#in order: life / tempest / grave / trickery / life / twilight domains

[stupid-tes-nerd]

The Cleric Domains as Character Creations: A Thread

So after I made a Death Cleric I was inspired to create more characters to visually represent all the Domains that exist. Many hours of meticulously scrolling through the races/subraces and many character options later; here we are. A LOT of mods were used for this. But the most important one is obviously Cleric Subclasses. There are many mods that I used (like a lot) so if you have questions feel free to drop it in my ask box.

Arcana Domain: Mephistopheles Tiefling. Nerdy grandma.

Blood Domain: Half-High Elf. Your friendly neighborhood Bhaalspawn.

Death Domain: Nightborn Tiefling. Definitely scares the kids.

Forge Domain: Gold Dwarf. Played with fire, got burned. But can make cool shit.

Grave Domain: Drow Half-Elf. Is here to bury you 6 feet deep.

Knowledge Domain: Human. Needs those glasses to see the audacity of you touching her fave books.

Life Domain. Half-Wood Elf. Stay healthy or she'll force feed you your fruits and veggies.

Light Domain: Variant Tiefling. Kicks Shar worshipper ass.

Moon Domain: High Elf. Shar who? We only stan Selune in this house.

Nature Domain: Wood Elf. Respect nature or catch these hands.

Order Domain: Githyanki. NO RUNNING IN MY LOBBY.

Peace Domain: Human. Watches paint dry for fun.

Tempest Domain: Seldarine Drow. When it rains, it pours. Trust her.

Trickery Domain: Forest Gnome. You'll never see her coming. Literally. She's so smol.

Twilight Domain: Lolth-Sworn Drow. Hope you're not scared of the dark. Or spiders.

War Domain: Half-Orc. Battlefield veteran. Crushes skulls for the hells of it.

[92kronus]

Random D&D Character Generator on R

I have been doing a lot of work on R for my research and decided to give it a go and write the script for a random D&D character generator.

It is a very simplified version and there is definitely room for improvement and expansion, but I wanted to share it with everyone for those who want to tinker with it:

#Install Packages#

install.packages("randomNames") library("randomNames")

#Function to generate a random character sheet#

generate_random_character <- function() {

# Sample races, classes, and backgrounds# races <- c( "Dwarf", "Elf", "Halfling", "Human", "Dragonborn", "Gnome", "Half-Elf", "Half-Orc", "Tiefling", "Aasimar", "Firbolg", "Genasi", "Goliath", "Hobgoblin", "Kenku", "Kobold", "Lizardfolk", "Tabaxi", "Triton", "Bugbear", "Goblin", "Hobgoblin", "Orc", "Fairy", "Satyr", "Yuan-ti Pureblood", "Aarakocra", "Aasimar", "Changeling", "Kalashtar", "Shifter", "Warforged", "Centaur", "Loxodon", "Minotaur", "Simic Hybrid", "Vedalken", "Gith (Githyanki, Githzerai)" ) classes <- c( "Barbarian", "Bard", "Cleric", "Druid", "Fighter", "Monk", "Paladin", "Ranger", "Rogue", "Sorcerer", "Warlock", "Wizard", "Artificer", "Blood Hunter" ) subclass_Barbarian <- c( "Path of the Berserker", "Path of the Totem Warrior", "Path of the Ancestral Guardian", "Path of the Storm Herald", "Path of the Zealot" ) subclass_Bard <- c( "College of Lore", "College of Valor", "College of Glamour", "College of Swords", "College of Whispers", "College of Eloquence" ) subclass_Cleric <- c( "Knowledge Domain", "Life Domain", "Light Domain", "Nature Domain", "Tempest Domain", "Trickery Domain", "War Domain", "Forge Domain", "Grave Domain", "Order Domain", "Peace Domain", "Twilight Domain" ) subclass_Druid <- c( "Circle of the Land", "Circle of the Moon", "Circle of Dreams", "Circle of the Shepherd", "Circle of Twilight" ) subclass_Fighter <- c( "Champion", "Battle Master", "Eldritch Knight", "Arcane Archer", "Cavalier", "Samurai" ) subclass_Monk <- c( "Way of the Open Hand", "Way of Shadow", "Way of the Four Elements", "Way of the Drunken Master", "Way of the Kensei", "Way of the Sun Soul" ) subclass_Paladin <- c( "Oath of Devotion", "Oath of the Ancients", "Oath of Vengeance", "Oath of the Crown", "Oath of Conquest", "Oath of Redemption", "Oath of the Watchers" ) subclass_Ranger <- c( "Hunter", "Beast Master", "Gloom Stalker", "Horizon Walker", "Monster Slayer" ) subclass_Rogue <- c( "Thief", "Assassin", "Arcane Trickster", "Mastermind", "Swashbuckler", "Inquisitive", "Scout" ) subclass_Sorcerer <- c( "Draconic Bloodline", "Wild Magic", "Divine Soul", "Shadow Magic", "Storm Sorcery", "Aberrant Mind" ) subclass_Warlock <- c( "The Archfey", "The Fiend", "The Great Old One", "The Undying", "The Celestial", "The Hexblade", "The Raven Queen" ) subclass_Wizard <- c( "School of Abjuration", "School of Conjuration", "School of Divination", "School of Enchantment", "School of Evocation", "School of Illusion", "School of Necromancy", "School of Transmutation", "War Magic", "Bladesinging" ) subclass_Artificer <- c( "Alchemist", "Artillerist", "Battle Smith", "Armorer" ) subclass_BloodHunter <- c( "Order of the Ghostslayer", "Order of the Lycan", "Order of the Profane Soul" ) backgrounds <- c( "Acolyte", "Charlatan", "Criminal", "Entertainer", "Folk Hero", "Guild Artisan", "Hermit", "Noble", "Outlander", "Sage", "Sailor", "Soldier", "Urchin", "City Watch", "Clan Crafter", "Cloistered Scholar", "Courtier", "Far Traveler", "Inheritor", "Knight", "Knight of the Order", "Mercenary Veteran", "Urban Bounty Hunter", "Uthgardt Tribe Member", "Waterdhavian Noble", "Haunted One", "Anthropologist", "Archaeologist", "Azorius Functionary", "Boros Legionnaire", "Dimir Operative", "Izzet Engineer", "Rakdos Cultist", "Selesnya Initiate", "Simic Scientist", "Criminal (Spy)", "Gladiator", "Knight (Free Agent)" ) gender <- c("Male", "Female")

# Randomly select a race, class, subclass, gender, name and background# race <- sample(races, 1) character_class <- sample(classes, 1) # Select subclass based on the character class subclass <- character_class switch(character_class, "Barbarian" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Barbarian, 1), "Bard" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Bard, 1), "Cleric" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Cleric, 1), "Druid" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Druid,1), "Fighter" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Fighter,1), "Monk" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Monk, 1), "Paladin" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Paladin, 1), "Ranger" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Ranger,1), "Rogue" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Rogue,1), "Sorcerer" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Sorcerer,1), "Warlock" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Warlock,1), "Wizard" = subclass <- sample(subclass_Wizard,1), "Blood Hunter" = subclass <- sample(subclass_BloodHunter,1) ) background <- sample(backgrounds, 1) gender <- sample(gender, 1) name <- gender switch(gender, "Male" = name <- randomNames(gender = 0,ethnicity = 5,name.order = "first.last", name.sep = " "), "Female" = name <- randomNames(gender = 1,ethnicity = 5,name.order = "first.last", name.sep = " ") ) # Generate random ability scores# ability_scores <- sample(6:18, 6, replace = TRUE)

# Create a character sheet data frame# character_sheet <- data.frame( Name = name, Race = race, Class = character_class, Subclass = subclass, Background = background, Gender = gender, Strength = ability_scores[1], Dexterity = ability_scores[2], Constitution = ability_scores[3], Intelligence = ability_scores[4], Wisdom = ability_scores[5], Charisma = ability_scores[6] )

return(character_sheet) }

#Generate a random character sheet#

random_character_sheet <- generate_random_character()

#Print the character sheet#

print(random_character_sheet)

[braingoboops]

The Gods of the Giants

Despite the Ancient Church of Alexandria's claims, there are in fact other divine beings that are worshipped by various races. Of these divine beings are the Nine Gods of the Elemental Realms.

Placidiax, Lord of the Storm and Rage

Represents Thunderstorms, War, Combat, Duels, Honor, Power, and Strength.

Domains: Tempest, War, Order, Strength

Aelora, Lady of the Aurora

Represents Volcanoes, Auroras, Passion, Creativity, and Inpsiration

Domains: Light, Twilight, Forge, Arcana

Boreth, Keeper of the Frost

Represents Glaciers, Snowstorms, Perserverance, Endurance, and Tranquility

Domains: Peace, Knowledge, Solidarity, Mind

Thalrok, Guardian of the Mountains

Represents Mountains, Earthquakes, Protection, Family, and Unity

Domains: Unity, City, Order

Tidalia, Mistress of the Tides

Represents Oceans, Tides, Emotions, Healing, and Transformation

Domains: Life, Tempest, Knowledge, Beauty

Fulmorn, Lord of Death

Represents Death, Twilight, Souls, Courage, and Freedom

Domains: Twilight, Death, Grave, Blood, Ambition

Avalyn, Warden of Ice

Represents: Trickery, Ice, Mischief, Change, and Secrets

Domains: Trickery, Zeal, Fate

Ignatius, Guardian of the Forge

Represents: Volcanic Forges, Craftsmanship, Innovation, and Passion

Domains: Forge, Beauty, Light, Ambition

Terrador, Stalwart of Earth

Represents: Earth, Stone, Endurance, Nature, Perseverance, and Stoicism

Domains: Nature, Strength, Protection, Solidarity

[swordscleric]

Inspired by the poll on hottest dnd class and the absolute slander of clerics being dead last, here's my entirely subjective yet objectively correct list of hottest cleric subclasses, from hottest to least hot. Are clerics as hot as paladins? No. Are they hotter than every other class? Absolutely.

Life - Sometimes going back to basics is the hottest thing you can do. Better healing, a wide range of gods to be blessed by from healing to agriculture to the sun and then being a representation of life itself. 10/10 for healing you of all those aches and pains.

Knowledge - Knowing things is pretty important, both to advance your campaign's plot and to make your DM's life easier when the rest of the party have dumped Intelligence. Whether you play Knowledge clerics as scholars or detectives à la an Inquisitive Rogue, you will go very far with your ability to become proficient in any skill for a time. 10/10 for knowing exactly what to do.

Light & Tempest - Divine storm and fire incarnate. While War might be a stereotypical version of "cleric playing at paladin", Light and Tempest clerics can actually put their smiting where their mouth is. Having the power of light and the fury of a sun god plus the wider healing options of cleric makes Light the hottest blaster option. The theming is on point with Tempest, and being able to shatter foes with max damage spells is phenomenal. You'll also be working with storm gods and gods of weather, so you can have a Mr. Darcy walking out of the lake scene whenever you want with a wink and a prayer. 9/10.

