[Nerull]

I have been batting around this idea for a new campaign world for months, but am finally wanting to write it all out and get things working on it. Here is the basic premise.

There are no gods. Instead, clerics worship the philosophies of good, evil, law, and chaos (these four factors tend to polarize things in the D&D universe, so it would make sense that these philosophies, without the influence of gods, would gather enough faith/power to provide spells to clerics). Druids and rangers worship the force of nature (leaving them essentially unchanged). The idea I toyed with is that there once were gods, but this is ages after the big war between them and their enemies, leaving no survivors (similar to the final battle in Norse mythology). Such things as demons, celestials, etc. still exist, so my justification is that they are survivors of that battle, living on the other planes.

However, the clerical concept raises some issues in my mind:

1. What would a world be like with no gods? At least in Dragonlance there is memory of the original gods. In this one, the war was ages ago, and no one remembers the old gods. What sociological changes would come about in a world where people either worship nature (and in the afterlife expect to be united with it) or they worship a philosophy (in which case, they can expect to go to a place with denizens of similar philosophical beliefs, and eventually earn a place as a celestial, demon, etc.)? People tend to "humanize" their deities, giving a symbol for people to identify with. Would the world be similar to the standard D&D world, or would it evolve completely different? What major changes would the players see when they started playing the campaign?
2. Tying into the above issue, what role would extraplanar beings play? I have pretty much decided that they will be incapable of obtaining godhood, no matter how many worshippers they gather (divine power is innate among the prime material inhabitants, with those who have a strong link to this being the ones to become either clerics or druids). An idea I have toyed with is the "symbiotic" relationship. There is power to be gained from having servitors on the Prime, especially since they have the divine power, so powerful extraplanar creatures would be interested in starting "cults" to gain followers who would advance their agendas. Looking at #1 above, clerics might need a face to attach to their beliefs. Thus, it would make sense that partnerships would evolve, so that even though clerics do not get their spells from these entities, they would still throw their support at them (opening up justification for prestige classes similar to the ones in the Book of Vile Darkness with the various thrall and disciple prestige classes). A real question might arise from this: would people know that there are philosophies at work? They might worship these beings as gods, but since they symbolize certain alignments, their worship might power the philosophies (thus, the power of their faith gets funneled out to the philosophy instead of the object of the worship). Finally, if the philosophies are attaching faces to their beliefs, then what about the force of nature? While druids can simply point to the natural world, it helps to have the living symbol present. Maybe the elemental beings, in this case?
3. How would the classes be revised? Clerics of Good and Evil can use the normal class, as I could see them using positive and negative energy (respectively) as a part of their faith. However, in such a case, I would probably add the Good and Evil designators to spells like the Cure/Inflict spells, etc. to prevent the opposite alignment from using them (good would have access to positive energy, evil would have access to negative energy). However, how about clerics of Law and Chaos? If positive and negative energy are attached to good and evil, then why would they use only one of them (one of the things that I hate about the cleric is that they must choose to use one or the other if they are neutral). I could just change the rule and allow them to do both, but I was thinking about scrapping their ability to turn undead and to spontaneously cast. I was considering giving them an extra domain (with the special ability) and an extra domain spell per spell level (2 per level, instead of 1) to compensate for the missing abilities. What about the paladin and blackguard? It would make sense to have a divine warrior type as a class (they are also in touch with their philosophy, but choose a more martial path), but it seems like there would then have to be 4 different versions of the class, one for each of the four philosophies. Would it be a full class (like the paladin) or a prestige class (like the blackguard)? What would be the changes in their abilities? I know the special mount/followers are out (they are gifts from the gods), and I am thinking of easing the restrictions to compensate (for example, paladin does not get the warhorse, but can be any good alignment and can multiclass freely). What would the various abilities of these four classes/prestige classes be?

Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated, as I had no idea when I took this up just how many factors I would have to consider.

Thank you in advance for any posts.