According to the LGG, only Female Rhennee may be Arcane spellcasters, and they have no Clerics?!? Is this right? What does other Greyhawk material say about this?
Rhennee wisewomen, or vetha, are arcane spellcasters who have a cultural role extremely roughly equivalent to priests in their culture (but secular, more witchy than priesty). The Rhennee either have no gods of their own or their gods do not answer on this world, although some evil Rhennee have turned to the worship of Iuz or Vecna in canon.
Stats for the vetha and darkhagard prestige classes can be found in this PDF document, among other places (they were originally found in the Living Greyhawk Journal #1).
My understanding is that the purpose for this is cultural rather than a rule of some sort. The spellcasters were considered sort of a "Wise Woman" and given a position of authority and respect. From everything I recall, it is consistent with other sources. The Living Greyhawk Journal had some information of Rhennee as well.
I found this paragraph:
"The magic of the Rhenne is primarily the province of the wise women, collectively known as the vetha . Each Rhennee family will have at least one veth present, always a woman of 35 or older. As both soothsayers and spellcasters, wise women represent a powerful force in Rhennee society, acting as counselors, physicians, and capable combatants. Some say they are the true power in Rhennee society, as not even the haughtiest of nobles will ignore their advice or fail to heed their warnings. Not all females are vetha, but their innate ability unsually manifests itself at a young age and makes them easy to recognize. Older and more experienced vetha instruct the younger ones, sharing spells and other bits of knowledge they've accumulated over the years. Though most vetha spend their entire lives on the barges of their nomadic folk, a small few shed their family obligations and leave Rhennee society and their family obligations. Adventuring veth are most likely from this small minority.
The magazine then proceeds to give a prestige class for the vetha. They mention on arcane spells, no reference of divine spells. I also found this two sentance earlier in the article.
Rhennee rarely marry. Most females are seen as little more tha chattel.
The City of Greyhawk boxed set add this information:
- 5d10+30 for age determination
- they have 1-4 levels in thief (rogue)
- herbalism and healing skills
- 75% of them cast cure light wounds spell once per day
- read tea leaves which gives access to augury spell once per day
- small number of wise women can use legend lore once per week 50% chance of success
- may predict in general terms the weather within 12 hours with a 75% chance of being utterly correct and a 50% chance of being being correct (if they weren't utterly correct), ability is used once per day
- They use cryptic prophecy, they suggest, and insinuate to influence men
- other females (except 1-2 who attend the wise woman) are treated as helpmates and with some respect by their menfolk but basically as chattel
- No formal marriage rite among Rhennee
- Nobles and bargewrights have as many cohabiting females as they can afford to keep
- A Rhenne male may challenge another other (usually non-Rhennee) male who looks at his female in the wrong manner. If the female is shows an interest in another male a challenge is issued. Challenges are immediate combat with whatever weapons one has at hand. Declining a fight is shameful. Underhanded means such as magic or poison brings down the wrath of all Rhennee upon the offender
- Rhenne have good strength (take the best three of 5d6 for males, best three of 4d6 for females
The other sources I checked, The Adventure Begins, Greyhawk Players Guide, From the Ashes, had less information but did repeat what's above.
Seems the concept has changed from the boxed set of Greyhawk City to the 3rd edition material.
Hope this helps. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
That Rhenfolk don’t have divine casters is, indeed, a fact. It may seem unusual to some, but the Rhenee aren’t big into a spiritual sense of the divine. It’s not that they don’t believe in gods, but that they’re lives are fine without the meddling of petty deities. They do not, in fact, have priests. But then, neither did the Gypsies, and they didn’t follow religion either, unless they were forced to by a nation they were in. They did observe days of rest, but that could be on just about any day they wanted, and a Gypsy party would be a sight, indeed.
