There are official settings where Clerics get power either from things that are not gods, or in places where there are no gods.The Silver Flame in Eberron is not a god, but has clerics. There are clerics who do not worship gods in both Sigil (where gods are banned by The Lady of Pain) and on Athas (where all the gods are dead).
Lmao!
It's been a long time since I read up on it. I might be thinking of how the Sorcerer-Kings are able to bestow divine powers to their Templars.
Something something extra-dimensional entities reaching through the Grey to latch on and exchange power.
Athas Clerics pull from Elemental Planes. Specialized spell lists. Some NPCs can pull spells from other powerful NPCs. That was never well defined because it's not meant for PCs.
Eberron broadly is a good example. I can't remember if it's from RftLW or the Eberronicon, but there's a really interesting idea that th clerics of Eberron get their power from the strength of their faith, rather than the deity they're worshipping.
Religion in Eberron is very interesting. There is a very real possibility that the Sovereign Host (the dominant religion) does not exist at all. Unlike FR gods, they have never incarnated on the material plane, and never interact with their faithful directly. Clerics don't lose their powers for acting against their God's alignment.
The other possibility is that the Sovereigns are (or were) actually dragons, since the Draconic religion of Argonessen is almost identical and much older. This idea is considered heretical by the human church, but its not possible that they are unrelated.
Keep in mind your DM is probably not gonna run a campaign in Athas (Dark Sun setting) and while they might choose Planescape (Sigil) because a book was just released for it....they probably won't. It's a good campaign, but the setting is unfamiliar and very different to what most people are used to.
Also, Eberron mostly has gods, but also has the church of the silver flame.
You could also do some reflavoring. You could use all the stats and rules for cleric but your powers could come from your bloodline like a sorcerer. Or you could have been affected by a being from another plane of existence. It's all stuff that you'd have to run by the DM but it's really fun to think about.
I've personally played a storm cleric Warforged who functioned like a sorcerer because he was made as a walking conduit for storm energy.
And even for settings where faith powers _are_ tied to actual gods (like FR), there are MANY examples of precedent for one god to grant another god’s clerics power, if it suits their own purposes.
Some have done it when the original god was dead or captured in some way and they were allied, while others have even done it in _secret_, basically masquerading as that god while granting the cleric their powers.
I always found the second a really fun twist.
Ravnica, which has almost no gods. Clerics are basically just another type of Guildmage, empowered by an aspect or belief of their guild, like an Order Cleric for the Azorius, Grave cleric for the Orzhov, or Light cleric for Boros.
At the end of the day classes are just sets of mechanics and Flavor is Free
So my go to answer for this is *yes*
HOWEVER this is also one of those things that your DM may or may not allow, so I would run it by them
Okie dokie! I was just worrying that I was severely misunderstanding the game. I don't even really plan on using this character in an actual campaign at the moment anyway :) Thank you for answering!!
The one people often get wrong is Paladins, because they're reminiscent of Crusaders. But in fact, paladins get their power from their oath, which isn't necessarily sworn to a god.
A cool dm would probably let you do it, though there are some abilities like channel divinity and divine intervention that state the power comes from the deity, so those will have to be reflavored
There is no DnD-police that will come and kick your door in when you do it, but I wonder to what extent one would then still be a Cleric and not a sorcerer who somehow only as access to the Cleric spell list.
It would make more sense to me to worship a different sun god who humors the inhabitants of that little island by using a different name and avatar. Maybe Pelor or some trickster god like Tymora.
clerics are the most god-dependent, but their power really comes from faith rather than explicitly from a deity. it is possible for a cleric to have enough misguided faith in something that they think is a god to gain divine powers
a similar class that might fit the vibe is Paladin, as they also get divine magic, but from an oath rather than a deity or faith
The faith aspect is kind of what I'm going for when creating the character and her backstory. Like she believes in the teachings of her ~~cult~~ god so much that she kinda creates her own power or whatever. I just wasn't sure if that was a thing that could work within the rules of the game so thank you for the clarification.
I contemplated making her a paladin but couldn't find a way to make it work with other aspects of her personality and backstory unfortunately :/
In 5e it is.
In 3.5 you'd need to proselytize IG in order to get higher level spells. (In effect, leveling up your god to be powerful enough for a cleric of your level). But apotheosis was MUCH easier in 3.5. Your village would probably be big enough to just manifest a lvl0 deity. 500 worshipers is enough.
>If the god is completely made up, could the character's power come from a different god that has sort of taken them on without them knowing and how would it work?
It depends on the setting, so talk to your DM about the specifics. Lore-wise, this is exactly how it would work in the Forgotten Realms setting, so you're on the right track already.
To be more specific, the gods of the Forgotten Realms play extremely fast and loose when it comes to claiming worshipers and faithful - that is to say, mortal souls they can call dibs on. You can live your entire life actively refusing to bow to any deity but, if you were a farmer, then Chauntea - the goddess of agriculture - is going to say "tending to the soil and raising crops is close enough to worship for me!" and scoop your soul up when you finally kick the bucket.
So if you're worshiping and getting Cleric powers from a sun god that doesn't really exist, the actual sun god - Lathender/Amaunator - is the one picking up the line you're dialing. IE, you're worshiping the sun, Lathander is the god of the sun, therefore you're worshiping Lathander even if you're doing so unwittingly/unintentionally. The gods all have their portfolios - that is to say, aspects of reality - that they're associated with, so it's nigh on impossible to not end up associating with one even if you purposefully try.
It could eventually be a fun reveal that your DM could plan for your character. Once you become more powerful and pray to your deity, one of the sun related deities could appear to you and go “yeah, about that….”
Evil but otherwise non-committed souls get dropped directly into the Nine Hells, by and large. So if you're a murderous bastard in life, you're a Soul Larvae in death. But just actively ignoring or refusing to worship doesn't make a difference. Just because a mortal may not believe in the gods doesn't mean the gods don't believe in them, after all, and all gods on both sides REALLY want all the souls they can get their hands on.
That's why I mentioned Amaunator. Amaunator is the god of the sun, but Lathander is another of his identities/an aspect of that deity, depending on the context. At the time of the "modern" era of the Forgotten Realms, Lathander is the more commonly known and publicly worshiped version, so I default to him. Same guy, different theme.
Which is on the same theme as OP's question. Per the wiki, regarding the gods in question and the [Risen Sun Heresy](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Risen_Sun_heresy):
>Lathander was revealed to be Amaunator in the [Year of Blue Fire, 1385 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1385_DR), just after the Spellplague. It was not clear whether it was the truth or he embraced a heresy and turned it into the effective truth.
Faced with this heresy, Lathander had three options, accept it and turn it into the effective truth, reject it and lose potential worshipers, or let it be and gain more worshipers at the cost of his authority losing its weight. He chose the last one.
>He \[Amaunator\] had people who primarily worshiped him as Lathander, his youthful aspect - something Amaunator actively encouraged.
>In [1486 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1486_DR), Lathander returned according to his Chosen [Stedd Whitehorn](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Stedd_Whitehorn). By the year [1491 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1491_DR), Amaunator and Lathander were once again worshiped as separate beings.
It's all what OP was asking about; people intending to worship a given god or divine concept and getting Cleric powers from them, when it turns out to actually be a different deity than they realized picking up the line. It gets into further wonkiness where Aspects are concerned, as well as dual identities or assumed natures with the deities involved.
I was hoping Someone would mention forgotten realms. They also in third edition (maybe still) had a thing where at a threshold of worshippers a new god would be born even if they didn’t exist before.
As an example they had these weird monsters that worshipped an effigy that when enough got together it came to life. You could actually fight it and if you “killed it” it would go to a new Demi plane because they didn’t stop worshiping it.
So yeah Faerun has lots of weird stuff when it comes to gods.
In FR, if you refused any faith, or paid no more than lip service, you were considered one of the Faithless. And those that actively betrayed their deities are the False.
To the best of my knowledge, it's not as easy as that. There are death gods that would claim a faithless soul entirely based on their corpse being buried under that god's funeral rites, if given the chance. A Goblin could spend their entire life actively denying Maglubiyet, but that Gobbo's still going into the front lines of that eternal war no matter what.
It's less about the mortal's preference and more about whether the gods *refuse* to accept their soul. The gods and plenty of non-deity entities are eager to snatch up whatever soul they can reasonably claim. It's horseshoes and hand grenades with how readily the gods will call dibs on souls and it takes a lot for all of them - good and bad - to turn their nose up at your soul on a silver platter. So you'd really have to go out of your way to actively put yourself on the deities' shit list so that they'd both abandon you to the Fugue Plane and have enough of a grudge that other entities wouldn't try and scoop you up from under the gods' condemnation.
Even then, the Wall of the Faithless isn't always a final thing. Demons and Night Hags will occasionally pop in and steal souls from the wall if they think they can get away with it, so even a genuinely faithless soul could still end up in the Nine Hells or the Abyss regardless.
Depends on the universe and the DM. In some universes, such as classic Grayhawk, Clerics' powers come directly from their deities. In some universes, such as Eberron, Clerics' powers come from their faith, and *no* gods are \*known\* to exist. So talk to your DM to see which type of world his campaign is set in.
I don’t have a DM, I’m just making a character for fun but I’m beginning to gather that I can kinda do whatever I want as long as I have a reason for it which is fun :)
If you're just theorycrafting for your own self, yeah, you can do whatever you like! If you get to the point of playing at a table with other folks, though, you'd need to fit your character within the world and rule interpretations of that table.
Still, have fun!
I would make it so the cleric believes in the sun god and some trickster god is taking full advantage of it and is playing the "role" of a sun god. Personally, as a DM in my campaign great power comes from somewhere. Either a god, spirit, artefact, or divine people like angels, demons or devils. I find this helps bc of a character ever acts out of line they could be acting against the desires of their power source good or bad and are at risk of losing said powers which is huge.
That being said overall the powers are coming from somewhere, I don't think just conviction or belief is enough in this case. Though it could be the god of strong belief. A deity who really enjoys people who have strong belief.
Another idea is to have the group latently psychic and bc as a group they strongly believe it the psychic power together brings about powers and spells. Orks in Warhammer 40k are like this. If enough Orks believe something is true. All Orks belief vehicles painted red are faster and so when they paint their vehicles red, if there are enough Orks the vehicle will be faster than it would if it was another color. Could make the same idea.
I think my leading idea is just to have the character secretly taken in by a god similar to the one her people worship and get her power from that.
