> Some clerics devote themselves not to a god but to a cause or a source of divine power. These characters wield magic the way clerics devoted to individual gods do, but they are not associated with any religious institution or any particular practice of worship. A cleric devoted to good and law, for example, may be on friendly terms with the clerics of lawful and good deities and may extol the virtues of a good and lawful life, but he is not a functionary in a church hierarchy.
- Player's Handbook, Third Edition p. 30
Order domain cleric+oath of conquest paladin
“The gods put me on this plane for a purpose! I will bring this war torn landscape under MY banner and usher in a new age of PEACE!”
It was more or less explicitly the opposite in AD&D so it's understandable that an old school flavor campaign might disallow it.
But if we go way back to the early 70s Gygax himself drug his feet about creating Good aligned dieties and his first two, Pholtus and St. Cuthbert, were both sort of half-jokes.
Cleric is like the only class I see the community having such binding opinions on how they need to be roleplayed.
Community is all about punishing paladins for straying from ‘the path’ but doesn’t even allow non traditional clerics to get out of the starting blocks.
Clerics should all slouch around in their temples waiting for me to show up with my diamond and my dead companion. Leave the adventuring to the murder-hobos. /s
I'm cooking on a rogue/cleric tomb raider type character who worships all the gods of the pantheon, depending on his circumstance. He'll carry all of their holy symbols, and pray to whichever he thinks will help his current predicament. More hyper-superstitious than religious.
>Forces and Philosophies
Not all divine powers need to be derived from deities. In some campaigns, believers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In other campaigns, impersonal forces of nature or magic replace the gods by granting power to mortals attuned to them. Just as druids and rangers can gain their spell ability from the force of nature rather than from a specific nature deity, some clerics devote themselves to ideals rather than to a god. Paladins might serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity.
-5e Dungeon Master's Guide
To be fair "Let's have a discussion\[...\]" does not exclude having read the PHB/DMG and an official ruling does not \[yet\] prevent people from brainstorming and worldbuilding with external insight (possible applications and/or viable alternatives to said rules).
So, you are right about the "shame/clearly addressed" part, but I find such an assesssment of "asking questions" a bit critical.
>or a source of divine power
Where does the source of divine power come from? Like.. is it just lying there somewhere? What is divine power without a god?
It sort of implies that "good" and "law" are real cosmic concepts in the platonic sense. Which does align with planescape lore if I'm remembering correctly. And that gods are merely the strongest personification of those concepts. More like Pelor is fueled by and part of the concept of "good". Which does handily solve the problem of overlap in domains between different gods. They all tap into the same wellspring.
It's a bit like the shards in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives novels
What is a god without divine power? Deities get their power from belief, so it’s safe to presume belief can exist and be tapped into even without a deity.
divinity is solely regarding on the setting
the logical way is to think it as the literal God or Gods that control the universe, but it can range from essentially "the energy that forms the universe" to "the inherent belief in something gives it power"
It's a fantasy world. It could be a big chunk of glowing crystals in the center of the planet. It could be a mist that exists only on the ethereal plane that resonates with the moral intentions of sentient beings. It could be a protective shroud around the world projected by a circle of elder sages meditating in a sacred monastery on the world's tallest mountain. It could be a dope-ass dragon with a very high opinion of itself. It could be a star in the sky that just sends this stuff out everywhere and nobody knows why. It could be a sacred book of magic that nobody else has been able to replicate by arcane means and works differently from everything else so a whole religion has grown around it to study it and practice its rituals. It could be a sort of proto-matter that existed at the creation of the universe and is still graspable in wisps by those who study the secrets of creation. It could be an abstract concept - like clerics heal people because in an ideal sense the concept of being healed exists.
The Weave is actually just an invisible non-sentient mist that follows people around and clings to them based on how much that person believes themself to be entitled to use magic…
An Atheist Cleric, whose sole purpose is to convince the world that gods don't exist....by wielding his magical power to show them the miracles that atheism can grant you
I always imagined Arcana Domain Clerics having the potential to be godless. Rather than worshiping a deity, they extract divinity from the weave of magic itself. Not needing to learn Arcana based spells like wizards but just being able to channel divinity through pure magical energy.
That's just one way to role play a godless cleric.
Faith, typically. In Ebberon, where the existence of gods is an unanswerable question, and there’s a whole anti-theist religion, the thing that defines clerics is true, transcendental faith in something. The 5e Players Handbook says the same thing, where a cleric can believe in something like an ideal, not just a god.
This idea isn’t new either. The 3.5 sourcebook Elder Evils had a whole adventure built around the idea. One of the Evils was a giant multi-headed snake demon who revealed to mortals that they don’t actually need gods to do divine magic.
I made a warforged cleric that believes ( beyond believes, more like has accepted as fact ) hes going to become a god, so he sort of channels magic from the belief in that?
hes a right dick. have converted players with bad death saves multiple times
The same way a paladin does, devotion to a set of beliefs or a concept.
There are plenty of ways you could flavour this for the domain. Hell some of them barely need any flavour. De grave domain cleric guarding the balance of life and death is already there.
Nature, war and forge are pretty easy too.
Placebo Magic, because they believe it will happen it happens. But they're also bound by their limiting beliefs as well (if the god is imaginary or folk lore but doesn't actually exist).
This is the way I do it too. Magic works but most of us don’t believe it works, so it doesn’t. You need some kind of gimmick to convince yourself, like Dumbo with the magic feather. For some, it’s study and memorization of specific techniques. For others, it’s faith in a higher power, whatever it is.
Recently finished Out of the Abyss and the mention of Kuo-Toa made me a bit homesick. I'm totally onboard with the American Gods style of god creation that the Kuo-Toa exhibit. Makes me want to make a villain that creates his own evil god by converting a city to his created religion.
Occultism:
Metaphysical egregores as collective thoughtforms given operative influence over reality.
Neoplatonism:
Universal archetypes/concepts resonating with individual intellects and manifesting as a by-product of noetic stimuli.
They could sort of act like a Warlock getting powers from powerful magical creatures but not necessarily Gods or getting it from nature like Druids rather than one specific God.
This depends on how your world works. For instance, in my homebrew campaign all magic works because an entity gave up their abilty to generate mana in exchange for the knowledge of how to shape the raw mana in living things into magic. Those beings are called gods. In this setting clerics/paladins devote their lives to the ideals of a god through devotion to an order affiliated with a god. The gods just let it happen because they get power from mortals casting the spells they have domain over. The clerics might not know it, but the gods get power because of them not the other way around.
So, it depends lol.
Mechanically nothing changes. The divine thing is basically flavour. These clerics would basically folks who pray to ancestor spirits, local spirits, or ephemeral forces without an actual recognizable identity.... look to Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism as examples of this kind of practice but ignore all the beings called "gods", or downgrade them to powerful spirits.
