Pholtus Worshippers? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Pholtus Worshippers?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Cthulhudrew
Feb 11, 2008 14:10:42 Just recently came across a copy of the original World of Greyhawk campaign setting by Gygax, and noticed that he has worshipper's alignments of Pholtus as Lawful (good, evil, neutral).

How is it that this changed somehow between editions? In From the Ashes, his clerics can only be LG or LN, and I'm pretty sure that got held over into 3E as well.

Personally, I prefer to allow LE in there, if only because I think some corruption along those lines fits in perfectly with the Theocracy of the Pale's rulership, but I'd be interested in seeing what others think.
#2
pauln6
Feb 13, 2008 6:44:16 The restriction technically only applies to clerics. In 1e Pholtus was LG with Lawful Neutral tendencies. In 3e he is LG so his clerics (who can only be one step away from him in alignment, must be LG or LN. Technically they could also be NG, but as he is a very lawful god, that seems wrong.

Just adjust Pholtus to LN with LG tendencies and hey presto, you can have LE clerics within the rules.
#3
rob_douglas
Feb 18, 2008 10:40:18 Pretty much - yes. The Pholtus put forth by Gygax is a much more interesting being, with a much more complex set of worshippers. There are many people who espouse the LE branch of Pholtus in their games, myself included. The LE branch don't think of themselves as evil, but they are merciless in their pursuit of what is "right". That Pholtus allows it and grants spells is something of a question of faith. IMO, it is because the LE branch is actually being subverted by an archdevil who intercepts their prayers, and basically runs things in Pholtus's name.... It is up to the PCs to uncover this problem. Maybe the highest in the order even know, but they work to subvert the Theocracy....

Google for information the Dark lighters, Church of Ebongleam, and Pholtus. A lot of information comes out of http://thepale.org.

ROB
#4
theocratissak
Feb 18, 2008 13:07:58 Hi all -
I've been watching this topic, but since I made an internal promise not to post on WotC - an overall dislike with what they've done recently sends me off on a rampage of information that misses the original posting points, so I figure why get me on that path! But below I keep that out of it.
I own ThePale.org. It's out of date, as I haven't updated it since 2003-2004. Prior to being Theocrat Issak I was Issak the Pale - not for a skin color aspect, but for one being one with the Theocracy of the Pale. Then Gary Holian named me Theocrat. I like it better.
That came about because he knew I was a Pholtus and Pale supporter long before the RPGA came along and he asked me a few things about what I thought of Pholtus the churches of Pholtus and things that interested me.

When D&D 3e came out and it was announced that Las Vegas would be in the Pale's area, I was excited, but I couldn't afford to fly to Reno often or be part of the RPGA's event's. So I didn't participate much physically, however I did via the 'net with chats, message boards and e-mails.
When the Pale triad killed Tillit, I was OK with that, but when they put in a Prelate that was very strict and started what I call a "Hug Your Heathen" (trademarked) campaign - I had to quit my support. The Pale is a religiously intolerant place. Now I understand that because you have a million people that live in the Pale region, you have to support their desires and allow them to worship WeeJas as LG in the Pale without persecution, but I felt there are better ways to allow this.
I think the only thing that I can really claim any credit to is providing the official name to the Pale's church. I always signed my emails with Church of the One True Path of Pholtus - and when we had a debate and vote, that name won out.
Prior to disagreeing with the Pale Triad, I already owned ThePale.org and even offered it to them, but they didn't want it - because I disagreed with them so much. But the idea of ThePale.org was to provide people with a better understanding of the place.
For a long time I worked with lots of people to get a deeper understanding of Pholtus, the Pale and it's history and I did do several write-ups. I have a story about the Pagan Hammer in OJ 12 as well as the "true" Knights of the Valorous League (the Pale took the KotVL and re-imaged them into Palish forces instead of the true Nyrond forces that they are from The Marklands).
I have several ideas that I don't think are on the site - also check CanonFire! under Pholtus/The Pale and such. I know I have a write-up on what I call the Hegemony Wars (based upon another person's new wars GH).

