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A Dragon magazine article entitled "Dead Gods" goes into some detail on the worship of dead deities by divine characters:
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/d...

It validates what was already known to be RAW: divine characters that worship a deity don't lose their powers if that deity dies.  

More interestingly though it explains that it's even possible to ordain new divine characters *after* the deity has died... or as they say "it allows the character to worship and serve an unusual deity".

My elf cleric who claims he's worshiping Mystra feels a bit more justified now!

The rules in LFR don't change of course -- you still have to worship a deity that's alive.  Or rather, the LFR rules haven't changed yet... given FR's sudden amount of dead deities it actually seems much more likely that this campaign world would have a large amount of priests worshiping dead deities.  LFR just doesn't reflect that yet.

Aug 19, 2010 -- 11:15AM, 22_Over_7 wrote:

Check out the author.

Indeed!

Aug 21, 2010 -- 6:51AM, Madfox11 wrote:

Just because the author is involved in LFR, does not mean the article automatically applies to LFR

Agreed, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise if it seemed like that.  What I am happy to see though is that people heavily involved in LFR are the ones writing these type of articles (and I personally think it fits FR like a glove).  I look hopeful towards the new CCG.

Aug 26, 2010 -- 8:36PM, Dragon9 wrote:

And of course one must remember that this is also core fluff and doesn't necessarily apply to the FR. 

It is not Core fluff, it was explained to me to be the intended Core rules.
It may not apply in LFR, due to campaign rules (we need to keep things manageable), but it is a core rule that when a god dies, a PC cleric keeps its powers. Note that I wrote PC - I added a paragraph to the article explaining how *some* deities may enforce rituals of investment that allow for NPC priests to loose their powers if they displease their deity or the deity dies. That however never applies to PCs.

An example of a deity that might demand such rituals (note I am speculating here) is Lolth (there actually exists a NPC that has lost her divine power due to Lolth's whims, so it stands to reason she has ways). Not every drow may initially use those rituals, of course, but after a week of being visited by demons and Yochlols every night, most priestesses migth get the message...

Gomez

Aug 26, 2010 -- 8:36PM, Dragon9 wrote:

As a side note... good lord, what is it with Mystra?  Seriously... someone needs to find her corpse and douse her in balefire so she never existed.  Good riddance. 

You mean you have a hard time believing that FR would have adherents that want to worship a deity of magic?  I mean it's not like it's an obscure or niche area of interest

It's one of the bigger portfolios, and not having a full-time deity for it is a huge gaping hole in the FR Pantheon.  And don't start with Corellon.  He's a great deity and all, but he's a bit too eladrin-focused and out to vanquish evil (FRPG 151) to ever be worshipped by those of all alignments and races who work magic.  Mystra on the other hand, has had many different alignments over her various incarnations, but one thing has always remained true: she's had worshipers of all alignments and has backed evil-aligned spellcasters (such as Larloch) as well as good-aligned spellcasters.  She cares first-and-foremost about the Art (capital A).

Maybe this helps you to understand why some people in FR are passionate about Mystra.  It's not like there's not good cause for it.