My houserules for running Birthright in 3.5

[Thelandrin]

If you're going to assume that dwarves have a non-deific divine tradition, you cleaving pretty harshly from the established lore regarding Cerilian dwarves. What with the whole jazz about elves not having clerics because they don't believe in the Younger Gods or don't have a creator-deity etc. (choose your own reason) and the rumours that True-blooded awnsheghlien can grant certain spells to their clerics without being gods themselves, you may have a very difficult path to tread if you decide that somehow your variant dwarves are receiving divine spells from a third source.

[AndrewTall]

you may have a very difficult path to tread if you decide that somehow your variant dwarves are receiving divine spells from a third source.

I'd argue 2 sources, the gods are spirits who draw from the Spirit/Shadow world the accumulated power of dreams, etc; the sidhe and karamhul are partly elemental spirits who draw from mebhaighl, the true awnsheghlien are quasi-gods who also draw from the Spirit/shadow world if they have a large enough church that worships them.

If you wanted to distinguish the mebhaighl and Spirit/shadow world magic more to have a strong divide between wizardry and preistly stuff you could say that sidhe/karamhul priestly casters are also drawing from the Spirit/shadow world just without an incarnate diety - basically a philosophy that gathers the power rather than a religion with the greater innate magical power of the sidhe/karamhul then being sufficient to draw power from the otherwordly source. This does however make the karamhul more akin to the sidhe in that both are relatively mystical elder races with closer ties to the spirit/shadow world than humans, by that logic the Halflings shouldn't need a god either - a philosophy should be enough.

But then I see the gods as spirits from the spirit world too, just stronger ones than the sidhe and karamhul.

[Alkaru Anwamane]

Hmm,I waited over 24 hours, but my last post didn't show up at all. Just checking if this one does. Sorry to vanish mid discussion.

Edit: And it did, right away. Weird, oh well, as long as it's working now that's the main thing.

I can't remember exactly what I said in the missing post now, but I do need to apologize to Andrew, I didn't mean to offend you.

I agree with the idea that the true source of the power of the gods is the spirit realm, and that therefore all divine power ultimately has the same source whether it's mediated by gods or not. The elves simply got cut off due to some unique circumstances, but the dwarves found an alternate way to access it. The old gods blood was strong enough due to their death to cause a limited number of mortals to ascend to godhood, and brought a lot more closer to the divine than they had been before. This closeness could be passed down through heritage as per the normal bloodlines.

The idea that elves, dwarves and halflings are a lot closer to their ancient spirit nature than humans, so humans have intermediaries instead makes a lot of sense to me. Gods should be in some way part of nature, not above or seperate from it. Transcendant gods are not part of any polytheistic tradition I can think of.

[AndrewTall]

So if the Old Gods were powerful spirits from the Shadow World (I don't agree but let's entertain the hypothetical), how did the Younger Gods come about, i.e. what is it about divine blood in titanic quantities that (after their apotheosis at Deismaar) now allows them to also draw heavily from the Shadow World in "traditional" divine fashion?

I'm my stuff I had the younger gods as simply an empty shell, the divine power still flows into the old homestead on the spirit world, priests still draw on it, but ultimately nobody was home - so corrupt priests were free to interpret canon as they wish without any god to smack sense into them and the old unified faiths splintered into sects as disparate beliefs fragmented the spirit world realms ;-)

The younger gods would need to have become spirits - effectively the old gods reincarnated through their most fervent followers and rejuvenated from their battle by the ongoing faith of their worshipers.

[AndrewTall]

I can't remember exactly what I said in the missing post now, but I do need to apologize to Andrew, I didn't mean to offend you.

Not at all, I was worried about the converse ;-)