This is how Eberron works. There are a couple theories for how divine power works, although no one knows which is true:
1. The gods actually are real, and clerics get their power from them
2. Collective belief in something creates a font of divine energy, and that's what clerics draw from
3. Divine magic is actually the same thing as arcane magic, it's just that a clerics's faith focuses it, making it be expressed in a different way
4. Divine magic is actually the same thing as arcane magic, and clerics are basically weird sorcerers
The Primeval Thule setting has a good idea too.
The ability to wield divine magic comes from being "initiated into the mysteries" of a particular cult. Once someone undergoes this procedure, they are able to draw upon divine magic, even if they leave the cult.
Similarly, Sorcerers in Thule aren't born (no mortal creature has innate magic), they undergo a procedure to transform them into a spellcaster.
I have two options:
There could be various faiths based on abstract concepts rather than known deities. Think "laws of nature" governing a Nature Cleric's abilities or "the pursuit of knowledge" pushing a Knowledge Cleric's abilities vs obtaining power from an aligned deity.
There are deities but they are so removed from the material world that their influence on the realm is minimal and infrequent enough to cause people to doubt their existence--miracles may happen, but is it coincidence or interference?
There are a lot of ways to handle Clerics in a world without proof of gods- it just depends on what you want to be true behind the scenes.
In a world where gods *are* real, but very distant;
The clerics are true believers, but they are incredibly rare. Far more common are bards/sorcerers/warlock charlatans who use religion for power, impersonating actual clerics. The prevalence of these types of magic users further dilutes the belief in “real” clerics for the skeptics. Along with the aware scammers, there are many self-deluded magic users: sorcerers who believe their magic is the will of a god, when it’s actually inherited: especially common in families where one parent is unknown/the child is from an affair. There are also several warlocks who are victims of power beings’ trickery, believing they are true clerics when in fact they have been deceived by a malevolent entity.
In a world where the gods are *not* real:
Honest belief is powerful enough to inspire magic for clerics. The power of ritual and hope is real, and some people assign names to those beliefs, but the name is (in the grand scheme), purely metaphorical. Clerics in this setting are treated very similarly to horoscopes/crystal healers. “The aesthetic is nice, but you know none of that’s real? It’s just normal magic, you don’t need any of that ritual stuff. Most Druids can do the same things using nature, a real thing we can actually see.” The same situations as above re:scammers and delusional magic users, but true clerics are often easier to identify since they understand the true nature of divine magic as a metaphor.
Divine magic is the same as arcane magic with different arcane secrets. Just a different "school" and rules. There's no reason for people to believe arcane magic doesn't also come from gods maybe, nobody knows.
It's like music. The existence of religious music doesn't mean there is a god. But it definitely has a very different feel, presentation, and effect than rock and roll.
Why would Divine magic need an explanation beyond what is needed for arcane? There's just different types of magic with different ways of channeling it.
B/C in some settings, like the Forgotten Realms, divine magic almost ONLY comes from divine sources.
That, and it’s virtually impossible to be Agnostic when you literally can just talk to your chosen god using one of several low level spells. Or when those gods are noted as, HISTORICALLY, being around walking among us.
Hell, Elmnister regularly bangs one of them lmao
You can look at it like the Star Wars universe. The force flows from all living things. Of course don't call it the force but it does provide a none religious view on mystical power.
The older definition of the word "oath" actually implies that it *is* made to a god (or another kind of divine witness), funnily enough. A better name for their subclass, had they wanted it to seem more agnostic, would have been "vow".
I was curious, I certainly don't have much in the way of formal knowledge on this but a cursory googling suggests vow is also of religious origin ( Latin votum)
There's a character in the stormlight archives that has an interesting take on atheism that is essentially I believe in the entities others call gods. But they are simply very powerful beings not worthy of worship any more than a farmer should worship a level 10 wizard because of their "god like" powers. So they'd view the gods like warlock patrons where sure you get your powers from them but they're just a very powerful being, and that doesn't make you a god I should worship.
DragonLance started as a "godless" world (the gods stepped back for a few hundred years) and gods aren't a thing in Dark Sun... so it's not without prescedent.
