Hello everyone, and welcome to the final episode in a series of articles focusing on the Cleric Domains in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The goal for each of these is to provide you with a quick overview of your domain powers, spells, and introduce you to a god or goddess from real-Earth mythology who could be a deity using this particular domain.
All that said, welcome to this week’s article on the domain of: Weather.
The Weather domain is described as “With power over storm and sky, you can call down the wrath of the gods upon the world below.” – Not only does this imply that you have control over weather (and LIGHTNING), but that you might be a bit of an avenging force. It certainly seems to imply that you’re more likely to wreak havoc than act benevolently.
The powers granted are “Storm Burst” – This gives you a ranged touch attack, with a range of 30 feet, that does 1d6+1 per 2 cleric levels worth of damage. Important to note here though is that it is NON-lethal damage, which is rather rare when it comes to ranged attacks, and enables you to subdue opponents instead of outright killing them. Furthermore, due to the winds generated, the opponent takes a -2 penalty on all attack rolls for the next round.
The second power granted is “Lightning Lord” – essentially this allows you to cast call lightning, doing 3d6 points of electricity damage to anyone caught in the path of the 30 foot long and 5 foot wide bolt. You can cast one lightning bolt per level that you have, and you can use as many of them as you want, in a single action. At the level where you start, that is 8 bolts (for a total of 24d6 points of damage) and at level 20, it’s 20 bolts (for a total of 60d6). A potentially LETHAL ability, if you use them all at once. That also means that, like call lightning, it becomes even more deadly in a storm, where each d6 increases to a d10 for a potential of 60d10 points of damage.
Spells:
The spells you get with the Weather domain are as follows:
Obscuring Mist
Obscuring Mist is an overlooked spell for its sheer ability. It provides a 20% miss chance within 5 feet and 50% miss chance to anything further away. It is a huge advantage to have at any level, and the only real competitor for defensive purposes is invisibility. Some spells (and windy conditions) can disperse the mist, but these are all much higher level than obscuring mist itself. The downside, of course, is that you cannot target anyone either when they’re more than 5 feet away unless you have other senses than sight.
Fog Cloud
Fog cloud basically works like obscuring mist, except that it cannot be dissipated by fire spells.
Call Lightning
Partially explained above, call lightning allows you to summon bolts of lightning from the sky. Each bolt is 30 feet long, and 5 feet wide, and they cause 3d6 points of electricity damage to anyone caught in their path. Importantly, if this is used outside while in a storm, each of those bolts does 3d10 points of damage, which dramatically increases their lethality. Unlike the Lightning Lord special ability though, you may only summon 10 bolts in total (or a maximum of bolts equal to your caster level, if it is lower than 10).
Sleet Storm
This blocks all vision in the area (as it doesn’t even state a minimum range, this means that you, quite literally, cannot see a hand in front of your face). It extinguishes torches and small fires, and even movement above half speed requires an Acrobatics check. It can, in essence, block all spells and ranged attacks, as you cannot be seen, and it can even be used for area-denial if you don’t want someone moving through a specific area. Just remember that it works both ways, so if they can’t see you, you cannot see them either.
Ice Storm
This spell is not the greatest damage dealer out there, doing only a total of 5d6 which is very much on the low side for a 4th level spell. So, what makes the spell powerful? That would be the ability to place difficult terrain anywhere you please, and thereby gain a tactical advantage, enabling you to hamper enemy movement. This increases enemy movement cost to 2, halving the amount of distance they can cover. (Reducing a normal, unarmored human to 15 feet). Further, and more importantly, they cannot run nor charge through an area of difficult terrain, so you gain some measure of safety with this spell. Also, it reduces Perception checks of the enemy, though unfortunately, it does not hamper their vision enough to grant concealment of any sort.
Control Winds
This allows you to change the winds in the area around you, allowing them to be decreased or increased as you wish, making it either easier or more difficult to get around. And you can choose to maintain a calm “eye” at the center so that you (and any allies) remain unaffected. In the light of recent hurricanes, I don’t think I need to explain how much damage a spell of this type can do if you’re a high enough level caster.
Control Weather
In the long term, a control weather spell can spell either disaster or be a blissful event for a local area, since it allows someone to mitigate the effects of harsh weather, and improve it when the weather is “meh” at best. Each individual type of weather has its own unique effects on the battlefield. There are far too many types of weather to get into here. Suffice to say that you can really mess up someone’s day with this spell, and I advise you to get familiar with chapter 13 in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, as it concerns weather and other environmental effects.