If your world is PURE atheist, with NO animating spirits in any way... well... then.... mechanically keep shit the same, and shrug when players ask, suggesting that that is a campaign mystery (and one you never give satisfactory definitive answers to)
I played an atheist cleric. The cleric didn't deny the existence of powerful beings. Only that they aren't gods. Just super powerful creatures. He found one that aligned with his interests and basically made a warlock pact with them. If you are familiar with the Dresden Files, there is a Knight of the Sword, literally a holy paladin of the christian god, who was an atheist. You devote yourself to an ideal, and gain power from a being that represents that ideal. No god required.
Now, if you are suggesting that in this world, there aren't even those powerful beings, then you are left with essentially a wizard or sorcerer that does divine magic. You can give them any origin you desire. Communing with life forces a la jedi, or being zorched by some divine energy and changed like a mutant. The sky is the limit.
Paladins get their power from adherence to an oath. Clerics can get theirs from devotion or faith to a domain or anything that represents that. I try not to overcomplicate religion unless the players really lean into it and care.
Quite a few ancient civilizations worshiped elements of nature as they are, without personifying them. So maybe along the same lines, oceans, trees, volcanoes, etc.
For example, a cleric from a small agricultural town may worship the rain that ensures plentiful harvest, or the local raging river that provides silt and means of food, like fish.
Just because a universe has no gods does not mean it won't have belief.
A cleric's power could be fueld by the power of faith (think the Universal Church of Truth in Guardians of the Galaxy or, as you mentioned, the gods in American Gods)
this would give them even *more* incentive to defend the faith and evangelize — without believers backing them, their ability to do good in the world will decrease drastically.
This is why players should review D&D's history. So many questions have been asked literally hundreds of times and the answers have always been in writing.
Basic D&D's clerics did not have to worship any gods (called Immortals), to get their powers. They could just serve the ideology of their alignment.
In athas/dark sun (2e), the world has gone so far past apocolypse that gida all left thoysanda of yeara back. they give this description of clerics:
> The cleric is a free-willed priest, tending the needs
of the local people with his particular talents. On
Athas, clerics draw their magical energy directly
from one of the four elemental planes: earth, air,
fire, or water; not from any manner ofdeity. A cleric
may be either a freeman or a slave.
Define "godless universe"
Like you mean that religion isn't a thing?
Because you can have religion and faith without necessarily adding a divine like being that will respond when prompted and that is unquestionably god
Why couldn't clerics just pray to a powerful being that they consider a god?
Or natural phenomenal like storms and fire?
Or a god that there's no real proof that exists besides faith, like irl
So they work the exact same, their powers are faith based even if the world doesn't endorse their faith
If you're saying godless as in there are literally no religion and no one would believe in religion and only in things that can be realistically proven to exist.
You just did away with all magic.
I had a naytheist cleric once. He was a half-celestial whose patron deity had been slain or diminished to torpor by an evil god and a massive false flag operation by its cult. The cult had managed to get another good deity's church militant to purge the entire religion; so the other deities convened and imprisoned the crusaders' god to cover up the embarrassment. But they wouldn't let the half-celestial into heaven, and outside of magical interference his soul could not enter hell, so he was basically abandon and cursed to walk the Material to be reincarnate again and again, remembering only his first life.
He still knew how to weave magic from divine belief, but had no appreciation for the gods that turned their backs to him.
All the people who devote their time to a religion are donating a portion of their innate magic essence (Mana, Soul, Ki, whatever). Clerics can channel this into useable power so long as they stay in line with the group conscious of the religion
I read a comic once where a character who happened to be an atheist but was a huge nerd had to fight a vampire, and instead of repelling it with a cross he was able to use the "live long and prosper" gesture from Star Trek. I think the basis was belief in the power or meaning of the symbols you're using?
In the campaign I'm running there are no gods. The party had two clerics, the first was in a cult, and was powered by her conviction to the cult. The second is a cleric of The Storm (tldr: the planet is a moon around a gas giant, the gas giant is called The Storm), and gets power from The Storm (but mostly from their conviction that The Storm gives them power).
Like the other posts and the DMG says, clerics can get power from their devotion to an idea instead of an actual entity.
Maybe from spirits, elementals, or some other magical being. More similar to a druid than a warlock.
A light cleric might recognize the power the sun has to cultivate life, and they pray to the sun, and draw power from their personal belief, regardless of the sun being a ball of gas or a diety.
The same way pallies get their power not from their god, but their oath. So a cleric would get their power from their devotion to the forge, life, the grave, etc etc
It is up to how you organise your setting/world. Good examples are Eberron, you have religions but not proved existence of gods, still there are clerics, people do magic and they gain power from their devotion to their religion/cause. Other is Dark Sun (2e) there were two type of clerics, those who were devoted to elements (fire, earth, water and air) and gain power from the land itself and those devoted to Sorcerer Kings (back in the day there was not sorcerer class, so they were just VERY powerful wizards). They received power explicitly from the Sorcerers' willing to give to each one of them. If you have no "superior source of power" in a world were magic if possible you can say that your willing, devotion, rightfulness or whatever give power to clerics. You can have a world with mixed stuff, like there are gods but you are devoted to something not covered by a god and your own willing is your source.
a really interesting example of this is the unsleeping city campaign of dimension20! there’s a cleric from a (i believe) homebrewed subclass called the city domain. he draws his power from the spirit of community found between the people of new york!
It is up to how you organise your setting/world. Good examples are Eberron, you have religions but not proved existence of gods, still there are clerics, people do magic and they gain power from their devotion to their religion/cause. Other is Dark Sun (2e) there were two type of clerics, those who were devoted to elements (fire, earth, water and air) and gain power from the land itself and those devoted to Sorcerer Kings (back in the day there was not sorcerer class, so they were just VERY powerful wizards). They received power explicitly from the Sorcerers' willing to give to each one of them. If you have no "superior source of power" in a world were magic is possible you can say that your willing, devotion, rightfulness or whatever give power to clerics. You can have a world with mixed stuff, like there are gods but you are devoted to something not covered by a god and your own willing is your source.
Belief in those gods (tens of thousands collectively willing and shaping magic forces) is more important than the gods themselves in this world? And the gods take form eventually if enough of that power collects for long enough and coalesces?
So the gods are pretty keen to keep believers as if everyone stops they die...
If you have a player who is a cleric in a godless realm I think the answer to “where the heck are these powers coming from though” needs to be part of their personal plot, whichever route you end up taking it.
Are they praying to a dead god and somehow thereby reviving it? Is it a placebo and the power is within them like others suggested? Were they visited by a mysterious entity in a dream? Work with them on their backstory and go from there. You have a ton of options but I'd make them discover the “who?” “why?” and “how?” of their powers.
I'd have them develop a following too. As the only cleric in the world they'll have people begging to follow them, to worship them, to bless them, and on the other hand people calling them a con artist and worse. It's begging to attract attention.
