and Elistan (in the modules) are going out on adventures, it's under the thin guise of spreading the gospel of the True Gods (i.e. the ones that grant powers). While practically speaking they're offering medic and undead crushing skills to an adventuring party, that's not the fluff and fiction of the setting. What they should be doing (and what they are doing later in the novels) is ministering to the Faithful in a non-combatant fashion. Adventuring clerics are a strange abnormality in the Dragonlance setting. Even Lady Crysania (from the Legends trilogy) only accompanies the twins on their adventures unwillingly; she'd rather be doing the work of growing the newly established church on Krynn (and, in fact, returns to this work at the end of her "adventure"). And it is precisely because of her devotion that is given as the justification for her (high level) powers as a cleric.

[per the Dragonlance Adventures sourcebook, Crysania is 14th level(!!), despite a complete absence of adventuring experience]

But that (defining clerics, distinguishing their priesthood, and explaining their role as adventurers) is only part of the problem. The other parts are the actual lack of religion and ritual (kind of an important part of any pseudo-medieval setting) and the way DL treats polytheism in general (i.e. not really how polytheism worked in ancient times). Regarding the latter (a discussion on polytheism), I'd direct readers to Bret Devereaux's essays on the subject; they make for excellent reading and a decent enough overview. To me, Krynn's religion more resembles a medieval Christian theology with minor gods in the roles of the saints...nice, but not especially important compared to Paladine/Jehovah (I suppose, in such an analogy, Mishakal would be Mother Mary). 

Which is all the more crazy when you consider Krynn's gods to be literal, active beings walking amongst humans (Takhisis has been physically manifest in the world more than once, and Paladine walks around in disguise much as Odin does in the Norse sagas, while the immortal Astinus, purported to be the god Gilean, is living and scribing in Palanthas, easily accessible with anyone with the right credentials)! The gods of Krynn are VERY manifest and VERY real, and thus do not even require "faith" for belief...and, yet they're treated fairly contemptuously in many regards (though I suppose not much more so than one would treat a "divine emperor" living in a far away capital).

Fall on your knees.

In fact, pretty much the only portrayal of clerics I find "authentic" in the Dragonlance books is that of the evil clerics, especially in the form of the dragon highlord Verminaard. Not only does he exhibit the traits of the D&D class (wearing armor, bashing folks with a morning star, using his magic in combat), he also exhibits a devotion for and communion with his Dark Queen; one could certainly envision him performing sacred rites to Takhisis in Pax Tharkas, when he's not out trying to drum up worshippers (as he does with the Seekers of Haven). I'm a bit bemused that the character is killed off in the first novel of the series (via a deus ex machina!) when, as an NPC, he figures so prominently throughout the adventure modules...Verminaard is one of the characters meant to be kept alive with the Obscure Death special rule. 

But, heck, even the draconians feel more worshipful and subservient to their gods (worshipping a dragon effigy, for example). Sure, Paladine might eschew ritual and reverence (he says something to that effect in the third book, if I remember correctly), but his priesthood's rather casual treatment of religion seems at odds with, oh say, the construction of huge temples and edifices to his glory (or the glory of the other gods: Mishakal's temple in Xak Tsaroth, for example). Such buildings require copious amounts of resources in pre-industrial societies, don't they?

Anyway...

I guess, right now, I'm just sitting in a place where I feel it's not enough to say "the gods of Krynn move in mysterious ways." They're NOT mysterious. They literally walk among the people of the world, interacting and directing them. One of them (Takhisis) wants to enter the world with all her forces of the Abyss and "conquer" it (though to what purpose is a little obscure)...and it's not the first time she's undertaken the task. 

[interestingly...to me, anyhoo...that this the DL setting also includes such iconic MM personalities as Demogorgan, who appears in the Roger Moore-penned Tasslehoff story "A Stone's Throw Away" (Dragon #85). Perhaps, Takhisis is annoyed with demonic competition and wishes a plane of existence all to herself?]

