Related Page(s)

This page provides general guidelines for applying Burning Wheel's spheres of influence to Harn's gods. Detailed suggestions on which spheres to assign to the ten major gods of the Hârnic Pantheon can be found at:

Additional pages for the demigod sevants of the pantheon gods, will be added later.

Practical Effects: Options

GMs/groups have at least two options for applying divine spheres of influence in their games.

One option is to strictly limit miracles to the spheres of influence of god. A priest of Agrik, with this approach, could use Faith for prayers related to one of Agrik's five sphere of influences (Fire, Disease, Pain, War & Soldiers) but for nothing else.

A more generous approach is to permit a priest to request any kind of miracle, but to apply advantage and disadvantage modifiers based on his/her god's spheres of influence. For those who take this approach, a set of modifiers is suggested on the right.

A group should decide before the start of play which option they will use.

The Gods & Spheres of Influence

Gods of Hârn Hârnians acknowledge the existence of many gods, all of whom have unique aspects, epithets, dispositions, and concerns.

Though the gods may differ, Burning Wheel's Faith rules can be used for all of them without any deity-specific customization. (Please see the Faith Overview page for more details.)

For GMs/groups who prefer deity-by-deity variation in how Faith works, however, the Religion rules (pp. 54-62 in the Magic Burner) provide guidelines for assigning deities spheres of influence to represent the areas of the natural world and human existence over which they hold sway.

This page provides general suggestions for applying these spheres of influence to Hârn's gods. There are also separate pages listing spheres of influence for the Hârnic Pantheon and the Gods of Hârn's Barbarian Tribes.

Modifiers for Spheres of Influence

As noted on the sidebar, GMs/groups can use spheres of influence to assign modifiers to Faith tests, based on whether a given prayer is related to the god's assigned spheres. If pursuing this approach, I would suggest the following modifiers:

Advantages:

+1D for a prayer that unambiguously involves one or more of the god's spheres (Example: asking Halea for success in a seduction attempt).
+2D if the prayer clearly involves two or more of the god's spheres (Example: asking Ilvir for aid in carving a sculpture of an Ivashu.)

Disadvantages:

+1 Ob. if a request is unrelated to any of a god's spheres of influence. (Example: praying to Save-K'nor for success in battle)
+2 Ob. (or higher) if the request is antithetical to the god's sphere's of activity (Example: a prayer for Peoni, the goddess of healing, to unleash a plague on a village.)

In cases, where a prayer seems only tangentially related to one of a gods sphere's (Example: praying to Sarajin to heal an injured warrior), treat it as a straight test based on standard obstacles, without any modifiers.

Faith Failure & Spheres of Influence

A god's spheres of influence can be used to help determine consequences of failed Faith tests.

(Example: Agrik is a god of war, fire and pain. An Agrikan priest prays for aid before a battle, but fails the Faith test. This could mean that the requested aid is still given, but that Agrik demands that all prisoners be burned alive or tortured to death as an after-battle sacrifice. If the priest fails to comply, he will be isolated per p.53 of the Magic Burner.)

wBurning Hârn: Faith The Gods' Spheres— Overview