I can't help but wonder if that cleric at the start was hoping for a weak random encounter to get that last bit of exp to hit level 4 and that's what it looks like in narrative.
@@Lcirex sounds like a great idea for a video! We've got one in the works that will discuss "hope" in a dark fantasy setting, which may largely come from the PC's themselves and their bonds and goals.
I like the Harry Dresdan way of explaining faith based magic. The Faith is the magic, as long as you believe in something it gives you power, even if it's not actually real. The Diety isn't giving you power, but rather your faith in them gives you power
I love the opening introduction! Growing up my mom always used a similar one about someone in a flooding house (truck, boat, helicopter if I remember correctly) about what most people expect v. what is a perhaps more realistic divine intervention.
Grew up hearing a similar story as well. People expect angels and God and divine light from Heaven to all appear when they imagine divine intervention, so they ignore the more mundane things that come along in our hour of need that might, just might, be the answer to our prayers.
One of my most favorite stories of all time is a Song of Ice and Fire, and in the story there are religions that do impact the story, but it is implied that the gods may not even exist. So I want my future campaign to follow this concept.
Late but my personal justification for Paladins, Clerics and Warlocks: Dark Fantasy is still fantasy, Magic is everywhere and every beeing radiates a bit of it, Wizards sturdy hard to find that little spark and cultivate it into magic, Sorcerers sparks shine brighter, they simple can use it. But this magic is influenced by emotions. In a world grimm and dark, only hope let's mankind prevail and this hope manifests as devine magic. Paladins, rare becons of virtu inspire this hope. They and Clerics channel this hope and dream infused magic. On the other side of that spectrum lies despair, manifesting in dark magic. Maybe this magic is strong enough to spawn beeing, Angels and Demons. Could go on but I hope I made clear where this is going.
Thoughtful video. To react in brief though, the biggest reason people have trouble with deities or religion in any fantasy setting is that they are so ill defined. If the DM doesn't have any religious sophistication, their world is going to lack this as well. It's really sad, as this is the deepest potential source of npc animus and narrative power.
On clerics and paladins, my reasoning for their "divine" capabilities is that - they're literally just sorcerers. Arcane spellcasters whose gifts manifested at the wrong place at the wrong time and they were snatched up by the church, brainwashed into thinking their powers came from the gods, and as they were shaped, their arcane powers ended up developing along the themes of the gods they grew to worship - limited healing, battle, elemental magic and so on. By having my religious players just be sorcerers, this makes the idea of clerics and honest to God paladins rare af. Kinda what you were saying about the PC being the ONE cleric or paladin the party of most NPCs ever meet.
This video makes a lot of good points. However, it conflates the terms dark fantasy and grim dark, which is one subgenre of the subgenre of dark fantasy. I will use dark fantasy as the phrase in this comment, but I mean dark fantasy. Not every dark fantasy needs to create the hopelessness of grim dark narratives. In fact, many people including myself find grim dark to be exhausting due to its lack of narrative variety. (Grim dark has overtaken much of the discussion about dark fantasy, but I hope that comments like mine show a desire for variety in these tales and settings.) In future videos, I feel it would be more helpful to present how Ben goes about things in a descriptive rather than prescriptive manner (sorry, couldn't help myself on using this language when Ben did). For instance, there are tons of ways to include deities in dark fantasy that Ben only touches on at the end. I offer that exception as well as a few others that could contradict or comingle with Ben's rules: 1. Divinity is questioned. What is a god? When is a creature powerful enough to be considered a deity? What creatures claim to be deities? All of these things can add to elements of a dark fantasy setting. 2. The deities are uncaring. Gods exist, and belief in them does grant magic, but the beings themselves care little for mortal affairs. You could argue that this is a kind of distance, but I think it's holistically different from what Ben describes. 3. The balance of good and evil has been tipped. This situation happens in the Dragonlance series. Sometimes the scales are tipped toward the balance of evil, and sometimes they are tipped toward the balance of good. The story is about the restoration of that balance. 4. The deities are fallible. If the gods can make mistakes, what hope do mortals have? 5. The world has forgotten the deities. Perhaps the deities have true power, but their rituals have been lost. Only small orders still believe in the true power of the gods. These are just some examples. I share them because I enjoy the Ghostfire Gaming channel quite a bit. Still, if the videos are going to be titled DM advice, I do wish that they would be more upfront about the fact that this is one way to do this kind of story. There are infinite ways to tell wonderful dark fantasy stories! Or even just grim dark stories! I hope future videos will reflect that heterogeneity of thought. Best wishes and apologies for the Ted Talk!
Thanks for your thoughts, Synthetic20, I really appreciate you offering some alternative ideas for deities in dark fantasy campaigns. And for the most part, I agree with you! I think those are fantastic suggestions to supplement the examples I provided. I agree that "dark fantasy" and "grim dark" aren't the same thing, and are often conflated. I also agree the difference is that dark fantasy provides rays of hope while grim dark goes out of its way to reinforce how terrible everything is. If I said 'grim dark' during the video, I misspoke. My intention here was to communicate how the 'hope' present in dark fantasy comes from the characters themselves CHOOSING to do good things without the promise of reward, or the instruction of a greater being that "knows better". That overcoming evil is an act of faith rather than transactional in nature. We do in fact have a video on the schedule that talks explicitly about the "hope" that drifts into a dark fantasy campaign like a ray of sunshine through a narrow curtain. In the meanwhile I'll try to be more explicit about this aspect of dark fantasy in other videos as well.
@@GhostfireGaming I will be happy to hear what you have to say about hope! IMO, it's the fulcrum of dark fantasy. I look forward to seeing what you have to say on that and other future topics.
I know it's an old comment, but I really like #4 on your list of ideas. I think that, having the Gods be fallible and vulnerable to the darkness in the world is a great way to reinforce just how awful the world is.
If Im not mistaken, in Dark Souls when you cast a miracle its supposed to be a retelling of a miracle produced by the gods described in holy text, Gwyn's lightning spear is literalling you recounting the tale of him and his knights hurling lightning at the ancient dragons. So even if I got that wrong, that could be a good awnser for how a character is able to cast divine magics.
Yeah that's why in dark souls 3 that miracle is weakened as alot of the story was forgotten. Which mean less someone knows of the original tale weaker that miracle could become.
