Worlds of Design: RPG Gods - Benign or Malign?

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Most RPG settings have some form of godhood. Yet there are some age-old questions that come into play as you create religions.

By Unknown author - Os Deuses Egípcios – IMAGICK, CC BY-SA 4.0, File:Deuses Egipcios.png - Wikimedia Commons​

Gods and “hokey religions” (to quote Han Solo in Star Wars a New Hope) are usually part of fantasy and science fiction role-playing games. From a world-building standpoint, you can approach religion as a form of philosophy, a way to guide one’s life, but a lot more people are into religion than philosophy. Rather than using a religion that resembles a modern day equivalent, let’s start from scratch by asking some fundamental questions:

How Many?​

How many gods are there? In human history, ancient gods often were members of a pantheon, a group of gods. So it is with many RPG campaigns and settings. Gods from these ancient pantheons (Greek and Roman most prominently) were superpowerful and immortal, but otherwise behaved much like humans. Less common was a single god, or a god who has an oppositional aspect (effectively another god) as in Manichaeism or Persia’s Zoroastrian religion (Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman). It has been uncommon to think that only “my” gods exist, and no others. The belief is more likely when there is only one (or two) god(s) in a religion rather than a pantheon. After all, if you can have a bunch of gods, why can't someone else, and those gods compete with one another?

Gender?​

Male vs female? Virtually all the ancient religions were heavily male-oriented, just as societies were heavily male-oriented. Some did have powerful goddesses often related to fertility. But male orientation is not necessary in a fantasy world in which women are often treated much differently than women in the ancient world. There is some notion that in prehistoric times, some religions were heavily female oriented.

Belief?​

Do you believe? Just as in the real world, some characters are going to want nothing to do with gods, while others will devote their lives to them. Some will assume that gods are only bad for humanity, others that gods provide great good for humanity. A GM/World-Builder can influence this strongly through the actual behavior of the gods.

Do You Have a Choice?​

Is there State Sponsorship (forcing everyone to conform)? In the real world, sometimes people are free to choose their religion, other times they are required to conform to the state religion. And you have cases where the laws are devised to encourage someone to convert (as when non-Muslims paid an additional tax in the early centuries of Arab expansion). The Roman Empire changed state sponsorship from their pagan religion to Christianity in the fourth century CE. And so on. The player characters could be religionists resisting state-imposed religion.

Divine Right?​

What about men/women worshiped as gods? There have been many times in human history that rulers justified their right to rule by declaring themselves to be gods. Among these are the Pharaohs, the later Roman emperors, and many medieval kings of Europe. For some it was just an excuse, but others seem to have really believed it.

Manifestations?​

How much do gods manifest in (appear or directly influence) the world? Some ancient gods, e.g. Greek, were thought to constantly meddle with the world. Egyptian gods were less present in the world. If gods do meddle with the world, how do they do it? Provide direction for worshipers (even holy war?)? Give boons to their most prominent worshipers?

Fear or Love?​

Do characters fear their god(s) (and for that matter, rulers), or love him/her/it/them? This depends on the priesthood, or on the behavior of the “actual god(s)”. It also depends on what the ruler thinks is best. It’s easy to make people fear him/her/it when the gods themselves are involved.

The Old Gods?​

What about the “old gods,” the ones who no longer have worshipers? Do they fade away entirely, or do they hang out in the background, so to speak—perhaps providing quest material for players? If they hang out, do they become neutral, or benign, or malign?

What Are They Really?​

"Gods" as Aliens - or Monsters. What are the gods, really? Perhaps they're all part of a big scam?

For an in-depth exploration of different ways to implement religion in your campaign (and answers to some of these questions), see Andrew “Corone” Peregrine’s excellent series of articles on the topic.

Your Turn: What questions did I miss?

 

[cbwjm]

I've got 16 or so full gods and some amount of demigods, being children of the gods who have lesser portfolios, in my setting. The belong to a race of powerful immortals from the celestial plane who managed to find and seize the powers of creation and ascend to full god status. This is the only race of beings who can do so, though this doesn't stop the various fiendish lords from trying.

The various cultures worship the same gods organised into their own pantheons playing importance on different gods and depicting them differently. Some cultures only worship a handful of gods while others follow or recognise the whole lot. This does limit what domains are available to clerics for each faith.