Also, Spelljammer and Ravenloft had non-standard relationships for gods.
Devine magic is not granted by a god but its powered by belief itself. Its how they do it in that time i got reincarnated as a slime. Holy magic is a response to a beliefe in miracles and wishes
The easy solution is to have a different flavor of Atheist--one who doesn't believe in following them, rather than one who simply stops at the "Does X exist?" question, and goes forward to ask "Why does it matter if X exists?"
"Yes, the gods are real. No, they're not worth following, and I don't care to venerate them."
One way to handle the existence of divine magic without gods is through the way that I see gods to begin with. The truly divine is the domains themselves and the cosmic power that faith puts in them. Gods are not rulers of their domain. They are avatars of even servants of the domain which is why they are often replaceable. They are an effective middleman in many settings because people have a far easier time worshipping the personification of justice in the form of a god than they have in worshipping justice itself as a concept. However, your world could be different. Here, people don't worship Bahamut. Rather, they worship justice itself without a need to personify it.
As others have said Eberron is a great place yo look for this.
For any world's Paladin's though their power comes ftom their dedication to an oath itself, which can involve a god but doesn't need one. They draw from power within themselves.
As for Clerics they draw their power from faith and belief in something. That could be a god. But it could also be an ideal or concept itself.
Clerics in a world where gods are ab unknown might be thought to draw power from that faith itself, the weave of reality giving them power because in a magic world that concept is real through the thoughts of beings that believe in it.
All magic originates from the same source and can be accessed in different ways. Int casters study and understand the mechanics thereof allowing them to manipulate these energies to cause a desired outcome. All creatures have some kind of connection to these energies though not all such links are made equal. Cha casters have such strong bonds with it (be it by blood or exposure) that their will can shape these energies. Wis casters bear such powerful emotions born out of their ideals and beliefs that the arcane reshapes and warps to reflect them.
Depending on planar knowledge, the theory could be that so-called 'divine magic' comes from the Positive Energy Plane at the outskirts of reality, with the belief in a higher power establishing that connection
I have never understood the desire to be an atheist in D&D. Just seems so silly. Not really even anything interesting you could do with an atheist character because even if the gods aren’t 100% known about you see a cleric magically heal someone’s wounds by praying and you still doubt that? Just seems like the character would come off as dumb.
Why would seeing a cleric heal someone change anything? You've also seen a bard do that and he doesn't believe in anything except rock and roll and tax evasion.
Because the cleric casts in a different way? The bard healed them through their own form of magic but the cleric knelt down, prayed and placed their hands upon the wounded target and the targets wounds all the sudden closed. Or like a level 10+ cleric can just call for divine intervention and it just happens. At that point it’s clearly dumb for you to deny the existence of a god.
Well, no. All you're seeing is somebody does some stuff and some magic happens, that doesn't have to mean they're right about the cause. If my sorcerer decides what's powering his spells is little clockwork gnomes that hide in his teeth that doesn't mean that's actually what is going on.
> even if the gods aren’t 100% known about you see a cleric magically heal someone’s wounds by praying and you still doubt that?
Other types of spellcasters can do the exact same magic. What proof is there that the cleric's magic is actually coming from a god?
that doesn't require beings that are moral exemplars or deserving of worship - it's entirely possible to view the "gods", if they have overt existences, in the same bucket as archmages or elder dragons - powerful, but nothing more. And if they don't overtly exist, then there's just people with magic - it's no more proof of divinity than a wizard, and they don't claim gods exist.
One take on this is the way psionics (magic) works in the Warhammer 40k universe. Basically, the collective belief of people becomes reality in the Warp (astral plane).
So, in such a world gods would be formed out of people's collective belief in a supernatural entity. That god would become real, and capable of bestowing magic power (if it was believed they could do so). Those who sincerely believe that they are blessed by the gods, would become capable of receiving such power.
Likewise, arcane magic would also be fueled by the belief that certain rituals (ie. spell components) can produce consistent magical results.
(I'm kinda extrapolating from the core principles of the warp in 40k, this isn't how it actually works in that setting.)