The reason why the alignment chart is prescriptive, is because the cosmology of the planes is literally built upon the idea of objective morality. The upper and lower planes do not merely aspire to be the embodiment of good and evil. They are composed of the metaphysical essence of what it means to be good and evil. Morality is not a nebulous, social construct within D&D. They are metaphysical forces of nature, which can have tangible effects on their environment. Anybody who claims that the alignment chart is stupid and that it should be tossed out, needs to understand that in order to do that, you would need to completely rewrite the planar cosmology from the ground up.
The way that I personally run it is that mortals can summon angels, demons, and other, stranger, outsiders. But the gods, or even those that directly interact with them? The days when the gods speak to mortals have faded to times of myth and legend
I treat angels like markers of cataclysm, when an angel reveals itself on the mortal plane in my setting it’s almost always a bad sign. Usually a marker that, regardless of weather the god it works for said to, it is going to enact divine judgment upon all within the area it has shown itself. This most often leads to extreme collateral damage on innocents or the entire removal of a city from reality entirely. In other words, angels aren’t exactly good so much as doing things in the name of good aligned gods. Also I treat angels as emotionally inclined beings, so emotional that they are prone to letting their anger get the better of them, they will enact magical punishments so horrid that to call them good by any means is no different than calling fiends good, so, the difference is actually very minimal. I treat angels like other monsters, horrifying monsters. The most terrifying part of angels is they are basically children with god like power and a tendency to demand law and order without care for what damages they themselves cause, being a hyper emotional reflection of a religious zealot or crusader.
I really like dark souls explanation for the miracle spells as an explanation for divine magics personally, in dark souls the way the miracle class of spells is explained is through stories, the casters don't necessarily draw power from the gods but moreso from their stories and the collective belief into said stories. This explanation could also explain divine intervention as manifestation of of humanity's belief rather than actually confirming gods exist.
In my d&d world, the gods have a unique system, that when put very simple works like this. Whenever a star in a universe is created, a sort of primal god rules over the solar system. In the specific case of my world, this god had a huge fight and split itself in two, and also it's only planet into what is now known as the planes of existance, and the two human planets, on which the halves of this god settled. On one of these planets, the half of the god, called the Warden, creates hundreds of servants. These servants overthrow him, due to some conflict, and banded together in multiple pantheons and create their own races to rule the world, like the elves, dwarves, orcs. Only fey, abberations and dragons are older. The god's don't really show themselves anymore, because, in the era right after they dethroned the warden, they constantly did this, creating a sort of classical period with dwarven, elvish and another complicated empire. This weakened them so much, the next era basically put them out of order, and demons, who, until then were sealed away in the abyss, started pouring out. The gods all have functions and work a bit like a family, like how there are two god's who protect the solar system, one who keeps the seas safe, and one who clears the skies. The most notable, is the god of blood, fear, and the hunt. He goes out to seek the danger before it can harm. He doesn't have paladins, but hunters. Who use the bloodhunter statblock. I do, sort of use an alignment chart, where some can very clearly fit into one of these, whereas sometimes, it's really complitcated, like the blood good, that can be seen as both lawful and chaotic, and although most people call him evil for what he did, when you think about why he did all that, he can be seen as good. The god's can physically manifest themselves, but it's even debated if they will ever do this again. When they do this, they are by no means weak, but they aren't from all powerfull. They are just really strong. This once went wrong, and the god of light magic was killed by demons, which made it so that reviving magic didn't work for about a two millenia. There is however a clear issue with all this. Some people, rightfully ask themselves: "Are the gods really gods or just very powerfull celestials, created by a half of something that didn't even create the universe? Are they really rightfull rulers? They don't controll death, and aren't even fully immortal. Why do they get to say what happens, if they clearly screw up, and sometimes behave very immature?" This question led the the most recent religion. A very small religion that denies the god's "godhood", their right to rule. This is a small, polytheistic religion, which I called the wanderers of the light. This small religion is planting it's first roots. That's where my world is at right now.
My favourite explanation of divine magic is magic drawn from ritualistic practices that has been developed to become isolated into the caster's body to allow them to cast more varied magic more quickly. It fundamentally feels a bit closer to arcane magic while still having a founding foot in religion.
Ive ran a campaign where the player paladin was the only paladin in the land for the past 76 years. They were "godless" in the sense that they manifested their power from their devotion to helping people. It was really funny having the bard though constantly drum them up whenever they walked into town, much to the paladins embarrassment It was a very memorable campaign. One of the villians they struck down was a cult leader using the paladins name to amass their followers under a psuedo-religion
I unfortunately don't have a D&D group to play with:( However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group. I personally don't care for Dark Fantasy/Horror. Anyway, my favorite character I created is: A Chaotic Neutral Female Drow Feylost background Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen.
Ryan Reeves,professor of religion, has a great TH-cam video explaining the pagan religions of the Roman world in the first centuries and that faith was unique to Christianity. That religion outside of Christianity, which was seen as superstition, was more about sacrificing and appeasing the gods. Real world religions aside, if players understand the difference, then it allows for a looser interpretation. Divine powers come from the natural world energies in my world. These energies are influenced by the Astral plane as it is the plane of thought. I also have created the Dark Astral where dark thoughts emanate and grow. Influenced by Lovecraft. Paladins in my world I encourage them to choose the oath of the watcher.
I’ve been a fan of dark fantasy for over a decade and these ideas kinda tarnished my love for it a bit. I think dark fantasy absolutely needs religion in some capacity
I think the correct use of alignment should either be what forgotten realms uses it for which is to remove any question about morality to make things easier (and even then, it's still a tendency and not a rule nor will a single action ever change your alignment instantly) or, in a cenario where you WANT those questions to be brought up, as a guide for the GM to assert whether an NPC is likely to keep their word or not and if it's more likely to help or hurt others, while the neutral parts indicate the NPC will act depending on the situation and aren't likely to choose either option more frequently. The difference being, it either affects the game meaningfully or it's just a guide for the GM to interpret a SPECIFIC character/NPC, not a whole group of individuals (when it's due to a characteristic not relevant for their alignment such as species)
Really like the video. As far what I'm consistently doing for all my games is the rarity of dragons, evil forgotten reams, Etharis, and again for Aurora when it comes out is dragons are either corrupted or dying out. I like the idea that the gods were worried of the Aether kindred will destroy every world. And the dragons are their key. (No one knows why) So the gods in response to these visions killed off as many dragons as they could and have plagued the minds of mortals so that they too have a deaire to hunt dragons. They do not want another Aurora to happen. Currently running a dragonflight game with 4 wyrmlings as they genture out of their mountains for the first tike in a world that hates them.