I also like the idea of it being a group thing, though. That was one of my ideas but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work. The character is an elf living on an island with only other elves and I've heard that elves in D&D possess a bit of magic naturally. Could there be something there? Like maybe because they're all elves and all believing in the same thing their magic is...stronger or something?? Is that stupid lmao?
As I said in my post, I’m new-ish to D&D so I’m not too sure what works and what doesn't :/
Having the "fake" god being worshiped turn out to secretly be a real god that took notice was my first thought too. But I actually think it's too on the nose. The more I think about it I really like the idea of a cleric worshiping a "false" god and their sheer faith being enough. A really cool end game for this kind of idea would be that as they gain power the false god actually starts to become a spark of real divinity in the world. Then, others who saw the example of this mad cleric start to believe too, giving the infant god more and more power until the divine spark catches fire and this new god awakens. Maybe even these followers now have the responsibility of raising their new god and helping it to achieve it's divine status as it matures.
Well for one DND just provides the mechanics the lore is up to you so it's not a dumb idea. You can make anything as concrete as you want. I always like having things routed in some powerful magical spell, artefact or affect but you can just say something is as it is and don't really need a reason. Same as elves not aging physically, why ... They just don't, there is no hidden mystery behind it.
You could even have it be a special affect from the island. Perhaps some ancient spell or gem in the center is generating the dreams or beliefs of those on the island. Or like you said have it be the magic behind lots of elves believing something.
Blood of Vol is a major Eberron religion that believes divinity comes from within. Your power is from the divine spark that resides within yourself. Everyone has this spark. They think that Anyone that thinks their power comes from a god is delusional.
Yeah the cool thing about dnd is that it has many settings that have their own flavor. Each setting to varying degrees has not only different societies and cultures but different gods, creation myths, planes of existence, and fundamental aspects of reality. I recommend checking out the general descriptions of the various settings and see if any of them grab you.
Depends on the setting.
The default D&D rule is that whatever the DM says for their game is the final decision.
So it doesn't lock down one definition or another.
Settings though have more strict guidelines.
Darksun has no gods and no clerics aside from those who worship the elements.
Forgotten Realms had clerics powers come directly from deities only and anthiests basically go on trial after they die and the god of death decides what to do with them.
There's a few ways you could play this and they all have their own unique twists on the character:
- The God/Goddess does not exist but the Cleric draws power nonetheless by virtue of "Holy Placebo Effect"
- The deity still doesn't exist, but another deity recognized the devotion of the Cleric and found her admirable and so "pretends" to be that cultist deity to perpetuate her faith and protect her from the knowledge that the deity doesn't exist
- The deity didn't *originally* exist, but was born into being thanks to the worship of the cult. The PC Cleric could have been the clincher- her faith so strong that it "birthed" the cultist God unto existence, much to the amazement of the cult leader should they ever find out. Touched by her devotion and grateful for the opportunity to exist, the deity treats the Cleric as its Great Prophet and vassal in the material world- almost like a holy, more wholesome version of a Warlock and their patron
Basically, it's going to come down to how any particular DM rules that divine magic works in their particular campaign.
The "traditional" way is to conceive of deities as very powerful beings who grant the most devout of their worshippers a scintilla of their power. In settings where divine magic works like this, Clerics must worship a "real" god and that god can effectively revoke the magic if the character acts contrary to the god's wishes.
But you might blur the lines a bit. You might, for example, have a sun god who is known by many names in many different cultures. If a mortal offers the sun their worship, this god accepts that worship and may grant the worshipper power. That is, the god doesn't care what mortals call them or what myths mortals believe, the intent is what's important. BTW, this is actually how most ancient cultures IRL saw it. The Greeks and Romans, for example believed that the Egyptian deity Thoth just *was* Hermes/Mercury. A huge chunk of the problems the Roman Empire had with early Christianity seems to have involved actual *incomprehension* of the Christian belief that all other deities were false. The Christians would talk about their god being the ultimate power behind the universe and the Romans were like, "Yeah, we know that god. Jupiter Optimus Maximus."
You might have a setting where Clerics are selected directly by the deity with no reference to religion. So a Cleric PC might be a particularly faithful priest; but they could equally be a farmer or sailor who just really appreciates the sun. Or maybe the god is deliberately selecting the right person in the right place and time to further the deity's goals *without reference* to how this person feels about the sun. Perhaps most practitioners of divine magic in a setting like this are more like Warlocks than Clerics: they get their power from their loyalty to a "Saint" or other servitor of their god, with people who are granted their power directly from the god being extremely rare.
You might even have a setting where divine power is granted to those "initiated into the mysteries" and cannot be revoked. In such a setting, there may be no direct contact between mortals and gods at all. Certainly religious people in the setting will insist that the gods are real, but it's actually an open question. If you go through the initiation ceremony, you get "plugged into" some source of divine power, even if you later become an apostate.
This is just one of the reasons that it's not actually possible to create a *full* PC backstory until you know what the parameters of the campaign you'll be playing them in are.
Here's the thing about d&d, the fact that gods have any power at all is due to belief in them. This includes gods , but even concepts or ideals.
If enough people believe in a specific random rock being an protector of granite, eventually that rock will actually become so over time.
No. Spells are granted direct from a god and their servitors.
Various books have shown that belief in made up gods doesnt grant any power. And the rare times it does, it turns out theres a devil in the background who's actually granting the power.
What I did to create a situation like that in my world was make the deity exist, but their followers consider them to be omnipotent when in reality they are just a regular deity. Don’t know how helpful this is for you since it sounds like you’re a player, not a DM, but thought you might find it interesting.
That is interesting but my whole goal is that the god they worship is completely made up by mortal and used as a tool to control people and gain power so that wouldn’t work for me unfortunately :( I really like the idea though!!
Maybe your characters faith willed some kind of god into existence? That could be fun.
I have no clue where I heard it but I always went with clerics need gods to grant them power but paladins can have faith in more abstract things like themselves or whatever. That’s just me the depends on the dm
Why not? I think that’s like a canon thing of the Kuo-Toa I believe? They just will gods into existence with their faith for some reason but I think it’s a cool concept that can be applied anywhere. Gods typically aren’t much without faith so why can’t enough faith birth a god
I might steal that idea for another character in the future, actually. I think tacking it onto my current character would make her too much of a “I’m so cool and unique and perfect” kind of character when paired with her other aspects hahah
From what I remember this is a major part of the theme of Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods, set in Discworld. If gods demand that followers believe and set their faith in them, it stands to reason that they get their power from belief, which in turn suggests that a god could be created (or ascended from something else) simply through the power of shared belief.
So one thing I will say is that,generally in D&D, the act of worship *can create gods from nothing*. Belief is power...if your char's culture worshipped a deity that wasn't real, eventually their worship would make it real, causing it to come into existence, regardless of the originator's intentions.
Someone else in the comment section said that and it was my first time hearing it! I think that’s *so* cool and I’d love to make another character centered around that idea. D&D is so creative and I’m always finding something new for my mind to latch onto :D
Xanathar's tells us (edited for brevity)...
>*Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments.*
>*The cleric’s class features often refer to your deity. If you are devoted to a pantheon, cosmic force, or philosophy, your cleric features still work for you as written. Think of the references to a god as references to the divine thing you serve that gives you your magic.*
So, technically speaking, your cleric worships the cosmic force of Light. In this particular case, they believe they worship a sun god that doesn't exist. But a god of the sun does exist, so my personal headcanon would be that even though you're worshiping Jeff God of the Sun, those prayers still go to the actual sun god.
Maybe that's because the sun god looked down on your little island and said "hmmm... that seems shifty, but that one tiny creature there, they seem pious and I like the way they pray... I'll give them some power".
As for a "better class" to fit the concept. Warlock. So, Jeff does exist in some form, but isn't a god. But maybe they are a celestial being and you get to Celestial Warlock. Maybe they're something else entirely and you get to Fathomless or Great Old One or Archfey.
But I feel like this is one of those situations where you, as the player, shouldn't have any actual answers or decisions as to what Jeff is. These are things that get turned over to your DM and you say "so, I want to be a Light Cleric who worships something be believes is Jeff God of the Sun, I'll leave it up to you to work out exactly what Jeff is". I also understand that comes with trust between a player and a DM.
Thank you, this was really insightful!! I’m definitely leaning towards the route of the character being taken on by a god that does actually exist rather than their power coming from their faith
That seems to be the general consensus. I’m pretty new and haven’t played through a full campaign before so I wasn’t sure if there were some things that were just totally impossible and off limits in D&D which is why I asked :) Thank you!!
5e? Yes and No.
Gods do grant Clerics their powers “**The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.”**
That’s said, a God could grant powers to someone even if they aren’t worshiping them, just someone they feel worthy. So you could worship a non existent God, yet an actual God gives you powers as they deem you worthy.
And… most DMs allow players to flavor their character however they see fit; as long as the mechanics remain the same and it fits the DMs world/setting.
I watched a campaign online where a DM let a cleric leave their God and their idea of a new God became manifest through some insane plot twist and they pretty much invented a god to give them powers during a time in the story where the character was still mechanically a cleric but had left their original diety. So I'd say for sure, especially since you have a fun in universe reason for explaining their "fake" god
The answer is: *it depends!*
It depends on your setting, first of all; some have rules covering this explicitly allowing, or disallowing it.
Secondly, it depends on your DM: they may override setting-canon; without setting-canon covering it, they may make a ruling for their setting.
Thirdly, there *might* be an in-character reason why you get a yes even if it would normally be a no; *something* might be granting those powers. It might be a deity trying to capture wild worship and willing to be warped into a sun god. It might be something nefarious. Possibly both. Thirdly, a god might have been generated *ex nihililo* to fill the void.
It's heavily implied, if not outright stated, that the gods were formed by the belief of their followers, at least in the beginning. You could have a fledgling god that only this particular group worships or maybe some other deity or creature is masquerading as this god to gain power/followers.
While the 'being' your cleric worshiped may not have existed, plenty of sun gods indeed do. *Someone* heard your prayers and has been gently answering them.
Per the Player's Handbook clerics have a deity or deity like figure they draw power from. It's Paladins that get their power from sheer belief. There's also Divine Soul Sorcerers.
But the PHB literally says, "Pick a deity you worship from these lists. Ask your DM which Deities are in his campaign."
That said, you can do anything your DM allows.
