POLL: Help me pick a deity for my paladins ;)

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Well, yeah, I always take ages to make a character and I make topics about stuff, but it's not like I would go to such lengths as a poll and bugging everyone ever to come and help me roll something. But, in this case, I'm quite lost because of my insufficient knowledge of D&D setting collaterals and, well, I've sort of lost the right perspective from all the wondering and the jadedness.

I need to pick a deity from the extended Faerun pantheon (e.g. include Chauntea and the like, not just the most classical FR stuff from BG1-2) for my paladins in D&D games. Sometimes it's required to pick one and I can't get away with not selecting any. So, given that we have so many experienced D&D players and dungeon masters here on the boards, I thought I would ask you people and make a poll. Here are some of my thoughts:

• I would ideally need an all-around LG deity good for a typical knightly paladin but not focused on the physical stuff and generally having some appreciation of intellectual pursuits. Serious about the Lawful stuff but not to overly absurd levels (i.e. no committing suicide because your king tells you to, no letting beggars starve because it's forbidden to give them money, no slavery-is-a-venerated-social-institution-sanctified-by-tradition crap, no obey-every-single-stupid-rule-made-by-every-single-idiot-in-charge crap either etc) and generally compassionate but not really a crying masochist. Positive attitude is required.
• It doesn't make sense to be a proponent and further-er ( ) of Good while serving a Lawful Neutral deity. Serving a Good deity that serves a bigger Neutral deity is similarly dubious.
• Non-lawful Good deities aren't bad. But how are they supposed to require the paladin to be Lawful if they aren't themselves? Also, the ethoi might clash (i.e. there might be philosophical differences between the paladin and the deity as regards the role of law and order for instance). Additionally, Lawful characters sometimes find it hard to communicate with non-lawful beings, especially if the latter are superiors. It's already hard to have a non-lawful military commander or feudal liege.
• Vengeance and retribution sort of miss the point. Punishment must be there to deter criminals and gods have some right to punish wrongdoers and use paladins for that purpose. But paladins aren't exactly made for hurting people just because they are evil. Hence, for example, some Tyr with retribution in his portfolio is somewhat dubious. There must always be room for atonement and clashing with evildoers is because they oppose good and they hurt people and all, not because they are evil. It's not like two rivalling football teams.
• Mystra would be somewhat good because she's not into retribution, not a jock like Lathander, or a whacko like Ilmater, or anything. Thing is, my paladins take time to help the common folks with mundane problems. And I'm not such a fan of arcane spellcasting anyway. Just like mysteries and putting down evil wizards. But come to think of it, I would miss orcslaying if I were to focus on necromancers.
• Lathander is a big goodie and all, creativity and life focus are nice, and not the smite-smite-smite! type. He even says something about assessing the consequences of your actions, so it sort of mitigates his own somewhat reckless actions from the past. But I don't really like the exotic stuff in his faith like reincarnation etc. And I don't like the athletic focus. My paladins all have 10 DEX and 10 CON. And they don't want to improve on those in any physical way (direct clash with Lathander ethos). And I don't think I love the typical Lathander pally idea of an undead hunter. Sure, I miss it if it's absent, but it's collateral. I just want the King Arthur stuff first of all.
• Speaking of King Arthur stuff, Sune somewhat fits, except she's a loose woman. Enough said. And chaotic... brrr...
• Liira, the one of Joy, not bad at all. Except her festivals are often sexually dissolute and my paladins shun that. They would use Smite Chaos on Sune priestesses if they had the ability and if they didn't have to hurt a woman.
• Ilmater is so compassionate. But the faith is gloomy, there's little joy in it and the priests are clinical masochists.
• Helm would have it if he were Good-aligned. He's just that little tad not Good enough, philosophically. And it makes no point for him to require paladins to be good and make them fall if they aren't. So no.
• The Red Knight is much to my liking except why would she need paladins.
• Kelemvor I like. But he's Neutral towards Good and Evil and I don't feel like being an undead hunter or focussing on death.
• Chauntea is nice if a bit too agricultural.
• Deneir is the intellectual guy: knowledge, exploration... Except he serves the TN Oghma. So his decisions are overridden by a Neutral force.
• Mielikki and Gwaeron Windstorm aren't bad. A bit too rangery, though. Some things like smiting people for using fire magic in case of Mielikki, no? Besides, there's more to the world than forests.
• Torm is too much of a servant type and I don't really like his boss, Tyr.
• There's some NG Shiallia, but isn't she a minor power and servant of someone bigger?
• Some minor LN deities of somewhat orderly portfolios who are incidentally compatible with paladin followers just don't cut it.