The obvious question that follows is: How on Oerth can they survive without it? It is akin to asking how someone can survive in the modern world without medical care. The Rhenee would have all kinds of diseases, permanent injuries, blindness, and a very high death rate. While there are people who live just that way in modern America, there is a solution in Greyhawk. It is true that a PC can qualify for the Vetha PrC by being an arcane spontaneous spellcaster of any kind (to include Sorcerer, War Mage, or even Wujen), those IMHO do not really convey the proper “feel” of who and what the Rhenee are. The Wise Women of the Rhenfolk are, as Rasgon noted, more witchy than priestly. Thus, the obvious solution is to use the Witch variant (DMG, p. 175). This gives the Veth a feel that is in line with their Gypsy traditions as one who is into curses, love potions, and whatnot, but maintains that they are arcane casters. (Arcane curing?!!) There are undoubtedly some Veth (especially adventuring ones) who use flashier magic (Living Greyhawk Journal No. 2, p. 16, Dec 2000), I don’t believe that is the case for the typical NPC. The Witch gets cure spells (and 4 ranks in Heal is a PrC requirement), and charms, curses, illusions, and divinations (reading tea leaves and palms?) which are stock in trade for the stereotypical old Gypsy woman. Think of the movie “Thinner” here! It is very clear that they don’t get higher levels of cure spells, but then I don’t think that’s supposed to be their main emphasis anyway. They can do a broader array of things, without specializing in any one of them. They can do what they mostly need to tend to their people, but they’re not the type to bring back the dead.
One thing that I would like to point out as a great resource is real-world resources of the Moken (or Mogen) of Myanmar. There are many resources on the ‘net for them; just Google it – especially National Geographic. They are called the Sea Gypsies and are very close in theme to the Rhenee. They don’t look Rhenee, but their life and culture is very similar. They are made to travel by an ancient curse, they do not have a priestly group of people – though they are somewhat animistic, they are exploited and harassed, i.e., stopped to pay extra taxes, prohibited from trading areas, jailed for lacking fishing permits, but are driven away by illegal fishermen, they are insular and keep to themselves… and interestingly, the Gypsies only believed in a purely cosmic, universal, non-anthropomorphic (not person shaped) power or force. They called it the “Del”. Cross the Sea Gypsies seaborne culture with the traditional European Gypsies and you have what I believe to be a very close approximation of the Rhenfolk. And, if you use the Witch, you will have everything that you could ever want in the Rhenfolk. _________________ Owner and Lead Admin: https://greyhawkonline.com<div>Editor-in-Chief of the Oerth Journal: https://greyhawkonline.com/oerthjournal</div><div>Visit my professional art gallery: https://wkristophnolen.daportfolio.com</div>
Last edited by Icarus on Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
That Rhenfolk don’t have divine casters is, indeed, a fact. ...The obvious question that follows is: How on Oerth can they survive without it? It is akin to asking how someone can survive in the modern world without medical care. The Rhenee would have all kinds of diseases, permanent injuries, blindness, and a very high death rate.
It's worth mentioning that Bards are spontaneous arcane casters with access to healing magic.
Six different Cure Wounds, Delay Poison, Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison. The only Cure Disease available is through Hero's Feast, though.
That's a really good point... That should have occured to me that they DO have cure spells.
Bards are actually a good way to qualify for the Veth PrC, and it actually is a good fit for the Gypsies in general. I really can't imagine the Wise Women making all that much music, but if their perform skill were in Oratory... rhymes, riddles and such, it would almost make them seem even creepier if they were cursing someone - all dark riddles and prophecy and whatnot. And it would be a good counter point to the Witches. Sort of two sides to the same coin. I think that the Rhenfolk are a very musical people, and it would go well.
Thanks for the correction, Armitage. When did that innovation come about, by the way? (Bards with healing?) Was it in 3rd ed., or in the Rev. 3rd ed.?
Actually there is a real-world precedent for suggesting that Rhennee vetha are drawn from the bard class: many real-world gypsy fortune tellers (the inspiration for the vetha) were dancers in their earlier years. Granted, dancers are hardly the singing, strumming type of bards most D&D players are familiar with, but bards can specialize in dance as well as music. And yes, I'm aware this is clearly a stereotype with little or no basis in fact, but it still works. After all, the Rhennee were inspired by the fictionalized, stereotypical kind of gypsies rather than the real, historical ones.
I don't have my books here, but I believe the adept also has some healing, and fits in well with the wisewoman type of role. I believe that their magic is divine (though i think it was arcane in 3.0), but it is vague as to how this is accomplished.
This seems to me to be completely appropriate, and combined with the bard's role, eliminates most of the healing issues outside of mass combat.
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