D&D General Is there an increase in "godless" campaign settings?

[Yaarel]

what about a more master apprentice relationship?

The master-apprentice relationship is more so an animistic worldview.

Notably, the apprentices inherently have their own magical power, just like the master has. The master is teaching them how to use their power safely and effectively.

For example in premodern Scotland, elves taught witches how to do magic.

Somewhat similarly, in modern Scandinavia, Sami shamans describe their ongoing visions of nature beings who teach them how to wield magic.

In the Nordic view, every being has mindforce, including features of nature, including humans. (Moreorless psionic magic.)

also by servent, I mean the seemingly endless number of spiritual creatures that sort of work for the gods but are less like those things that punish oathbreakers of the Hellenics or the valkyries who pick the dead.

Regarding servants of gods, is there a reason to not use D&D Angels?

 

[Thunder Brother]

Sumeria.

When the Akkadians took over they recontextualized the entire religion of Sumeria to better match their own. "Tiamat", a river-goddess was the cause of strife and pain, mother of monsters, and curses. The new "Head God" of the joint-pantheon is the Akkadian God who slew Tiamat in order to protect all Sumerians. "We killed your evil river god to save you. You're welcome. Now worship the new Ruler-God! Yaaaaay!"

Meanwhile Tiamat was just a river-spirit in the original Sumerian Religion. No evil or wickedness, just water flowing from one place to another.

But it was enough to cause big problems for the priesthood which were, like, the right hand of politics in the region.

Different cultures did it differently, of course.

Fascinating, I never knew that. Good inspiration for some fantasy worldbuilding.

 

[Yora]

You also had public cults, which were hugely important in Roman society, and relevant in Greece as well, to my knowledge. If these public festivals would be regarded as worship of the gods that were honored could be a matter of subjective judgement. But their role was massively important as team-building exercises and for community building.
Which is what got the Christians into hot water. Refusing to participate in public rituals to honor the gods of Rome was seen as anti-social behavior that openly rejected both the Roman state and society. A kind of non-violent rebellion against the state and disruptive of the social fabric.

 

[Steampunkette]

It still does not get the concept of worship right, at least when you look at older faiths like in Rome.
People didn't really worship the gods, at least according to the modern definition, but bargained with them when they needed their help. A person can go nearly his entire life without offering anything to the god of battle except once when war was coming to his town and this is totally ok and expected.

In effect people knew the local deities (which can come from a mix of pantheons in border regions) and whenever they wanted their help, be it good harvest, luck in a future endeavours, thanks the deity for something that went well in the past or just some pre-emptive gift they would perform a rite to that deity which clearly states what they give and what they expect in return.
So in game terms it would be more something like sacrificing X to get a bonus for the day or something like that.

When I say "Worship" I don't mean "Pray To". I mean "Show Reverence To". Even if you never make an offering to the god of war (Because that time never comes) you show reverence to the god of war in your speech and attitudes. You would never, for example, randomly -insult- the God of War. Or say "Battle never comes to our land, so we have no need of Mars/Aries/Whomever, here!" because that's a one-way ticket to getting a War on your doorstep.

I used Demeter as an example 'cause it would be a particularly common one in any Agrarian Society, with pretty much every farmer making -some- kind of offering in the Spring to request a blessing for their growing season, and another offering in the fall thanking the deity for the harvest.

But yeah. That's what I mean by Worship.

 

[Yora]

I find the useful term for this is Faith.

 

[jmartkdr2]

So... the real "Rules" of a Polytheistic Pantheon in a Multi-Pantheon setting.

1) You worship your Pantheon. You may, personally, hold one deity over all others (Those devoted to the temple of Athena valued her over others on a personal level, but still worshipped them all) but you worship all of them and make appropriate offerings when the time comes. (Even someone devoted to Zeus gives offerings to Demeter for the Spring and Fall) And when you die you go to where the Pantheon's Worshippers go (Valhalla, The Underworld, Wherever)

2) Your pantheon may be at odds with another pantheon. If they are, then you are likely at war with that pantheon's people. If you're not, then it doesn't matter what gods they worship, you're still going to your idea of heaven and their choices mean nothing.

3) The gods provide Blessings, and Curses, to those who make worthy offerings and sacrifices, those who serve faithfully or unfaithfully, or to those who cause insult or spurn them. Deciding to change your religious affiliation to a different pantheon is liable to bring down curses, which your new gods may or may not help you out with.

4) Polytheistic religions rarely, if ever, Proselytize. They don't need to. Everyone who "matters" already worships the right gods. That said, they also generally do not allow the worship of other gods in their homes as it might be viewed as disloyalty by their gods. So slaves/servants are often savagely stopped from foreign worship, or forced to convert.

5) During times of Conquest, 2 and 3 go out the window and everyone converts or dies 'cause your church and your political authorities don't want "Heathens" to hold onto their own traditions instead of adopting the colonialist religion that you hold. Any tradition that cannot be broken will instead be recontextualized as part of the newly dominant religion.

How'm I doin'?

Meanwhile, most D&D Pantheons ignore pretty much every aspect of these 5 rules and just play Monotheism in a Polytheistic setting.

I would push back a bit - real-world polytheists borrowed gods all the time. The Romans loved that, and in addition to a slew of Greek gods, added Isis form Egypt, Mystra from Persia, and Epona form the Celts off the top of my head.