Of course, I'm wrong in some of my ideas, I guess, so feel free to correct me or offer insights contrary to my own.

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 14 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Help me pick a deity for my paladin (14 votes.)

Help me pick a deity for my paladins (Choose 1)
* Tyr - 0% (0)
* Torm - 7% (1)
* Ilmater - 7% (1)
* Lathander - 7% (1)
* Helm - 0% (0)
* Mystra - 7% (1)
* Chauntea - 0% (0)
* Mielikki/Eldath/Shiallia/Gwaeron etc - 21% (3)
* Kelemvor - 0% (0)
* Red Knight - 14% (2)
* Lliira - 14% (2)
* Deneir - 0% (0)
* Other (specify, please) - 21% (3)

 

Lliira - because joy is an awesome thing to fight for Plus it's not like your paladins *always* have to be prudes

 

Isn't Liira CG? If that's the case she can't have Paladins (Liira's a servant of Sune and most of Sune's servants are CG). Sune's the only CG deity who can have Paladins.

Nobanion might work as he's LG and the god of royalty (can't remember the rest of his portfolio). Wisdom is more his thing if I remember.

 

How about Bahgtru? It might be fun playing a paladin of the Orcish god of loyalty, stupidity, and brute strength. It would certainly be different from the usual.

 

I just did a Google search on Nobanion and that seems like a pretty awesome deity for a paladin. He seems to fit your needs, although he is into the nature thing a little.

 

That would be nice, Cirrus. Thank you.

@JSBB: I want to play a half-orc paladin one day.

@Ilmater's Suffering: For whatever reason, Lliira seems to be allowed paladins, much like Sune.

@Aikanaro: My paladins aren't prudes. They just have an ordered errr... personal life. Yes, personal life.

 

Meh, you know you're Mystra's paladin.

 

Just stick with Helm, he's cool. It would be like him saying: "I know I'm neutral, but if I was forced to make a choice, I would stick with the good guys. Since I'm more inclined towards good than evil, I will grant my followers the paladin powers if they want to, but under the condition they stick to the paladin code, just like every other paladin. Should they fall from good and become Lawful Neutral, that's okay too, I can still grant them powers, but it will be a different kind of powers, namely those of a cleric."

 

Mere game mechanics, imo. From my point of view, a paladin is a fighter for goodness, who sayd his oaths to act by the rules of his order (if any), which are based on the principles/ideals of its deity. (So the 'ethoi' (?) would not clash.) That doesn't mean a pally should do everything that the local laws tell him to. Lawful might mean, though, that the 'order' has more benefit with discipline/hierarchy, where the gods might have less interest in that, cause they stand more on their own.
My opinion is that pallies might be NG, too, if it suits their deity.

Lathander is popular among all social clases, striving for prosperity. I figure his creative, inspiring pallies would help their communities with the every day jobs (plowing the land, building stockade, doing the paperwork etc) as well as leadership/government (establish new traderoutes, pointing out peoples strong points so they can help the best way they can, lead a small army,stuff like that). So I guess some intellect is needed there as well as a positive attitude.
Stuff like reincarnation means to me that Lathander doesn't give something up that easily and tries again. For pallies: Village burned? We rebuild it. Morale is lost? Give people new hope and set examples. Every cloud has a silver lining. New day, new chances.

