Signup
Welcome to... Canonfire! World of GreyhawK
Features
Postcards from the Flanaess
Adventures
in Greyhawk
Cities of
Oerth
Deadly
Denizens
Jason Zavoda Presents
The Gord Novels
Greyhawk Wiki
#greytalk
JOIN THE CHAT
ON DISCORD
    Canonfire :: View topic - ToEE, Cuthbert and Iuz
    Canonfire Forum Index -> Greyhawk- D&D 4th Edition
    ToEE, Cuthbert and Iuz
    Author Message
    CF Admin

    Joined: Jan 09, 2004
    Posts: 404
    From: Stansbury Park, Utah

    Send private message
    Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:41 pm  
    ToEE, Cuthbert and Iuz

    The more I play D&D 4th Edition the more I like it. Like many of you, that means I consider transforming the World of Greyhawk to fit into some of 4th Edition's design philosophy. One of the issues that goes beyond rules is the cosmology. I've ALWAYS thought that Greyhawk way, way too many deities. The diminished cosmology offers a great chance to adjust (what I consider) Greyhawk's bloated deific ranks.

    This issue of abundant gods comes into focus when considering a Temple of Elemental Evil conversion. We have St. Cuthbert and Iuz, famous and longstanding Greyhawk personalities. Fortunately, when talking about ToEE, we only have those two to worry about. So, who are they and how to they fit into the 4th Edition cosmology? I don't like either of them, and have never mentioned them outside of ToEE in my home campaigns (not even in Living Greyhawk adventures). So, I am very interested to see how others would treat and categorize them in a 4th Edition ToEE adaption.

    I was thinking of Saint Cuthbert as an Oerth-bound celestial servant of Bahamut, or simply an aspect of the great Paladin-God himself? How about Iuz as a high-ranking, high-powered abyssal servant of Gruumsh, Tharizdun or Vecna. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil makes ties to Tharizdun, perhaps it can work with him.

    Don (Greyson)
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 02, 2008
    Posts: 6


    Send private message
    Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:45 pm  

    I am sorry . I have to disagree with you on the part of Iuz. Iuz is a major part of a lot of Greyhawk history ( at leats a lot fo stuff from my own campaigns).

    From the top of my head I remember:

    -His involment in the ascension of Xagyg ( involuntary of course)
    -He he prevented Vecna from ascending to greater god ( with the help of some pesky Pcs)
    -He was involved in the 7 swords fiasco(He disguised himself as Vatuun)
    -The whole Greyhawk Wars thing
    -His empire almost conquered the whole north
    -His relationship to Grazzr & Iggwilv

    (and these are from official adventures, I cant even begin to count the times he or one of his lackeys have been major antagonist or allies in all of my years playing or DMing Greyhawk)

    On the part of too many deities, yeah. There are too many. I'm recently trying to port the specialy priest flavor from 2nd edition to 4E. I have decided to cull a lot of deities. Or at least just relegate them to demigods and not give them an actual cult base.

    If we were to actually reduce all of the greyhawk pantheons, what gods would we keep?

    I propose a total of 25 gods, with a maximum of 5 gods per pantheon ( Flannes,oeridian,humanoid,demi-humanoid, etc).
    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 07, 2004
    Posts: 1846
    From: Mt. Smolderac

    Send private message
    Wed Jul 02, 2008 7:48 pm  
    Re: ToEE, Cuthbert and Iuz

    Greyson wrote:
    I was thinking of Saint Cuthbert as an Oerth-bound celestial servant of Bahamut, or simply an aspect of the great Paladin-God himself? How about Iuz as a high-ranking, high-powered abyssal servant of Gruumsh, Tharizdun or Vecna. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil makes ties to Tharizdun, perhaps it can work with him.


    If this is the way you're going I'd make Cuthbert's patron Moradin. They seem a closer match to me based on the description in the PHB. Iuz is tougher if you're looking for a match out of the 4e evil gods. Gruumsh is a match with Erythnul, Bane is Hextor, Vecna is Vecna, which is problematic in itself IMO. Maybe Tiamat. I'd just have Iuz be his own thing and make up a Channel Divinity feat for his clerics.

    Why identify GH gods with non-GH 4e gods? I'm of the opposite opinion on the number of gods. I don't think there are enough. Most of them are just flavor anyway so I don't sweat all the details.
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Dec 07, 2003
    Posts: 636


    Send private message
    Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:23 am  

    NPC flavour is entirely DM driven so check out 1e, 2e, and 3e speciality priest/domain powers and just hunt around for similar powers. Clerics of Heironeous wear chain mail and wield battle axes (you heard me, I said AXES dammit), just give your npc priests those things automatically. It's shame that pcs will have to pay for many of these things with feats but some specialty powers might be attainable by re-tooling the flavour of exisitng clerical powers.

    I'm still hoping that Dragon will help us out with divinity feats for Greyhawk gods in due course.
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 02, 2008
    Posts: 6


    Send private message
    Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:34 am  

    I really want to reintroduce the specialty priest back in greyhawk, but I am holding out to see if they post some extra feats on dragon mag.

    My basic idea is to have each deity have specific trained skill, a divinity feat and a weapon prof. I wil actually change the Turn undead ability for the divinity feat and make Turn Undead a feat that can only be chosen by the deities who allow turning/revoking Undead.

    Its just a simple fix, but it goes along for the simplicity of 4E design. My only regret is that players then will choose deities basely on the abilities granted and not on Roleplaying factors.
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jan 05, 2004
    Posts: 666


    Send private message
    Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:02 pm  

    Well, Greyhawk does have too many deities if you add in the swarms of gods that have been retrofitted to the world since the original Folio and Boxed set.

    There aren't /that/ many gods in the original list and they cover all the bases pretty well. Why add johnny come lately gods like Moradin, Bahamut, and so on if it means deleting the originals?

    How many gods do you want to get down to?
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Dec 07, 2003
    Posts: 636


    Send private message
    Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:56 am  

    I'd stick to the original GH boxed set plus the non-human gods from the 1e Deities & Demi-gods like Corellion, Moradin, Garl, Kurtalmak, Maglubyet, Gruumsh, Yondalla, Vaprak, Stronmous, etc and use the Norse giant gods Thrym & Surtur, Yeenoghu for gnolls, Lolth for drow etc. Al'Ackbar is quite important too.

    It is a bit racist for there to be multiple human gods but it would make more sense if the non-humans simply worshipped the appropriate racial aspect of a human deity. So Ulaa and Ehonna have a large non-human following, Syrul could be a patron of goblins, Wee Jas could be a patron for kobolds, and so on.
    Display posts from previous:   
       Canonfire Forum Index -> Greyhawk- D&D 4th Edition All times are GMT - 8 Hours
    Page 1 of 1

    Jump to:  

    You cannot post new topics in this forum
    You cannot reply to topics in this forum
    You cannot edit your posts in this forum
    You cannot delete your posts in this forum
    You cannot vote in polls in this forum




    Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises

    Contact the Webmaster.  Long Live Spidasa!


    Greyhawk Gothic Font by Darlene Pekul is used under the Creative Commons License.

    PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.
    Page Generation: 0.31 Seconds