Enter Stage Left - Agutha, the Glimmering Sister of Pholtus

I am pleased to report that Tony "Wheggi" Rosten has rejoined our Castle Greyhawk campaign, as he's a good friend.  A well-known name among old-school gaming communities, Tony's also my publishing partner in The Twisting Stair, our mega-dungeon design zine, and is the author of the award-winning "Blocks of Quox" puzzle-dungeon adventure published in Fight On Magazine #6 (Summer 2009).  He has several other excellent adventures that I hope to see published one day, too!

Sister Agutha

Since Tony wasn't able to find the character sheet for his old PC cleric, Moraine (a level 2 Cleric of St. Cuthbert), he created a new one---The Glimmering Sister, Agutha.  A redoubtable 4th level cleric of Pholtus, Agutha joined the campaign the the deus ex machina of divine intervention (a slightly-classier replacement of our now-standard "chump gate" option that we learned about from friends at GaryCon many years ago):

Agutha, the Glimmering Sister of Pholtus --
artwork by Tony Rosten for his PC

Last night, Haj and Sister Agutha encountered a greater shedu via the agency of the WM charts!---a roll of 31 on the 1e DMG's Temperate Forest/Wilderness tables results in an airborne ki-rin, lammasu, or shedu, which I then selected via a die roll extrapolated to allow the possibility that the encounter might add other powerhouse do-gooders to the mix---a greater lammasu or greater shedu, along with creatures like the foo dog/lion, hollyphant, or phoenix.  In the end, the dice indicated they met a greater shedu:

Shedu, by David C. Sutherland III, from 
the 1e Monster Manual (TSR, 1977)

The greater shedu looked like that picture, just bigger.  Standing 12' tall at the shoulder, the size of a minivan with a 30-40' wingspan.  

On a Mission from God

Named Zabbukhani, Herald of the Sun Resplendent, the greater shedu was specifically searching for Sister Agutha, in order to deliver to her (and as it turns out, Haj too, since he was in her company) a divine message from Pholtus:

Greetings!  Fear not, sister in Law!
Attend:  absorb Revelation.
Accept:  reflect Illumination.

Gaze sunward, above:
Protect the rays. 

Trees open, spread wide gates—eclipse looms.
Will and power words dispel the dark.
Searing light can stem Woe’s flood tide.

This new message (and the PC accompanying it!) represents an escalation, perhaps, in the activity in the campaign after the rescue and revelation of The Prophecy of the Six and the Twelve from a couple of years ago (in real-life; in-game, only XX months have passed).  The PCs discovered some additional information about it while seeking divine guidance from Wee Jas in Hardby, but with Agutha's introduction, this is (in my view, at least) stepping up the divine engagement.   We'll see what the party thinks soon, since Agutha hasn't yet met the rest of the PCs yet, just Haj. 

And of course it's curious and interesting and that it's Haj that Agutha met first, since he's one of the two assassins in the party, actively worships Nerull, the Reaper (but don't fear him ;) ), and serves the Horned Socitety....  Helps keep things interesting! :D

Pholtus - Some Ponderings from grodog

Tony's creation of Agutha introduces the second PC associated with Pholtus into our campaign---the first was a female paladin played back at the dawn of the game by Anthony Huso and named Vivien Asquith.  She was a hard-drinking paladin of The Blinding Light. 

Now Pholtus is not a god who I've played with a lot, so he's remained a bit of a caricatured blank slate to date.  I always liked Jim Holloway's depiction of Pholtus from Dragon Magazine #68 (December 1982), but the god itself---for better or for worse---hadn't particularly engaged my attention or creativity over the years*:

Pholtus, from Dragon Magazine #68
(December 1982) by Jim Holloway

Tony's decision to place Agutha's faith in Pholtus offered an opportunity to ratchet up some of the focus in the campaign, and for me to explore a bit into Pholtus.  We had some recent discussions at Canonfire! that in turn inspired my design noodlings.  

The Illumine, A Divine Envoy Sacred to Pholtus

Through her doctrinal training, Agutha recognized the form of the message as divinely-inspired, an illumine (sometimes called an octillum or an octiveal):

• its eight lines represent a number sacred to Pholtus; eight is the number of syllables in the first and third stanza's lines, as well the number of syllables in their lines
• the first line is a traditional greeting, to set the worshipper at ease with the divine messenger and attention being visited upon them
• the second and third lines offer guidance and/or imperatives from Pholtus, that tie to the message's purpose and focus, and will help its recipient to understand how to unravel its meaning
• the central two-line envoy represents the heart of the divine message, which receives special emphasis through more-direct communication:  
• its lines are four syllables each; together they total eight 
• they divide the message into two halves:  the fourth line applies with emphasis to the first stanza, while the fifth line applies to the second
• together both lines embody the divine heart and command of the message, and provide the key that unlocks the meaning of the whole
• the third stanza warns of complications, threats, and dangers that the envoy and first stanza are intended to address; they are the obstacles that must be discerned through reflection and revelation, revealed by exposure to the light, and overcome through the application of faith, light, obedience, and hewing to the straight and inflexible rigor of order and goodness