Protestant here. Just for clarification on different Christian sects. Everyone tends to generally agree on like 90% and disagree on 5-10% As far as confessions and theology are concerned there's very widespread agreement on most things. It's the 5% that we get heated on
Churches adhere to church doctrine created by men to separate themselves from the rest of the churches. Religion is created by men to make our dirty rags works to seam to make others appear blameless before the congregation, and the god of their church doctrine. The only thing that can please God is God. God is a Spirit, worship God in Spirit
Force of will is how i always at least headcannon cleric and paladin abilities, and i think in 5e the power doesn't have to necessarily come from a god. In my view, Paladins are emblematic of virtue ethics- they gain power through their sheer belief in being a paladin and a knight and a hero, therefore changing reality through sheer force of will.
Speaking as a Catholic and a real world religious believer and gamer....yeh the Pope is infallible when he speak Ex Cathedra (which he rarely does) but the rest of the time he can make a mistake like the rest of us on non religious matters (Galileo). You have a set of moral principles from God you must apply to life but you need to make your own prudent choices how to apply them. Also yes you might not apply them correctly or you might not act consistently with your own beliefs. Even if you have an infallible truth you still can apply it fallibly. Cheers mate. PS yer story at the beginning I heard decades ago from my Priest only in involved a truck, boat and helicopter & an idiot who drowned in a flood. Cheers again. Good video mae son.
I think, for me, what makes angels not "absolute allies" and paragons of good all the time is what I think of as "cosmic good". Angels are beings that mortals can't even really comprehend in terms of how they think and how they act, and vice versa. An angel will do what is objectively good for the cosmos, which is oftentimes something that either a mortal can't see with their limited perspective, or lacks the nuance of mortal concerns. This makes the angels seem like "good guys" but also jerks and uncaring. Also another way you can explain divine magic is, if your clerics and paladins are just going everywhere curing the sick. The locals, who by this point would be suspicious of strangers living the way they do, might actually suspect the paladin or cleric of being an agent of evil that can command illness and disease with ease.
What makes the Dark Sun setting not dark fantasy? Most of its "heroes" are anything but, motivated mostly by self-profit and the gods are non-existent and magic is dangerous and more often than not lies in the hands of villains
A lot of fun topics being talked about here, in the video and in the comics. I like the ideas presented, and I wanted to ask what media was that at 11.00? Also, a fun idea that I thought of while you were mentioning secretly using an entity to cast Magic. What if spell slots above five or something that to that effect risks causing a divine intervention? Only it's probably not beneficial, and is simply unwanted attention. Just an odd idea
I think it interesting that the god are so distant and divine intervention physically or spiritual should have grave consequences even if the task is fulfilled due to a lacking connection with there intentions and the lower mortals its extremely rare so there rather unskilled something they might wish to rectify in time
Actually 5E Particularly, makes playing a divine servant in a grim dark fantasy easy… either its not actually a good god behind you, or or it is and you play a life domain cleric or a devotion paladin… the most vanilla of their respective subclasses, but you have to offer them more later on cause they fade later in class levels. This is because naturally healing loses to damage… so people in a grimdark world will favor sources of damage over sources of healing, over time this tips the balance of power to be more geared towards selfishness if not downright sadism
Best moment gaming, my players ended up killing all the warrior orcs, and when they went to loot the cave, women and children orcs were still there. Unarmed. Living normal lives. Yeah my players had an extremely long morale discussion that day lol
On the note of God not making His will known in the modern age, He does. People just tend to ignore it. We are all able to receive revelation as it pertains to our personal lives. For a thousand years He held His tongue since we rejected His Son, but He also has once again called prophets like He did in ancient times. Russel M. Nelson currently holds the priesthood keys to receive the will of God in this day and age.
I did this homebrew world once where the old gods died/where banished and the new gods are (individually) way less powerfull them they. In fact the old gods where so powerfull that they walked in the world, the new ones had to inacted their will by giving mortal powers making some signs and hoping for the best
I wouldn't even say to keep the gods far, just make them absent and incomprehensible. Way too above the affairs of mere mortals. You shouldn't even be really able to know who the gods are and if they exist. But, saints and higher spiritual beings are another thing. Also, I wouldn't throw away the alignment chart, but I like the chart to be ambiguous. And I like the afterlife to be known, but also ambiguous. The outerplanes are more aligned with pantheons and ways of life. So the hell of thieves might be the same hell of assassins, scoundrels, etc. There may be a heaven of smiths and tradesmen in general, a valhalla of warriors right next to it where the tradesheaven supply the arms. In some way, the afterlife as a culmination of "more of what you did in life".
Yes I do think that is to limiting. I want my player to play what ever they want. And I can still do that in a dark fantasy. Just imagine you have an extremely high fantasy, Arcane punk lvl. What would it look like if there was a great Cataclysm. And on top of that there was a very brutal religion that was the dominant force? And all knowledge of the past is gone or unfounded. All what anyone knows is anything after the cataclysm. And there is magic very powerful magic but it's all but lost. And what if because of this cataclysm it left a scar which not only changed the look of the land but it made it rare for mages to be born?
Some people can use magic, but not all. These special people are highly sought after by churches, governments, guilds, and the wealthy, to use for their own agendas. The magic comes from the gods - all of them, but only certain people can channel this power, and they can channel it regardless. Still, if you go smiting good people in Thor's name, there is a chance that you will anger Thor enough to send someone to do something about it. Also, only these special people can be brought back from the dead. For most people, once dead, they stay that way, at least ideally. Of course, all players are these special people, but you can't undo the savage attack by wolves with a revivify scroll.
