How would you go about, in the standard D&D world (with Clerical magic, etc.) designing a religious movement that in fact is not aligned with any god (not just, say, an evil cult pretending to be good or a chaotic cult pretending to be lawful or something like that)? How would it be possible to 'fake' being a real religion with a real deity that has real clerics?
Magic items replicating clerical magic, or just a special wizard class representing someone stealing the secrets of divine magic. Eventually, establish the idea that the god/cult is strictly anti - magic, henceforth no divine magic - or restricted to only the most devout (in which case, again, enough little actual need for it that it can be replicated with some magical items - just stuff that Wand of Healing into your sleeve).
Or abolish the Clerical/Arcane magical divide in a setting and just let it roll.
Edition and setting elements matter, too. In several editions, you can TOTALLY have clerics with no discernable gods; clerics can connect to a philosophy or blend of ideas or whatever.
Well you could do it with wizards or you could do it with SCIENCE!
Black powder or electrical wrath of god, hot air filled "angels", telegraphic communion, germ theory and antibiotics might well pass for miraculous.
Heck you could even do the ultra tech society infiltrating the low tech world to direct their development. Robotic beasts with feet of brass!
I could imagine something like Holy Texts that detail how priests commit themselves to their (fake) deity, that in actuality are training them in religiously flavored arcane magic, in addition to training them in other rites such as marriage ceremonies or whatever. Instead of believing they are learning magic "on their own", they believe they are learning to express the will of their deity. So, the religion has its tenets that would result in a priesthood consistent with both the religion and the limits of arcane casters. The spells available to the priesthood are taught in the holy text, and believing themselves to be holy men (and perhaps even [ironically] having a religious objection to the arcane), the idea of learning spells outside of their tradition would be unthinkable?
One approach might be to say that magic isn't ... ecumenical? That is to say that the magic of the clerics of GodThingA is opaque to clerics of GodThingB. They don't understand each other's magic, even though they might recognize it after being exposed to it.
Along comes a group of wizards/sorcerers/whathaveyou, perhaps with an illusory bent, that set up shop as a new/old religion.
I typically think of standard D&D clerics as serving a single god, but this could work for multi-pantheon settings (e.g. Eberron ), but would work best in a lower-magic setting (e.g. NOT Eberron).
Haven't thought it through at this point, obviously, but I like the idea.
On the smaller scale, for a cult and not a large religion with many priests, I could imagine something like... a powerful creature who is not quite a god plays at being one. Something like a Djinni creates a holy text. It invisibly observes it's priest and uses its wish granting ability to perform religious miracles. The religion can be tailored to fit the abilities and desires of the powerful creature. If particularly limited, even another powerful wizard or cleric could serve the purpose of being this "fake god". The followers would not be insincere, only deceived.
Illusionists could probably do it. They couldn't heal people, but they could pretend to.
And then Druids don't worship any specific god, at least in D&D, so they could probably fake it.
And there are a number of semi-official classes on Dragon that can heal.
Darkness Gathering did that in a way I liked as a DM.
There was a cult in town, they were preaching something like the coming of the new masters or somesuch and were organized. But not sinister and generally seen as just kinda there, a little annoying in their eagerness. But the more you looked into it, the more you learned that things connected to the cult were not so nice.
Also an old module in Dragon had a monks monestary that had been taken over by a figure who turned them into a cult.
Currently in the campaign I am running the PCs keep bumping into an elven-supremacist cult whos goal is to kick out the non humans and return things to the "old ways". But are working through other cults to advance their goals.
One could even argue that, in AD&D, a Cleric of a "fake cult" would still be able to cast 1st and 2nd level spells as long as that Cleric was a true believer.
Justification for this position is from pg 9 of Deities & Demigods: "...1st and 2nd level spells are gained through the cleric's knowledge and faith. All other spells are gained through prayer. Third, fourth, and fifth level spells are granted by the supernatural servants or minions of the cleric's deity...Sixth and seventh level spells are granted to clerics directly from their deities."
One could argue that first and second level Clerical magic doesn't find its source in a particular deity or servant of a deity, but from the Cleric's faith and knowledge which tap into the "general" power of the aligned plane. Only when granting of spells "gets personal" (i.e., 3rd level and above requiring the involvement of supernatural beings), is a specific deity or its servants necessary.