Peace - Give Peace a chance. While Emboldening Bond is contingent on party members being within 30 feet of each other, that is never a problem if you have two frontline fighters. Plus it means you have to fight side by side, glancing over as your allies thrusts and parries... The sheer buffing power of this domain in its domain spells is also nothing to sneeze at, and isn't working towards peace the entire point of most campaigns? 8/10.

Forge - Crafting things is hot, especially when you can make personalised items for your party or give them an exact replica of lost jewellery. Blessing your party's weapons is huge early on, as is gaining resistance to a common damage type. 7/10.

Arcana - Getting a free dispel magic from 6th level on and then picking up wizard spells by the time you hit epic level is pretty hot, as is having access to teleportation circle. Being a cleric of magic itself and gaining a free Arcana proficiency also makes you a really interesting pick for any party since you'll often be straddling the worlds of wizardry and clericdom. Points are lost for the expanded spell list, as magic circle, magic weapon, Leomund's secret chest or Nystul's magic aura are very limited or useless if given magic items. 6/10.

Grave & Twilight - Having power over life and death, straddling the boundaries between them? Hot. It is something that all clerics can do however, and being the best at it isn't as hot as being the best healer. While Grave and Twilight both have great theming, being the serene and silent type isn't as hot as being the blazing fury type. They're both strong classes, don't get me wrong, just not super hot. You can get a good few resurrection scenes from Grave and twilit heart-to-hearts from Twilight. 6/10.

Trickery - Illusions are sexy when used to help you, but since a lot of Trickery gods are gods of lies, you might inadvertently end up spiralling about how truthful your Trickery cleric beau is being. I can see why some people would be into it, they just aren't hot enough to overcome the flimsiness of their illusions. 5/10

Nature - Just play a druid. Having played one myself, they don't have the shapeshifting potential of druids to make up for lacklustre spells and abilities. 4/10.

Order & War - While they have very useful abilities, worshipping gods of order and war can get very iffy on an ideological level very quickly. As hot as paladins are, when clerics emulate them to this extent it just doesn't work. You need devotion to a single cause to pull off a good paladin, and clerics are not built for that kind of a lack of perspective. Great spells to choose from, it's the possibility of screaming "deus vult" that turns me right off. 3/10.

Death - Just no. Undead are not sexy. Undead clerics even less so. At least necromancers have wizardly hubris to fall back on. 0/10.

[honourablejester]

Homebrew Cleric Spell: Divine Rebuke

Divine Rebuke

5th level evocation

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: 120ft

Components: V, S

Duration: Instantaneous

Classes: Cleric

You call upon the wrath of the heavens to rebuke creatures that you can see within range. Choose a point within range, and a burst of divine wrath explodes outwards from that point in a 30ft radius sphere. Each creature within the sphere must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 8d8 radiant damage, or half as much damage on a successful save. Additionally, on a failed save, creatures become frightened of you for 1 minute. The creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

As a reflection of the wrath of your particular deity, you can choose to replace the damage type of this spell with a type determined by your cleric domain, as follows: Arcana (force), Death (necrotic), Forge (fire), Grave (necrotic), Knowledge (psychic), Life (force), Light (fire), Nature (lightning), Order (psychic), Peace (cold), Tempest (thunder), Trickery (psychic), Twilight (cold), War (bludgeoning).

---

Notes: Not gonna lie, the rider regarding damage types was most of the impetus behind this spell, as otherwise it’s a fairly basic AOE. But cleric domains are so cool and varied, it feels a little disappointing that the cleric spell list doesn’t have a better range of damage types.

Granted, this feels more like something that should be an optional class ability, rather than something grafted onto a spell. It will cause problems when the spell has to keep up with new subclasses coming out. But the ability to swap damage types on any spell would possibly be a bit strong as a class ability, even if you only get one other type option? So, you know. Maybe just this one spell, and DMs can use their best judgement for the damage type of new domains?

It will also cause problems for non-clerics with access to the cleric spell list (aka Divine Soul Sorcerers), but a general fix for that would be: if you don’t have a cleric domain, you can’t change the damage type.

As for my reasonings for the domains and their damage types, I think most of them are rather self-evident. Peace/Twilight being cold is possibly less intuitive, but I figured wrath from deities of those domains would be of the cold, patient sort. Life being force was also tricky, because they’re the quintessential radiant subclass, but I figured raw magical energy would be a decent back-up. War was going to have one of the physical types, and I figured since the mace was the iconic cleric weapon, we’d go with bludgeoning.

And yes, I realise that this does give certain subclasses a bit more fun with this spell than others. Tempest, particularly, given Destructive Wrath, and possibly high-level Death clerics given they can ignore necrotic resistance. But, you know. Sometimes you just want your stormy peeps to have fun?

[retroggio]

Religions & Deities

RELIGIONS & THEIR DEITIES Religions in Retroggio are fairly loose, with major temples in a region usually being erected by Novial or Pyrmonger, or built as a joint effort between the two of them, or one of them and another order. A lot about a region or settled area can be assumed from what deities they look to or lack.

ADDITIONAL DOMAINS Not every domain listed under a deity is meant as a limitation. You may never see Xeramut with a Cleric following the War or Trickery domain, but there could be those who dedicate themselves to the domain of Nature or Life in that deity’s name, for example. Religion is personal, and you may experience your faith very differently from what is “standard”. 

The Galactic Paradigm DEITY: Stellargus (stell-AR-gus) COLOR: Yellow ELEMENT: Air DOMAINS: Arcana, Knowledge CREDOS: Magic is faith that you can see. Experience is the richest education. SYMBOL: The Moon in any phase

Scholars and followers of the ironically enigmatic Stellargus and the Galactic Paradigm are dedicated to balance, and knowledge not only of mundane historical events, but of the chains of significance that hold together the multiverse. 

The Union of Serenity DEITY: Xeramut (ZEE-rah-mut) COLOR: Green ELEMENT: Earth DOMAINS: Order, Peace CREDOS: Always extend a hand before a blade. With calm comes understanding. SYMBOL: Balanced scales

Xeramut is a benevolent figure, one that is now globally ridiculed among most during these times of struggle and danger. The Union of Serenity’s faith is heavily tested, but they still believe a kind life is a constant reward.

The Dusktide Requiem DEITY: Chronyctis (kro-NIK-tiss) COLOR: Purple ELEMENT: Water DOMAINS: Twilight, Grave CREDOS: Refuge is a right of all creatures. Cherish and respect your time.  SYMBOL: Seven Stars

Chronyctis is said to be a God of Time, as a sub-sect of their domain; Twilight and the Grave as a finite ending or measure of time. The devotees of the Dusktide Requiem are frequently lackadaisical, with little regard for crunch culture.

The Order of the Dawn DEITY: Novial (NO-vee-all) COLOR: White ELEMENT: Air DOMAINS: Light, Life CREDOS: Share in one another’s joy. Treasure your health and community’s wellness. SYMBOL: The Sun

Children of The Order of the Dawn, Novial’s followers, are paragons in every sense of the word. Their devotion to their order is seen as cartoonishly righteous, but they’ve wound up a welcome bunch for sake of their heroic nature.

The Way of the Wild DEITY: Aquiirith (uh-KWEE-rith) COLOR: Blue ELEMENT: Water DOMAINS: Nature, Tempest CREDOS: Do no harm to the planet. Regard the world with humility.  SYMBOL: Nautilus shell

Aquiirith is a god so old that understanding their true nature may be an impossibility. As it stands, there are followers in their name who humbly protect the planet, opposed to peers of theirs who seek to sabotage industry.

The Firebrand Dogma DEITY: Pyrmonger (PYR-mon-ger) COLOR: Red ELEMENT: Fire DOMAINS: Forge, War CREDOS: Creation is a divine gift to mortals. Conflict is natural and eternal. SYMBOL: A Flaming Sword

Pyrmonger was once a god of art, who took to more and more extreme forms of expression, and now, here they are. Experimentation and bold choices are a favored tactic of their most devout; high risk, high reward

LESSER RELIGIONS Religion, demi-gods, cults and new discoveries are infinite in the multiverse; the following two orders are newer or less keenly viewed by the general populace, and may be more guarded, if not outright dishonest, about their faith.

Free Spirits of Occultra DEITY: Occultra (oh-KULL-truh) COLOR: Orange ELEMENT: Fire DOMAINS: Trickery CREDOS: Embrace chaos and reject authority. SYMBOL: A smiling, cycloptic mask

The fellowship among Occultra’s following is still a little undecided - this is a newer religion that is still crawling out of the “cult” status it had 300 years ago. They’re mostly obsessed with getting their own holiday, somehow.

Keepers of the Tomb

DEITY: Benechro (BEN-a-kro) COLOR: Black ELEMENT: Earth DOMAINS: Death CREDOS: All are equal in death. SYMBOL: a sickle Necromancers, assassins, sellswords with a “shoot first, questions never” attitude may all find a sliver of inspiration in Benechro’s path. Like other faiths with a divide, Keepers of the Tomb debate if death or undeath is the final truth.

VARIANT SYMBOLS The symbol assigned to each religion is very much the most how someone “outside” might recognize the religion, but individuals might represent a “symbol of faith” different ways. For example, some followers of Occultra might only have an eye as a symbol, or Grave-devoted followers of Chronyctus may have a black or falling star.

[thewinedarksea]

dnd characters: ori’s gods

a god of a sunken isle. a goddess of a lost realm. a god brought by a boy and forgotten by him, who still burns hot around the wick of his name. a vein without a body alone alone alone and a swarm of fireflies and a finger itching for a scale to tip and a spider waiting in her web of silver. they are all of them hungry. they are all of them yearning to go back out into that wide, wonderful, wicked world and find new followers. 

ori takes them. 

ori bears them. 

[duscarasheddinnswriting]

Children of Vividaren and Vividaren herself

If they were in D&D 5e, then the Children of Vividaren would be able to grant their clerics the Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War, Death, Arcana, Forge, Grave, Order, Peace, and Twilight Domains.

Vividaren herself would be able to grant her clerics all of those as well as Solidarity, Strength, Zeal, Ambition (all from the Amonkhet setting, but player characters can use them in other campaign settings if the DM approves), Blood (which is unofficial homebrew by Matthew Mercer, a Wizards of the Coast affiliated DM), Mind (developed by Keith Baker, the writer of the Eberron campaign setting; it was released on the Dungeon Master’s Guild), Beauty (unofficial content developed by Wizards of the Coast designers and uploaded on Twitter), City (from Unearthed Arcana 7 - Modern Magic), Protection (from Unearthed Arcana 22 - Cleric) and Unity (from Unearthed Arcana 68 - Subclasses, Part 2). She is omnipotent and omniscient, but she is not omnipresent due to her physical presence.