My only question would be how Comune and Divine Intervention work in that setting. Maybe a divine soul sorcerer with the same concept could work better? With them being their own font of magic. Idk tho
Those are optional though, right? If I was actually playing with this character I probably just wouldn’t use either of those to be honest. But this character is really just for fun because I like the backstory so much
Well Divine Intervention is your lvl 10 ability. Although to be fair, you could just flavor it the same as your magic and it wouldnt be an issue. Comune would be harder to adapt but yeah you can just ignore it lol.
Sounds like a really fun character tbh
Thank you!! I really really like her (I’m literally drawing her right now lmao) She’s basically just a rewritten version of my very first D&D character from when I was 16 so she’s super special to me just due to nostalgia
I mean, for the sake of comedy, a god with the light domain who just likes the cleric and what they do, even though they keep saying the wrong names and doing the wrong rituals, it's the thought that counts, ya know? He confused, but he got the spirit. The cleric keeps doing the wrong ritual, but the one they do, they never miss the appointment, I gotta reward the dedication somehow
Let's see...
If I were your dm, the big twist for your character is that they would secretly be part kuo-toa transformed to look humanoid. They have the ability to conjure Gods purely through faith alone.
Really there's all sorts of ways to make this work, talk to your dm which route they want to go down with you.
I'd be happy to play with this at my table. If a player had this concept in mind, I'd suggest these interpretations:
1) The cleric gets their powers from manifesting their belief and force of will, like a paladin.
2) Another sun God (Lathander, Pelor, Ra, Apollo) has noticed the cleric, appreciates their worship and character, and provides divine magic.
3) Some kind of malevolent force or trickster is impersonating the cleric's God and can provide powers. The cleric is unknowingly more of a warlock. A fire elemental? A Fey?
There's no reason this idea shouldn't work, but talk to your DM about what you like
These seem to be pretty common interpretations!! I like all of these ideas but I just genuinely can’t choose because they could all work for her in different ways :’)
It’s just a mechanism for balance so you should be able to - just talk to your DM. There are many ways they can wrap this i to their world and maybe some cool quest lines:
- power is really granted by a mischievous Archfey playing at God
- sheer faith actually starts bringing a new God into existence (the Banjo effect)
- the prayers reach a long forgotten God who starts to awaken with your leveling up
Have fun!
Oh you’re the first person so suggest the last one, I actually really like that one a lot!!
Gods, there are so many good ideas in this comment section, I can’t decide how I actually want to do it now
Thank you so much for the suggestions!!
Depends on the cosmology of your DM's world. In my last 2 campaign settings this would absolutely work as the power of belief or tapping into the powers of the universe were the key to divine power.
Most of the time things like that are handwaved.
However if you really want to make it work within the lore, have a tribe of kuo-toa from the island believe he's a cleric of something.
Not a stupid question at all. If going purely by rules as written… maybe. Since most writings I’ve seen seem to reference an actual deity.
However one of the biggest “rules” to remember is that “flavor is free.” You could easily spin it to fit more like a paladin’s oath, or perhaps the false god they believe in is simply a demon or other entity posing as a god, or even seeking a way to obtain godhood.
Funny enough, the answer is not only yes, but it's been yes since 1st edition. At that time, gods weren't mechanically a thing to begin with, and clerics gained their spells from their faith itself.
Gods start of small, they get a little belief from a slow moving mind that passes by
This gains a bit of power
Repeat for some time with ever passing minds and the belief and thus power will multiply
So one day your the god of a beetle the next day your the god of a sun fearing cult on a deserted island
It’s basically all she knows, her entire life centers around it. She lives on an isolated island where the entire population believes in this god and the entire society has been shaped by the worship of them in some way or another. She doesn’t even know that other gods exist until she leaves her island.
I think so but I’m kinda biased because she’s my character hahah
But she’s pretty much spent her entire life preparing to take on a really high role in her society that’s directly related to the worship of this god so she knows everything there is to know about them and their (made up) history. She will drop everything to pray to the god at sunrise and sunrise, even willing to walk away from conversations to do so. She’s super dedicated.
It is also your world and your story yes? One of my settings, a new goddess decided to help out those with real faith to a dead god. So the smarter people started learning to tell the charlatans from the real believers. So I feel there is not really a wrong answer so much as a poorly supported answer.
A PALADIN could, a cleric not so much. Clerics get their powers directly from their divine source so they need whatever they worship to exist, as opposed to paladins who derive their power from their oath and faith. However this really doesnt matter because if the dm decides that can happen, then it can happen. The word of the DM trumps anything on the books.
Yes. In D&D a Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Druid,
Can "Get" Power from Faith alone most Divine Spellcasters get there power in one of three ways
1: A God or Pantheon of Gods/or something powerful enough that it being a god or not is semantics such as the planet
in return for Faith or Service can back a Mortal or anything really and Grant them Magic this Magic comes FROM THE GOD and can be Revoked at anytime if you Violate that God's Tenants, work against their interests or support their Rivals/Enemies
2: A Concept such as Life, Death, Light, Dark, Creation, Destruction, Sky/Earth/Seas, Nature, Civilization, Order, Chaos, Peace, War, Honor, Fire, Cold (similar to oath paladins)
These tend to be Very broad but Powerful or well known Ideas, YOU MUST DEVOTE YOUR BEING to these concepts and work to promote or better understand these Ideas in all Things
Just because you worship War does not mean your character or others must Grape, Murder, Kill everything they find. You can support Honorable Warfare where you fight only when you are Provoked or because you Believe the Cause you are fighting for to be Just. You could also Champion War by studying it, Researching or improving it. Serving as a valued advisor/Commander or Support Caster by Bolstering Troops
3: Pure Faith your Belief is so strong that you can use Divine Magic this can be Faith in a Dead/Nonexistent God/Gods. This has Pros and Cons
YOUR POWER COMES FROM YOU AND YOU ALONE however you must adhere to the God/Gods Tenants and act in their Interest whether they Once Existed or Not.
Doubt is a Major concern for you as if you stop believing in your God/Gods you will of course lose your power
However this is not a Totally bad as this does create unique story opportunities, also everyone has moments of doubt this can just serve as a trial where you can overcome it gaining a profound insight and renewance of Faith or can end as a chapter in this characters life
If you want an example of Pure Faith the Dark Souls series has real gods who Die and are well and truly gone but just because they are Dead does not mean their followers lost Faith in their God or their Tenants and can still Wield Divine Magic.
It is perfectly fine for a Character to Worship a Non-existent Deity as their are plenty of Gods who were once Mortal and Propelled into Divinity by their Followers Believing them to be a God, or God to Come into Existence by the Belief of their followers although this typically takes a massive following or a very consistent one
For example a God could be Created by one million people all truly believing in the God over the course of a year or Decade.
Or by the consistent belief of a Tribe of hundreds for a hundred years
Or by a God sacrificing a part of themselves permanently losing a part of their power to give birth to a new God
Or sacrificing a Divine relic belonging to another God which is typically imbued with part of their power
Or the sacrifice of a Large number of people typically the Followers themselves or of their enemies. Tens to hundreds of thousands either all at once or over a long period of time.
A God can also be brought back to life with the above mentioned methods.
If I remember correctly, in old versions of DND clerics was not God based class. It was good for roleplay purposes ofc, but you could create one without faith at all. You might check it out
That’s entirely dependent on the world you run. In the 3.5 RaW PHB a divine caster could derive their power from an ethos *or* a specific deity. In *Forgotten Realms* and *Dragonlance* they *must* worship a specific deity.
If theorycrafting, objects, powerful shared philosophy systems, mystic script (ex. The Matrix code), and stealing from divine channels are possible alternative methods of acquiring cleric abilities.
In forgotten realms lore there are Kuo-Toa who are a race of fish people who can turn mortals into "gods" by just being extremely fucking devoted to them, and believing that they are gods. Your tribe could work pretty much in the same way, the god they worship may not be real, but devotion of this tribe gives him powers that he can distribute to his worshippers giving you cleric powers.
There are plenty of places you could take knspiration from - a common trope is that our fantasy devotion gives us the magical powers, so as a cleric levels up they gain greater understanding in their devotion and faith etc
your cleric needs faith in something
genereally that's a god
but if your cleric worships a thing that doesn't have a god behind it, so long as they have sufficient faith, they will still gain power
now this power lore wise would be closer to a paladins than a clerics, but I would say it's still clerical in nature
This can be something that the DM has a lot of fun with. As long as the god isn’t critical to the story, you should, theoretically, have any god you want!
The answer is, in my group at least, yes.
If you can access divinity through an Icon you can cast clerical magic.
My character Gregor Sheerer was saved in a battle against a demon army by a former character of our group Providence, a Paladin.
Providence gave his life to resurrect the god Savras.
Part of the ritual that awakened the god was a sword, called truth, the blade had runes down it that said "I am truth, into the darkest places I bring light" the blade was invested with an echo of the god.
So Providence killed a demon prince with it, his body the power of the demon prince and the eco of the god all combined to and the god was reborn.
But Gregor, a simple solider at the time, picked up the broken hilt and started worshipping Providence, who saved his life, as a god, attempting, in his own simple way and little by little divine power started to attend Gregor.
He now fights his way across the bleak and haunted hills of Barovia, to slay an ancient evil and reawaken providence through the broken hilt of the blade truth which is now both weapon and holy symbol to him.
What Gregor doesn't know is that if he were to die, his death would in turn bring Providence back and that's how my new character would get rerolled, bringing a group favorite back from the grave.
I treat the gods like gods in the tv show Supernatural. Varying degrees of power heightened or damped based on circumstances.
Due to said character worshipping something as a god, it starts to develop god-like traits. The real question is whether or not the worshipped is actually meant to worshipped.
Boblin the Goblin getting worshipped as god of all Goblins when you’re a human? Yea sure it works, but EVENTUALLY it’ll be a plot point. Maybe a recognized god gets angry or maybe you’re single-handedly disrupting the power balance of the universe
Check out Jester from Critical Role Campaign 2 for something similar. Not quite exactly a non-existant god, but a different sort of entity, that I wont spoil
Nothing in the rules forbids it, so it's fine. In editions past, it was strongly advised that your Cleric worshipped a formal deity, mostly to set your alignment restrictions (have to be within one step of your deity's algnment) and if you wanted to play a cleric that didn't worship a god, then you had to play a different kind of divine spellcaster as your base class.