The way how I did mine. Which is a High Dark Fantasy. How did I make it into a high dark fantasy? History/Mythology. See my world isn't a world it's an endless plane where all planes meet. But the 2 most prominent planes that is pretty much became one is my fantastical geography Prime material plane and the Fey Realm. I have something called Entities Pretty much over deities. It doesn't matter if you worship then or not they exist. And they are the portfolio that they represent. Meaning if there is a got of Water as long as there is water and the living thing that live in that water exists it mean that Entity exist and the living creatures that exist in the water. Just by existing is a worship to that entity. Entities doesn't care about being worshiped of fallowed. However if someone does they do have a temple but it's not for the Entities benefit it's for their people. They tend to have rituals that pertains to their portfolio. And often serves as gardians to their land and people Just for an example. However these God are very benevolent. They are more know as the teachers they tought their children what is called the first. So they can teach the other that come after. However as time past and into the 5th generation a cataclysm happen some mortals wanted power and stole something that is very powerful it was stopped in time but the consequences was the cataclysm it shattered the plane and left a scar on the mortal realm that shifted the vail which made it harder for magic to exist. It still does but mages are not easy to come by anymore they are rare. Most of the knowledge was gone. In the 12th generation practically no one remembers the teachings. A dark God saw this as an opportunity. And because he is the God of Corruption and lies. He gains more power by the amount of mortals he corrupts. As he already did in another realm he sent them to this realm to "help" these people spreading the good word of God 😊 And majority has converted especially when they saw their priests preforming miracles. Healing the sick, opening up the sky as a sun beam shown on them. Slaying the demons and master. It wasn't to hard to convince them that mages are evil and magical creatures including fey are demons. But the rule I have that I know is you'll be where ever you'll believe in when you die unless you're Atheist. Then you'll just be reincarnated. Sure maybe stay for a time in Summerland (my afterlife, Heaven but better) Or if you do fallow this evil God that pretends he is good you'll go to his realm. If someone finds out that the Entities do exist and they fallow them they can to to their realm to find peace. You might ask why doesn't these Entities come down and just tell them. (1) there is a law for the mortal realm. They can't get directly involved other then coming down to communicate. Problem with that the great cataclysm cut off communication. That's how badly it messed up the mortal plane and why it is called the scar or the cured realm. But not all hope is lost they do send other to help them. (The PCs) However the problem is the only way the PCs can go into the Mortal realm is by being born into it. And they forget their knowledge and what they're ment to do. And they have to find out. Casting spell is dangerous they'll be hunted. And if you play a fey and yes that includes elves at best they'll be low key racist at worst they try to kill you. 😊
Alignment is good for extra planar creatures referring to the forgotten realms as an example. Alignment is a location on cosmic conflicts with immortal entities from across the multiverse. A humanoid like orc or human can always be any alignment. Angels and demons however or say asmodeus or moradin are two sides of a very different coin they don’t always have to do things within there alignment but or however in the cosmic conflicts entities like this are involved in there alignments dictate what side of that fight they’ll be on. That is how alignment is meant to work in dungeons and dragons. It’s not meant to be a straight jacket for someone to be stuck in like say the 1st edition lawful good asshole paladin.
I think you are wrong about the alignment mechanic -- it is intended to be used as a guide to how a character will act so they are not just saving the princess one day and slaughtering children the next. Characters acting outside of their alignment in my game are sited and must explain their reasoning (beyond I wanted it) and penalized with loss of XP if they are wrong.
A few points: Adding the word typically makes you happy but add nothing. Prescriptive vs descriptive ok I understood Alignment off devils and angels being tied to alignment preventing conflict. Your not thinking enough. Good can go to war with good and evil is always at war with everyone but can make alliances, so I did not understand why he wanted time on this, or he just did not understand in his mind how.
weal or woe would not be a spell if the result was not clear. and even if it was, nobody would cast it, as it would be essentially pointless. so whether or not the sign is good or bad is NOT AMBIGUOUS. at least not to the caster.
Genuine question: why does anyone run religions in DnD as known quantities? Sure, you can cast guiding bolt, but my buddy jimbo can shoot fire out of his hands. Religions evolve and are made by people to describe their experiences and interpretations of the world, and to deprove your world of that depth for...what? Gods who cant or rather shouldnt, directly interfere with your game. Spartans believed Aphrodite was a war goddess, and Homer didnt, and neither is inherently correct. Such cannot be true if Aphrodite is a literal, consistent, existent person
Using the Old and New Testament as an example. Just because God tells people to do something doesn't mean they'll listen. They rebel constantly. You wouldn't even need God or The God's to never talk directly to the mortals because it doesn't mean the people the prophet commands will listen, or that the people will be faithful and not just follow for personal gain
Orcs and goblins are monsters. Elves and dwarves are better, but also worse. It wasn't until 2019 or 2020ish that these concepts were Normalized as being bad
Probably would have been smarter, when you wanted to step back from real-world religions as examples, to not have picked a real-world religion for your example.
I like how you stepped back from "real world religion" to reference a real world mythology and implied it wasn't real. Also that you demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge about Norse deities, Odin was not the god f anything, neither is was Loki, or Thor. They are personalities associated with certain aspects of nature and the human condition - exemplifying them but not ruling over them or having influence upon them in the way a two dimensional D&D god would. Better to reference the Forgotten Realms, or Krynn, or Eberron or Greyhawk when stepping back from real-world religions and reducing them to shallow two dimensional examples.
Dude, stop inserting so many references in your videos. About half of this clip is references. I'm listening to this for the content but the incessant references just break the flow of Information. It's not fun and I honestly don't have the time to put up with all the useless references.
I love that this intro is straight out of a common Christian sermon that's even older than I am ❤
I was just about to post this. It's amoung my favorites and I ADORE the dark fantasy take on it
This! 😂 And the DF take on it is perfect. 😂
I can't help but wonder if that cleric at the start was hoping for a weak random encounter to get that last bit of exp to hit level 4 and that's what it looks like in narrative.
😂
Oh can we talk about what bonds and goals look like in a hopeless dark fantasy world? Or various degrees of dark fantasy at least.
@@Lcirex sounds like a great idea for a video! We've got one in the works that will discuss "hope" in a dark fantasy setting, which may largely come from the PC's themselves and their bonds and goals.
I like the Harry Dresdan way of explaining faith based magic. The Faith is the magic, as long as you believe in something it gives you power, even if it's not actually real. The Diety isn't giving you power, but rather your faith in them gives you power
Same! One of my favourite takes on it.
this is how i think of it too
Ben is here letting us know we live in a Dark Fantasy campaign. Thank you, Ben.
Yes, because the talking mushroom people, lack of permanent death and child friendly lore indicated it was light, breezy fantasy! 😂
No body expect the arcanist inquisition ! Really enjoy all those dark fantasy campaign tips . 🍺
Thanks so much Sylvain, really glad you’re enjoying them. 😊
I love the opening introduction! Growing up my mom always used a similar one about someone in a flooding house (truck, boat, helicopter if I remember correctly) about what most people expect v. what is a perhaps more realistic divine intervention.
