Fleshing Out DCC Clerics using Lesser Key to the Celestial Legion by Donn Stroud

-
I started a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign and we now have a Cleric. I surfed through the DCC book for information on what an Appendix N Deity might be like, and..

All I got was a chart of names, weapons, and Unholy Creatures by Alignment.  This was the only actual complaint that I've ever had with DCC. It just didn't give us much on gods. Patrons are another story.

So, I picked up this gem and started reading.


It's a supplement for DCC by Donn Stroud that provides an opportunity to flesh out religions in DCC. Using the book and some of my own tweaking (barely any), here's what I came up with regarding the worship of Pelagia, the Sea Goddess. The tenets, weapons, and Unholy Creatures are mine, but the rest was randomly generated using the supplement.

Pelagia, Goddess of the Sea. AKA The Scorning Tempest, The Brine.

Core Tenets:

  1. The weak willed need not our aid.

  2. The storm is to be weathered. Do not falter.

  3. Revel, weep, and sing. Life is short and brutal.

Unholy Creatures: the chaste, the mutinous, the oppressive, the undead, the monstrous.

Holy weapons: Knives, Swords, Spears, Harpoons, Nets, Javelins, Tridents, Cannons, Flails.

Holy Symbol: Clamshell with Flail & Lightning, Painted On the Cleric

Sacred Accessories: Bells

Worship Practice: Screaming, Throat Singing, Singing With Conch Shells, Dancing, Ritualistic Scarring

Preferred Sacrifice: Snakes

Sacred Text: Burned on Bark

Event: Veneration of sacred tree (Cedar) by crafting rafts.

Holy site: At water's edge.

Time: Spring for 3 days on the 5th Sunset

This is what I gave our Cleric's player. But there's a lot more than that which I kept for myself.

First off, there's the Herald. This is basically a messenger for Pelagia who acts out her will. An angel, more or less.

Mouth of Pelagia

It appears as 6ft tall impossibly thin rings of slime. Its eyes shine with radiant dolm light. It has 7 rhinoceros horns and 7 tentacles. When it appears, it pulls itself from the body of Cleric. Viscera drips off the hands of any mortal who has killed another mortal and is in the eyesight of the Herald. Its shadow is wrong shape and size. It smells of flowers.

Init+1, Attack +1 melee (1d4+1), 13 AC, 7 HD, MV 60', Act 2d20, Darkness p258, Charm Person p131, Immunity to Lightning, Saves +1

I also was able to generate a Saint whose shrine and relic can be found.

Relic: Saint Kanhar's Vertebrae, +1 to Save vs Will spells, looks unspoiled 1x per year, looks like fur otherwise.

Reliquary: Movable shrine

Posture: Standing, Hand over breast, painted seafoam green, protected by 3 Wizards, offerings are bowls of spices.

The book has tons more in it, including rules for Clerics prosleryzing, accruing followers, building shrines and churches, handling a flock, performing exorcisms, being forced on holy missions, etc etc.

It's a fantastic accessory for DCC. I highly recommend it. The art is great, the layout is very prudent, and the tables give a wide range of possibilities.

It's currently on sale for $5.99 on DTRPG.

DTRPG Link

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Player Experience: OSR vs 5e

-
Image
The Player Experience in 5E vs OSR, a Brief Comparison (Skip to next session if you want the bullet points) In Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, player characters are heroes. From the very beginning, 5e PCs are well beyond the capabilities of the average populace.  They have above average ability scores, they get a full hit die + CON HP, Spellcasters start with several spells to choose from with multiple castings per day and cantrips they can use at-will. Martial classes start with benefits that put them significantly ahead of 1HD creatures, such as Fighting Styles, Second Wind, Martial Arts, etc. This also says nothing of the many skill proficiencies and expertise. This gap only increases as the game goes on. By contrast, games in the OSR tend to be far less charitable to starting characters. For a basis of comparison, we'll focus on Old School Essentials, as it's a direct retro-clone of one of the most foundational editions in the OSR, Moldvay B/X D&D from 1981.  What
Read more

Fighting Giants and Other Huge Creatures in D&D

-
Image
(Art by Satoshi Kamanaka https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X0xnL) Battles with enormous creatures should be epic, yes? Some of the most exhilarating fights in cinema, literature, and video games have been arduous, grueling battles between our heroes and these cowering Titans who obliterate entire buildings without even meaning to. Typically, in TTRPGs,  these combats are scarcely differentiated from combats with medium sized creatures that have massive amounts of hit points. Sure, there are size categories that have certain implications, and there are often hard hitting attacks or special abilities. But there's a lot of potential for greatness here that I believe isn't being capitalized on. For the sake of our purposes here, I'm going to be speaking in terms of 5e D&D mechanics, simply because it's incredibly easy to pare down to OSR standards, but is more widely understood. TIP ONE: PARTITIONING HP My first tip is to take that big ol' HP pool and b
Read more

5e Monster: Aberrant Tapeworm

-
The Aberrant Tapeworm Generic, right? There really is no better way to describe this thing. It's nice and understated, fitting somewhere between somewhat ominous and extremely inconvenient. The Aberrant Tapeworm is a parasite. It's introduced to the host through undercooked meat when animals graze in corrupted fields, but you can change that to whatever. In my campaign, an Inquisitor ate a wild hog that ate some weeds in the field the Inquisitor murdered his wife. While typical tapeworms seek sustenance through absorbing nutrients, Aberrant Tapeworms multiply inside the host, introducing foreign agents into the bloodstream that induce rage and paranoia. People will observe worrisome mood changes in the afflicted, but will often be murdered by the host before having a full grasp on what's happening. As they grow and replicate (over 5-6 days), they maneuver to the brain and sieze control of the host's body. When this happens, they devour organs and use their inherent tele
Read more