Old Lilium notes

Your paladin's (or cleric's) goddess reveals herself to him, as a succubus who reformed some hundred years ago and ascended to divinity. Her followers now preach a gospel of unconditional love and support for everyone, far and wide, with the exception of those who throw away their chance at redemption, in favour of spreading misery and evil. Suddenly, everything makes a lot more sense

How does she appear to her followers?
What is the symbol of the faith?
What is the usual attire of her priests and priestesses?
What are her commandments? Are there any taboos?
How is the church organised?
What can you expect from an average temple, shrine or religious settlement dedicated to her?
What is she like personally?


Let's keep things civil, productive and within a reasonable degree of non-fetishy, shall we?


>Known Facts
1: Her name is Lillium, also known as the Lady of Light, the Lover of All, the Redeeming Maiden, or (less charitably) the Goddess of Whores.
2: She's an actual goddess; her clerics and holy servants are granted spells and miracles through their faith in her.
3: She is benevolent. She doesn't register as evil in any way and her deeds for the last two and a half centuries speak for themselves.
4: She lived roughly six-to-seven hundred years as a powerful succubus. For two centuries, she posed as a good deity, partly in a bid to gain power and partly out of curiosity at what she was missing (all those annoying heroes seemed so convinced that what they had was different to and better than anything she could offer). Gradually, she came to genuinely love and care for her people, before ascending and deciding she would no longer merely 'act' like a good goddess.
5: She has been a goddess in truth for roughly a hundred years.
6: The souls she consumed as a succubus are gone forever, used to increase her power and sustain her. As a goddess, she retains the power to consume mortal souls, but they remain existent within her own soul, both as a part of and separate from her. If she wishes, she can split them from herself and re-create them as archangels. This removes from her the power, experience and personality traits they brought, but makes them a separate entity once more. Once released, they cannot be re-claimed by Lillium, as the soul is no longer mortal. If the angel dies, they are gone for good.


7: A soul is made of two parts. The animus is the sense of self and awareness that persists after death. Karma is the soul's power and deeds from life. Violent death robs a soul of much of its karma through the sheer shock. When a soul reaches the afterlife, its karma disperses and becomes a part of the plane. The animus is then free within the afterlife, where it exists for roughly two centuries, without absorbing refined karma to sustain itself before it floats free, looses the vast majority of its sense of 'self' and returns to the mortal world as a newborn child.
8: Lillium's afterlife is a vast and gorgeous palace and garden, where her beloved worshipers mingle with her angels and avatars, surrounded by love and joy until the time they re-incarnate. Followers are also given the choice to have their animus absorbed into Lillium, until such time as she should ask them to become an archangel for her.
9: Gods are empowered by worship and devotion. This can be from a vast following, or a small, but fanatical group; what matters is the magnitude of belief, offerings, worship and devotion
10: Lillium is still a relatively minor god. There are dozens of other deities, but seven stand as the most prominent. There are also thirteen princes of the Hells that have godlike power and often style themselves as such.

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She appears as a kind of ideal lover. She's so beautiful to you in every respect you just can't help but be captivated by her. So wonderfully majestic you aren't even thinking about sex, all you want at that time is to be held in her arms as she encourages you, telling you how it's all going to be alright and how no matter how worthless you feel she sees you as a good person and how much potential you have to become your own ideal. She's your friend, your true confidant, she gets you, and believes others will too if you have confidence and believe.

Attire for clergy is both sexy and restrained. Like nuns or mikos, it covers so much yet you can't help but feel it's kind of sensual. Sexy by leaving so much to the imagination, people often forget how that kind of thing can be so unbearably seductive. Like wrapping paper, the gift is made more alluring by not knowing what it is. I like the idea of it being see through if the wearer wants it to be. Sometimes a glimpse at the goods is what a person needs that day.

Is there sacred prostitution? Yeah, but it doesn't function in the normal sense. You're more paying for a sympathetic ear than you are for sex. They hold your hand and cuddle as they listen to your troubles. Such "emotion work" is actually common in real life whores. A surprising amount of encounters don't result in sex. The "john" just needed someone to talk to, and her "whores" specialize in this. Yeah, sometimes they fuck, but only if the participants feel a real emotional connection between themselves. The emphasis is on sharing an intimate moment over getting laid. To feel like you are truly "with" someone does wonders in curing loneliness and healing issues.

The bans are on general degeneracy. No judgement on your lifestyle but if it's interfering with charity or productivity you're doing it wrong. She knows about the sweet embrace of sin and is keen on preventing followers from falling into it.


I'll take it up on donations. Emphasis should be on benevolence. Her servants and clergy want to make the world into a better place through love and healing. Sadly, temples don't build themselves, but if RL religion is anything to go by the donations of faithful and thankful should suffice to fund charity and temple/church creation over several areas of the globe.

Her priests and priestesses are your buddies, your friends, and a fun fact is they don't take oaths of chastity and generally like to have a good time. So there's that.


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So, let's start small... What would a small village's shrine to Lillium look like?


I don't think it would, to be honest. Maybe a sun dial, or one of those gold things which shows the way the wind is blowing, add that in with a priest/priestess.


A weather vane? It's an idea, certainly.

Another idea: A small building. The main room is circular, with a statue or painting of the goddess facing the entrance with open arms. A priest or priestess would stand on an slightly elevated dais in the middle, when preaching or giving a sermon, while others sat or stood around them. Off to one side would be living quarters and possibly a guest room, sick room, or nursery.