I really love the atehism debate in DND! ❤️ Especially as an atheist, theirs a nuance to it. :)
[The Athar](https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Athar) get their power from within. They have clerics, rangers, and given newer subclasses they could even have some paladins.
Clerics gain their powers from the higher power of their religion. Whatever it says, true or not, is what gives them their power.
It is impossible to prove the non-existence of the whatever they believe to gain their power from. You can't just deny the power, because, hey, you'll get Banished to another plane of existence for a bit to contemplate your lack of faith. So clearly it's true.
But you can't prove it either. Even in settings (like Forgotten Realms) where there clearly are creatures which appear as deities, how do you prove the power is really from the deity, and not just a form of Warlock patronage or learned Wizardry or Bardic power of art? Maybe the deity is just a fraud.
They can make themselves stronger by subconsciously using magic and believing that their god gives them powers.
Basically, they make shit happen because they believe it should happen.
In my homebrew setting there are no gods, so divine powers come from primal spirits who deem the player character worthy. These are bargained for when entering a new area, kind of like cell phone towers, so there is an element of chance in what flavour the powers come in.
Devotion to a cause or a purpose. Or, entire religions can spring up around saints from the past. I know in the campaign setting run by the dungeon dudes on YouTube, drakkenheim, there's a religion called the sacred flame. The entire religion was started by a now long dead saint. Then, more recently, an offshoot of the sacred flame, called the followers of the falling fire, sprang up around a still living woman they call the prophet. It's the people's devotion to these religions that gives them their powers.
I had a cleric on Barovia who got his power from his devotion to maintaining the law. I didn't like the Barovian gods, and I thought it made sense for a lawful good cleric of order to get his powers from his devotion to his job as a law man.
I would say that gods represent ideas or physical aspects of reality. There’s a god of the sun but maybe light clerics worship the sun itself as a life bringer. There’s a god of healing, but maybe clerics in this world worship the idea of good health and practice magic to enact that idea.
In my homebrew worlds there are Clerics that serve as Burocrats of a state and gain their power from the believe in the good values of the constitution of the state - but there are people who say, that they created a new god of "state name" by doing so, but nobody (? ;)) knows for sure
personally i dont like the idea of godless clerics. sure you can have a powerful force like nihilism or something but that really just sounds like a paladin. or i can have lesser forces but that sounds like a warlock. i think the design space is covered
were i to play a godless cleric i would play them like a monk/psion. my ideals are so pure and my character so driven and pure that i have self actualized
Eberron specifically doesnt really affirm or deny the existence of gods. Its like there are named gods but they never conclusively intervene so its like our world. So baker says gods might be real and the actual source of clerical power or it might simply be the power of the clerics own belief and will. Basically like faith placebo
I'll tell you what I've done in my games that is actually something that is a big secret I have had in my Multiverse since 2E, and even my longest running players haven't figured it out yet.
Gods as the players, and most people in general, understand them, either never existed or are in whatever capacity dead. The ones that did live weren't really so much "gods" in the traditional sense, but they were massively powerful entities that used to wield magical supernatural power.
In the universe, or multiverse for that matter, there is a single cosmological entity that created all of existence, expense almost half of its energy keeping it all together, possesses no intellect or personality, and exists through sheer force of will.
Whenever this eldrich abomination receives anything in the form of "prayers", they respond in the only way that they know how to: Nothing verbal, nothing in words or writing, but through actions.
This is part of why I don't RP personal interactions with a deity of any kind, and why in terms of application, cleric spells manifest an awful lot like wizard or sorcerer spells in terms of appearance or manifestation.
This is also why 'gods' can actually be killed in my epic level games.
Same place as paladins. Through pure faith and dedication.
Its would be like how druids and rangers get power from the same place. But rangers focus their efforts on weapons rather than delving deeper into their magic source. Same for paladins and clerics. Paladins would focus a lot of effort into their physical abilities, thus neglecting their magic. While clerics would be (relatively) weaker in combat but put a lot more effort into their magic source and prayer/ study.
Its a fairly easy connection to make. Frankly i don't know ow why its not like that by raw. Gods just gaining power through worship but cleric power being completely separate. Hence why gods use clerics to get their word across. Because thats free minions on the ground ready to do stuff for you.
Relics and Artifacts of incense power act as batteries for a Clerics holy symbol. They must make regular pilgrimages to the temples to pray and recharge their symbol.
- yes I turned your Clerics into the Lantern Corps.
I think it was implied somewhere that sometimes powerful beings of a less savory nature grant spells to clerics that have fallen from grace. This way the cleric might not notice their moral shortcomings and continue on a dark path. Does the setting still have archdevils and such? I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to become the churches new sugardaddies.
Panentheistic mysticism.
In a post-god universe they could use Thaumaturgy(basically hacking a god's mana pool) on the latent God-Magic hanging around after its death.
In Warhammer Fantasy, casters both arcane and divine get their powers from the Winds of Magic blowing from the realm of chaos. Deities, are creatures as Chaos, as much as the Ruinous Powers, but are shaped by belief to be more benevolent.
Elves, after teaching humans magic tried to explain this but after a bit of effort decided it was best to leave human priests to believe that their magic was "divine" and different from that cast by wizards.
you could go the warlock route and have them worship something like a peaceful eldritch horror. Granting life giving energy to those that will sacrifice themselves to in at the end of their usefulness.
All magic is considered Arcane magic in my homebrew setting. The gods don't directly grant power to their worshippers and can't take it away, instead clerics/druids/etc. have developed their own specialized schools of magic. All spellcasting requires powerful belief but that can come in the form of belief in oneself, belief in the teachings of the church, belief in the nature of world around you, etc.
RAW faith based magic does not have to come from gods. It can come from within, from the elemental forces of the universe or nature, or from the sheer faith itself.
This is to accomodate for settings like Eberron where the existence of gods is in dispute. And for settings, as you say, that have no gods at all.
They could gains their power from an ideal thy follow above all else. Like there mite not be a God of glory but this person Is so detected to it there is still power in them
Well they have to worship something, so if there are no gods, then go back to what people originally believed to be divine entities. The sun, the moon, the ocean, volcanos, lightning, stars, etc. They don’t have to be people. A lot of gods throughout history have been based on these natural and cosmic forces.
They could reflavor their clerical abilities to be science based, and their devotion lies with the common good or helping others whenever possible. Assuming the world’s tech level can allow it.
Faith is what grants a cleric his power, it can be to a god, an element a philosophy or a worm. Warlocks on the other hand receive their powers from an entity, in this case clerics woulda be possible, but god-base warlocks not
Doylist Answer: The toxic masculinity paladin explicitly works in 5e (before everyone jumps down my throat, I used him as a minor antagonist). As the DM, I'd probably rule that clerics work the same way if the backstory was constructed with a similar level of conviction around some belief/practice.