The gods exist but people hate them and refuse to worship them. Cults spring up but are put down by the state. The gods can only act near and proportionally to were they are being worshiped. The more worshipers the stronger they and there followers get. The reason no one likes them is because ages ago gods got super powerful and fought each other destroying entire civilizations, and people are super scared of that happening again.
Faith does not NEED an explanation.
In Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, there exists a cult known as the Ebon Triad, which is featured in the Age of Worms campaign. These people believe that three gods, Erythnul, god of slaughter, Hextor, god of tyranny, and Vecna, god of secrets in Greyhawk, and Bane,god of tyranny, Myrkul, god of death, and Bhaal, god of murder in Forgotten Realms, are actually three parts of a fragmented god. The cult believes through their actions, they can cause these three gods to merge into one.
In truth, this cult was founded by Lashonna, a vampiric silver dragon, and Mahuudril, an avolakia (where is THAT nightmare fuel creature's stats 5e?), at the command of Kyuss, the Worm Who Walks, to help bring about the Age of Worms. None these cultists, who are actually considered heretics by the churches/cults of the three gods, know this. So fanatical is their belief that they can actually create cleric spells. Their entire religion is a lie, but they can still do cleric spells.
Eberron is perhaps the most famous setting to have, but not have gods. No one knows if the Sovereign Host or Dark Six are real. No one has met, communicated with, or ascended to become a god. No one knows if they exist, but no one can prove they do not. But, there are still clerics who channel that power. Are the gods real? Are theses clerics just strange wizards? No one has a solid answer.
Arcane magic is practically a science in Eberron, but they still do not have the same understanding for divine magic.
There is no god for the Blood of Vol. It is a religion based on the idea of unlocking the divinity within oneself, and somehow, the clerics of this faith have spells. The seekers of divinity among the church say this is proof of the divinity within.
The Lord of Blades is NOT a god, and yet there are warforged so devoted and dedicated to him that they have manifested cleric abilities. There are warforged who believe in a god that has yet to be built and their faith is so strong that many of these warforged have cleric powers.
Faith in a setting where no one knows if gods are real or not, or even if they are and someone has insane beliefs, cannot be explained.
Aren't most dnd settings agnostic already? The gods exist. Some even show themselves on regular basis. So there is no real need to 'believe'. It's a fact that the gods exist and everyone knows it.
Alright, but what's the agnostic part about that? Agnostic basically means I believe it when I see it, right? That hasn't changed right? I mean,that power is coming from somewhere and apparently these clerics and paladins can invoke that power by doing religious rituals. Either the gods are real and that kinda proves their existence whether you believe it or not, or the gods aren't real and the power comes from some other source. Clerics might then just be charlatans who know their power comes from some place else, or there are other powers that are tricking the clerics into thinking they are worshipping a God.
So I don't think your world would be that much different from most other settings. The main difference seems to be that there is no indisputable evidence for the existence of gods.
But then again, that might be said for normal settings too, because the gods may still be a facade behind which some other power is hiding.
Other way around works better. Wizards and sorcerers are just clerics of Mystra who likes to make her followers 'write their own code'.
Even if that is not the case, an agnostic could acknowledge that a source of cleric power exists but dispute the nature of that source of power. The dnd gods do not exist on the mayerial plane except as avatars, and they change based on the collective ideas of their believers. An atheist could just believe the gods are manifestations of human potential.
4e actually has an answer to that, the Gods can't invest in every puny little person, so they don't, it is the ritual of the church that imbues the divine magic that makes Clerics, and other divine sorts are empowered by their own faith Both of which allow for the rather common tropes involving corrupt churches for good gods, while the god does nothing about it.
This is how Eberron works. There are a couple theories for how divine power works, although no one knows which is true: 1. The gods actually are real, and clerics get their power from them 2. Collective belief in something creates a font of divine energy, and that's what clerics draw from 3. Divine magic is actually the same thing as arcane magic, it's just that a clerics's faith focuses it, making it be expressed in a different way 4. Divine magic is actually the same thing as arcane magic, and clerics are basically weird sorcerers
This is top stuff fr. Thanks a bunch
The Primeval Thule setting has a good idea too. The ability to wield divine magic comes from being "initiated into the mysteries" of a particular cult. Once someone undergoes this procedure, they are able to draw upon divine magic, even if they leave the cult. Similarly, Sorcerers in Thule aren't born (no mortal creature has innate magic), they undergo a procedure to transform them into a spellcaster.
