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One of the main deities of my setting died last session. The problem is that (apart from the implications this has for the setting as a whole) one of my players is a Paladin of that deity and was indirectly responsible for the dead of his patron god.

I'm going to need some suggestions on how the fuck I should handle this. I don't want to be the "lol you fall" guy, especially since the Paladin technically didn't do anything wrong nor broke any vows, but considering that the source of his power is dead it still seems appropriate.

Without knowing specifics, does the god have other servants? A demigod son or something? Depending on the scope of your campaign and if such a thing is possible, you could either groom the Paladin to replace the God eventually, or shift the Paladin onto the route of following the teachings of said God, and have his legacy live on that way, empowering the Paladin because he's doing the right thing by the will of his God.

Guessing D&D? i dont play D&D but that might be one of those times the system matters.

My system free suggestion. Paladin worships Diety of ??? and somehow lead to the death of Diety ???.

If he accidentally lead to the death of his god then he has to go about fixing things, first off state that he can feel his power waning as the gods influence slowly leaves this world, meaning that he is going to be slightly weaker OR if you dont wanna do that just let him know that in X days his powers will be all gone.
Then either in the scriptures of his religion or the dying spirit of this god, another clergy member, or a spirit of another diety, a prophetic dream works, one of those things tells him that he has to set about the events to fix the damage caused, then give him a hook that allows him to do so.
So he could travel to the top of the sacred mountain where this god was given power, go there and resurrect the god.
Bring the disciple that was in line to be the new diety in 2000 years there to become the new diety, even though hes young and inexperienced he will make a fine diety.
Become the new diety himself.

And as a reward for doing such an act while being beset by weakness and tragedy, will be a power boost, a unique boon from this god that only he has, because he kept the world order and saved this god.

IF however he intended this or whatever, the enemy of that god offers him its power instead and thanks him for being a good little god killer and initiates him into the new order, old gods power lost, new gods power gained. if you want to have him go on a quest first to obtain this power that is also cool, maybe the visions tell him to go to this mountain only to find out it was the other god beckoning him.

Hope this helped.

Let him keep all of his class abilities with the exception of daily spells. He's been invested with a portion of divine power (his class abilities), and unlike a paladin who has fallen, he hasn't been actively stripped of that. that said, he can't pray to a dead god for spells.
what is important is what comes next. he can continue to serve the ideal of what his god represented, which might end with his own ascension to fill that role per or he might be courted by the clergy of other gods, or if he's sufficiently powerful, by agents of the gods themselves.

>Without knowing specifics, does the god have other servants? A demigod son or something?
Being one of the main deities he has two major orders devoted to him and an arbitrary number of smaller cults, but no children or obvious successors.

>Depending on the scope of your campaign and if such a thing is possible, you could either groom the Paladin to replace the God eventually
That's pretty far outside the scope of the campaign. Ascension to godhood isn't something that just happens in this setting, and even if I would make it work the player would have to retire his character once it happens since a divine PC would be ridiculous.

>shift the Paladin onto the route of following the teachings of said God, and have his legacy live on that way, empowering the Paladin because he's doing the right thing by the will of his God.
While I like that idea, it's well-established in this setting that divine power comes directly from the Gods. It's not just zeal or faith that grants power, but an explicit covenant with your patron deity. You serve as their agent in the mortal world and in return they grant you power.

I've toyed with the idea that the bond between God and mortal doesn't go away after death, allowing the player to essentially siphon power from his God's corpse, but that seems a bit macabre.

>Guessing D&D? i dont play D&D but that might be one of those times the system matters.
Yeah we're currently on D&D 5e, though the setting is fairly system-agnostic since we've previously used it with other systems as well.

>If he accidentally lead to the death of his god then he has to go about fixing things
That goes without saying. In fact the campaign is now pretty much about finding out who killed this God and dispensing some indiscriminate justice on them. Assuming the players take the bait, which I'm sure they will. I don't really like taking powers away though. I've never really liked the "fallen Paladin" concept, at least on a mechanical level.

Resurrecting the God is a no-go. Resurrection is one of the things that happen in D&D but which the setting doesn't allow, even for Gods. Having the player or someone else ascend to take the God's place is an option, though I'd like to explore some other possibilities if I can think of a fitting one.