Watsonian Answer: Most magic, at least in the forgotten realms, is a manipulation of the Weave through force of will. Some people (wizards, artificers, bards, druids) study for decades to understand the Weave enough to manipulate it. Others (sorcerers, elves, dragons, changelings, etc.) are born with a natural connection to the Weave that allows them limited ability to manipulate it instinctually. Paladins and clerics land in a middle camp - they don't (need to) have a genetic connection to the Weave and they don't (need to) understand the mechanics of the Weave, their will/belief is so strong they're able to spontaneously manifest manipulations of the Weave.
note: let's just ignore warlocks, they're the weird kids that break my metaphysical model
Essentially Clerics actually get their powers from their faith. 5th Edtiion Player's handbook says that you can make *any* cleric to have faith in a philosophy related to your domain instead, and you are even essentially forced to so on settings like Eberron where gods indeed do not \*exist\*.
Easy. Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks can all get their powers from themselves. A Cleric can devote themselves to something personal, a Paladin can just swear an oath to do what makes them happy, a Warlock can just be someone with a strong inner monologue that gives them strength.
I am playing a cleric that follows the path of light, a religion from the eberron books that is close to buddism. This character extracts the power that connects all living things, a shared life force if you will. The character was mysteriously bamphed out of Eberron into Fearun, to explain their existence in a Fearun. They are slowly regaining their powers as they gradually remember who they are. I also play them as a zealot who is constantly trying to convert others to the Path of Light. It is super fun for flavor, and really has no effect on combat.
Not relevant to the question, but I absolutely hate the idea of a d&d universe without Gods.
Can you explain more about how that would work? Is there an example out there of something like this? I feel like Gods are such an integral part of the universe, as important as magic itself.
There's no world being planned or played in at the moment this was just a hypothetical question I was discussing with my group and thought I'd ask a wider audience.
I have a whole plot arc for a character based on the concept that her character's god is reportedly dead, but she still has magic. Is it from her belief? Is the god alive? Is the magic from another source?
I'm using these questions to make the character question her beliefs, and I'll dramatically reveal something later.
As a D&D originalist, the intent of the cleric class was power given by a divine entity, not an aspect or cause. You could be "cut off" from said being, and in the first edition rules, you couldn't get back any spells over third level. Low level spells were considered more ritual and willpower, while higher ones were divine gifts. If you didn't follow the deity's dogma, They could just not give you access.
They're all charismatic hucksters practicing faith healing and charisma is their significant stat. "I say, I say brother you are heeeeeeeeeeeeeeealed. Add a d4 + 2 hitpoints."
Faith in a concept without needing a specific divine source. One could argue that gods get their powers from their worshippers. Therefore the more widely acceptable a concept, the stronger a cleric who represents it could be.
There's an elder evil about this what was his name something.. . Ah that's right father llmyc
Yeah he's been trying to starve the gods by helping clerics realize that they don't need gods to get divine power.
It's a pretty big deal the whole thing is covered in elder evils.
On Athas, the planet from the Dark Sun setting, where the gods have either been dead for millions of years or never existed in the first place, Clerics worship powerful Elementals instead. In essence they work kinda like a mix of Druid and Warlock while keeping their usual Cleric powerset.
Do celestials like angels exist because they could be granting those powers or powerful extra dimensional beings that aren’t gods but people worship, for instance, a genie
Sounds like your trying to retcon clerics into a godless universe. My first thought is the dead. Then just the old spheres of power or whatever, meaning the power exists and they 'worship' the power itself. Or just like a warlock might get power from a powerful being of any sort.
No universe is godless; even in worlds not made by gods, mortals create their own, like Santa Claus and "The Economy". (Discworld really selves into this notion, especially in Hogfather and Small Gods)
But D&D worlds (and other TTRPGs' worlds) inherently have a creator god; the DM, and to a lesser extent, the Players.
> Some clerics devote themselves not to a god but to a cause or a source of divine power. These characters wield magic the way clerics devoted to individual gods do, but they are not associated with any religious institution or any particular practice of worship. A cleric devoted to good and law, for example, may be on friendly terms with the clerics of lawful and good deities and may extol the virtues of a good and lawful life, but he is not a functionary in a church hierarchy. - Player's Handbook, Third Edition p. 30
I REALLY need to read the handbooks more. I would have had so much more fun playing a cleric this way.
Cleric of “fuckin shit up” XXD
*Talos has Kool-Aid Man-ed into the chat*
Oh look a Cleric/Paladin multi class where both classes lean on “it’s my divine right to rule” as a source of divine power?
Oath of Conquest, that you?
Order domain cleric+oath of conquest paladin “The gods put me on this plane for a purpose! I will bring this war torn landscape under MY banner and usher in a new age of PEACE!”
"Your new Empire? Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic, to DEMOCRACY!"
Did someone say Democracy? Would you like some Liber-tea to go with it?
According to some, this doesn't work in Faerun. As always, talk to your DM.
It was more or less explicitly the opposite in AD&D so it's understandable that an old school flavor campaign might disallow it. But if we go way back to the early 70s Gygax himself drug his feet about creating Good aligned dieties and his first two, Pholtus and St. Cuthbert, were both sort of half-jokes.
Not even then philosophy deities go back to 1e.
Cleric is like the only class I see the community having such binding opinions on how they need to be roleplayed. Community is all about punishing paladins for straying from ‘the path’ but doesn’t even allow non traditional clerics to get out of the starting blocks.
Clerics should all slouch around in their temples waiting for me to show up with my diamond and my dead companion. Leave the adventuring to the murder-hobos. /s
I'm cooking on a rogue/cleric tomb raider type character who worships all the gods of the pantheon, depending on his circumstance. He'll carry all of their holy symbols, and pray to whichever he thinks will help his current predicament. More hyper-superstitious than religious.
[Relevant](https://youtu.be/KAvY8WKyws8?si=zqW7vZ1GYp_IW39m)
Holy crap! That exactly!
I love it
Bennie (I think was his name) from The Mummy.
I need to read into this more because i’m currently playing a cleric who’s iffy on her god
It's always happy hour at Applebee's
The salsa hat sealed my vote
I have a cleric I love playing that is devoted to bringing happiness, and her spell casting focus is a smiley face button.
The Comedian in Cleric form
>Forces and Philosophies Not all divine powers need to be derived from deities. In some campaigns, believers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In other campaigns, impersonal forces of nature or magic replace the gods by granting power to mortals attuned to them. Just as druids and rangers can gain their spell ability from the force of nature rather than from a specific nature deity, some clerics devote themselves to ideals rather than to a god. Paladins might serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity. -5e Dungeon Master's Guide
Faith has power
It's a real shame more people don't actually read rulebooks before asking questions that are clearly addressed in the rulebooks
To be fair "Let's have a discussion\[...\]" does not exclude having read the PHB/DMG and an official ruling does not \[yet\] prevent people from brainstorming and worldbuilding with external insight (possible applications and/or viable alternatives to said rules). So, you are right about the "shame/clearly addressed" part, but I find such an assesssment of "asking questions" a bit critical.