Also, I suppose it's not hard to imagine a lower-level supernatural being "standing in" or "posing" as a deity. Or an actual deity posing and filling in for a nonexistent one. An example of this might even be the Temple of Elemental Evil (Zuggtmoy the Demon Queen of Fungi using "elemental evil" as a more attractive front for her cult).
In my current campaign, there's a cult worshiping an ancient dragon. Not a demi-god dragon or anything, just a cruel, greedy and paranoid monster.
The sort-of twist is that they worship it not as a benefactor or anything, but because they fear and revere it. They offer it sacrifices and treasure (usually stolen from the rich people that they kidnap for said sacrifices). It all sounds awful, but it has been working: the villages have been safe from the dragon for many years.
And, inspired by Vornheim, the dragon allows some of the higher members of this cult to read the spells that are written in its scales. This grants them "powers" as a cleric.
All-in-all it's just fluff, but I'm having fun with it. The players think that they are just a run-of-the-mill dragon cult of evil.
In Red Shetland pretty much every cult and priest had no actual powers. But they did hope to attract the attention of whatever aspect they were following. So they werent worshipping for power. They were hoping for a actual visit. Which had a tendency to work about once a year when the stars were right. Temples were a rarity though. Usually personal projects. Outdoor festivals were more common.
Cults of personality though were more common. Good or bad. But often short lived. I based those around the ones Id seen flocking around popular artists at the time and extended it to things like musicians.
I think while setting and rule set is important it might be better to look at what a cult "Provides" that a religion or real church doesn't.
A certain level of inclusion and acceptance, a feeling of importance etc. You have to examine what the religions don't give and provide that. Cults in the real world don't provide miracles or "magic" they convince people they are the one true way, that what they do matters to the cult. etc.
If religion forces you to follow rules or worship certain ways then a cult would seek to undermine that and look for the fringes of society. People not saved by healing magic or too poor to tithe etc. A few fanatics can really make the difference starting a cult.
They can also always claim their faith is strong becuase their God doesn't provide convenient proof like curing a disease. He's gonna cure everyone that has faith now during the rapture, revelation, end of times or whatever.
So I think best cult leader, Evil Bard :)
In 5e there is enough overlap between the spell lists that wizards posing as clerics would be quite feasible. As long as you assume that magic is quite varied and not immediately recognisable as clerical or arcane, then it's cool.
Plus, who cares? They're baddies, they cast magic, yeeee ha!
Other than the bullshit concept that it's possible to be a legitimate cleric, with legitimate healing and blessing and clerical powers, just by hooking up with a "philosophical concept?" (That being always, in my mind, a cheapass dodge for players who wanted to have the cool powers without having to follow any of those boring roleplaying constraints, follow any doctrine or dogma they didn't write themselves, or take a stand on anything.)
Easy.
I don't see, for instance, a single bit of difference, observable to a casual onlooker, between a priestess waving her hands in the air, shouting "May the great god Mitra grant us light!" and the room filling with light, and a wizard dressed in clerical vestments, waving her hands in the air, shouting "May the great god Bunsgrabber grant us light!" and casting a light spell. If the paradigm of the common folk is that the gods grant their priests supernatural powers, well, a wizard can wear vestments, stand in a "temple" and work supernatural powers.
But, you say, how is the fake priest going to turn undead? Easy. "The great god Bunsgrabber is not a *weak* god, and He does not cowardly hope that the Unlife will just stay away! This is how Bunsgrabber deals with the Unlife!" Cue fireball hitting the zombie dead center.
But, you say, how is the fake priest going to heal people? Easy. For one, you deter the casual and the unfaithful. "The great god Bunsgrabber is not a WHORE god like all the rest! He grants healing only to His sincere worshipers!" There in one fell swoop you take care of 90% of the supplicants. For the handful you genuinely want to heal -- or the rich folk you want to think of themselves as True Believers -- just to make the scam look good, you invite them to drink from the Sacred Chalice upon which the Great God Bunsgrabber has breathed His mighty breath. (Cue wind spell.) That's the chalice you spike with a healing potion.
But, you say, how is the fake priest going to raise the dead? Easy. You don't. "What is this blasphemy you speak? Do you not know that the great god Bunsgrabber has vouchsafed your beloved dead a seat on His Great Comfy Waterbed, attended by the requisite seven Angels In Spandex? How can you be so wicked as to wish them to return to this world of suffering and pot bellies?"
