The fact that the Acolyte is apparently a full-fledged priest in terms of holy rites, though he does not actually receive spells, presented kind of a puzzle in working on a background. But if you’re flexible about the pantheon, then I can work on the angle of dreaming up what kind of God we’re talking about.
Well, yes and no. You’d certainly be afforded a certain amount of respect, but not on the same level as a man or woman who can actively channel the divine grace of their deity.
Right, but what’s weird about it is that it effectively gives you all the authority that a priest in the real world would have:
"You act as an intermediary between the realm of the holy and the mortal world, performing sacred rites and offering sacrifices in order to conduct worshipers into the presence of the divine…
…As an acolyte, you command the respect of those who share your faith, and you can perform the religious ceremonies of your diety."
But they make it clear that this does not count as being a cleric (and my guess is the word ‘priest’ would also not apply). So they’ve taken a term ‘acolyte’ that normally would refer to someone who just assists a priest (lights candles, makes sure all the accessories are well kept and correctly placed at ceremony time) but is not actually considered qualified to minister to souls and have elevated ‘acolyte’ to mean exactly what ‘priest’ means in the real world. Interesting.
And why not? In a world where gods give actual spells to some holy men, and that becomes the normal meaning of a ‘cleric’ why wouldn’t the acolyte fill the vacuum left by the elevation of certain select holy men. Probably the vast majority of what a church needs done is covered by the liturgical but non spell-based work of such acolytes, even in a high fantasy world.
So, yeah, it’s noting like the status of people who could perform demonstrable miracles before anybody’s eyes. But that the Acolyte background means that you can actually conduct weddings, perform birth and death rites, conduct masses (in which the prayers of the faithful seen as literally getting to the god by passing through you first), take confessions and prescribe absolution, i.e., everything a priest in real life can do, was striking to me, and changes the picture of what religion is like in D&D.
So what I wanted to do is see if I could work up the profile of a deity who would have the likes of me in his service. Well, the cleric rules seem to have me covered even without a specific pantheon – it would be a good deity that is nonetheless associated with the Trickery domain, or probably something similar once future publications expand the list of domains.
My guy’s going to have the sailor background, and an option for that background is to use the trinket as the sailor-backgrounded-character’s good luck charm. I rolled 100, which is “a metal urn containing the ashes of a hero.” He can’t exactly carry that around as a charm, but with DM’s permission, I was thinking a small chain with a tiny container he wears around his neck containing a bit of those ashes. Also he has the urn of course, this is just where the stuff in the amulet came from. Works?
Sounds cool. If you want, you can just replace the urn with the amulet altogether.
Man. Good thing there wasn’t a grandfather clock on the chart.
Sorry, busy couple of days. I’ll roll a character and create a backstory and deity ideas later tonight.
Here’s mine (also emailed to Johnny Bravo)
**GENERAL**
Name: Halduor
Race: Mountain Dwarf
Class: Fighter
Level: 1
Background: Sailor
Alignment: NG
Experience: 0
Armor Class: 16
Initiative: +2
Speed: 25
Hit Points: 13/13
Hit Dice: 1d10/1d10
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Passive Perception: 11
**ATTRIBUTES**
Str: 12 (+1)
• Athletics: +3
Dex: 15 (+2)
• Acrobatics: +2
• Sleight of Hand: +4
• Stealth: +2
Con: 16 (+3)
Int: 8 (-1)
• Arcana: -1
• History: -1
• Investigation: -1
• Nature: -1
• Religion: -1
Wis: 12 (+1)
• Animal Handling: +1
• Insight: +1
• Medicine: +1
• Perception: +3
• Survival: +1
Cha: 13 (+1)
• Deception: +1
• Intimidation: +3
• Performance: +1
• Persuasion: +1
**ATTACKS:**
Light Crossbow +6 1d8+2 Piercing Loading, Two-handed, 80/320
Greatsword +3 2d6+1 Slashing Heavy, Two-handed
Greataxe +3 1d12+1 Slashing Heavy, Two-handed
Belaying Pin +3 1d4+1 Bludgeoning Light
**PROFICIENCIES: **
Languages: Common, Dwarvish
All armor and shields
All simple and martial weapons
Brewer’s supplies
Navigator’s tools
Vehicles (water)
**FEATURES AND TRAITS**
• Speed not reduced by wearing medium armor
• *Darkvision*
• *Dwarven Resiliance*: Advantage on saving throws against poison, resistance against poison damage
• *Stonecunning*: When making an Int(Hist) check related to the origin of stonework, considered proficient in the History skill, and add double proficiency bonus to the check instead of normal proficiency bonus.
• *Fighting Style—Archery*: +2 bonus to attack rolls made with ranged weapons
• *Second Wind*: Once between rests, can use a bonus action to regain 1d10+(fighter level) hit points.
• *Sailor Background Feature—Ship’s Passage*: Can secure free passage on a sailing ship for you and companions. Can’t be certain of schedule or route. Expected that you and companions will assist during voyage.
**CHARACTERISTICS: **
Personality: My friends know they can count on me no matter what
I like to stretch the truth for the sake of a good story.
