(A) Alternative Alignment System
This is archival material from previous blog
By playing OSE solo I actually made quite the alignment system and I would like to share.
First, how it went. Well, if you know me at all you know I hate the design of clerics in old DnD and some OSR iterations of it. It is unnecessarily good, lawful, Christian cleric and every good cleric has the same set of powers and miracles (spells). I hate that these powers are even called “magic” as if it was another flavour of a wizard and not a saint performing miracles. But in my attempt to do it with as much OSE as possible I decided to bend the rules of the setting to match game rules.
Overall the setting is in the tone of three games. Birthright setting, which gives regions, bloodline powers, regents and noble-blood-stealing monsters. Next is Heroes of Might and Magic III, a video game which inspires monsters, races and nation themes. And last one – World of Warcraft, MMORPG which fuels religions and more small scale stuff like the story of Camp Taurajo or the region of Azuremyst Isles.
So how to bend it all to make sure a clerics stay clerics? My thought process led me to believe that the Cleric class must be of the priest of Holy Light as it is the most akin. But there are other powers which are worshipped by the priesthood in WoW and they do not adhere to either lawful clerics or chaotic ones. Okay then, what are those other kinds of priests. Playable are three: one of Holy Light, one regarding overall world Balance and one of Shadow – worship dedicated to evil powerful Cthulhu-like gods of the world taint. There are also priests of Death, those who follow the Lich King and undead Scourge.
But there are also other powers in play actually. Something which is similar to OSE – druids. Druids have divine magic so they worship something else than Holy Light – something natural. And in WoW in general there is another force of nature worshipped and important – four elements. And finally the main villain throughout the setting – Burning Legion. There are a lot of different powers which are worshipped but not necessarily adhere to the lawful/chaotic divide of clerics. So maybe these are the alignments.
Holy Light then becomes Holy Order – and it’s priesthood is full of regular Clerics. Nature becomes Endless Wild – it’s not just nature but the personified power of defying anything which destroys nature. So not only against the Holy Order which made towns and civilization but also the alien, undead and destructive magical forces. And here are the Druids. Next one is Undeath. I know necromancy is usually portrayed as part of arcane, experiments of wizards and such. But what if it has it’s clergy, worshipping Lich Kings and Queens, raising undead and spreading corruption? It’s cool. And there are also worshippers of the Burning Legion, warlocks, who probably get from their gods abilities to warp reality and bind demons.
And so there are various alignments coming from war over the World. Whichever alignment wins in the end they rule everything. But that also means druids are enemies of clerics. And I imagine for a lot of folks out there it’s something not to step over. Unless you allow for shapeshifting magic users.
Alignments:
- Holy Order
- Endless Wild
- The Undeath
- Corrupt Blaze
- Elder Shadow
And so different people can be influenced by it. “High” elves may be connected to the Holy Order but there are also “wood” elves, radically environmentalist. And “dark” elves could worship Shadow and there could also be banshee-elves of undeath and “blood” elves of the Blaze. You could make it about everyone. Going back to HoMM inspirations: the Dungeon unit of troglodytes – maybe you can have troglodyte friends who worship Order but they generally come from Infernal Troglodytes who were made by the magical influence of Corrupt Blaze on some humans in underground tunnels.
And these are alignments. But people don’t worship some vague ideas. So in every alignment there are gods and demigods and saints. And that’s how it all makes sense and Cleric from Basic Rules can exist. And then I broke this concept again, but that’s another story.