Quote from: tzunder;814224In 5e there is enough overlap between the spell lists that wizards posing as clerics would be quite feasible. As long as you assume that magic is quite varied and not immediately recognisable as clerical or arcane, then it's cool.
Plus, who cares? They're baddies, they cast magic, yeeee ha!
5e Warlocks are essentially a hybrid wizard/cleric. Wizard spells granted by god-like beings or things beyond gods.
Theyd make good focus points for cults.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;814194Also, I suppose it's not hard to imagine a lower-level supernatural being "standing in" or "posing" as a deity. Or an actual deity posing and filling in for a nonexistent one. An example of this might even be the Temple of Elemental Evil (Zuggtmoy the Demon Queen of Fungi using "elemental evil" as a more attractive front for her cult).
I'd say do a variation of this. On our Earth Christians say that all the old gods and goddesses were really demons in disguise fooling everyone for thousands of years. Odin, Zeus, Ra, "The Baals", all were demons. In a fantasy world you can have actual demons deceiving the masses for as long as you want. Think about it. What differentiates a god from a demon anyway? The number of worshipers one has and the amount of power he can tap into.
As posed, the question is way to dependent on setting (in Ebberron, there is no proof of divine existence and many clerics don't worship gods, for example) and edition for a proper answer.
So I'll base my answer on the following assumptions:
- All divine magic (including ranger and druid magic) is granted by genuine gods only.
- The great wheel cosmology is in place.
- Archfiends, great old ones, etc. do not qualify for divinity.
- 5e rules and implied setting.
- Divine spellcasters are widespread enough to be expected among the devotees.
Given all of this, a fake cult still as a number of possible ways to claim legitimacy:
1. Divine Magic by proxy. Aka the TOEE model. As presented, the Tempel of Elemental Evil is pretty much a bogus cult, possibly all divine spellcasters are granted their Magic by Iuz (or Tardizun, if you use later material). Simply put, in this model, some god not widely worshiped by the fake cult, takes over as puppet master. Most settings in D&D have gods who would be willing to power a cult not dedicated to them, as long as it serves the gods agenda. In the FR, Shar is a notable example throughout all iterations.
2. One True Way'ism. In this model, the cult turns the situation around and claims that their lack of traditional divine is actually proof that they hold the true belief. This cult will probably denounce the existing gods as fakes. A cult like this either eschews magic altogether or has access to some sort of rare and obscure magic they claim to be real divine magic. Expect a good amount of vicious zealotry in adherents.
3. Hide behind mystery. Basically you say "Yeah right, of course we have divine magic, we just can't show you.". This cult just keeps making excuses and tries to disguise them as another facet of their faith (you must pass the seven Seals of Zoggobog to be granted the blessings of Yorg, but then you will raise the dead left and right, I swear!). This cult doesn't hold up well under serious scrutiny, but if it maintains a low profile and only prays on the gullible, it can thrive. Alternatively, this works well for cult that isn't supposed to last, but to gather many converts quickly, so is basically just a part of a Con.
4. Faking it with other spellcasting, magic items and monstrous allies. D&D offers a lot of ways to duplicate the effects of divine magic, notably various monsters (fallen angels, naga, sphinx) and in 5e the bard class. This one has been covered quite well by other posters, so on to the last.
5. Not giving a crap. This cult is a fake and every follower knows it, hell pretty much every one outside eat least suspects it. However, suspecting and providing proof is not the same. This cult provides something not so spiritual under the pretense of faith and probably has powerful backers that make it dangerous to move against it. Cults for the rich and powerful to get richer and more powerful might get away with this, as could pleasure cults, that provide unlimited indulgence behind closed doors and only for the initiated. Might be a front for something much more sinister, such as a pleasure cult that actually consorts with succubi or a pseudo religious cartel that actually brokers diabolical pacts.
Heck, take a look at the whole Church of Satan deal and its offshoots. Many really do believe in them.
Yet Anton LaVey said openly in The Satanic Bible that to a degree, it was all hooey: "Satan" really didn't exist as a real being, and all the mysticism and trappings set forth in it were pretty much because he opined that mankind has a demonstrable love for mysticism and trappings.