But to answer the question regarding Pholtus and his worshipers - this is from memory, and not my research papers I have in the Green Room (and this is why I don't like posting to GleeMax...now my trade marked Hug Your Heathen can be used, so can my information here...) is:
My understanding of the GH gods is that they are busy. Thus they grant spells and such to the "Church" itself, and from there the Theocrat, Prelates, Bishops and Priests kinda pass out the spells. Not exactly, but this makes politics a bit more of a focus. If your direct supervisor doesn't like you, then you're less likely to get spells because in a sense he's putting in a bad word against you. Wandering priests need to keep their main guy informed at times and when they go to a city with a church, and that priest likes or doesn't like them, that can affect a persons spells. This is an overall aspect and not something that I'm able to provide more info or open for a debate.
So the reason that there are three distinct churches is a tad more complicated.
As Pholtus doesn't care so much directly, he does care about the overall number of worshipers, and he cares about the Righteous Path.
There are several Churches. If I recall, there are like 5 or so current churches, and maybe another one from the Shield Lands. This is from memory, and isn't exactly accurate.
LG - Church of (something about Dawn) - this was the original church in the Great Kingdom, during the time that they held the Holy See. This is what split and people went north to the Pale.
LG - When the Pale was first founded the church stayed allied with the GK's church. But at some point it broke off and became the Church of the One True Path (LN, current Pale church).
LG - The Church of Pholtus is the biggest church - they are the ones that are all around the Flanaess.
LG with LN support - Church of Pholtus in Greyhawk City - this is the LG church, but as written in one of the source books, they send money to The Pale.
LN - Church of the One True Path of Pholtus - this is the LN church as espoused by the Theocracy of the Pale.
LE - Church of the EbonGleam - this is the church as espoused by the Grand Theocracy of Dimre in the Bandit Kingdoms. The reason they are LE isn't so much because they believe in Evil is better, but because they believe that to see The Light, you must have walked in Darkness. Kinda like how Luke Skywalker had to travel some dark paths to become a better Jedi.
From what I recall, Dimre is ruled by a former Pale priest - although the Church of EbonGleam has been around for a long time. I can't recall off-hand how it came about, but the idea is that the peasants of Dimre don't really know that the church they're going to is "evil." Yes, The Pale sends spy's and such to disprove EbonGleam claims, but it is no less than what goes on in real life. The general population knows that they are following the Path of Righteousness and that Pholtus looks out for them. It is their leaders that follow the darker path, trying to understand the evil that is inside them so that they can return to the light with a better understanding and therefore are better able to help their flock defeat the darkness when it comes upon them.
That is what they tell themselves and their cabal. If that is indeed true or not, is another topic. I'd have to say that the Church likely came about because the first person believed this (as is usually the case with cults), but somewhere it got warped as new leadership came on board.

If I had the time I'd go look through my future OerthJournal write up on the Churches of Pholtus article - I've got lots of ideas and concepts - just not compiled and finalized. Same with my Weathering the Flanaess article.

I do believe that some of it is at my www.ThePale.org Web site, but I cannot know for sure. I also own the OerthJournal.com and GreyhawkOnline.com which hosts tons of information from other people - Mort's Greyhawk Web Comic, Alan Grohe's stuff, and more. If you are looking for a place to host your Greyhawk and D&D stuff, I'm more than happy to help. I do it for free, because I get a good rate on hosting.
I hope I've helped with some of the ideas and such for understanding when/where/why there are three different alignments at play. And maybe I'll get off my busy butt and write my articles. Hmm, don't hold your breath.
Be Well.
Theocrat Issak
Church of the One True Path of Pholtus
#5
theocratissak
Feb 18, 2008 13:16:50 Hi all -
Reading some of my notes, I found a post that I had written a while ago. When and where, I have no idea. It is about Pholtus and st. cuthbert (no capitlization for him, he's a heathen god!) but there is some mention about the different churches and how worship is gone about.
Theocrat Issak

Hi all-
Ok, who the hell let the Troll out. First off, there is not rivalry between Pholtus and st. cuthbert, because as the One True Path there can be no other.
Now, if I were to concede the point that there are heathens that worship Pholtus in a warped sense - like st. cuthbert - and receive spells and set up a church in their name, it would be due to many possibilities. One such reason is that Carl Sargent wrote that Nyrond's forces took and burned Wintershiven to the ground and many of those followers were worshippers of st. cuthbert. This would certainly explain why the Church of the One True Path doesn't like st. cuthbert.