Not every Lathandrite is an undeadhunter, but I guess they'll be the first (or second, after kelemvor) to be fighting with threatening zombies or putting a poor wandering soul to rest. But this is just one aspect of the deity.

/end of Lathandrites promoting. No time left.

Btw, Nobanion is realy nice, but he is more focussed on good beasts, rather than humans I guess.

 

Chev, was just flipping through my FR Campaign Settings. For Paladins it says that they must have a LG, LN or NG patron, with Sune being the one exception to the rule. Azuth, Chauntea, Helm, Ilmater, Kelemvor, Lathander, Sune, Torm and Tyr are the deities with "Special" paladin chapters.

 

Never heard of Paladins of Liira, either...

 

I haven't either but I think it's an option in NWN2. Will tell you again next time I try...

@Ilmater's Suffering: Yeah, Azuth paladins are a bit like Mystra ones, Helm has his vigilant orders plus the Radiant Heart, Ilmater has his let-me-take-the-damage-for-you order, Kelemvor sports some undead hunters, Lathander... either undead hunters or some young idealistic aristocrats with a penchant for rugby... or the more established Order of the Aster, whatever they do. Tyr has a primarily Good merciful order and a primarily lawful eat-my-justice order. Torm had some peculiarities in 2E (they were able to command undead IIRC as the only breed of paladins not banned from it). But I have no idea about Chauntea paladins. At all.

As for Nobanion, I guess that would be human-royalty-related orders. Royal champions, seventh sons of kings, people directly serving some king or having the royal status but being far from succession, focusing on their special responsibility for the people.

Sune paladins are a joke. The whole temple is one big swingers club.

 

What about the Mulhorandi Pantheon? There are a few nice paladinish gods in there.

I wouldn't be too worried about following the god's portfolios slavishly. You won't have to improve your DEX stat if you're playing a Lathandrite, for example. It is eneough if you improve on your strenghts.

Also, the Lawful portion of your alignment might only be a tribute to your code, which may be different depending on the deity you follow.

 

Sure, STR is enough, plus maybe some decent CON to keep it going. But my ability increases always go into CHA and jocks are overrated, anyway. So this directly contradicts Lathander dogma. And I imagine they look and think like rugby players, most of them, so I would have a hard time communicating.

 

I beg to differ.

The Ilmater religion does not activelly make its followers take on others pain at all time, nor do they enjoy paining themselves. common misunderstandings. To quote the dogma of the religion:

"Help all who hurt, no matter who they are. The truly holy take on the suffering of others. If you suffer in his name, Ilmater is there to support you. Stick to your cause if it is right, whatever the pain or peril. There is no shame in a meaningfull death. Stand up to all tyrants, and allow no injustice to go unchallenged. Emphasize the spiritual nature of life over the existence of the material body."

The Ilmaterian religion is much more about helping others in any way you can, granted they can be somewhat less discriminating towards just who they help that might be healthy at times. They also put focus on helping people spiritually as well as material, but think that improvement comes from improving the spiritual, and not necesarilly the material as Lathander teaches. The religion is also very popular among the general populace, and priests and clergy of Ilmater is welcomed everywhere as helpers of the common folk. This also gives you an excellent excuse to focus on the good part more than the lawfull part, since its more the helping that the laws for Ilmater.

The more anoying part might be that Ilmater encourages its clergy to share what it have with others, forexample food, housing, healing potions etc that someone else might need more than you at the moment etc. But if you wanted to put the focus on a more "mental good paladin" then Ilmater isn't all that bad a choise.

Icewind Dale and the other games often give a very "strange" view of Ilmater, but it is actually somewhat correct, even alot of people in the forgotten realms often misunderstand Ilmater, and see them as forever focusing on "taking pain from others to self". But an Ilmater'ian would not do so without a good cause, if it could save or help a person beyond what could be accomplished othervice then yes, they can do that, but not without a good reason.

