Come on - the tag line is GOT TO HAVE not CAN HAVE.
D&D 5E Everybody's got to have a Patron deity. Where did it come from?
- Thread starter MoonSong
- Start date
Come on - the tag line is GOT TO HAVE not CAN HAVE.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
I was simply responding to the implication that the idea of everybody having a patron deity started with the Forgotten Realms. Clearly it didn't, since it was on the official character sheets long before that. You don't have to have a patron deity in any setting (that I'm aware of), including the Forgotten Realms. Particularly in AD&D, the system was very prescriptive, so if it appeared on the character sheet, their must be a reason.
Oh, and there is. From Deities and Demigods:
"No fantasy world is complete without the gods, mighty deities who influence the fates of men and move mortals about like chesspieces in their obscure games of power. Such figures can be perfect embodiments of the DM's control of the game. They are one of the Dungeon Master's most important tools in his or her shaping of events.
The gods serve an important purpose for players as well. Serving a deity is a significant part of AD&D, and all player characters should have a patron god. Alignment assumes its full importance when tied to the worship of a deity. The possibility of the invocation of divine wrath, should the player make a serious misstep, make alignment conduct a much more vital concern."
Of course, it then goes on to say:
"...everything contained within this book is guidelines not rules. DDG is an aid for the DM, not instructions. We would not presume to tell a Dungeon Master how to set up his or her campaign's religious system. Probably no facet of AD&D varies more from campaign to campaign than this, and that's the way it should be. Many DMs will choose to use pantheons or systems other than the ones included herin, or will alter the information presented. Feel free."
The second part, though, appears to be focused on the specific religion, and not on whether religion is important to AD&D, or on whether they should have a patron deity. The expectation after Deities & Demigods was that every character would have a patron deity, and that expectation is reflected on the official character sheet.
Even in the 2e Forgotten Realms supplement Faiths and Avatars it only says "most people...settle on a sort of patron deity..." So the most prescriptive was from the core AD&D rules, and not a setting. At least not the Forgotten Realms.
So the answer to the OP is 1980, with Deities & Demigods.
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Ilbranteloth
Explorer
It's been a while since I've read those portions. Good find. They probably made a big deal about it in the Avatar Crisis simply because it was the first time they had altered the power levels of a pantheon of gods since their original publication. Even if that was the "rule," in practice the gods were static up to that point. No doubt explained by the unchanging congregations of their churches and temples.
Lehrbuch
First Post
Exactly. This is what is meant by patronage in a polytheistic religion. It's very common, and it doesn't mean that you exclusively worship only one god. That would be crazy.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
For the record, AD&D 1e explicitly supported monotheistic campaign settings.
In the AD&D 1e Players Handbook, the illustration for the Cleric class is explicitly a Christian priest, featuring the symbol of the cross on his chest. He is radiating light and apparently casting a Resurrection spell.
In other words, a Christian priest is one of the ‘Clerics’ in a campaign setting that models Medieval Europe.
AD&D 1e officially and explicitly makes monotheistic campaign settings possible.
AD&D 1e instructed dungeon masters to homebrew their own campaign settings. And most did. The religion for the setting could be monotheistic or polytheistic, or whatever. For example, a monotheistic setting might only allow Clerics of the ‘true’ monotheistic religion to access high level Cleric spells, while any nonmonotheistic Clerics in that same setting could only access low level Cleric spells.
As far as I know, 1e didnt explicitly use the term ‘philosophical Cleric’. In that sense the presence of the Cleric class presumed some religion for a setting. At least the Cleric had a ‘deity’. Nevertheless, the *rules* gave the DM wide latitude to interpret the nature of the word ‘deity’ that was appropriate for the homebrew setting.
In the AD&D 1e Players Handbook, the illustration for the Cleric class is explicitly a Christian priest, featuring the symbol of the cross on his chest. He is radiating light and apparently casting a Resurrection spell.
In other words, a Christian priest is one of the ‘Clerics’ in a campaign setting that models Medieval Europe.
AD&D 1e officially and explicitly makes monotheistic campaign settings possible.
