D&D 5E Everybody's got to have a Patron deity. Where did it come from?

[The Crimson Binome]

Not strictly true.

Treasure: None
Equipment: None
Weapons: None
Armour: None
Hair (Length + Colour): None
Retainers: None
Loyalties: None
Feats: None
Spells: None
Notes: None
...etc

I'm not familiar with that character sheet. In any case, a lack of treasure or equipment would be a temporary measure, and you would still have something to write in the "Hair" field if your character was bald.

I'm not saying that you could never have an atheistic, non-mammalian, or eye-less character. I'm just saying that the default assumptions for a character are that they have hair and eyes and worship one of the many gods of the setting, which is why the character sheet was presented as it was.

 

[Sadras]

I'm just saying that the default assumptions for a character are that they have hair and eyes and worship one of the many gods of the setting, which is why the character sheet was presented as it was.

Fair enough

Although in my experience it is common for players to play characters with many 21st century values/beliefs and therefore when it comes to selecting a patron deity (particularly if they are not a divine spellcaster) to rather skip past/ignore that section on the character sheet.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm not familiar with that character sheet. In any case, a lack of treasure or equipment would be a temporary measure, and you would still have something to write in the "Hair" field if your character was bald.

And "None" is an acceptable thing to write in the Feats, Spells, Patron Deities and retainers fields isn't it? Assuming that you have to put something there rather than being able to leave it blank.

I'm not saying that you could never have an atheistic, non-mammalian, or eye-less character. I'm just saying that the default assumptions for a character are that they have hair and eyes and worship one of the many gods of the setting, which is why the character sheet was presented as it was.

I think that starting with the default assumption that a character has feats, retainers, patron deities and suchlike is probably what is leading you astray here.

In FR it would be common to fill the Patron Deity field in. Less common in Eberron, and probably quite rare for dark Sun for example.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And "None" is an acceptable thing to write in the Feats, Spells, Patron Deities and retainers fields isn't it? Assuming that you have to put something there rather than being able to leave it blank.

If you're playing 3E or 4E, you could not possibly have a character without Feats, so that would not be acceptable. I've never seen an official character sheet for 5E, so I don't know if there's a section explicitly for Feats, or whether they stick it down under a generic Notes section.

In FR it would be common to fill the Patron Deity field in. Less common in Eberron, and probably quite rare for dark Sun for example.

I'm pretty sure that Dark Sun has its own character sheet variant, and I wouldn't be surprised if it omitted that field.

 

[Staffan]

In 1e Forgotten Realms, it talks about the different gods as having different religions (as opposed to being aspects of the same over-arching religion). It also talks about which gods are often worshiped by which classes, but it does leave the "none of the above" option open. It also talks about praying to a different god if you're doing something related to that god's influence (the example used is a group of adventures preparing for a night-time raid and making an offering to Selune).

There's nothing much about gods in the 1e PHB - it just mentions them in the cleric class description. There's not much in the DMG either, except in the context of clerics - except for a section on divine intervention. That section mentions, off-handedly, that "Serving some deity is an integral part of AD&D."

 

[S'mon]

Recently [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] mentioned in the FR thread that "everybody picks a patron" is intrinsic to D&D and not a Realms thing, and it got me wondering about where did it come from.

No, it is specifically a Realms thing.

 

[BoldItalic]

It's a hook for DMs, like ideals and flaws.

It allows power-mad DMs to coerce players by saying "Your deity demands this of you." and the player has no comeback because the DM plays all the deities and therefore holds all the cards. The DM can't do that if the PC doesn't have a deity.

For DMs who aren't in the business of coercion, it provides an in-game mechanism to reward players. "Your deity is pleased and grants you this favour." Again, this is the deity as the in-game face of the DM but this time a more benevolent one.

So the question "what is your patron deity?" is really "what fiction would you like the DM to represent in the narrative?"

 

[Ancalagon]

This would be extremely setting dependent wouldn't it?

In yoon-suin, the Yellow City has many names, and one of them is the "City of Gods" due to the ridiculously high amounts of shrines and temples to various deities in the city, numbering in the several hundreds. This is kind of fun because you can have a god/ess of *anything.

I've only created several dozens

- The Bull of Battle (*not* war), holy colors are black and red, prefers the sacrifice of insect,  name is private.  Strongly associated with your house. Values courage and will heal warriors who's fights have damaged their bodies - or mind.
 
- Parkij, the Crane of Hunger. Concerned with famine.  Holy color is this old yellowed bone shade.  Demands sacrifice of food (lots of it). Stoic.
 
-  Phtol, the lady of the dawn. Crane-aspected. Holy colors are pink and yellow. Morning and dreams. Sacrifice of eels. Intense dislike of the crane of hunger, (but Followers of Parkij are merely contemptuous), shrine facing each other across an arm of the river.  Domains granted are light or knowledge (dreams bring insight).  Given prayers by those who hope to wake up with insight or inspiration.

-  Yato, hoarder of secrets. A mole.  Wine red is his sacred color.  He demands the sacrifice of *hands* (any hands will do, not just yours!).  Grants the domain of knowledge or trickery.  Prayed to by those looking to discover secrets and keep them for themselves.   Shrine on the Red Bank
 
- Dafe the tailor beetle, god of tailoring.  Demands sacrifice of bones.  Any color is acceptable but the cut has to be impeccable.  Known to withdraw spells from shabby priests.

Vanuk, the retributer.  aka "Justice Toad" by his detractors.  A god of justice, particularly just vengeance and punishment.  Accepts sacrifices of the guilty, who's heads are crushed with a great hammer.   Dress in dark green.   Followed by many vigilantes and crusading paladins.  Holy men go out and dispense justice, sometimes indiscriminately.  Quite popular. Ows a big favor to Ghost Maker. Temple in the Fish District.

WoBek Jozefa: A donkey. God of swearing and of urgently telling people to stop before they hurt themselves or cause a scene. "medium" gray is their holy color. Shrine in the Old Quarters

etc etc

 

[Ath'kethin]

And back in the original publication of the game in '74, there were no gods at all, just alignments.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I'm not a fan of this, either. It's a weird mono-theistic bent to a polytheistic culture. In a world where there are many gods the average person would seek to cull favor with many of them. Only the most fervent would opt to devote their worship to a single god and ignore or chide the others.