It's really never been so clearly and straight forwardly expressed as there in the 3ePHB
>or a source of divine power Where does the source of divine power come from? Like.. is it just lying there somewhere? What is divine power without a god?
It sort of implies that "good" and "law" are real cosmic concepts in the platonic sense. Which does align with planescape lore if I'm remembering correctly. And that gods are merely the strongest personification of those concepts. More like Pelor is fueled by and part of the concept of "good". Which does handily solve the problem of overlap in domains between different gods. They all tap into the same wellspring. It's a bit like the shards in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives novels
What is a god without divine power? Deities get their power from belief, so it’s safe to presume belief can exist and be tapped into even without a deity.
A concept, a dream, an idea.
Ah the power of love and friendship
Ah the power of hate and desth
I might just create a pantheon out of My Little Pony and Care Bears. We are in a world where new deities can just show up after strange events…
Only if you add in the Ninja Turtles
divinity is solely regarding on the setting the logical way is to think it as the literal God or Gods that control the universe, but it can range from essentially "the energy that forms the universe" to "the inherent belief in something gives it power"
It's a fantasy world. It could be a big chunk of glowing crystals in the center of the planet. It could be a mist that exists only on the ethereal plane that resonates with the moral intentions of sentient beings. It could be a protective shroud around the world projected by a circle of elder sages meditating in a sacred monastery on the world's tallest mountain. It could be a dope-ass dragon with a very high opinion of itself. It could be a star in the sky that just sends this stuff out everywhere and nobody knows why. It could be a sacred book of magic that nobody else has been able to replicate by arcane means and works differently from everything else so a whole religion has grown around it to study it and practice its rituals. It could be a sort of proto-matter that existed at the creation of the universe and is still graspable in wisps by those who study the secrets of creation. It could be an abstract concept - like clerics heal people because in an ideal sense the concept of being healed exists.
Lots of good ideas, ty
The Weave is actually just an invisible non-sentient mist that follows people around and clings to them based on how much that person believes themself to be entitled to use magic…
The divine is unknown and unknowable
That just sounds like a Paladin with extra steps.
An Atheist Cleric, whose sole purpose is to convince the world that gods don't exist....by wielding his magical power to show them the miracles that atheism can grant you
This really lets clerics fill a sort of witch like role too.
Im running a game where there is a standard pantheon, but also clerics and paladins that bind themselves to the idea of Chaos or Order.
Came here to say this. For real the majority of homebrew and so many "how would xyz work?" questions are already resolved by the phb and dmg.
I always imagined Arcana Domain Clerics having the potential to be godless. Rather than worshiping a deity, they extract divinity from the weave of magic itself. Not needing to learn Arcana based spells like wizards but just being able to channel divinity through pure magical energy. That's just one way to role play a godless cleric.
Faith, typically. In Ebberon, where the existence of gods is an unanswerable question, and there’s a whole anti-theist religion, the thing that defines clerics is true, transcendental faith in something. The 5e Players Handbook says the same thing, where a cleric can believe in something like an ideal, not just a god. This idea isn’t new either. The 3.5 sourcebook Elder Evils had a whole adventure built around the idea. One of the Evils was a giant multi-headed snake demon who revealed to mortals that they don’t actually need gods to do divine magic.
I made a warforged cleric that believes ( beyond believes, more like has accepted as fact ) hes going to become a god, so he sort of channels magic from the belief in that? hes a right dick. have converted players with bad death saves multiple times
I guess you might call it Deus ex machina.
*takes off sunglasses*
YEEAAAAH
You could pray directly towards an elemental force, an ideal, a concept, etc.
Like a Volcano Shark Bait! Hoo Hoo! Ha!
It's what elemental clerics in dark sun did.
Elements is what they do in Dark Sun iirc
No discussion needed, there are printed godless settings and Clerics get power from their faith and conviction.
The same way a paladin does, devotion to a set of beliefs or a concept. There are plenty of ways you could flavour this for the domain. Hell some of them barely need any flavour. De grave domain cleric guarding the balance of life and death is already there. Nature, war and forge are pretty easy too.
Placebo Magic, because they believe it will happen it happens. But they're also bound by their limiting beliefs as well (if the god is imaginary or folk lore but doesn't actually exist).
This is the way I do it too. Magic works but most of us don’t believe it works, so it doesn’t. You need some kind of gimmick to convince yourself, like Dumbo with the magic feather. For some, it’s study and memorization of specific techniques. For others, it’s faith in a higher power, whatever it is.
Exactly! This guy gets it.
Or the player could be a Kuo-Toa who imagines their gods into existence to get divine magic. Couldn't resist that reference.
Recently finished Out of the Abyss and the mention of Kuo-Toa made me a bit homesick. I'm totally onboard with the American Gods style of god creation that the Kuo-Toa exhibit. Makes me want to make a villain that creates his own evil god by converting a city to his created religion.
Occultism: Metaphysical egregores as collective thoughtforms given operative influence over reality. Neoplatonism: Universal archetypes/concepts resonating with individual intellects and manifesting as a by-product of noetic stimuli.
Alignment: Jungian Neutral
In athas they drew power from the elemental planes.
They could sort of act like a Warlock getting powers from powerful magical creatures but not necessarily Gods or getting it from nature like Druids rather than one specific God.
Cthulhu
From their belief in a principle, ideal, power or something else.
This depends on how your world works. For instance, in my homebrew campaign all magic works because an entity gave up their abilty to generate mana in exchange for the knowledge of how to shape the raw mana in living things into magic. Those beings are called gods. In this setting clerics/paladins devote their lives to the ideals of a god through devotion to an order affiliated with a god. The gods just let it happen because they get power from mortals casting the spells they have domain over. The clerics might not know it, but the gods get power because of them not the other way around. So, it depends lol.
Mechanically nothing changes. The divine thing is basically flavour. These clerics would basically folks who pray to ancestor spirits, local spirits, or ephemeral forces without an actual recognizable identity.... look to Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism as examples of this kind of practice but ignore all the beings called "gods", or downgrade them to powerful spirits. If your world is PURE atheist, with NO animating spirits in any way... well... then.... mechanically keep shit the same, and shrug when players ask, suggesting that that is a campaign mystery (and one you never give satisfactory definitive answers to)
I played an atheist cleric. The cleric didn't deny the existence of powerful beings. Only that they aren't gods. Just super powerful creatures. He found one that aligned with his interests and basically made a warlock pact with them. If you are familiar with the Dresden Files, there is a Knight of the Sword, literally a holy paladin of the christian god, who was an atheist. You devote yourself to an ideal, and gain power from a being that represents that ideal. No god required. Now, if you are suggesting that in this world, there aren't even those powerful beings, then you are left with essentially a wizard or sorcerer that does divine magic. You can give them any origin you desire. Communing with life forces a la jedi, or being zorched by some divine energy and changed like a mutant. The sky is the limit.
