I am rebooting my campaign I've been working on and am in need of assistance writing and balancing stat blocks and flushing out the world. the campaign is based in 5e with several imports from other editions, it is a long-term op campaign meant to go past level 20. the setting is when gods still roamed the world freely, each realm interconnected and technically accessible without plane shift (shhhh) there are countless gods added onto the the main pantheon new and old, real world deities placed into the world. YOU CAN LITERALLY FIGHT GOD! Or ride the great flying spaghetti monster in the sky! however I am extremely behind, I bit off more than I can chew and I struggle with staying on task while working on a long project. its easy when i have players counting on me but I'm not ready to run this again, i want to do this right.
Job Tasks:
RP of certain gods
including your own gods from your own past campaigns (there's a fun secret about why)
killing bad ideas
and much more we can discuss, I'm not asking for a slave i can dump all the BS work on, I need someone who wants to make this world better.
keeping me 'interested' i just need to borrow your enthusiasm sometimes
Preferences: (Not Required just helpful)
experienced in multiple editions
knowledge of real-world religions and myth
Tools I use: DDB, Inkarnate, Dungeon Alchemist, DungeonFog, discord, as well as countless pdfs
One creative suggestion: In ancient Sumeria, the mother civilization and source of all paganism, they had this practice of each city-state having a local deity that gave power to a priest-king sitting at the top. The god was basically an early version of the “divine right” context. But what if in a fantasy campaign there was a secret society of the ultra Elite that created and fostered this pantheon ideology as a way to control the masses…. but at the heart of it all is a humanoid figurehead that merely serves as the mouthpiece for the “divine council” of priests that functions like a small congress? And sure there is magic and whatever in this version of the universe, but it is non-sentient and operates via proto-physics and alchemy, and the Arcane schools and Divine schools are two sides of the same metaphysical coin?
The heroes of the adventure have to expose this great fraud, like the good monotheists or skeptics that they are.
Just a thought. I mean, sure, you could always roleplay a Mortal Kombat competition with Ra and Thor and Zeus and have Barry the bard just defeat them all with his violin. But it would probably get boring without a story behind it.
I really like this idea as a potential arc, I still have an empty continent, and this could be the local governing practice, to be chosen by one of these minor deities, with larger city's producing more belief and resources that their deity would be more powerful could move up the godly power scale. the ultra elite could run the capital, it being such an expensive place to live that only the elite can afford to live there, or maybe the cult starts in a surrounding town and is getting suspiciously more and more powerful and is secretly run by this cult, or it could be an evil cult that invests in corn and plans to destroy all the farmland and now they hold a corn monopoly and being the staple crop of the area they can put exorbitant price on it... the area of the world could have completely different beliefs in and practice of magic and thus the residents magic is inherently different than the rest of the world.
I don't have anything against you for supporting the bible, and as long as you're ok with it I would greatly appreciate your help. even if you don't want to fully commit id appreciate the help fleshing out your idea some.
I really like this idea as a potential arc, I still have an empty continent, and this could be the local governing practice, to be chosen by one of these minor deities, with larger city's producing more belief and resources that their deity would be more powerful could move up the godly power scale. the ultra elite could run the capital, it being such an expensive place to live that only the elite can afford to live there, or maybe the cult starts in a surrounding town and is getting suspiciously more and more powerful and is secretly run by this cult, or it could be an evil cult that invests in corn and plans to destroy all the farmland and now they hold a corn monopoly and being the staple crop of the area they can put exorbitant price on it... the area of the world could have completely different beliefs in and practice of magic and thus the residents magic is inherently different than the rest of the world.
I don't have anything against you for supporting the bible, and as long as you're ok with it I would greatly appreciate your help. even if you don't want to fully commit id appreciate the help fleshing out your idea some.
Well coming at this through the lens of real world religious history I would read up on the Mesopotamian Sumerian, Akkadian and later Babylonian cultures where they had these city states centered around a ziggurat. Ur is one such city and provides the context of the Biblical Abraham’s early life. The Sumerians had a pantheon called the Annanuki that was very widespread and most religious history scholars believe that their ideas influenced Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and ultimately the Roman Empire…. but also they moved east and formed proto-Hinduism from the Aryan vedas. Its a very fascinating topic.
If I was going to create a campaign setting with this backdrop I would include the primary Sumerian city state cultures but also a more tribal monotheistic pastoral society on the outskirts. This is basically how monotheism emerged in real life, slowly over time.
Alot of people might not know how much D&D owes its core mythology to these ancient cultures but I am aware of it. I also think there has been a complete gap in the D&D multiverse for handling monotheism, despite it being much more common these days IRL.
I would probably have to know more about your actual world and project so far before I commented further. These are just my initial thoughts.
This took so long for me too read. If you wanted to create your own gods and needed a base for it I would recommend the book "The Game Master's Book Of Astonishing Random Tables". This book has helped me a lot in my campaign and it helped me with building a world, government, sessions, the small details most idiots try to find out like a small unnamed goblin in the tavern and a whole lot more. You can even build an economy with this book.
Suggestion: You could have this for one of your arcs, where a eldritch being is angry at the goods so he places out a war against him and the players could either join the war as soldiers or negotiators.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
I actually have that book somewhere, it was a great help, and as to the power structure i already have a "base" however each pantheon/religeon has its own peculiarities.
I think a late game war arc between the gods and an eldritch eldritch gods would be amazing, do you have a lot of knowledge of the Lovecraftian lore?
Not a lot but I get the gist of it. The hardest part would be either, figuring out alliances between the gods and eldritch beings, or creating the eldritch beings. I could build some but the reason they are called eldritch gods are because they have incormpimensal power, knowledge, are subjects in the form of warlocks and monsters. And that is really hard to construct with homebrew.
