Topic: Any pointers on creating cleric spell lists and prefered skills in Harp?

[pyrotech]

Hey all,

I am working on my fantasy setting and have started playing around with the religions.  They don't follow the standard pantheon model very but that is OK - something a little different can be an opportunity to stand out.

I am working towards a goal of having around 60 orders, lodges, cults, and heresies to fit the more diffuse population spread of my world, but would settle for around 40.  So far I've got 15 so lots of work to do still.

I am pretty new to developing cleric spell lists and preferred skill categories though.  Do any of you guys have any suggestions on what works for you?

I've been thinking of using a model of a spell list containing 10 cleric sphere spells plus 10 others from the other spheres.  Are any of the spells near universal that should go into almost any cleric spell list?  Is it better to use more cleric shpere spells than the minimum requirement of 10 (I'm thinking it may be for my druidic lodges)?

More importantly what is a good way to handle the preferred skill categories.  Should I set the minimum 2 categories for each sect, or should I set 3 or 4 and let the player choose, or should I leave them open and let the player choose.  I'm not sure how this flexibility would affect the balance between the classes.

Any feedback you guys may have would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Pyrotech

[GrumpyOldFart]

They don't follow the standard pantheon model very but...

Can you explain the model you do use? This could make a big difference.

For myself, I consider "cleric" spells to fall into 3 categories:

1. Rituals and ceremonies. This is the public relations arm of the religion. Magic used in these functions will primarily serve as a bond between worshipers and the God. Effects tend to be (often minor) benefits to large numbers of worshipers (eg bodies buried in consecrated ground cannot be raised as undead unless/until the consecration is broken.)

2. Divine intervention. These are direct expressions of "God's will." They can take many forms, the more obvious being things like resurrection. Note that they are expressions of God's will, not the caster's, and as such should not work at all unless the God in question would approve of what is being done (any spell that will pick out God's followers from a crowd and affect them, while leaving everyone else untouched, is probably one of these.) Depending on how touchy the God in question is, casting such a spell under circumstances where God disapproves could leave the cleric not only refused, but in trouble merely for having asked.

3. Specifics relating to the God's "sphere of influence", if any. In a monotheistic worldview I would imagine there wouldn't be any such, since God's "sphere of influence" is everything, which by definition is rather non-specific. But if the God is patron of artists, there should be a spell making the target a better or worse artist, if it is the God of Law, there should be a spell which helps the target unravel the truth of a given situation, etc.

Ultimately "cleric" = "God's public face." The spells, and indeed the cleric who casts them, have as their primary function the setting of an example to others of why they should follow this religion as well. Get a clear picture of who God is, and what spells He/She/It/They make(s) available to the clergy should be fairly obvious.

[NicholasHMCaldwell]

I've been thinking of using a model of a spell list containing 10 cleric sphere spells plus 10 others from the other spheres.  Are any of the spells near universal that should go into almost any cleric spell list?  Is it better to use more cleric shpere spells than the minimum requirement of 10 (I'm thinking it may be for my druidic lodges)?

In the upcoming HARP Fantasy, Clerics have been modified such that they need only take a minimum of five spells from the Cleric Sphere.

More importantly what is a good way to handle the preferred skill categories.  Should I set the minimum 2 categories for each sect, or should I set 3 or 4 and let the player choose, or should I leave them open and let the player choose.  I'm not sure how this flexibility would affect the balance between the classes.

You should choose as GM as the selected categories for a Cleric are now more important than before

This is because in HARP Fantasy "Starting at 1st level and then at every 7th level thereafter (i.e. 7th, 14th, etc.), a Cleric receives a +10 bonus to any one skill of their choice from one of their selected categories. No skill may have more than a +30 bonus from this ability."

Best wishes,
Nicholas

[pyrotech]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys!

And thanks for the insight in what is coming with HARP Fantasy.  I was hoping to get this setting put together in time that I could send it to TGC shortly after HARP Fantasy is released and people may be looking for settings for a fantasy game.

Considering the wordy nature of my writing and meandering sentence structure, I'm sure this may put me on an editor's black list - but if someone finds use for my work in their games then it is all good. 

As for the settings religious structure:

The cosmology of the setting is that "reality" sits at the crux of 4 other planes of existence.  It is heavily inspired by the world in the Nifft the Lean novels (which in turn remind me much of Lankhmar).  Each other plane can be accessed from "reality" by somewhat conventional travel albeit with some trouble.  No magic is needed to traverse realities however. 

The first of the four other worlds consists of a Celestial realm of floating cities far in the sky.  Anyone capable of flying high enough can reach them.  The Celestial realm is primarily concerned with good, order, and protection. 