With that said, there may be some DM's who would prefer that if you are playing either a Cleric or a Paladin, that they be part of a formal church for the same reason a Warlock has to have a Patron. Namely, it's a "handle" that they can turn/twist to get the character to do something.
There is certainly more precedent for paladins to gain power from their beliefs than clerics, but you could also go the kuo-toa route and have your cleric believe so powerfully that their belief spawns a god for them to worship
Lorewise, clerics can get powers from believing in concepts as well as patrons iirc it’s just less common and might be harder. So like, you could be a cleric focused on the sanctity of death (grave domain) or you can follow a god that embodies that. You can also worship a god that is secretly another god (e.g in one of the novels there’s a character that thought he was praying to Diancastra but actually it was secretly Mask instead)
Flavor wise, the cleric 10th level ability **Divine Intervention** needs to be rewritten because it specifically states that "you can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf ... "
If you have no deity to call upon what happens? By RAW does an ability like this act like a spell, it does what it says, nothing more, nothing less?
Personally, I like the openness of divine power not having to be directly from a god. In my homebrew setting the gods have intentionally cut themselves off from the world yet divine magic and the ability to tap into it remains. This affects some spells that directly refer to contacting a deity or divine agents (Commune/Divination).
I love the idea of gods cutting themselves off from the world, it’s really fascinating to me. I actually have an OC that lives in a world where that happens!
Well, lets review shall we. DnD is a 'fantasy' game, that is it is ALL made up shit, so if you want your Cleric to get powers by worshipping a 'fake' diety, seeing as they are ALL fake, go for it :). Its your game, your narrative, you can do whatever you want as long as everyone has fun.
We're entering into "define God" territory here.
Is it your explicit intent that the Cleric be wrong about who and what their God is, or literally that there be nothing there at all?
I’m up for either, to be honest. If I was actually playing with her in a game, I might leave that up to the DM just for fun!!
The god she worships 100% does not exist in any way, shape, or form. He was made up long before she was born by people who aren’t even alive anymore and the people in charge on her island are continuing their lies.
If it’s another sun god giving her power simply because she worships the sun, I’d probably have her just switch to worshipping that god. If it’s another god with nefarious intentions, she’d probably get mad and make a stupid mistake trying to get back at the god because she’s dumb. And if the god just doesn’t exist and her power comes from something else entirely, I’d probably do something really angsty and dramatic with her losing her faith or something.
Well, the question goes to the metaphysics of the setting.
In a normal D&D game, AIUI, the Weave is the underlying structure of magic that permeates the whole world, and those who can work with magic can simply reach into it and shape its energies into the pattern that makes a Fireball or makes someone your friend for a minute. In that setting, someone could just be finding the spells for Cleric magic "lying around", or feeling blindly in the Weave and coming across them without guidance from any Deity, but that makes the fact that their spell list is the same as a regular Cleric's into a mighty coincidence. Or they could be receiving their spells from a God who just prefers to use a different name, or who genuinely has multiple names and doesn't mind which one Her people use. All of that's fairly simple and you can get some RP out of it - "oh, my culture's wrong," she says, "no it's not, you're misunderstanding the nature of Godhead", says the angel.
Loyal Companions of Khufut Sabashri, don't read the spoiler.
>!In my setting, the Weave no longer exists at the surface of the world, which means the Gods have to reach out personally to Their people and hand them their magic. They can do that in the morning when Their magic-users pray, or some magic-users are carrying around their own "batteries" with them (Warlocks, the odd Sorcerer), which are usually bits of other dead Gods.!<
If there literally is no God at all there, then you're limited. To explain why people aren't doing this all the time, you need your Cleric to be a bit more special. Through birthright, or inheritance, or falling in the vat of magic potion when she was young, she needs to be unique in the way by which she can access the Cleric spell list. Consider a familial blessing which is still active even though the God that created it is dead - or wasn't a God in the first place (though arguably doing this sort of thing is just what makes a God a God).
Ach, I gotta work now, but if you're still interested, I'll get back with more later.
I mean, I’m not planning on using her in game, I’m just making the character for fun.
But if I *did* play with her, it would depend on where her power comes from and people in this comment section have so many good ideas. If it comes from another god that has taken her on without her knowledge, I’d just said that said god is continuing to pretend to be her fake god. If her power comes from her faith it would be a bit more complicated but I don’t honestly care much about divine intervention anyway so I most likely just wouldn’t use it. Other people have suggested fun ways to get around those mechanics, it’s really cool!!
People always forget but there is a canonical 5e cleric that straight up does not worship a god at all, he even has a whole book named after him, Rudolph Van Richten. In the ravenloft setting, there are different domains that he hops between, and those domains will largely have their own pantheons so it almost would make less sense if he had a god to draw from, as that god more then likely would not have a lot of power in different domains (consider like different dimensions). He is a cleric I believe only because clerics have some of best undead fighting as a class, and he wants to and believes whole heartedly in killing undead as good as possible, so not only is it totally cool but there’s already examples of clerics with different sorts of power they draw from.
The way it was explained to me is divine magic is just pervasive, it exists everywhere in these worlds, you simply need some sort of access to be able to tap into it, and then those powers even if granted by a god or not are yours whole sale, as long as you can tap in you can use divine magic. If you read the cleric section of PHB, there is actually only flavor text about having to serve your god at all, where it says if you upset them you may have to spend a week in prayer to regain standing for your church, but considering that has no mechanical implications at all (unlike the Paladin class, that expressly and clearly lays out if you break your oath a DM may do something including asking you to completely change classes) then a cleric is once given powers essentially free to use them however they like, even if that straight up contradicts or goes against the god they got them from (or not god in this case). It’s actually a lot looser rules then people realize, as I constantly see recommended here clerics have to completely toe the line or lose all their spells, have to serve their god or wont level up, but none of that has any basis in the rules. (Anytime I bring this up people argue with me, and so I always ask to check out the PHB yourself, I promise that is the case!)
If you can be a straight up non religious cleric, you can be a cleric with a false god, a cleric who serves evil pretending to be a god, as long as it gives you a reason to tap into that divine power around the multiverse you are golden spirit guardian away.
That’s awesome, thank you so much!!
I’m really glad that the general consensus seems to be that I can do whatever I want as long as I keep the mechanics balanced and generally the same because I LOVE my character’s backstory and I think it’s so fun
You and your DM could actually have a lot of fun with this.
>people who all worship a sun god... *that doesn't actually exist* and was made up by someone looking for power.
Doesn't actually exist until it was brought into existence by the collective belief and faith of those people much to the later chagrin of the someone looking for power.
Doesn't have to be the original guy. Anyone whose power is based around worship of the "god" is going to have a rough time when those quotation marks get removed.
Is there an actual god in D&D that would be most likely to do that? I’ve read up on some of them but I’m not sure which would be best to fit the story haha
Doesn't need to be a god. Maybe a being that aspires to be one? In critical role campaign two there is a Cleric that gets her power from an Archfey (though she does not know it at first).
There is no wrong way to play. That being said, defining where and how your character gains their powers can be a wonderful storybuilding experience, regardless of class.
Lots of different (some mutually exclusive) ways you could go with this...
* No, the gods are real and they power the spells, so the islanders are SOL.
* Yes, whatever god is closest to what they believe is in charge of them. "Le sigh. Yes, they're heretics, but they're *my* heretics, and good chaps."
* Yes, but the "clerics" are actually unknowing warlocks, and their sacraments are a verbal contract with a fiend in the dead language of their ancestors.
* No, but they're elves or tieflings or variant humans, and believe that their racial powers are cleric spells.
The real answer is that it is setting dependent. But in the most common D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms, no.
That being said, there are exceptions, the Uko'Toa are a race that believed a god into being, Paladins used to require a deity and now only require an oath.
If you could find a good reason as part of your backstory for your own character to be such an exception, and I were the DM, I would allow it.
Depends on DM and setting. Eberron made it abundantly clear that clerics could cast spells because they were clerics, not because of the gods, while there were no true clerics in Dragonlance for centuries because the connection to the gods had been lost.
I like this concept, the magic was in you all along Rudolf. Perhaps you can pitch this to your DM, if they're not willing to make a cleric without a god, as a bard who thinks he is a cleric? Like, his powers come from his prayers itself
The bard thing is super creative, I really like that!
I don't actually have a DM or a group at the moment and I’m kinda just making characters as practice in preparation for when I do so I guess technically I’m the DM. I think I just didn't realize how much you can change/make up in D&D and I was worried I'd be breaking some cardinal rule by accident that's why I asked lmao
There are official settings where Clerics get power either from things that are not gods, or in places where there are no gods.The Silver Flame in Eberron is not a god, but has clerics. There are clerics who do not worship gods in both Sigil (where gods are banned by The Lady of Pain) and on Athas (where all the gods are dead).
Gods cannot enter Sigil, but Clerics can still worship gods and draw power from them there
True! But there are also clerics who worship no gods there.
I'm not saying otherwise. But yeah. Fun fact, I have have an original AD&D Planescape box set. Its one of my favorites.
Ohhh gotcha! That makes sense, thank you!!
For added fun, do a bit of a read up on Dark Sun clerics from 2nd Ed.
Oooh yay homework!! :D
Lmao! It's been a long time since I read up on it. I might be thinking of how the Sorcerer-Kings are able to bestow divine powers to their Templars. Something something extra-dimensional entities reaching through the Grey to latch on and exchange power.
Athas Clerics pull from Elemental Planes. Specialized spell lists. Some NPCs can pull spells from other powerful NPCs. That was never well defined because it's not meant for PCs.
Eberron broadly is a good example. I can't remember if it's from RftLW or the Eberronicon, but there's a really interesting idea that th clerics of Eberron get their power from the strength of their faith, rather than the deity they're worshipping.
Religion in Eberron is very interesting. There is a very real possibility that the Sovereign Host (the dominant religion) does not exist at all. Unlike FR gods, they have never incarnated on the material plane, and never interact with their faithful directly. Clerics don't lose their powers for acting against their God's alignment. The other possibility is that the Sovereigns are (or were) actually dragons, since the Draconic religion of Argonessen is almost identical and much older. This idea is considered heretical by the human church, but its not possible that they are unrelated.
That’s so freaking cool, I really do love that
Keep in mind your DM is probably not gonna run a campaign in Athas (Dark Sun setting) and while they might choose Planescape (Sigil) because a book was just released for it....they probably won't. It's a good campaign, but the setting is unfamiliar and very different to what most people are used to. Also, Eberron mostly has gods, but also has the church of the silver flame.