I like the religious overtones and themes found in the DL-verse; I really do. I think they should be present in any campaign set in Krynn. However, even as I think the "quest to return the gods" can and should be detached (as a plot/story arc) from the player characters, the overtones and themes should be more ingrained into the setting...there should be more intensity. The "perceived abandonment" of the gods should probably be changed to ACTUAL abandonment; bringing them back may require an atonement on behalf of wayward humanity. Maybe. But that makes for a pretty dark campaign (one where most folks are in state of despair and hopelessness)...plus it doesn't wash with the presence of divine soldiers (Verminaard, etc.) in the service of the Dragon Army.

*sigh* More later. Next I'll be talking about the whole "steel pieces" thang.

R is for Religion

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots]

R is for Religion, an organized form of worship, of which Allston's GAZ1 provides us with three (two?) for Karameikos.

I got a little sidetracked this weekend, what with birthday parties, treasure hunts, baseball games, and Easter festivities. It was pretty busy all around, though fortunately everyone had a great time (the kids especially). Now...back to the grind.

B/X doesn't have any specific setting attached to it. Yes, there are some sort of gods (or goddesses); this is made clear in the B/X description of the cleric (see the quote in this earlier post); but it's left up to individual DMs to decide what the cosmology of their campaign setting looks like. Nothing is defined, faith-wise, in the Expert set's brief description of Karameikos, and the countries of the "Known World" described in X1: The Isle of Dread offers nothing extra (folks might infer from Thyatis being "similar to culture of the medieval Byzantine empire" that there is something there, but remember that no connection had yet been drawn between it and Karameikos).

None of the "B/X era" modules offer anything like a consistent cosmology...just random deities appropriate to the adventure (X1, X2, X3, and B3) or generic "lawful" chapels and "chaotic" temples (B2). The early (pre-GAZ) BECMI modules aren't much different; it's only with the advent of the "Mystara" concept that there starts to be anything like a setting cosmology (based on Immortals as pseudo-deities).

Dave Cook's B6: The Veiled Society is interesting for the picture it paints of Specularum, capital city of Karameikos. Written in 1984 (post-BECMI, pre-GAZ1) it states:

"The city has several churches, most for Lawful clerics. There are a few Neutral churches, but not many people attend. There are even Chaotic churches; these are very secret and do not advertise their existence in any way. If the characters need healing or similar help, they may obtain it if their cleric goes to his church. Of course, the player characters are required to make some type of offering (anything from flowers to magic items) and may be required to do some service for the church."

Recall that Mentzer's Basic set states that clerics are simply humans "dedicated to a great and worthy cause" and that this cause is "usually the cleric's Alignment." Furthermore, it is explicit that D&D "does not deal with [ethical and theological] beliefs, and they do not affect the game;" instead they are simply assumed "just as eating, resting, and other activities are assumed." Clerics draw their spell power from "the strength of [their] beliefs;" there are no religions or gods, no tenets of their faith, no prayers or divine rituals that need to be performed.

Cook doesn't seem to have gotten the memo...though one might have gathered as much from his 1983 module X5: Temple of Death (the whole country of Hule is steeped in religion and religious fervor). I suppose a church is an easy substitute for Alignment as a "worthy cause" of devotion (duh), but I'd hardly say this is an example of theological beliefs not being a part of or having an impact on the game...rather it is a motivator of action, even in B6 (first level characters are probably going to want healing at some point, and PC clerics receive no spells prior to 2nd level). At some point PCs will have to interact with these institutions and, presumably, whatever ethical and theological beliefs they have. Probably Cook's long association with D&D (for years prior to TSR's cutting the cross off of clerics) has something to do with his methods.

[ha! As written, there is absolutely no reason for clerics in BECMI to make use of a holy symbol, unless facing a vampire...and then the use is the same as any other player character. The description of the item is simply "A sign or symbol of a cleric's beliefs. Used in Turning undead." However, no mechanical/rules effect is provided. In B/X all clerics MUST possess a holy symbol (page X10) as it is a symbol of the deity a cleric serves. BECMI clerics can save the 25 gold]

Allston's approach in GAZ1, for the most part, is much more in keeping with the party line. As stated, Karameikos has three native faiths: The Church of Karameikos, The Church of Traladara, and The Cult of Halav. The Cult of Halav is much more a cult than a full-blown religion...it's members are true believers in Arthur-type legend of Halav, but other than waiting for his "coming again" (and believing that Archduke Stefan may be his reincarnation) they have no real laws or tenets of faith. Interestingly, Allston writes:

Despite the fact that most people consider the Halavists to be insane, it's a fact that their clerics do work magic. This means they must be receiving aid and inspiration from some Immortal.