Definitely shouldn't be a weather vane, as that's not a symbol you'd want to use. A weather vane changes direction far too easily, and you wouldn't want that associated with your deity. I would possibly consider a small symbol of a waxing gibbous moon in polished silver, with the side opposite the terminator being done in tarnished silver, with the exact terminator being a region where the tarnish is being lifted.

The symbolism would be related to redemption, but with the reminder that the "tarnished" history of the Goddess, like other redeemed individuals, cannot be fully eradicated: and indeed, shouldn't be.


Murals, perhaps? Or a mural with a sundial? A shrine would just have to be a statue or painting, with a heartfelt prayer for the happiness of others. In some villages, they are covered with paper prayers for the goddess and for others to see, wishing people well.

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Custom Redemption domain adds Diplomacy to class skills. So you can keep up the banter as long as you want.


Sanctuary
Shield Other/Zone of Truth
Tongues
Reincarnate
Atonement
Geas/Quest
Refuge
Resurrection?
Minimized Grappling Hand

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I thought I heard other succubi mentioned in the last thread? (Redeemed, of course.) What's the status on that?

Also, I'm not a religious person by nature, but I can get behind a goddess of platonic snuggles.


Maybe Lillium tries reaching out to her former sisters? The key tenet of her faith though is that if you seek redemption, she is there to help you; those that reject it or turn away just get told, "Okay. If you ever change your mind, I'm here." So, I guess other succubi could maybe change to follow her? Those that actively oppose her teachings are getting smote though.

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To be fair, I posted "The Goddess of Light" greentext and I kind of gave up on the threads when I realized the surrounding conversation was basically "and then the goddess of sex (and good, I guess) will give you prostitutes to slake your perverted thirst on. This was before the content in the threads that shall not be named

Damnit, that wasn't the intent! She was a goddess of goodness reforged in the image of the deeds she had committed in the eyes of her worshipers. Healing the sick, stopping wars with direct intervention, and being a goddess who actively answered the non-spell prayers of her followers so long as righteousness and need were in their hearts. For that, she was weaker than any god had a right to be, the majority of her power going into keeping a broken world afloat. It didn't matter because the people who wanted to protect her were far greater in number than the ones seeking to do her harm.

Because the other gods had adopted a "humanity must make their own decisions" stance on deific responsibility, they had become distant. This new goddess risen on the mortal planes captured the hearts of mortals because she "did" things and directly put out a lot of fires threatening to consume the world.

Her religion thereafter was not one even particularly reflecting her sex demon heritage. She was rather a pure maiden, clad in white, a symbol of the righteousness of idealogical faith without the trappings of specific dogma. Her gospel was one of forgiveness and mercy and tolerance, of the faith that all men had good in their hearts if only they had the will to find it. And for those who didn't, she helped them find forgiveness and peace.

From a being who had fought the schemes of the abyss and emerged victorious, human political struggles were child's play to rearrange. She didn't have to "break out the goods", to ensure obedience when motherly affection and the right words were more than enough for that.

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What would the militant arm of Lillium's faith typically focus on? Protection is one of her domains, after all. I guess they'd typically be defenders, more than crusaders, focused around protecting the beloved people of the world and only taking the offensive when overtures of peace have been spurned, or it becomes apparent that whatever evil they oppose needs to be stopped at the root.


I'd say there's be a paladin assigned to each temple, commanding a force of recruits that can be mustered in defense of any of the surrounding area.


I dunno... Much of the faith's idea is giving of yourself to protect your loved ones. Volunteers to help fight for others are one thing, but keeping a standing force, other than paladins and battlefield clerics, seems a bit contrary to Lillium's teachings.

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Useless meat is something I'm seeing as a side effect of devotion. The more you believe, the sexier you look. Kind of a bleed-off from her past as a succubus. The closer you get to her, the closer you get to being one yourself. No gender bending though, the males become more like incubi than succubi.

It's subtle though, nothing obvious like growing horns and getting sustenance from sex. You just look sexier, and lose more issues with intimacy and sex in general. A devout follower wouldn't feel it to be weird to have sex with their best friend for example.


That's not really so much becoming a succubus/incubus as just becoming an attractive and open mortal. Not that I'm honestly saying it shouldn't be a thing, mind.

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Yeah, the sex is never casual among her followers in my mind. It's a way of expressing the affection you feel towards someone that can't be expressed in words. It's always meaningful, a showing of how much they care for and love someone.

Of course, as a goddess of love, the devout truly love most anyone so on the surface it may look casual or wanton. But even then they're going for reciprocation of those feelings. So they'd never just bang a random person just because. They'd need an emotional connection between them first.

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Now then, we've covered a small church and a shrine... What about a religious settlement, or monastery?


Monasteries and religious settlements are places where beings go to be redeemed. No priests or priestesses are cloistered, as that goes against the tenant of turning their compassion outwards and helping to redeem others.


A settlement where everyone loves each other like family and genuinely tries to watch out for one another is the ideal for her settlements. This doesn't mean everyone likes each other just that they act like family would also emphasis on strong sense of community. Some other god will be required to judge and pronounce judgements though she's a bit too nonjudgemental as it is.


How about a place others can make pilgrimage to, when they feel like they need some positive affirmation in their lives? Their primary export is the happiness of others. I expect her settlements would have more than a few nurses, teachers and people who make and export luxuries.

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SHitposter or not, he has a point. Needs more flaws, or she may slip into the realm of mary-suedom.


Good goddesses need character flaws? You what now?


I'm inclined to err on the side of leniency when the one in question is a deity.