[doctorslippery]

(Knowledge) Ancient tomes of sacred lore begin fading away.

(Life) All healing magic now comes at a cost to the casters own health.

(Light) The sky is darkened to a permanent twilight.

(Nature) Large swathes of wilderness are infected by a strange rot.

(Tempest) Droughts spread across the land as rain doesn’t fall as often.

(Trickery) People with normally good humor become cold and bitter.

(War) Morale is decreased and soldiers begin to mutiny against their officers.

(Death/Grave) Undead creatures have a chance to randomly rise from graves without a spell cast by a necromancer.

(Forge) The knowledge of forging mithral and adamantine armor and weapons is lost.

Nothing. Once the god is the creator of it’s own domain, but it is able to maintain itself in its absence

(Arcana) All spells now have a chance to go wild.

(Fire) The world becomes cold as it goes into a long winter

(Air) The air becomes polluted and difficult to breath. Many people die of lung related issues.

(Water) Rivers and oceans go stagnant and unmoving.

(Earth) The land becomes infertile and unusable.

(Time) Time rifts start appearing everywhere causing things from the past and the future to come into the present.

(Dragons) All dragons, dragonborn, and kobolds turn to dust

(Darkness) The world becomes filled with endless light and a never ending day

(Love) Family and friends start to hate one another and form grudges over the smallest things

(Order) Revolutions happen everywhere and anarchy reigns supreme

(Good) Empathy and altruism are no more as people are looking out for themselves

(Evil) Angels descend from the heavens to purge the world now knowing that there is no evil god to protect the wicked

(Nature) The forests run amok. Animals and plants invade cities, as every natural order accelerates out of control.

(Nature) Conversely, the forests and fields begin to die. Animals grow sickly and lethargic.

(Nature) The seasons begin to spin out of control. A day dawns with blazing heat, but snow covers the ground to a foot by lunch, and a monsoon rages that night.

(Death) Nothing may die. Nothing. Not the cattle, not the sickly, not the old, not those grievously wounded. Souls are bound to their bodies, and may never set off on their journey. Chop someone into bits, and every tiny piece still twitches in agony.

(Any) As the gods ‘body’ decomposes their essence (what they were the god of) infects the land affecting all who lived below their realm eg if the goddess of nature dies – nature explodes over the area (eventually after hundreds of years the natural green will die and become the land will become barren after the body completes decomposing). If it was the god of war or anger – every person and animal in the realm becomes driven by anger/easily angered, and plants become more dangerous, etc

(Nature) nature becomes twisted and more and more aberration like.

(Nature) herbivores turn predatory and hunt for meat

(Forge) weapons turn weak, Metal is prone to bending and it tarnishes easily.

(Weather) drought spreads across the land

(Weather) destructive “sunder storms” where lightning falls like rain destroy the landscape.

(Weather) winter never ends.

(Any) Angels, demons, fey, other gods, and spirits start competing for that gods power and worship to fill the vacuum

(Any) If the god who dies has worshippers still his corpse enters an odd undead state. He’s too week to be an actual god again or become truly alive again. However his remaining worshippers keep him from truly dying.

(Any) desecration of the area in which it died.

(Any) the nature and landscape where it died twisting to reflect the gods domain

(Any) people in the area also changing to reflect the gods domain

(Any) powerful magic soaks into the land creating powerful items. Things like spiders whose venom can only be cured by other god touched magic. Plants whose berries heal you and their juice can even raise the dead, etc.

(Knowledge) every self aware creature must succeed on a DC 10 Int saving throw or take 1D4 psychic damage and lose as many memories as the DM decides while also losing 1d4 Ing Stat.

(Any) The heavens begin to fall to earth/fuse with the material plane

(Any) Paladins will be in a huge pickle during their conquests.

(Protection) Warding and shielding spells no longer work.

(Protection) The ancient wards that kept the Elder Evils, horrible beings whose power even the gods fear, at bay fall.

(Any) People realize the gods are not immortal, and in reaction, faith in all of the gods begins to falter.

(Tempest) The entire world becomes still: no wind, no waves, not even clouds, like the world is perfectly smooth.

(Trickery) Nobody remembers that they can lie. Everyone either states the truth or is silent, ruining the world’s governments by disabling political maneuvering.

(Forge) Metal no longer melts, making all previously forged weapons exponentially more valuable, even an old rusty sword.

(Any) All of the people that were sacrificed to the gods come back (betrayed heroes, betrayed family members etc), but all of the things that gods has given to us fade away.

(Any) Outsiders from other worlds reveal themselves as the liberators, freeing us from our oppressors by killing the gods.

(Any) The god is replaced by another god that does a terrible (or better) job as the dead god temporary replacement.

(Any) The god was slain, the being that slew the god gains the gods power or becomes the god

(Any) Nothing. The god may have been responsible for creating or shaping it’s aspect, but once it was created it doesn’t need the god to maintain it.

(Any) The gods power leaks from its remains. Any magic of the gods aspect is greatly amplified for several years. The closer to the remains the greater the power is amplified

(Death) Everything that dies rises as a zombie.

(Death) Spirits of the dead are unable to move on. Everything that dies becomes a ghost.

(Death) Spirits of the dead start coming back to the living world

(Knowledge) people begin to forget things. (Names, places, history, how to do things, what they were doing, etc.)

(Life) every living thing becomes sterile (animals are unable to have children / plants cant produce seeds)

(Nature) microorganisms reproduce at an accelerated rate & every other living thing gets wiped out

(Nature) plants and animals become withered anemic versions of themselves

(Nature) plants and animals begin to die off (decay / rot / slowly crumble to dust / slowly turn to ash)

(Nature) plants and animals begin to mutate into monstrous versions of themselves

(Nature) plants experience explosive growth and begin to take over everything

(War) People begin to become more violent and warlike.

(War) People begin to become too apathetic to fight each other. Eventually, people become too apathetic to do much of anything. They just stand around in a daze until the die of starvation or thirst.

(Any) All clerics suddenly overload on divine power (as if the gods power has been divided between them). And they all start to slowly go mad, and start to lose control.

(Light) a massive and well known constellation vanishes and leaves a dark patch right in the middle of the night sky

(War) A vanquished war-god drops his enormous miles-long sword, which falls to Earth and pierces deep into the planet’s mantle

(Death) The god’s followers begin killing at random, hoping the power of their faith will resurrect him

(Light) Random people all over the realm begin to go blind

(Tempest) A whirling hurricane forms in the middle of the Ocean… and doesn’t stop growing

(Forge) The followers of this deceased god begin a pilgrimage to destroy every craft ever created and stamped with his symbol

(Arcana) The god’s death leaves a hole in the weave. Something… unwanted fills in the gap with Its body.

(Nature) The wood of the deity’s patron plant (oak) begins to disintegrate into dust all over the world. Buildings topple.

(Life) This god’s followers have a crisis at the oxymoron of their god dying. They are slowly driven insane

(Grave) The god itself rises as an undead, an anathema to its own mission

(Arcana) People start forgetting spells. (As a spell is cast, roll to see if that is the last time it is cast)

(Arcana) Everyone gains a cantrip. Now this minor power is just something everyone does, like breathing or eating.

(Any) Suddenly there is a war in the cosmos. Minor deities, greatly powerful beings like Warlock Patrons, and other generally unknown greater powers are vying for the position.

(Any) Upon the god’s death, their body is split into thousands and thousands of pieces. These rain down like meteorites but instead of being falling rock bits, it’s a new people recently awoken. Who are these newcomers and what is their memory of or connection to this lost god?

(Tempest) Ocean currents fluctuate wildly

(Earth) Widespread tremors and volcanic activity

(Tempest) Unpredictable squalls

(Light) Continuous winter sets in

(Order) Ubiquitous revolutionary sentiment arises

(Music) Instruments quickly go out of tune, and singers forget words and have their voices crack more often

(Magic) All casters and magic items are treated as one level lower

(Nature) Animals behave erratically and crops fail

(Fate) Prominent heroes begin to meet ignominious ends

(Luck) Coin tosses and dice rolls result in predictable patterns (Heads tails, heads, tails/1,2,3,4,5,6,1 etc.)

(Luck) Randomness begins to fade. The first to go are critical successes and critical fails, but very rapidly all rolls end up as 10.5’s.

(Any) Their power returns to its source where anyone could take it for themselves

(Any) When trees and plants are cut down, instead of sap, blood starts to weep from the cuts.

(Winter) Animals that hibernate don’t wake. Plants and trees stay in their winter state. Even if the weather gets warmer things affected by season act like it never ended.

(Knowledge) every creature’s INT ticks down steadily as their memories slowly disappear until all life is reduced to animalistic intelligence.

(Death) no one can die anymore. HP can’t be dropped below 0 and no one can die of old age, accumulating age bonuses and penalties until all physical stats are reduced to 0.

(Light/sun) the sun and stars go out. The temperature continuously drops until the entire world is frozen over.

(Magic) all spells, enchantments, supernatural and spell-like abilities, etc. get progressively weaker until the entire world is basically in a null-magic zone.

(Nature) plants and animals become incapable of reproducing.

(Life) healing magic no longer works. Natural healing progressively weakens until it too is no longer possible.

(Trickery) it becomes impossible for anyone to lie or mislead

(Forge) a small mountain range of metals and the occasional gem crashes into the planet in 3… 2… 1…

(Knowledge) everyone receives random revelations rather simultaneously.

(Trickery) some guy shows up three days later, wondering what all the hubbub’s about.

(Life) Every wound healed by their clerics starts to rot, and everyone reanimated becomes undead.

(Trickery) Their holy texts go blank, holy symbols turn to dust, and all knowledge of the god is ripped from mortal minds, the god is dead and forgotten in all ways. While most people feel like they’ve forgotten something, the most devout worshippers to the lost god go mad from the hole in their mind and soul.

(Trickery) The gods secrets are spread throughout the world, the common-folk learn of their rulers corruption, people discover their spouses cheating, children learn their beloved dog didn’t go to a farm, all secrets good and bad are made known and will rip families, kingdoms, and even other faiths apart.

(Any) A shockwave of power blasts through the realms, knocking everything unconscious for d10 hours

(Arcana) Spellcasters and magic items begin to “glitch”, causing them to either be completely unable to cast spells/activate items or the spells go wild.

(Any) People and clerics begin to notice that something is…missing…

(Nature) Many two headed animals are born the following day.

(Any) The god(s) start to slip away out of people’s mind, and they start questioning if they were ever thing to begin with.

[turianosauruswrex]

@blindiemac the pantheon was the first thing I made!!! these gods are very dear to me I love them, here's the rundown:

Gods overall vary from region to region, but since most of the world is unmapped the primary forms of the deities are those of the Bay Area, a collection of independent city-states around a large bay surrounded by ocean on one side (obvs) and mountains on the other three. Beyond the Bay Area lie gigantic monsters and unknown dangers on the open ocean and in the desert and plains past the mountains. People...don't venture past the Bay very often. But when they do, they bring their gods with them! Like an American Gods type situation!

