In the game I'm currently running (Forgotten Realms setting, 5e) there is a character's who has a backstory that they got wind of a cult within their church (Oghma, god of knowledge) and she's now in hiding from them. I'm going to make them accidentally run into her again soon, but I'm still not entirely sure what a good lore plot reason a cult of Oghma would have for existing - like what would they *want*?
My current idea comes from how Oghma originally entered the Realms - as a namer. He named everything. What if the cult wants to rename something to get some kind of power over it? There's that whole idea where Names have a great amount of power, etc etc.
Any Forgotten Realms loremasters have a cool idea that might help me along here? What would a cult of Oghma want that it'd have to do in the shadows? And if my idea seems neat, what would they be trying to rename (or maybe they're just trying to rename everything?)?
What about a fiendish cult hiding amoungst the Oghma worshippers. They are trying to locate the True names of devils to catalogue them, they do it in secret because if powerful mages, warlocks etc got wind of what they were doing they would come looking for their work.. They don't really need to be evil, just driven to find out the names of things which have been forgotten or hidden. You could also have a rival sect working for someone like Vecna, both working in the background, the party run into them form time to time and may in adverently help the wrong group.
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I always imagined there would be tension in the Church of Oghma between the oral historians (bards) and people who believe in preserving knowledge on paper. Literacy reduces bards to singing insipid love songs, and then the printing press makes scriptoria full of calligraphers and illuminators redundant. But that doesn't seem like it would rise to violence.
A splinter faction of the church might actually want to suppress some knowledge or other as heretical or too dangerous to be disseminated. That's actually the plot of a book called The Name of the Rose. It's not a light read, but there's a movie.
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In the game I'm currently running (Forgotten Realms setting, 5e) there is a character's who has a backstory that they got wind of a cult within their church (Oghma, god of knowledge) and she's now in hiding from them. I'm going to make them accidentally run into her again soon, but I'm still not entirely sure what a good lore plot reason a cult of Oghma would have for existing - like what would they *want*?
My current idea comes from how Oghma originally entered the Realms - as a namer. He named everything. What if the cult wants to rename something to get some kind of power over it? There's that whole idea where Names have a great amount of power, etc etc.
Any Forgotten Realms loremasters have a cool idea that might help me along here? What would a cult of Oghma want that it'd have to do in the shadows? And if my idea seems neat, what would they be trying to rename (or maybe they're just trying to rename everything?)?
What about a fiendish cult hiding amoungst the Oghma worshippers. They are trying to locate the True names of devils to catalogue them, they do it in secret because if powerful mages, warlocks etc got wind of what they were doing they would come looking for their work.. They don't really need to be evil, just driven to find out the names of things which have been forgotten or hidden. You could also have a rival sect working for someone like Vecna, both working in the background, the party run into them form time to time and may in adverently help the wrong group.
I always imagined there would be tension in the Church of Oghma between the oral historians (bards) and people who believe in preserving knowledge on paper. Literacy reduces bards to singing insipid love songs, and then the printing press makes scriptoria full of calligraphers and illuminators redundant. But that doesn't seem like it would rise to violence.
A splinter faction of the church might actually want to suppress some knowledge or other as heretical or too dangerous to be disseminated. That's actually the plot of a book called The Name of the Rose. It's not a light read, but there's a movie.