[Knowledge (Religion) Note: This is also another reason why many "lay people" confuse the worship of Pholtus. We must remember that although Pholtus has *one true path* there are three distinct churches, the Church of Pholtus (CoP)- his Lawful Good church, the Church of the One True Path (CoOTP)- his Lawful Neutral path (and as practiced within the Pale and at least one major church in Greyhawk City [as referenced in the CoG boxset]), and the Church of the EbonGleam (CoEG)- his Lawful Evil church as practiced within the Grand Theocracy of Dimre. Dimre's worship is even less known than most others - but they believe that to walk in the Path of the Light one must have either walk or have walked in His darkness (my guess is this is to reference the eclipses of the moons and such). Each of the churches have members - and clerics - of the opposing alignment. Before you take that to mean something else - let me clarify. The CoP and CoOTP both have high ranking clerics of both Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral, and maybe even a few non-high ranking that are Lawful Evil. In fact one of my major NPC's for my game that the PC's must interact with is a LE Cleric of the One True Path (he's my villain). I doubt that the EbonGleam has any clerics that are LG but certainly LN ones can rise.]

However, IIRC, somewhere it is later stated that st. cuthbert isn't all that worshiped within Nyrond and unlikely that his forces are the main occupiers of Wintershiven. But this can be ruled that st. cuthbert's forces *were* worshiped within Nyrond during the war and subsequent occupation, but his worship has since declined. I subscribe to this portion of theory. Or at least a portion of the army worshiped st. cuthbert. But this is not the only reason that st. cuthbert and Pholtus are at odds. It is this occupation that leads to the rivalry between the one deity and the one impostor, even if it really relates to one branch more than the others - but when Pholtans are encountered the One True Path is the faction that comes to mind most often.

I would also tend to hazard that the rivalry developed back in the days of the Great Kingdom. If you would recall your Great Kingdom history, there was only the Church of Pholtus and they were granted the Holy See of Medgia. They were the lawgivers (planet of the apes - recognize). It was this way for about 250 years (at least, since I doubt that they were granted judgeship right at 1 CY). From this, many other churches must have felt jealous. Combine this jealousy with the fact that both tempt the same / typical person for conversion - it would give a natural rivalry. I'd even further hazard a guess that this is how cuthbertites came to be known as the cudgel - see they'd bonk proper Pholtans on the head, causing brain damage, and thus converting them to the imposter st. cuthbert.

I'm sure that if you check the archives I've written something similar many times previously. I'd also like to draw your attention to the obvious disrespect given to st. cuthbert in the non capitalization of his name. This is also true of forgotten realms. As Pholtus and Greyhawk are the True Paths to Glory and Greatness (ok, so Greyhawk's glory is diminishing on the open market) all others are merely adequate and as such do not deserve capitalization.

----
Hope that helps to clarify some aspects of Photlus's worshipers
#6
Greyson
Feb 21, 2008 16:34:29 Worship of Pholtus has "evolved" in Nyrond, regrettably. Our online gazetteer has an old, yet still accurate dissertation on a couple of Pholtan schisms: namely the Church of the Bright Path and the Church of the Blinding Light. I have personally disagreed with this regional treatment of Pholtans in Nyrond's Living Greyhawk. But, check it out and be your own judge:

http://www.nyrond.org/turbine/page/nyr/gazetteer/religion/pholtus.html

I have intensely detested the way the Valorous League of Blindness was depicted, underused and eventually allowed to wander out of Nyrond in Living Greyhawk. But, that is a whole other issue.