 

[Celebrim]

Right. And I would not personally use that term as a synonym for "divine"...

As I said before, this seems to be in large part a problem that exists internally to you, and not with the language being employed.

Atua in the modern usage is also cognate to the English word 'God' and is used by those employing it to mean 'Divine' in every sense you could possibly want. Are they misunderstanding the concept? Considers statements like the following. Atua is the atua of the everything. Tangaroa was the atua of the sea. My aumakua is an atua that manifests to my family as a shark. There is a richness in the different words that might be subtly different, but I don't feel like it's a stretch to see that word as a synonym for the English word 'god'.

I get what you are saying with removing meaning from words. It's a pet peeve of mine as well. But I don't think it is going on here.

The trouble with the word 'god' or 'divine' or 'sacred' is that those words don't mean much of anything until you know what they are pointing at. They are pointers that require referencing.

We're talking about fantasy universes here. These are invented alternative realities. And the words 'god', 'divine' and 'sacred' in the context of those fantasy universes mean exactly what they point at within those alternative realities.

The idea that 'god' is always a properly term for something cosmically big is a modern bias based on real world understanding. It's not applicable to how ancient peoples saw the world or every fantasy universe. The idea that we ought to only submit to the ultimate is also a modern bias. In the ancient world with its complex socio-political hierarchies the idea that we ought not submit to anything but the ultimate isn't something you're going to run into. It might be a historical precondition to widespread elimination of complex socio-political hierarchies in as much as we now have a distaste for someone demanding awe, obsequious and homage from others which is in at least some part created by that idea, but in an imagined universe with all the things believed of in antiquity: magic, fairies (kami, atua, etc.), four elements, monarchies, dragons, heroes and pantheons of many active gods manifesting human qualities, and all the rest I think you have to put aside your modern biases if you want to get at how people in that fantasy world think.

 

[Lanefan]

Ahhhh... but the Tarrasque -can't- be killed. You defeat it, sure, but that just puts it to sleep for a while before it rampages anew! And don't most outsiders return to their plane of origin when killed on the Prime Material Plane and also never age?

I've always had it that while outsiders return to their plane of origin when killed on the prime material, they still otherwise age as normal - albeit slowly, kind of like Elves.

Also also: Gods can be killed. Happens all the time in Forgotten Realms, sometimes in Greyhawk, etc.

Killed by external means, yes. But not by sheer age - their bodies/forms don't break down like mortal bodies do. A deity can choose to look "old" but it doesn't mean anything.

It's an interesting question. And, ultimately, the answer is going to be based on a given campaign setting.

Indeed.

In SotSA? A Balor would absolutely be treated as a god, and therefore be a god for all intents and purposes. Up to and including killing them.

Would or could a Balor grant Clerical spell ability to a devout petitioner? If no, then it fails another of my benchmarks for divinity - as opposed to merely being immortal - as one thing a deity can* do that others cannot is grant spells to petitioning Clerics (or Druids).

* - doesn't mean they all necessarily will; simply having the ability doesn't mean a deity is required to use it.

 

[Steampunkette]

Would or could a Balor grant Clerical spell ability to a devout petitioner? If no, then it fails another of my benchmarks for divinity - as opposed to merely being immortal - as one thing a deity can* do that others cannot is grant spells to petitioning Clerics (or Druids).

* - doesn't mean they all necessarily will; simply having the ability doesn't mean a deity is required to use it.

Yes, they could.

But it would be more like a Warlock's spells, rather than a Cleric's spells.

Priests in the SotSA setting can be Clerics, Druids, or Warlocks depending on how their power is gifted to them and why.

Warlocks can also be Mages who aren't in contact with extra-planar entities but your more standard bookworm wizard.

 

[Tonguez]

Yes, they could.

But it would be more like a Warlock's spells, rather than a Cleric's spells.

Priests in the SotSA setting can be Clerics, Druids, or Warlocks depending on how their power is gifted to them and why.

Warlocks can also be Mages who aren't in contact with extra-planar entities but your more standard bookworm wizard.