Gods and Domains of the Bay Area

The Monarch: Goddess of light and nature. Depending on who you ask, she either caused the Cataclysm that turned the world into its current state or tried to stop it. Most agree, and she would as well, that she was upset and distraught over what humanity had done to her domain, their carelessness with it, but she never would have harmed them. Rather, she fled, but when she returned she found more destruction than she'd left. In her sorrow she wept, which caused the seas to rise (allegedly). She has a fondness for cats. Her domains are Light, Nature, and Life

The Forgotten: Goddess of light and destruction. A vengeful aspect of the Monarch that split from her as the destruction of the earth and its resources continued. When the Monarch fled, the Forgotten was left behind and took out her anger and despair at both the betrayal of her own self and the greed and pride of humanity on the earth. The Monarch's priesthood recognizes the Forgotten as well, but as a separate deity and out of fear more than reverence. Her followers more or less are cultish and want to finish the job she started; thus, her domains are Light, Death, and War

The Prince: God of prosperity and celebration. Just out here for a good time, embodiment of hedonism. Fairly young god, being the older son of the Monarch and the Host (we'll get to him). He's popular among the uber-wealthy of the Bay Area and likes to show up at parties in disguise. His domains are Trickery, Zeal, and Life

The Prodigal: God of innovation and freedom. The youngest of the gods, encourages development of new technologies and creative applications of magic. He gets on well with his older brother, the Prince, but not so much with the other gods lol. The Monarch and the Host's second son. Less talked about. This fact is rarely known except among devotees to the Monarch's faith. The Prodigal LOOOOVES people of all kinds, thinks they're real neat little critters. His domains are City, Arcana, and Trickery

The Shepherd: Deity of death and the afterlife. Does not care for gender. They're quiet and gentle, a guide rather than a reaper, who sees their job and their followers as maintaining balance. Their domains are Grave, Twilight, and Order

The Commander: Goddess of conquest and victory. The only humanoid to have been lifted to godhood thus far. A soldier who fought valiantly but was slain in a brutal battle, the previous set of gods took pity on her. Some sects say she is the daughter of the previous, forgotten god of war, others that she's his reincarnation after he himself fell in battle. Her domains are War, Strength, and Ambition

The Strategist: God of strategy and solidarity. Counterpart to the Commander: she acts before thinking, he thinks before acting. His domains are War, Solidarity, and Order

The Scholar: God of study and wisdom. Commonly revered in institutes of higher learning. His domains are Knowledge and Arcana

The Tempest: God of the sea. His primary domain is Tempest

The Wild: Goddess of nature. Her primary domain is, of course, Nature

The Balance: Goddess of love and unity. Her primary domain is Peace

The Smith: God of fire. His domains are Forge and Zeal

The Keeper: Goddess of secrets and hidden knowledge. Her domains are Knowledge and Trickery

The Host: God of music and art. The Prince and the Prodigal's father. His domains are Peace and Life

The Mourner: God of grief and night. His domains are Grave and Twilight

The Liar: God of betrayal and deception. His domains are Trickery and Death

The Guide: Goddess of travel. Her domains are Knowledge and Protection

Each of the gods have proper names but are most commonly referred to as their titles; usage of their names is seen as something more familiar, like only higher priests would use them. Your everyday folks just use the titles.

Religion and politics are fairly separated; you'll have some clerics hold office and some politicians hold strong religious beliefs but officially they're not connected and the various city-state governments of the Bay Area do a pretty good job of keeping things separate.

[probablybard]

All Classes and Subclasses in 5e

((Unearthed Arcana italicized)

Barbarian

·         Path of the Ancestral Guardian

·         Path of the Battlerager

·         Path of the Berserker

·         Path of the Storm Herald

·         Path of the Totem Warrior

·         Path of the Zealot

Bard

·         College of Glamour

·         College of Swords

·         College of Lore

·         College of Valor

·         College of Whispers

Cleric

·         Forge Domain

·         Grave Domain

·         Knowledge Domain

·         Life Domain

·         Light Domain

·         Nature Domain

·         Protection Domain

·         Tempest Domain

·         Trickery Domain

·         War Domain

·         City Doman (Modern Magic)

Druid

·         Circle of Dreams

·         Circle of the Land

·         Circle of the Moon

·         Circle of the Shepherd

·         Circle of Twilight

Fighter

·         Arcane Archer

·         Battle Master

·         Cavalier

·         Champion

·         Eldritch Knight

·         Knight

·         Samurai

·         Sharpshooter

·         Monster Hunter(Gothic Fantasy)

Monk

·         Way of the Drunken Master

·         Way of the Four Elements

·         Way of the Kensei

·         Way of the Open hand

·         Way of Tranquility

·         Way of Shadow

Paladin

·         Oath of the Ancients

·         Oath of Conquest

·         Oath of Devotion

·         Oath of Treachery

·         Oath of Redemption

·         Oath of Vengeance

Ranger

·         Ranger: Revised

·         Beast Master

·         Horizon Walker

·         Hunter

·         Primeval Guardian

·         Monster Slayer

·         Deep Stalker (Underdark)

Rogue

·         Arcane Trickster

·         Assassin

·         Scout

·         Thief

·         Inquisitive (Gothic Fantasy)

Sorcerer

·         Draconic Bloodline

·         Favored Soul

·         Phoenix Sorcery

·         Sea Sorcery

·         Stone Sorcery

·         Wild Magic

·         Shadow (Underdark)

Warlock

·         The Archfey

·         The Celestial

·         The Fiend

·         The Great Old One

·         The Hexblade

·         The Raven Queen

·         The Undying Light (Underdark)

·         The Ghost in the Machine (Modern Magic)

Wizard

·         School of Abjuration

·         School of Conjuration

·         School of Divination

·         School of Enchantment

·         School of Evocation

·         School of Illusion

·         School of Necromancy

·         School of Theurgy

·         School of Transmutation

·         School of War Magic

·         School of Technomancy (Modern Magic)

·         Artificer Subclass

Mystic

·         Order of the Avatar

·         Order of the Awakened

·         Order of the Immortal

·         Order of the Nomad

·         Order of the Soul Knife

·         Order of the Wu Jen

Artificer

·         Alchemist

·         Gunsmith

[orbrandir]

I compiled a list of Classes and Subclasses for 5e using the PHB, UA, and SCAG. Here you are!

Artificer - Specialist

Alchemist UA

Gunsmith UA

Barbarian - Path Of The

Berserker PHB

Totem Warrior PHB

Ancestral Guardian UA

Storm Herald UA

Zealot UA

Battlerager SCAG

Bard - College Of

Lore PHB

Valor PHB

Swords UA

Glamour UA

Whispers UA

Satire UA

Fochlucan (Flavor, uses College of Lore) SCAG

New Olamn (Flavor, uses College of Lore) SCAG

Herald (Flavor, uses College of Lore) SCAG

Cleric - Domain

Knowledge PHB

Life PHB

Light PHB

Nature PHB

Tempest PHB

Trickery PHB

War PHB

Forge UA

Grave UA

Protection UA

Arcana SCAG

Druid - Circle Of The

Land PHB

Moon PHB

Shepherd UA

Dreams UA

Twilight UA

Swords (Flavor, uses Circle of the Moon or Land) SCAG

Fighter - Martial Archetype

Champion PHB

Battlemaster PHB

Eldritch Knight PHB

Cavalier UA

Arcane Archer UA

Knight UA

Samurai UA

Sharpshooter UA

Monster Hunter UA

Scout UA

Purple Dragon Knight SCAG

Fighter - Fighting Style

Archery PHB

Defense PHB

Dueling PHB

Great Weapon Fighting PHB

Protection PHB

Two-Weapon Fighting PHB

Tunnel Fighter UA

Mariner UA

Monk - Way Of The

Open Hand  PHB

Shadow PHB

Four Elements PHB

Kensei UA

Drunken Master UA

Tranquility UA

Dark Moon (Flavor, uses Shadow) SCAG

Hin Fist (Flavor, uses Open Hand) SCAG

Order of the Yellow Rose (Flavor, uses Open Hand) SCAG

Sun Souls SCAG

Long Death SCAG

Mystic - Order Of The

Avatar UA

Awakened UA

Immortal UA

Nomad UA

Soul Knife UA

Wu Jen UA

Paladin - Oath Of

Devotion PHB

The Ancients PHB

Vengeance PHB

Conquest UA

Redemption UA

Treachery UA

Companion (Flavor, uses Crown or Devotion) SCAG

Gilded Eye (Flavor, uses Devotion or Vengeance) SCAG

Order of Samular (Flavor, uses Crown) SCAG

Crown SCAG

Ranger - Ranger Archetype

Hunter PHB

Beast Master PHB

Monster Slayer UA

Horizon Walker UA

Primeval Guardian UA

Deep Stalker UA

Rogue - Roguish Archetype

Assassin PHB

Thief PHB

Arcane Trickster PHB

Swashbuckler SCAG

Mastermind SCAG

Scout UA

Inquisitive UA

Sorcerer - Sorcererous Origin

Draconic Bloodline PHB

Wild Magic PHB

Favored Soul UA

Phoenix Sorcery UA

Sea Sorcery UA

Stone Sorcery UA

Shadow UA

Storm SCAG

Warlock - Otherworldly Patrons

The Archfey PHB

The Fiend PHB

The Great Old One PHB

The Celestial UA

The Hexblade UA

The Raven Queen UA

The Seeker UA

The Undying Light UA

Ghost In The Machine (MODERN) UA

The Undying SCAG

Wizard - School Of

Abjuration PHB

Conjuration PHB

Divination PHB

Enchantment PHB

Evocation PHB

Illusion PHB

Necromancy PHB

Transmutation PHB

Theurgy UA

War Magic UA

Lore Mastery UA

Technomancy (MODERN) UA

Bladesinging (Elves Only) SCAG

Prestige Classes

Rune Scribe UA

[a-farewell]

Alle classes & races

Classes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?526451-the-complete-up-to-date-5e-Subclass-Directory

Races: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fjnoCiYUCOcrMxffWNwppHfuUDlY1Ae0HQ4t-XCaiPA/edit#gid=0

Artificer (d8, con & int)

Alchemist

Gunsmith

Barbarian (d12, str & con)

Path of the Ancestral Guardian: protecting themselves and others with spirits

Path of the Battlerager

Path of the Berserker

Path of the Storm Herald: ties to the forces of nature (desert, sea, tundra)

Path of the Totem Warrior

Path of the Zealot: divine fury, protected by their god

Bard (d8, dex & cha)

College of Glamour: under tutelage of the fey, seduce and inspire others

College of Lore

College of Satire: jesters, rogues and acrobats

College of Swords: weapon prowess, flourishing fighters

College of Valor

College of Whispers: seekers of secrets, terrorising others’ minds

Cleric (d8, wis & cha)