Grew up hearing a similar story as well. People expect angels and God and divine light from Heaven to all appear when they imagine divine intervention, so they ignore the more mundane things that come along in our hour of need that might, just might, be the answer to our prayers.
One of my most favorite stories of all time is a Song of Ice and Fire, and in the story there are religions that do impact the story, but it is implied that the gods may not even exist. So I want my future campaign to follow this concept.
Late but my personal justification for Paladins, Clerics and Warlocks:
Dark Fantasy is still fantasy, Magic is everywhere and every beeing radiates a bit of it, Wizards sturdy hard to find that little spark and cultivate it into magic, Sorcerers sparks shine brighter, they simple can use it. But this magic is influenced by emotions. In a world grimm and dark, only hope let's mankind prevail and this hope manifests as devine magic. Paladins, rare becons of virtu inspire this hope. They and Clerics channel this hope and dream infused magic. On the other side of that spectrum lies despair, manifesting in dark magic.
Maybe this magic is strong enough to spawn beeing, Angels and Demons.
Could go on but I hope I made clear where this is going.
Thoughtful video. To react in brief though, the biggest reason people have trouble with deities or religion in any fantasy setting is that they are so ill defined. If the DM doesn't have any religious sophistication, their world is going to lack this as well. It's really sad, as this is the deepest potential source of npc animus and narrative power.
On clerics and paladins, my reasoning for their "divine" capabilities is that - they're literally just sorcerers. Arcane spellcasters whose gifts manifested at the wrong place at the wrong time and they were snatched up by the church, brainwashed into thinking their powers came from the gods, and as they were shaped, their arcane powers ended up developing along the themes of the gods they grew to worship - limited healing, battle, elemental magic and so on.
By having my religious players just be sorcerers, this makes the idea of clerics and honest to God paladins rare af. Kinda what you were saying about the PC being the ONE cleric or paladin the party of most NPCs ever meet.
That's... Actually a genius way of implementing these classes into a dark fantasy setting. I'm totally gonna steal that idea, thank you for sharing!
I love that play on the parable of the flood at the beginning! I often use it during work, but never had thought to use it in fantasy TTRPGs
Great video on a complex subject. Thanks for all of the ideas to think about.
Who knew that understanding what religion was on a fundamental and intrinsic level would actually help you world build better?
This video makes a lot of good points. However, it conflates the terms dark fantasy and grim dark, which is one subgenre of the subgenre of dark fantasy. I will use dark fantasy as the phrase in this comment, but I mean dark fantasy. Not every dark fantasy needs to create the hopelessness of grim dark narratives. In fact, many people including myself find grim dark to be exhausting due to its lack of narrative variety. (Grim dark has overtaken much of the discussion about dark fantasy, but I hope that comments like mine show a desire for variety in these tales and settings.)
In future videos, I feel it would be more helpful to present how Ben goes about things in a descriptive rather than prescriptive manner (sorry, couldn't help myself on using this language when Ben did). For instance, there are tons of ways to include deities in dark fantasy that Ben only touches on at the end. I offer that exception as well as a few others that could contradict or comingle with Ben's rules:
1. Divinity is questioned. What is a god? When is a creature powerful enough to be considered a deity? What creatures claim to be deities? All of these things can add to elements of a dark fantasy setting.
2. The deities are uncaring. Gods exist, and belief in them does grant magic, but the beings themselves care little for mortal affairs. You could argue that this is a kind of distance, but I think it's holistically different from what Ben describes.
3. The balance of good and evil has been tipped. This situation happens in the Dragonlance series. Sometimes the scales are tipped toward the balance of evil, and sometimes they are tipped toward the balance of good. The story is about the restoration of that balance.
4. The deities are fallible. If the gods can make mistakes, what hope do mortals have?
5. The world has forgotten the deities. Perhaps the deities have true power, but their rituals have been lost. Only small orders still believe in the true power of the gods.
These are just some examples. I share them because I enjoy the Ghostfire Gaming channel quite a bit. Still, if the videos are going to be titled DM advice, I do wish that they would be more upfront about the fact that this is one way to do this kind of story. There are infinite ways to tell wonderful dark fantasy stories! Or even just grim dark stories! I hope future videos will reflect that heterogeneity of thought. Best wishes and apologies for the Ted Talk!
Thanks for your thoughts, Synthetic20, I really appreciate you offering some alternative ideas for deities in dark fantasy campaigns. And for the most part, I agree with you! I think those are fantastic suggestions to supplement the examples I provided.
I agree that "dark fantasy" and "grim dark" aren't the same thing, and are often conflated. I also agree the difference is that dark fantasy provides rays of hope while grim dark goes out of its way to reinforce how terrible everything is. If I said 'grim dark' during the video, I misspoke.
My intention here was to communicate how the 'hope' present in dark fantasy comes from the characters themselves CHOOSING to do good things without the promise of reward, or the instruction of a greater being that "knows better". That overcoming evil is an act of faith rather than transactional in nature.
We do in fact have a video on the schedule that talks explicitly about the "hope" that drifts into a dark fantasy campaign like a ray of sunshine through a narrow curtain. In the meanwhile I'll try to be more explicit about this aspect of dark fantasy in other videos as well.
@@GhostfireGaming I will be happy to hear what you have to say about hope! IMO, it's the fulcrum of dark fantasy. I look forward to seeing what you have to say on that and other future topics.
I know it's an old comment, but I really like #4 on your list of ideas. I think that, having the Gods be fallible and vulnerable to the darkness in the world is a great way to reinforce just how awful the world is.
If Im not mistaken, in Dark Souls when you cast a miracle its supposed to be a retelling of a miracle produced by the gods described in holy text, Gwyn's lightning spear is literalling you recounting the tale of him and his knights hurling lightning at the ancient dragons.
So even if I got that wrong, that could be a good awnser for how a character is able to cast divine magics.
Yeah that's why in dark souls 3 that miracle is weakened as alot of the story was forgotten. Which mean less someone knows of the original tale weaker that miracle could become.