The second world is the realm of life and the elements.  It is where the forces of life and emotion run rampant.  The primal world is mostly concerned with life, nature, the elements, and passions (including bloody ones).  It is neither good nor evil and its major powers tend to resemble great Fey powers and tempestuous beings.

The third world is the realm of the dead where most of the dead souls go.  This world is also neither good nor bad.  Its powers tend towards a patient personality, but many have a fondness for gambling.  The Dread powers have a bit of a love hate relationship with the undead.  Most of their population could be considered a type of undead, but undead in "reality" are often seen as cheating the Dread Halls of a soul it is owed.

The fourth world is the Abyss.  The realm of demons and their demon lords.  This realm lies deep underground and the demons are always looking for ways to burrow their way up into reality.  The demons are typically concerned with evil, destruction, and strife.

The religions may or may not actually worship a supernatural power and may simply be a philosophy.  Clerical spells are typically not an extension of a power's will, but rather just another spell pulling power from the same source of magic as any other.  The Cleric's spell list is thus just those spells that the followers of that sect typically teach and learn.  The supernatural powers behind the religions are more like chief sponsors and mentors - looking to guide mortals into pursuing their interpretation of their ideals.  Some powers are vain enough to style themselves gods, and others find the label helpful in pursuing their interests among the mortals.  Other powers just consider themselves teachers or rulers.

So many sects exist depending on which power (if any) sponsors it - and in some cases different sects may be at odds with each other despite being sponsored by the same powers (the nature of mortals bickering about their religions).

Here are a few I have worked out so far:

Orders of Light            
   Order of the Golden Shield         Protectors and paladins
   Sorority of Virtue               Nuns administer orphenages and hospitals
   Order of Cleansing Fire            Inquisitors and witchhunters
   The Merciful Brothers            Monks who help the downtrodden
   Order of the Blooming Branch         Emphasis on healing, prosperity, and fertility
Primal Lodges            
   Druids of the Wilds               Nature, agriculture, and fantasy druidism
   Revelers of the White Queen         Hedonists and entertainers
   Bloodsoakers of Karagh            Bloodthirsty revelers in battle
   Stalkers of the Green Shadows     Primarily elven savages, hunters, and archers
   Millers of Life                       Reincarnists focusing in cycles and seasons
   Devout of the Salt Lord            Sailer and seamen, ocean and storm worshipers
Cults of Death            
   The Mercybringers of the Grey Maiden   Assasins who kill the tortured and suffering
   Advocates of the Judged                 Lawyers, negotiators, judges – somber group
   Cult of the Gaunt Lord and Pale Lady   Gamblers for the souls of the dead, fond of adventurers
   Cult of the Ebony Serpent         Dark cult of serpent worshipers and bringers of death
   Cult of the Broken Skull                 Cult of undead hunters
Infernal Heresies
        Still working on these....

Well this is long and wordy enough.  Time to stop.

Thanks for your attention and help!

Pyrotech

[GrumpyOldFart]

The religions may or may not actually worship a supernatural power and may simply be a philosophy.  Clerical spells are typically not an extension of a power's will, but rather just another spell pulling power from the same source of magic as any other.

Then (so far as I can tell, anyway) it isn't what HARP calls "granted" mana, as there isn't necessarily any power that grants it to followers.

...rather just another spell pulling power from the same source of magic as any other.

Which suggests ambient mana to me, but YMMV. In any case, if there is no "granted mana" involved, I would suggests leaving out anything that smacks too much of Divine intervention. However, with that caveat I still stand by what I posted above.

[pyrotech]

The nature of magic is one of the aspects I have not fully explored in my setting so far.  I've got some basics (it is based on reality being twisted by ideas and intents - certain ancient languages are more efficient at representing these ideas and intents, thus funny spell words and why reading runes is difficult) but the nature of mana isn't one I've put too much thought into yet.  I've added it to my list now though.

As for my work on the various religious orders - it has continued.  I've made a list of ancient earth pantheons analogous to the regions of my setting.  I'm working to make sure I have sects that cover most of the aspects that these pantheons covered.

All this work has brought another interesting point to my attention.  Where do lycanthropes fit in my cosmology.  Are they creatures afflicted by an ancient curse or is it purely a magic disease.  Are the lycanthropes governed by primal lords or infernal ones (or both).

Well lots to work on while contemplating these issues.

Thanks for your help guys.

Pyrotech

[Zhaleskra]

In the upcoming HARP Fantasy, Clerics have been modified such that they need only take a minimum of five spells from the Cleric Sphere.

This bit will help me immensely in making spell lists for the gods in my fan conversion of the Diomin D&D setting.

[jd.]

Wow, I love this thread.

