hobbygamers ~ View topic - Godstones: Flavor and Mechanics discussion

This thread is for discussion on flavor and mechanics of the Godstone concepts.

Godstones: Overview

With the death of the gods, the spark of the divine left creation for (millenia? centuries?). (Two centuries?) ago, however, explorers discovered the godstones. These strange (rocks/crystals) could unlock hidden reservoirs of power, allowing mortals to once again channel the powers of the divine. The first wielders of these godstones used their power to rise to power and greatness, becoming paragons of virtue, terrible warlords, messianic leaders, and builders of empires.

Godstones replace deities as a cleric's power source. Instead of bearing their deity's holy symbol, a cleric bears a shard of a godstone.

Godstones are attuned to a particular psychic resonance, making certain aspects of divine magic easier to execute with them. For example, a particular godstone held by a warpriest of the Empire of Thorns who serves in the Empire's Logistics Corps may allow him to spontaneously cast cure spells, while another Imperial warpriest's godstone allows him to spontaneously cast inflict spells, allowing him to lead from the front lines in striking down the Empire's enemies. These may also hold over the domains concept if this is ported into 4E.

While the most widely known use of godstones is the granting of divine magic, they can also provide other powers (As misc magic items, + to stats, etc, depending on individual godstone)

Tentative Proposal: Resurrection magics involve the destruction of a godstone, making clerics very leery of recalling the dead at the cost of destroying a divine spark.

Tentative Proposal: Items may be "attuned" to a "Master Godstone". For example the Kingdom of Hirkanos may have a two-ton "Master Godstone" in it's Royal Temple, to which the clerics are then attuned to. This "attunement" allows a Hirkanian cleric to channel energy from the master stone even from a distance.

Godstones are believed to be shards of divine energy. Arcane scholars and clerics theorize that if one can gather enough of these godstones together into the same place, they can be used to allow a being to ascend to divinity. Others believe that they might be used to resurrect the Old Gods. They point to the psychological instabilities that seem to crop up among those who are constantly exposed to the massive Master Godstones as proof that these divine energies are dangerous. Dragons, empires, megalomaniacs, fanatic devotees of the Old Gods, and latter-day Liberators all seek to claim, create, or destroy these items for their own ends.

About these stones, is it safe to assume that these stones were once part of different deities or are they just shards of one deity that had different properties which depended on where the shard landed on?

How big is a typical Godstone? How big is a shard cleric uses as a Godstone? How rare is a GOdstone/shard of it? Are there items that can charge divine sparks, like a battery, to allow synthetic Godstone shard?

Old Dragon Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 413 Location: Limbo

If the godstones have been hidden for millenia before being discovered, isn't it plausible to say that almost everyone has forgotten divine magic? After the slaying of a god, all of his clerics become insane... permanently. They lose all powers granted by that god, be it domain or spell. Could it be that the Godslayer artifact was in fact made for this purpose? To be able to harness the powers of the divine, without the backlash? This means that the remnants of the Loyalist faction must still be in existence...

On the Old Gods Theory
If the singular essence of a god is fragmented inside the godstone, then is it possible that each godstone seeks to be united with its co-essence? If its the godspark is very influential, could it be that it already uses other mortals to do its bidding, especially if it's an evil god?

Dony done done.

Are we talking about set items here? I'm already having a backlash of Diablo 2. Laughing

On another note, wouldn't those who have slain the gods have gained their powers (a la Highlander quickenings)? That is assuming that these godslayers were just mortals. (I'll have to reread Revan's creation myth to confirm this)

Guys, I wanna point something out.

I'm down with the godstones idea and all... hell, I voted for it. But I think, and nobody has mentioned this, we're missing one very major thing here:

What exactly is our world like?

Is it just like Greyhawk, only different? Would you say it's closer to Ravenloft? Does it draw heavily from a particular culture? Is the lore closer to Norse mythology, Greek mythology, or Lovecraftian mythology?

Now we don't need uber-detailed descriptions, we don't even need to answer all these questions. I propose something simple for starters: describe our world in one sentence. That's about it. If we can manage that, we can build on it, and hopefully it'll make things easier for us.

The reason I wanna sort out flavor first is because everyone seems to have the idea that the deities shape the world... and that is true, creation-wise. Flavorwise, though, it's the other way around: civilization gives the deities form. That's why Norse gods are distinct from Greek gods are distinct from Egyptian gods, etc. etc. So let's all sit down and figure out what our world is like before we start toying with it.

Another reason, having something as a reference will make naming things so much easier :3

One liner?

Post-apocalyptic wasteland where mortals fight over the relics of dead gods.

Feel?
-Post-apocalyptic: It's been millenia since the Godfall and the Sundering of Creation, but the scars are still visible in the land.
-Kingdoms at War: At the heart of the major nations are their Master Godstones, sources of power for each nation's clerics (and mages? still thinking about this). Power struggles over each kingdom as they struggle for each other's godstones or newly found ones.
-Imbalance/Dystopia? : When mortals destroyed the gods, they toppled the cosmic order. It meant the end of divine tyranny, but it also meant the ending of things such as a determined afterlife, etc.
-Mortal against the Supernaturals: Nearly all factions of Supernaturals have good reason to hate and despise mortals. The mortals overthrew their masters, or upset the balance of nature, serve as living batteries, etc.
-Revolution Gone Wrong (Idealism vs. Realpolitik): The Liberators believed that by freeing the Secondborn from tyranny, they might allow Mortalkind to achieve their true potential. That dream would be twisted by the hatred and terror of the Godfall War. With the gods gone, the Lords of each Kingdom have set themselves up as the new tyrants, with the Godstones cementing their rule.