...from which I infer that even Allston assumes gods (or whatever passes for them in BECMI D&D) are granting spells. *sigh* Makes sense, as he's the one who wrote Wrath of the Immortals.

The other two religions have codified commandments and discussions of "sin" but no mention at all of deities or how these religious doctrines interact with clerics and their magical spells. Here is Allston staying true to the definition of the BECMI cleric, even if he's not ignoring theological and ethical beliefs per Mentzer's instruction. However, between the two there is very little difference in doctrine...aside from wording and the Traladaran church's encouragement to engage in superstition and stereotype Gypsy fortunetelling, the main difference I see is that the Church of Karameikos sees couples living together outside the "sanctity of matrimony" to be a sin on par with abuse and murder, while the Church of Traladara sees the relationship between man and woman to be "a personal matter, not involving the philosophies of the church." Both otherwise break down into "be a good person," similar to the basic (Lawful) teachings of most commonly practiced (real world) religions.

Mmm. I've got Game of Thrones on the mind at the moment, and I can't help but see certain analogues between Martin's major religions of Westeros and those of Karameikos. Aside from its lack of gods, the Church of Karameikos could easily substitute for the Faith of the Seven (or vice versa), and the Old Gods of the First Men for the Church of Traladara...heck, even the militant Order of the Griffon (in GAZ1) has an analogue in the Faith Militant of the ASOIAF novels. And there's a part of me that just says, well, this side-by-side dichotomy of competing but not-so-different faiths work pretty good in Martin's fiction, why not just let it stand in Karameikos?

Fervor is no substitute for
healing magic.

But then I remember that Martin's churches don't have spell-casting clerics. Only the fire cultists of Essos (followers of the "Lord of Light")...and they're the ones viewed as crazy persons in Westeros. D&D is not about rival churches competing for souls; its cosmology is based on sword & sorcery pulp not medieval Europe. The religions of the region should reflect that, in my opinion.

Despite Allston's care and thoughtfulness, I find his work on these churches to be a "miss." I'd re-skin the Church of Traladara as an ancient (and suppressed) religion of the goddess Petra, and the Church of Karameikos as something of a mishmash between the Faith of the Seven and the old Roman cult of Mithras. The Cult of Halav would indeed be a bunch of crazy folk (no clerics, as Halav is no god...nor even a demigod)...but perhaps something with the potential to become a new militant order of knighthood, like the Order of the Griffon, but for the worshippers of Petra.

Still, that's not really enough for a "typical" B/X campaign (if there is such a thing), which is generally filthy with random deities, cults, and strange faiths both ancient and new. A better model than Game of Thrones might be 1st century Jerusalem with its combined political and religious tensions. The "Church of Karameikos" is replaced with the polytheistic Roman pantheon imported from the Thyatian Empire by "true believers" who need a land outside the scandalous, political cesspool of the home nation to cultivate a "purer" form of worship. Heck, maybe they've brought an enclave of Vestal Virgins (because Vestal Virgins are awesome).

[of course, with multiple gods and multiple priesthoods, religious infighting and jockeying for political power (and influence with the Archduke) provides all sorts of nice little adventure hooks as churches hire adventurers to raid each others' temples]

Rather than a traditional thieves guild, the Traladarans have religious Zealots and "dagger men" working to overthrow their Imperial masters in the name of their goddess. Meanwhile the "shadow man of the woods" (the chaotic deity of Traladaran forests) woos malcontents and sociopaths from both cultures to his cause: the overthrow of Law and civilization. Evil druid-types, seeking a return to the wilderness and a more primal state of humanity...yeah, that's kind of cool.

Also some sort of toad god. Of course.