Don (Greyson)
Nyrond Triad
#7
theocratissak
Feb 21, 2008 19:57:55 All -
OK, now Don's working some D&D brain firings loose.
Both of those church names were submitted by me a while ago (2000-2001). I want to say that after the split from the GK, the Church of Pholtus stayed LG in the GK, and the Church of the Blinding Light was founded in the Pale as LG. Then when St. Ceril came along and did his thing (G.Holian wrote an article in Dragon (iirc) about St. Ceril which was a saint that was written about in an ancient Dragon mag article) he reformed the church to a LN aspect which then became the Church of the One True Path.
Again, this is from memory of articles I've written up about the Pale and the worship of Pholtus. If I wasn't taking a haitus from D&D, I'd be willing to dig them up and write something but WotC has killed it for me...see going off on a rant....
I can't say about the Church of the Bright Path. I don't think that's something that I started writing and campaigning about during my brief RPGA experience and my articles. It could have been something I mentioned, but if that was the case I'd say it related more to potential names of churches for the Pale during the early days of RPGA's Living GH, which we decided upon as Church of the One True Path.
I am one that believes that Pholtus - in his Strict Righteous Path is one of the few deities that has more than the one church. The Church of Wee Jas is in 3e LN (right?) and has clerics that are LN, LE, LG. Same with the Churches of Heironeous. With other deities, they have clerics within the alignment phases as allowed. However, it is ONE church.
With Pholtus, and only Pholtus, he has several churches - all with the same alignment factors for clerics. So although the Church of the One True Path is LN - it does have LN, LG, and LE clerics (LE being very, very minor). Same with the Church of the EbonGleam (LE). Although they are LE, they do have some LN clerics, and if there are a total of 1000 clerics of EbonGleam, there would be 1 LG cleric. Just because of the aspect that they believe in walking with the dark side.
For the Church of Pholtus (LG) - this is the main church of the Flanaess, although the One True Path gets the most press.
I believe the reason for multiple churches is related to ideals moreso than the deity. This gives Pholtus a more Real Life aspect (Christianity's multiple belief systems, even within the protestant church).
So the CotOTP follows the very strict path, CoP is less so, EG is the darkness (moon) and so forth. Bright Path - not sure. I thought there was a Church of Dawn or something in the Shield Lands (from what a friend in the region told me yrs ago). I think I said that the CoP in Greyhawk was yet another church, separate from the main CoP because it openly supports the CotOTP (LN), and could be considered a "retread" of the Church of Blinding Light because that was the Pale's LG long ago.
Damn, I'm sure I'm now going to be re-interested in it all and go dig out my notes and eventually write an OJ article on it - like I've promised so many times!
Be Well
Still the Theocrat Issak
Theocrat Issak
Church of the One True Path
#8
rob_douglas
Feb 22, 2008 6:59:40 Thanks Isaak, your memory serves us all well. St. Ceril was in Dragon #79, one of my favorites, along with St. Bane, and St. Kargoth - the first Death Knight, repeated in Dragon 290, and Dungeon 151! St. Ceril was tied to Pholtus in Gary's article, though I don't believe he was given responsibility for making the church LN. He is a leader of the Lords of the Gloaming, an order of Powerful, high-level Pholtans, who oppose extra planar threats. I can't remember the Dragon number for this article, but it was Living Greyhawk, something in the 300s, I am guessing around the 320s. I need to look it up again.

ROB
#9
ripvanwormer
Feb 22, 2008 19:55:20
I can't remember the Dragon number for this article, but it was Living Greyhawk, something in the 300s, I am guessing around the 320s. I need to look it up again.

It was actually Dungeon #104, page 112.

Note that the lawful evil Pholtan church that controls the Theocracy of Dimre in the Bandit Kingdoms is credited with being inspired by the Paladin-King of Miro, who was possessed by the Hand and Eye of Vecna, at least according to Samwise's history. Tragically, this may not be entirely official, although the Paladin-King is mentioned in the Book of Artifacts.
#10
samwise
Feb 23, 2008 21:34:07 My history is not official.
The connection to the Theocracy of Dimre was a bit of happenstance. I was looking for somewhere for the Hand and Eye to go after the Gnome-King of Blemu but before showing up north of the Nyr Dyv. The Pale being sort of between the two, I muttered about reconfiguring the Paladin-King of Miro (who is actually supposed to be connected to a different part of the history) to have Miro be a pre-expansion nation in the area of the Pale, and that it might even link to the evil Pholtans of Dimre. Gary Holian who was listening to the muttering, and had written the article then provided the fine tuning of the connections.
The obligatory footnote to that is; Erik Mona read that history, and decided it was good enough to ask me to work on the Core Beliefs article on Vecna.