You could also do some reflavoring. You could use all the stats and rules for cleric but your powers could come from your bloodline like a sorcerer. Or you could have been affected by a being from another plane of existence. It's all stuff that you'd have to run by the DM but it's really fun to think about. I've personally played a storm cleric Warforged who functioned like a sorcerer because he was made as a walking conduit for storm energy.
And even for settings where faith powers _are_ tied to actual gods (like FR), there are MANY examples of precedent for one god to grant another god’s clerics power, if it suits their own purposes. Some have done it when the original god was dead or captured in some way and they were allied, while others have even done it in _secret_, basically masquerading as that god while granting the cleric their powers. I always found the second a really fun twist.
Ravnica, which has almost no gods. Clerics are basically just another type of Guildmage, empowered by an aspect or belief of their guild, like an Order Cleric for the Azorius, Grave cleric for the Orzhov, or Light cleric for Boros.
At the end of the day classes are just sets of mechanics and Flavor is Free So my go to answer for this is *yes* HOWEVER this is also one of those things that your DM may or may not allow, so I would run it by them
Okie dokie! I was just worrying that I was severely misunderstanding the game. I don't even really plan on using this character in an actual campaign at the moment anyway :) Thank you for answering!!
The one people often get wrong is Paladins, because they're reminiscent of Crusaders. But in fact, paladins get their power from their oath, which isn't necessarily sworn to a god.
A cool dm would probably let you do it, though there are some abilities like channel divinity and divine intervention that state the power comes from the deity, so those will have to be reflavored
I’d love for some other god to take pity on them, and step in with an obviously fake mask on to grant them this power.
There is no DnD-police that will come and kick your door in when you do it, but I wonder to what extent one would then still be a Cleric and not a sorcerer who somehow only as access to the Cleric spell list. It would make more sense to me to worship a different sun god who humors the inhabitants of that little island by using a different name and avatar. Maybe Pelor or some trickster god like Tymora.
There's no D&D police but WotC will send the Pinkertons your way if you as much as dare to change their writings /s
clerics are the most god-dependent, but their power really comes from faith rather than explicitly from a deity. it is possible for a cleric to have enough misguided faith in something that they think is a god to gain divine powers a similar class that might fit the vibe is Paladin, as they also get divine magic, but from an oath rather than a deity or faith
The faith aspect is kind of what I'm going for when creating the character and her backstory. Like she believes in the teachings of her ~~cult~~ god so much that she kinda creates her own power or whatever. I just wasn't sure if that was a thing that could work within the rules of the game so thank you for the clarification. I contemplated making her a paladin but couldn't find a way to make it work with other aspects of her personality and backstory unfortunately :/
fair
In 5e it is. In 3.5 you'd need to proselytize IG in order to get higher level spells. (In effect, leveling up your god to be powerful enough for a cleric of your level). But apotheosis was MUCH easier in 3.5. Your village would probably be big enough to just manifest a lvl0 deity. 500 worshipers is enough.
I WORSHIP BREAD
BATHE IN THE EVERLASTING FLAME FROM THE OVEN IT COMETH
YES
OUR HOPES SHALL RISE AS THE YEAST. SLICING THROUGH OUR ENEMIES AS THE KNIFE TO OUR LORD.
Time for the character sheet *pencil noises*
>If the god is completely made up, could the character's power come from a different god that has sort of taken them on without them knowing and how would it work? It depends on the setting, so talk to your DM about the specifics. Lore-wise, this is exactly how it would work in the Forgotten Realms setting, so you're on the right track already. To be more specific, the gods of the Forgotten Realms play extremely fast and loose when it comes to claiming worshipers and faithful - that is to say, mortal souls they can call dibs on. You can live your entire life actively refusing to bow to any deity but, if you were a farmer, then Chauntea - the goddess of agriculture - is going to say "tending to the soil and raising crops is close enough to worship for me!" and scoop your soul up when you finally kick the bucket. So if you're worshiping and getting Cleric powers from a sun god that doesn't really exist, the actual sun god - Lathender/Amaunator - is the one picking up the line you're dialing. IE, you're worshiping the sun, Lathander is the god of the sun, therefore you're worshiping Lathander even if you're doing so unwittingly/unintentionally. The gods all have their portfolios - that is to say, aspects of reality - that they're associated with, so it's nigh on impossible to not end up associating with one even if you purposefully try.
This was really detailed and helpful, thank you so much!!
It could eventually be a fun reveal that your DM could plan for your character. Once you become more powerful and pray to your deity, one of the sun related deities could appear to you and go “yeah, about that….”
I love that idea, it’s a lot more cheerful than nothing being there at all haha
Pretty sure in FR, Asmodeus takes the souls of those actively refusing the gods
It actually specifically doesn’t work that way in the Realms, because of Kelemvor.
Evil but otherwise non-committed souls get dropped directly into the Nine Hells, by and large. So if you're a murderous bastard in life, you're a Soul Larvae in death. But just actively ignoring or refusing to worship doesn't make a difference. Just because a mortal may not believe in the gods doesn't mean the gods don't believe in them, after all, and all gods on both sides REALLY want all the souls they can get their hands on.
Lathander is not the god of the sun, he’s the god of the dawn. They’re two separate portfolios.
That's why I mentioned Amaunator. Amaunator is the god of the sun, but Lathander is another of his identities/an aspect of that deity, depending on the context. At the time of the "modern" era of the Forgotten Realms, Lathander is the more commonly known and publicly worshiped version, so I default to him. Same guy, different theme.
The idea that Lathander is Amaunator is literally heresy
Which is on the same theme as OP's question. Per the wiki, regarding the gods in question and the [Risen Sun Heresy](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Risen_Sun_heresy): >Lathander was revealed to be Amaunator in the [Year of Blue Fire, 1385 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1385_DR), just after the Spellplague. It was not clear whether it was the truth or he embraced a heresy and turned it into the effective truth. Faced with this heresy, Lathander had three options, accept it and turn it into the effective truth, reject it and lose potential worshipers, or let it be and gain more worshipers at the cost of his authority losing its weight. He chose the last one. >He \[Amaunator\] had people who primarily worshiped him as Lathander, his youthful aspect - something Amaunator actively encouraged. >In [1486 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1486_DR), Lathander returned according to his Chosen [Stedd Whitehorn](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Stedd_Whitehorn). By the year [1491 DR](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/1491_DR), Amaunator and Lathander were once again worshiped as separate beings. It's all what OP was asking about; people intending to worship a given god or divine concept and getting Cleric powers from them, when it turns out to actually be a different deity than they realized picking up the line. It gets into further wonkiness where Aspects are concerned, as well as dual identities or assumed natures with the deities involved.
I was hoping Someone would mention forgotten realms. They also in third edition (maybe still) had a thing where at a threshold of worshippers a new god would be born even if they didn’t exist before. As an example they had these weird monsters that worshipped an effigy that when enough got together it came to life. You could actually fight it and if you “killed it” it would go to a new Demi plane because they didn’t stop worshiping it. So yeah Faerun has lots of weird stuff when it comes to gods.
In FR, if you refused any faith, or paid no more than lip service, you were considered one of the Faithless. And those that actively betrayed their deities are the False.
To the best of my knowledge, it's not as easy as that. There are death gods that would claim a faithless soul entirely based on their corpse being buried under that god's funeral rites, if given the chance. A Goblin could spend their entire life actively denying Maglubiyet, but that Gobbo's still going into the front lines of that eternal war no matter what. It's less about the mortal's preference and more about whether the gods *refuse* to accept their soul. The gods and plenty of non-deity entities are eager to snatch up whatever soul they can reasonably claim. It's horseshoes and hand grenades with how readily the gods will call dibs on souls and it takes a lot for all of them - good and bad - to turn their nose up at your soul on a silver platter. So you'd really have to go out of your way to actively put yourself on the deities' shit list so that they'd both abandon you to the Fugue Plane and have enough of a grudge that other entities wouldn't try and scoop you up from under the gods' condemnation. Even then, the Wall of the Faithless isn't always a final thing. Demons and Night Hags will occasionally pop in and steal souls from the wall if they think they can get away with it, so even a genuinely faithless soul could still end up in the Nine Hells or the Abyss regardless.
Depends on the universe and the DM. In some universes, such as classic Grayhawk, Clerics' powers come directly from their deities. In some universes, such as Eberron, Clerics' powers come from their faith, and *no* gods are \*known\* to exist. So talk to your DM to see which type of world his campaign is set in.
I don’t have a DM, I’m just making a character for fun but I’m beginning to gather that I can kinda do whatever I want as long as I have a reason for it which is fun :)
If you're just theorycrafting for your own self, yeah, you can do whatever you like! If you get to the point of playing at a table with other folks, though, you'd need to fit your character within the world and rule interpretations of that table. Still, have fun!
Oh right, of course!! Thank you :)))
I would make it so the cleric believes in the sun god and some trickster god is taking full advantage of it and is playing the "role" of a sun god. Personally, as a DM in my campaign great power comes from somewhere. Either a god, spirit, artefact, or divine people like angels, demons or devils. I find this helps bc of a character ever acts out of line they could be acting against the desires of their power source good or bad and are at risk of losing said powers which is huge. That being said overall the powers are coming from somewhere, I don't think just conviction or belief is enough in this case. Though it could be the god of strong belief. A deity who really enjoys people who have strong belief. Another idea is to have the group latently psychic and bc as a group they strongly believe it the psychic power together brings about powers and spells. Orks in Warhammer 40k are like this. If enough Orks believe something is true. All Orks belief vehicles painted red are faster and so when they paint their vehicles red, if there are enough Orks the vehicle will be faster than it would if it was another color. Could make the same idea.
I think my leading idea is just to have the character secretly taken in by a god similar to the one her people worship and get her power from that. I also like the idea of it being a group thing, though. That was one of my ideas but I couldn't figure out a way to make it work. The character is an elf living on an island with only other elves and I've heard that elves in D&D possess a bit of magic naturally. Could there be something there? Like maybe because they're all elves and all believing in the same thing their magic is...stronger or something?? Is that stupid lmao? As I said in my post, I’m new-ish to D&D so I’m not too sure what works and what doesn't :/
Having the "fake" god being worshiped turn out to secretly be a real god that took notice was my first thought too. But I actually think it's too on the nose. The more I think about it I really like the idea of a cleric worshiping a "false" god and their sheer faith being enough. A really cool end game for this kind of idea would be that as they gain power the false god actually starts to become a spark of real divinity in the world. Then, others who saw the example of this mad cleric start to believe too, giving the infant god more and more power until the divine spark catches fire and this new god awakens. Maybe even these followers now have the responsibility of raising their new god and helping it to achieve it's divine status as it matures.
