One thing I do not like about the simplification of OSE or b/x is the setting implications of the default cleric. They are just a bit too obviously coded towards a type of religion and biblical miracles. Flavour and specificity are the key to an engaging world in which to game, the default cleric just lacks that. Gavin Normal has done a great job with converting the cleric to Dolmenwood but that is a world with one church to rule them all, at least in the part of the setting we see, both in our own history and many fantasy settings there is plenty of polytheism which is not really served this way.
In the past I have noodled around at alternate OSE or b/x clerics and paladins for different types of gods without going so far as to dip into doing full spell lists for them. Now I am thinking about going all the way which leads to wondering about how far to go with what makes up a god's domain or portfolio.
Your world has a pantheon, maybe several, you want your gods, their clerics and paladins to be distinct. What makes a domain? How many domain types is too many to pick from? Do you want a nature god, should there be animal and plant gods, are those distinct from nature as a domain? Does the tempest domain covering both sea and storm really work? What do you do when your gods have mixed domains?
I personally think that the more granular you get the more flavourful the world you are gaming in gets. In the past on this blog I have had clerics of winter, a paladin of harvest and a cleric of festivals for example. You can look at the past attempts D&D has taken at putting real world pantheons into D&D to make them playable settings. The fifth edition DMG takes the Norse god Uller, god of hunting and winter and makes them a CN nature god which is just naff in my opinion. Is alignment really the only distinct mechanical feature that Uller has compared to Skadi, god of earth and mountains, in the same pantheon?
If there is a god of winter I want clerics of winter, not some half hearted "that is elements of nature so you go under the nature clerics". My own homebrew world has large swathes of the world where people worship saints rather than gods, these saints can be even more specific such as a saint of bees so would a cleric of the saint of bees be just another nature cleric, a cleric of animals or something else entirely? How helpful is that as an approach?
When it comes to spell lists you can be a bit mix and match, that is easy enough to comprehend assuming you have spell lists to start from. In my own setting Saint Ulger the Winter Wolf is both a saint of winter and war so you can rule a cleric of Saint Ulger picks spells from either the winter or war cleric spells list but what do we do about class features? My own Cleric of Winter and Cleric of War can be found on the blog, how would I mash them up for a cleric of Saint Ulger?
I suppose one solution would be to have different churches or temples that emphasise different aspects of a god or saint, the church of Saint Ulger the Hardy focuses on the aspects of winter in the saint's portfolio while the church of Saint Ulger the Victorious focuses on the aspects of war in the saint's portfolio and you have some potential for drama there.
Of course it is the OSR, sort it out yourself is a good first rule but I would like some tools or elements to pick from rather than have to start over from first principles each time. So I am really trying to come up with a decent starting list of domains to work from.
Some comparison for domain lists from later editions of D&D.
Third edition
Air, Animal, Chaos, Death, Destruction, Earth, Evil, Fire, Good, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Magic, Plant, Protection, Strength, Sun, Travel, Trickery, War, Water
Fifth Edition
Arcana, Death, Forge, Grave, Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Order, Peace, Tempest, Trickery, Twilight War
Neither list is entirely what I am looking for but they provide a good starting point. I definitely want the likes of winter or festivals in there, they are flavourful by being reflective of culture and provide interesting gameable options.
All of which is to say this entire blog post is a distraction from me actually working on that list. Something to chew on if nothing actually formulated.
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