D&D 5E Need advice: Making Religions, Not Just "Here's The Gods. Pick One"

Whatever you come up with, your "introductory notes" for players starting a new campaign in your world should probably have just one or two easy-to-understand sentences for each religion. Players won't absorb or remember more than this until they have been playing in the world for a while (same thing goes for just about all campaign element details). If they want to know more based on those first sentences then great, you've crafted a sharp hook!

Yes, I would definitely not pour all the lore on them at once. It is something that you want to spread out across the campaign. A simple example of this, would be when the players explore a dungeon, and stumble upon an old statue of one of the gods. You describe what it looks like, what its symbols are, and perhaps have the players roll knowledge checks to see if they know the name of the god in case they want to know more. It can simply be set dressing, but it is consistent set dressing that shows up throughout the campaign.

When the players arrive on a city square, its not just a generic square, but there's a big temple in the middle, with statues of gods that they recognize. When an npc wishes the players a safe journey, he might invoke a particular god, and that name might show up multiple times. You don't have to force it down their throats, but it can be part of the description that brings the world to life. That is how I prefer to use it.

My only advice is to keep something for the faithless to do. It's highly likely that a few of your players are only going to be interested in your religions insofar as which ones have the most treasure to rob or the best discounts on healing services. And that's okay too.

Indeed. Which is why churches in my campaign often keep valuable relics, which have an interesting backstory of their own. It is entirely up to the players to treat this relic with respect, or to steal it and sell it.

I introduced such a quest to my players a while back, where an excommunicated monk asked them to steal the Holy Book of Saint Germaine for him. He felt that the truth should not be hidden from the public, and he wanted to study the writings of the saint. They were free to sell the rest of the book (the cover was decorated with gold and gems), he just wanted the pages. But my players declined, because it was very dangerous, and they didn't trust the monk, and because it was sacrilege. They didn't want to steal from a church, because they felt bad about it, and it might bring them bad luck.
 
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Salamandyr

Adventurer
My other piece of advice would be to track down the short story "Lean Times in Lankhmar" which is just about the best treatment of religion and what can be done with them in a fantasy campaign.
 

Water Bob

Adventurer
I want to create religious systems and doctrines within D&D, and stay out of the traditional pantheon systems.

There will, of course, be the gods around, but a lot of it feels like comic book hero discussions. "Which is better: Lathander or Pharasma?" I want to move from there to developing actual doctrines, especially in a world where all of the gods can exist and be real, or just some of them, or even none of them.

Any advice?

This is exactly the way gods are treated in Mongoose's 3.5 d20 based Conan The Barbarian game. There are no stats for gods. Gods are treated like they are in real life. If the characters travel through a winter storm that is unexpectedly short, then a character may see that as proof of his god's favor.

Some gods worshiped by a people may actually be demon--not a god.

The supplemental rule book, pictured below, doesn't have any stats for avatars or anything like that. Instead, it gives the GM general ideas for running a cult or religion under that god in a game. The GM is encouraged to take the guidelines and expand upon them, using his own creativity, making the developed religions unique to his game.

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TerraDave

5ever, or until 2024
Man, too much.

One thing you might want to do: start with the suffering. Gods are important in places where there's uncertainty, and uncertainty becomes important in places that can cause a lot of pain and suffering. This is why you have gods of agriculture, of the hunt, of death and life - these are beings you can ask to give you more certainty over some very important things in your life.

So, like, if your campaign world involves an army of orcs beating down the walls of civilization, you might just have a war god around locally who is the most important - a god of civilization and protection who stands as a bullwark of protection against a barbarian army. Perhaps gods of stonework and law become key in this society (things that spare them from the orc hoard outside the massive walls). If it's a walled city, consider gods of disease/healing, and trade/famine as well.

Alternately, if your campaign world is, I dunno, about a necromancer causing a global ice age, you could think of gods of life and fire and light vs. gods of death and cold and darkness. Agricultural gods and gods of the wilderness might be in opposition.

That, at least, can give you a start, and anchor your pantheon in the stuff your campaign world really cares about, rather than going for just a big list of assorted things that, for some reason, have a divine watcher, but nobody really knows/cares/etc.

Talk about too much! Did you read his post? He doesn't want your sticking pointless gods. He wants actual religion.

You should at least read the post before replying.

EDIT: :cool:
 
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TerraDave

5ever, or until 2024
I want to create religious systems and doctrines within D&D, and stay out of the traditional pantheon systems.

...

Then you should do exactly that!

For years I used the "Holy Church" as the main human religion. Loosely based on Catholicism, I could take whatever I wanted and adopt it as needed. It worked really well.

It is true that details--on religions, particular gods, and so forth--may not be that important in play. If you like this stuff or know you will use it, then dive in. but you can actually have pretty minimal religion in play, and its fine. You can also make stuff as you go along when you actually need it.
 

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
Talk about too much! Did you read his post? He doesn't want your sticking pointless gods. He wants actual religion.

You should at least read the post before replying.

EDIT: :cool:

...just in case it wasn't clear, this is where the systems and doctrines come from.

You start with the suffering and you have a god of war and it follows that things like mandatory military service is a virtue and cowardice is worse than murder and breaking the law is like breaking The Law, the divine covenant that protects your people from the terrors beyond its walls.

