In my new campaign I have decided to roll a Forge Cleric, as it fit in nicely with the area we are starting in in my DM's home brew, and after playing a few of the more exotic races in our last game I really wanted to roll a Dwarf. Dwarf and Forge seem like a no duh combo to me, but I really don't know how to play the Cleric part of it. My brain just defaults to smithy, but I want to play a young, new to the world Cleric. So far for backstory I have that I was given up as a baby to the Temple of Moradin after my bio dad (mountain Dwarf) had a forbidden fling with a Duergar and nine months later bio mom left me at dads doorstep. Anyway, I have spent my whole life in the small town my temple is in and now my Cleric brethren are encouraging me to go see the world for a while. Backstory is all well and good, but I really don't know how to RP a cleric and everything I read says a dwarf should be stubborn, pigheaded, and grumpy when not with ale in hand. Any pointers would be much appreciated.
The wonderful thing about dwarves and their pigheadedness is that its just a stereotype. You dont actually have to play the brash almost always angry classic trope, and can easily bend the character how ever you want. You want him a bright eyed clergyman with no understanding of the outside world and just a pure innocence that even a halfling is surprised about? Go for it! Just from his little bit of background you filled us in on it seems like he grew up in the temple, so there's probably a lot he might not know!
Course as a Forge Cleric you're gonna be tough, swinging a hammer and crafting all manner of gear. You know the forge, you know your faith, the rest is all new.
You could be incredibly interested in the crafting quality of equipment you find, to the level of a wizard with a love of books espousing how amazing it is to find this rare tome. You find a rare magical weapon and they are fussing over the impressiveness of the scrollwork on the cross guard of the sword, or even to larger scale items like fortifications and the craftsmanship of the gates to city they just entered.
Maybe you are always looking for rare schema that detail how to construct and forge powerful items, whether or not you have the capabilities to make them yourself. Bringing them back so that the master craftsman can try and re-engineer these powerful items in this more modern age. Especially if you want to be a fresh faced cleric out and about in the world then I would encourage an enthusiasm for fine craftsmanship even if it is just a regular smithy you are visiting, maybe they make some incredibly sturdy farm equipment because they are using a slightly different allow for creations making them more durable than normal, or just well made with very few imperfections that will last for years under hard use.
You could take that sense of wonder and move it more to a serious note of a very critical eye of every item the group looks to purchase. "This sword looks to have been made by a child, I have made better in my sleep" very proud of your ability to judge the worth of items or of your ability to make a superior work. Might make people unhappy with your judgements but it might not be an intentional thing, more like someone with very weak verbal filters. They speak their mind without regard of if it might irritate or offend another.
Hopefully that gets you thinking of some options.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
And the Forge Gods are often also the Gods of labour and hard work more generally. Perhaps you could reflect that by always gravitating towards the hard working common folk of the world, while being suspicious of the upper classes who hoard riches without ever getting their hands dirty as pleases the God of Labours. You could even use that idea to choose who in the party you get along with best - those earthy fighter types, not the do-nothing fragile wizards...
And the Forge Gods are often also the Gods of labour and hard work more generally. Perhaps you could reflect that by always gravitating towards the hard working common folk of the world, while being suspicious of the upper classes who hoard riches without ever getting their hands dirty as pleases the God of Labours. You could even use that idea to choose who in the party you get along with best - those earthy fighter types, not the do-nothing fragile wizards...
Not afraid to sweat could be a good trait to play off of as Regent suggested. But even for the wizardly scholarly types you could have a fascination with them wondering how their spells could be used to improve upon existing creations (might be a little more gnomish but that is up to you). Something along the lines of "How did you get your abilities without doing a hard days labor in your life" to which the wizard might respond with something about digging through endless archives searching for an answer lost in the stacks of uncatalogued books in musty libraries. Maybe you want to bring better and stronger creations to everyone, stop in a small village that is having goblin problems and you decide to help outfit a militia, or teach the local blacksmith who usually makes plows to make simple spears and shields (I don't say swords because they take a lot of metal to make) that will help protect the town in the future.