Domain of Arcana

Domain of Death

Domain of Forge: metal artisans, seekers of lost objects

Domain of Grave: watchers over the afterlife, prolonging life

Domain of Knowledge

Domain of Life

Domain of Light

Domain of Nature

Domain of Order

Domain of Protection: offence is the best defence, healing, defence and attack buffs

Domain of Tempest

Domain of Trickery

Domain of War

Druid (d8, int & wis)

Circle of Dreams: ties to the Feywild, dream and reality blur together

Circle of the Land: connection with natural domains (arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, underdark)

Circle of the Moon: all manners of wild shape (beasts, elemental)

Circle of the Shepherd: importance of all living things, spirit totem (bear, hawk, unicorn)

Circle of Spores: beauty in decay and undead

Circle of Twilight: preservers of the boundary between life and dead

Fighter (d10, str/dex & con)

Arcane Archer: sublime archers, effect arrows

Battle Master

Brute: simple yet mighty, attack and defence buffs

Cavalier: saddled warrior, mobile hitter

Champion

Eldritch Knight

Knight: saddled warrior, marking its enemy and protecting its allies

Samurai: intense in combat and elegant outside it

Sharpshooter: eagle-eyed in and outside combat

Monk (d8, str & dex)

Way of the Drunken Master: unpredictable and careful, playing the fool

Way of the Four Elements

Way of the Kensei: one with the blade

Way of the Long Death

Way of the Open Hand

Way of Shadow

Way of the Sun Soul: bolts of soul light 

Way of Tranquillity: violence as last resort, diplomats and healers

Mystic (1d8, int & wis)

Order of the Avatar: playing with emotions, healing and speed buffs

Order of the Awakened: psionic seeker and ghost

Order of the Immortal: resilient tank, life gainer

Order of the Nomad: knowledge seekers, teleporters

Order of the Soul Knife: psionic melee fighter

Order of Wu Jen: elemental mastery, arcane dabbler

Paladin (d10, wis & cha)

Oath of the Ancients

Oath of Conquest: seekers of glory, fear and rebuke

Oath of the Crown

Oath of Devotion

Oath of Redemption: violence as last resort, calming idealists

Oath of Treachery: faithful only to themselves, champions of chaos and deceit

Oath of Vengeance

Oathbreaker

Ranger (d10, str & dex)

Beast Master

Gloom Stalker: at home in the dark, stealthy

Horizon Walker: watching over portals, friends in all planes

Hunter

Monster Slayer: hunter of creatures of the night, thwarting magic-users

Primeval Guardian: one with nature, hermits and nomads, guardian soul

Rogue (d8, dex & int)

Arcane Trickster

Assassin

Inquisitive: eye for detail, mastery of lore and truth

Mastermind: seeker of secrets, tactical manipulators

Scout: mastery of survival and ambush, mobile

Swashbuckler: performers and duellists, elegant footwork

Thief

Sorcerer (d6, con & cha)

Divine Soul: 

Draconic Bloodline

Giant Sould

Phoenix Sorcery: cheater of death, destructive to others and theirselves

Sea Sorcery: curse of the sea, flexible and resistant 

Shadow Magic: 

Stone Sorcery: melee mage, resilient and protective 

Storm Sorcery: 

Wild Magic

Warlock (d8, wis & cha)

The Archfey

The Celestial: 

The Fiend

The Great Old One

The Hexblade: 

The Raven Queen: servers of Death, foes of immortality, spirit raven

The Seeker: seeker of knowledge and secrets, divine omens

The Undying

Wizard (d6, int & wis)

Bladesinging

Lore Mastery: most academic of all, changing the nature of spells

School of Abjuration

School of Conjuration

School of Divination

School of Enchantment

School of Evocation

School of Illusion

School of Invention: experimenting and tinkering, chaotic but innovative 

School of Necromancy

School of Transmutation

Theurgy: between cleric and wizard, religious prodigy

War Magic: 

[honourablejester]

Ideas for Deities and Cleric Domains (D&D)

I absolutely love clerics as a class in D&D. They’re up there with warlocks for customisation, it’s fantastic. But clerics, more than many other classes, really seem to be dependent on the setting and worldbuilding, because a huge chunk of their story and background is dependent on their deity. A cleric’s power comes directly from their deity, and they can possibly lose it if the deity disapproves of them or their actions. I know a lot of DMs won’t do this, but in-universe it does make sense that a deity is not going to keep giving power to a servant that is actively acting against their goals. If I’m building a cleric, I do feel a bit of a desire to have their personality and history either fit in with or comment interestingly on their deity’s personality and domains. They’re a class you really have to build in collaboration with the DM, I feel.

So. On that worldbuilding end, going by the cleric domains. Some (admittedly highly biased) thoughts on the associations of each domain, and some ideas for deities and maybe clerics for each. It got LONG (as in, 7000 words long), because I have thoughts apparently. If you want to skip around, the domains are in alphabetical order of:

Arcana

Death

Forge

Grave

Knowledge

Life

Light

Nature

Order

Peace

Tempest

Trickery

Twilight

War

Arcana

This domain feels slightly sticky to me in D&D because of the difference between arcane and divine magic. Like, do wizards view arcana clerics as essentially cheaters? Oh, sure, no study for you, you just get it for free! Arcana gods who were once mortal wizards, do they view clerics as cheaters? Especially given that a lot of the existing arcana gods are also knowledge gods, how do they feel about just granting magic without, so to speak, the effort of acquiring knowledge by your own means? Or do some of them prefer clerics? Gods of magic that are embodiments of magic as a force, do they like that clerics have an intuitive grasp of them and thus magic? Knowledge deities who believe that all knowledge should be available to everyone, they’d be fine with it too, presumably. There are lots of paths to knowledge, and for some people that would be through a teacher, in this case the deity. If knowledge and magic should be shared, then the path of the cleric is just as valid as the path of independent study.

And then there’s deities for whom magic, arcana, is a secondary domain, in service to their primary one, who’re happy for their cleric to use any power at their disposal to enhance their service (for example, deities whose primary domain is war or forge or death might not care how their arcana domain servant gets their power, provided they use it for the right causes).

Arcana is an interesting and slightly sticky domain for me. But. Some other domains it combines interestingly with, for deities with different views:

Knowledge. The most obvious. Fits well for a wizard-type deity, magic as study, but maybe also a more … theoretical physicist sort of deity? Deities who like people who just appreciate the raw wonder and intrigue of magic on an emotional level, a vast and beautiful unknown that needs to be interacted with and both studied and experienced. You know those people who just want to babble about their field of study, and you don’t even have to understand, though it would be great if you did, they just want you to come up and look at the cool thing? Deities like that.

War, Forge, Death. Like I said above, these would be big domains for gods who view magic as a fundamental tool to serve other causes. War, the destruction or defense of things. Forge, the making of things. Death, the breaching of the walls between states. Trickery could also go here, for sneaky deities who view magic as an obvious tool-kit. In worlds with magic, it’s such an obvious factor to deal with when it comes to their primary domains that these deities have sort of been forced to acquire the expertise, and sometimes they might want servants who specialise in supplying that tool-kit for the cause. Forge might also lean a bit in Knowledge’s direction as well, your ‘tinkerer with the universe’ sort of deity. Trickery also works because Arcana clerics get a few nice scout-and-secrecy type spells, like Arcane Eye, Nystul’s Magic Aura, and Leomund’s Secret Chest, so a trickery deity having an ‘agent’ cleric with a disguise as a pious scholar and a toolkit for spying and smuggling feels like a fun idea.

Order, Twilight, Life. These also work as primary domains for deities who view Arcana as a toolbox domain to supplement their primary one. With features like Planar Abjuration, Spell Breaker and several of the abjuration, divination and conjuration spell options, arcana clerics feel like they could be good ‘civil defender’ sort of agents. The sort of magic civil servants for deities of civilisation, making sure that things stay where they’re put and that the righteous are not influenced unduly by arcane powers.

Death

The necromancy domain, for when you want a divine boost on your path to lichdom. I’m going to say, though, that I do like the disease aspect of this domain. I blame reading The Legend of Huma as a teen, and Morgion’s corruption of a certain knight to the shock and betrayal of all his fellows. On the cleric end, I really, really like this domain as an expression of, not so much malice, as just absolute despair. It’s the necrotic domain, the domain of entropy and rot and decay. Murder, secrecy, death, decay, despair, disease. Miasma. It’s an evocative domain.

Deity-wise, this domain is the four horsemen (or three of them, Death, Pestilence and Famine – pair a War god to add Conquest and War). The walking wasteland. The crawling oblivion. It’s the Black Death, the Red Death, the White Death. It’s a pale figure atop a pale horse. Poison in a cup, rot in a wound. Petyr Baelish, sowing chaos just to see where all the pieces fall. It’s false dawn. The calm shallows of despair. It’s black and white and green. Every Outer God ever, from the crawling chaos to the blind idiot god at the centre of the universe.

I love the disease aspect. Start with plague. Start with fire and drought and famine. The aftermath of war. The fevered, skeletal survivors. Have a voice in the dark make them an offer. A shelter, an assurance, that the worst has already happened, and nothing more can trouble them now. All they have to do is … offer other people the same thing. The fire and the fever and the pain. And then ... the quiet place beyond it, where there is only peace and purpose.

As a domain, Death feels perfectly capable of standing alone. Add Arcana, if you want more a focus on necromancy. Add Trickery, if you want more chaos and entropy, toppling towards annihilation. Add War, that old friend and partner. Add Tempest, the scourging storm, or Light, the searing, radiant fever. Add Life, to pair and partner with Disease, the poison and the antidote in one cup. Add Peace, for the quiet oblivion when all pain and strife has been toppled gently away.

Forge

This is an odd domain for me, because I absolutely love the image of the smith deity, Hephaestus, Wayland, Prometheus, and I love characters like Tony Stark in the MCU, people who forge their way out of captivity and pain by raw force of will and ingenuity. But. A lot of the available deities for the Forge domain feel a bit on the lacklustre side, and I don’t know if that’s because the smith imagery for me is so bound up in image of conflict and captivity, Prometheus, Wayland, Tony Stark? It might just be a case where the domain evokes such specific imagery for me that I’m a bit blinkered by it.

The Forge domain is bound up in imagery of fire and metal, war and craftmanship. As a cleric domain, it’s fairly focused on weapons and armour, rather than the wider applications of the craft, so the clerics will likely be a bit more specialised than the deities. Mythologically, forge deities are often creation deities, civilisation deities, discovery/exploration deities, even healing deities. There’s a lot of ‘whatever the problem, we can build our way out of it’. Which is awesome.