The numerology of the message will gain additional significance based on its form:  here the message is divided into three stanzas of 3, 2, and 3 lines each.  So the numbers 2 and 3 are part of Pholtus' mysteries, along with 8.   (And note that 2^3 = 8 too!).   There are five known "wandering stars" in Oerth's cosmology, so 5 will likely be a component in this celestial schema too.  

Other messages may be delivered as a single eight-line stanza, and some may feature rhyme regular schemes or repetitions of words---perhaps to be modelled on the troilet form; we'll see.... 

Noodling on the Faiths and Mechanics for Pholtine Clerics

Prior to writing Agutha's message, I began brainstorming some developmental ideas for Pholtine clerics, thinking through options inspired from the Canonfire! discussions as well as the areas of focus for the campaign around twins, light/darkness/shadow, prophecy/divination/revelation, etc.:

The Tenets of Pholtine Faiths

Holloway's Pholtus illustration always appeared somewhat androgynous to my eye, so I like the idea of the god being more nebulous in gender, or both genders perhaps

• this then paired with the idea of splitting the god's roles up between sun vs. moon among the faithful, and perhaps flipping their traditional genderings, like Tolkien did with the Maiar who guide them in The Silmarillion:  sun = female, moon = male
• perhaps many Pholtine sects emphasize the larger, monthly moon Luna vs. the smaller quarterly moon, Celene; while later editions changed his focus to moons in plural, as originally published he was the god of the sun and the moon (which also makes me wonder if adding a second moon in the mix was a late-stage addition to the setting, perhaps)

I've also begun to toy with the idea that Pholtus absorbed/merged the sun goddess and moon god when one of them was all-but slain in the past, which accounts in part for there being no dedicated moon god among Greyhawk’s core pantheons. Perhaps they were in love/lovers, perhaps they were brother and sister, or even twins.  That may also account for the androgyny vibe in Holloway’s illustration. 

Other noodlings on spheres of influence for Pholtus include:  

• the concept of Light in general vs. the heavenly bodies as the source of light; this would be Holloway‘s traditional androgynously male illustration of Pholtus from Dragon #68; options include the Blinding Light, the Resolute Light, the Light of Revelation, or whatever 
• the concept of cosmic law and order in particular as it applies to the movements of the heavenly bodies and the inner planes (as well as the Astral, as the bridging plane between inner and outer, also tied to the moons and silver), emphasizing the Positive Martial Plane as the ultimate source of light for the multiverse; think akin to Moorcock’s Law vs. Chaos; 
• this would likely put such sects into conflict with Celestian's clergy
• this would also espouse a heliocentric view of Oerth’s solar system, which is deemed a radical concept among all good-thinking peoples of the world ;)
  
  

Greyhawk's Pholtus Clerics and AD&D Mechanics

Pholtine 4th level clerics gain access to an additional spell usable 1/day, which per the boxed set is dispel darkness.  I might tweak that spell based on faith/deital flavor selections above, but it fits well with the general themes for Pholtus (and the campaign).  

At 8th level, they gain glow, and I can see other spells like starshine, moonbeam, sunray, and perhaps faerie fire, infravision, and ultravision being added to their spell lists (or the class  gaining these at higher levels as permanent abilities).  

At 12th level, high priests and priestesses access reflect.  As part of the "blinding light" idea, I like the focus of this spell but I've also considered stripping the 11th level power from clerics of Heironeous---their energy bolt drawn from the Positive Material Plane---and providing it to Pholtine clerics instead, which seems apt, and perhaps combining it with the reflect power (or making it a fourth power).  We'll see....

Allan.

* For a particularly interesting look at a higher-level Pholtite** high priest, I recommend reading about Henri, from Jason Zavoda's "Nosnra's Saga" serial novella set in Greyhawk, and more specifically in Gary Gygax's G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.  The link takes you to his 2020 revisions to that story, and leads with the most-recent post which is its ending, but it's a fun read, particularly if you're familiar with the original adventure.  

** While I generally prefer Pholtine as the adjectival form of Pholtus, I'm sure there are sects of Pholtus that use Pholtite (and perhaps Pholtusian, too)!