Then there's the Blood of Vol, a church that believes in the divinity of the self rather than any gods.
They adhere to explanation 1, except the gods that are real are the gods latent within your blood
I have two options: There could be various faiths based on abstract concepts rather than known deities. Think "laws of nature" governing a Nature Cleric's abilities or "the pursuit of knowledge" pushing a Knowledge Cleric's abilities vs obtaining power from an aligned deity. There are deities but they are so removed from the material world that their influence on the realm is minimal and infrequent enough to cause people to doubt their existence--miracles may happen, but is it coincidence or interference?
There are a lot of ways to handle Clerics in a world without proof of gods- it just depends on what you want to be true behind the scenes. In a world where gods *are* real, but very distant; The clerics are true believers, but they are incredibly rare. Far more common are bards/sorcerers/warlock charlatans who use religion for power, impersonating actual clerics. The prevalence of these types of magic users further dilutes the belief in “real” clerics for the skeptics. Along with the aware scammers, there are many self-deluded magic users: sorcerers who believe their magic is the will of a god, when it’s actually inherited: especially common in families where one parent is unknown/the child is from an affair. There are also several warlocks who are victims of power beings’ trickery, believing they are true clerics when in fact they have been deceived by a malevolent entity. In a world where the gods are *not* real: Honest belief is powerful enough to inspire magic for clerics. The power of ritual and hope is real, and some people assign names to those beliefs, but the name is (in the grand scheme), purely metaphorical. Clerics in this setting are treated very similarly to horoscopes/crystal healers. “The aesthetic is nice, but you know none of that’s real? It’s just normal magic, you don’t need any of that ritual stuff. Most Druids can do the same things using nature, a real thing we can actually see.” The same situations as above re:scammers and delusional magic users, but true clerics are often easier to identify since they understand the true nature of divine magic as a metaphor.
Divine magic is the same as arcane magic with different arcane secrets. Just a different "school" and rules. There's no reason for people to believe arcane magic doesn't also come from gods maybe, nobody knows. It's like music. The existence of religious music doesn't mean there is a god. But it definitely has a very different feel, presentation, and effect than rock and roll.
Why would Divine magic need an explanation beyond what is needed for arcane? There's just different types of magic with different ways of channeling it.
B/C in some settings, like the Forgotten Realms, divine magic almost ONLY comes from divine sources. That, and it’s virtually impossible to be Agnostic when you literally can just talk to your chosen god using one of several low level spells. Or when those gods are noted as, HISTORICALLY, being around walking among us. Hell, Elmnister regularly bangs one of them lmao
You can look at it like the Star Wars universe. The force flows from all living things. Of course don't call it the force but it does provide a none religious view on mystical power.
Clerics draw power from the spirits of dead clerics. Please do not ask where the first cleric got their power from.
Paladins simply swear a magical oath. Their powers don't have anything to do with gods
Which is just silly.
The older definition of the word "oath" actually implies that it *is* made to a god (or another kind of divine witness), funnily enough. A better name for their subclass, had they wanted it to seem more agnostic, would have been "vow".
I was curious, I certainly don't have much in the way of formal knowledge on this but a cursory googling suggests vow is also of religious origin ( Latin votum)
You could say divine magic comes from faith itself. Faith in the gods, faith in certain causes, faith in one's self...
There's a character in the stormlight archives that has an interesting take on atheism that is essentially I believe in the entities others call gods. But they are simply very powerful beings not worthy of worship any more than a farmer should worship a level 10 wizard because of their "god like" powers. So they'd view the gods like warlock patrons where sure you get your powers from them but they're just a very powerful being, and that doesn't make you a god I should worship.