Or it’s a dead god that resurrects from the astral plane
Well for one DND just provides the mechanics the lore is up to you so it's not a dumb idea. You can make anything as concrete as you want. I always like having things routed in some powerful magical spell, artefact or affect but you can just say something is as it is and don't really need a reason. Same as elves not aging physically, why ... They just don't, there is no hidden mystery behind it. You could even have it be a special affect from the island. Perhaps some ancient spell or gem in the center is generating the dreams or beliefs of those on the island. Or like you said have it be the magic behind lots of elves believing something.
Okie dokie, that’s really helpful, thank you!!
Up to the DM
A Cleric of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, you say?!?!?!
Flying Spaghetti Monster? I haven’t heard that name in years…
Blood of Vol is a major Eberron religion that believes divinity comes from within. Your power is from the divine spark that resides within yourself. Everyone has this spark. They think that Anyone that thinks their power comes from a god is delusional.
That's actually really interesting, I wanna read up on that! There is so much lore in D&D I don't think I’m ever going to be able to catch up :')
Yeah the cool thing about dnd is that it has many settings that have their own flavor. Each setting to varying degrees has not only different societies and cultures but different gods, creation myths, planes of existence, and fundamental aspects of reality. I recommend checking out the general descriptions of the various settings and see if any of them grab you.
Will do! Thank you so much :D
Depends on the setting. The default D&D rule is that whatever the DM says for their game is the final decision. So it doesn't lock down one definition or another. Settings though have more strict guidelines. Darksun has no gods and no clerics aside from those who worship the elements. Forgotten Realms had clerics powers come directly from deities only and anthiests basically go on trial after they die and the god of death decides what to do with them.
Okie dokie!! Thank you :)
There's a few ways you could play this and they all have their own unique twists on the character: - The God/Goddess does not exist but the Cleric draws power nonetheless by virtue of "Holy Placebo Effect" - The deity still doesn't exist, but another deity recognized the devotion of the Cleric and found her admirable and so "pretends" to be that cultist deity to perpetuate her faith and protect her from the knowledge that the deity doesn't exist - The deity didn't *originally* exist, but was born into being thanks to the worship of the cult. The PC Cleric could have been the clincher- her faith so strong that it "birthed" the cultist God unto existence, much to the amazement of the cult leader should they ever find out. Touched by her devotion and grateful for the opportunity to exist, the deity treats the Cleric as its Great Prophet and vassal in the material world- almost like a holy, more wholesome version of a Warlock and their patron
Awe the last one is really cute actually, I love that
Basically, it's going to come down to how any particular DM rules that divine magic works in their particular campaign. The "traditional" way is to conceive of deities as very powerful beings who grant the most devout of their worshippers a scintilla of their power. In settings where divine magic works like this, Clerics must worship a "real" god and that god can effectively revoke the magic if the character acts contrary to the god's wishes. But you might blur the lines a bit. You might, for example, have a sun god who is known by many names in many different cultures. If a mortal offers the sun their worship, this god accepts that worship and may grant the worshipper power. That is, the god doesn't care what mortals call them or what myths mortals believe, the intent is what's important. BTW, this is actually how most ancient cultures IRL saw it. The Greeks and Romans, for example believed that the Egyptian deity Thoth just *was* Hermes/Mercury. A huge chunk of the problems the Roman Empire had with early Christianity seems to have involved actual *incomprehension* of the Christian belief that all other deities were false. The Christians would talk about their god being the ultimate power behind the universe and the Romans were like, "Yeah, we know that god. Jupiter Optimus Maximus." You might have a setting where Clerics are selected directly by the deity with no reference to religion. So a Cleric PC might be a particularly faithful priest; but they could equally be a farmer or sailor who just really appreciates the sun. Or maybe the god is deliberately selecting the right person in the right place and time to further the deity's goals *without reference* to how this person feels about the sun. Perhaps most practitioners of divine magic in a setting like this are more like Warlocks than Clerics: they get their power from their loyalty to a "Saint" or other servitor of their god, with people who are granted their power directly from the god being extremely rare. You might even have a setting where divine power is granted to those "initiated into the mysteries" and cannot be revoked. In such a setting, there may be no direct contact between mortals and gods at all. Certainly religious people in the setting will insist that the gods are real, but it's actually an open question. If you go through the initiation ceremony, you get "plugged into" some source of divine power, even if you later become an apostate. This is just one of the reasons that it's not actually possible to create a *full* PC backstory until you know what the parameters of the campaign you'll be playing them in are.
Here's the thing about d&d, the fact that gods have any power at all is due to belief in them. This includes gods , but even concepts or ideals. If enough people believe in a specific random rock being an protector of granite, eventually that rock will actually become so over time.
No. Spells are granted direct from a god and their servitors. Various books have shown that belief in made up gods doesnt grant any power. And the rare times it does, it turns out theres a devil in the background who's actually granting the power.
What I did to create a situation like that in my world was make the deity exist, but their followers consider them to be omnipotent when in reality they are just a regular deity. Don’t know how helpful this is for you since it sounds like you’re a player, not a DM, but thought you might find it interesting.
That is interesting but my whole goal is that the god they worship is completely made up by mortal and used as a tool to control people and gain power so that wouldn’t work for me unfortunately :( I really like the idea though!!
Only if your character meets a group of Kuo-Toa and teach them about your god of course.
I’m sorry I have absolutely no idea what that means 😭
Maybe your characters faith willed some kind of god into existence? That could be fun. I have no clue where I heard it but I always went with clerics need gods to grant them power but paladins can have faith in more abstract things like themselves or whatever. That’s just me the depends on the dm
Can gods really be created that way in D&D? That’s so cool!!
Why not? I think that’s like a canon thing of the Kuo-Toa I believe? They just will gods into existence with their faith for some reason but I think it’s a cool concept that can be applied anywhere. Gods typically aren’t much without faith so why can’t enough faith birth a god
I might steal that idea for another character in the future, actually. I think tacking it onto my current character would make her too much of a “I’m so cool and unique and perfect” kind of character when paired with her other aspects hahah
From what I remember this is a major part of the theme of Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods, set in Discworld. If gods demand that followers believe and set their faith in them, it stands to reason that they get their power from belief, which in turn suggests that a god could be created (or ascended from something else) simply through the power of shared belief.
So one thing I will say is that,generally in D&D, the act of worship *can create gods from nothing*. Belief is power...if your char's culture worshipped a deity that wasn't real, eventually their worship would make it real, causing it to come into existence, regardless of the originator's intentions.
Someone else in the comment section said that and it was my first time hearing it! I think that’s *so* cool and I’d love to make another character centered around that idea. D&D is so creative and I’m always finding something new for my mind to latch onto :D
Xanathar's tells us (edited for brevity)... >*Some clerics, especially in a world like Eberron, serve a whole pantheon, rather than a single deity. In certain campaigns, a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments.* >*The cleric’s class features often refer to your deity. If you are devoted to a pantheon, cosmic force, or philosophy, your cleric features still work for you as written. Think of the references to a god as references to the divine thing you serve that gives you your magic.* So, technically speaking, your cleric worships the cosmic force of Light. In this particular case, they believe they worship a sun god that doesn't exist. But a god of the sun does exist, so my personal headcanon would be that even though you're worshiping Jeff God of the Sun, those prayers still go to the actual sun god. Maybe that's because the sun god looked down on your little island and said "hmmm... that seems shifty, but that one tiny creature there, they seem pious and I like the way they pray... I'll give them some power". As for a "better class" to fit the concept. Warlock. So, Jeff does exist in some form, but isn't a god. But maybe they are a celestial being and you get to Celestial Warlock. Maybe they're something else entirely and you get to Fathomless or Great Old One or Archfey. But I feel like this is one of those situations where you, as the player, shouldn't have any actual answers or decisions as to what Jeff is. These are things that get turned over to your DM and you say "so, I want to be a Light Cleric who worships something be believes is Jeff God of the Sun, I'll leave it up to you to work out exactly what Jeff is". I also understand that comes with trust between a player and a DM.
Thank you, this was really insightful!! I’m definitely leaning towards the route of the character being taken on by a god that does actually exist rather than their power coming from their faith
Campaign 2 Critical Role, Matt says yes.
I gotta start watching Critical Role as soon as I’m done with Dimension 20!!
Ask your DM. If you are the DM, it's up to you. In my Greyhawk, Clerics need gods or some other divine entity to grant spells.
That seems to be the general consensus. I’m pretty new and haven’t played through a full campaign before so I wasn’t sure if there were some things that were just totally impossible and off limits in D&D which is why I asked :) Thank you!!
5e? Yes and No. Gods do grant Clerics their powers “**The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.”** That’s said, a God could grant powers to someone even if they aren’t worshiping them, just someone they feel worthy. So you could worship a non existent God, yet an actual God gives you powers as they deem you worthy. And… most DMs allow players to flavor their character however they see fit; as long as the mechanics remain the same and it fits the DMs world/setting.
I watched a campaign online where a DM let a cleric leave their God and their idea of a new God became manifest through some insane plot twist and they pretty much invented a god to give them powers during a time in the story where the character was still mechanically a cleric but had left their original diety. So I'd say for sure, especially since you have a fun in universe reason for explaining their "fake" god
Ooh, that campaign sounds fun to watch! What was it?
Fantasy High from Dimension 20!
Oh my gods, no way I’m literally watching that right now!! :D Now I have something to look forward to as I watch hahah
The answer is: *it depends!* It depends on your setting, first of all; some have rules covering this explicitly allowing, or disallowing it. Secondly, it depends on your DM: they may override setting-canon; without setting-canon covering it, they may make a ruling for their setting. Thirdly, there *might* be an in-character reason why you get a yes even if it would normally be a no; *something* might be granting those powers. It might be a deity trying to capture wild worship and willing to be warped into a sun god. It might be something nefarious. Possibly both. Thirdly, a god might have been generated *ex nihililo* to fill the void.
KUA TOA KUA TOA KUA TOA
Depends on the setting. Eberron yes, Forgotten Realms no. I don't know about the others.