Bleeh, Rant off!

 

Bonds of the Faithful, anyone?

That's a good thing. But I'm disturbed with the Ilmatari attitude towards laws at times:

The immediate source is NWN City of Arabel Deities, but the text is from the FR setting book, I believe.

And the dogma itself is the most welcome to my paladin out of all deities. It's just the Plea of Rest thing and some clerics' masochistic attitudes. Ascetic habits are one thing, but they tend to overdo the mortification part. The FR book says Ilmater appreciates good humour actually, but I can't tell that from what clerics and paladins I've seen in games. Might be interesting to play an Ilmatari paladin who's as optimistic as the typical Lathanderian, sure.

 

The Plea of rest (And no it is from "Powers and PHanteoms from forgotten realms and not FRCS) is optional for each person, and an excellent oppertunity for players and DM's alike to actually be able to break slightly away from the normal rutine, Ilmater can be a somewhat harsh god to follow at times, since he's dogma comes through in near every aspect of the roleplaying. So the Plea lets you get alittle time of and do things that might have caused problems etc.

And yeah, most of the computer games have put Ilmater straight into the more "superstisios" view of some of FR's population, they basically show you alot of extreme examples, often tilted to an extreme view (just look at the Ilmaterian in baldurs gate 1 at firewine bridge forexample). I would say that the Temple in IWD1 might be the most "normal" Ilmater followers i have seen in the game.

Also, "taking on others pain" can be so much, it can be you helping out on a farm if they are undermanned, to help them survive the winter months. It can be letting them confide in you to let out their withhold pain/suffering from holding something secret (and you as paladin wil of corse have to keep things secret that you have promised to hold secret). Occationally that can also require you to jump in teh way to take an attack someone else would have taken if you don't, but that is after all beeing a Paladin

yeah, yeah... im done for today...

 

Hmm... how about I give some "life" examples?

Rowdy man: "I challenge you!"

High-brow paladin: "You challenge me? If you want to resort to violence, I won't make it any easier on you and help you quench your conscience about it. Feel free to attack me at any time you wish, however, and we'll see how far it takes you."

Or:

Young cleric or bard: "Sir, by Torm's name, you retreated from battle!"
Paladin: "Yes, son, and I saved all my men. Have you ever been to real combat?"
Young cleric or bard: "..."
Paladin: "I returned the next day, struck the leader down and the rest dispersed. We lost no man and had to kill none either."
Young cleric or bard: "..."

Same goes with divine/mortal laws and conflicts of loyalty. Supposing the paladin serves Tyr:

Royal Commander: "Sir paladin, these elves defied the orders of King Rheynold and the summons of the church of Tyr."
Paladin: "Sir commander, these elves are defenceless and harmless civilians in their village and under the protection of the church of Tyr at the present moment."
Royal Commander: "By whose order?"
Paladin: "By mine, as the highest-ranking representative of the church in this area."
Royal Commander: "Sir paladin, you will hang for this if I don't have you killed first."
Paladin: "Maybe I will, but only when we have returned to the capital."
Royal Commander: "You leave me no choice, sir paladin." *gives a sign to his units*
Paladin, casting Protection from Missiles on his small mounted troop: "Sir, I would gladly claim the honour of leading this charge uphill on foot if need be."

Now imagine he is passing by a group of guards having caught the hungry thief of a loaf of bread and a merchant insisting on the man's hand being chopped off.