Tulok the Barbarian in his Cyclops build puts up Professor X as a celestial warlock Patron, in order to model Scotts eye beams as eldritch blasts, worked for me and so I too allow powerful factions like Prof X and the Xaviers Academy to be thematic patrons

 

[Davies]

Since I remember a version of D&D (Mentzer Basic) which explicitly stated that a cleric's powers came from the strength of their beliefs, not any external entities, and described deities as optional, I find this entire discussion somewhat amusing.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If "divinity," in-setting, means literally actually all things, no exceptions, running from "the literal actual sun, who is coming over to say hi and maybe start an imperial dynasty" to "literally just a radish that can talk," then "divinity" has become so watered-down as a concept as to be pretty much worthless. The word has become devalued in essentially the same way as "awesome," which now just means "a mostly to very positive thing" as opposed to "something which truly inspires awe." It would be better, and more accurate, to come up with a new term (or repurpose an old term) which has "divinity" as a more-specific subset, like spirit, daemon, etc. Hence my comparison between "kami" and "ō-kami": "kami" is a wide-ranging word that can refer to almost any supernatural being from the lowliest plant-spirits to Amaterasu the Queen of Heaven, while "ō-kami" is only for beings like Amaterasu, Susanoo, Tsukuyomi, etc.; it recognizes that, to the Shinto religion, these are a spectrum and not a sharp distinction, while still having a distinction.

What would be the point, for the people in-setting? If they are practicing a ritual-based religion, they expect X if they perform worship act Y. It literally doesn't matter if your good crops are granted by Demeter or Dave, the 2 HD talking turnip. The first might be propitiated nationwide by public offerings of 100 oxen, you can propitiate the latter with a weekly cup of milk but for the local peasants, the end result is the same: did you achieve what you needed by performing religion? If it's yes, Demeter = Dave for all intent and purpose. If not, you'll trust the practice that works most often, or do both just in case you weren't asking help from them but just placating them to prevent them from ruining your crops just because they can.

I prefer the word "divinity" to refer to things that legitimately are at the very least "extremely powerful supernatural beings," and (as a rule) prefer them to be things which truly merit awe and reverence.

I think that's one of the first missing questions in the list of the OP, and one that should be answered first when designing a mythology: defining the relationship to the supernatural in the context of a fantasy universe. This isn't only a question of believing in gods or loving/hating them (or being forced to take part in public worship). The distinction about "meriting" awe and reverence is a modern one, and not something that would work in all culture and universe. When the Romans did rituals to literally bribe their opponent's gods to desert them before a battle (evocatio), did they assuage wether, say, Tanit was meriting reverence? Even if they were absolutely convinced the Carthaginian gods were unworthy (and they would have a point if they concluded they were untrustworthy since any random enemy army can make them desert their people), the Romans held their part of the promise of games and a temple. Let's say the bar for meriting worship was more "this thing can help me, so it merits my worship".

The 2HD radish spirit does not merit awe and, at least from my perspective, doesn't merit any more reverence than

Really? Why? If the 2 HD radish spirit could grant "Good Turnip Harvest" if you bath yourself in a pool of turnip soup on a specific night of the year, most holy to the turnip spirit, wouldn't you grant him reverence after a bad year where you and your family only survived on turnips ? Would you say "OK, thanks for the turnip but you do not merit awe, guy!" and risk insult him so he stops blessing the pool of turnip soup next year? Or would you just add him to the millions of little gods you already proptiate as part of your daily life? God is a very apt term for "supernatural entity you can bargain with through religious (=binding) rituals".

This views also fits the way clerics in game are often played. I am pretty sure clerics, when played by players, totally and fully expect their spells as part of the bargain of being a cleric. I seem to remember that Ao doesn't grant spell in the FR (or maybe he didn't at some time?) and as a result I expect to see very few clerics of Ao in play (despite being totally awe-inspiring).

 

[GMMichael]

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What are the gods, really? Perhaps they're all part of a big scam?

Yeah, I would've thrown that little nugget in there, too.

One of my homebrews had a TON of gods. I used to have people ask "Why so many?"

"Why so many? Well, you can't just toss out the old god of the newly-conquered people. You have to give them something to cling to. So yes, their ruler dies, but their god gets a lower seat in our pantheon. He can then fornicate with any of the other gods, and later his son will murder him, and  then we can tell them that their old god is dead."

