Questions Concerning Divine Worship & CHAR Motivations

1130210

I created a priest of Oghma, and he has focus on the domains of magic and knowledge. However, I'm thinking of expanding the lore of the character so that I can give my own character more of a motivation to act in the name of justice!

To elaborate, my alignment is Chaotic Good. The way I'm playing the character is that I never kill a defenseless opponent, always act in the name of good - which means healing the evil, murder is never a good option, and justice involves a clear defined action.

Would a priest of Oghma ever consider giving tribute to Torm? Because I'm finding that at times I would rather have my character seek out undead creatures to smite in his quest for knowledge! I don't see much in the way of Oghma except knowledge... which his more akin to a neutral alignment, rather than a good one.

So, what do you guys think?

PaulaMigrate

Knowledge, wisdom, and lore are neutral in themself. A follower of Oghma will not withhold information or hide the truth. Knowledge is power and must be used with care, meaning to know something gives you responsibility.
This would include both the aspects of how you gain knowledge and whether you provide knowledge to those who may use it to do evil.
My personal view is, that Oghmatists are responsible people in the way that they would not use illegal or evil practice to gain knowledge. Knowledge is valuable but it doesn't mean that you pay every price for it, there are limits.
In the same way they would not provide information to those who obviously use it for destruction or enslaving others or similar.
In the real world, Oghmatists would not do experiments that cause pain or death to other creatures just to gain scientific insight - nor would they provide their wisdom for the production of murderous devices.

Squire

My personal take on this is this: PCs aren't required to do absolutely everything in the name of their deity to the exclusion of everything else. He might seek opportunities to gain knowledge, but sometimes he might want to smite undead simply because it's the right thing to do. Clerics would be very restrictive to play if they could never do anything other than what their deity requires, so no clerics of Omagh could ever do any fighting unless it's over a book. That would not be much fun, and would result in paladins never being of any deity other than Tyr or Torm.

As long as the character pays enough service to Omagh and doesn't completely ignore the quest for knowledge, I don't see a problem with occasionally taking a diversion from the quest for knowledge in order to do some good.

However, I'm not sure if this is still a thing but I was always of the impression that clerics needed to follow the "one step" rule - i.e. one step away in either direction from your deity's alignment. Could a chaotic good character be a cleric of a true netural deity? Using this rule, clerics of Omagh would need to be either lawful or chaotic neutral, neutral good or neutral evil.

I guess this is a conversation you'd need to have with your GM, though, since they're the ultimate authority on these things.

1130210

PaulaMigrate said:

Knowledge, wisdom, and lore are neutral in themself. A follower of Oghma will not withhold information or hide the truth. Knowledge is power and must be used with care, meaning to know something gives you responsibility.
This would include both the aspects of how you gain knowledge and whether you provide knowledge to those who may use it to do evil.
My personal view is, that Oghmatists are responsible people in the way that they would not use illegal or evil practice to gain knowledge. Knowledge is valuable but it doesn't mean that you pay every price for it, there are limits.
In the same way they would not provide information to those who obviously use it for destruction or enslaving others or similar.
In the real world, Oghmatists would not do experiments that cause pain or death to other creatures just to gain scientific insight - nor would they provide their wisdom for the production of murderous devices.

Wow, thank you! What books do you read to get that information? Do you own any dungeon manuals or something? I'm looking for a good one.

1130210

Squire said:

My personal take on this is this: PCs aren't required to do absolutely everything in the name of their deity to the exclusion of everything else. He might seek opportunities to gain knowledge, but sometimes he might want to smite undead simply because it's the right thing to do. Clerics would be very restrictive to play if they could never do anything other than what their deity requires, so no clerics of Omagh could ever do any fighting unless it's over a book. That would not be much fun, and would result in paladins never being of any deity other than Tyr or Torm.

As long as the character pays enough service to Omagh and doesn't completely ignore the quest for knowledge, I don't see a problem with occasionally taking a diversion from the quest for knowledge in order to do some good.

However, I'm not sure if this is still a thing but I was always of the impression that clerics needed to follow the "one step" rule - i.e. one step away in either direction from your deity's alignment. Could a chaotic good character be a cleric of a true netural deity? Using this rule, clerics of Omagh would need to be either lawful or chaotic neutral, neutral good or neutral evil.

I guess this is a conversation you'd need to have with your GM, though, since they're the ultimate authority on these things.

Okay, thanks! Yeah, sometimes I'd deviate from my path, and someone would ask, "Why?" So I have to sometimes be able to defend my actions. I'll use your case and point when I'm playing. Knowledge is power, and a lot of my motivations focus upon the idea of almost safeguarding knowledge so that I can possibly help to protect others, or at least use the knowledge to share so that I can help the realms.

PaulaMigrate

1130210 said:

PaulaMigrate said:

Knowledge, wisdom, and lore are neutral in themself. A follower of Oghma will not withhold information or hide the truth. Knowledge is power and must be used with care, meaning to know something gives you responsibility.
This would include both the aspects of how you gain knowledge and whether you provide knowledge to those who may use it to do evil.
My personal view is, that Oghmatists are responsible people in the way that they would not use illegal or evil practice to gain knowledge. Knowledge is valuable but it doesn't mean that you pay every price for it, there are limits.
In the same way they would not provide information to those who obviously use it for destruction or enslaving others or similar.
In the real world, Oghmatists would not do experiments that cause pain or death to other creatures just to gain scientific insight - nor would they provide their wisdom for the production of murderous devices.

Wow, thank you! What books do you read to get that information? Do you own any dungeon manuals or something? I'm looking for a good one.

Just the opposite. I like to play the game without pulling all kinds of external sources into the mix. For me, the lore of the game is what you find in the game, the tomes, dialogues, quests etc. I really get angry if someone comes up with some novel they read and complain tthat something in the game is not according to that *canon*.
Above is my interpretation of how those associated with Oghma seem to act in the game. I can't remember having actually seen it written out in this way, though. It's more or less how those in Candlekeep and other Oghma enclaves come across.

BelgarathMTH

I assume you're familiar with the wiki entries for the FR deities? It's my go-to source when I want to decide on a god for a cleric or paladin I want to play.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Oghma