The reason why the alignment chart is prescriptive, is because the cosmology of the planes is literally built upon the idea of objective morality. The upper and lower planes do not merely aspire to be the embodiment of good and evil. They are composed of the metaphysical essence of what it means to be good and evil. Morality is not a nebulous, social construct within D&D. They are metaphysical forces of nature, which can have tangible effects on their environment. Anybody who claims that the alignment chart is stupid and that it should be tossed out, needs to understand that in order to do that, you would need to completely rewrite the planar cosmology from the ground up.
The way that I personally run it is that mortals can summon angels, demons, and other, stranger, outsiders. But the gods, or even those that directly interact with them? The days when the gods speak to mortals have faded to times of myth and legend
Note taking and world building intensifies! See you on the mountaintop my friends.
I treat angels like markers of cataclysm, when an angel reveals itself on the mortal plane in my setting it’s almost always a bad sign. Usually a marker that, regardless of weather the god it works for said to, it is going to enact divine judgment upon all within the area it has shown itself. This most often leads to extreme collateral damage on innocents or the entire removal of a city from reality entirely.
In other words, angels aren’t exactly good so much as doing things in the name of good aligned gods.
Also I treat angels as emotionally inclined beings, so emotional that they are prone to letting their anger get the better of them, they will enact magical punishments so horrid that to call them good by any means is no different than calling fiends good, so, the difference is actually very minimal. I treat angels like other monsters, horrifying monsters.
The most terrifying part of angels is they are basically children with god like power and a tendency to demand law and order without care for what damages they themselves cause, being a hyper emotional reflection of a religious zealot or crusader.
I really like dark souls explanation for the miracle spells as an explanation for divine magics personally, in dark souls the way the miracle class of spells is explained is through stories, the casters don't necessarily draw power from the gods but moreso from their stories and the collective belief into said stories.
This explanation could also explain divine intervention as manifestation of of humanity's belief rather than actually confirming gods exist.
Very interesting, a lot of things to think about here!
Thanks! Glad you think so, Story Forge.
Love your videos thanks for making them!
Thanks so much, Snail! They'll be here every Friday.
In my d&d world, the gods have a unique system, that when put very simple works like this. Whenever a star in a universe is created, a sort of primal god rules over the solar system. In the specific case of my world, this god had a huge fight and split itself in two, and also it's only planet into what is now known as the planes of existance, and the two human planets, on which the halves of this god settled. On one of these planets, the half of the god, called the Warden, creates hundreds of servants. These servants overthrow him, due to some conflict, and banded together in multiple pantheons and create their own races to rule the world, like the elves, dwarves, orcs. Only fey, abberations and dragons are older.
The god's don't really show themselves anymore, because, in the era right after they dethroned the warden, they constantly did this, creating a sort of classical period with dwarven, elvish and another complicated empire. This weakened them so much, the next era basically put them out of order, and demons, who, until then were sealed away in the abyss, started pouring out. The gods all have functions and work a bit like a family, like how there are two god's who protect the solar system, one who keeps the seas safe, and one who clears the skies. The most notable, is the god of blood, fear, and the hunt. He goes out to seek the danger before it can harm. He doesn't have paladins, but hunters. Who use the bloodhunter statblock. I do, sort of use an alignment chart, where some can very clearly fit into one of these, whereas sometimes, it's really complitcated, like the blood good, that can be seen as both lawful and chaotic, and although most people call him evil for what he did, when you think about why he did all that, he can be seen as good.
The god's can physically manifest themselves, but it's even debated if they will ever do this again. When they do this, they are by no means weak, but they aren't from all powerfull. They are just really strong. This once went wrong, and the god of light magic was killed by demons, which made it so that reviving magic didn't work for about a two millenia.
There is however a clear issue with all this. Some people, rightfully ask themselves: "Are the gods really gods or just very powerfull celestials, created by a half of something that didn't even create the universe? Are they really rightfull rulers? They don't controll death, and aren't even fully immortal. Why do they get to say what happens, if they clearly screw up, and sometimes behave very immature?" This question led the the most recent religion. A very small religion that denies the god's "godhood", their right to rule. This is a small, polytheistic religion, which I called the wanderers of the light. This small religion is planting it's first roots. That's where my world is at right now.
My favourite explanation of divine magic is magic drawn from ritualistic practices that has been developed to become isolated into the caster's body to allow them to cast more varied magic more quickly. It fundamentally feels a bit closer to arcane magic while still having a founding foot in religion.
Ive ran a campaign where the player paladin was the only paladin in the land for the past 76 years.
They were "godless" in the sense that they manifested their power from their devotion to helping people. It was really funny having the bard though constantly drum them up whenever they walked into town, much to the paladins embarrassment
It was a very memorable campaign. One of the villians they struck down was a cult leader using the paladins name to amass their followers under a psuedo-religion
I unfortunately don't have a D&D group to play with:(
However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group.
I personally don't care for Dark Fantasy/Horror.
Anyway, my favorite character I created is:
A Chaotic Neutral Female Drow Feylost background Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen.
Ryan Reeves,professor of religion, has a great TH-cam video explaining the pagan religions of the Roman world in the first centuries and that faith was unique to Christianity. That religion outside of Christianity, which was seen as superstition, was more about sacrificing and appeasing the gods.
Real world religions aside, if players understand the difference, then it allows for a looser interpretation.
Divine powers come from the natural world energies in my world. These energies are influenced by the Astral plane as it is the plane of thought.
I also have created the Dark Astral where dark thoughts emanate and grow. Influenced by Lovecraft.
Paladins in my world I encourage them to choose the oath of the watcher.
I’ve been a fan of dark fantasy for over a decade and these ideas kinda tarnished my love for it a bit. I think dark fantasy absolutely needs religion in some capacity
I think the correct use of alignment should either be what forgotten realms uses it for which is to remove any question about morality to make things easier (and even then, it's still a tendency and not a rule nor will a single action ever change your alignment instantly) or, in a cenario where you WANT those questions to be brought up, as a guide for the GM to assert whether an NPC is likely to keep their word or not and if it's more likely to help or hurt others, while the neutral parts indicate the NPC will act depending on the situation and aren't likely to choose either option more frequently. The difference being, it either affects the game meaningfully or it's just a guide for the GM to interpret a SPECIFIC character/NPC, not a whole group of individuals (when it's due to a characteristic not relevant for their alignment such as species)
Really like the video.
