The Gaming Den

Preamble: I'm not sure if anyone else has tried making a "fixed" Favored Soul yet, but I'd like to open the discussion to it now. I actually kinda like the class based on one campaign where I played an FS of Heironeous.

Discussion will be seperated between Fluff and Mechanics, with fluff going first because I'd like this to be a "top down" design (make the fluff, then make the mechanics for it).

The Favored Soul - The Fluff

The standard Favored Soul is honestly a rather weird class that's best described as a "Spontaneously casting Cleric with wings", and it's a gimped an poorly thought-out one at that.

For example, a Favored Soul is supposed to be some God's super-charged representative on Earth, but there aren't any restrictions on the spells that are known to them. That's right - a Favored Soul of the Death God could choose to take only light and fluffy healing spells all in the name of Death. It's horribly dissonant, made doubly mind-boggling by the fact that a Favored Soul's alignment still has to closely match their God.

So for the new Favored Soul, we're gonna revamp that fluff - a little. Favored Souls are still people who were born with divine powers, as opposed to Clerics who gain their powers through study and piety. Basically, Favored Souls are born with a "divine spark" from a Deity, that lets them do divine magical awesome.

Why would a Deity give out this "divine spark" though? Well, the truth is that this was the result of an experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong. For the Deities, the *idea* was to grant the spark to children would fall under the care of their churches and Clerics. The churches/Clerics would take care of the kid, groom him/her, and make sure they grow up to be an oustanding avatar of the Deity's will. The Favored Souls, on the other hand, would serve to inspire the "mere mortals" around them as a living miracle of sorts.

The problem is that this setup didn't always work out. Clerics often got jealous of the kid with wondrous powers that they didn't have to work their asses off for. Some kids also tended to rebel against their overseers, since "dogma from birth" can get rather boring. Also, there's also the fact that Favored Souls make very, very tempting targets for followers of a rival Deity. Nothing completes an undead Temple's decorations like a mummified Favored Soul of the Sun God who's now damned to eternally serve as the place's janitor.

Needless to say, because of all of these factors an awful lot of Favored Souls simply ended up dead before they reached their potential, and a lot of others tried to run away from their "destiny". Unfortunately, by the time the Gods realized this was a very bad idea, it was impossible for them to recall the divine sparks they've sent down to the mortal world, and it's become a lottery on who gets these sparks.

Hence, Favored Souls of the current age are just people with these Divine Sparks - whether or not they want it. If they develop this ability they can get access to better divine magics, even if they don't really believe in their "patron" Deity.

And the said Deities can't really stop the Favored Souls from doing this, because they can't recall the divine spark anymore. So if a Favored Soul of the Death God decides she wants to help little orphans, the Death God can't really do anything about it short of sending a horde of assassins after her. Hey, if Ur Priests can steal magic off the Deities, why not Favored Souls?

Anyway, the end result of this fluff (I hope) is something that's a bit more consistent, and opens up a ton of options for characters to work on in terms of their backgrounds.

You could have Favored Souls who are actively working towards "achieving their destiny" (by following their patrons), others who are actively trying to avoid it (a pacifist who is the Favored Soul of the God of War would be both ironic and amusing), or Favored Souls who have no idea they're even favored but get to play with neat divine magics anyway.

Not to mention that it also opens up a ton of plot hooks for the DM - mainly people who want the Favored Soul dead or who want to "guide" them towards their "destiny".

Mechanics

(To be constructed. However, obviously, a Favored Soul can now be of any alignment, even if it goes against their Deity's)

So, basically, Favored Soul == Celestial Exalted?

To some extent (I'm not too familiar with White Wolf lore and I just looked it up after you mentioned it).

The major difference is that they aren't supposed to start off superpowered compred to everyone else, and that the entire world isn't out to get them - mainly just the followers of a rival God (if they don't stray from their "Destiny") or their own (if they're being a rebel).

Sounds like a decent opportunity to introduce the Conduit of the Upper Planes. After all, picking up 'Celestial Wings' as a bonus Celestial feat is a pretty straightforward way to get the iconic look. For the more evilly inclined, there's already a Conduit of the Lower Planes.