Ideal: Respect. The thing that keeps a ship together is mutual respect between captain and crew
Bond: (Custom) My wife died defending our ship from a pirate attack. I will always be loyal to her memory, and I hope to avenge her death.
Flaws My pride will probably lead to my destruction
**EQUIPMENT:**
• Chain mail
• Greataxe
• Greatsword
• Light crossbow
• 20 bolts
• Explorer’s pack
o Backpack
o Bedroll
o Mess kit
o Tinderbox
o 10 torches
o 10 days of rations
o Waterskin
o 50 feet of hemp rope
• A belaying pin (club)
• 50 feet of silk rope
• Common clothes
• Belt pouch
• 10 gp
• Small amulet worn under shirt with ashes inside.
• Urn containing ashes of a hero (this is the source of the ashes in the amulet)
Ah, I see that I’ve done my Passive Perception wrong. It should be 9 instead of -1. The PDF at the link has been updated.
I have decided to cannibalize a setting I used in a campaign many years ago.
*
Legend has it that ages ago, before the gods as we know them even existed, the world was more land than water. Vast stretches of land stretched for a thousand thousand miles in all directions, spotted by rivers and forests and all things good in life. There were no oceans on Rhye - a man could walk forever and never come to a body of water wider than a river or lake.
But though the world was grand, the gods who ruled it were not. They battled one another ceaselessly and took their conflicts to the mortal realm itself, ripping enormous scars in the land and causing great mountain ranges and volcanoes to erupt from once green pastures. Chasms and canyons were carved from stone and soil and were filled with tears as the earth itself wept, forming the oceans that we now sail upon.
It was during these conflicts that the lesser gods rose up in defense of man and went to battle on their behalf. Because the greater gods were embroiled in their own conflicts they were easy prey and fell quickly. They were cast into the abyss and the lesser gods became the High Gods that we now worship. The void left by the new High Gods was filled by the lesser deities we know today.
The High Gods, however, could not repair the world. It was forever changed, now a scattering of islands and moderately sized land masses in the middle of an endless ocean. But in their compassion they filled our waters with fish and all other good things so that we would grow and thrive.
*----
The world of Rhye consists of one small continent and the vast multitude of islands that surround it, growing progressively smaller as one travels further out, until one finally passes the last of the islands, out into the Boundless Waters.
The central continent is home to the city of Rhye, and its government claims control of all lands that one may reach by boat. In reality, only those islands closest to the Imperial Seat are truly subservient to the throne, with its influence growing progressively weaker as one travels further towards the Boundless Waters. Indeed, small de facto governments exist in many of the outer islands, or even across archipelagos. The Empire of Rhye has no particular stake or interest in subjugating these lands it claims to control, and its agents are treated politely wherever they travel. Indeed, it has been centuries since Rhye’s mighty navy was forced to actively wage war against the belligerent peoples of the outer island, and its military is a shadow of what it once was, having long ago defeated any external threats.
The islands surrounding Rhye consist of biomes of every type – jungles and deserts and pine forests and anything else that may be dramatically appropriate, with the only hard and fast rule being that population steadily declines the further one travels from Rhye.
The pantheon of Rhye is somewhat animistic, with the High Gods representing vast elemental forces primarily associated with the ocean and weather. The Lesser Gods are multitudinous, and often do not have their own churches or shrines, but may instead have reliquaries or altars at the larger churches devoted to the High Gods.
In recent generations, the waters of Rhye have been receding. This is mostly noticeable in the outlying regions closest to the Boundless Waters, where space is at a premium. More interestingly, though, are tales of islands revealing themselves as waters recede. Men in taverns speak of ancient temples, lost cities, and other places filled with treasure beyond imagining. Places that they haven’t seen, of course, but a friend of a cousin who worked on a ship with a man he knew swears by it. And of course, this begs the question among scholars: why is this happening? When will it stop? Thus far, shipping routes and tide patterns have been unaffected, but who is to say what the future holds?
So I’ve been putting some thought into this, and want to give you two options for this background. My primary concern is making it too influential compared to the other ones.
Choice 1) You are an acolyte of one of the High Gods. These are the primary religions in Rhye and their influence is vast. However, you will be a small fish in a very large pond. On the plus side, you’ll be recognized and afforded respect wherever you go in civilized society. On the other hand, there will nearly always be an actual cleric in these places, even in the boondocks.
Choice 2) You are an acolyte of one of the Lesser Gods. On the plus side, you will be afforded great respect and perhaps even a certain amount of reverence when you encounter worshipers of your faith. On the other hand, these encounters will be more rare and it’s unlikely you’ll ever find even small communities devoted to your god.
Whichever choice you pick will not influence the “coded” benefits of the background, which allow you to rest and heal at temples when recognized as a man of faith.
I’m thinking a lesser god would be appropriate, since I’m not thinking in terms of a thunder god or anything elemental like that. Perhaps something more like an ascended saint. Like so:
Eumonia
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Suggested domains: Knowledge, Life
In her mortal life, Eumonia traveled extensively trying to find an answer to the riddle of ill will and the misery it engenders. After learning much of the ways and beliefs of disparate peoples across the realm, she came to the conclusion that people, broadly construed to mean all intelligent, natural races native to this plane, are naturally inclined to good will. Malevolence, she believed, is a corruption of the natural mind that has its roots in obfuscation and obscurity that arises from contact with the world where thoughts are generally muddy.