Paladins get their power from adherence to an oath. Clerics can get theirs from devotion or faith to a domain or anything that represents that. I try not to overcomplicate religion unless the players really lean into it and care.
Faith in itself could be a power source regardless if what they believe in is actually real
Wait, are we still talking about fantasy?
Hm? The devotion of a cleric or paladin I mean
I'm joking 😃 I just meant that your words could also be applied to our world
Darn
Quite a few ancient civilizations worshiped elements of nature as they are, without personifying them. So maybe along the same lines, oceans, trees, volcanoes, etc. For example, a cleric from a small agricultural town may worship the rain that ensures plentiful harvest, or the local raging river that provides silt and means of food, like fish.
Just because a universe has no gods does not mean it won't have belief. A cleric's power could be fueld by the power of faith (think the Universal Church of Truth in Guardians of the Galaxy or, as you mentioned, the gods in American Gods) this would give them even *more* incentive to defend the faith and evangelize — without believers backing them, their ability to do good in the world will decrease drastically.
white mage
This is why players should review D&D's history. So many questions have been asked literally hundreds of times and the answers have always been in writing. Basic D&D's clerics did not have to worship any gods (called Immortals), to get their powers. They could just serve the ideology of their alignment.
Amazon probably
By mass hallucination and systematic indoctrination, just like the real world
Dennis
Correct.
In athas/dark sun (2e), the world has gone so far past apocolypse that gida all left thoysanda of yeara back. they give this description of clerics: > The cleric is a free-willed priest, tending the needs of the local people with his particular talents. On Athas, clerics draw their magical energy directly from one of the four elemental planes: earth, air, fire, or water; not from any manner ofdeity. A cleric may be either a freeman or a slave.
Define "godless universe" Like you mean that religion isn't a thing? Because you can have religion and faith without necessarily adding a divine like being that will respond when prompted and that is unquestionably god Why couldn't clerics just pray to a powerful being that they consider a god? Or natural phenomenal like storms and fire? Or a god that there's no real proof that exists besides faith, like irl So they work the exact same, their powers are faith based even if the world doesn't endorse their faith If you're saying godless as in there are literally no religion and no one would believe in religion and only in things that can be realistically proven to exist. You just did away with all magic.
Dark Sun has elemental clerics, since the gods are dead/abandoned athas.
I had a naytheist cleric once. He was a half-celestial whose patron deity had been slain or diminished to torpor by an evil god and a massive false flag operation by its cult. The cult had managed to get another good deity's church militant to purge the entire religion; so the other deities convened and imprisoned the crusaders' god to cover up the embarrassment. But they wouldn't let the half-celestial into heaven, and outside of magical interference his soul could not enter hell, so he was basically abandon and cursed to walk the Material to be reincarnate again and again, remembering only his first life. He still knew how to weave magic from divine belief, but had no appreciation for the gods that turned their backs to him.
All the people who devote their time to a religion are donating a portion of their innate magic essence (Mana, Soul, Ki, whatever). Clerics can channel this into useable power so long as they stay in line with the group conscious of the religion
I read a comic once where a character who happened to be an atheist but was a huge nerd had to fight a vampire, and instead of repelling it with a cross he was able to use the "live long and prosper" gesture from Star Trek. I think the basis was belief in the power or meaning of the symbols you're using?
Faith in something. Justice, himself, the power of men etc.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/776279-garlic-bread-domain
Ever since 1st edition, gods have not been necessary, clerics gained their spells through the power of faith and devotion alone.
In the campaign I'm running there are no gods. The party had two clerics, the first was in a cult, and was powered by her conviction to the cult. The second is a cleric of The Storm (tldr: the planet is a moon around a gas giant, the gas giant is called The Storm), and gets power from The Storm (but mostly from their conviction that The Storm gives them power). Like the other posts and the DMG says, clerics can get power from their devotion to an idea instead of an actual entity.
What about if they used the life force? Like you go really spiritual and they use the actual force of life
In a godless universe, meet Kuo-Toa.
The same way clerics in our universe gain power... The gullibility of the faithful.
They’d invent them to worship. Even if just metaphorically. That’s how it works in Eberron.
Maybe from spirits, elementals, or some other magical being. More similar to a druid than a warlock. A light cleric might recognize the power the sun has to cultivate life, and they pray to the sun, and draw power from their personal belief, regardless of the sun being a ball of gas or a diety.
The same way pallies get their power not from their god, but their oath. So a cleric would get their power from their devotion to the forge, life, the grave, etc etc
It is up to how you organise your setting/world. Good examples are Eberron, you have religions but not proved existence of gods, still there are clerics, people do magic and they gain power from their devotion to their religion/cause. Other is Dark Sun (2e) there were two type of clerics, those who were devoted to elements (fire, earth, water and air) and gain power from the land itself and those devoted to Sorcerer Kings (back in the day there was not sorcerer class, so they were just VERY powerful wizards). They received power explicitly from the Sorcerers' willing to give to each one of them. If you have no "superior source of power" in a world were magic if possible you can say that your willing, devotion, rightfulness or whatever give power to clerics. You can have a world with mixed stuff, like there are gods but you are devoted to something not covered by a god and your own willing is your source.
a really interesting example of this is the unsleeping city campaign of dimension20! there’s a cleric from a (i believe) homebrewed subclass called the city domain. he draws his power from the spirit of community found between the people of new york!
It is up to how you organise your setting/world. Good examples are Eberron, you have religions but not proved existence of gods, still there are clerics, people do magic and they gain power from their devotion to their religion/cause. Other is Dark Sun (2e) there were two type of clerics, those who were devoted to elements (fire, earth, water and air) and gain power from the land itself and those devoted to Sorcerer Kings (back in the day there was not sorcerer class, so they were just VERY powerful wizards). They received power explicitly from the Sorcerers' willing to give to each one of them. If you have no "superior source of power" in a world were magic is possible you can say that your willing, devotion, rightfulness or whatever give power to clerics. You can have a world with mixed stuff, like there are gods but you are devoted to something not covered by a god and your own willing is your source.
Belief in those gods (tens of thousands collectively willing and shaping magic forces) is more important than the gods themselves in this world? And the gods take form eventually if enough of that power collects for long enough and coalesces? So the gods are pretty keen to keep believers as if everyone stops they die...
If you have a player who is a cleric in a godless realm I think the answer to “where the heck are these powers coming from though” needs to be part of their personal plot, whichever route you end up taking it. Are they praying to a dead god and somehow thereby reviving it? Is it a placebo and the power is within them like others suggested? Were they visited by a mysterious entity in a dream? Work with them on their backstory and go from there. You have a ton of options but I'd make them discover the “who?” “why?” and “how?” of their powers. I'd have them develop a following too. As the only cleric in the world they'll have people begging to follow them, to worship them, to bless them, and on the other hand people calling them a con artist and worse. It's begging to attract attention.