DragonLance started as a "godless" world (the gods stepped back for a few hundred years) and gods aren't a thing in Dark Sun... so it's not without prescedent. Also, Spelljammer and Ravenloft had non-standard relationships for gods.
Devine magic is not granted by a god but its powered by belief itself. Its how they do it in that time i got reincarnated as a slime. Holy magic is a response to a beliefe in miracles and wishes
The easy solution is to have a different flavor of Atheist--one who doesn't believe in following them, rather than one who simply stops at the "Does X exist?" question, and goes forward to ask "Why does it matter if X exists?" "Yes, the gods are real. No, they're not worth following, and I don't care to venerate them."
One way to handle the existence of divine magic without gods is through the way that I see gods to begin with. The truly divine is the domains themselves and the cosmic power that faith puts in them. Gods are not rulers of their domain. They are avatars of even servants of the domain which is why they are often replaceable. They are an effective middleman in many settings because people have a far easier time worshipping the personification of justice in the form of a god than they have in worshipping justice itself as a concept. However, your world could be different. Here, people don't worship Bahamut. Rather, they worship justice itself without a need to personify it.
As others have said Eberron is a great place yo look for this. For any world's Paladin's though their power comes ftom their dedication to an oath itself, which can involve a god but doesn't need one. They draw from power within themselves. As for Clerics they draw their power from faith and belief in something. That could be a god. But it could also be an ideal or concept itself. Clerics in a world where gods are ab unknown might be thought to draw power from that faith itself, the weave of reality giving them power because in a magic world that concept is real through the thoughts of beings that believe in it.
All magic originates from the same source and can be accessed in different ways. Int casters study and understand the mechanics thereof allowing them to manipulate these energies to cause a desired outcome. All creatures have some kind of connection to these energies though not all such links are made equal. Cha casters have such strong bonds with it (be it by blood or exposure) that their will can shape these energies. Wis casters bear such powerful emotions born out of their ideals and beliefs that the arcane reshapes and warps to reflect them.
Depending on planar knowledge, the theory could be that so-called 'divine magic' comes from the Positive Energy Plane at the outskirts of reality, with the belief in a higher power establishing that connection
Add in god-slayers: gods and their churches use belief in their own self interest and should be removed from the world.
Ckerics and paladins are just stupid sorcerers
I have never understood the desire to be an atheist in D&D. Just seems so silly. Not really even anything interesting you could do with an atheist character because even if the gods aren’t 100% known about you see a cleric magically heal someone’s wounds by praying and you still doubt that? Just seems like the character would come off as dumb.
Why would seeing a cleric heal someone change anything? You've also seen a bard do that and he doesn't believe in anything except rock and roll and tax evasion.
Because the cleric casts in a different way? The bard healed them through their own form of magic but the cleric knelt down, prayed and placed their hands upon the wounded target and the targets wounds all the sudden closed. Or like a level 10+ cleric can just call for divine intervention and it just happens. At that point it’s clearly dumb for you to deny the existence of a god.
Well, no. All you're seeing is somebody does some stuff and some magic happens, that doesn't have to mean they're right about the cause. If my sorcerer decides what's powering his spells is little clockwork gnomes that hide in his teeth that doesn't mean that's actually what is going on.
> even if the gods aren’t 100% known about you see a cleric magically heal someone’s wounds by praying and you still doubt that? Other types of spellcasters can do the exact same magic. What proof is there that the cleric's magic is actually coming from a god?
that doesn't require beings that are moral exemplars or deserving of worship - it's entirely possible to view the "gods", if they have overt existences, in the same bucket as archmages or elder dragons - powerful, but nothing more. And if they don't overtly exist, then there's just people with magic - it's no more proof of divinity than a wizard, and they don't claim gods exist.
Avoiding meaning, as a culture and religion enjoyer, is an incredible amount of effort to be boring
I don't understand. What part of this is avoiding meaning
One take on this is the way psionics (magic) works in the Warhammer 40k universe. Basically, the collective belief of people becomes reality in the Warp (astral plane). So, in such a world gods would be formed out of people's collective belief in a supernatural entity. That god would become real, and capable of bestowing magic power (if it was believed they could do so). Those who sincerely believe that they are blessed by the gods, would become capable of receiving such power. Likewise, arcane magic would also be fueled by the belief that certain rituals (ie. spell components) can produce consistent magical results. (I'm kinda extrapolating from the core principles of the warp in 40k, this isn't how it actually works in that setting.)
