So!

When Blogger and Google had their unholy uglybumping, I somehow became unable to log in to my old blogs. Oh well. I want to get back to work, so I'm picking up The Ardis Cosmography here.

I posted some years back about Krohll, dwarven god of labor and oathkeeping. http://ardisiensis.blogspot.com/2012/04/gods-of-ardis-krohll.html

I'm thinking in terms of pinning my next (gulp) campaign to a conflict between the adherents and ethics of two of the myriad gods of Ardis. One is Krohll. An honorable god. A god of hard work and keeping one's word.

The other is to be a trickster. A liar. I haven't invented him or her yet. But I like the idea of the player's actions falling within the pattern of a conflict between the steadfast builder and the cheat.

I think the overall arc will be called The Smith and the Liar.

So who's the liar? Maybe an elf-god, though elves that live long enough are basically gods themselves. Maybe a wizard-artificer god. Gotta think about that. I like the idea of some members of the party being adherents of Krohll, some of whatever Loki-analogue I devise, and some not really being connected at all.

I don't propose that the players ever be close to the gods or vice versa - or even part of a direct plot between them. But by laying out certain deities with specific ethics, perhaps that can give players some guidance in the sandbox I want to build for them.

I suspect that the players' foes won't necessarily have anything to do with this conflict directly. But the conflict might govern how the players proceed.

The town they start in will have a temple to a local fertility goddess (with a darker secret, perhaps) but the Dwarvish smith will be a priest of Krohll, and I suspect that perhaps the wizard or a rogue in the party will be aware of, or be an acolyte to, the trickster god. Maybe the guild-wizard who teaches the party mage is such an acolyte herself.