The Fearless DM

In my previous post I have been talking about opening up character options slowly.Each player starts with fighter and thief and gets one additional option.

Similarly, I am working on a megadungeon style conceit for the campaign — same concept- I just have three levels and a surface area for the dungeon mapped out, and I’m going to detail it outwards as it expands.

The Pantheon of the campaign will work the same way: I’m going to start with four  gods and open it up slowly.You will notice that there’s no cleric option for one of my gods.

First my general philosophy of fictional gods: Mythology already did everything pretty well. So I like real world mythological gods, just renamed, possibly mashed up and re-flavored a bit.

Aeon, depicted as a lion-headed man seated on a throne, bearing two keys. Aeon is after the mythical figure of Mithras combined with Zeus. He’ll be the chief deity of this campaign world, with the most powerful, most legitimate priesthood.  He is lawful, and his followers will be the most influential. If I have to give him portfolios or powers, it will be “the universe” and then things like lightning and order, etc. But generally a god of power and rulership itself. I will also create a more subversive mystery cult of Aeon later. His clerics are known as Blackcoats and tend to involve themselves in politics. 

Helia, Queen of the Sun, depicted as a beautiful woman, and the manifestation/personification of the sun itself. Helia is a mashup of Amaterasu (japanese myth) and Helios (greek myth). Helia is also lawful and good-aligned. Her religion will have a split off group of more primal followers, so there will be two branches: a civilized branch and a more primal one. Clerics of Helias are called Lightbringers.

The Nine are the original Nine Lords of Aedorea. This is my unaligned religion that is representative of a campaign mystery: The Nine are originally (in the prehistoric past) a group of giant-sized humanoid aliens that settled the campaign world, and genetically manipulated the various species of the world to foster the sentient races. Most of the Nine are now either dead or undead. Clerics of the Nine actually get their powers from lost technology but don’t really realize it.  Some of the Nine are opposed to others, and some (as I mentioned) are actually just dead. Clerics are known as Confessors. The Nine will also have certain cultists dedicated just to a single member of the Nine, and alignments might range from unaligned to evil.

The fourth deity is not listed yet as a character option, but will eventually be there as well: The Court of Queen Mab and King Prospero (Which are general mashups of a variety of local Shakespearean fey demigods, including Oberon and Titania), will be stand-ins for a lowly rustic set of folk beliefs that make up the primal “druidic” way. They will not have actual clerics, although druids, witches,  and certain wild-dwelling people might honor them as influences. I have not yet come to a decision about wilderness areas in the campaign. These decision will be related.

(Next Post is about the town, which will have to be expanded outwards as well- it will begin with the bare minimum of a tavern, inn, armorer, general store, temples, and someplace where hirelings and mercenaries can be employed- it too, will expand).