In some cases, they saw the "new" god as a more interesting aspect of an existing god (ie Thoth is Hermes is Mercury), in other cases the new god covered an area they hadn't covered before and realized they should (Epona). It's a ever-changing, fluid, marketplace-driven faith.

But the big thing is: they don't have faith in the gods the way a monotheist does. The gods are, and therefore need to be dealt with. If you don't do the minimums, they will curse you. If you go above and beyond, they might bless you. That's it.

 

[Ixal]

When I say "Worship" I don't mean "Pray To". I mean "Show Reverence To". Even if you never make an offering to the god of war (Because that time never comes) you show reverence to the god of war in your speech and attitudes. You would never, for example, randomly -insult- the God of War. Or say "Battle never comes to our land, so we have no need of Mars/Aries/Whomever, here!" because that's a one-way ticket to getting a War on your doorstep.

I used Demeter as an example 'cause it would be a particularly common one in any Agrarian Society, with pretty much every farmer making -some- kind of offering in the Spring to request a blessing for their growing season, and another offering in the fall thanking the deity for the harvest.

But yeah. That's what I mean by Worship.

You certainly didn't try to anger the god, but you did not praise them either when you didn't need them.
Rites to the big, well known gods were also often performed by the king/ruler to ensure a good harvest for the country (Ancient China is a good example for this). That also meant that if there was a country wide harvest failure then the ruler screwed up.
This of course doesn't mean that the normal people couldn't also perform rites for the big gods for small favors, but mostly for them the little gods were as or even more important (in Rome the Lares and Penates for example). Gods or even just house spirits of locks, doors, your supply closet, etc.
And as they were small the rites for them were also cheap.

Gods were not something your worship or revere. They were someone you bargained with and at least tried to keep them happy.

 

[Steampunkette]

I would push back a bit - real-world polytheists borrowed gods all the time. The Romans loved that, and in addition to a slew of Greek gods, added Isis form Egypt, Mystra from Persia, and Epona form the Celts off the top of my head.

In some cases, they saw the "new" god as a more interesting aspect of an existing god (ie Thoth is Hermes is Mercury), in other cases the new god covered an area they hadn't covered before and realized they should (Epona). It's a ever-changing, fluid, marketplace-driven faith.

But the big thing is: they don't have faith in the gods the way a monotheist does. The gods are, and therefore need to be dealt with. If you don't do the minimums, they will curse you. If you go above and beyond, they might bless you. That's it.

Ehhh... and the rest of the gods of those other pantheons becaaaaame... Nothing.

Because you recontextualize the ones you can't get rid of. Like the Saturnalia becoming Christmas. See also the plethora of Semitic Gods in ancient cultures that were destroyed by various warring tribes or folded into a singular religious identity when their worship couldn't be quashed. Heck, the entire Sumerian Pantheon became squashed and recontextualized into minor spirits (Often Malicious) under the Elohim in ancient Hebrew traditions.

Can't get rid of a deity? Vilify him!

Meanwhile when Rome conquered Anatolia in what is now Turkey, formerly held by those of the Altaic language group with their own religious beliefs, they wiped out the cultural traditions of the Altaic people except for Cybel. And the only reason she survived was a Prophecy that if the "Idaen Mother Goddess" was brought to Rome the invaders (Hannibal et al) would be expelled.

But the rest? Gone to ash and ruin. We only knew about them before recent times through contemporary Roman and Greek writings.

Many religions were destroyed by Greek and Roman conquests throughout the ages. As well as the Semitic wars, the Ugaritic conquests, the Altaic conquests... Don't get me started on Zoroastrianism's impact on religious identities as the first "Monotheistic" religion (Which was really a dualistic religion that just treated the gods of all other cultures as lesser spirits and demons)...

Christendom held it's own religious conquests as well, obviously, as they all but wiped out the Germanic and Finno-Ugric and Slavic religions, but that was later and also monotheistic...

 

[Mind of tempest]

The master-apprentice relationship is more so an animistic worldview.

Notably, the apprentices inherently have their own magical power, just like the master has. The master is teaching them how to use their power safely and effectively.

For example in premodern Scotland, elves taught witches how to do magic.

Somewhat similarly, in modern Scandinavia, Sami shamans describe their ongoing visions of nature beings who teach them how to wield magic.

In the Nordic view, every being has mindforce, including features of nature, including humans. (Moreorless psionic magic.)





Regarding servants of gods, is there a reason to not use D&D Angels?

look I think about lots of things if gods made people we would be food, draft animals, pets or some kind of offspring so I was looking for less enslaving relationships so I went with what seemed to describe a layman's understanding of those things I can't spell from chan/zen Buddhism.

angles feel very Abrahamic plus they are not even the cool versions just the human with wings version.

 

[jmartkdr2]

look I think about lots of things if gods made people we would be food, draft animals, pets or some kind of offspring so I was looking for less enslaving relationships so I went with what seemed to describe a layman's understanding of those things I can't spell from chan/zen Buddhism.

That's three very different answers: food, pets/workers, and offspring would result in very different relationships between mortals and gods.

But any one of those would be interesting, and definitely a lot better than what FR (or most other official settings) give us, so I highly encourage you to explore whichever seems interesting to you. Your game will almost inevitably be better for it.