Campaign guide plight of the tuatha (1) 27

Campaign Guide was created by the Multi- Planar gods after the Prime Plane was formed She is tied to the lands of the Tuatha Most of her worshippers hail from the Tuathan lands, and while she is within her lands she is all-powerful able to resurrect at will and smite enemies down with impunity Outside her traditional lands, her powers become more limited She is still able to grant her clerics their spells if she or they travel to far off lands, but her own abilities diminish Because of these limitations, these types of gods are sometimes referred to as regional gods Natural Religions Natural religions differ from the two above religious types as the objects of worship are not gods, but spirits inhabiting the natural world As Prime Planar gods compare to Multi-Planar gods, so too Natural Spirits to Prime Planars Natural Spirits are still powerful creatures, but their sphere of influence is once again reduced A Natural Spirit is usually tied to a specific geographical feature, such as a river, forest, or mountain Spirits can also be tied to smaller features such as particular trees, springs, or caves On rare occasions, spirits might also manifest in conjunction with artificial constructions such as temples or crossroads When a Natural Spirit is within their realm they can be quite powerful, able to heal/ injure those nearby, able to direct their realm such as causing landslide on their mountains or their river to flood But outside of their realm they are essentially powerless Many spirits are unable to leave their realm except under special circumstances As for planar travel, nature spirits often travel to the Ethereal Plane, or perhaps an elemental plane that is intimately tied to their realm (such as the plane of water for river spirits), but further travel is impossible Clerics in natural religions not worship singlenature spirits Instead, clerics tend to learn how to interact with whole groups of spirits For instance, a cleric with the domains of water and earth has learned how to interact with spirits tied to those elements and so interacts with river, lake, mountain, cave, and ocean spirits It is by making deals with these spirits that such divine casters get their spells Unlike the other two forms of religion, the clerics not pray to the spirits as clerics of Multi-Planar gods pray to their divine entities Instead, natural clerics have learned how to appease and make gifts or deals with various spirits in order to be able to gain spells Where other clerics spend time in prayer, a natural cleric will leave piles of food or trinkets, or perhaps tell tales for the spirits they wish to commune What actions the natural cleric performs is dependent upon the deals they make with these spirits 26 Effects on Game-Play All in all, this has very little effect on actual game-play All clerics still gain their spells at a predetermined time, such as dawn or midnight Clerics are able to cast their spells and refresh their spell lists as laid out in the Core Pathfinder books These distinctions mainly show how different clerics might act and interact in the Imperiums setting Gods of the Empire There are two levels of divinity in all forms of Imperial religion: the level of godhood and the level of sainthood Both are similar in that they both grant spells to their followers, but those who are gods are more universal while those who are saints are more area or family specific The saints are akin to household gods They are the accumulation of the spirits of a family’s ancestors which become the equivalent of a Natural Spirit bound to the family itself Many families end up being guided to worship their ancestors in the form of one who most personified the best qualities of their lineage Some worship several of their ancestors as a type of pantheon Most families in the empire worship their ancestors and have little shrines to them but only a few families end up with actual saints/gods which can bestow actual spells These families have been blessed by one of the three gods and their ancestors become divine The emperor has, in recent years, declared himself canonized as a major god while getting a sizable portion of House Spiritus to agree There is some confusion as to whether he can bestow spells or not He has canonized four other saints to be worshiped at the same level as the original three gods These theological divisions have caused a schism in House Spiritus and the religious population in general So, in the Empire, there is the Orthodox Church and the New Church, both claiming to be right The Orthodox only worship the Three as ultimately divine along with house gods while the New Church claims that there are seven gods Within the New Church there is also a split as to whether or not to accept the emperor god as divine as well (which refers to itself as the True Church) This third True Church is the official religion sanctioned by the empire and is composed of the seven plus emperor god plus house gods Needless to say there is a little confusion by everyone as to how, who and what to worship Rumors of pogroms and crusades are on the horizon Below are the gods that are accepted by the Orthodox Church as divine