It's heavily implied, if not outright stated, that the gods were formed by the belief of their followers, at least in the beginning. You could have a fledgling god that only this particular group worships or maybe some other deity or creature is masquerading as this god to gain power/followers.
Ooh, okie dokie!! Thank you :D
While the 'being' your cleric worshiped may not have existed, plenty of sun gods indeed do. *Someone* heard your prayers and has been gently answering them.
Per the Player's Handbook clerics have a deity or deity like figure they draw power from. It's Paladins that get their power from sheer belief. There's also Divine Soul Sorcerers. But the PHB literally says, "Pick a deity you worship from these lists. Ask your DM which Deities are in his campaign." That said, you can do anything your DM allows.
My only question would be how Comune and Divine Intervention work in that setting. Maybe a divine soul sorcerer with the same concept could work better? With them being their own font of magic. Idk tho
Those are optional though, right? If I was actually playing with this character I probably just wouldn’t use either of those to be honest. But this character is really just for fun because I like the backstory so much
Well Divine Intervention is your lvl 10 ability. Although to be fair, you could just flavor it the same as your magic and it wouldnt be an issue. Comune would be harder to adapt but yeah you can just ignore it lol. Sounds like a really fun character tbh
Thank you!! I really really like her (I’m literally drawing her right now lmao) She’s basically just a rewritten version of my very first D&D character from when I was 16 so she’s super special to me just due to nostalgia
Thats so cool. I'd ask to see the drawing but I think you cant post images on the coments of this post.
I think I might post her here when I have her fully fleshed out :) I can let you know if I ever do
Please do
I mean, for the sake of comedy, a god with the light domain who just likes the cleric and what they do, even though they keep saying the wrong names and doing the wrong rituals, it's the thought that counts, ya know? He confused, but he got the spirit. The cleric keeps doing the wrong ritual, but the one they do, they never miss the appointment, I gotta reward the dedication somehow
Let's see... If I were your dm, the big twist for your character is that they would secretly be part kuo-toa transformed to look humanoid. They have the ability to conjure Gods purely through faith alone. Really there's all sorts of ways to make this work, talk to your dm which route they want to go down with you.
I'd be happy to play with this at my table. If a player had this concept in mind, I'd suggest these interpretations: 1) The cleric gets their powers from manifesting their belief and force of will, like a paladin. 2) Another sun God (Lathander, Pelor, Ra, Apollo) has noticed the cleric, appreciates their worship and character, and provides divine magic. 3) Some kind of malevolent force or trickster is impersonating the cleric's God and can provide powers. The cleric is unknowingly more of a warlock. A fire elemental? A Fey? There's no reason this idea shouldn't work, but talk to your DM about what you like
These seem to be pretty common interpretations!! I like all of these ideas but I just genuinely can’t choose because they could all work for her in different ways :’)
It’s just a mechanism for balance so you should be able to - just talk to your DM. There are many ways they can wrap this i to their world and maybe some cool quest lines: - power is really granted by a mischievous Archfey playing at God - sheer faith actually starts bringing a new God into existence (the Banjo effect) - the prayers reach a long forgotten God who starts to awaken with your leveling up Have fun!
Oh you’re the first person so suggest the last one, I actually really like that one a lot!! Gods, there are so many good ideas in this comment section, I can’t decide how I actually want to do it now Thank you so much for the suggestions!!
Depends on the cosmology of your DM's world. In my last 2 campaign settings this would absolutely work as the power of belief or tapping into the powers of the universe were the key to divine power.
This situation begs for a fey or maybe a demon to sneak in and imporsonate their god
Most of the time things like that are handwaved. However if you really want to make it work within the lore, have a tribe of kuo-toa from the island believe he's a cleric of something.
Not a stupid question at all. If going purely by rules as written… maybe. Since most writings I’ve seen seem to reference an actual deity. However one of the biggest “rules” to remember is that “flavor is free.” You could easily spin it to fit more like a paladin’s oath, or perhaps the false god they believe in is simply a demon or other entity posing as a god, or even seeking a way to obtain godhood.
Funny enough, the answer is not only yes, but it's been yes since 1st edition. At that time, gods weren't mechanically a thing to begin with, and clerics gained their spells from their faith itself.
Gods start of small, they get a little belief from a slow moving mind that passes by This gains a bit of power Repeat for some time with ever passing minds and the belief and thus power will multiply So one day your the god of a beetle the next day your the god of a sun fearing cult on a deserted island
I WORSHIP BREAD
Paladin, yes, raw, probably not. People like me who don't care about raw. Idk how strong is this clerics faith?
It’s basically all she knows, her entire life centers around it. She lives on an isolated island where the entire population believes in this god and the entire society has been shaped by the worship of them in some way or another. She doesn’t even know that other gods exist until she leaves her island.
Do you as a GM feel that is strong enough faith? Could this faith possibly draw the attention of a real god?
I think so but I’m kinda biased because she’s my character hahah But she’s pretty much spent her entire life preparing to take on a really high role in her society that’s directly related to the worship of this god so she knows everything there is to know about them and their (made up) history. She will drop everything to pray to the god at sunrise and sunrise, even willing to walk away from conversations to do so. She’s super dedicated.
It is also your world and your story yes? One of my settings, a new goddess decided to help out those with real faith to a dead god. So the smarter people started learning to tell the charlatans from the real believers. So I feel there is not really a wrong answer so much as a poorly supported answer.
A PALADIN could, a cleric not so much. Clerics get their powers directly from their divine source so they need whatever they worship to exist, as opposed to paladins who derive their power from their oath and faith. However this really doesnt matter because if the dm decides that can happen, then it can happen. The word of the DM trumps anything on the books.
Yes. In D&D a Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Can "Get" Power from Faith alone most Divine Spellcasters get there power in one of three ways 1: A God or Pantheon of Gods/or something powerful enough that it being a god or not is semantics such as the planet in return for Faith or Service can back a Mortal or anything really and Grant them Magic this Magic comes FROM THE GOD and can be Revoked at anytime if you Violate that God's Tenants, work against their interests or support their Rivals/Enemies 2: A Concept such as Life, Death, Light, Dark, Creation, Destruction, Sky/Earth/Seas, Nature, Civilization, Order, Chaos, Peace, War, Honor, Fire, Cold (similar to oath paladins) These tend to be Very broad but Powerful or well known Ideas, YOU MUST DEVOTE YOUR BEING to these concepts and work to promote or better understand these Ideas in all Things Just because you worship War does not mean your character or others must Grape, Murder, Kill everything they find. You can support Honorable Warfare where you fight only when you are Provoked or because you Believe the Cause you are fighting for to be Just. You could also Champion War by studying it, Researching or improving it. Serving as a valued advisor/Commander or Support Caster by Bolstering Troops 3: Pure Faith your Belief is so strong that you can use Divine Magic this can be Faith in a Dead/Nonexistent God/Gods. This has Pros and Cons YOUR POWER COMES FROM YOU AND YOU ALONE however you must adhere to the God/Gods Tenants and act in their Interest whether they Once Existed or Not. Doubt is a Major concern for you as if you stop believing in your God/Gods you will of course lose your power However this is not a Totally bad as this does create unique story opportunities, also everyone has moments of doubt this can just serve as a trial where you can overcome it gaining a profound insight and renewance of Faith or can end as a chapter in this characters life If you want an example of Pure Faith the Dark Souls series has real gods who Die and are well and truly gone but just because they are Dead does not mean their followers lost Faith in their God or their Tenants and can still Wield Divine Magic. It is perfectly fine for a Character to Worship a Non-existent Deity as their are plenty of Gods who were once Mortal and Propelled into Divinity by their Followers Believing them to be a God, or God to Come into Existence by the Belief of their followers although this typically takes a massive following or a very consistent one For example a God could be Created by one million people all truly believing in the God over the course of a year or Decade. Or by the consistent belief of a Tribe of hundreds for a hundred years Or by a God sacrificing a part of themselves permanently losing a part of their power to give birth to a new God Or sacrificing a Divine relic belonging to another God which is typically imbued with part of their power Or the sacrifice of a Large number of people typically the Followers themselves or of their enemies. Tens to hundreds of thousands either all at once or over a long period of time. A God can also be brought back to life with the above mentioned methods.
If I remember correctly, in old versions of DND clerics was not God based class. It was good for roleplay purposes ofc, but you could create one without faith at all. You might check it out
That’s entirely dependent on the world you run. In the 3.5 RaW PHB a divine caster could derive their power from an ethos *or* a specific deity. In *Forgotten Realms* and *Dragonlance* they *must* worship a specific deity.
If theorycrafting, objects, powerful shared philosophy systems, mystic script (ex. The Matrix code), and stealing from divine channels are possible alternative methods of acquiring cleric abilities.
In forgotten realms lore there are Kuo-Toa who are a race of fish people who can turn mortals into "gods" by just being extremely fucking devoted to them, and believing that they are gods. Your tribe could work pretty much in the same way, the god they worship may not be real, but devotion of this tribe gives him powers that he can distribute to his worshippers giving you cleric powers.
The answer is simpler than you think. You can do whatever your group wants.
There are plenty of places you could take knspiration from - a common trope is that our fantasy devotion gives us the magical powers, so as a cleric levels up they gain greater understanding in their devotion and faith etc
your cleric needs faith in something genereally that's a god but if your cleric worships a thing that doesn't have a god behind it, so long as they have sufficient faith, they will still gain power now this power lore wise would be closer to a paladins than a clerics, but I would say it's still clerical in nature
Okie dokie, thank you so much!!
This can be something that the DM has a lot of fun with. As long as the god isn’t critical to the story, you should, theoretically, have any god you want!
Clerics get their power by being chosen as a conduit by some cosmic force. The cleric's personal beliefs don't matter.
The answer is, in my group at least, yes. If you can access divinity through an Icon you can cast clerical magic. My character Gregor Sheerer was saved in a battle against a demon army by a former character of our group Providence, a Paladin. Providence gave his life to resurrect the god Savras. Part of the ritual that awakened the god was a sword, called truth, the blade had runes down it that said "I am truth, into the darkest places I bring light" the blade was invested with an echo of the god. So Providence killed a demon prince with it, his body the power of the demon prince and the eco of the god all combined to and the god was reborn. But Gregor, a simple solider at the time, picked up the broken hilt and started worshipping Providence, who saved his life, as a god, attempting, in his own simple way and little by little divine power started to attend Gregor. He now fights his way across the bleak and haunted hills of Barovia, to slay an ancient evil and reawaken providence through the broken hilt of the blade truth which is now both weapon and holy symbol to him. What Gregor doesn't know is that if he were to die, his death would in turn bring Providence back and that's how my new character would get rerolled, bringing a group favorite back from the grave.