So it is not official, but it led to something official.
:D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Cthulhudrew Feb 11, 2008 14:10:42	Just recently came across a copy of the original World of Greyhawk campaign setting by Gygax, and noticed that he has worshipper's alignments of Pholtus as Lawful (good, evil, neutral). How is it that this changed somehow between editions? In From the Ashes, his clerics can only be LG or LN, and I'm pretty sure that got held over into 3E as well. Personally, I prefer to allow LE in there, if only because I think some corruption along those lines fits in perfectly with the Theocracy of the Pale's rulership, but I'd be interested in seeing what others think.
#2 pauln6 Feb 13, 2008 6:44:16	The restriction technically only applies to clerics. In 1e Pholtus was LG with Lawful Neutral tendencies. In 3e he is LG so his clerics (who can only be one step away from him in alignment, must be LG or LN. Technically they could also be NG, but as he is a very lawful god, that seems wrong. Just adjust Pholtus to LN with LG tendencies and hey presto, you can have LE clerics within the rules.
#3 rob_douglas Feb 18, 2008 10:40:18	Pretty much - yes. The Pholtus put forth by Gygax is a much more interesting being, with a much more complex set of worshippers. There are many people who espouse the LE branch of Pholtus in their games, myself included. The LE branch don't think of themselves as evil, but they are merciless in their pursuit of what is "right". That Pholtus allows it and grants spells is something of a question of faith. IMO, it is because the LE branch is actually being subverted by an archdevil who intercepts their prayers, and basically runs things in Pholtus's name.... It is up to the PCs to uncover this problem. Maybe the highest in the order even know, but they work to subvert the Theocracy.... Google for information the Dark lighters, Church of Ebongleam, and Pholtus. A lot of information comes out of http://thepale.org. ROB
#4 theocratissak Feb 18, 2008 13:07:58	Hi all - I've been watching this topic, but since I made an internal promise not to post on WotC - an overall dislike with what they've done recently sends me off on a rampage of information that misses the original posting points, so I figure why get me on that path! But below I keep that out of it. I own ThePale.org. It's out of date, as I haven't updated it since 2003-2004. Prior to being Theocrat Issak I was Issak the Pale - not for a skin color aspect, but for one being one with the Theocracy of the Pale. Then Gary Holian named me Theocrat. I like it better. That came about because he knew I was a Pholtus and Pale supporter long before the RPGA came along and he asked me a few things about what I thought of Pholtus the churches of Pholtus and things that interested me. When D&D 3e came out and it was announced that Las Vegas would be in the Pale's area, I was excited, but I couldn't afford to fly to Reno often or be part of the RPGA's event's. So I didn't participate much physically, however I did via the 'net with chats, message boards and e-mails. When the Pale triad killed Tillit, I was OK with that, but when they put in a Prelate that was very strict and started what I call a "Hug Your Heathen" (trademarked) campaign - I had to quit my support. The Pale is a religiously intolerant place. Now I understand that because you have a million people that live in the Pale region, you have to support their desires and allow them to worship WeeJas as LG in the Pale without persecution, but I felt there are better ways to allow this. I think the only thing that I can really claim any credit to is providing the official name to the Pale's church. I always signed my emails with Church of the One True Path of Pholtus - and when we had a debate and vote, that name won out. Prior to disagreeing with the Pale Triad, I already owned ThePale.org and even offered it to them, but they didn't want it - because I disagreed with them so much. But the idea of ThePale.org was to provide people with a better understanding of the place. For a long time I worked with lots of people to get a deeper understanding of Pholtus, the Pale and it's history and I did do several write-ups. I have a story about the Pagan Hammer in OJ 12 as well as the "true" Knights of the Valorous League (the Pale took the KotVL and re-imaged them into Palish forces instead of the true Nyrond forces that they are from The Marklands). I have several ideas that I don't think are on the site - also check CanonFire! under Pholtus/The Pale and such. I know I have a write-up on what I call the Hegemony Wars (based upon another person's new wars GH). But to answer the question regarding Pholtus and his worshipers - this is from memory, and not my research papers I have in the Green Room (and this is why I don't like posting