>IF however he intended this or whatever
Also the death was definitely not intended. The short story is that the Paladin was one of his God's favorites and as such could draw upon quite a lot of power. There's an ongoing plot about various shadowy cults being at war with the main pantheon, and when the Paladin's home temple was being attacked he called on the help of his God to save everyone. Being the God's favorite and calling for help in one of the most holy places meant the God couldn't refuse his call and had no choice but to personally intervene. The temple was saved, but the God was left vulnerable by manifesting on the mortal plane which later lead to being killed. So while the Paladin was definitely responsible for the God's death, it wasn't his intention to do so as he only wanted to save people.

I basically saw a sweet plot hook and threw it at the players without fully thinking it through.

>I've toyed with the idea that the bond between God and mortal doesn't go away after death, allowing the player to essentially siphon power from his God's corpse, but that seems a bit macabre.

I get it if this is to macabre for what you/your player is going for, but holy shit I like this.
Have you thought anything about what's happening to the rest of his order?

If he doesn't feel like rolling a new character, then simply have him find a new god. Paladins are the special ones, not the gods themselves. They NEED paladins, paladins don't need them.

>Have you thought anything about what's happening to the rest of his order?
A lot of them are already dead and the surviving ones are being hunted down after the fall of their God.

It's kind of like the Jedi being hunted down in Star Wars. Some of them might survive by hiding out or switching sides, but without a central guiding force they'll be easy prey for their enemies.

>I'm going to need some suggestions on how the fuck I should handle this
Let him rescure his dead god from the Underworld and bring him back to the world of the living

I like this idea a ton.

You can vary depending on your scope & setting, but I'm assuming your God had a corporeal form and that his followers could reach it.

Maybe since this God's order is in dissolution and are being hunted down, they could discover parts of God's body either through in-fighting over the corpse or have different body parts rain from the heavens.

Different parts of the formerly cohesive worshipers could split off depending on the body parts/ power they maintained. I'm thinking some may stay in hiding, some may try to resurrect/rebuild the dead God (and fail continuously to do so - descent to madness & necromancy?), and other factions may become more militant and try to harness the God into weapons to fight those hunting them. The world-building potential is incredible if your campaign allows that kind of scope.

Depending on the method, your paladin PC could obtain part of his deity (maybe the heart?). This would allow the paladin to still draw power and maybe even commune with the deity.

Let me know what you think, I have a ton of ideas but am interested to know if you think any of this is feasible in your campaign.

>I'm assuming your God had a corporeal form and that his followers could reach it.
Normally he wouldn't have had a corporeal form at all, and while he did have one when he died it was more of an energy construct than an actual body so it dissipated after his death.

I do like the idea of giving the Paladin some fragment of his God in order to retain some kind of connection to the divine power though. Though maybe it would be some kind of holy relic or something rather than an actual bodypart.

fuck, I'm stealing the idea of using god body parts in weapons

What fuels the god's power? There has to be some kind of power source, whether that's devotion of followers or power over specific domains, or a mixture. That has to be stored somewhere. Given that he's a paladin you could fix him up with a lantern infused with the devotion of the god's faithful. The god's power itself will likely dissipate given that his followers literally saw him die, but some will still believe and hold to their beliefs. So while a powerful artifact, it's not a source of godlike divine power, and a more balanced alternative to the PC replacing the god.

>the source of his power is dead
Not if he's still alive.

System?

You could have the PC grow weaker gradually losing spells and abilities until they find a major lead in avenging their god then have the abilities come back with the justification that the god left a piece of himself within the paladin as a means to continue the gods ideals beyond his deathmaybe also let him know his god doesn't blame him and he did the right thing. You could also give him some death themed powers instead of regular ones if that's not too mlrbid

The God’s divinity is shared out equally to every single direct follower and worshiper he had.

Last one standing gets the job. The game starts now.

This
This
Ascension
Even without the Highlander twist this idea isn't bad. The Gods 'essence' is distributed among his faithful - mechanically this allows the Paladin to keep doing what his doing normally - in terms of plot, this isn't a permanent fix. You could spin in so that Rival gods / groups are now hunting down the faithful, the Fallen god having a chance of coming back as long as even 1 of his faithful still exist.

Have the players figure out thats why the Paladin is being hunted, and turn it around. The bad guys obviously know its possible, get them to reveal how.

The point being that just because a God 'died' doesnt mean they died like a mortal understands it. The setting sounds like a homebrew so just do it, its your world.

