#RPGaDAY – August 10, 2025 (ORIGIN)

 

#RPGaDAY – August 10, 2025 (ORIGIN)

Origin– Several years ago now, my group did a “Godlings” campaign for a couple of years, in which the end goal was high level play where the characters would ascend to become gods themselves. At the time, we were still playing 3.5 edition, although 5E had been out for a few years and we had not switched over yet. Sadly, one of our players became sick and ultimately passed away from cancer (RIP Cheryl) and we did not finish the campaign.

The basic premise of the story was that the characters were chosen by the gods to find and re-assemble the nine pieces of the Crown of the Gods, so that it could be used in a war against an unknown enemy coming from somewhere beyond. Each piece corresponded to one of the nine alignments and only usable by the chosen one of that ethos. We had 5 players and a Lawful Good NPC they started the game with, leaving them 3 other chosen to join the group along the way.

Each of the chosen had ties directly to the divine in some way, with most of them having a special origin connected with gods themselves. Here are the origins of some of them:

•Bukarab, whom everyone called Buk. He was a true neutral Raven/Orc Fighter, with ties to the Norse god Odin.

It is believed that while in the midst of his Odinsleep, the god Odin was dreaming and indirectly caused the birth of this Raven/ Orc hybrid child.  The head shaman of the Orc tribe, Stone Biters who honor and worship Odin had a guiding vision one night and the next day set out alone into the Icefall Mountains to commune with his god and follow his vision.  Many weeks later he came down from the mountains, bearing a small male orc baby.  The shaman’s totem is the Crow’s Clan and he told the tribe about his vision and quest to find this baby in a huge raven’s nest overhanging the side of the mountain.  The baby was in the nest, surrounded by several other raven chicks, being tended and cared for by a huge female raven.  The baby was honored by the tribe and raised by the shaman as if his own son.

Buk’s true form was that of a raven, with the ability to change shape to become a male orc and he had various divine powers while in either his raven or orc form, including being able to detect alignment auras, summon and speak to birds, and use various divination magics to aid him in combat.  He even interacted with Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory), Odin’s Divine Ravens, who had kept an eye on him when he was a child.

 

•Eurek. He was a Lawful Neutral silver skinned human Artificer, who became a powerful inventor and gunslinger. He had ties to the Dwarven god Moradin and had some minor cleric spell ability with access to Moradin’s domain spells.

One night, while sleeping the Dwarven Head Crafter Cleric of Moradin’s temple in Baytown had a dream vision and when he awoke the next morning, he rushed down to the forge area and found a human baby naked and sleeping unharmed in the banked coals in the central forge’s fire.

It was clear immediately that this was not a normal baby as his skin was a silver metallic color, he had no belly button, and was not harmed by the intense heat of the forge.  It was accepted immediately that he was created and blessed by Moradin and he was cared for and raised by the entire Moradin temple.

Life was good for him while growing up as he was accepted by most of temple’s inhabitance and began to learn various crafting and creating skills.  There were a small number of dwarves in the temple and surrounding areas who were outraged/upset by him being blessed by Moradin, who made him in human form, rather than as a dwarf.   Due to his unusual appearance, he was sometimes seen as an oddity or freak by the outside world and sometimes still are.  However, his shiny attractive appearance and friendly personality, especially compared to his adopted dwarven family had smoothed over most any issues he had.

Eurek’s origin/creation was otherworldly and he did not have ties to the prime material plane, but instead had the outsider/extra planer/divine subtype.  He appeared as a normal human; except his silver skin was a little thicker and cooler to the touch and he had significantly less hair growth than normal.  He had bonuses to his AC, was immune to normal fire and heat damage and effects and while he was more resistant to magical fire, he was more vulnerable to cold magics.

 

•Naeva. She was a Chaotic Evil divine/ human hybrid, who was a split class Wizard/Thief, with ties to Hecate, the Greek Goddess of Magic.

 

Her mother was a favorite avatar of Hecate, doing her bidding on Aergon.  During a dangerous encounter with an ancient primordial, she was driven insane and began to believe she truly was the goddess herself.  She was captured by a powerful coven of witches who worshiped Hecate and kept in a secret location.  During her time of imprisonment, Hecate was unable to cure her avatar’s insanity and rather than simply destroy her, she chose to have her immaculately conceive and bear a female child of her own who could someday hopefully replace her.  It was Hecate’s thought that this child would be both mortal and divine and therefore grow greater in ability and further her power on the prime material plane.  The witches guarding and caring for her later found her to be pregnant and they protected her until she eventually died while during labor.

As instructed by their goddess, the witches then presented the baby girl to a high priestess to be raised in a hidden temple located in Peakston.  During her childhood, the girl was trained both in the ways of arcane magic and in the shadowy skills of the night.  Unknown to the temple priestesses, the child inherited some of her mother’s madness and she learned at an early age to blend in and hide her chaos deep inside.  Various times while growing up, she dreamed she had visits from her “true mother” and although there was no evidence to support these feelings, she always felt that she was not good enough in some way and was found to be lacking by the goddess.

Magic was literally in her blood and a part of who she was and she had more innate powerful magical ability than others.  In game terns, she functioned one level higher as a wizard, who could both read magic and detect magic at will. She could see in non-magical darkness, gained free meta-magic feats, had a hell hound as a familiar, and even had some minor magic resistance that increased in power as she did.

 Later in the campaign, she became aware of the plan for Hecate to eventually take over and claim her body as her avatar, effectively killing her and she began planning to instead kill Hecate when she ascended and take over as the Goddess of Magic.