Something to ask yourself is why is your character involved with crafting, is it JUST because you were raised by the clerics of moradin or have you found your own purpose.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I always dismissed the forge domain as rather boring compared to the awesome power of the tempest domain, martial prowess of the war domain, or iconic theme of the life domain.
I have to say the ideas here have really changed my mind. There's something brilliant about playing a fantastical spellcaster with holy powers who, despite all of that, really gravitates toward the common folk. I'm genuinely inspired by that concept, and how well it fits the forge theme.
There's a line I just read in the forge domain's description about them believing that, no matter how tough the metal is, through hard work you can turn a lump of ore into a masterful creation. That's also very inspiring. You can take away some profound meanings about perseverance and patience, and have a very interesting and grounded benevolent forge cleric, or flip that around and have an evil forge cleric hellbent on exerting his influence and shaping the world to his liking.
I'm porting my very first PC into 5e from 3.5. He was an acolyte with very low (4) charisma who was the group's Dwarven blacksmith and wondrous item creator. The brutal charisma roll was an interesting place to try to role play from. When trying to pick a personality or character flaw, the ability scores are always a nice place to start. In that character's case, I already decided on Cleric so wisdom was already taking the highest roll, all other rolls were Avg, but the low roll is what ended defined his personality.
With the limits on crafting magical items in 5e, I'm struggling making him fit in his once nice niche in this version. The character was the primary buffer and off tank, so I can see how the Forge Domain can really fit him nicely mechanically. I'm thinking of having him learn about a relic of wondrous craftsmanship (The Axe of the Dwarven Lords) and have the undeniable urge to set out to recover it to study and learn from the craftsmanship of the lost clans. This also fits with the teachings of Moradin, who takes great pride in his faithful mastering their craft through hard work and dedication, as well as protecting the legacy of the Dwarven people.
I'm about to have a brand new player come into my campaign as dwarf Forge domain cleric. My advice to him in regards in terms of the religious aspect is focus on creation. Moradin forged the dwarves, your dwarf forges things to help dwarves (and other good creatures). When your character forges something he is trying to impress Moradin above everyone else, and if he does well then Moradin most likely played a hand in guiding theirs.
I'm just starting a Dwarf Cleric of the Forge and I've found a good way to give then personality is to select a theme for everything they craft. For mine I chose that every personal gear he crafts has a touch of adamantine in it. From weapons and armor to cookware.
I've also given him the goal of wanting to start a new technological renaissance.
Super late on this discussion, but a couple of things that I have done on my Cleric of the Forge. I am playing a human that was raised/saved by dwarves in our campaign and was allowed to at least learn how to be a smith from a dwarf if not taught some of the more advance techniques.
But I like to play it as the Cleric as a conduit for the god is absolutely obsessed with building a forge/church in his god's name.
Also I took the approach to having my cleric being super excited to talk about the whole smithing process, he is that one friend with more knowledge into his hobby than others and loves to talk about it. No matter how much people stop listening.
Blacksmiths are also very meticulous when crafting and that has shown on my character, in that he is slower to action and more purposeful when he does act.
Not really a dwarfy concepts but you could probably take one of these and do something with it.
Here's a 3rd party crafting system that I found on DMSGuild that revises the crafting system from Xanathar's. It helps speed of crafting times for magic items and give the crafting system a bit more personality.
I currently play a fire Genasi forge cleric in a Homebrew campaign because I thought it'd be fun, and I was right! My slightly slavic accented character was a human once, then died to bandits and their family forge was inhabited by a fire elemental who could only save my father and I, we were blessed with fire and thus became fire Genasi. He was an apprentice to his father, a blacksmith, so he loves to collect any metal he can find, even mundane stucff. He can be talkative and caring but too trusting at times.