Oh, you missed one, Gold Roger: the cult as tax dodge ... or, in a more fantasy setting, something set up purely to gain the social benefits of being a church, without any particular sinister or criminal motive.
Quote from: Ravenswing;814247]Other than the bullshit concept that it's possible to be a legitimate cleric, with legitimate healing and blessing and clerical powers, just by hooking up with a "philosophical concept?" (That being always, in my mind, a cheapass dodge for players who wanted to have the cool powers without having to follow any of those boring roleplaying constraints, follow any doctrine or dogma they didn't write themselves, or take a stand on anything.)
It seems to me that a philosophical concept could easily be more conducive to all those things than the typical nebulous and vague RPG-setting gods, honestly. What can anyone here tell me about Bahamut's dogma, or how Shar feels about eating meat on Fridays, or what the proper language to deliver prayer unto Boccob is? But I digress.
Quote from: RPGPundit;814150How would you go about, in the standard D&D world (with Clerical magic, etc.) designing a religious movement that in fact is not aligned with any god (not just, say, an evil cult pretending to be good or a chaotic cult pretending to be lawful or something like that)? How would it be possible to 'fake' being a real religion with a real deity that has real clerics?
My first impulse is to rely upon a powerful magic item as a source for the cult's seeming to tap into true diving magic. I suppose another possibility is they could eschew divine magic all together. Claiming that real clerics are just getting their powers from demons. That might not gain a huge following but probably could get enough extremist nuts to join that cause and cause problems. The cult might consist more of bards, fighters and thieves (possibly magic users as well depending on their attitude toward arcane magic) than clerics.
Quote from: LibraryLass;814330It seems to me that a philosophical concept could easily be more conducive to all those things than the typical nebulous and vague RPG-setting gods, honestly. What can anyone here tell me about Bahamut's dogma, or how Shar feels about eating meat on Fridays, or what the proper language to deliver prayer unto Boccob is? But I digress.
It's one of the several reasons I've been saying for years that the vast majority of RPGs suck at religion. All most of them give us are variations of "Bunsgrabber is the God of Partying Down. His alignment is Chaotic Horny. He is depicted as a young man with a great tan, wearing cutoffs of purest gold. His priests always wear sunshades and strange caps with horizontal visors pointing backwards, and his High Temple is at the coastal fort of Lauderdale." And that's pretty much it.
I'd just much rather the answer to the problem be that RPGs do a great deal better job of fleshing out such a major aspect of gameplay, rather than throw up their hands and say "Why bother?"
Was one reason why in Red Shetland there werent any organized clergy really. Just cults and a baser following of the general populus.
Some great ideas here. I had pretty much thought about the whole "demon mimics clerical powers" thing, but was looking for something more original. I quite like the "aliens using high tech" thing, and the "radical anti-magic religion that goes so far as to 'ban' cleric magic too" thing.
Plant wildly over-wrought and completely fictitious rumours about secret ancient knowledge possessed by the sworn-to-secrecy cultists. Much like, dare I say it, the Freemasons.
Quote from: Kellri;814975Plant wildly over-wrought and completely fictitious rumours about secret ancient knowledge possessed by the sworn-to-secrecy cultists. Much like, dare I say it, the Freemasons.
Hah!
I think that's a good one, but in a world of really visible magic (like, Fireballs or Cure Light Wounds), you'd need to show some kind of 'proof' to get any kind of credibility; you'd have to have at least a couple of visible tricks to draw people in.
Communism and the cult of State. Magic and religion has been used for millennia to control and dominate the People. Only by removing those powers will everyone finally be equal.
Magic and religion are thus illegal and punishable by death. Clerics are outright killed, while magic users are chained and used (used up and killed) and abused to fight the evils of Magic and Religion.
This works better when there is a Nation that has already purged itself of this evil, the people are now totally indoctrinated into the Cult of State. They become a threat when they now turn their sights on cleansing the rest of the world. This might start by cultists moving into neighboring kingdoms to spread their "gospel", but these are just the front runners to eventual invasion, domination, and purging.
Quote from: RPGPundit;814931Some great ideas here. I had pretty much thought about the whole "demon mimics clerical powers" thing, but was looking for something more original.
