D&D General The Generic Deities of D&D

[wingsandsword]

the Elven Gods in part or in whole are worshipped in the Forgotten Realm, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Exandia, Nerath, maybe briefly Dragonlance (I read somewhere that Drow had invaded Dragonlance to spread Lolths worship, but got kicked out), and sort of almost Eberron.

I'm not quite sure how canonical Dungeons and Dragons Online is, but in DDO, Lolth managed to forcibly insert herself into Eberron in the Menace of the Underdark expansion that introduced Forgotten Realms to DDO.

The Spinner of Shadows, a powerful demonic drider, had long been imprisoned in Khyber. . .and Lolth managed to find a way to build a planar connection from her abyssal lair in the Demonweb through to Eberron, and attempted to turn the Spinner of Shadows into an aspect of her, giving her deific access to Eberron.

The PC's prevent this (as adding Lolth as an actual deity in Eberron would be a rather large, world-shaking event for a setting that's in a sort of permanent stasis as it has no official metaplot), but the planar connection is still open, which is the plot device that allows travel between Eberron and the Realms in the game, and that would mean that Lolth could at least keep trying to influence Eberron in the future and find a new way to gain access to that world.

 

[Li Shenron]

I absolutely love the mess!

I like that there are overlappings, inconsistencies, duplicates, asymmetries, vacancies, different versions of the same deity... all this stuff contributes to never really knowing the truth and therefore making religion a myth.

 

[Shiroiken]

That's actually one of the things I haven't liked. I feel that each setting needs its own deities, even non-human ones, rather than trying to make them fit the setting.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Like RuinExplorer, I'm of the opinion the way most D&D settings model religion is very clumsy and awkward. Sure, it doesn't model polytheism correctly (as pointed out, not enough of deities useful to the average man) but it is also terribly anachronistic. In societies modelled off medieval and early modern in sophistication (like the Forgotten Realms) why is the religion resembling more primitive hearth style gods of ancient times. Why do no settings actually attempt to model the far more interesting religious developments of late antiquity and beyond?

My approach is more like Eberron's (which IMO is far better), no actual proof that the gods truly exist, allowing you to build interesting and complex religious traditions with histories and links to each other. Far better that than the weird disconnected hodgepodge of deities most settings seem to have.

 

[dave2008]

Far better that than the weird disconnected hodgepodge of deities most settings seem to have.

Not better, just different. It is not wise to assume that what you prefer is "better."

As for why the D&D settings don't have more "modern" religions, there are a couple of points:

1. They do. You already pointed out Eberron, and the DMG discuss other religious options for your campaign world.
2. Not all of our contemporary religions are as "modern" as you so seem to think. Several contemporary religions today are polytheistic, animistic or similar. These religions didn't die out with the roman empire. Indeed, even many of our monotheistic religions are quite muddy with celestial beings akin to a pantheon of divine entities. And some people take all or parts of these religions as absolute truth.
3. In a setting that assumes the gods are real and they even actively engage with mortals, it would be rather odd for people to ignore all of that and establish new religions or completely ignore the gods.
4. As noted in #2, but it is worth repeating / clarifying: we have a disconnected hodgepodge of deities in our RL "modern" world.

 

[Minigiant]

4E's Dawn War pantheon was ironically on of the pantheons most similar to a real world pantheons. The gods are tied to a domain and/or aspect of the world then made patrons of race. All the individual racial pantheons are reduced to exarchs, either as aspects of the main god or ascended demigod and scions. So they feel more like the modern way people see pantheons.

It would be cool if WOTC were to one day make a new setting with a new pantheon and not wuss out on which one created humans though. It would be cool if the human creator god was the god of thunder or the sea or beasts or laser beams.

 

[Bupp]

When I'm world building I model it that instead of each god having its own temples and churches, the pantheon is worshiped as a whole. Each temple will have shrines to each of the gods within. I tend to make the major racial gods part of the main pantheon. Moradin may be the god of the dwarves, but he's also the god of the forge (and war ).

In you wanted to go all the way with a Greek/Norse-style petty, vindictive, lustful and flawed pantheon, you could take the ''core'' deities, add the main racial gods of each race to the list, and have all other ''race-specific gods of the same folio as a core deity'' be the children/creations/born-of-the-blood-of X and working as exarch/demi deities/archon of their progenitors...

I really like this idea and am using it moving forward.

 

[atanakar]

When I'm world building I model it that instead of each god having its own temples and churches, the pantheon is worshiped as a whole. Each temple will have shrines to each of the gods within. I tend to make the major racial gods part of the main pantheon. Moradin may be the god of the dwarves, but he's also the god of the forge (and war ).

I do the same. The players worship their local pantheon at temples. A statues for each god in the same building. In my current campaign the temples are circular with alcoves on the perimeter. There are no masses and large ceremonies inside the temples. These are done outside during festivals and special occasions. Going to church once a week is not a thing.

Evil goods have the same treatment, except that they are banned, so the secret worshippers built underground or hidden temples in buildings.

And there are Boss Gods: a celestial couple and an infernal couple. Neither member of the couples is above the other.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But I guess there's that whole Arachne thing...

Bit of random lore I learned about the Arachne myth?

The main source we have for that myth comes from a writer who had a real hatred for authority figures (like the politicians who kicked him out of cities and such), and when looking at their collected works, they always tried to make the gods seem unreasonable and cruel while the mortals were repressed geniuses who were always unjustly punished.

Which is why the Arachne myth is so out of character for Athena.

 

[Thakazum]

A significant proportion of pre-1990s D&D players were firm in their various faiths.

Curious. Where does this information come from? My pre-90s experience consisted of non-gamers and the media hyping up the Satanic Panic.