Were you saved by Calcifer? Reference to Howl's moving castle. By fire you were reborn (or were you reforged) is a fun start for a forge cleric.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It's funny you say that, that's actually what the paladin of our game said it reminded her of. It was just kinda the fire element burned life into my character and his dad, and we happened to be blacksmiths and it just kind of helped us.
Here's how I'd play a forge domain. Your character, I used human variant but dwarf is fine. picture a blacksmith. Fresh out of trade school and ready to start a business. It's not doing so good and the Artisan Guild is on your ass for late dues. One day a kid comes to your shop talking about "Dead parents" and "a lot of blood".
You grab your weapon and arrive at a church. There's 20 kids all crying and about 36 dead bodies. These were the parents and devotees of this church. You find out they came to you because this was the church of the fordge and they believed all Smith's were followers (they're kids) now you being a dwarf (my backstory the human does it out of "Well I can't let the state get them") you know without guidance you don't get far in the world so even though you don't follow the church you pickup the book, clean the children up and now your the father of 20 human children. A light from a window shines on the church money bin and you use that to pay off your debt and make sure the kids grow up in a loving home.
For 15 years you raised all of them and the night they all left the god of the fordge meets you in your dream and is holding you with tweezers "Good job kid." And quenches you in water.
You wake up with cleric magic and realize "Yep. This religion was real." Now your a cleric and the adventure is up to you
This post is great. I too am building out a forge cleric, a Goliath blacksmith apprentice whose tribe was attacked by barbarians and suddenly he is able to summon a strange power from above and helps push out the invaders. He doesn't understand his power or where it came from, or how to fight, and leaves the tribe in search of guidance from others. He moves around from village to village looking for a teacher / priest (he doesn't even know what God granted him power) kicking ass and restoring balance along the way, becoming a folk hero.
This is role playing gold. And I am looking forward to seeing what happens to him but, I find the forge cleric (in general) almost like a nerfed war/tempest cleric in combat. What is his role in in counters? Weapon buffer bot? But only useful in the beginnings, when no one has magic weapons. And only if my group happens to be melee slighted, how do I help monks and wizards? I can't use martial weapons so my base melee isn't awesome and I don't have any heavy hitting cantrips. I would almost have to take war caster to keep any versatility / usefulness. How does crafting help my group? By saving them gold in town for ammunition?
These are the parts I get a little stuck on.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
In my new campaign I have decided to roll a Forge Cleric, as it fit in nicely with the area we are starting in in my DM's home brew, and after playing a few of the more exotic races in our last game I really wanted to roll a Dwarf. Dwarf and Forge seem like a no duh combo to me, but I really don't know how to play the Cleric part of it. My brain just defaults to smithy, but I want to play a young, new to the world Cleric. So far for backstory I have that I was given up as a baby to the Temple of Moradin after my bio dad (mountain Dwarf) had a forbidden fling with a Duergar and nine months later bio mom left me at dads doorstep. Anyway, I have spent my whole life in the small town my temple is in and now my Cleric brethren are encouraging me to go see the world for a while. Backstory is all well and good, but I really don't know how to RP a cleric and everything I read says a dwarf should be stubborn, pigheaded, and grumpy when not with ale in hand. Any pointers would be much appreciated.
The wonderful thing about dwarves and their pigheadedness is that its just a stereotype. You dont actually have to play the brash almost always angry classic trope, and can easily bend the character how ever you want. You want him a bright eyed clergyman with no understanding of the outside world and just a pure innocence that even a halfling is surprised about? Go for it! Just from his little bit of background you filled us in on it seems like he grew up in the temple, so there's probably a lot he might not know!
Course as a Forge Cleric you're gonna be tough, swinging a hammer and crafting all manner of gear. You know the forge, you know your faith, the rest is all new.
You could be incredibly interested in the crafting quality of equipment you find, to the level of a wizard with a love of books espousing how amazing it is to find this rare tome. You find a rare magical weapon and they are fussing over the impressiveness of the scrollwork on the cross guard of the sword, or even to larger scale items like fortifications and the craftsmanship of the gates to city they just entered.