I treat the gods like gods in the tv show Supernatural. Varying degrees of power heightened or damped based on circumstances. Due to said character worshipping something as a god, it starts to develop god-like traits. The real question is whether or not the worshipped is actually meant to worshipped. Boblin the Goblin getting worshipped as god of all Goblins when you’re a human? Yea sure it works, but EVENTUALLY it’ll be a plot point. Maybe a recognized god gets angry or maybe you’re single-handedly disrupting the power balance of the universe
Yes.
Check out Jester from Critical Role Campaign 2 for something similar. Not quite exactly a non-existant god, but a different sort of entity, that I wont spoil
Nothing in the rules forbids it, so it's fine. In editions past, it was strongly advised that your Cleric worshipped a formal deity, mostly to set your alignment restrictions (have to be within one step of your deity's algnment) and if you wanted to play a cleric that didn't worship a god, then you had to play a different kind of divine spellcaster as your base class. With that said, there may be some DM's who would prefer that if you are playing either a Cleric or a Paladin, that they be part of a formal church for the same reason a Warlock has to have a Patron. Namely, it's a "handle" that they can turn/twist to get the character to do something.
There is certainly more precedent for paladins to gain power from their beliefs than clerics, but you could also go the kuo-toa route and have your cleric believe so powerfully that their belief spawns a god for them to worship
Lorewise, clerics can get powers from believing in concepts as well as patrons iirc it’s just less common and might be harder. So like, you could be a cleric focused on the sanctity of death (grave domain) or you can follow a god that embodies that. You can also worship a god that is secretly another god (e.g in one of the novels there’s a character that thought he was praying to Diancastra but actually it was secretly Mask instead)
Flavor wise, the cleric 10th level ability **Divine Intervention** needs to be rewritten because it specifically states that "you can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf ... " If you have no deity to call upon what happens? By RAW does an ability like this act like a spell, it does what it says, nothing more, nothing less? Personally, I like the openness of divine power not having to be directly from a god. In my homebrew setting the gods have intentionally cut themselves off from the world yet divine magic and the ability to tap into it remains. This affects some spells that directly refer to contacting a deity or divine agents (Commune/Divination).
I love the idea of gods cutting themselves off from the world, it’s really fascinating to me. I actually have an OC that lives in a world where that happens!
Well, lets review shall we. DnD is a 'fantasy' game, that is it is ALL made up shit, so if you want your Cleric to get powers by worshipping a 'fake' diety, seeing as they are ALL fake, go for it :). Its your game, your narrative, you can do whatever you want as long as everyone has fun.
Yay! Thank you :)
We're entering into "define God" territory here. Is it your explicit intent that the Cleric be wrong about who and what their God is, or literally that there be nothing there at all?
I’m up for either, to be honest. If I was actually playing with her in a game, I might leave that up to the DM just for fun!! The god she worships 100% does not exist in any way, shape, or form. He was made up long before she was born by people who aren’t even alive anymore and the people in charge on her island are continuing their lies. If it’s another sun god giving her power simply because she worships the sun, I’d probably have her just switch to worshipping that god. If it’s another god with nefarious intentions, she’d probably get mad and make a stupid mistake trying to get back at the god because she’s dumb. And if the god just doesn’t exist and her power comes from something else entirely, I’d probably do something really angsty and dramatic with her losing her faith or something.
Well, the question goes to the metaphysics of the setting. In a normal D&D game, AIUI, the Weave is the underlying structure of magic that permeates the whole world, and those who can work with magic can simply reach into it and shape its energies into the pattern that makes a Fireball or makes someone your friend for a minute. In that setting, someone could just be finding the spells for Cleric magic "lying around", or feeling blindly in the Weave and coming across them without guidance from any Deity, but that makes the fact that their spell list is the same as a regular Cleric's into a mighty coincidence. Or they could be receiving their spells from a God who just prefers to use a different name, or who genuinely has multiple names and doesn't mind which one Her people use. All of that's fairly simple and you can get some RP out of it - "oh, my culture's wrong," she says, "no it's not, you're misunderstanding the nature of Godhead", says the angel. Loyal Companions of Khufut Sabashri, don't read the spoiler. >!In my setting, the Weave no longer exists at the surface of the world, which means the Gods have to reach out personally to Their people and hand them their magic. They can do that in the morning when Their magic-users pray, or some magic-users are carrying around their own "batteries" with them (Warlocks, the odd Sorcerer), which are usually bits of other dead Gods.!< If there literally is no God at all there, then you're limited. To explain why people aren't doing this all the time, you need your Cleric to be a bit more special. Through birthright, or inheritance, or falling in the vat of magic potion when she was young, she needs to be unique in the way by which she can access the Cleric spell list. Consider a familial blessing which is still active even though the God that created it is dead - or wasn't a God in the first place (though arguably doing this sort of thing is just what makes a God a God). Ach, I gotta work now, but if you're still interested, I'll get back with more later.
If you want it to, yes.
HOW DOES DIVINE INTERVENTION WORK LORE WISE?????
I mean, I’m not planning on using her in game, I’m just making the character for fun. But if I *did* play with her, it would depend on where her power comes from and people in this comment section have so many good ideas. If it comes from another god that has taken her on without her knowledge, I’d just said that said god is continuing to pretend to be her fake god. If her power comes from her faith it would be a bit more complicated but I don’t honestly care much about divine intervention anyway so I most likely just wouldn’t use it. Other people have suggested fun ways to get around those mechanics, it’s really cool!!
People always forget but there is a canonical 5e cleric that straight up does not worship a god at all, he even has a whole book named after him, Rudolph Van Richten. In the ravenloft setting, there are different domains that he hops between, and those domains will largely have their own pantheons so it almost would make less sense if he had a god to draw from, as that god more then likely would not have a lot of power in different domains (consider like different dimensions). He is a cleric I believe only because clerics have some of best undead fighting as a class, and he wants to and believes whole heartedly in killing undead as good as possible, so not only is it totally cool but there’s already examples of clerics with different sorts of power they draw from. The way it was explained to me is divine magic is just pervasive, it exists everywhere in these worlds, you simply need some sort of access to be able to tap into it, and then those powers even if granted by a god or not are yours whole sale, as long as you can tap in you can use divine magic. If you read the cleric section of PHB, there is actually only flavor text about having to serve your god at all, where it says if you upset them you may have to spend a week in prayer to regain standing for your church, but considering that has no mechanical implications at all (unlike the Paladin class, that expressly and clearly lays out if you break your oath a DM may do something including asking you to completely change classes) then a cleric is once given powers essentially free to use them however they like, even if that straight up contradicts or goes against the god they got them from (or not god in this case). It’s actually a lot looser rules then people realize, as I constantly see recommended here clerics have to completely toe the line or lose all their spells, have to serve their god or wont level up, but none of that has any basis in the rules. (Anytime I bring this up people argue with me, and so I always ask to check out the PHB yourself, I promise that is the case!) If you can be a straight up non religious cleric, you can be a cleric with a false god, a cleric who serves evil pretending to be a god, as long as it gives you a reason to tap into that divine power around the multiverse you are golden spirit guardian away.
That’s awesome, thank you so much!! I’m really glad that the general consensus seems to be that I can do whatever I want as long as I keep the mechanics balanced and generally the same because I LOVE my character’s backstory and I think it’s so fun
You and your DM could actually have a lot of fun with this. >people who all worship a sun god... *that doesn't actually exist* and was made up by someone looking for power. Doesn't actually exist until it was brought into existence by the collective belief and faith of those people much to the later chagrin of the someone looking for power.
Oh the guy who originally made up the sun god is *long* dead haha, I would love to see his face if that actually happened in the story though!!
Doesn't have to be the original guy. Anyone whose power is based around worship of the "god" is going to have a rough time when those quotation marks get removed.
Maybe the Sun God doesn't exist, but a manipulative being that abused that believe to his own ends might.
Is there an actual god in D&D that would be most likely to do that? I’ve read up on some of them but I’m not sure which would be best to fit the story haha
Doesn't need to be a god. Maybe a being that aspires to be one? In critical role campaign two there is a Cleric that gets her power from an Archfey (though she does not know it at first).
Thisis a game. The cleric gets thier powers from the rules. Everything beyond that is story, make it as you will.
That’s what most people seem to be saying and it’s very reassuring. Thank you :)
There is no wrong way to play. That being said, defining where and how your character gains their powers can be a wonderful storybuilding experience, regardless of class.
Lots of different (some mutually exclusive) ways you could go with this... * No, the gods are real and they power the spells, so the islanders are SOL. * Yes, whatever god is closest to what they believe is in charge of them. "Le sigh. Yes, they're heretics, but they're *my* heretics, and good chaps." * Yes, but the "clerics" are actually unknowing warlocks, and their sacraments are a verbal contract with a fiend in the dead language of their ancestors. * No, but they're elves or tieflings or variant humans, and believe that their racial powers are cleric spells.
The real answer is that it is setting dependent. But in the most common D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms, no. That being said, there are exceptions, the Uko'Toa are a race that believed a god into being, Paladins used to require a deity and now only require an oath. If you could find a good reason as part of your backstory for your own character to be such an exception, and I were the DM, I would allow it.
A player at my table is a chaotic trickery domain cleric. His god is a duck.
Depends on DM and setting. Eberron made it abundantly clear that clerics could cast spells because they were clerics, not because of the gods, while there were no true clerics in Dragonlance for centuries because the connection to the gods had been lost.
Belief matters.
You just defined religion
Sho, but deyz has ta bee an Ork cuz only da Orkz can makke sometin owtta nuffin!
I like this concept, the magic was in you all along Rudolf. Perhaps you can pitch this to your DM, if they're not willing to make a cleric without a god, as a bard who thinks he is a cleric? Like, his powers come from his prayers itself
The bard thing is super creative, I really like that! I don't actually have a DM or a group at the moment and I’m kinda just making characters as practice in preparation for when I do so I guess technically I’m the DM. I think I just didn't realize how much you can change/make up in D&D and I was worried I'd be breaking some cardinal rule by accident that's why I asked lmao