Do You Use the Core Pantheon?

[mhacdebhandia]

No, and I never would. I'm not fond of the Greyhawk pantheon, even in its simplified core form.

 

[Pseudonym]

I stick with the gods of the world I am using; which hasn't been Greyhawk in a long, long time. I'm gearing up for Eberron now, so I'm going to use those deities rather than the core; though I'm going to put Bahamut and Tiamat in there as well.

 

[Benben]

D&D Core (Greyhawk): Absolutely not. I am not fond of that pantheon, although (contact)'s story hour has warmed be up some. I do use those nonhuman dieties that got shipped over to Forgotten Realm's pantheon.

 

[BOZ]

depends - if i have a pantheon already made up, then i use that. if i'm running in a pregen world with its own gods, i use them. when i don't have either of those, then i would go to the default.

hey erik, speaking of gods, would this be a good place to ask you about an idea i have for a Dragon mag article?

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

For my Greyhawk game -- yes, but now that we're up in higher levels & interacting with gods more often, each successive revelation about their nature & origins moves the cosmology further and further away from the core!

For the Masters and Minions series, we've used the core pantheon but referred to them just by their descriptors, not their proper names: the God of Retribution, the Witch Goddess. In the tournaments we've run, some old Greyhawkers caught & enjoyed the reference, while others had no problem getting into the "generic" names.

We did this for a couple of reasons. First, the goal of the series is to fit into the widest possible range of games by remaining faithful to the D&D essentials. Not every campaign uses Pelor, but most will have a Sun God, who might well be the same deity with different names in each universes.

Second, I found the stripped-down versions of the name to be strangely evocative, like when I walked into a store the other day that was playing a studio demo of a Beatles song: taking away the super-familiar outer layer gave me a fresh appreciation of the essence.

And lastly, of course, the proper names are core, but not OGL

I look forward to whatever you do with this research, Erik - you are the man!

 

[kerakus]

I run a homebrew campaign but still utilize the core pantheon, mostly for ease of reference and saving myself some work. Hextor is heavily prominent with an uneasy alliance with the PC's kingdom, and featuring a number of converts among the hobgoblin tribes. Vecna is a behind the scenes manipulator of much of what is currently going on in the campaign. The party's cleric follows Boccob, but since he's the "Uncaring God" he hasn't played a significant role in the campaign.

One thing that I did for most of the pantheon is set up a number of factions and divisions in the churches based on the various combinations of domains. For example, the branch of the church of Pelor whose followers choose the Healing and Sun domains are ardent foes of the undead, turning their healing spells into attacks against the undead and going on holy crusades against the undead. Meanwhile, the followers of the Good/Healing branch are the community priests who tend the lay worshippers, conduct marriages, etc. It creates conflict among followers of the same god and makes for interesting roleplaying potential.

Q

 

[dvvega]

I used to run Greyhawk, all the time, and of course I used the Core Pantheon there ... in fact I knew it to the nth deity "way back then".

When 3.0 came out I made a conscious decision to not buy world supplements immediately, but rather brew my own world. It started out small, and grew as time progressed. A basic pantheon for the starting area is what I created for that.

 

[Guillaume]

Not really. I have been running my campaigns in a homebrew with a dualistic religion. The celrics get access to different domains depending on the organisation within the church they belong to.

 

[reanjr]

Let's call this market research.

Do you use the core pantheon? If so, which gods from it feature prominently in your campaigns?

Thanks,

Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon

Nope, I use campaign specific deities (Kingdoms of Kalamr) or my own in a homebrew.

 

[Umbran]

Nope. I run homebrew, and I prefer to use religion as a world-building tool, so I build new pantheons to reflect the flavors I want to see in the world.