Maybe you are always looking for rare schema that detail how to construct and forge powerful items, whether or not you have the capabilities to make them yourself. Bringing them back so that the master craftsman can try and re-engineer these powerful items in this more modern age. Especially if you want to be a fresh faced cleric out and about in the world then I would encourage an enthusiasm for fine craftsmanship even if it is just a regular smithy you are visiting, maybe they make some incredibly sturdy farm equipment because they are using a slightly different allow for creations making them more durable than normal, or just well made with very few imperfections that will last for years under hard use.
You could take that sense of wonder and move it more to a serious note of a very critical eye of every item the group looks to purchase. "This sword looks to have been made by a child, I have made better in my sleep" very proud of your ability to judge the worth of items or of your ability to make a superior work. Might make people unhappy with your judgements but it might not be an intentional thing, more like someone with very weak verbal filters. They speak their mind without regard of if it might irritate or offend another.
Hopefully that gets you thinking of some options.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
And the Forge Gods are often also the Gods of labour and hard work more generally. Perhaps you could reflect that by always gravitating towards the hard working common folk of the world, while being suspicious of the upper classes who hoard riches without ever getting their hands dirty as pleases the God of Labours. You could even use that idea to choose who in the party you get along with best - those earthy fighter types, not the do-nothing fragile wizards...
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I always dismissed the forge domain as rather boring compared to the awesome power of the tempest domain, martial prowess of the war domain, or iconic theme of the life domain.
I have to say the ideas here have really changed my mind. There's something brilliant about playing a fantastical spellcaster with holy powers who, despite all of that, really gravitates toward the common folk. I'm genuinely inspired by that concept, and how well it fits the forge theme.
There's a line I just read in the forge domain's description about them believing that, no matter how tough the metal is, through hard work you can turn a lump of ore into a masterful creation. That's also very inspiring. You can take away some profound meanings about perseverance and patience, and have a very interesting and grounded benevolent forge cleric, or flip that around and have an evil forge cleric hellbent on exerting his influence and shaping the world to his liking.
Site Rules & Guidelines - Please feel free to message a moderator if you have any concerns.
My homebrew: [Subclasses] [Races] [Feats] [Discussion Thread]
I'm porting my very first PC into 5e from 3.5. He was an acolyte with very low (4) charisma who was the group's Dwarven blacksmith and wondrous item creator. The brutal charisma roll was an interesting place to try to role play from. When trying to pick a personality or character flaw, the ability scores are always a nice place to start. In that character's case, I already decided on Cleric so wisdom was already taking the highest roll, all other rolls were Avg, but the low roll is what ended defined his personality.
With the limits on crafting magical items in 5e, I'm struggling making him fit in his once nice niche in this version. The character was the primary buffer and off tank, so I can see how the Forge Domain can really fit him nicely mechanically. I'm thinking of having him learn about a relic of wondrous craftsmanship (The Axe of the Dwarven Lords) and have the undeniable urge to set out to recover it to study and learn from the craftsmanship of the lost clans. This also fits with the teachings of Moradin, who takes great pride in his faithful mastering their craft through hard work and dedication, as well as protecting the legacy of the Dwarven people.
I'm about to have a brand new player come into my campaign as dwarf Forge domain cleric. My advice to him in regards in terms of the religious aspect is focus on creation. Moradin forged the dwarves, your dwarf forges things to help dwarves (and other good creatures). When your character forges something he is trying to impress Moradin above everyone else, and if he does well then Moradin most likely played a hand in guiding theirs.
I'm just starting a Dwarf Cleric of the Forge and I've found a good way to give then personality is to select a theme for everything they craft. For mine I chose that every personal gear he crafts has a touch of adamantine in it. From weapons and armor to cookware.
I've also given him the goal of wanting to start a new technological renaissance.