So. Some interesting domain combinations:

War is the obvious one. Forge clerics are pretty clearly designed as front-liners. And on the deity side, war is often a necessity for a forge deity, both as a primary market for their wares, and also because they tend to be prime targets for forces who want to have exclusive access to said wares. There’s a reason I associate the forge with captivity. Going to war because the enemy forced your hand and you had to build your way out of captivity seems to be a typical job hazard for a smith deity. An interesting addendum, put Life with it, for deities of War, Forge and Life, who build prosthesis and solutions to the aftermath of war. A lot of actual RL forge deities do seem to have a ‘mechanical solutions to biological problems’ sort of mindset.

Knowledge is the other immediate aspect. Discovery, invention, civilisation. Tool-makers, more than weapon-makers. Prometheus. Fire and the taming of the natural world. Craft. Trade centres. In more industrialised settings, invention and industry. So, Order and even Nature might be good domain mixes as well, for the civilisation and harvest/nature-tamed end of things. The plough as much as the sword. Forge has some hearth associations, for gods of city, home and protection. On the darker side, Order, forges are also where you make shackles. But then you have my favourite image. Prometheus, Wayland. The chained or hobbled smith god forging his way to freedom. I like chaos in a smith god. Fire and freedom, creation, wringing possibility from the raw material of the universe. Forge, Knowledge, Arcana, Life. Tempest, even Trickery. The smashing of chains.

Grave

I love this domain so much. I’ve always loved psychopomps, guides, and the gentler aspects of death. Hades and Persephone, Isis and Osiris, Hermes guiding souls. Charon the ferryman. Death-the-Gatherer, rather than Death-the-Hunter. I’d love a dual-aspect deity, Life and Grave domains, the Lord/Lady of First and Last Respite. Peace, ease from pain, freedom from slavery.

Grave pairs very well with Twilight. They have the feel of boundary guardians, the liminal deities. Grave’s use of necromancy spells feels very much like something drawing power or essence from the boundary between life and death itself. A border guardian, authorised to open the gates when needed and ensure that they are safely closed again. Twilight sits so well with that.

Life, Knowledge. Medicine. Hermes and his caduceus. Peace. Laying to rest what should not have been disturbed. Nature. The acknowledgement of natural cycles of decay and reinvigoration. Grave lies very much on the ‘slow and steady, all things in their course’ sort of feeling. It really does pair well with Life in a single deity, not a raw striving against death as an enemy, but a more balanced understanding of what to push and how far, before life itself becomes a tyranny of captivity. First and Last Respite. You strive and you strive and you strive, and then you rest.

It also goes well with War in this regard. Again, its partner aspect. Death domain pairs more overtly with War, but Grave also has a place. Poppies in the fields. Last rites. The soldier chaplain. War as necessity, and then the aftermath. A grave domain cleric has a lot to do in a war.

Interestingly, with the likes of Hermes, and even Isis to an extent, there’s also a Trickery association. Thieves on the boundary line. Stealing knowledge or wealth or time past the line of death. People who have seen things that were never meant to be seen. Truth behind illusion. Journeys, exploration, knowledge. Outcasts. Death is the great equaliser, after all. It welcomes all, even the most wretched. There’s the interesting balance for a thief god, ‘you can’t take it with you when you die’, but maybe you can? Or a thief who will not be stolen from, and that includes their life, the one possession everyone should have the right to defend. Trickery and Grave have some interesting mixes, and a grave cleric with a criminal background would be fascinating to me.

Knowledge

Again, I adore this domain with all my heart. Knowledge domain is the seeker archetype, both in deities and clerics. A shared wellspring of knowledge, and a mission to perpetually add to it, to ask questions and then go and find the answer.

A thing I find with deities for this domain, they can have an oddly static feel. Like the sum of all knowledge already exists, is already stored in some library somewhere, and no knowledge deity ever needs to discover anything themselves. It’s a danger to get stuck in the static ‘archivist’ image of a knowledge god, even though the collection and processing and classification and archiving of information is a whole dynamic activity in itself. Knowledge changes, is always changing. Knowledge is about seeking, archiving, analysing, understanding, drawing linkages. Disseminating, teaching, sharing. Though there are and should be gods who focus on recording information, because that’s a right and necessary thing we like to do with knowledge, there’s a lot more to the domain than that.

On that note. I feel like Knowledge and Trickery are a very nice pair of domains for a deity. What’s that quote about the basis of trickery being knowing one extra fact? Plus. Espionage is a whole industry based on, essentially, the theft and dissemination of protected knowledge. And the flipside, that to protect knowledge, you have to know how people will try to steal it. A lot of the knowledge domain’s abilities and spells lend well to spying. Even your static ‘archivist’ god, with his library and his scrolls, has probably seen just about every idiot seeking forbidden knowledge, and was possibly the cause of what happened to quite a few of them. Heh.

With that in mind, War is also a potential partner domain as well. Finding information that your enemy doesn’t want you to know is a huge part of warfare, and messengers and couriers are also vital during wartime. If you wanted to make a god of espionage, Knowledge, Trickery, War and maybe Arcana would be a good mix of domains.

Knowledge also just goes well with a lot of the civilisation-focused domains. Order, Life, Arcana, Forge, even Nature. And with more chaotic areas as well. Knowledge is about exploration, discovery, invention. Maybe even Tempest can fit alongside, especially combined with Forge as well, for that ‘lightning strike of inspiration’ idea. Knowledge over tradition. The heretical pursuit of truth in the face of order. The defiance of demanding answers to questions people don’t want asked. Prometheus, after all, is one of the archetypal deities of knowledge.

Knowledge is just … about seeking. The pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge clerics are seekers, especially in the adventurer mould. The explorer, the archaeologist, the pilgrim, the messenger, the spy, the broker, the medium (Knowledge pairs well with Grave too). The teacher, the protector. If a god of knowledge wants a mortal pair of hands, it’s to find, protect or spread knowledge. Or to use it for a specific purpose. Ideas can be the levers on which a world turns, after all. Not all knowledge deities might be neutral …

Life

The bog-standard domain of the jobbing cleric. The domain people maybe feel they get saddled with if the party needs a healer. But I like the Life domain a lot, although for some reason it’s locked on to orcs and half-orcs in my head (every life cleric I’ve ever built has been one or the other). I like the feeling of striving and equality you get with the Life domain. The endless fight against evil, destruction and even just normal decay. Life is the bulwark domain. Life is the stubborn domain (which, actually, might be why I associate orcs with it). And I like a lot of the existing life deities.

Life is about preservation. It doesn’t create, but it preserves. Life holds the line. It’s considered the bog-standard domain, and to be fair it does fit most anywhere. You can tack the life domain on to the portfolio of nearly any deity you please, and it’ll probably fit.

And! It doesn’t have to always be good. I don’t even just mean that you can have a racial life deity for an ‘evil’ race, like Luthic for the orcs (which is a whole other thing, racial pantheons are … a tricky thing), but Life itself can be an enemy. If you’ve ever read the fairytale ‘The Soldier and Death’, you’ll know what I mean. And, for a more recent example, the Many-Faced God in Game of Thrones is an example of a death-as-mercy deity that moved towards punishing and/or preventative medicine later down the line. Life without cease can be a hell without escape. Life is as much a force that needs to be tempered and balanced as any other. You have options with Life deities.

So. Domain combinations. I LOVE the Life/Grave duality. I said it above with Grave, and I’ll say it again down here. Pair the two. They work beautifully together.

Life has the obvious solar association, so Light is a common pair for it. Twilight actually works very well as well. Life is the bulwark. The preserving line that enemy forces founder against. Pair it with a domain that ventures protectively into the darkness, or with one that vengefully shatters it. Life, Light, and Twilight are a nice mix of domains.

Peace and Order are an interesting set, in that they can edge Life over into its darker aspects if left unchecked. The rigid, tyrannical end of lawful. Stepford smilers. Whatever happens, we can fix you right up! So just smile, and take whatever happens. Life is a torturer’s dream domain. You can go dark, dark places with it if you want to, and these two are a good pair of domains to set alongside that journey. Make a deity of Order, Life and Peace that would put the greatest Archdevil of Tyranny to absolute shame! Though you can take them gently too. You can take them as they were intended. Make bulwark deities. Protectors against the dark. Holding the line.

I also love Life, the same as Grave, as an equality domain. This is more on the cleric end, but I love outcast characters who take up the mantle of a healer god because the deity just accepted them. I do like Ilmater for this, for example. Life as the healer domain knows all about what people do when they’re in pain, and it works to heal rather than punish that. The ideal of a medic who heals regardless of nationality or creed. Dr McCoy from Star Trek, because I adore him. Make an angry healer, an outcast who works to help other outcasts, who struggles with the ethics of helping even evil people, because if you ignore pain when you see it, what does that make you? But if you cause untold pain with an act of mercy, what does that make you? There’s a lot you can work with here. Life is more than just a jobbing domain.

Light

The spear of god, the lance of the heavens. Light is the glorious, radiant, blinding, burning domain. The domain for when you want to smite people and set the world on fire. There’s also a vigilance, eyesight, ever-burning, all-seeing sort of association. The lantern ever-burning in the dark, the eye in the sky that sees all. So it has a sort of a, a half-and-half sort of feeling. Light will wait for all eternity, as patient as the sun, for their enemies to move. And as soon as they do, Light will smite them with fire from on high. Light is a distinctly decisive sort of domain. You can’t take back a fireball once you’ve launched it, so be sure you know where you’re aiming it first.

Light is honestly such a fun domain. It pairs well with a lot of things. Life. Tempest. War. Knowledge. I love a lot of RL mythological figures here. Helios Panoptes. Light and Knowledge are such a good mix. Light is knowledge as in surveillance. The big staring eyeball in the sky. The sniper’s little red dot on your forehead. I see you. Light is the crusader deity. ‘I’m going to see what’s happening, and then I’m going to act on it’. Add War in, sure. Tempest. The lightning bolt from on high. If any deity is going to have combat celestials to throw around as well, it’ll be Light domain deities. It’s a very smitey domain.

Light does have a gentler aspect. Light clerics tend to be blasters, mobile artillery, but they still have the standard cleric options. And light is the dawn of life. So. Life. Nature. It has a preservatory feeling against the forces of darkness and decay. Stand in my radiance and I will shelter you. And a sower of life feeling. Show me your grain and I will ripen it. Energy is epitomised by light. So you could pair Twilight as well, a deity with twin aspects, the light and the twilight. The spear and the shield. A deity who will venture out watchfully into darkness, keeping faith with it, until crisis point is reached and they bring the sudden dawn instead.

Nature

Gods of the natural world. I’ll be honest, while it makes absolute sense that you would have nature deities, as a cleric domain it feels slightly superfluous and like it’s stepping on the druid’s toes a bit. But. On the deity side, lots to work with.

With raw elemental might mostly given to Tempest, the Nature domain focuses on plants, animals, the land, the waters. Nature in its neutral state. There’s also a bit of an emphasis on survival, with things like heavy armour and Dampen Elements. Nature is very much about working with the land and creatures around you to survive. It can lean towards the wilder end, unspoiled nature, or the tamer end, the gods of harvest and field. You have things like your gods of the hunt, your gods of the wood, your gods of the field. Hearth, home. Freedom. Travel.