to GleeMax...now my trade marked Hug Your Heathen can be used, so can my information here...) is: My understanding of the GH gods is that they are busy. Thus they grant spells and such to the "Church" itself, and from there the Theocrat, Prelates, Bishops and Priests kinda pass out the spells. Not exactly, but this makes politics a bit more of a focus. If your direct supervisor doesn't like you, then you're less likely to get spells because in a sense he's putting in a bad word against you. Wandering priests need to keep their main guy informed at times and when they go to a city with a church, and that priest likes or doesn't like them, that can affect a persons spells. This is an overall aspect and not something that I'm able to provide more info or open for a debate. So the reason that there are three distinct churches is a tad more complicated. As Pholtus doesn't care so much directly, he does care about the overall number of worshipers, and he cares about the Righteous Path. There are several Churches. If I recall, there are like 5 or so current churches, and maybe another one from the Shield Lands. This is from memory, and isn't exactly accurate. LG - Church of (something about Dawn) - this was the original church in the Great Kingdom, during the time that they held the Holy See. This is what split and people went north to the Pale. LG - When the Pale was first founded the church stayed allied with the GK's church. But at some point it broke off and became the Church of the One True Path (LN, current Pale church). LG - The Church of Pholtus is the biggest church - they are the ones that are all around the Flanaess. LG with LN support - Church of Pholtus in Greyhawk City - this is the LG church, but as written in one of the source books, they send money to The Pale. LN - Church of the One True Path of Pholtus - this is the LN church as espoused by the Theocracy of the Pale. LE - Church of the EbonGleam - this is the church as espoused by the Grand Theocracy of Dimre in the Bandit Kingdoms. The reason they are LE isn't so much because they believe in Evil is better, but because they believe that to see The Light, you must have walked in Darkness. Kinda like how Luke Skywalker had to travel some dark paths to become a better Jedi. From what I recall, Dimre is ruled by a former Pale priest - although the Church of EbonGleam has been around for a long time. I can't recall off-hand how it came about, but the idea is that the peasants of Dimre don't really know that the church they're going to is "evil." Yes, The Pale sends spy's and such to disprove EbonGleam claims, but it is no less than what goes on in real life. The general population knows that they are following the Path of Righteousness and that Pholtus looks out for them. It is their leaders that follow the darker path, trying to understand the evil that is inside them so that they can return to the light with a better understanding and therefore are better able to help their flock defeat the darkness when it comes upon them. That is what they tell themselves and their cabal. If that is indeed true or not, is another topic. I'd have to say that the Church likely came about because the first person believed this (as is usually the case with cults), but somewhere it got warped as new leadership came on board. If I had the time I'd go look through my future OerthJournal write up on the Churches of Pholtus article - I've got lots of ideas and concepts - just not compiled and finalized. Same with my Weathering the Flanaess article. I do believe that some of it is at my www.ThePale.org Web site, but I cannot know for sure. I also own the OerthJournal.com and GreyhawkOnline.com which hosts tons of information from other people - Mort's Greyhawk Web Comic, Alan Grohe's stuff, and more. If you are looking for a place to host your Greyhawk and D&D stuff, I'm more than happy to help. I do it for free, because I get a good rate on hosting. I hope I've helped with some of the ideas and such for understanding when/where/why there are three different alignments at play. And maybe I'll get off my busy butt and write my articles. Hmm, don't hold your breath. Be Well. Theocrat Issak Church of the One True Path of Pholtus
