Creation of Mythology

[Raven_Crowking]

I am liking how this game encourages -- nay, demands! -- the creation of a personal (group) mythology, in terms of patrons, creatures, spells, gods, etc.

[Harley Stroh]

This was one of the surprising sleeper elements in my home playtests. I have two clerics (played by women, both calling themselves "sister nuns") and they have created, and are engaged with, a cosmology far beyond my original plans.

It is awesome, from the point of view of a judge trying to get players to buy into his world, but it totally forced me to step up my game. Every time I throw in ravens for flavor text these two are divining signs and portents.

Playing with them is like reading a Gene Wolf novel ... and I have *no* idea where it is going.

//H

[Raven_Crowking]

Here's an example. Working on a persistent campaign setting, I decided to set the game in a city with a vast and varied underworld. While working on the city, I wrote this:

The Catacombs of Shanthopal are of two types: Temple Catacombs, for the internment of priests, and the Public Catacombs, which predate even the Old Cemetery, and have few direct access points now to the city above. The best known entrance to the Public Catacombs are the great doors (locked and heavily fortified) in Charnel Park.

Charnel Park is where the dead where burned by the thousands during the Boneplague. Its soil is rich and fertile due to the ashes spread there, but what grows there is not always perfectly natural and canny, and weird things are said to sometimes go abroad there at night. On a night of the new moon, would-be wizards or elves may meditate in Charnel Park to make contact with Bān-Scyga, the disease spirit which caused the Boneplague centuries ago.

Not a fully fledged patron yet, but certainly the seed of one as part of working on something else.

[Black Dougal]

This was one of the surprising sleeper elements in my home playtests. I have two clerics (played by women, both calling themselves "sister nuns") and they have created, and are engaged with, a cosmology far beyond my original plans.

It is awesome, from the point of view of a judge trying to get players to buy into his world, but it totally forced me to step up my game. Every time I throw in ravens for flavor text these two are divining signs and portents.

Playing with them is like reading a Gene Wolf novel ... and I have *no* idea where it is going.

//H

There is no doubt about it, the Sister Nuns rule!

[Harley Stroh]

There is no doubt about it, the Sister Nuns rule!

At the very least, they are a force to be reckoned with. Damn Rae and all her questions of cosmology!

(Heh ... and no thanks to Black Dougal for bringing her back from the dead. Great session, sir. Well played.)

//H

[Black Dougal]

There is no doubt about it, the Sister Nuns rule!

At the very least, they are a force to be reckoned with. Damn Rae and all her questions of cosmology!

(Heh ... and no thanks to Black Dougal for bringing her back from the dead. Great session, sir. Well played.)

//H

Bringing her back from the dead was the best way to make your life harder. The Black Dougal strikes again. Muhahahahaha!

This just means that you need to write the Aereth source book.

[ragboy]

I am liking how this game encourages -- nay, demands! -- the creation of a personal (group) mythology, in terms of patrons, creatures, spells, gods, etc.

I'm having the same experience (and challenges as Harley). It's the payoff, I think, to creating gods and patrons, both for the players and the DM. In other D&D's the gods were just there -- they didn't _do_ anything, and the cleric derived no benefit from learning about whatever cosmology I threw together. Now, every time I roll a temple on the Wilderlands generator, I get goosebumps.... new god, one that I've mentioned elsewhere, or one that I've fully developed with a twist. The juice is finally worth the squeeze. Here's one that just popped out of my head when I needed it:
-=-=-=-=-
The Tigers of Lo’pei (5628)
Hidden in a forested knoll is a small temple to a minor god from across the ocean. Years ago, a ship from this region washed ashore – its castaways being a young priest and two acolytes. The priest, Heng Lu, converted the surviving sailors and together they moved the relic – the mummified corpse of Lo’pei’s first high priest, along with a set of jade tiles with his writings, into the island’s interior. It was on this site that Heng Lu, while wandering alone in a state of distress encountered a ravin, a local species of river tiger, laired in the ruins of an ancient fortress. Believing that Lo’pei sent the ravin as a sign, he had the temple built here. Heng now believes that the shipwreck and the forced isolation is one of Lo’pei’s many tests, and plans to remain isolated until another sign from his god is evident.

The temple is a small wooden circular building with a central garden shrine. A burbling stream runs through the temple then plunges down a ravine and into a larger creek. The shrine consists of 20 jade plaques (4’x4’) erected on finely carved wooden stands arranged around the garden – these jade tiles contain the sutras of Go-je, the founder of the religion and first high priest. The center of the shrine consists of a man-made “cave” where the mummified remains of Go-je lie.

Rituals are conducted three times per day in the garden, attended and conducted by only Heng Lu. A memorial ceremony takes place every full moon, in which Heng Lu uses the heart and heartblood of a dwarf, along with a ceremonial gong and medallion (gold with tiger motif). The ritual is intended to call forth the soul of Go-je, which appears as a large mummified tiger. The spirit of Go-je wanders the grounds and surrounding area for three nights, before returning to the cave and merging with the remains of the high priest.

All told, the jade plaques, the medallion and other assorted ceremonial accoutrements are worth 4,000 gp. Though defiling the temple of Lo’pei carries with it a curse – the god itself marks the defilers with a birthmark-like tattoo in the shape of a leaping tiger and dispatches its Sabers (a secret order of assassins that hunts and slays defilers of Lo’pei’s temples). NOTE : Sabers are in the far north where the cult of Lo’pei originates. After a year, the defiling characters have a 20% chance per month of encountering 1d3 Saber assassins in any sizable populated area.

Lo’pei (Neutral, minor god of storms; considered an underground cult in the far north where it originated; Blessings of the shrine: Reciting Go-je’s sutras under a full moon grants a +1 to cleric checks for three days).