AD&D 1e instructed dungeon masters to homebrew their own campaign settings. And most did. The religion for the setting could be monotheistic or polytheistic, or whatever. For example, a monotheistic setting might only allow Clerics of the ‘true’ monotheistic religion to access high level Cleric spells, while any nonmonotheistic Clerics in that same setting could only access low level Cleric spells.
As far as I know, 1e didnt explicitly use the term ‘philosophical Cleric’. In that sense the presence of the Cleric class presumed some religion for a setting. At least the Cleric had a ‘deity’. Nevertheless, the *rules* gave the DM wide latitude to interpret the nature of the word ‘deity’ that was appropriate for the homebrew setting.
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Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
Most 1e dungeon masters homebrewed their own campaign setting and never used TSR campaign settings.
AD&D 1e only had three core rulebooks: Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual.
The 1e Deities & Demigods is noncore. It is officially an optional supplemental splatbook. The book itself makes clear its rules are noncore: "...everything contained within this book is guidelines not rules. DDG is an aid for the DM, not instructions.
"We would not presume to tell a Dungeon Master how to set up his or her campaign's religious system. Probably no facet of AD&D varies more from campaign to campaign than this, and that's the way it should be."
1e instructs DMs to invent their own worlds according to their own imaginations, and supply whatever religion was appropriate for that world.
AD&D 1e only had three core rulebooks: Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual.
The 1e Deities & Demigods is noncore. It is officially an optional supplemental splatbook. The book itself makes clear its rules are noncore: "...everything contained within this book is guidelines not rules. DDG is an aid for the DM, not instructions.
"We would not presume to tell a Dungeon Master how to set up his or her campaign's religious system. Probably no facet of AD&D varies more from campaign to campaign than this, and that's the way it should be."
1e instructs DMs to invent their own worlds according to their own imaginations, and supply whatever religion was appropriate for that world.
Sadras
Legend
Yeah, because modules/adventures/supplements came after...So for a few years/months you homebrewed until the company grew and could design adventures and supplements including wilderness guides. This is a very weak argument IMO. It is like saying D&D is strictly dungeon crawling because the wilderness guides were optional and not in the core
So the Dungeon Masters Guide does not provide guidelines and is not an aid to the DM?
All versions of D&D make monotheistic campaign settings possible. FIFY
Furthermore if the hero PC cleric reveres a deity, then evil clerics, by definition of the class, should also revere a deity, result being polytheism, unless you are willing to accept that they could be the same deity, just each cleric interpretting the dogma differently.
EDIT: @Yaarel - I have a question, I'm not a huge fan of tieflings and dragonborn and yet it doesn't stop me from running games without PC monstrous races. Also I remove resurrection and raised dead spells and the Lucky feat and add/adjust mechanics where I see fit to suit my vision for my homebrewed worlds.
What is really stopping you from doing the same on the section or fluff relating to deities? Why does the hobby have to cater to your specific needs and exclude all others who take and use what they want from the book?
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Cap'n Kobold
Hero
As you say: one if the clerics. That doesn't imply that it was a monotheistic setting even assuming that the entire setting was only limited to the Europe-analogue. Medieval Europe wasn't exactly monotheistic.
I can't speak for 1e: I don't remember enough of it. Cyclopedia is the closest to that that I know well.
I can however tell you that 5e does allow a cleric to follow a philosophy or other divine power source rather than having to worship a god.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Well, I wouldn't garner the intent from the art, as it wasn't always in line with the text. And I wouldn't say it "officially and explicitly" supported it as that would require some text that explicitly states it. It does note that the cleric class "bears a resemblance to religious orders of knighthood of medieval times." But that's about as far as it goes.
Looking at the text throughout the history of D&D, it's very clear that it's intended to be a world of at least two gods (good and evil), and really polytheistic (one god for each alignment a the minimum, but also that cultures worship a polytheistic pantheon).
For example, on pg 43 where cleric spells start, it has a "christian" cleric amongst other "clerics" from other cultures. Moreover, you'll note a lot of christian imagery when it comes to clerics through OD&D and 1e, because that's what artists (and players) are familiar with. The picture you show is directly under the rules for Resurrection Survival based on Constitution score, and shows a resurrection. The fact that it includes a cleric with a cross doesn't tell you anything about the rest of the world or their beliefs. You can read it that way, but a god in a polytheistic religion could just as easily use the sign of the cross. If it was a cleric with the hand of Torm it would still be a single cleric dedicated to a single deity in the picture, albeit it one in a polytheistic world.