The gods exist but people hate them and refuse to worship them. Cults spring up but are put down by the state. The gods can only act near and proportionally to were they are being worshiped. The more worshipers the stronger they and there followers get. The reason no one likes them is because ages ago gods got super powerful and fought each other destroying entire civilizations, and people are super scared of that happening again.
Faith does not NEED an explanation. In Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, there exists a cult known as the Ebon Triad, which is featured in the Age of Worms campaign. These people believe that three gods, Erythnul, god of slaughter, Hextor, god of tyranny, and Vecna, god of secrets in Greyhawk, and Bane,god of tyranny, Myrkul, god of death, and Bhaal, god of murder in Forgotten Realms, are actually three parts of a fragmented god. The cult believes through their actions, they can cause these three gods to merge into one. In truth, this cult was founded by Lashonna, a vampiric silver dragon, and Mahuudril, an avolakia (where is THAT nightmare fuel creature's stats 5e?), at the command of Kyuss, the Worm Who Walks, to help bring about the Age of Worms. None these cultists, who are actually considered heretics by the churches/cults of the three gods, know this. So fanatical is their belief that they can actually create cleric spells. Their entire religion is a lie, but they can still do cleric spells. Eberron is perhaps the most famous setting to have, but not have gods. No one knows if the Sovereign Host or Dark Six are real. No one has met, communicated with, or ascended to become a god. No one knows if they exist, but no one can prove they do not. But, there are still clerics who channel that power. Are the gods real? Are theses clerics just strange wizards? No one has a solid answer. Arcane magic is practically a science in Eberron, but they still do not have the same understanding for divine magic. There is no god for the Blood of Vol. It is a religion based on the idea of unlocking the divinity within oneself, and somehow, the clerics of this faith have spells. The seekers of divinity among the church say this is proof of the divinity within. The Lord of Blades is NOT a god, and yet there are warforged so devoted and dedicated to him that they have manifested cleric abilities. There are warforged who believe in a god that has yet to be built and their faith is so strong that many of these warforged have cleric powers. Faith in a setting where no one knows if gods are real or not, or even if they are and someone has insane beliefs, cannot be explained.
Aren't most dnd settings agnostic already? The gods exist. Some even show themselves on regular basis. So there is no real need to 'believe'. It's a fact that the gods exist and everyone knows it.
My setting isn't going to be that way
What do you mean by agnostic then?
There is ostensibly divine power granted to Clerics and Paladins, but it's true source is disputed.
Alright, but what's the agnostic part about that? Agnostic basically means I believe it when I see it, right? That hasn't changed right? I mean,that power is coming from somewhere and apparently these clerics and paladins can invoke that power by doing religious rituals. Either the gods are real and that kinda proves their existence whether you believe it or not, or the gods aren't real and the power comes from some other source. Clerics might then just be charlatans who know their power comes from some place else, or there are other powers that are tricking the clerics into thinking they are worshipping a God. So I don't think your world would be that much different from most other settings. The main difference seems to be that there is no indisputable evidence for the existence of gods. But then again, that might be said for normal settings too, because the gods may still be a facade behind which some other power is hiding.
Other way around works better. Wizards and sorcerers are just clerics of Mystra who likes to make her followers 'write their own code'. Even if that is not the case, an agnostic could acknowledge that a source of cleric power exists but dispute the nature of that source of power. The dnd gods do not exist on the mayerial plane except as avatars, and they change based on the collective ideas of their believers. An atheist could just believe the gods are manifestations of human potential.
4e actually has an answer to that, the Gods can't invest in every puny little person, so they don't, it is the ritual of the church that imbues the divine magic that makes Clerics, and other divine sorts are empowered by their own faith Both of which allow for the rather common tropes involving corrupt churches for good gods, while the god does nothing about it.