Bump

This is cool.

Alternatively, the remaining gods decide to create a Dominions style competition wherein the winner becomes the new god to replace the last one.

Make this into an Osiris style quest.

He must recover the fragments of the Dead God, which will also empower him.

The more fragments, the more Divine Power he has.

Once he has recovered them and set them upon His holiest location, the God can be reformed.

Meanwhile, he must struggle with being persecuted alongside his brothers of the faith.

Hell, maybe have each part have a specific power to make up for not being able to use spells.

Also a fish ate his God's dick.

its like people aren't even reading the thread, OP clearly keeps stating no resurrection

But why would you let your players do that?

Because

>Gods exist
>Gods can grant mortals power
>But no resurrection, no way!! That just doesn't fit!
OP should kill himself.

>I never really liked the "fallen Paladin" concept
Well then your a fucking idiot and don't understand what a paladin even is

...

did you care to make an argument on how a paladin that can't fall is still a paladin?

The attitude of "your setting isn't exactly like vanilla D&D and that means you're a fucking idiot" just means you're not worth a serious reply.

It has very little do with vanilla D&D. A paladin gets his strength from his god and without that god he loses that strength. You can't just ignore the core concept of the class and still call it a paladin

>the core concept
The core concept according to vanilla D&D, yes.

I know people like you can have great difficulty grasping the fact that D&D doesn't have the final say on every fantasy setting ever, but that's no reason to go around insulting people.

There are lots of good ideas here OP, resurrection or finding another patron seem to be the best quests. If you don't want to do a straight resurrection you can always do a rebirth. The energy of said god can't be destroyed blah blah there's some farmer or new born out there thats now the next proto god and your paladin has to find them and help them ascend before his power runs out.
Lots of ways you could do something like that. An Hp drain for faith based spells or an increase in stats for a loss of spells. The point is the pc doesn't have to replace the god, the pc could be the bro who helps somebody else replace the god.

So you're saying a paladin can exist totally separate or out of favor with his god and still retain all of the abilities that make him a paladin?

How do you accidentally kill off a god? What the fuck kind of retarded storytelling is that?

>2+ hours later...
Want to just go ahead and admit you're wrong then? It's ok, no one is perfect user

Gods kill gods all the time in mythology.

It's intrinsic to the combat methods of immortals.

Uh name some panthenoic entity's that actively KILL each other please. Also an avatar of a god is not a god, that's like dipping my toe into piranha infested waters and then them somehow killing me by biting off my toe.

Forcing your paladin to fall as a plot point is stupid, have him worship a vestige of a dead god to maintain his power but he can no longer call on him or his active miracles, like a computer you run commands on.

Think this shit through next time.

Gods in D&D cosmology don't go to a place when they die, they already live in the afterlife, when they die they are left in coma drifting in the astral plane in the form of giant petrified corpses, they supposedly can be rekindled but it's very difficult to accomplish it.

>Granting power to a puny mortal is the same as resurrecting a deity

Brainlet

>some panthenoic entity's that actively KILL each other please

Let him keep worshipping the dead god. Maybe he draws power from it's corpse, or it's ghost, or whatever.

Wouldn't the god dying in his final moments do something akin to like possessing all his most devout followers but not in such a way to take direct control but through meditation be able to converse with them but be limited in knowing only what his followers know on a person by person basis not like a hive mind unless you wanna do it like that

>A paladin gets his strength from his god
Nope.

>People fighting over parts of God's corpse
is that a

I'm saying that a Paladin doesn't have to be exactly what D&D has taught you it should be. The original Paladins weren't "powered by God" at all, and even D&D itself offers multiple alternatives. You can cry "not muh" all you want, but in the end it's just nonconstructive shitposting.

>someone went to sleep instead of replying to my bullshit all night, that means I win!
Grow up.

>god dies
>god's body falls from the heavens
>people are scared AF obviously, but the church wants to preform a proper burial.
>problem is they fall into the middle of the ocean and needs to be towed to a discrete location
>paladin is approached by an angel, tears in his eyes asking " we want you to be the one to bury him can you help us?"
>begin path of redemption and closure

Have other churches try and defile the body or have the paladin want to bury the god somewhere else, or do something else with the corpse. ALSO 10+ POINTS TO THE MAN WHO NAMES THE BOOK I STOLE THIS IDEA FROM

Towing Jehova, 2ez