If you want to lean towards the wilder side, Nature combines well with Tempest, Trickery and War. These are your gods of the hunt, gods of the storm, gods of the jungle, the defenders of nature unspoiled. But you can also combine with Life and Light here as well, for the raw majesty and vibrancy of the wilderness, and with Twilight and Peace, for the shadowed forests and wilds.

On the tamer end, the gods of field and harvest, of fertility, Nature combines with Order, Life, Light, Knowledge and even Forge. Order, for the rolling fields of agriculture that feed the cities. Life, Light, for the sun that ripens the fields, the harvest that feeds the world. Knowledge and Forge, for the craft and the tools that tame the land, the knowledge of plant and soil and properties that provide food, medicine, systems of produce. Also, a deity of Nature, Trickery and Knowledge as a god of trade, of travel and produce and negotiation and knowledge. I like that.

Trickery combines well with either end as well. On the wilderness side, for nature’s more fey aspects, the gods of travel and wilderness and getting lost, the trickster deities of echoes in the mountains and lights in the swamp that lead people astray and protect their secrets. On the tamer side, I love Trickery and Nature (and Life) for a god of hospitality, the arcane rules and soft power that prevent violence by alternate means. And, I mean, if you want Hotel California, the little god of the vanishing inn, try some combination of Nature, Trickery, Life, Death and Twilight. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave … I actually really love the idea of a Nature deity that defends the wilds just by luring and trapping intruders under the guise of civilised hospitality. The liminal deity of the boundary between the fields and the wilds.

On the deity end, Nature is actually a really versatile and lovely domain. Add it to everything. Heh.

Order

Apparently, I tend towards neutral or chaotic, because I kneejerk don’t like the Order domain. For much the same reason I’m not too fond of the enchantment school of magic. It’s by nature on the far end of lawful, and the focus is on control and conformity before free will. It’s a hard domain to balance. Gods of Order are going to be on the hard lawful edge, deities of law and cities and justice. Justice is the better end of the domain, but the spells and features … This domain leans a bit dystopian, yes? Law by compulsion. It’s ridiculously easy to slant towards evil.

But. Let’s try and get past the kneejerk. At its best, Order is the domain of cities and civilisation, centralised law, law by consensus. It’s a domain focused on discipline, on justice, at least in the sense of rigid adherence to the law. At it’s worst, it’s the domain of empire and tyrant and dystopia. Zealotry. The slaver domain. Deities with Order in their portfolio will lean in one of those directions. Justice and discipline, or conquest and control. Either way, there’s a focus on civilisation, on the polis, on centralised authority.

The natural domain pairing is War, for the conquest end, and Peace, for the civilisation end. Peace is very much the gentler, more consensual partner to Order, enabling willing communal links, while Order enforces unwilling ones. Peace encourages people to act together, Order forces them to act correctly. There’s an interesting tension there. On War’s end, I feel a deity with both Order and War domains will prioritise Order, viewing War as a tool to extend the reach far enough to ensure control, but the reverse is also possible, viewing Order as a way to maintain a strong enough army to feed War. You can sit anywhere on the lawful end of the alignment chart with any of these. A crusader for justice all the way down to a tyrannical despot.

On the polis end, civilisation, Arcana and Knowledge both sit well with Order, as well as Forge. A Knowledge and Order deity will be one of those ‘gods of lists’. Everything in its place. Arcana will be a toolbox, less a focus on the exploration and experimentation of magic. Though you could have an interesting tension of a deity of Order and Arcana trying to fully map and thereby control magic as a force. That is an arcana deity who will very much not like magic’s more chaotic expressions, which could go interesting places. If you want a theological war on certain types of magic (especially sorcery), that could be an idea.

Order as a domain feels very overbearing. It’ll dominate any domain mix its part of. You could put it with Light, with Nature, with Life, and it will bend and shape the other domains around it. It even goes with Trickery, which feels like it should be a chaos domain, because again, espionage is a fundamental part of warfare and control, and a domain that doesn’t balk at enchantment won’t balk at illusion either. Tools in the toolbox.

The one domain that doesn’t feel like it pairs well with Order is Tempest. Tempest does feel too rawly chaotic to sit nicely alongside Order. If you want a pair of gods to set in opposition, try Order vs Tempest. The city vs the sea, the storm vs the doldrums, raw force vs overbearing will.

Peace

I’m calling this the Hufflepuff domain, and like a good badger, it has the potential to be absolutely terrifying. Peace is one of those domains that you really, really don’t want in an enemy. This is the siege domain, the tank-generating domain. Come and have a go, dear, because you are guaranteed not hard enough. Put this with Life and then Order or Light or War, and you are dealing with an absolutely terrifying unified force that won’t go down. If you don’t like the Hufflepuff comparison, you can also try Starfleet. Walk softly in the sure knowledge that you are carrying the bigger stick.

An evil peace deity is such a fantastically terrifying thought. A long, calm walk into night, hand in hand, carrying each other when we falter. I want this domain for a post-apocalyptic setting so much. William Hope Hodgson’s Night Land. Dying Earth. A philosophical debate between two deities of peace, whether it is better to be the last bulwark standing firm against the darkness, or if true peace is found in gently letting go together. Put one with Life, put the other with Grave, and debate in a world of horror and darkness and madness and despair which one of them is ‘good’ and which one of them is ‘evil’.

But. Even normally, in non-dying settings. Peace is an exciting domain that can go in some interesting directions. The line between good and evil for this one will be what we’re willing to do to have peace, and what we’re defining as ‘forces that prevent peace’. Obviously if you’re going for a Peace/Order evil combination, ‘freedom’ is a thing that could prevent peace. If you’re going with Peace/Grave/Death, life is a thing that could prevent peace. It all depends on how you want to play it. But you can go gentler as well. Peace with Life, with Nature, with Grave, as a genuine, gentle attempt to help as many people as possible find a life free from pain or fear. Peace with Order as a good-aligned hope for civilisation and diplomacy triumphing over fear and war.

It’s just very fun for me personally to imagine the darker aspects here. An evil peace cleric as a cult leader. ‘Stand with me, help each other, stand together, and no one can stand against us’. All the worst aspects of group-think. Genuine loyalty, genuine camaraderie, and just a complete lack of actual morals. It would be terrible and fantastic. Hang an evil party around a peace cleric and have your loving, psychotically loyal bunch of clowns go to town on the rest of the world.

Tempest

The first D&D character I ever made was a high elven Tempest cleric, ex-slave, ex-city official. Looking back up at my thoughts on the Order domain will probably give you an idea why. Tempest is just a gorgeous domain for me. Distilled chaos, and all its tricky balances. Where’s the line between raw destruction and needful freedom?

It helps that I’m from an island nation and strongly associate Tempest with the sea. In the absence of an actual Ocean domain, Tempest is where that part of me gravitates. So Tempest gets all the associations of freedom and power and terror and awe that the ocean gets from me. The volcano and earthquake aspects aren’t as fun for me, though elemental storm very much is. Air and water and lightning and sky.

Tempest isn’t a kind domain. It doesn’t really feel nurturing or safe. At its worst, it’s raw destruction, power pitted against all comers. At its best, it’s freedom for those strong enough, a storm to break the oppressive swelter of summer, a sea wave to smash through walls. Like Order can sit at any end of the lawful spectrum, Tempest can sit at any end of the chaotic spectrum.

Tempest deities will probably lean towards one end or the other. Destructive and overbearing, or fierce opponents of tyranny. It pairs fantastically with Light, as the celestial realms’ shock troopers, with lightning as a nice conceptual bridge between them. Tempest probably lacks Light’s more patient aspects, though. Although maybe not. The sea is always power held in potential, after all. The promise of the storm is always there, even when it’s calm. So. Light is a good mix. War and probably Forge will work just as well too, though for Forge you will want the more volcanic/seismic end of Tempest.

Tempest is an interesting mix with Trickery. Whatever else Tempest is, it doesn’t tend to be subtle. But misdirection is as much an aspect of trickery as disguises are. Sound and noise, signifying nothing. Until the right moment. If you want Tempest to match Light’s patient aspects, pairing the two of them with Trickery would be a very interesting mix. Add War, and you have a deity with a full martial suite of domains, from the espionage and information gathering stages all the way through to shock troops and invasion. Or go Tempest, Trickery, Knowledge, to emphasise the secrets of the ocean depths, and the powerful forces that protect them.

On the gentler end, Tempest pairs naturally with, well, Nature. Wildfires and ocean storms serve their purposes too, clearing ground to help systems rebuild and refresh. Rainstorms to break droughts. It’ll still be a bit on the survivalist end of nature, cruel to be kind, but it can be much gentler than its more destructive outbursts imply. You can have a deity of Life, Nature and Tempest quite easily.

Trickery

The domain of illusion, secrecy, misdirection, stealth. Okay. So. I adore this domain in terms of deities. Adore it. Anyone who knows me will tell you I love trickster deities with a passion. I will say that cleric-wise, this domain feels oddly blinkered, purely focused on stealth and misdirection, though the spell list does add some more fun, chaotic things. But in terms of deities, oh, I’m gonna have fun here.

On a base level, trickery is about accomplishing your goals by indirect, unexpected or subtle means. It’s about stealth, misdirection, leverage, diplomacy, theft, murder, guile. It’s about breaking the rules, taking the unexpected path. It isn’t necessarily chaotic, you can do an unexpected thing that is purely within the rules of the game, and for certain stripes of trickery deities I would suggest valuing exactly that, a matter of pride in pushing the rules to breaking point and highlighting all their absurdities in the process. White hat hackers. A lawful good trickery deity whose sole purpose is to test the bounds of law and tradition and show where it can be improved.

It also doesn’t have to be evil. It seems to come up a bit, that Trickery is added as a domain to an evil god’s portfolio simply to emphasise that they’re a liar. Which is … valid, fine, but it’s just … Lying is not all that Trickery is. You can do more with it.

I’m also not fully certain of the association with luck for Trickery. I feel it’s because 5e doesn’t yet have an actual chaos domain, so Trickery is used as a stand in for anything on the more chaotic end of concepts, but the thing with luck is that it’s random. The Dice Gods are the gods of fate, destiny and chaos. I’d give them … Order domain, Chaos domain, Balance domain, something like that. If you want good luck and bad luck, I’d give them the Life and Death domains, positive and negative energy, creation and entropy. But Trickery … implies more intent than luck allows. You have to set out to trick someone. Trickery is to accomplish goals. A roll of the dice, outcome uncertain, feels like something a trickery deity would go out of their way to avoid where possible. Tricksters try to play with loaded dice. I feel like they don’t like to rely on luck.

