AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Martial Imperative

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Overneath

Posted: Mon, May 04 2015, 6:06 AM

Player

Joined: 08 Nov 2013
Location: Somewhere near the Atlantic (I hope)

This is just a small side project I thought up, now that I'm involving myself more heavily in the server's minutiae. It could be used as a companion to Divine Champions, who ostensibly need to focus in their deity's favored weapon in order to take levels in the prestige class. And if you want to base your choice in deity off of the weapon in question, it would be useful to have access to relevant information with a brief glimpse, similar to how you can compare deities to alignment or domain (and then cross-check those domains' capabilities) with a glance at the Deity System page.

This doesn't have the raw usefulness of the Deity System page, of course, but I feel it does round out our access to the facets of the gods that transition between roleplay and mechanics.

I'll put this in hquote so it doesn't take up three screens unless you want it to, and include resources for both deity-to-weapon and weapon-to-deity. Deity-to-weapon contains the official names for the deity's weapon's avatar in parentheses.

It isn't necessarily my place, but in some cases I provided potential NWN alternatives for weapon types you could use to represent the god's weapon, since the P&P equivalents sometimes do not exist (I'm looking at you, spiked chains). These are in square parentheses. In some cases, I didn't find examples of favored weapons existing at all, so I improvised. These cases, or others, can and will be adjusted if someone corrects me.

• Deity to weapon

[/col]

[col]

• Weapon to deity

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Contents subject to change without warning, reason, necessity, or logical imperative.

Last edited by Overneath on Wed, May 06 2015, 22:32 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Dark Immolation

Posted: Mon, May 04 2015, 6:54 AM

Tester

Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Location: The downeaster "Alexa"

This is nice! Really great effort. Though, seeing all of this written out reminds me of an observation I had early on in D&D. It seems very strange that deities like Waukeen, Liira, Sune and so on would ever even consider the idea of a "favored weapon" for their followers. It always struck me as lampshading for the sake of game mechanics, or an effort to highlight the fact that war and combat are so ingrained in the setting that a deity can't afford not to sponsor some sort of killing tool for his or her clergy.

Even then, I don't completely understand what deities with huge and sublime focuses like Oghma, Gond, Mystra or Io get out of their followers using this or that pointy metal stick against their enemies. Maybe it's a cultural thing, more endorsed by the mortal followers than the deities themselves?

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You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it.
Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.

Overneath

Posted: Mon, May 04 2015, 7:17 AM

Player

Joined: 08 Nov 2013
Location: Somewhere near the Atlantic (I hope)

I don't honestly believe that deities other than those like Tempus and Anhur, whose portfolios include war, maintain favored weapons as a notation of 'this is what I like to kill people with'. In most cases, I feel, it's a representation of a tool, or a symbol. A sort of mythically-influenced imagery that any of their followers can access but that their priesthood is encouraged to show off. Mystran Divine Champions don't throw shurikens, they use the Seven Bright Stars as a sort of enhanced metaphor to connect to their patron. The fact that these symbols resemble commonly-used pieces of weaponry is a fringe benefit, since you can't walk five paces without being a part of a holy war. It's part of why the avatars of the weapons are also named.

Then again, perhaps the incarnations are literal, and even Eldath wants to punch someone in their warmongering face every once in a while.

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Manarethan

Posted: Mon, May 04 2015, 8:21 AM

Player

Joined: 23 Feb 2008

Honestly, I think it might just have been the developers having a neat idea, then realizing it doesn't work quite as well as they thought but sticking with it anyway. Some classes get benefits or proficiency with the favored weapon of their deity, and for some deities that works out really well because they have obvious weapons of choice, but for others it kinda doesn't make much sense. But because they wanted to keep it in for the deities it made sense for, they needed to give weapons to all of them. So it probably is metaphorical or symbolic for some, but I think the decision to give deities favored weapons came out of mechanics rather than lore.

Pony

Posted: Mon, May 04 2015, 11:59 AM

Player

Joined: 07 May 2005

I always considered deity weapons to be symbolic equipment of faithful, that depending on the faith, can be part of ceremonies and prayers. For instance, a siamorphyte order might use a mace to raise one of their number from squire to paladin. The high priest of a siamorphyte church may receive a mace as a symbol of his office. Among the priests of nobanion, it might be customary to wear two talon shaped blades on either hip (that are represented by kukris) - even if another weapon is that clerics personal choice for fighting. The bastard sword of an elistraeen of course being a significant part of certain sacred dances honoring the dark maiden. So even if not used by combat, these favored weapons of deities could be often among the possessions of a faithful.

The weapon type are also often more representation of a tool, rather than the specific weapon. For instance, Siamorphe would have a scepter , Nobanion a lion talon, Mystra seven star shaped disks etc. These tools can of course be fashioned in a more martial manner, a scepter becoming a mace, a talon a kukri and the star-disks shuirken.

I could also imagine that a benefit for a cleric, paladin, blackguard using a favored weapon, is that it could also serve as his (un)holy symbol in combat. A follower of helm or kelemvor being able to wield his trusted bastard swords both to slash his enemies, and turn or rebuke undead. Though that is just speculation on my part.

Though your idea of using special abilities through that bond could make for neat dc requests. A priest of lathander being able to use his mace as a source of divine light that damages undead around him is one that would come to mind.

LastDragonRider

Posted: Wed, May 06 2015, 8:48 AM

Player

Joined: 13 Feb 2011
Location: Somewhere... anywhere.. not here...maybe there... (GMT -8)

Bahamut's Heavy pick does have an in game model... the warhammer can be modified to resemble a heavy pick, my Bahamutian cleric uses one. Oddly enough Tiamat also favors the heavy pick >.>

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Kestrel Swiftwing ~ Warpriest of Tempus
Ilharess Tagnik'zur d'Vilrath ~ l'Har'oloth zhah dro 'sohna!
Sir Khayri Aphaeleon ~ Avenger of Hoar, Knight of Fort Cystana

Elorathall

Posted: Wed, May 06 2015, 10:50 AM

Player

Joined: 13 Mar 2011

I like the notion of using a favored weapon as holy symbol. I specifically use the spikey mace model with Aurelius under that interpretation; with a bit of imagination the spikey ball looks similar to Amaunator's sun symbol.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

Overneath

Posted: Wed, May 06 2015, 22:30 PM

Player

Joined: 08 Nov 2013
Location: Somewhere near the Atlantic (I hope)

TheLastDragonRider wrote:

Bahamut's Heavy pick does have an in game model... the warhammer can be modified to resemble a heavy pick, my Bahamutian cleric uses one. Oddly enough Tiamat also favors the heavy pick >.>

I'll update the original post to represent this.

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Martial Imperative - Deities by Favored Weapon

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