Whirlwind
This creates a mini-cyclone, that can pick up and continually damage Medium or smaller creatures, without a save, after the first 2 are failed. At the level where this is gained, this would mean that a creature failing both saves would take a MINIMUM of 1d8+14d6 points of damage without a save thereafter, plus possibly (due to the damage) making it impossible for them to cast spells. And because they’re caught in the cyclone, they also become immobilized and unable to move while within the cyclone.
Storm of Vengeance
This is a spell of biblical proportions. While it doesn’t let you rain frogs, it is a long-lasting spell with deafening noise, acid rain, bolts of lighting, hailstones the size of boulders (since they do 5d6 points of damage) and finally the clouds obscure vision. It’s worth noting that the effects are cumulative, meaning that by the end of the 10 rounds, you’ll have dealt 10d6 points of acid damage (with no save), thrown up to 48 lightning bolts, each dealing 10d6 points of damage (with saves for half damage), bludgeoning damage from the hailstones dealing 5d6 points of damage per round (for a total of 35d6 points of damage, with no save).
For the final deity of this series, we’re going to take a look at Thor. We’ve previously done both Odin and Loki, so it seems only fair that we complete the trifecta of the most famous of the Norse gods.
New Deity
Thor
The Strong, Lightning-caller, Farmer’s Friend, The Legend-Killer
Alignment CG
Worshipers Warriors, the strong, farmers, sailors, monster hunters, anyone depending on good weather.
Cleric Alignments NG, CG, N
Domains: Glory, Good, Protection, Strength, War, Weather
Sub-domains: Competition, Defense, Duels, Ferocity, Heroism, Storms
Favored Weapon: Warhammer
Symbol: a Warhammer laid on 2 crossed lightning bolts
Thor is a rarity among deities. Most deities have a set gender, but that of Thor is undetermined, as the God(ess) manifests in 2 versions, one male and one female. The Male Thor tends to be a defender, helping the crops grow by bringing nourishing rain and sunlight, or by holding off the forces of evil from both the mortal realms and Asgard.
The Female Thor is a more aggressive figure. When Thor manifests as a female, it means the God(ess) is on the attack. This is where storms are brought, lands are laid barren, and where the hordes of evil cower in fear, as she brings the wrath of the Gods.
Both Thors are monster-slayers however, and in the stories where Thor has killed legendary beasts or in the stories of Ragnarok, the genders seem interchangeable, as if no one knows which version is which, something most sages have put down to the fact that the stories have taken place in far-away countries, or are prophetic, like the stories of Ragnarok. Those are the tales where Mjölnir features most heavily as well, Thor’s hammer, and the most powerful weapon in the Norse Gods’ arsenal.
Thor is so aggressive in fact, that many cultures have taken the deity to be a warrior god(ess), but that is not the case. Thor is simply extremely territorial and protective of those who worship the deity.
The clergy of Thor is equally diverse, with the church making no difference between men or women, nor caring about race. They merely ask that each individual proves themselves worthy of the blessings of Thor, be it through hard work or heroic deeds.
They make their living by farming and blacksmithing work, but they are the first to pick up arms when their community is under attack, from beast, monster or other nations. They tend to be rather individualistic, however, so while they’re often great warriors, most armies consider them to unreliable to work in the rank and file of the normal soldiers. As members or leaders of small squads, they are highly sought out, as their nature leads them to be self-reliant and efficient.
The clergy (and the layfolk) value practicality, so they wear whichever clothes are best suited for their line of work. When the call to war sounds, they bring the heaviest armor they can find, along with the biggest hammer.
While Thor and the clergy get along well with other Good and Neutral deities, they have an extremely hard time with evil religions, even those legally allowed by the law. They seek every opportunity to eradicate evil and that means they sometimes take it a bit too far. The only exception to this is Loki and his worshipers. For some unknown reason, Thor’s brother (though whether it’s half-, adopted-, or blood-brother is up for debate) escapes this wrath, and both deity and clergy seem oblivious to the failings of Loki.
As mentioned, this is the final episode in Clerical Domains, as Weather is the final Core Domain. In the future, I may come back to re-visit this, as I have some ideas for one last hurrah for this series, where there will be a new domain created, for the idea of the “One God.” But that’s going to take a little while. And after all, come August, we’ll be looking at Pathfinder 2, so it’s likely there will be a few more Finder’s Archives installments with locations.
Kim Frandsen
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