Building Shadows (thoughts, please)

[Captain Obvious]

So, as possibly some of you know, i recently had both of my hands in casts (something that is now totally fixed). During this time i had many long periods of sitting around a hospital waiting room with absolutely nothing to do except for think about things. A main topic of my thinking was pertaining to my  Shadows of the Last Alliance setting. The main thought was to do with how to develop it - specifically keep it as the melting pot of WotC material it was originally intended to be, or make it more my own.

This setting was originally created as a rough-designed world for me to run a campaign in and i am also running one in it currently (pbp here on this site). I have a few other settings that are more significantly divergent from WotC material, but this one was always meant to be a setting where i could find a place for everything. It remains that currently and i have spots to fit in most every prc and bit of stuff in any WotC book. However, i kind of want to cut all of these back and then only include a few base classes and a small number of prc's per area in an effort to make all of the bits more  integral to the setting and give the setting some more cohesion. So, what are you opinios (if any) on this. I know it's my setting and i should be the one to finnaly make the choice, but i just want to hear some thoughts.

*for those in my pbp, don't worry. any changes made will not affect the pbp, or at least not yet, and those that do get changed will be implemented gradually.

Also, while i was in my thinking state i had some ideas for prc's/organizations that i was then unable to type out. So i wish to as well present my preliminary idea for them here.

The first one is that in addition to starndard religions, etc. i want an option for atheist clerics. Along with this i plan to make a very militant atheist group that actuvely denies and preaches against the existance of the gods. possibly with some prestige class that allows them to harm/ignore divine creatures and abbilities by sheer faith that they aren't what they claim to be.

the next was an order of monks (probably originally a part of the hobgoblin empire) that teach the neccesity of opposit (well, sort of). each odd and even pair of class features would be in the form of a phrase of teaching plit into two parts.
Current ideas for the pairs are
"It's not about strenth" + "it's about control"
"it's not about speed" + "it's about timing"
"it's not about stability" + "it's about balance"
"it's not about anger" + "it's about peace"
"it's not about?" + "it's about grace"
still not sure what abbilities should go with all of these.

and the third is for a group called the "church of the thousand-faced god" or "myriadeists". they believe that all gods and spirits and beliefs are all just ascpects of a single collective energy that encompases all the gods as well as the Aeias that connect everyone to the rest of the worl. I want to make some PrC to allow clerics to have access to many different domains and some other abbility that represents them worshiping all gods simultaneously (maybe they could gain more domains than normal and the abbility to choose thier domains along with their spells at the start of the day.

So, any thoughts on either wht to do with the setting or ideas for the groups?

[beejazz]

There's a PrC called the Defiant for atheist clerics in the planar handbook (not to be confused with manual of the planes)... there is another PrC for monks and monk-like characters (requires neutrality) that seems a good fit for your second. As for the last, I don't know...

[Tybalt]

Out of curiousity what would these atheist clerics believe in if anything? I can kind of grasp the concept since properly speaking Buddhists don't worship Buddha as a god but rather revere Buddha as an enlightened being. You might also have say Taoists as an example...

[Ishmayl-Retired]

I'm curious about this as well.  I'm think the definition of cleric is actually something like "the clergy of a religion."  If your atheist clerics are members of no religion, where would they get their spells from.

Of course, it presents a fun little angle I just thought of.  If your atheist clerics can still cast spells, then one has to wonder, "Where does this power come from?"  It can create some excellent divide between atheist clerics and believer clerics; atheists will try to convince believers that there are no gods, because "behold, I worship no god, and still have the same power," while the believers will try to convince of the opposite, saying, "In actuality, your power stems from real gods who are awaiting to snuggle you in their ever-loving bosom."  Or something like that.  Interesting....

[Moniker]

The Planescape setting employed something similar to this. The Athar, clearly a aetheist organization, could draw upon power from the multiverse simply with thought. Belief was a huge proponent of existence in Planescape.

Athar, although they deny the existence of gods as true gods, they could wield divine power just as Clerics of gods could. The question becomes in your game where Divine power originates from? Is it similar to the Weave, from Forgotten Realms? Is it the manipulation of cosmic forces through knowing the right verses, incantations or so-such? Or, perhaps is Divine power nothing more than another facet of Arcane power, derived from the building blocks of the universe?

Perhaps it is not the atheists who're wrong, but the Clerics. Perhaps through the power of will and belief, that Divine magic is wrought (although in a same or similar was as Arcane magic is).