As far what I'm consistently doing for all my games is the rarity of dragons, evil forgotten reams, Etharis, and again for Aurora when it comes out is dragons are either corrupted or dying out. I like the idea that the gods were worried of the Aether kindred will destroy every world. And the dragons are their key. (No one knows why)
So the gods in response to these visions killed off as many dragons as they could and have plagued the minds of mortals so that they too have a deaire to hunt dragons. They do not want another Aurora to happen.
Currently running a dragonflight game with 4 wyrmlings as they genture out of their mountains for the first tike in a world that hates them.
Youst because the gods are on your side doesn't mean you are good. In the troyan ware ther where God's on both sides According to the legends.
How can a world with so much suffering have gods?
Imagine how much worse things would be without them...
In my setting, summoning an angel is just as dangerous as a devil or demon.
I feel the same about the alignment. That's why I created my own wich is more flexible. People can be more in they gray.
Protestant here. Just for clarification on different Christian sects. Everyone tends to generally agree on like 90% and disagree on 5-10% As far as confessions and theology are concerned there's very widespread agreement on most things. It's the 5% that we get heated on
Churches adhere to church doctrine created by men to separate themselves from the rest of the churches. Religion is created by men to make our dirty rags works to seam to make others appear blameless before the congregation, and the god of their church doctrine. The only thing that can please God is God. God is a Spirit, worship God in Spirit
Force of will is how i always at least headcannon cleric and paladin abilities, and i think in 5e the power doesn't have to necessarily come from a god. In my view, Paladins are emblematic of virtue ethics- they gain power through their sheer belief in being a paladin and a knight and a hero, therefore changing reality through sheer force of will.
Speaking as a Catholic and a real world religious believer and gamer....yeh the Pope is infallible when he speak Ex Cathedra (which he rarely does) but the rest of the time he can make a mistake like the rest of us on non religious matters (Galileo). You have a set of moral principles from God you must apply to life but you need to make your own prudent choices how to apply them. Also yes you might not apply them correctly or you might not act consistently with your own beliefs. Even if you have an infallible truth you still can apply it fallibly. Cheers mate. PS yer story at the beginning I heard decades ago from my Priest only in involved a truck, boat and helicopter & an idiot who drowned in a flood. Cheers again. Good video mae son.
I think, for me, what makes angels not "absolute allies" and paragons of good all the time is what I think of as "cosmic good". Angels are beings that mortals can't even really comprehend in terms of how they think and how they act, and vice versa. An angel will do what is objectively good for the cosmos, which is oftentimes something that either a mortal can't see with their limited perspective, or lacks the nuance of mortal concerns. This makes the angels seem like "good guys" but also jerks and uncaring.
Also another way you can explain divine magic is, if your clerics and paladins are just going everywhere curing the sick. The locals, who by this point would be suspicious of strangers living the way they do, might actually suspect the paladin or cleric of being an agent of evil that can command illness and disease with ease.
You need "good" and "evil" to provide tension in the story. What is good or evil can be up for interpretation ... but don't get rid of it.
What makes the Dark Sun setting not dark fantasy? Most of its "heroes" are anything but, motivated mostly by self-profit and the gods are non-existent and magic is dangerous and more often than not lies in the hands of villains
A lot of fun topics being talked about here, in the video and in the comics. I like the ideas presented, and I wanted to ask what media was that at 11.00? Also, a fun idea that I thought of while you were mentioning secretly using an entity to cast Magic. What if spell slots above five or something that to that effect risks causing a divine intervention? Only it's probably not beneficial, and is simply unwanted attention. Just an odd idea
It was a clip from Norsemen on Netflix :D
I think it interesting that the god are so distant and divine intervention physically or spiritual should have grave consequences even if the task is fulfilled due to a lacking connection with there intentions and the lower mortals its extremely rare so there rather unskilled something they might wish to rectify in time
Actually 5E Particularly, makes playing a divine servant in a grim dark fantasy easy… either its not actually a good god behind you, or or it is and you play a life domain cleric or a devotion paladin… the most vanilla of their respective subclasses, but you have to offer them more later on cause they fade later in class levels. This is because naturally healing loses to damage… so people in a grimdark world will favor sources of damage over sources of healing, over time this tips the balance of power to be more geared towards selfishness if not downright sadism
Best moment gaming, my players ended up killing all the warrior orcs, and when they went to loot the cave, women and children orcs were still there. Unarmed. Living normal lives. Yeah my players had an extremely long morale discussion that day lol
On the note of God not making His will known in the modern age, He does. People just tend to ignore it. We are all able to receive revelation as it pertains to our personal lives. For a thousand years He held His tongue since we rejected His Son, but He also has once again called prophets like He did in ancient times. Russel M. Nelson currently holds the priesthood keys to receive the will of God in this day and age.
I did this homebrew world once where the old gods died/where banished and the new gods are (individually) way less powerfull them they. In fact the old gods where so powerfull that they walked in the world, the new ones had to inacted their will by giving mortal powers making some signs and hoping for the best
For less distant gods you can always go with gods who are themselves not infallibly good.
I wouldn't even say to keep the gods far, just make them absent and incomprehensible. Way too above the affairs of mere mortals. You shouldn't even be really able to know who the gods are and if they exist.
But, saints and higher spiritual beings are another thing.
Also, I wouldn't throw away the alignment chart, but I like the chart to be ambiguous.
And I like the afterlife to be known, but also ambiguous. The outerplanes are more aligned with pantheons and ways of life. So the hell of thieves might be the same hell of assassins, scoundrels, etc.
There may be a heaven of smiths and tradesmen in general, a valhalla of warriors right next to it where the tradesheaven supply the arms.
In some way, the afterlife as a culmination of "more of what you did in life".
Yes I do think that is to limiting.
I want my player to play what ever they want.
And I can still do that in a dark fantasy.
Just imagine you have an extremely high fantasy, Arcane punk lvl. What would it look like if there was a great Cataclysm.
And on top of that there was a very brutal religion that was the dominant force? And all knowledge of the past is gone or unfounded. All what anyone knows is anything after the cataclysm.
And there is magic very powerful magic but it's all but lost.
And what if because of this cataclysm it left a scar which not only changed the look of the land but it made it rare for mages to be born?
19:08 have the tabaxi have a bad catnip addiction usualy seen as beggars and theives and they fit right in
Some people can use magic, but not all. These special people are highly sought after by churches, governments, guilds, and the wealthy, to use for their own agendas. The magic comes from the gods - all of them, but only certain people can channel this power, and they can channel it regardless. Still, if you go smiting good people in Thor's name, there is a chance that you will anger Thor enough to send someone to do something about it.