Paladin: "Gentlemen of the guard, please let this man go. I indemnify him from all damages, with his permission."
Guards: "My lord, this good merchant here insists on the criminal penalty of mutilation. This man has been caught red-handed."
Paladin: "The church of Tyr pardons him. He will serve his punishment and return the price of bread threefold, but his hands will not be cut."
Merchant: "But... but... has he committed a crime! What he did was illegal! He didn't even ask!"
Paladin: "Had he asked, would you have given him?"
Merchant: "..."
Paladin: "Kind Sergeant, please inspect this man's shop and identify the source of his wares. Brother Jeoff will assist you in reviewing the books."
Merchant: "You have no right! I..."
Paladin: "...Have done something illegal?"
Merchant: "How dare you! What gives you the right?..."
Paladin: *pats his knight belt silently and points at his badge of royal command without a touch of pride, speaks no more*

Enough people. Let's hear about some animals. Not serving Mielikki or any nature god:

Spoilt little princess: "Will you slay me a big bad shadow dragon and get me his hide?"
Paladin: "With pleasure. You can have all his gold too."
Princess: "Yuppeee..."
Princess: "What about a silver fox? Or a couple? I want a loooong fur!"
Paladin: "Are you sure you want it? That would be several rare animals to die and we don't even eat their meat. Some of the ones we hunt for food also have nice furs. Or hides. The evil ones have nice hides or scales... My old master wore dragon hide. He was an elf and he could split an apple on the fly from three hundred steps. He was clumsy like a drunken dwarf on pay day, bless his soul, but was he deadly with a bow..."
Princess, stomps her feet: "You will not smooth-talk me, Mr Silvertongue Paladin. I want a silver fox fur!"
Paladin: "You may want one..."
Princess: "I'll have you executed."
Paladin: "I don't think your dad will agree with the idea."
Princess: "I'll have you executed when I'm the queen!"
Paladin: "Maybe."
Princess: "I... I'm sorry." *blushes*
Paladin, smiles: "That's all right." *ruffle* "Now, let's talk about that big bad shadow dragon in Daleford..." *babbles on*

Or orcs:

Running man: "Sir knight, sir knight, we have orcs here. Will you help us?"
Paladin, rides in the village: "Where, good reeve? Do show me."
Man: "Quick, follow me."
Paladin: "There I go."
...
Paladin: "Ghorbash Stinky Feet!" *grins*
Orc chief: "Little Lady Yasmin Socks!" *chuckles, snorts*
Paladin: *high fives* *punches in the ribs*
Ghorbash: *high fives* *pokes with elbow*
Paladin: *almost trips, laughs*
Reeve: *drops jaw*
Ghorbash: "Dis man here have problem. Me and me orcs just want some ale. Me no want no hurt him nuthin'* *shrugs arms, looks sad*
Paladin: "Hmm?"
Ghorbash: "Me speaks some common but me common not good." *shakes head* "Me talk with hands. Man gots scared."
Paladin: "Let me handle it..." *speaks some elegant, slightly scholarly common to the mayor* *exchanges strange, violent, throaty sounds with Ghorbash*
Reeve: *saucer-sized eyes, gulps*
Paladin: *talks to reeve*
Reeve: *trembles, stutters a bit*
Paladin: "Ghorbash, this good reeve says you and your men each get a big mug of ale for a good hello. He has the pleasure to welcome you in his village and he hopes you have a nice stay."
Ghorbash: *bows courtly*
Paladin: "And if you bring some good game for dinner, you get a pitcher."
Ghorbash: *grins* "Each?"
Paladin: *grins* "Each."
Reeve: *says something to paladin*
Paladin: "Oh, and if you'd like to help with the stockade..."
Ghorbash: "Easy, easy, Little Lady Yasmin Socks. Me no scribe." *scratches head* "Food that walks first, stockade next. Right?"
Paladin: "Now ya talkin'"
Reeve: *faints*

 

Sorry I can't help you pick a god, just wanted to say that I like your character concept. I tried that once but the DM fell my paladin saying that he wasn't lawful enough Don't know why everybody thinks that paladins should put the lawful part of their alignment before the good...

 

The Red Knight, lady of the lancebord and mistress of stragety. Why not have a palidan with a stregical frame of mind?