#5 theocratissak Feb 18, 2008 13:16:50	Hi all - Reading some of my notes, I found a post that I had written a while ago. When and where, I have no idea. It is about Pholtus and st. cuthbert (no capitlization for him, he's a heathen god!) but there is some mention about the different churches and how worship is gone about. Theocrat Issak Hi all- Ok, who the hell let the Troll out. First off, there is not rivalry between Pholtus and st. cuthbert, because as the One True Path there can be no other. Now, if I were to concede the point that there are heathens that worship Pholtus in a warped sense - like st. cuthbert - and receive spells and set up a church in their name, it would be due to many possibilities. One such reason is that Carl Sargent wrote that Nyrond's forces took and burned Wintershiven to the ground and many of those followers were worshippers of st. cuthbert. This would certainly explain why the Church of the One True Path doesn't like st. cuthbert. [Knowledge (Religion) Note: This is also another reason why many "lay people" confuse the worship of Pholtus. We must remember that although Pholtus has one true path there are three distinct churches, the Church of Pholtus (CoP)- his Lawful Good church, the Church of the One True Path (CoOTP)- his Lawful Neutral path (and as practiced within the Pale and at least one major church in Greyhawk City [as referenced in the CoG boxset]), and the Church of the EbonGleam (CoEG)- his Lawful Evil church as practiced within the Grand Theocracy of Dimre. Dimre's worship is even less known than most others - but they believe that to walk in the Path of the Light one must have either walk or have walked in His darkness (my guess is this is to reference the eclipses of the moons and such). Each of the churches have members - and clerics - of the opposing alignment. Before you take that to mean something else - let me clarify. The CoP and CoOTP both have high ranking clerics of both Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral, and maybe even a few non-high ranking that are Lawful Evil. In fact one of my major NPC's for my game that the PC's must interact with is a LE Cleric of the One True Path (he's my villain). I doubt that the EbonGleam has any clerics that are LG but certainly LN ones can rise.] However, IIRC, somewhere it is later stated that st. cuthbert isn't all that worshiped within Nyrond and unlikely that his forces are the main occupiers of Wintershiven. But this can be ruled that st. cuthbert's forces were worshiped within Nyrond during the war and subsequent occupation, but his worship has since declined. I subscribe to this portion of theory. Or at least a portion of the army worshiped st. cuthbert. But this is not the only reason that st. cuthbert and Pholtus are at odds. It is this occupation that leads to the rivalry between the one deity and the one impostor, even if it really relates to one branch more than the others - but when Pholtans are encountered the One True Path is the faction that comes to mind most often. I would also tend to hazard that the rivalry developed back in the days of the Great Kingdom. If you would recall your Great Kingdom history, there was only the Church of Pholtus and they were granted the Holy See of Medgia. They were the lawgivers (planet of the apes - recognize). It was this way for about 250 years (at least, since I doubt that they were granted judgeship right at 1 CY). From this, many other churches must have felt jealous. Combine this jealousy with the fact that both tempt the same / typical person for conversion - it would give a natural rivalry. I'd even further hazard a guess that this is how cuthbertites came to be known as the cudgel - see they'd bonk proper Pholtans on the head, causing brain damage, and thus converting them to the imposter st. cuthbert. I'm sure that if you check the archives I've written something similar many times previously. I'd also like to draw your attention to the obvious disrespect given to st. cuthbert in the non capitalization of his name. This is also true of forgotten realms. As Pholtus and Greyhawk are the True Paths to Glory and Greatness (ok, so Greyhawk's glory is diminishing on the open market) all others are merely adequate and as such do not deserve capitalization. ---- Hope that helps to clarify some aspects of Photlus's worshipers
#6 Greyson Feb 21, 2008 16:34:29	Worship of Pholtus has "evolved" in Nyrond, regrettably. Our online gazetteer has an old, yet still accurate dissertation on a couple of Pholtan schisms: namely the Church of the Bright Path and the Church of the Blinding Light. I have personally disagreed with this regional treatment of Pholtans in Nyrond's Living Greyhawk. But, check it out and be your own judge: http://www.nyrond.org/turbine/page/nyr/gazetteer/religion/pholtus.html I have intensely detested the way the Valorous League of Blindness was depicted, underused and eventually allowed to wander out of Nyrond in Living Greyhawk. But, that is a whole other issue. Don (Greyson) Nyrond Triad
