I've written before on the divine. Twice actually. I guess having to teach religion as part of my job does that to me. Or maybe I just really like weird gods? Anyway, here's a procedure for worshipping a god to gain their favour as a downtime activity.
Worship
In order to worship a god a player character needs access to a shrine located dedicated to that god within their domain. Established shrines are probably the easiest option, though if player characters want to build a shrine to a diety that would be an option as well (though that would require them to dedictate time on it during downtime).
For effective worship the player character also needs to know what the god desires. To me, most gods are inherently alien and therefor rarely communicate directly with mortals. Trial and error are how collective knowledge on how to properly and effectively honor a god came about: what do they want as sacrifice? at what time do they want it? how do they want it? what should I wear? etc.
- If a god is still worshiped PCs merely require access to that knowledge. Freely available to publicly worshiped gods, kept a secret for more private or hidden gods.
- If worship of an ancient god has since stopped, it requires non-magical research to access.
- If knowledge on how to worship a god is unavailable, either because that knowledge is lost or because the god is newly born, the PC has to perform trial and error themselves to figure out what pleases the god.
Finally, when a PC has access to a shrine and knows what to do to please the god, they have to actually go and do it. Often this requires time to perform a ritual and resources required to sacrifice to the god. Gods vary in how demanding and how particular they are.
Roll d6 to see if the ritual went alright and the sacrifice was to the god's liking:
- On a 1 you have accidentally offended the god. They will incur their wrath on you in some way.
- On a 2 or 3 your sacrifice or the ritual was insufficient for some unknown reason. Maybe a request opposite to yours was submitted to the same god, or someone did something thought to be insignificant which turned the god off. Regardless, you'll have to try again.
- On a 4, 5 or 6 you have succesfully worshipped the god.
What the gods give
1. The sorts of things PCs can request from a god are dependent on the domain of the god:
I like my domains more materialistic than they often appear in tRPGs. No god of 'Harvest' but each field their own god of that particular field; no god of 'Nature' but gods for each forest, mountain, river and lake; no god of 'War' but gods of particular battalions, gods of cities, and gods of the battlefields to be. I'll write some example gods in a future post.
This means that the situations in which you can get aid from gods is limited. The god of a mountain won't be able to help you when you are sailing at sea; the god of a battalion will not protect you if you are not a member of that battalion.
It also means that what a god can do for you, even when you are in their domain, will be limited. The god of a forest can help you not get lost and make forest creatures less hostile, but they can't repair your metal sword.
The above should be easy enough to adapt to your own setting. A universal god of Life might be able to heal you no matter where you are, but they won't be able to provide you with light when your torches run out in some dark hole in the ground.
2. The demanded sacrifice should be proportionate to the player character's request:
Worshipping the god of a city to get you through the night alive when being hunted by bounty hunters is a smaller ask than asking that same god to keep your friends and family safe for the duration of a prolonged siege. The time a ritual takes, and the size of the sacrifice should vary based on this.
But also, getting the aid of the god of the major river in an area is going to require a longer ritual and a bigger sacrifice than getting the aid of the god of a small farmfield, even when you aren't asking for all that much from that major river.
To model this, I'd use a model I've seen in public transport: You have a flat fee for getting a ride in the first place, and then you pay a rate per kilometer on top of that. For gods this would mean that they demand a certain size of sacrifice depending on how big of a deal they are, which is modified by how big of a favour a PC is asking of them. You could envision this like having to pay a certain amount to get the god to even notice you, and then actually pay them for their services.
As I don't want to come up with unique figures for each god I categorize gods in groups and base their starting fee on that:
- Great Gods: These are gods whose domain is nearly all of the world. Think the Sun (domain: everything the light touches), the Moon, etc. They require a years income of a small kingdom and weeks spend on rituals to get them to notice you, i.e. even for monarchs this would be a major expense.
- Regional Gods: These are gods whose domain is or is comparable to a major landmark within a region. Think the god of a major river (domain: the river's valley), a dominating mountain, etc.. They require a years income of a major town and a full week of rituals to get them to notice you, i.e. even the most wealthy people would have to save up for this.
- Local Gods: These are gods whose domain is or is comparable to a feature that a location would be known for. Think a local forest (domain: everything beneath its branches), a lake, etc.. They require the local population to get together all of their savings and an entire day of rituals to get them to notice you, i.e. only through festivals are the people of a community able to get in their good graces.
- Personal Gods: These are gods whose domain is or is comparable to a location owned by a family or small organisation. Think a farmland (domain: that plot of land), a familial house, etc. They require a fair share of the yield and an hour of your time to get them to notice you, i.e. they are like an additional mouth to feed throughout the year for a family.
These are rough groupings with vague estimates. This is in part because all of this is incredibly setting and system dependent. However, it is also because I am not sure how I want to do wealth yet for the game I am making this for. I might do numeric treasure (200 silver, 5000 gold, etc.), but I might instead go for something more abstract.
For determining the cost of requests, you could model it after spell scroll production systems of your choice, that is, if your system and setting of choice use spell levels. That way you just equate a request to the closest spell and use the spell's level to determine how much time and money it should take to make the request of that god.
As I don't plan on using spell levels though, I'd probably base this on the amount of effort a god has to put into the action. This is what I came up with:
Their full might: This is asking the god to actually put in the work. Stuff like a forest marching on a city. These add a full week of dedicated worship and a sacrifice that could bankrupt smaller monarchs.
Clearly supernatural: These are occurances that should normally not be possible. Stuff like mundane roots tangling up someone of your choice. These add a day of preparations and a sacrifice regular people just can't afford.
Strange coincidence: These are occurances that could normally occur, but are timed way too precisely to be a coincidence. Stuff like a river flash flooding when you're being pursued by evil robed wraiths. These add an hour of ritual and a sacrifice most people would have to save up for for over a year.
Natural occurance: These are small asks, often involving things to remain the same as they were. Stuff like, 'let the waves remain calm' falls under this. These add a small moment of contemplation and a symbollic sacrifice to the cost of the worship
3. Gods only grant one request (now, or in the form of an IOU) per worship.
This is meant to keep things simple for the GM and to sustain some verisimilitude in the setting. If, once you've contacted a god, you could ask it lots of different things all who could afford to would contact a god with a sizeable domain and continuesly badger them with requests while they have their attention.
Discussion
I really want to try this out some time, but probably won't have the time to do so anytime soon, as this is a downtime mechanic. To test it properly I would need to run multiple sessions so we can actually see the effect this downtime activity would have on a game. It would also need to be a game in which downtime activities make sense, and I would like it if I can get some actual feedback on how people thought it worked.
As my current tables are a table of 5e players (not the right kind of game) and a table of litteral children (unable to give me a lot of useful feedback), I'll have to wait to playtest this for a future table.
If someone else tries this or something similar I would love to hear how it went.
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