This is why Id like to see the Warlock with a path that allows access to some clerical spells. Would make their pseudo-priest aspect more interesting as the line blurrs between the two.
Quote from: RPGPundit;815523Hah!
I think that's a good one, but in a world of really visible magic (like, Fireballs or Cure Light Wounds), you'd need to show some kind of 'proof' to get any kind of credibility; you'd have to have at least a couple of visible tricks to draw people in.
Not if you present the secrets as really deep in high tier secrets. Even in D&D settings theres stuff that you wont see regularly because its so deep into the class or used well away from the populace. Or at least should be.
Someone selling a "quick path to power" will draw people in with promises of sights unseen. Or a few displays via concealed magic items.
Or even claiming the item is just a "spell focus" for their own power.
Or like in Dragon Storm where the Necros have everyone believing that they are holding back the Dragon Storms and helping the towns they protect by taming anyone mutated by the storms and taking them away for their own good. When its they who are calling them to try and activate any latent shifters and create a few minions from the nirmal folk who just mutate. Monsters who then get blamed for the storm because well. There they are in a storm. They must have caused it! Get em!
As an added bonus. They take in apprentices regularly with promises of power. But really they are setting them up to either drain them later, or on the off chance an apprentice makes a discovery.
Quote from: LibraryLass;814330It seems to me that a philosophical concept could easily be more conducive to all those things than the typical nebulous and vague RPG-setting gods, honestly. What can anyone here tell me about Bahamut's dogma, or how Shar feels about eating meat on Fridays, or what the proper language to deliver prayer unto Boccob is? But I digress.
Actually, the 1st or 2nd edition Forgotten Realms book about their gods came pretty close to delivering that, if not succeding. And, Mitlanyal is the book of the 10 gods of Tekumel and their servants. It
does go into that much detail. And, is a pretty cool read too. You can actually gloss over details that aren't important now, but bring them up in context when they are important later.
To answer the question from the OP, I allow magicians to make nearly any kind of potion, including healing potions. That allows for false or "pagan" gods to supply all of their perishoner's needs, while the true or "orthodox" temples can offer their cures.
Quote from: LibraryLass;814330What can anyone here tell me about Bahamut's dogma
It likes riding in Bahamut's karma with its head out the window.
I imagine clerics of Trickster gods would absolutely create fake cults, or masquerade as clerics of another faith to cause mischief. They would have all the clerical powers, the support of their deity, and simply would have to mimic the language of that faith.
The problem would be how involved is the god whose own religion is being punked? AKA, in the Greek mythos, the gods might smite down a mortal who was pulling this scam. In worlds were the gods are far off and don't directly meddle with mankind, such a scam would be easier.
Quote from: Spinachcat;815706I imagine clerics of Trickster gods would absolutely create fake cults, or masquerade as clerics of another faith to cause mischief. They would have all the clerical powers, the support of their deity, and simply would have to mimic the language of that faith.
When we converted from OD&D to AD&D 1e, the new rules required clerics who were previously just "Lawful" to choose a god; several clerics jointly chose the "God of Agnosticism". We were (appropriately) uncertain whether the god actually existed or whether it was a trickster god's impersonation or something else; since lower level spells were provided by the cleric alone or by the god's representatives (who might have been previous clerics of agnosticism ascended to a higher level of uncertainty) and nobody ever reached sixth or seventh level spells, we never found out. I suspected that gating the god of agnosticism might be extremely bad.
QuoteThe problem would be how involved is the god whose own religion is being punked? AKA, in the Greek mythos, the gods might smite down a mortal who was pulling this scam. In worlds were the gods are far off and don't directly meddle with mankind, such a scam would be easier.
There's a question of how much the gods mess with each other's followers in general. Maybe the trickster god tricked the punked god into agreeing not to interfere ("Oh mighty leader of our pantheon! Surely you would agree (in a magically binding way) that it is wrong and therefore forbidden for any god to smite any temple or priests dedicated to him or her?" and then creating a spoof temple "dedicated" to the pantheon leader).
Another option could be of an utterly quietist cult. One dedicated to an ascetic separation from the world. Maybe even a setup not unlike that of the Buddha: stating that the Gods were really part of the phenomenal universe and thus not really able to do anything for people in terms of removing the fundamental problem of human suffering, and that they're therefore not worthy of worship.