#7 theocratissak Feb 21, 2008 19:57:55	All - OK, now Don's working some D&D brain firings loose. Both of those church names were submitted by me a while ago (2000-2001). I want to say that after the split from the GK, the Church of Pholtus stayed LG in the GK, and the Church of the Blinding Light was founded in the Pale as LG. Then when St. Ceril came along and did his thing (G.Holian wrote an article in Dragon (iirc) about St. Ceril which was a saint that was written about in an ancient Dragon mag article) he reformed the church to a LN aspect which then became the Church of the One True Path. Again, this is from memory of articles I've written up about the Pale and the worship of Pholtus. If I wasn't taking a haitus from D&D, I'd be willing to dig them up and write something but WotC has killed it for me...see going off on a rant.... I can't say about the Church of the Bright Path. I don't think that's something that I started writing and campaigning about during my brief RPGA experience and my articles. It could have been something I mentioned, but if that was the case I'd say it related more to potential names of churches for the Pale during the early days of RPGA's Living GH, which we decided upon as Church of the One True Path. I am one that believes that Pholtus - in his Strict Righteous Path is one of the few deities that has more than the one church. The Church of Wee Jas is in 3e LN (right?) and has clerics that are LN, LE, LG. Same with the Churches of Heironeous. With other deities, they have clerics within the alignment phases as allowed. However, it is ONE church. With Pholtus, and only Pholtus, he has several churches - all with the same alignment factors for clerics. So although the Church of the One True Path is LN - it does have LN, LG, and LE clerics (LE being very, very minor). Same with the Church of the EbonGleam (LE). Although they are LE, they do have some LN clerics, and if there are a total of 1000 clerics of EbonGleam, there would be 1 LG cleric. Just because of the aspect that they believe in walking with the dark side. For the Church of Pholtus (LG) - this is the main church of the Flanaess, although the One True Path gets the most press. I believe the reason for multiple churches is related to ideals moreso than the deity. This gives Pholtus a more Real Life aspect (Christianity's multiple belief systems, even within the protestant church). So the CotOTP follows the very strict path, CoP is less so, EG is the darkness (moon) and so forth. Bright Path - not sure. I thought there was a Church of Dawn or something in the Shield Lands (from what a friend in the region told me yrs ago). I think I said that the CoP in Greyhawk was yet another church, separate from the main CoP because it openly supports the CotOTP (LN), and could be considered a "retread" of the Church of Blinding Light because that was the Pale's LG long ago. Damn, I'm sure I'm now going to be re-interested in it all and go dig out my notes and eventually write an OJ article on it - like I've promised so many times! Be Well Still the Theocrat Issak Theocrat Issak Church of the One True Path
#8 rob_douglas Feb 22, 2008 6:59:40	Thanks Isaak, your memory serves us all well. St. Ceril was in Dragon #79, one of my favorites, along with St. Bane, and St. Kargoth - the first Death Knight, repeated in Dragon 290, and Dungeon 151! St. Ceril was tied to Pholtus in Gary's article, though I don't believe he was given responsibility for making the church LN. He is a leader of the Lords of the Gloaming, an order of Powerful, high-level Pholtans, who oppose extra planar threats. I can't remember the Dragon number for this article, but it was Living Greyhawk, something in the 300s, I am guessing around the 320s. I need to look it up again. ROB
#9 ripvanwormer Feb 22, 2008 19:55:20	I can't remember the Dragon number for this article, but it was Living Greyhawk, something in the 300s, I am guessing around the 320s. I need to look it up again. It was actually Dungeon #104, page 112. Note that the lawful evil Pholtan church that controls the Theocracy of Dimre in the Bandit Kingdoms is credited with being inspired by the Paladin-King of Miro, who was possessed by the Hand and Eye of Vecna, at least according to Samwise's history. Tragically, this may not be entirely official, although the Paladin-King is mentioned in the Book of Artifacts.
#10 samwise Feb 23, 2008 21:34:07	My history is not official. The connection to the Theocracy of Dimre was a bit of happenstance. I was looking for somewhere for the Hand and Eye to go after the Gnome-King of Blemu but before showing up north of the Nyr Dyv. The Pale being sort of between the two, I muttered about reconfiguring the Paladin-King of Miro (who is actually supposed to be connected to a different part of the history) to have Miro be a pre-expansion nation in the area of the Pale, and that it might even link to the evil Pholtans of Dimre. Gary Holian who was listening to the muttering, and had written the article then provided the fine tuning of the connections. The obligatory footnote to that is; Erik Mona read that history, and decided it was good enough to ask me to work on the Core Beliefs article on Vecna. So it is not official, but it led to something official. :D