Your favourite world narrative / mythology twists

[77IM]

True gods don't have names; anything concrete and comprehensible enough to be labelled with a name isn't a god, just a powerful spirit (archfey, archdevil, demon prince, primordial, etc.) or an avatar or demigod. Instead, the gods are known by distinctive titles like "The Morning Lord" and "Mother Night."


Players are free to come up with their own gods within this framework. So if your cleric worships Thor, then really "Thor" is probably an avatar of the Storm Father.

 

[BookBarbarian]

True gods don't have names; anything concrete and comprehensible enough to be labelled with a name isn't a god, just a powerful spirit (archfey, archdevil, demon prince, primordial, etc.) or an avatar or demigod. Instead, the gods are known by distinctive titles like "The Morning Lord" and "Mother Night."


Players are free to come up with their own gods within this framework. So if your cleric worships Thor, then really "Thor" is probably an avatar of the Storm Father.

Uh... Thor is literally just "Thunder."

It's not a name at all.

 

[dave2008]

In my campaigns we have religions, not gods. I think the trope of gods as big monsters is simplistic, juvenile, and frankly uninteresting. A religion is a far more complex and ethereal thing to handle, and allows for far more nuance (see Eberron, Al-Qadim approaches).

That is very un-nuanced understanding of gods a monsters

Actually, I have always thought of gods as monster (think Princess Mononoke and similiar) as potentially being very complex, elaborate, and nuanced. To me that is potentially more interesting then untouchable "gods." It is really all in how you imagine and support the concept. I don't think one is inherently more or less complex and interesting than the other. After all, potentially the only difference would be whether or not you can actually fight a "god." Everything else could be the same and thus equally as interesting. Though I guess being able to actually challenge a god does give it a layer of additional complexity that the other doesn't have.

 

[Reynard]

A few I have used over the years:

Ogres are the offspring of hags and noble men the hags have been able to corrupt. They are rare and stories involving them have a dark fairy tale feel.

I used gnolls as my "Klingon" race (noble, warlike, honrobound, etc..) inspired more by the Wolfen of Palladium fantasy than the hyena men of D&D.

Centaurs are the result of an army of knights mistreating their horses and being cursed by the goddess of horses. The wives and lovers of the knights begged to have their men back and so the goddess transformed them into centaur, too. Their society is very pious and chivalric and many paladins are found among their number.

 

[Dioltach]

Halflings are the descendants of a slave race created by the elves. They revolted and escaped, and to this day the races are enemies and will kill each other on sight.

 

[77IM]

Trolls and hags are the same species; trolls are the males, hags are the females.

 

[Hussar]

I always liked the Scarred Lands twist on elves - the elven god was killed which means elves can no longer reproduce. All elves in SL are the last generation and they know it. How they react to that knowledge really drives the story.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The BBEG Loch Lord whose hordes the party has been slogging through to get to is actually senile. He spends his days researching powerful new spells...like Pyrotechnics, Shocking Grasp and Stinking Cloud.

(All of which he already knows- the tomes he pores over are his own.)

The question is, then, who is the REAL power behind the dark forces that threaten civilization?




*****


Flipside of the above: the ruler whose representatives recruited the PCs to his forces battling evil here, there, and everywhere is actually an evil would-be world conquerer.

So those border bandits the party wiped out last year? Might just have been wardens from the neighboring kingdom.

Etc.

 

[nickostopheles]

I’ve mostly been a player for the past 30 yrs so asI get back into D&D and 5E for the first time I want to run these worlds atsome point.

I’M ONLY HUMAN… ISH

There are only human societies. All demihumans areactually the product of some kind of supernatural interaction whether it ismagical accident/infection, ate some fey food, unusual parentage, etc. They don’thave societies of their own and their kids are as likely to appear ordinaryhuman as their own particular demihuman flavor.

Much of the land is wild and all intelligentsupernatural creatures have weird fairy tale-ish sense of morality/thinking. Think- Dresden Files, fairy tales, Hellboy, Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell

I’d love to run a D&D version of Hellboy/BPRDin a setting like this.

LOOSELY BASED ON…

Something loosely based on

Max Gladstone’s the Craft Sequence books.

Bas Lag (China Mieville) world vibe.

ALTERED MAGICS

The nature of the magic is more indicated by theattribute you use rather than what you think about the source of your magic.

Wizards – Magic based upon intellect (INT),calculation. Sort of scientific magics. Representing enlightenment values.

Sorcerers/bards/paladins/warlocks – Magic basedupon passion/emotion (CHA). Representing the romantic movement in its values. LordByron and rock and roll.

Clerics/druids/rangers/monk (ki) – Magic basedupon the insight and intuition of the calm and clear mind (WIS). Representing mindfulness,meditation, and mystical values. Buddhist-ish.

So you can be a holy wizard who focuses on divinearrangements of things.

You can be an arcane cleric who uses theirintuition and calm self-control to direct the powers of the universe.

It would take a considerable re-naming/re-thinkingof the classes to make it fit the world.

But I like the nugget as it can make for someinteresting magic as metaphor for world philosophy dynamics.

 

[Staccat0]

That is very un-nuanced understanding of gods a monsters

Actually, I have always thought of gods as monster (think Princess Mononoke and similiar) as potentially being very complex, elaborate, and nuanced. To me that is potentially more interesting then untouchable "gods." It is really all in how you imagine and support the concept. I don't think one is inherently more or less complex and interesting than the other. After all, potentially the only difference would be whether or not you can actually fight a "god." Everything else could be the same and thus equally as interesting. Though I guess being able to actually challenge a god does give it a layer of additional complexity that the other doesn't have.

My next campaign I am working on as a side project is a mega-dungeon with Miyazaki style gods representing aspects of the dungeon. It's gonna be so dope.