The actual text strongly implies or explicitly states polytheism - "The cleric is dedicated to a deity, or deities, and at the same time a skilled combatant of arms." Of course, even in a polytheistic campaign, the cleric is still usually dedicated to a deity.
It also states they "can be of any alignment...depending on that of the deity that the cleric serves. Which by definition means it's a polytheistic world, or at least one with many gods, since each alignment has a different deity. Moreso, the original design of the planes of existence, also included in the PHB, included both the "heaven" and "hells" of the main monotheistic and polytheistic religions of earth. And myth and legend would tell you that the realm of Hades is ruled by the god Hades, for example.
Continue to the section on Character Spells and it states unambiguously "Clerical spells, including druidic, are bestowed by the gods..." Which also points to the druidic gods, which under the druid class it states, "They hold trees (particularly oak and ash), the sun and the moon as deities." So even if clerics served a single deity regardless of alignment (in which case, calling out alignment as a defining factor doesn't make sense), the druids had their own deities that granted them spells, and could judge them and take away their powers if they didn't maintain their true neutral position.
In the DMG, followers of clerics "might be fanatical followers of the same deity, (or deities)" and under acquisition of spells, "It is well known to all experienced players that clerics, unlike magic users, have their spells bestowed upon them by their respective deities."
"Each cleric must have his or her own deity, so when a new player opts to become a cleric (including a druid), you must inform them as to which deities exist in your campaign milieu and allow the individual to select which one of them he or she will serve."
Even when paying for a cleric to cast spells the prices are "based on characters of similar alignment and religion as the cleric requesting the service at the headquarters of the cleric in question." If there is but one religion, there is no need to call it out.
In the context of D&D as a whole, Gods, Demigods, & Heroes, further reinforced by Deities & Demigods it is clear that the intention and design was for a polytheistic approach. Even in the original brown box of OD&D, a cleric of 7th level (patriarch), had to choose law or chaos, and their abilities were tied to one or the other (implying a god for both). "Changing sides" as they put it, resulted in the loss of their clerical powers. Yet clerics of the other side received their spells the same as you.
So the concept of a world with multiple gods at the very least is the design intent and default of the game. Note that a world with several gods is different than a polytheistic religion, where a single religion recognizes many gods. But by the time AD&D was written, the polytheistic default had already been established in Gods, Demigods & Heroes, along with the explicit use of only fictional or ancient (usually mythological) religions. Not a single monotheistic religion has ever been published to my knowledge for any edition of D&D.
At the very least there was always a conflict between the gods of good and evil (sometimes law and chaos), because the clerics of the PCs and the good guys could not be worshipping the same god as the evil hordes of monsters. And while one might argue that they could have been fighting the nature of evil, demons, and such, it has always explicitly been a deity of some sort behind the evil creatures, with the same ability to grant spells and other divine powers to their clerics.
AD&D was released one book a year (since they were still being written primarily by one person), with the MM in 1977, PHB in 1978, DMG in 1979, and D&D in 1980. Deities & Demigods was considered a core book and not really "optional" by the design of the game (although it also explicitly stated that the DM should modify it to best suit what's in their campaign). As I pointed out in an earlier post, it went so far as to state that every character, not just clerics, should have a patron deity.
A year after Deities & Demigods was released, Dragon magazine published an article that ties a specific pantheon of gods to a specific campaign (Forgotten Realms, of course), and a year after that if I recall, Gary started detailing the gods of Greyhawk (following the publication of the World of Greyhawk. From that point forward, each setting had its own polytheistic pantheon, although the non-human pantheons tended to remain the same in each setting. Deities & Demigods was updated as Legends & Lore for the 2nd edition, the third and final time they would (re)publish much of the same mythological material for deities in the D&D worlds. After that, the material regarding the gods was worked into the core books themselves (Greyhawk Deities in 3e, a weird mix in 4e, and 5e presents a huge list of options - Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Eberron, Nonhuman, Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse).
So from the very first D&D release it was a game of two gods, and every release regarding deities since then not only reinforced that, but directed the game towards a polytheistic default.
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