Attempt at a new cosmology

[CptClyde]

I like this idea. If I understand you correctly, I think it is how I have run my generic homebrew settings for years. There are Clerics of LIGHT and clerics of DARKNESS. No God to follow, just ideals. Obeying those ideals/rules isthe source of the magic.
Has worked for us over the years, and keeps the pantheon none-sense out of the way. However there still exists "ancestor worship" especially among the nomad tribes of humanoids.

[Snarkythekobold]

Hey dude, I wasn't trying to down your cosmology thing. I was just trying to understand it. It kind of sounds like the force to me, a kind of nebulous thing that empowers folks with strange powers.

And I think it's cool. The one thing I would ask if your players are already playing from the basic Dnd cosmology type deal. If that is what they are assuming then you could really throw them a curve ball with what you've presented.

I just bought Anomalous Subspace Environment and the "gods" in are actually space satellites that give clerics their powers (corrupted A.I.). It's pretty crazy but kind of a cool thing to throw your players that will change gameplay. Sounds like what you're trying to do. Roll with it

Matt Finch also came up with a different deal in his "Swords of Jordoba" in which the planar realms are warping and twisting into one another. It's pretty wild and changes things up for gameplay.

But I'm kind of like Chris. I don't want to give up any kind of planar adventures. Those can be kind of cool. But I guess you could still fit something like those into the cosmology you presented

[Snarkythekobold]

I like this idea. If I understand you correctly, I think it is how I have run my generic homebrew settings for years. There are Clerics of LIGHT and clerics of DARKNESS. No God to follow, just ideals. Obeying those ideals/rules isthe source of the magic.
Has worked for us over the years, and keeps the pantheon none-sense out of the way. However there still exists "ancestor worship" especially among the nomad tribes of humanoids.

This is what we do. I try to keep the 'gods' thing out. We have temples of chaos, order, law, darkness, etc. It works

[daryen]

The question of "what really happens with resurrection" is pretty important, especially if souls don't exist. If the GM opts for an extreme case, the PC could end up playing the part of a permanent illusory effect.

That's not what I was intending. I was going in a different direction. If there are no souls and someone is resurrected, then the result is still a living person who looks like, acts like, sounds like, and outright believes they are the person who died. But they're not; they are basically a clone. This is in spades for reincarnation: the new body keeps the memories, class, and abilities of the original, but is almost entirely a new person. The one exception would be Raise Dead with a basically intact body. At least in that case there is a direct line of continuity where the raised person can still feel like they are the original person. For the other cases with a new body/form, they are just a new person with the old person's memories. They are not really the same person.

If you allow a soul, then this isn't an issue, as the soul will always provide that direct line of continuity. What happens to a sould of a dead person, though, is a totally separate question that would also have to be answered.

Read the Western Lands intro material from BF1 again... without saying so, the game allows the possibility of your cosmology. The Tahists believe in one true god, but yet the followers of the Hundred also cast clerical spells. There is more than one way to interpret this.

But I can't give up my other dimensions. Just can't. Though even here, I don't use (nor promote) the "outer planes" as given in other period source material.

Not gonna lie: The way things are presented ambiguously helped lead me in this direction. When put together with the "do something completely different" idea, this is where it led.

On other dimensions, yes, this does eliminate planes and planar travel. (Which is probably kinda odd coming from the guy who actually dragged planar travel spells into the Downloads page.) However, it does not completely eliminate other dimensions. I intentionally leave the whole concept of "spaces between" open and subject to interpretation. So, if you implement a full Shadow Realm as part of the "spaces between", you still get that dimension. Plus, of course, the entire universe still exists. While you can't go to the outer planes (they don't exist), you can still travel to other planets. There's still a gazillion of those floating around. Or you can just have a bunch of "alternate worlds" of your main world. You can still travel dimensions; just not traditional planes.

In the end, you may lose the Seven Heavens and the Nine Hells, but you still can have Barsoom, Jungle Venus, the Faerie Realm and the Shadow Realm without even leaving the solar system.

Hey dude, I wasn't trying to down your cosmology thing. I was just trying to understand it. It kind of sounds like the force to me, a kind of nebulous thing that empowers folks with strange powers.

To be clear, I didn't take your post that way. Really, my main concern was that with you drawing the link to the "force", I was afraid I was completely failing to get my idea across. That's all.

As for the idea of keeping the gods out of things, that is just one application of this cosmology. As I said earlier, it is entirely possible to have full religions and patheons believed in and running around. They just aren't "real". But starting at the point where everyone knows they aren't real works, too.

Also note that it is entirely possible to have super-powerful individuals that get treated as gods, and someone worshipping them can still end up being a cleric with spells, as their faith and convictions still open up the magic. And it can go either way as to whether the super-powerful individual knows they are a charlatan or has come to believe their own lies and actually believes they are a god.

I think I will write this up using one of the other Showcase documents as a template. (Probably the one that talks about making religions. Seems appropriate.) It'll take a few days to get done, though.

[chiisu81]

Moved to GD (at least for the time being)

[Solomoriah]

It's an interesting project... but a bad idea, in my opinion.

Because if you actually tell players how the universe works, their characters effectively know more than anyone else in the world. Even if they are good at separating player and character knowledge, it removes a large chunk of the mystery from your world. This, actually, is why I dislike the concrete cosmology of the 1E era... a map of the places where souls go is amazing knowledge to have.

No one should know there's no heaven, except you. So writing this down is, in my mind, an error.

[daryen]

The point of this is to describe how a GM would do this. This is meant to be a toolkit so a GM would know how they need to knit things together when the base system assumes something else. It is NOT a specific setting. Also, it is intended to work with the current rules without any real modifications. This means that the players won't know that there are no gods until the GM decides to reveal it. Or, if everyone knows there are no gods, then it isn't special knowledge. Either way, this is intended to provide the GM with guidelines on how to knit these things together and how decisions made can affect other elements.

But, again, it is a toolbox for a GM. Players won't necessarily know what the actual situation is until the GM tells them.

[daryen]

OK, I have my first draft done.

So, should I just create a new topic in Workshop with the file, or should I modify the first post of this topic to include it and wait for the topic to be moved back to Workshop?

Thanks!

[Solomoriah]

So, should I just create a new topic in Workshop with the file, or should I modify the first post of this topic to include it and wait for the topic to be moved back to Workshop?

Yes.



Seriously, whichever you want to do. Depends on whether or not you want to preserve the above discussion as part of the creation thread.

[daryen]

Since you had no preference, and because where I ended up drifted somewhat from this conversation, I just made a new topic: Setting with No Gods.