 

[Hussar]

Something I've borrowed from Primeval Thule for my games that I really enjoy:

The gods are largely unknowable and far away. Note, the "largely" there. There are certainly times when the gods get involved, but, that tends to be pretty rare. Clerics in this setting are cabalistic. Basically, a cleric is a wizard who has been taught by his cabal the ways of divine magic. But, as far as any actual connection between the gods and the clerics, well, there isn't any. Clerics are entirely free agents. The different groups act to promote ideology based on their interpretation of what that god or group of gods wants, but, since they have no real way to connect to that god, it's largely up in the air.

So, basically, you can have an utterly evil priest of a god god or a good priest of Asmodeus. Granted, the different groups will likely police themselves to some degree - they are societies unto themselves. But, this also allows for all sorts of schisms, heresy and conflict within faiths that can drive all sorts of conflicts in the campaign.

I guess that's why I really like this notion. In sort of standard D&D, two priests of Lathander can't really come into too much conflict. They're both Good (and have to be Good in most editions of the game) and, if there really is a conflict, they can always send the question up the chain and ask Lathander for a resolution, which, since both of them are clerics and gain their spells from Lathander, will be answered pretty definitively.

In another campaign, I used a more @Celebrim approach to gods where anything could be worshipped. One of the PC's, a Hollyphant paladin was worshipped by the local town as a god. It was a really fun aspect to add to the game. Small Gods are a load of fun.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

What would be the point, for the people in-setting? If they are practicing a ritual-based religion, they expect X if they perform worship act Y. It literally doesn't matter if your good crops are granted by Demeter or Dave, the 2 HD talking turnip. The first might be propitiated nationwide by public offerings of 100 oxen, you can propitiate the latter with a weekly cup of milk but for the local peasants, the end result is the same: did you achieve what you needed by performing religion? If it's yes, Demeter = Dave for all intent and purpose. If not, you'll trust the practice that works most often, or do both just in case you weren't asking help from them but just placating them to prevent them from ruining your crops just because they can.



I think that's one of the first missing questions in the list of the OP, and one that should be answered first when designing a mythology: defining the relationship to the supernatural in the context of a fantasy universe. This isn't only a question of believing in gods or loving/hating them (or being forced to take part in public worship). The distinction about "meriting" awe and reverence is a modern one, and not something that would work in all culture and universe. When the Romans did rituals to literally bribe their opponent's gods to desert them before a battle (evocatio), did they assuage wether, say, Tanit was meriting reverence? Even if they were absolutely convinced the Carthaginian gods were unworthy (and they would have a point if they concluded they were untrustworthy since any random enemy army can make them desert their people), the Romans held their part of the promise of games and a temple. Let's say the bar for meriting worship was more "this thing can help me, so it merits my worship".



Really? Why? If the 2 HD radish spirit could grant "Good Turnip Harvest" if you bath yourself in a pool of turnip soup on a specific night of the year, most holy to the turnip spirit, wouldn't you grant him reverence after a bad year where you and your family only survived on turnips ? Would you say "OK, thanks for the turnip but you do not merit awe, guy!" and risk insult him so he stops blessing the pool of turnip soup next year? Or would you just add him to the millions of little gods you already proptiate as part of your daily life? God is a very apt term for "supernatural entity you can bargain with through religious (=binding) rituals".

This views also fits the way clerics in game are often played. I am pretty sure clerics, when played by players, totally and fully expect their spells as part of the bargain of being a cleric. I seem to remember that Ao doesn't grant spell in the FR (or maybe he didn't at some time?) and as a result I expect to see very few clerics of Ao in play (despite being totally awe-inspiring).

AO doesn't have clerics and doesn't grant spells, but there have been attempts to Worship him, he doesn't put up with it anymore then the Lady of Pain, but he's less cruel in his discouragement. Apparently he's impressive enough that not granting spells was not enough to discourage worship on it's own.

It's weird quirk of D&D Overgods like AO, Lady of Pain, The Celestial Emperor, Fate, High God and Chaos that they don't like being worshipped despite bring the second most powerful Gods in D&D, they encourage other Gods (and possibly other things) to be worshipped instead.

And yes I said second most powerful, because AO answer to yet a higher mysterious power mortals don't know exists.