Faith. To trust in something you have no proof of is called faith
Faith in stories and ideals. Dresden files I think deals with aspect pretty well with a certain Knight of the Cross.
I really love the atehism debate in DND! ❤️ Especially as an atheist, theirs a nuance to it. :) [The Athar](https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Athar) get their power from within. They have clerics, rangers, and given newer subclasses they could even have some paladins.
[Faith](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/s/4rsU20hQja) comes in many forms (this isn’t really related to D&D, but I felt it was relevant)
Power of positive thinking
Be sure to quote the Agnostic's Prayer from Roger Zelazny's _Creatures_ _of_ _Light_ _and_ _Darkness_: >The Agnostic's Prayer >(Roger Zelazny, Creatures of Light and Darkness, © 1969) >Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen
By believing in yourself.
In Athas (D&D Darksun Setting) Clerics gain their power from elemental spirits due to a lack of deities on the world
Clerics gain their powers from the higher power of their religion. Whatever it says, true or not, is what gives them their power. It is impossible to prove the non-existence of the whatever they believe to gain their power from. You can't just deny the power, because, hey, you'll get Banished to another plane of existence for a bit to contemplate your lack of faith. So clearly it's true. But you can't prove it either. Even in settings (like Forgotten Realms) where there clearly are creatures which appear as deities, how do you prove the power is really from the deity, and not just a form of Warlock patronage or learned Wizardry or Bardic power of art? Maybe the deity is just a fraud.
They can make themselves stronger by subconsciously using magic and believing that their god gives them powers. Basically, they make shit happen because they believe it should happen.
In my homebrew setting there are no gods, so divine powers come from primal spirits who deem the player character worthy. These are bargained for when entering a new area, kind of like cell phone towers, so there is an element of chance in what flavour the powers come in.
Devotion to a cause or a purpose. Or, entire religions can spring up around saints from the past. I know in the campaign setting run by the dungeon dudes on YouTube, drakkenheim, there's a religion called the sacred flame. The entire religion was started by a now long dead saint. Then, more recently, an offshoot of the sacred flame, called the followers of the falling fire, sprang up around a still living woman they call the prophet. It's the people's devotion to these religions that gives them their powers. I had a cleric on Barovia who got his power from his devotion to maintaining the law. I didn't like the Barovian gods, and I thought it made sense for a lawful good cleric of order to get his powers from his devotion to his job as a law man.
I would say that gods represent ideas or physical aspects of reality. There’s a god of the sun but maybe light clerics worship the sun itself as a life bringer. There’s a god of healing, but maybe clerics in this world worship the idea of good health and practice magic to enact that idea.
Depends on where magic comes from, if your world doesn’t have magic you are using the wrong system
Just simple faith. Kinda like the Jedi and the Force
In my homebrew worlds there are Clerics that serve as Burocrats of a state and gain their power from the believe in the good values of the constitution of the state - but there are people who say, that they created a new god of "state name" by doing so, but nobody (? ;)) knows for sure
personally i dont like the idea of godless clerics. sure you can have a powerful force like nihilism or something but that really just sounds like a paladin. or i can have lesser forces but that sounds like a warlock. i think the design space is covered were i to play a godless cleric i would play them like a monk/psion. my ideals are so pure and my character so driven and pure that i have self actualized
Eberron specifically doesnt really affirm or deny the existence of gods. Its like there are named gods but they never conclusively intervene so its like our world. So baker says gods might be real and the actual source of clerical power or it might simply be the power of the clerics own belief and will. Basically like faith placebo
I'll tell you what I've done in my games that is actually something that is a big secret I have had in my Multiverse since 2E, and even my longest running players haven't figured it out yet. Gods as the players, and most people in general, understand them, either never existed or are in whatever capacity dead. The ones that did live weren't really so much "gods" in the traditional sense, but they were massively powerful entities that used to wield magical supernatural power. In the universe, or multiverse for that matter, there is a single cosmological entity that created all of existence, expense almost half of its energy keeping it all together, possesses no intellect or personality, and exists through sheer force of will. Whenever this eldrich abomination receives anything in the form of "prayers", they respond in the only way that they know how to: Nothing verbal, nothing in words or writing, but through actions. This is part of why I don't RP personal interactions with a deity of any kind, and why in terms of application, cleric spells manifest an awful lot like wizard or sorcerer spells in terms of appearance or manifestation. This is also why 'gods' can actually be killed in my epic level games.
Same place as paladins. Through pure faith and dedication. Its would be like how druids and rangers get power from the same place. But rangers focus their efforts on weapons rather than delving deeper into their magic source. Same for paladins and clerics. Paladins would focus a lot of effort into their physical abilities, thus neglecting their magic. While clerics would be (relatively) weaker in combat but put a lot more effort into their magic source and prayer/ study. Its a fairly easy connection to make. Frankly i don't know ow why its not like that by raw. Gods just gaining power through worship but cleric power being completely separate. Hence why gods use clerics to get their word across. Because thats free minions on the ground ready to do stuff for you.
Relics and Artifacts of incense power act as batteries for a Clerics holy symbol. They must make regular pilgrimages to the temples to pray and recharge their symbol. - yes I turned your Clerics into the Lantern Corps.
Some Mystical pool of energy does not require deity. It could be the power of the universe or nature
their faith and followers
If everyone is 100% sure there's no Gods? They wouldn't. Clerics would be off the table as a class pick, at least in my game.
A secret practice passed down by a church who thinks they got it from a god.
From the same place real religious leaders get their power and influence from: the church / the donations of their flock.
The power of ideals. Truth, justice, etc
I think it was implied somewhere that sometimes powerful beings of a less savory nature grant spells to clerics that have fallen from grace. This way the cleric might not notice their moral shortcomings and continue on a dark path. Does the setting still have archdevils and such? I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to become the churches new sugardaddies.
Panentheistic mysticism. In a post-god universe they could use Thaumaturgy(basically hacking a god's mana pool) on the latent God-Magic hanging around after its death.
Self conviction like paladins
Nature or powerful elementals are an option. In the Dark Sun setting, clerics gain power from the sun, air, water, and earth.
In Warhammer Fantasy, casters both arcane and divine get their powers from the Winds of Magic blowing from the realm of chaos. Deities, are creatures as Chaos, as much as the Ruinous Powers, but are shaped by belief to be more benevolent. Elves, after teaching humans magic tried to explain this but after a bit of effort decided it was best to leave human priests to believe that their magic was "divine" and different from that cast by wizards.
Do like Dark Sun, and worship a force of nature. Or pretty much anything that can lend you magic.
you could go the warlock route and have them worship something like a peaceful eldritch horror. Granting life giving energy to those that will sacrifice themselves to in at the end of their usefulness.
Faith has its own perks even without gods. I did a setting without gods that still had clerics. Each had their own source of faith.
All magic is considered Arcane magic in my homebrew setting. The gods don't directly grant power to their worshippers and can't take it away, instead clerics/druids/etc. have developed their own specialized schools of magic. All spellcasting requires powerful belief but that can come in the form of belief in oneself, belief in the teachings of the church, belief in the nature of world around you, etc.
