Rampant Sects
(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on November 24, 2008.)
In my last post, I talked a little bit about how religions are rarely monolithic in reality — how they splinter into a network of related sects, some of which can believe very different things. Today I offer a brief illustration: three sects I’ve developed for my game, all based on my interpretation of the Raven Queen, the fourth edition’s new and ever-intriguing goddess of death.
The Most Ancient and Honorable Order of Deathspeakers is a militarized splinter faction of the church, whose warrior monks seek to destroy the undead and oppose the machinations of Orcus and his minions. Many of these are fanatical in their beliefs, and enough are reckless in battle that the common folk often call them the “Deathseekers” (but not to their faces).
The M.A.H.O. is actually not very ancient, having been established within the past century — it claims the adjective through a dubious philosophical connection with an earlier sect of a similar name, which was eradicated centuries ago by a combination of Orcus cultists and their own infighting. It isn’t terribly honorable, either, for that matter, although its activities are largely confined to crusading against the undead and related enemies (necromancers, Orcus cultists, etc.).
The Deathspeakers have only one large monastery devoted to their order — in the wilderness north of the kingdoms of Tir Eselyn and south of Ravenspire. Few rulers are willing to support a large independent army of religious fanatics on their soil. Smaller chapterhouses of perhaps 20-50 members are scattered throughout the region, though, and itinerant crusader groups of 3-7 warrior monks and acolytes are a reasonably common sight throughout the north.
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Myth Direction: the Faerie Courts
A quick thought experiment, today. The Manual of the Planes contains some information about the Faerie Courts, the Seelie and the Unseelie, in its Feywild section. I don’t plan to use that particular take on it in my game, since I have something else worked out. But it did inspire some ideas about a third way.
This probably owes something to The Dresden Files
One of the more obvious bits of the construction was a simple emphasis on the duality: the Seelie Court, the Court of Summer, is right at home in the Feywild, with its preternatural wilderness. So where else should the Unseelie Court, the Court of Winter, be, than the Shadowfell? In fact, I picture the Feywild as an eternal summer, warm and vibrant. The Shadowfell isn’t entirely locked in winter — but certainly parts of it are, as I picture it, a frozen waste of eternal cold.
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Encountering the Raven Queen
Previously, I looked at some mythological inspirations for D&D’s Raven Queen and considered how those elements might be useful to construct the Raven Queen in-game. There are certainly many possible ways of doing so, given how little there is in the rulebooks about her, but I’ve arrived at something that will work for at least one campaign.
Now it’s time to consider how to use the character as I’ve defined her in that campaign.
Heroic Tier
In the heroic tier, my PCs will probably not have any direct interactions with the gods, or even with direct representatives of the gods. I’ve played in, and run, campaigns where such interaction did occur, but I feel that this is the exception, rather than the norm. I’ll assume a “typical” campaign, if there is such a thing.
Therefore, at heroic levels, the PCs’ main interaction with the Raven Queen will come in the form of interaction with her worshippers and priests. Among the obvious possibilities:
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Defining the Raven Queen
In yesterday’s post, I briefly examined some mythical entities that might serve as inspirations to those who intend to give the Raven Queen a prominent role in their campaigns. Today’s post presents a more fleshed-out, in-game model of the Raven Queen and her domain. Almost none of this is official in any way, of course, but I hope it will prove useful, or at least interesting.
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The being now known as the Raven Queen is the second-oldest entity in the universe. In the moment of the first entity’s creation, death became a possibility, and from that possibility the Raven Queen was born. She became the consort of this entity, of whom little is known other than the titles found in rare and obscure texts: the King Most Ancient or the King of Moments. And when that King died, his passing tore the universe in two, creating the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea from what had come before. From the failing sparks of the King’s being arose the first gods and the first primordials.
It’s little known that the Raven Queen is not, properly speaking, a goddess at all. She predates gods and primordials alike, and in many ways she possesses more in common with the latter, those creatures who arose from the Elemental Chaos. When the primordials formed the world, the Raven Queen was among them; it was she who first began to remove the darkest areas, setting into motion the creation of the Shadowfell, the dark echo of the first world.
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Seeking the Raven Queen
The Raven Queen is one of the most mysterious deities of fourth edition, and, judging by various forum posts, one of the most popular. This is what’s known of her: She’s the unaligned goddess of death; she’s also the goddess of fate and winter. She opposes Orcus and undeath in general. Unlike most gods, she does not make her home within a dominion in the Astral Sea; instead, she rules from the palace Letherna in the Shadowfell.
And that’s about it.
There are some obvious parallels to Greek myth here. “Letherna” suggests Lethe, the river of Hades, whose waters caused total forgetfulness in any who drank of them. The word lethe literally means forgetfulness, but also concealment or deception — and it’s related to the Greek word often translated as truth, aletheia. (The actual meaning is something more akin to disclosure or non-concealment, from what I understand, and connotes recognition.)
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