D&D 5E Should Planescape split Olympus and Arvandor into separate Layers of Aborea?

[Parmandur]

Almost nobody worships the Olympians anymore, so they would probably get a free "culture pass" to do whatever. Tyr, Tymora, Beshaba, and Silvanus would otherwise have been removed from the Forgotten Realms setting.

"Almost nobody" is not "nobody" by any means, aandI was thinking more from IP identity than potential offe se...though both are very real problems. I have seen people on these very boards get upset about the Alignment assignments for deities in the 2014 PHB (which are taken straight from the 70's Deities & Demigods). Some of those "same name, not much else in common" tertiary deities is one thing (though I would also.expect them to create some distance there), I'm just saying not to expect a table that catagorizes a bunch of real world deities in the PHB, or even the DMG.

 

[Stormonu]

Just remember that Planescape's Planar Wheel is more or less the rattling of planar scholar boneboxes, and may just be another case of Asmodeus giving 'em the peel. Likely no berk's got the dark on the actual configuration of the planes, and for every truth someone spouts, there's three facts that contradict it. Only a bonehead from Mechanus would believe they understand the shape of the multiverse.

In layman's terms, more than likely the planes, their connections and the boundries between them are a bit of a mess and more likely bleed together than the tidy neat boxes they're depicted as.

What is on the same plane and what is on a different plane may be more of a perception thing and it's likely the planes aren't as infinite as many would make them out to be, with distances and layers being somewhat distorted - like a Star Trek holodeck. Thinking on where you are going, and visualizing where it is on the outer planes is most likely to get you from place to place.

Walking around a plane without real intent on where you're going might make one place to another seem infinitely far away or a long ramble through an infinite countryside, which is why they seem infinite (good if you want to "find a place" away from everybody else on the plane). Being determined that some place is "over there" might be the only way to actually get somewhere on a plane - or to another one.

There might not be real boundaries between planes other than some mental disconnects that makes one side or the other think there isn't a straight path from place to another. Going from Mount Celestia to the valley of Avernus might only be difficult because it takes a radical shift in thought. Portals and the like are then breaches or Ah! moments that allow quick passage from one to the other.

After all, in Planescape belief is everything.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

"Almost nobody" is not "nobody" by any means, aandI was thinking more from IP identity than potential offe se...though both are very real problems. I have seen people on these very boards get upset about the Alignment assignments for deities in the 2014 PHB (which are taken straight from the 70's Deities & Demigods). Some of those "same name, not much else in common" tertiary deities is one thing (though I would also.expect them to create some distance there), I'm just saying not to expect a table that catagorizes a bunch of real world deities in the PHB, or even the DMG.

In terms of today's social standards and business marketing, "almost nobody" is practically equivalent to "nobody". I don't make the rules of society; that's just how things are in the world. A few thousand potentially offended people (at best) won't affect the bottom line for a business that caters to potentially millions nor their parent company that caters to potentially hundreds of millions, and don't get on mainstream news for more than a few moments at best before quickly forgotten in the cycle. Is this a good thing? Maybe not, but it is what it is.

Given how popular the view of Olympians as mythological beings rather than actual gods is, I'd expect that almost nothing would change in how they're treated in the new PHB, assuming they have any tables of deities at all.

 

[Parmandur]

In terms of today's social standards and business marketing, "almost nobody" is practically equivalent to "nobody". I don't make the rules of society; that's just how things are in the world. A few thousand potentially offended people (at best) won't affect the bottom line for a business that caters to potentially millions nor their parent company that caters to potentially hundreds of millions, and don't get on mainstream news for more than a few moments at best before quickly forgotten in the cycle. Is this a good thing? Maybe not, but it is what it is.

Given how popular the view of Olympians as mythological beings rather than actual gods is, I'd expect that almost nothing would change in how they're treated in the new PHB, assuming they have any tables of deities at all.

I would assume they have no tables of deities at all. And WotC now has every line of text certified by two sensitivity consultants on the one hand, and on the other Norse and Greek myth is all well covered by Wikipedia and Google, so it's not worth the ink being spilled on public domain IP when they can just make up their own.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Kaldheim, the plane of M:tG may become part within D&D multiverse, and also pantheons from other planes.

Officially mythologic pantheons from our real world are "wellcome" in D&D, but we should take care bout Hindu pantehon. Even the king Arthur and knights of Camelot could "return" to D&D as quasigods.

Hasbro would rather to use their own IPs instead usin public domain because others could use also those same characters.

I miss pagan preislamic pantheons from Middle East: Sumerian, Babylonian..

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I would assume they have no tables of deities at all.

I think this is right, mostly due to the prospect of presenting a whole pantheon of gods with only four domains.

 

[Parmandur]

I think this is right, mostly due to the prospect of presenting a whole pantheon of gods with only four domains.

To be honest, that was already problematic with 8! It is notable that the flavor text for the new Cleric Subclasses eschew any specific gods...unlike the 2014 PHB. I doubt that will change.

 

[cbwjm]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is the planescape setting that will have the various mythological gods. At this point, some of them are very much a part of dnd.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I have seen people on these very boards get upset about the Alignment assignments for deities in the 2014 PHB (which are taken straight from the 70's Deities & Demigods).

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that gods (and their divine servitors, angels) generally shouldn't have alignments. Much easier to use figures like Zeus and Odin if you don't need to reconcile some of their actions in IRL mythology with whatever flavor of "Good" alignment they've been assigned, and it could create room for D&D-specific deities to be more complex and nuanced in their actions and teachings where alignment might otherwise shackle them. For similar reasons, I also think they should deliberately lean into the idea that a character's faith is the source of any divine power they possess rather than the god/religion/philosophy they place that faith in, but that's a different conversation.

Leave alignment for "outsiders" (demons, devils, archons, modrons, slaad, etc.) and define the gods, with rare exception, purely by their domains, relationships, actions, and personalities.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I doubt the new Planescape books with give anything other than Sigil and the Outlands any more than a passing mention.