The Liberator Dream was corrupted, and because of this, many of the Eternals lost hope, turning to diabolism or mindless destruction. Others struggle to resurrect the old order, turning away from the revolution and its libertine ideals. A tiny minority still believe that the Liberator's utopian ideals can be put into practice, redeeming mortalkind and vindicating the devastation caused by the Godfall War.

As for visuals, I'm trying to get my brother into this project, as I think his knack for dark fantasy visuals may prove useful.

There we go. See? Knowing that, it should be much easier to keep in mind what the gods used to be like.

In fact I already have some theories brewing. Posts to follow :3

I think Revan trumps anything others will post here. His one liner has the keywords of what I understand from Godstones: dead gods, wasteland, fight(? sounds like war to me).

Ambience is more like constant warring and danger, in contrast to Ravenloft's dark gothic feel or Forgotten Realm's high magic feel.

No prob actually, as I'm still open to ideas on these concepts. Cross-pollination of ideas can be a good thing.

Action oriented campaign setting sounds fun.

Yes, from what I see, constant warring is the way most of us want to do things. But please, I don't like Cold arms-race stuff like Iron Maiden. If we're going to people are always trying to pawn one another, then let's do it. (Even though I'm personally for it)

I also like the idea of the ground occasionally cracking to create craters that let demons come in thingie. haha

Is Godstone the official name of campaign setting or is it tentative?

DF has Godspell as their official campaign setting.

And we need more flavor.

Godstone has no gods, a big waste land, and a cruel cruel world.

Athas has no gods, a big waste land, and a cruel cruel world.

Flash of inspiration:

One of the ideas I had a while back was that Godstones could be used to power items, or as crafted item materials, whatever, right? Eventually we went for the idea of big, powerful godstones, like huge boulders or whatever.

But how about Agimat-like items crafted from shards of Godstones (idea came from the godstone-attuned shards carried by clerics)?

And a question:

DOes the power of the original god have something to do with the power, size, power density, and rarity of a godstone?

For example, if Boccob got killed (he is a greater deity divine rank 17 iirc) would his body create more or less, bigger or smaller, more powerful or less, godstone/s?

*Last edited by Xtian on Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:56 pm; edited 2 times in total*

GodStone – If a deity is a physical manifestation of beliefs, then a godstone is a physical form of a deity’s power after he dies. Since godstones originated from a deity, the power of a godstone is dependent on the power of the original deity in question. Thus a greater deity would create a much more powerful godstone than a lesser deity. Also, the power that is bestowed by a godstone is related to its original deity. A godstone from a deity of magic bestows its user powers related to magic while a godstone from a deity of strength bestows its user strength-related powers.

Godstone item is an item crafted from a godstone or combinations of godstones. A godstone item works in antimagic field and can’t be dispelled. It can be detected by detect magic (overwhelming aura), can be registered by detect law/chaos/good/evil with the appropriate alignment of the original deity, and can’t be naturally destroyed.
The following is an example of a godstone item, statted in 3.5E rules format.
A godstone item has variable hit points and hardness.

Mask of St. Dickie: The Mask of St. Dickie is a powerful godstone item fashioned from the bones and skin of a shapeshifting greater deity of good, charity and sacrifice. This godstone item bestows its user the power to shift forms. The wearer of the mask is under the effect of shapechange spell with no HD limit (not capped at 25 HD, but still limited by the wearer’s HD). Because this effect is from a godstone, this can’t be dispelled. As a free action once per turn, the wearer of the mask can assume any size from Fine to Colossal. The wearer also can change the size of up to 100 pounds of objects it touches. If the wearer has a familiar, personal mount, or personal intelligent weapon, the creature can change size with the wearer if the wearer touches it, but its weight counts against the wearer’s weight limit.
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Designer's notes:
I know it is powerful and it is intended to be that powerful. Basically the mask grants the wearer to Divine Salient abilities: ALter size and True Shapechange. The example deity is a greater deity because True Shapechange requires the deity to be in greater deity level.

I also propose a minimum tier/level requirement, similar with the 4ed mechanics of paragon/heroic/epic. I would require the wearer to be in epic level (4ed terms) or at least level 35 (3.5E terms).

Comments, criticisms, opinions in polite terms are most welcomes.

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editted for corrections

Mask of Saint Dickie roks.

I agree with the proposed godstone power level. I also like the "being epic" to use it. We wouldn't want a lvl 1 commoner conquering our world.. Or do we? Twisted Evil

make sense..
So godstones have those properties..

But how about the holy symbol being godstone shards? So clerics have access to those powers, even if not all of it?
We should do something about that.

Looking at the tiered system of feats etc, we may want to have tiered abilities for godstone items. In the hands of Joe Schmuck, it the Heart of Fire may incinerate his neighbor's house. In the hands of Arch-Pyromaniacist Tim, it may burn a whole city to bare rock.

That could work too.

Relatively angelic, with aspects affected by whatever God they served. The general form (except for special cases like gods of nature with Fey-like Eternals) is pretty much angelic, with say the Eternal of a War God wearing full plate, or whatever, while an Archon of Sinaghari might have a radiant aura and bear a flaming greatsword, etc.