I'm a bit too new on rules-wise magic in HARP (I'm still working on getting the Essentials bundle), but here are a few things that popped up in my head while reading.

First, you only gave a notion of how to get to the Celestial realm, not the others (well, obviously you can reach the realm of the dead by dying but I'm assuming most people would like to try another route, one with a "back" button). I'd be very interested in knowing more about that, and it also might help build a sense of how the realms interact with their chosen people.

Which segues nicely into my second remark: if the realms do not grant magic power (as I understand your reply to GrumpyOldFart), I assume they can still be of help to their followers in other ways. Which ways would those be, exactly? (Note that my assumption may well be wrong: the gods of real-world religions do not tend to send tangible help all that often and still get followers*, so there's no necessity for yours to do so.)

As far as lycanthropes go, you don't even have to choose. Like: there are two different kind of lycanthropes - wait, there are three. 

• First, a magic disease makes people turn into beasts in certain conditions. No intermediate forms, just a shifting one during the transformation. They do not retain consciousness of their acts while changed, and have blank memories of those times. Or maybe they retain partial, non-decisive consciousness but forget everything when changing back. Or maybe they remember stuff as though in a nightmare. Or maybe, as the disease progresses, the animal part infects their usual persona; they also remain more and more conscious through transformations as time goes by, but they care less and less. Until they actually prefer the animal form. (Of course, that assumes the animal form is - as in classic stories, 'evil'. I'll present a twist with the second possibility.)
• Second, it could indeed be an ancient curse. It might not transmit to people (that would be the disease described in the first part) but be punishment for a specific (set of) crime(s), as in the old myth. In that case, the animal form could well be actually more humane than the human one (think Hannibal Lecter turned into a wolf, who would only eat when hungry, and then not necessarily people) - by the way, that's the twist I was referring to above. As with the disease, the curse might not be permanent and be progressively reverted as the offender mends his or her ways. Various forms could fit various crimes, by the way. A mass murderer would turn into a wolf, while a deserter (as in the denial of Peter) would turn into a bear, or a cannibal into an elk. (I must admit that I'm not quite convinced by my own examples here, but hopefully one gets the point.)
• Third, the oWoD-like werecreatures, who are a distinct set of races. Note that in a world that already has several non-lycanthropic races, different races would have different corresponding lycanthropic races. Like, werewolves and werejaguars would have a human form, while wereboars and werelynxes would have a dwarvish form and werecheetahs and wereseals would have an elvish form. (Since this is HARP, I'll add weretigers and werebears would have a gryxish form. Is gryxish a word?) They could be related to the other two kinds of lycanthropes: the easiest links would be that their bite carries the disease while they are appointed as guardians of the cursed ones, but better ideas are out there for you to use.

Oh, and then there are shapeshifters who can assume the form of any of the above, and more. Or specialized shapeshifters who appear as lycanthropes of one of the aforedescribed kinds, only they have another agenda...

Yes, because of course lycanthropes do have an agenda. It would be quite easy to link each kind to a realm - werebears and were-eagles to Celestial, werewolves and werelions to Primal, werejackals and weresnakes to Dread, werewolverines and werebats to Abyss - for instance of course.

By the way, do lycanthropes play an important role in your universe? Because your mentioning them the way you do makes me think so.

All right, more than enough on lycanthropes already. I'd love to  contribute a few more groups, but it's getting late and I need to go to bed. Let me still add yet another remark. There may be some groups that share general beliefs and agenda with one realm, while wanting nothing to do with any representatives of said realm. An example would be the Apostles of the Flesh, who encourage physically pleasurable activity of many sorts, such as food and drink - not necessarily intoxicating ones, as full consciousness allows one to better experience pleasure according to their tenets -, workouts, mock combat - harming each other being strongly forbidden - and, oh yeah, sex. Among others. These would make them a Primal group, except they are resolutely urban and disdain natural environment.

Also, there may be other groups that share general beliefs and some goals with one realm, while hotly denying any connection - and generally the other way around as well. For instance, the Hunters in Shadow are a group dedicated to tracking down and putting to death criminals who have escaped the law by whatever means. As their main focus is the protection of the innocent - they won't risk endangering one to get their prey - they are pretty close to what the Celestial realm stands for. However, they see the Celestial's people as naïve airheads who can't bring themselves to get the real job done, while the Celestial followers see them as rampaging, bloodthirsty vigilantes.

I'll add other groups later, if you are interested of course.

*Great, my third post on this board and I already touched on a sensitive subject. Allow me to clarify: I am religious and firmly believe. However, I also feel that the assistance that my deity - which I prefer to keep private for the purposes of this discussion - provides is generally subtle and inconspicuous, and it seems that others do so too generally. Feel free to disagree on this topic, but please do it through PM.