Super late on this discussion, but a couple of things that I have done on my Cleric of the Forge. I am playing a human that was raised/saved by dwarves in our campaign and was allowed to at least learn how to be a smith from a dwarf if not taught some of the more advance techniques.
But I like to play it as the Cleric as a conduit for the god is absolutely obsessed with building a forge/church in his god's name.
Also I took the approach to having my cleric being super excited to talk about the whole smithing process, he is that one friend with more knowledge into his hobby than others and loves to talk about it. No matter how much people stop listening.
Blacksmiths are also very meticulous when crafting and that has shown on my character, in that he is slower to action and more purposeful when he does act.
Not really a dwarfy concepts but you could probably take one of these and do something with it.
Here's a 3rd party crafting system that I found on DMSGuild that revises the crafting system from Xanathar's. It helps speed of crafting times for magic items and give the crafting system a bit more personality.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/234301/Crafting-Magic-Items-A-Guide-to-Artifice
If your DM approves of it, I'm in talks with mine at the moment, I think it will help bring out the forge in the forge cleric.
I really like this variant system. Hoping to convince my DM to allow this as it really opens up the possibilities of item creation.
I currently play a fire Genasi forge cleric in a Homebrew campaign because I thought it'd be fun, and I was right! My slightly slavic accented character was a human once, then died to bandits and their family forge was inhabited by a fire elemental who could only save my father and I, we were blessed with fire and thus became fire Genasi. He was an apprentice to his father, a blacksmith, so he loves to collect any metal he can find, even mundane stucff. He can be talkative and caring but too trusting at times.
Were you saved by Calcifer? Reference to Howl's moving castle. By fire you were reborn (or were you reforged) is a fun start for a forge cleric.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It's funny you say that, that's actually what the paladin of our game said it reminded her of. It was just kinda the fire element burned life into my character and his dad, and we happened to be blacksmiths and it just kind of helped us.
Here's how I'd play a forge domain. Your character, I used human variant but dwarf is fine. picture a blacksmith. Fresh out of trade school and ready to start a business. It's not doing so good and the Artisan Guild is on your ass for late dues. One day a kid comes to your shop talking about "Dead parents" and "a lot of blood".
You grab your weapon and arrive at a church. There's 20 kids all crying and about 36 dead bodies. These were the parents and devotees of this church. You find out they came to you because this was the church of the fordge and they believed all Smith's were followers (they're kids) now you being a dwarf (my backstory the human does it out of "Well I can't let the state get them") you know without guidance you don't get far in the world so even though you don't follow the church you pickup the book, clean the children up and now your the father of 20 human children. A light from a window shines on the church money bin and you use that to pay off your debt and make sure the kids grow up in a loving home.
For 15 years you raised all of them and the night they all left the god of the fordge meets you in your dream and is holding you with tweezers "Good job kid." And quenches you in water.
You wake up with cleric magic and realize "Yep. This religion was real." Now your a cleric and the adventure is up to you
This post is great. I too am building out a forge cleric, a Goliath blacksmith apprentice whose tribe was attacked by barbarians and suddenly he is able to summon a strange power from above and helps push out the invaders. He doesn't understand his power or where it came from, or how to fight, and leaves the tribe in search of guidance from others. He moves around from village to village looking for a teacher / priest (he doesn't even know what God granted him power) kicking ass and restoring balance along the way, becoming a folk hero.
This is role playing gold. And I am looking forward to seeing what happens to him but, I find the forge cleric (in general) almost like a nerfed war/tempest cleric in combat. What is his role in in counters? Weapon buffer bot? But only useful in the beginnings, when no one has magic weapons. And only if my group happens to be melee slighted, how do I help monks and wizards? I can't use martial weapons so my base melee isn't awesome and I don't have any heavy hitting cantrips. I would almost have to take war caster to keep any versatility / usefulness. How does crafting help my group? By saving them gold in town for ammunition?
These are the parts I get a little stuck on.