Divine Tests
The Earth Mother provides even when times can be trying, with support that only a good wife and mother can give.
1-6: What is needed? The priestess suffers a -1d4 penalty to her rolls when attempting to do anything related to her emphasis for the next 1d12 hours.
- For example, if her emphasis is to Protect your children, adoring and providing well for them, having many, crops, then she might ironically be tested with a -2 penalty to rolls for the next 5 hours when engaged in such motherly duties. The various concepts included in each of Dheghom Mehter's emphases may penalize much during that time.
7-11: The priestess loses access to her spells and/or turn ability (a 50% chance for each one) until she does something to espouse her emphasis for them individually.
- With an emphasis of Support your people, nourishing and healing your folk, rivers, then she may lose access to two spells until she heals and gives nicely cooked meals to her clan members, or spends time at a river (or both). The various concepts included in each of Dheghom Mehter's emphases allow Referees to have a wider variety of choices.
12-16: Be changed in an unfortunate way based on the cleric’s emphasis for 1d12 days. Three ability scores will be reduced by 1d3, one will be improved by 1d3, and the test will be obvious to others.
- Love & follow your husband, letting men lead, the wagon as the priestess's emphasis might elicit her being transformed into an actual wagon or some other symbol for the next 8 days, representing her lesson. During this time, she'll take a penalty equal to -2 INT, -1 WIS, and -1 CHA, with a +2 bonus to her CON score, though her family will have to otherwise wheel her around.
17+ Undergo a major test, risking great harm or absence. Roll 1d3.
[1] Go on a quest to a place that reflects her emphasis for 1d3 days per divine test result over 16.
[2] Face a being with a HD equal to the divine test result that either represents her emphasis or goes against it (an equal chance of each). She can have her clan's warriors battle it instead if her subtle approach would be ineffective.
[3] Defeat a number of those who defy her emphasis, equal to the test result.
- If her emphasis is Honor the earth, all returning in the end, kurgans, and has a divine test result of 20, then she may have to:
[1] Walk to a distant kurgan that is 6 days away.
[2] Deal with a 20 HD earth or water elemental.
[3] Bring 20 necromancers or other defilers of nature to justice.
1-3. Love & follow your husband, letting men lead, the wagon (the Broad One)
- Bendis - Thracian, especially reflecting the Broad One.
- Danu - Celtic, quite representative of the Wet Earth.
- Demeter / Ceres - Greek, notable in representing the Fertile Earth.
- Frigg- Norse, a quintessential wife and mother.
- Gaia - a Primordial, being Fertile Earth to birth her children, but also Deep Earth when her children act too.
- Great Spirit of the Earth - followed in a more animist way, an approach quite akin to the Finns and their spirits.
- Ilmatar- Finnish, though incorporating other elements as well.
- Jord / Eorde- Norse / Anglo-Saxon, both Broad and Fertile Earth working together.
- Mokosh- Slavic, including Fertile and Wet Earth.
- Rhiannon / Epona - Welsh / Gallic, much to do with horses as well.
- Sif - Norse too, a divinely excellent representation of Broad Earth.
- Zemes mate - Baltic, whose pantheon will be explored in the near future.
In order to persist, a people requires that women serve such roles above all else. Good ones make all the difference, harmoniously holding the family and society together, being especially... (select or roll d12)
11. Skilled at advising
Good wives and mothers also make good food. To see what's on the menu, select or roll d12.
Next week: spells of Dheghom Mehter and a Dheghom Mehter encounter
RPG srd Old School 1st ed AD&D Dehgom Proto-Indo-European Earth Mother Cleric Domains Priest Spheres PDF Corded Ware Yamnaya