But. Moving on. Trickery deities are your gods of subtlety or change. Your thief gods, your spy gods, your gods of revolution, your gods of motion and change. Your gods you send out to accomplish things that other gods can’t. Your gods of desperation, your gods of last resort, your gods of hope. And, yes, also your gods of lies, of deceit, of hidden things. Your gods of manipulation and planning. Your gods of murder in the dark.

In terms of domains, Trickery goes with everything. Seriously everything. There is nothing you can’t put with Trickery, because it’s all about your methods, not your goals. In that sense it’s a bit of a toolbox domain, like Arcana or Knowledge. There are so many ways to go.

Trickery, Knowledge, Order, War. Your god of spies and espionage. Trickery and Light, your god of surveillance. Trickery and Knowledge and Arcana, your god of hidden, illusory and experimental magic. Trickery and Grave, your thief psychopomp. Trickery and Twilight, all in on illusion and hidden things, the god thieves pray to for protection and silence in the dark. Trickery and Nature, hospitality, trade and soft power. Trickery and Peace, diplomacy in all its forms. Trickery and Tempest, the god of sound and fury who knows how to level it strategically. Trickery and Life is a god that’s going to help and heal by whatever means prove necessary. Forge and Trickery is Prometheus and all my other beloved tricky smiths. Trickery and Death is your chaos-sower, your force of subtle entropy, your silver-tongued dark messiah.

Honestly, you can never give Trickery to too many deities! Add it everywhere! Well, no, you do need a contrast to it, deities who are genuinely honest and straightforward or blunt as the face of a hammer, but it is a versatile domain. You can do a lot with it.

Twilight

This is such an incredibly gorgeous domain. Twilight, dusk, shadows, borders, liminality. The quiet secret spaces. Flight. Second star to the right and straight on til morning. There is nothing I do not love about this domain. Here is the gentle end of Peace, the balm of Grave, the sheltering arm of Life, the watchful care of Light. Here is the darkness made gentle, a shelter, neither pitch black nor blindingly bright. The borderland, the crossing point, where all are treated equal, where the thief finds as much shelter as the righteous man. Good gods, I love this domain.

Like I said. Life, Light, Peace, Grave. All of them are natural combinations with Twilight. Grave, for the borderlands. Peace, for a peaceful crossing. Light, for the vigilance against the dark. Life, for the shelter and solace there. And Trickery, too, for those who live in shadows and draw their comfort there. A deity of Trickery, Grave and Twilight, the thief god with the hooded lantern who guides souls to their rest. A deity of Life, Light and Twilight, the hermit, the patient watcher, who shields travellers under their cloak and stares unblinking out into the night, standing guard until dawn. A deity of Trickery, Arcana and Twilight, the god of dreams. A deity of Nature, Twilight and Peace, the god of the twilight woods, of still pools, of unicorns.

This domain feels like magic to me. I mean the wonder of magic. The feeling you had as a kid watching The Last Unicorn for the first time. I can’t be analytical or eloquent about this. This is the bus stop at 4am domain. The silence in the desert at night domain. The domain of flying dreams, where a god or a fairy touches you in your sleep and tugs you out the window to walk on air. Here are illusions, here are secret truths, here are fairytales.

It’s a good domain. Make me some gods who evoke the quiet wonder of it. Please, I love you.

War

Ending on a bit of a blunt note, really, in that War is arguably one of the simpler thematic domains. To quote Fallout: ‘War. War never changes.’ Maybe not, though. There are a fair few dualities and contradictions bound up in the domain.

There’s your obvious, Athena vs Ares, intellectual vs physical war, strategy vs combat, civilisation vs barbarism. There’s your theological, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas of Aquinas and the concept of ‘just war’, the surgeon vs the soldier, under what circumstances and in defense of what ideals does violence become justified. War for conquest vs war for defense, and the boundary where one becomes the other. Ideological crusades. The honesty of violence vs the hypocrisy of honour. War as ritual, war as necessity, war as a vehicle for personal advancement.

All right. So maybe War is not a simple domain at all. You have a lot of options of what other domains to pair War with in a deity’s portfolio to put a different slant on them. War with Life or Peace, war for defense of values. War with Order, war for conquest and crusade. War with Death, war of annihilation. War with Tempest, blitzkrieg, lightning war, war of force and sudden might. War with Grave, the god of warriors, who cares for war’s people. War with Light or Twilight, guardian against invasions from beyond. War with Knowledge or Trickery, the wars of states and nations and intelligence, wars of trade, black ops, espionage. War with Forge or Arcana, strategic, toolbox thinkers, getting the tools to do the job.

War is one of those domains that works just fine alone, but you can also add it on to any other domain that someone would have to fight for. Now, granted, War is organised fighting, large-scale fighting, so it’s not just picking a fight in a bar, but even then, War gods who value warriors who strive to prove their might at any provocation can still pay attention. But you have a lot of potential variety with war. You could have one war deity in your pantheon, or have six or seven who at least dabble in the domain. There isn’t a single other domain that you couldn’t add War onto. Nature is probably where it strains most, because War is usually the opposite of helpful for fixing problems Nature might be having, but even Nature has her champions. Even Peace, which you think would be the opposite of War, can happily stand alongside as the end goal, and War the means.

And as a stand-alone domain, you have a LOT of philosophical room for argument with War. Fittingly enough. Heh.

[honourablejester]

Some more homebrew D&D deities (following this post), some old, some new. Just so everybody knows, I could imagine gods all damn day. Heh. A fair few knowledge deities this time, a good bit of chaos, and some small gods:

HEEIN-SHEEIN, HE-IN-THE-DESERT AND SHE-IN-THE-NIGHT

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Domains: Twilight, Trickery, Knowledge, Life

Symbol: Thorn Or Thorn Tree

Their faithful call them Heein-Sheein, the Little God in the Thorns. Others call them the Twins, He-In-The-Desert and She-In-The-Night. They’re not twins, though. They’re one being, both male and female, a deity of the in-between. They like thorn trees. They like fights where nobody’s winning. They like people who aren’t one thing or the other, but something in-between. Heein-Sheein is the little god of checks and balances, of blurring lines, of personal change, of fixing odds. They are rumoured to have been a demon once, or a demon still, or a spirit, or something else again. They don’t seem to care. Their faithful are few, but inclined to stick their oar in and change fate, to prevent certain victories and bolster outcasts and underdogs against defeat. And, in smaller ways, to help those who are lost and in pain, and need someone who’s experienced a few things to help.

ISKUUR, THE STORM LORD

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good

Domains: Tempest, Light

Symbol: Sea Wall Broken By Wave

Iskuur is a god of seas and storms and chaos, a sinker of ships. A god whose emblem is a shattered sea wall, a symbol of landbound authority sundered by his might. A god of sunken ships and broken chains, and freedom defended by might. He strongly opposes slavery, tyranny, and the restriction of free will, but also organised navies, sea defenses, and the rule of law. He has a mixed approach to fisherpeople, favouring spear fishers but violently disliking net/trap fishers, and many fishing ships pray to other sea gods for protection from him. Iskuur is a god who emphasises survival, endurance and freedom above all, and while he powerfully opposes physical constraints on a person’s will, such as captivity, that is nothing to how he opposes psychological or magical assaults on will. If you would impose your authority on another’s will in the presence of Iskuur or any of his devout, you may expect the storm, the lightning, or the wave.

ALATEE, THE LITTLE GREY GODDESS OF LISTS

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Domains: Knowledge, Order, War

Symbol: Blank Wooden Stamp

A small and distinctly unglamourous deity, Alatee is nonetheless vital to any longterm cause of civilisation. She is, in essence, the little god of logistics. She is the goddess of lists, and trade routes, and information, and postal services, and logistics offices, and paperwork. She is the goddess of all those men and women who spend hours and years and decades of their lives making sure that everything is accounted for, that everything gets where it needs to go, that any large-scale endeavour has all its necessities behind it. She is the goddess soldiers pray to for a miraculous supply line, for a package from home, for a fresh pair of socks. She is the goddess builders and shipwrights pray to, to please let my calculations be right. She is the goddess clerks and spies both pray to, let me get this job done and not be seen. A hundred thousand tiny people pray to Alatee daily, not for glamour, but just to get the job done.

INEIA, THE WEAVER, THE MANY-HANDED, THE SILVER SPIDER

Alignment: Lawful Good

Domains: Knowledge, Life, Peace

Symbol: Silver Spider Or Spiderweb

A quiet but far from silent goddess, Ineia is the deity of connection, craft, community and communication. In particular, she is the weaver goddess, the god of those crafts that hold communities together: the weaver, the butcher, the farrier, the tailor, the shoemaker, the needlemaker, the toolsmith. The teacher, the parent, the leader. She is the goddess of community, of standing together for the survival of all. When she appears to mortals, she often takes the form of a silver-haired young woman, of any species, with six spider limbs sprouting from her shoulders, for it is said that she despaired of having enough hands for all the work that needed to be done, and that she admired the craft and endurance of the spider’s work. To serve Ineia is to value learning, craft, work, and pulling together for the betterment of all.

DORAM, THE SOLDIER’S SHEPHERD, THE RED SPECTRE

Alignment: True Neutral

Domains: Grave, War, Nature

Symbol: A Red Wildflower

Doram is the silent deity of war’s aftermath. He is the god of soldiers’ graves, of burnt villages, of broken swords, of ancient battlefields covered over by the red flowers that grow in broken earth. He is the god that hears such prayers: “Let it be fast. Let it be easy. Let earth cover me back over. Let something beautiful grow where I have passed. Let me not be bound to haunt this cursed field. Let it matter, let it mean something. Take me somewhere quiet, where all this rage has ceased.” His worshippers are few, his clerics and priests hounded and persecuted as spectres of ill-omen and defeat, but like Doram himself, they are dedicated to their quiet duty. To tend the broken and the dying. To bury the dead of war. To heal the land around its scars. To lay the ghosts of its passing.

GORBALUNE, THE TRUTH-SEEKER, THE UNFETTERED

Alignment: Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Evil (oscillates between them)

Domains: Arcana, Knowledge, Forge, Tempest, Light

Symbol: Lightning Erupting From A Shattered Glass Sphere

Goddess of iconoclasts, researchers, inventors, heretics and the mad, Gorbalune is the Goddess of Creation and Discovery. She is the Truth-Seeker and the Unfettered. She holds that there should be no bounds on discovery, creation, invention, investigation. Risk life and limb, risk reputation and sanity, spit in the face of order and tradition. Do it all, do everything, if it brings you closer to your truth, the truth of your soul or the truth of the universe, or the truth of the seed of invention inside yourself. Run before you can walk, fly before you can run. Invent wings for yourself. Dream strange and terrible dreams. Speak truth to power, and be not afraid to die for it. Explore. Experiment. Create. Shout. No silence, for Gorbalune’s faithful. No bowing the head, no looking away. Face the world head on, and leave your mark, even if you die for it. Go out and learn, go out and do.