The River and the Road - Designing the Seer

Back at it again, at the mystical delivery service.

In the Converged Worlds, religion is a little less formal, and a lot more naturalistic. There are not formalized priesthoods or temples, but rather informal collectives of those chosen by a patron god to act as a mortal agent. They take on a number of different forms, from physically formidable champions that humbly serve divine ideals, to scribes capable of directly editing the linework of the Architecture. Collectively, they're known as Seers, to differentiate them from local priests that perform ministry of divine ideals, because by comparison, priests indirectly perceive and understand the gods through their uncommon faith. Seers, on the other hand, have some means to directly perceive the gods and their work, be it through dreams, through divine perception or even through their own personal holy book that only they can read.

Seers are the primary healer Way within The River and the Road, with each Path within it having a means of directly restoring Health to the party, though each through varying means. They also have means of supporting allies and attacking enemies, though some are better at the one than the other. So here's a look at what I've come up with:

Pilgrim

Pilgrims are divine champions, individuals who are gifted with the ability to care for the weak, but also brawl with the wicked. This choice is influenced by my favorite part in the Bible, where Jesus went sickhouse on jerks setting up capitalism in a holy place. This is the only Way in which the kind-and-mighty dragon god Jyuzoh is represented, because he's really more of a champion of the masses type whose will can be done by literally anyone capable of making a fist and smashing it into a wicked face for the benefit of another. If you like playing a holy person that's capable of kicking ass as well as healing the unwell, the Way of the Pilgrim might well be yours.

Preacher

The Preacher started out being an expression of the more typical Cleric classes you see in a lot of other fantasy games. It sort of took on a life of its own, as I realized that what I had written was a Way that was about getting divine knowledge from an esoteric book, things had to get a little weird and a little granular, based on who you follow.

Beastshade

So here's where things start to get interesting. See, the intent behind the Beastshade was meant to evoke that of what you'd see in Druid classes in other fantasy games. And true, there's some of that element still present. They are also, however, Stand Users from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure as well. This is why I am particularly enthusiastic about the Way of the Beastshade.

Line Scribe

The Line Scribe represents something that the Converged Worlds and the gods that knitted it together would probably need in droves: people to redraw smudged, scratched out and vandalized lines on the Architecture. This happens over time just as a result of entropy, but it also happens actively as a result of the meddling of people and things that either don't know what they're doing, or are actively trying to ruin things for everyone. These can take the form of merely sloppy or actively polluting magicians, meddling by Malignant mimics of mortal beings, or outright demonic incursion. Whatever the cause might be, Line Scribes are extremely good at locking down the supernatural, slapping great big post-it notes with NO scrawled on them on faces, while shushing them. They can also mess with the laws of reality, to a limited extent. I feel that they're an odd Way, but by design- I'm interested to see what people do with these folks.

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I'll be updating the living doc for The River and the Road sometime this weekend, as I've made several revisions that aren't just the addition of Seers. Beyond that, I'll go into greater detail about who the gods are (they're all some degree of misfit by design), because I'm still conceptualizing exactly who they are and how they express themselves. For right now, enjoy!

-G