Basically: gods that arise out of the needs of your populace help show that doing things in service to those needs is to be praised, and doing things counter to those needs is to be condemned.
 

TerraDave

5ever, or until 2024
...just in case it wasn't clear, this is where the systems and doctrines come from.

You start with the suffering and you have a god of war and it follows that things like mandatory military service is a virtue and cowardice is worse than murder and breaking the law is like breaking The Law, the divine covenant that protects your people from the terrors beyond its walls.

Basically: gods that arise out of the needs of your populace help show that doing things in service to those needs is to be praised, and doing things counter to those needs is to be condemned.

LOL!

Ok, we should be nice. I won't try to debate the anthropology. Its interesting. But it might be too much.
 

Eltab

Lord of the Hidden Layer
4e Divine Power has some fluff material - including creating a home-game pantheon - that might help, or at least trigger inspiration.
 

ChrisCarlson

First Post
Just spitballin' here...

What if you devised a homebrew system that treated each available faith similarly to backgrounds? In that, they provide one or more "ribbon features". These would help guide/describe the characters, because of how/why they are drawn to (and/or identify with) a particular faith?

Example: So someone closely identifying with an agricultural deity/faith could have a natural gift of a green thumb. Or is the salt of the earth type (gets along well with the peasantry). Or any number of other things that may go towards explaining why they connect so well with that faith.
 

Establish the relationship between the gods.

Here's a thought;

As an example, let's say your world has 12 god/desses (gods for the sake of brevity). And that each god has one of the months as its own. During its "home" month, certain domain magics have precedence over others, and outside of that month, especially on a month belonging to a God whose role is in opposition, their magic fades.

Let's say that August is the month of Harvest, and January is the month of rebirth.

That could mean that the god of August is the god of Reaping, symbolising the scythe and the death (cutting) of the crops.

January is the start of the year and so the god of January is the god of Rebirth.

Potentially January is the month where necromancy is strongest due to the proximity of the death of the old year and the birth of the new; the veil between death and life is thinnest then, and so necromancy spells like Raise Dead, Speak With Dead, etc are at their most potent.

August meanwhile, despite its Reaping connotations, represents Healing. The harvest is cut down in order to provide sustenance for the months ahead, and so while its god is the Reaping god, he nonetheless provides power for spells such as Goodberry, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, etc.

This would affect how the religions following each God would interact with one another. Each church would recognise every other church as they are all symbiotically linked with one another, as each month is linked to the next.

September could represent the god of contests, or war, as once the fields are harvested they are ripe for use as battlefields or fields of contests such as races, wrestling, and gatherings of people. This month's god could therefore be not a god of war but a god of physical excellence. Warriors would be drawn to him, but so would monks, and potentially bards or people connected to sociability due to the presence of large spectacles of physical prowess. Perhaps he is the Gaming God, and represents Luck, the luck that every combatant/contestant seeks.

April could be the spring month. Like January, new life is seen in the spring, but unlike January which is a metaphysical new life, April is earthbound fecundity. The god of April could be the god of love, sensuality, and passion.

And so on.

As a religion, how would this play out?

Mechanically, in game, in each "home" month, perhaps only then could spells of level 6 or higher be cast. This would affect not just clerical magic but all magic that falls within that month's influence. Arcane, Wild Magic, the whole nine yards.

Perhaps for three months this effect carries on so that January is most potent in January, powerful in February, strong in March, and average between April and June, while being weak between July and September and weakest from October to the year's end.

The only spell casters unlimited by this would be Warlocks, who draw their power not from the Calendar (as you might dub the pantheon), but from entities outside, literally, of Time. They would be seen as outsiders, and may have to dress their displays of power in accordance with the accepted flow of power or risk a stoning from the devout. Perhaps this conflict is a central tenet of faith for all churches within the Calendar and frames the worldview of the people, fearing the end of time as being a chaos that goes against the order of the world.

In this case, old age would be valued. The elderly exemplify the 'correct' passage of time, with elders being accorded the greatest honour. Younger citizens would not be found in places of high honour. This in itself might make activity that limits long life (such as adventuring due to its dangers) something that is frowned upon. Or perhaps valued - the adventurers operate on the borders and edges of the regulated world keeping the normal citizenry protected from the godless, chaotic forces of the world.

Each church would have its own rituals and its own "companion" churches with which they share power - eg August is the third month of June's influence, the second month of July's, and would be connected to September and October as its own three month power run months.

So those August churches would control reaping - perhaps in August people would typically observe rites of cleansing and decluttering (healing their own messiness and untidiness) and giving to charity or the needy (healing others); beggars would benefit from this largesse for three months but come November would be chased away.

As September is August's second month, the festivities that take place in that month draw a lot of the charitable giving, with contests among the less fortunate providing the opportunity to win fame and favour, a way out of poverty.

October might be the month of Shedding. The trees lose their leaves, and their naked boughs start to show their true forms, thus making it the month of the god of divination, of seeing the true essence of things.

This might feed into August's influence as being the month when those unfortunate are sorted from those unworthy. It might be a time for excessive displays of devotion as a consequence. It feeds into September's Luck aspect as ameliorating luck with foresight - October's churches are practical folks, perhaps quite fearful.

And so on.

As I say, just a thought, but all of that came from a concept of what the gods represent.
 

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