Adapting Biblical Prophets for a Dark Fantasy Setting

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan appears before King David in his royal court and tells him a story. Nathan explains that there was a rich man who stole a precious sheep from a poor man, so that he did not have to slaughter any of his own sheep to feed his guests. Nathan explains in heart wrenching detail how much the poor man had cared for his sheep, feeding it and sleeping with it as if it were a member of his own family. Nathan asks the king to pass judgment on the situation, as was the king’s duty. David is enraged that such an injustice could take place in his land and he demands that the rich man pay fourfold for the harm that he has caused. Nathan, no doubt with a grim smile on his face, tells David that he is in fact the man. Nathan says that David did the same thing when he stole the beloved wife of one of his most elite and trusted soldiers, and then had the soldier killed unceremoniously to cover up their affair and resulting pregnancy. Nathan pronounces a reversal of the Davidic promise that was given only a few chapters before. Instead of a divine promise that one of David’s heirs will sit on the throne in Jerusalem forever, Nathan says that it will be strife and violence that will plague the king’s house forever. Readers familiar with the rest of David’s life know that his judgement on the rich man, a fourfold punishment, will in fact befall him. Internal discord, incestuous rape, revenge killings, and civil war mark the rest of David’s days, and he loses four of his sons in the tide of bloodshed.

This tense dynamic, between a singular prophet on the one hand, and a king at the height of his power on the other, is one of the most interesting and dangerous dynamics in the Hebrew Bible. For much of the biblical text however this dynamic did not exist. In the earliest parts of the Bible the civil and military leader of Israel was also the prophetic leader. That is to say, the one who led the people and its armies was also the one who had privileged access to the divine will. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, all the many judges, and Samuel himself, are all examples of these two offices being united in one person. But in 1st Samuel 8, these two offices are permanently sundered. Israel asks for a king to lead them, and, reluctantly, God is said to agree. Thereafter the civil and military leader will be the king, but the one who has privileged access to the divine will is someone else. This latter figure is usually a prophet, a single person who roams the land dispensing the word of God and performing miracles. But the prophets words and their miracles are almost always antagonistic toward the king, chiding him for this or that failure. Further complicating this relationship is that there is still a priesthood and a large number of professional court prophets, all loyal to the king, who are all supposed to speak for the divine. Yet it is the prophet rather than the official institutional devotees who are consistently shown to have real divine authority on their side.

The relationship between prophet and state often manifests as persecution and violence but also as one of competition. One of the most dramatic examples of this can be found in 1 Kings 22, where the prophet Micaiah is called before the kings of both southern Judah and northern Israel to bless their joint military venture. The king of Israel explains that his hundreds of professional court prophets have already expressed full confidence in the campaign but asks what Micaiah has to say. Micaiah goes on to say something very interesting. He says that not only is the military campaign doomed to failure, but he has had a vision that the king’s professional prophets have all been deceived by a lying spirit sent by God to mislead the king into going to his death in battle. The king is furious and throws Micaiah in prison. The king then departs to engage in his military campaign, but not without taking extra precautions to keep himself safe in the battles to follow. Regardless, true to Micaiah’s word, the king is killed by a stray arrow. The story illustrates not only how powerless the professional prophets are, but also how the deity they thought they were prophesying for had actually intentionally misled them to kill off their king.

The conflict between the renegade prophet and the state cult was the primary inspiration for The Way of the Earth, and for the vaishineph characters that players create and roleplay. The vaishineph are resurrected by divine beings that the royal cults say are illegitimate and impotent. The vaishineph commune with these beings and are directed by them to undermine the ideological and military power of the five great kingdoms and their royal cults. The royal cults insist that it is they who have true access to the divine, and that when they speak it is the divine will that speaks through them. The royal cults bolster their claims of authority with apparently miraculous powers and mysterious relics. True to biblical form, the relationship between the royal cults and the vaishineph is marked by violence and persecution. The royal cults are massive, wealthy, and organized. The royal cults have the nobility in their pockets and the common folk under their domination. But also true to biblical form, the vaishineph have powers of their own, and though they are vastly outnumbered and overpowered at every turn, the spark of the divine they carry is authentic and cannot be easily extinguished. In a dark fantasy setting, the tension between kings and prophets becomes all the more horrific, desperate, and fantastical. The royal cults contract with demons, employ mercenary sorcerers, exploit the poor and the powerless, and unleash devastating relics in an attempt to annihilate the vaishineph and their unique claim to a divine relationship. The vaishineph have to draw upon all of their resources and their divinely gifted powers in order to fight back.

The magic of the vaishineph is called Whispering. Where the royal cults proclaim and declare the word of their gods, the vaishineph whisper with a small but powerful voice. Whispering can produce a wide variety of effects. Practically every biblical miracle, from smiting enemies to splitting seas, from darkening skies to summoning plagues, can be achieved with the right combination of Whispers. But the defining power of the vaishineph is foresight. Like the biblical prophets, the vaishineph have a limited ability to see possible futures and they can use this insight to gain unparalleled control over the present. Since actual foresight would be difficult to fake in the context of a roleplaying game, the vaishineph’s signature power happens a bit differently in terms of game mechanics. When a vaishineph Whispers the power of foresight, it allows them to perform actions in the past, as though they saw the current present ahead of time and prepared for it. Through foresight, a vaishineph can equip themselves with weapons or tools in the present by explaining that they saw the need for it beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can cast defensive Whispers over themselves and their allies in the present by explaining that they saw some emerging threat beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can retry failed persuasion attempts in the present by explaining that they saw the best approach beforehand. Foresight is a powerful tool in the vaishineph’s arsenal, and one that comes directly from the stories of biblical prophets that inspired The Way of the Earth’s dark fantasy world.

- ABH