Also, only these special people can be brought back from the dead. For most people, once dead, they stay that way, at least ideally. Of course, all players are these special people, but you can't undo the savage attack by wolves with a revivify scroll.
The way how I did mine.
Which is a High Dark Fantasy.
How did I make it into a high dark fantasy?
History/Mythology.
See my world isn't a world it's an endless plane where all planes meet. But the 2 most prominent planes that is pretty much became one is my fantastical geography Prime material plane and the Fey Realm.
I have something called Entities
Pretty much over deities. It doesn't matter if you worship then or not they exist. And they are the portfolio that they represent.
Meaning if there is a got of
Water as long as there is water and the living thing that live in that water exists it mean that Entity exist and the living creatures that exist in the water. Just by existing is a worship to that entity.
Entities doesn't care about being worshiped of fallowed.
However if someone does they do have a temple but it's not for the Entities benefit it's for their people.
They tend to have rituals that pertains to their portfolio.
And often serves as gardians to their land and people
Just for an example.
However these God are very benevolent. They are more know as the teachers they tought their children what is called the first.
So they can teach the other that come after.
However as time past and into the 5th generation a cataclysm happen some mortals wanted power and stole something that is very powerful it was stopped in time but the consequences was the cataclysm it shattered the plane and left a scar on the mortal realm that shifted the vail which made it harder for magic to exist.
It still does but mages are not easy to come by anymore they are rare.
Most of the knowledge was gone.
In the 12th generation practically no one remembers the teachings.
A dark God saw this as an opportunity. And because he is the God of Corruption and lies.
He gains more power by the amount of mortals he corrupts.
As he already did in another realm he sent them to this realm to "help" these people spreading the good word of God 😊
And majority has converted especially when they saw their priests preforming miracles.
Healing the sick, opening up the sky as a sun beam shown on them.
Slaying the demons and master.
It wasn't to hard to convince them that mages are evil and magical creatures including fey are demons.
But the rule I have that I know is you'll be where ever you'll believe in when you die unless you're Atheist.
Then you'll just be reincarnated.
Sure maybe stay for a time in Summerland (my afterlife, Heaven but better)
Or if you do fallow this evil God that pretends he is good you'll go to his realm.
If someone finds out that the Entities do exist and they fallow them they can to to their realm to find peace.
You might ask why doesn't these Entities come down and just tell them.
(1) there is a law for the mortal realm. They can't get directly involved other then coming down to communicate.
Problem with that the great cataclysm cut off communication.
That's how badly it messed up the mortal plane and why it is called the scar or the cured realm.
But not all hope is lost they do send other to help them.
(The PCs) However the problem is the only way the PCs can go into the Mortal realm is by being born into it. And they forget their knowledge and what they're ment to do. And they have to find out.
Casting spell is dangerous they'll be hunted. And if you play a fey and yes that includes elves at best they'll be low key racist at worst they try to kill you. 😊
Alignment is good for extra planar creatures referring to the forgotten realms as an example.
Alignment is a location on cosmic conflicts with immortal entities from across the multiverse.
A humanoid like orc or human can always be any alignment.
Angels and demons however or say asmodeus or moradin are two sides of a very different coin they don’t always have to do things within there alignment but or however in the cosmic conflicts entities like this are involved in there alignments dictate what side of that fight they’ll be on.
That is how alignment is meant to work in dungeons and dragons.
It’s not meant to be a straight jacket for someone to be stuck in like say the 1st edition lawful good asshole paladin.
I think you are wrong about the alignment mechanic -- it is intended to be used as a guide to how a character will act so they are not just saving the princess one day and slaughtering children the next. Characters acting outside of their alignment in my game are sited and must explain their reasoning (beyond I wanted it) and penalized with loss of XP if they are wrong.
Boosting Christian stuff and slapping a new paint job on it, just like Gary Gygax intended 😆
A few points:
Adding the word typically makes you happy but add nothing.
Prescriptive vs descriptive ok I understood
Alignment off devils and angels being tied to alignment preventing conflict. Your not thinking enough. Good can go to war with good and evil is always at war with everyone but can make alliances, so I did not understand why he wanted time on this, or he just did not understand in his mind how.
21:32 RAPHAEL?!?!?!!
weal or woe would not be a spell if the result was not clear. and even if it was, nobody would cast it, as it would be essentially pointless. so whether or not the sign is good or bad is NOT AMBIGUOUS. at least not to the caster.
Genuine question: why does anyone run religions in DnD as known quantities? Sure, you can cast guiding bolt, but my buddy jimbo can shoot fire out of his hands. Religions evolve and are made by people to describe their experiences and interpretations of the world, and to deprove your world of that depth for...what? Gods who cant or rather shouldnt, directly interfere with your game. Spartans believed Aphrodite was a war goddess, and Homer didnt, and neither is inherently correct. Such cannot be true if Aphrodite is a literal, consistent, existent person
Hey, I know this joke
Using the Old and New Testament as an example. Just because God tells people to do something doesn't mean they'll listen. They rebel constantly. You wouldn't even need God or The God's to never talk directly to the mortals because it doesn't mean the people the prophet commands will listen, or that the people will be faithful and not just follow for personal gain
Orcs and goblins are monsters. Elves and dwarves are better, but also worse. It wasn't until 2019 or 2020ish that these concepts were Normalized as being bad
Probably would have been smarter, when you wanted to step back from real-world religions as examples, to not have picked a real-world religion for your example.
I like how you stepped back from "real world religion" to reference a real world mythology and implied it wasn't real. Also that you demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge about Norse deities, Odin was not the god f anything, neither is was Loki, or Thor. They are personalities associated with certain aspects of nature and the human condition - exemplifying them but not ruling over them or having influence upon them in the way a two dimensional D&D god would. Better to reference the Forgotten Realms, or Krynn, or Eberron or Greyhawk when stepping back from real-world religions and reducing them to shallow two dimensional examples.
Are you upset he said the Norse pantheon isn't real...?
Dude, stop inserting so many references in your videos. About half of this clip is references. I'm listening to this for the content but the incessant references just break the flow of Information. It's not fun and I honestly don't have the time to put up with all the useless references.