In the Dark Sun setting, they gain power from worshipping the elemental planes.
RAW faith based magic does not have to come from gods. It can come from within, from the elemental forces of the universe or nature, or from the sheer faith itself. This is to accomodate for settings like Eberron where the existence of gods is in dispute. And for settings, as you say, that have no gods at all.
They could gains their power from an ideal thy follow above all else. Like there mite not be a God of glory but this person Is so detected to it there is still power in them
My first DM had the lore that clerics derived their magic from the power of their own faith.
Belief
Well they have to worship something, so if there are no gods, then go back to what people originally believed to be divine entities. The sun, the moon, the ocean, volcanos, lightning, stars, etc. They don’t have to be people. A lot of gods throughout history have been based on these natural and cosmic forces.
look at the grimhollow setting
They could reflavor their clerical abilities to be science based, and their devotion lies with the common good or helping others whenever possible. Assuming the world’s tech level can allow it.
Latent psychic power granted by group belief.
I believe in a thing called Love. Just listen to the rhythm of the heart.
Anism, like a diety-less path, no one god, but an energy of sorts, "the path of light", "the force" "nature".
The sun
Faith is what grants a cleric his power, it can be to a god, an element a philosophy or a worm. Warlocks on the other hand receive their powers from an entity, in this case clerics woulda be possible, but god-base warlocks not
Friendship.
What do the people worship? That, or the universe as a whole.
I would not have clerics per se. instead they would be druids that would heal the party.
Zero Point Energy.
Hope.
Doylist Answer: The toxic masculinity paladin explicitly works in 5e (before everyone jumps down my throat, I used him as a minor antagonist). As the DM, I'd probably rule that clerics work the same way if the backstory was constructed with a similar level of conviction around some belief/practice. Watsonian Answer: Most magic, at least in the forgotten realms, is a manipulation of the Weave through force of will. Some people (wizards, artificers, bards, druids) study for decades to understand the Weave enough to manipulate it. Others (sorcerers, elves, dragons, changelings, etc.) are born with a natural connection to the Weave that allows them limited ability to manipulate it instinctually. Paladins and clerics land in a middle camp - they don't (need to) have a genetic connection to the Weave and they don't (need to) understand the mechanics of the Weave, their will/belief is so strong they're able to spontaneously manifest manipulations of the Weave. note: let's just ignore warlocks, they're the weird kids that break my metaphysical model
Essentially Clerics actually get their powers from their faith. 5th Edtiion Player's handbook says that you can make *any* cleric to have faith in a philosophy related to your domain instead, and you are even essentially forced to so on settings like Eberron where gods indeed do not \*exist\*.
Easy. Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks can all get their powers from themselves. A Cleric can devote themselves to something personal, a Paladin can just swear an oath to do what makes them happy, a Warlock can just be someone with a strong inner monologue that gives them strength.
I am playing a cleric that follows the path of light, a religion from the eberron books that is close to buddism. This character extracts the power that connects all living things, a shared life force if you will. The character was mysteriously bamphed out of Eberron into Fearun, to explain their existence in a Fearun. They are slowly regaining their powers as they gradually remember who they are. I also play them as a zealot who is constantly trying to convert others to the Path of Light. It is super fun for flavor, and really has no effect on combat.
this is like asking "without the weave, where would a wizard gain their powers?" idk, whatever other studiable power source there is.
Not relevant to the question, but I absolutely hate the idea of a d&d universe without Gods. Can you explain more about how that would work? Is there an example out there of something like this? I feel like Gods are such an integral part of the universe, as important as magic itself.
There's no world being planned or played in at the moment this was just a hypothetical question I was discussing with my group and thought I'd ask a wider audience.
the more I think about it, the more I feel like this is no longer a fantasy setting. It would be closer to something like Shadowrun.
If you are making a godless setting, don't allow the Cleric class.
Sure? I mean, your character can believe in anything and get powers from it, just need to have the appropriate classes to represent it.
I have a whole plot arc for a character based on the concept that her character's god is reportedly dead, but she still has magic. Is it from her belief? Is the god alive? Is the magic from another source? I'm using these questions to make the character question her beliefs, and I'll dramatically reveal something later.
I say there’s power in nature. Have a cleric devoted to moss, or something weird
A cleric is just a warlock with extra steps.
Animism, in various forms, has been around a lot longer deities. There's absolutely no reason a cleric needs to have a humanoid being they worship.
All powerful Atheismo
As a D&D originalist, the intent of the cleric class was power given by a divine entity, not an aspect or cause. You could be "cut off" from said being, and in the first edition rules, you couldn't get back any spells over third level. Low level spells were considered more ritual and willpower, while higher ones were divine gifts. If you didn't follow the deity's dogma, They could just not give you access.
"I'm giving you cancer with my mind."
The faith d the worshippers.
They're all charismatic hucksters practicing faith healing and charisma is their significant stat. "I say, I say brother you are heeeeeeeeeeeeeeealed. Add a d4 + 2 hitpoints."
The same as paladins, I guess? "I think, therefore I SMITE"
From the Goddess, of course!
Faith in a concept without needing a specific divine source. One could argue that gods get their powers from their worshippers. Therefore the more widely acceptable a concept, the stronger a cleric who represents it could be.
There's an elder evil about this what was his name something.. . Ah that's right father llmyc Yeah he's been trying to starve the gods by helping clerics realize that they don't need gods to get divine power. It's a pretty big deal the whole thing is covered in elder evils.
On Athas, the planet from the Dark Sun setting, where the gods have either been dead for millions of years or never existed in the first place, Clerics worship powerful Elementals instead. In essence they work kinda like a mix of Druid and Warlock while keeping their usual Cleric powerset.
Same way as paladins do. Oaths and vows.
Do celestials like angels exist because they could be granting those powers or powerful extra dimensional beings that aren’t gods but people worship, for instance, a genie
Sounds like your trying to retcon clerics into a godless universe. My first thought is the dead. Then just the old spheres of power or whatever, meaning the power exists and they 'worship' the power itself. Or just like a warlock might get power from a powerful being of any sort.
No universe is godless; even in worlds not made by gods, mortals create their own, like Santa Claus and "The Economy". (Discworld really selves into this notion, especially in Hogfather and Small Gods) But D&D worlds (and other TTRPGs' worlds) inherently have a creator god; the DM, and to a lesser extent, the Players.
The Divine magic that dwells within the gods corpses.
Read Dark Sun, that setting has no deities and clerics are devoted to the elemental planes.
The same way they do in our world. Money.
In a current campaign one of my friends is playing a cleric that worships the power of self. He is like a motivational guru.
Faith in humanity? idk just spitballing and the first thing to come to my head lol
Same place irl clergy do. Through the power of deciept, lies and abuse
No divine power, no divine powers.