EDIT: Now I wish I payed attention in church more. the only things I know is some religiose story's and a lot of myths and mythical beasts.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
This would have to be a lvl 18-20 arc at least. Although no ones made it that far so I honestly dont know how powerful the party will be at that level. They should be at least 3x as strong as a normal lvl 20. Ill send you a link to my discord we can talk more there
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I am rebooting my campaign I've been working on and am in need of assistance writing and balancing stat blocks and flushing out the world. the campaign is based in 5e with several imports from other editions, it is a long-term op campaign meant to go past level 20. the setting is when gods still roamed the world freely, each realm interconnected and technically accessible without plane shift (shhhh) there are countless gods added onto the the main pantheon new and old, real world deities placed into the world. YOU CAN LITERALLY FIGHT GOD! Or ride the great flying spaghetti monster in the sky! however I am extremely behind, I bit off more than I can chew and I struggle with staying on task while working on a long project. its easy when i have players counting on me but I'm not ready to run this again, i want to do this right.
Job Tasks:
RP of certain gods
including your own gods from your own past campaigns (there's a fun secret about why)
killing bad ideas
and much more we can discuss, I'm not asking for a slave i can dump all the BS work on, I need someone who wants to make this world better.
keeping me 'interested' i just need to borrow your enthusiasm sometimes
Preferences: (Not Required just helpful)
experienced in multiple editions
knowledge of real-world religions and myth
Tools I use: DDB, Inkarnate, Dungeon Alchemist, DungeonFog, discord, as well as countless pdfs
I worship Jesus the son of the Living God, so…..
I’m probably not your guy.
One creative suggestion:
In ancient Sumeria, the mother civilization and source of all paganism, they had this practice of each city-state having a local deity that gave power to a priest-king sitting at the top. The god was basically an early version of the “divine right” context. But what if in a fantasy campaign there was a secret society of the ultra Elite that created and fostered this pantheon ideology as a way to control the masses…. but at the heart of it all is a humanoid figurehead that merely serves as the mouthpiece for the “divine council” of priests that functions like a small congress? And sure there is magic and whatever in this version of the universe, but it is non-sentient and operates via proto-physics and alchemy, and the Arcane schools and Divine schools are two sides of the same metaphysical coin?
The heroes of the adventure have to expose this great fraud, like the good monotheists or skeptics that they are.
Just a thought. I mean, sure, you could always roleplay a Mortal Kombat competition with Ra and Thor and Zeus and have Barry the bard just defeat them all with his violin. But it would probably get boring without a story behind it.
☕️
I really like this idea as a potential arc, I still have an empty continent, and this could be the local governing practice, to be chosen by one of these minor deities, with larger city's producing more belief and resources that their deity would be more powerful could move up the godly power scale. the ultra elite could run the capital, it being such an expensive place to live that only the elite can afford to live there, or maybe the cult starts in a surrounding town and is getting suspiciously more and more powerful and is secretly run by this cult, or it could be an evil cult that invests in corn and plans to destroy all the farmland and now they hold a corn monopoly and being the staple crop of the area they can put exorbitant price on it... the area of the world could have completely different beliefs in and practice of magic and thus the residents magic is inherently different than the rest of the world.
I don't have anything against you for supporting the bible, and as long as you're ok with it I would greatly appreciate your help. even if you don't want to fully commit id appreciate the help fleshing out your idea some.
Well coming at this through the lens of real world religious history I would read up on the Mesopotamian Sumerian, Akkadian and later Babylonian cultures where they had these city states centered around a ziggurat. Ur is one such city and provides the context of the Biblical Abraham’s early life. The Sumerians had a pantheon called the Annanuki that was very widespread and most religious history scholars believe that their ideas influenced Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and ultimately the Roman Empire…. but also they moved east and formed proto-Hinduism from the Aryan vedas. Its a very fascinating topic.
If I was going to create a campaign setting with this backdrop I would include the primary Sumerian city state cultures but also a more tribal monotheistic pastoral society on the outskirts. This is basically how monotheism emerged in real life, slowly over time.
Alot of people might not know how much D&D owes its core mythology to these ancient cultures but I am aware of it. I also think there has been a complete gap in the D&D multiverse for handling monotheism, despite it being much more common these days IRL.
I would probably have to know more about your actual world and project so far before I commented further. These are just my initial thoughts.
This took so long for me too read. If you wanted to create your own gods and needed a base for it I would recommend the book "The Game Master's Book Of Astonishing Random Tables". This book has helped me a lot in my campaign and it helped me with building a world, government, sessions, the small details most idiots try to find out like a small unnamed goblin in the tavern and a whole lot more. You can even build an economy with this book.
Suggestion: You could have this for one of your arcs, where a eldritch being is angry at the goods so he places out a war against him and the players could either join the war as soldiers or negotiators.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
I actually have that book somewhere, it was a great help, and as to the power structure i already have a "base" however each pantheon/religeon has its own peculiarities.
I think a late game war arc between the gods and an eldritch eldritch gods would be amazing, do you have a lot of knowledge of the Lovecraftian lore?
Not a lot but I get the gist of it. The hardest part would be either, figuring out alliances between the gods and eldritch beings, or creating the eldritch beings. I could build some but the reason they are called eldritch gods are because they have incormpimensal power, knowledge, are subjects in the form of warlocks and monsters. And that is really hard to construct with homebrew.
EDIT: Now I wish I payed attention in church more. the only things I know is some religiose story's and a lot of myths and mythical beasts.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Ill send you a link to my discord we can talk about the world there, I dont want to leave to many spoilers here.
This would have to be a lvl 18-20 arc at least. Although no ones made it that far so I honestly dont know how powerful the party will be at that level. They should be at least 3x as strong as a normal lvl 20. Ill send you a link to my discord we can talk more there