God/Goddess of death

[drakogear]

So, found out my computer can run NWN 2 and after playing it with the expansion I noticed quite a few new classes. Mostly new PrCs and a few new base classes.

Anyways, one of the new classes got me thinking about that life and death cleric I've been trying to make before. The class name was Doom Guide. They worship a god of death and despite that they act like undead slayers as in they hunt down the undead. Guess despite being a death god he despises the undead, stealing souls from the afterlife I suppose. They also share there knowledge of the afterlife with those who are dieing and those in morning to help make there transition easier.

This then got me thinking of two particular beings in Layo that might be the same The Harvester and The Soul Mother.

So my question is... Can either be worshiped and be granted powers from them? In other words be there cleric?

Would about say they both would have a grudge against the undead. The Harvester having souls taken from the afterlife before they can be judged and/or sent off there god/goddess. Soul Mother having her well... food I suppose... taken from her.

[Aphel]

I am not sure that the Soul Mother even is a deity, or would care about worship at all. Remember Ao from the Forgotten Realms?

I take it that you are looking for a deity governing death, maybe in a similar form to what Kelemvor does in Faerûn/The Forgotten Realms.
Layonara is not Faerûn however, and a deity governing the aspects of death might not be necessary, since this aspect (natural death/fighting undead) is already, from what I understand, partially covered by [lore]Katia[/lore], [lore]Aeridin[/lore] and [lore]Toran[/lore]. Maybe [lore]Rofirein[/lore] as well, since he governs the judgement aspect.
 
On the other hand, deities like Kelemvor (and Jergal) from The Forgotten Realms or The God of Many Faces from the Game of Thrones universe or other gods of death are missing in the setting of Layonara. I am sure there is a reason why the deities are what they are and govern the aspects that they do.

[Alatriel]

We do have a god of destruction and chaos:  Pyrtechon.

[lonnarin]

Unfortunately the Soul Mother and the Harvester do not grant cleric powers.  As far as I know they neither encourage nor discourage worship. There could theoretically be cults dedicated to them out there, but their faithful would recieve neither boons or guidance from them.  

I think the last adventurer to have contact with the Soul Mother was Athus, an Aeridenite who played here about 7 RL years ago.  The result of that quest was that everybody recieved back one soul strand and the soul mother roll on death was lifted for a few months before being reinstated.

For more reading on the Soul Mother and the afterlife, see here.

LORE: Layonaran Cosmology

[Aphel]

I am not certain it's what he was looking for, as all evil gods have an aspect of destruction/death/murder or somewhere along those lines. I had more the impression he was looking for the aspects covered by deities like the aforementioned.

[Dorganath]

Neither the Harvester nor the Soul Mother are deities that can be worshiped and grant powers.

I could further answer your questions about both entities, but it would involve information that is unreleased and not likely to be released at this time.

Characters can, of course, worship them if they so choose.  Characters can worship anything, from deity to a blade of grass, but only our 28 deities will grant powers to Clerics (and Paladins, as appropriate). The Soul Mother and the Harvester are not in that list.

The game will let you create a Cleric or Paladin and put "Soul Mother" or "Harvester" in the deity field, but such a character will not be approved, nor will it receive any of the mechanical bonuses that our deity system provides.  If such a character is created, it will be considered illegal and we'll have you delete it.  We've had non-divine characters that have had different things in their deity field, but they were approved as part of the character submission.

So this is a long way of saying: no, you cannot have a divine character who worships and gets powers from either the Harvester or the Soul Mother.  

In my personal opinion, the closest things we have to a god of life and death is Aeridin, in that death is the natural consequence of life.

[Rowana]

To add to Dorg's post, I would add Katia to the list of potentials. She  has that kind of naturey circle of life thing like Aeridin but she also  has a rep that has earned her the title of "Cruel Mother" as well. Both  have different sides of the same coin on destruction of undeath as well.  Aeridin is more structured, Katia is more freeform.

There isn't a 'realm of the dead' type of theology for Layonara. I noticed that when I first came here. It  lends to a reincarnation based perspective but there's lots of other  ways to view it as well. I think that's why it's seems kind of 'gaping  hole' to some people who come here from Forgotten Realms, other world  settings with the 'after life' kind of balance or even with the real world  Perspectives of Nordic/Egyptian etc theologies. It's also a pretty common confusion/concern we get form newer players. There really is a lot of room to play around with how any character (PC/NPC) answers that fundamental question: What do I think is going to happen to me when I die and how does that reflect upon my life on Layonara.

To some the afterlife is going 'home' to a deity's "plane" (an assumption on the part of the citizens maybe?) to others they simply won' exist anymore, still others may believe they're recycled into a new life. There's other options and combinations too. Lots of options when you take out the certainty of the River Styx/Pax Cloister/The Grey Havens.  

I think it's worth noting that if you move forward with a concept like this, you've got a lot of mechanical options but more importantly you have a lot of lore to work with to craft something pretty unique. You can do it with a base class or maybe path toward Undead Slayer, but either way the focus on the death and/or proper death aspects of either of those deities is kind of rare. The concept of easing a soul to the other side is wholly appropriate to an Aeridite and overall a good fit to Aeridin like Dorganath and Aphel mentioned above. Shining Hand (Toran) is an easy answer if you want a character who's goal is to slay undead, also Aeridin has a pretty nice niche for that (even with bludgeoning weapons bent). The escorting of persons to the other side (whatever that may be) for Aeridin and Katia is more rare (less so for the dark gods though).

~row

[miltonyorkcastle]

And, of course, if you think death and life are just toys to play with, you could be a Corathite...