Clarity is not a state, but an ongoing journey that each individual must take for themselves. No one can simply explain it to you, but they can instruct you in avoidance of well-known quagmires of the mind such as logical fallacies, wishful thinking and the desire for simple answers. The faithful of Eumonia encourage endless philosophical inquiry.
This non-stop inquiry often seems to others like merely being gadflies, constantly carping at the beliefs of others out of stubborn contrariness. Eumonites do not deny that there are such among them. Instead, they insist on the accuser accounting for the insight they claim to have to distinguish honest inquiry from carping.
The spirit of open inquiry has created a culture of open-mindedness within the faith, which by no means prevents the rise of schisms. Among the faithful, if there is no difference of opinion at the table, someone is obliged to think one up. But there have arisen various interpretations of what Eumonites should actually busy themselves doing. Most notable among these:
- The Turrists build enclosed communities in which they may practice their own passionate pursuit of wisdom without the muddying influences of the outside world. Unless they have a rich patron, these monastic communities usually labor to produce salable goods such as cheese or beer.
- The Docents believe in trying to make the rest of the world wise. They build schools, and hold public lectures.
- The Bacculists believe they are obliged to actively intervene in the world to ameliorate the ills that fuzzy thinking and the malevolence it engenders bring upon the world, though they may regret that this vocation sharp weapons must often take the place of sharp wit.
Rinzo’s own disagreement with the faith in which he was raised stems from a suspicion that a lot of people your meet are just shitheads when you come down to it and no amount of clarity would do them any good. In the church this is recognized as a common philosophical dead-end known as the Slough of Stink Waves, and he is expected to grow out of it when, as the metaphor goes, the stench of the world no longer makes his eyes water.
Okay, we’re just waiting on His Beefiness to get started. Our lineup is as follows:
Johnny Angel - Rinzo the Human Bard
The Hamster King - Morath the Elven Rogue
Budget Player Cadet - Hukthak the Half-Orc Barbarian
Frylock - Halduour the Dwarf Fighter
I haven’t gotten a confirmation from invisiblecastle, so we’re going to go with www.rolz.org instead.
When you go to the site, click “dice room” in the top left corner. “Nickname” will be your displayed screen name in the room, so use your SDMB handle or your character name. The name of the room is “SevenSeas.” There are instructions for how to format the rolls on the page.
Sorry, I won’t be this slow usually - busy spurt. I’ll get the character done in a few hours.
Okay, so given the campaign setting, I’ve decided I’m going to play a tempest cleric rather than a knowledge cleric. That focuses on mastery of the elements, with domain spells like fog cloud, thunderwave, gust of wind, call lightning, etc. It also gives me heavy armor and martial weapons, so it’s a fighting cleric sort of build.
But of course any cleric can have cure wounds, and so I’ll still function as the primary group healer.
I’ll need help fleshing out the deity. I’m looking to be a disciple of one of the high gods associated with the oceans and/or storms. I can create a greater backstory than that, but I thought perhaps you could give me a little more to go on so that I don’t run afoul of your idea for the campaign setting. Alignment will also depend on what you can tell me about those options.
The gist of what called me to adventure was that the receding of the ocean concerns my church that there’s a shifting of power between the gods, or some other factor causing an imbalance in the forces of nature. As a promising student who knows how to take care of himself, they decided that I should be among those that they sent out into the world to learn what I could about the change.
I’ll flesh out the backstory pending more information about the deities.
Now - does anyone see a problem if I go a tempest cleric? As I said, all clerics can cast cure wounds, so I’m as useful as a healer as a tempest as I would be as a knowledge cleric. I’m less squishy because I can wear heavy armor, too. But we’ll end up having 5 melee fighters, assuming the bard is doing melee fighting. Any problems with that? Or anything else?
I’m going to start building a character sheet. I did my roll and actually managed an 18, so that’s a nice start. 18-13-13-12-12-10, so not great at anything else.
While the lesser gods are Greek-style anthropomorphized figures, the High Gods are more animistic in nature and control vast spheres. They are never represented as people or animals. The High God is Rhye himself: the ocean.
You could worship him, or think of any other global-scale force. Winds, tides, storms, currents, the sun, the moon, etc. At some point I’ll cement the actual High God pantheon, but for now I’ll let you decide which of those you would like to add in.
Can I make up my own background with comparable skills and starter stuff to the ones available? Pending your approval.
Yeah, make your pitch. Just try to keep its power level in line with the rest. I’ll compare it to the others in the book when I get home.
Looks like the pattern is:
[ul][li]2 Skill proficiencies[/li][li]2 from among the following: Tool proficiencies, languages[/li][li]A class feature, often involving contacts or a place to find rest and shelter or other conveniences that you can share with the party.[/li]Some gear, including a belt pouch with 5-25 gp in it that everybody gets just before they go adventuring.[/ul]
I feel like the proficiencies are always (or nearly always) tied to different stats. Am I wrong?