Thanks and Gig 'Em,
OAM
Clerics of outlander gods seem to be able to stray from the accepted dogma of their religions, even to the point of betraying it outright (a cleric of Heironeous performing evil acts, for example) while still maintaining their divine abilities. This isn't always the case, as sometimes the Dark Powers find it more tragic and appropriate to cost a hero his divine powers as punishment for following a dark path, but the fact that it can happen makes a soild argument for the Dark Powers being behind it all.
As well, several of the native gods (specifically Zhakata, but including several lesser, local gods and potentially the Wolf God and Ezra) exist entirely within the minds of their worshippers, and yet apparently grant those worshippers powers equal to priests of any genuine deity. So it's not a stretch to say that the source of those divine powers continues to grant foreign clerics their powers as well.
That said, the Dark Powers are cruel and love tragedy, and so it may serve their purposes (and a DM's) to cost an outlander cleric his divine abilities as a test of his faith. This seems to be an exceptional circumstance however, and despite the unpleasant implications about the source of their power most devout outlander clerics seems to function nearly as expected.
Anythign is possible, but is generally follows the tradition of outlanders continuing to follow the faith they did in their original world.
*That's the way I handle it in my campaigns; whatever AL you have, if you use magic in RL, you are corrupted in some way if you return to your homeplane.*
I tought dwarve worshipped the norse pantheon, elves the celtic one and as for gnome they worhsipped the greek pantheon...
That was an element from Domains of Dread we didn't carry over to 3E.
If a cleric/druid of good alignment came to Ravenloft, so wouldn't his/her powers fade, coming from a *possitive* source in a realm created out of the essence of evil?
*That's the way I handle it in my campaigns; whatever AL you have, if you use magic in RL, you are corrupted in some way if you return to your homeplane.*
No. Because it's ultimately questionable as to whether or not the Dark Powers are evil, anyway. Keep in mind that it's essentially a prison for evil and that the ones who can never, ever attain what they truly want are the most despicable of individuals who are kept from their true desires for the simple fact that their souls are a malignant blight.
The Dark Powers come off as an eminently cruel but essentially Neutral force.
Of course, that's perhaps a topic for another thread.
The point is, though, that so long as you can actually keep up the faith in Ravenloft, you'll keep your powers regardless of who you worship. Not everyone follows that, but that's more or less how it generally works.
No. Because it's ultimately questionable as to whether or not the Dark Powers are evil, anyway. Keep in mind that it's essentially a prison for evil and that the ones who can never, ever attain what they truly want are the most despicable of individuals who are kept from their true desires for the simple fact that their souls are a malignant blight.
The Dark Powers come off as an eminently cruel but essentially Neutral force.
Of course, that's perhaps a topic for another thread.
The point is, though, that so long as you can actually keep up the faith in Ravenloft, you'll keep your powers regardless of who you worship. Not everyone follows that, but that's more or less how it generally works.
I am aware of that, although I could never really understand it -I guess it was never intended to be a logical construct, BTW. I explain this phenomenon to my players telling them that every person born in RL has comitted a sin in an earlier life... *my players all play charcters born in Ravenloft*
But even if he keep his power, be sure that he question his faith. After all there is the buffer of the dark power between him and his god. And so even if he have is power as spell, he lose the "affective" relationnship with his god.
I have a quick question about dieties. Let's say that you are a cleric from Greyhawk and get pulled into Ravenloft by the mists. Do you need to stop worshipping the Greyhawk dieties and move on to one of the Ravenloft ones? Do dieties of realms other than the Realm of Dread have the ability to grant spells or do the Dark Powers stop all that nonsense?
Regardless of who is playing Oz behind the curtain (DPs or other dieites) a cleric who is pulled into the land of mists still maintains faith and continues to recieve powers (allegedly) from the non-RL deity. The Lawgiver (aka Bane) and the Morninglord (aka Lathander) were both imported by clergy from the FR setting. At one point they might well have been considered Non-RL deities. Over the years the dogma of both groups in RL has shifted away from traditional veneration seen in their world of origen.
-Eric Gorman