D&D General Build the "Definitive Pantheon"

[Zardnaar]

In these religious traditions, "religious coercion" ≈ "rape".

It doesn't count as coercion unless your being forced to play.

Are you being forced to play?

 

[Yaarel]

It doesn't count as coercion unless your being forced to play.

Are you being forced to play?

Are the core rules of the game to be tolerant of players from other cultures?

Or is D&D to be one big microaggression (and sometimes not so micro)?

 

[Zardnaar]

Are the core rules of the game to be tolerant of players from other cultures?

Or is D&D to be one big microaggression (and sometimes not so micro)?

Got to draw the line somewhere.

If you feel that way don't buy it. What's acceptable in Norway may not be acceptable in USA or vice versa.

Catering to you (or me) is likely to offend someone else.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Take any gods from across any dnd pantheon, but only 1 per slot. No "two gods of the sun" kind of thing. One pantheon to rule them all. Whose on your list?

Going back to the beginning, let's see what we get. If it absolutely must be one per slot (a stance I personally disagree with, but it's what was requested)...

Sun: Sarenrae. The Sun, forgiveness, spring, (re)birth, restitution, laxity.
Moon: Sehanine. The Moon, autumn, healing, sleep, celebration, illusion, love/lust.
Storm: Kord. Storm/rain, strength, achievement, zeal, intoxication, hooliganism.
Life: Melora. Nature, ocean, wild(erness), bounty, freedom, savagery.
Death: Raven Queen. Death, darkness, winter, fate, ambition, betrayal/defection.*
Undeath: Vecna. Undeath, tenacity, individuality, secrets, theft, corruption.
Order: Asmodeus. Order, defense, construction, tyranny, slavery.
Chaos: Bane. Chaos, victory, versatility, conquest, bloodshed, murder.
Skill: Erathis. Skill, discipline, strategy, art, arrogance, despotism.
Wealth: Tiamat. Wealth, charisma, patience, vengeance, avarice, cruelty.
Valor: Bahamut. Justice, hope/luck, travel, glory, impudence, intrusiveness.
Magic: Corellon. Magic, summer, beauty, wood/forest, lies, vanity.
Knowledge: Ioun. Knowledge/memory, enlightenment, prophecy, fatalism, pretension.
Oblivion: Gruumsh. Oblivion/forgetting, collaboration, destruction, consumption, resourcefulness.

I have attempted to heed the "make the evil deities worthy of SOME worship" thing, while still keeping them pretty evil, and likewise making the good deities still not absolutely 100% squeaky-clean. The evil ones are not deities that a good person would happily gain favor from; at their absolute best, they're like Egypt's Sutekh/Set/Seth, someone you pray to so they'll turn their baleful eyes upon your enemies. You pray Asmodeus will look kindly on your buildings and lay waste to the walls of an enemy city. Vecna is probably the closest this pantheon gets to a god nobody sane would willingly worship--and he "earned" his divinity by hook and by crook, as it were, so it's not so weird that he'd be the one outlier. Likewise, Gruumsh is almost a likable god, representing an almost Shiva-style "destroy that which needs to be destroyed so something new can take its place" position...but he's also the patron deity of bandit hordes and colluding cartels.

I consider "tyranny" distinct from "despotism" for the same reason I consider "order" different from "justice." Tyranny is hegemonic, hierarchic, almost mechanistic; despotism is simply autocratic rule. Both Erathis and Asmodeus like societies that have clear rules and structure, but Erathis is okay with an autocrat who eliminates an ineffectual and deadlocked legislature so long as it makes the wheels of society turn, while Asmodeus would hate such a thing and call it destruction of the social order. The two of them would both hate the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, but for entirely opposite reasons. She doesn't care that the Senate is gone and such, but the resulting self-destructive government is beyond the pale. He doesn't care that the Sith government is rending its own society by ruling through fear and abuse, but the weakening/dissolution of the Senate and the foolish, wasteful use of the Death Star on Alderaan (which immediately led to a massive surge of support for the Rebellion) would be utterly unacceptable.

This makes for 14 gods, most of which are relatively "good" (Sarenrae, Sehanine, Kord, Melora, TRQ, Erathis, Bahamut, Corellon, Ioun) but definitely not always nice, while the remainder are "evil" (Vecna, Asmodeus, Bane, Tiamat, Gruumsh) but not always harmful and sometimes even helpful.

*One man's defection is another's betrayal: it's all dependent on whose side the observer favors.

 

[Yaarel]

Got to draw the line somewhere.

If you feel that way don't buy it. What's acceptable in Norway may not be acceptable in USA or vice versa.

Catering to you (or me) is likely to offend someone else.

Where there are already reasonable solutions within D&D to welcome diverse cultures − factions and Eberron-style religious relativity − the core rules should prioritize them.

I doubt we will see a "Norse Pantheon" in D&D 2024 core rules, nor Egyptian, etcetera. But to mention Norse by name and then to be offensive (misrepresentative, insulting stereotypes) toward Nordic cultures, is obviously objectionable. Same goes for every reallife reference.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Because they're not gods, they're titans. Same reason various nymphs and the like are children of gods but not necessarily gods

are the Vanir and Aesir not both gods to the old Norse?

@W'rkncacnter

For one among many examples around the planet:

Among Jewish traditions, both the worship of other gods and even the appearance of worshiping other gods, are forbidden. There is a rabbinic debate whether D&D qualifies as the "appearance" of worshiping other gods. Where so, the entire game becomes forbidden.

But players who come from Christian families, from the dominant religion in the US, might not understand why something like this would be culturally sensitive.

interesting but I feel it misses the point of this thread which seems to be about making a cool DND Pantheon.

I remember reading about some Christian dnd blog suggesting the paladin of the unknown for those deeply not okay with even tempting blasphemy.

 

[Yaarel]

are the Vanir and Aesir not both gods to the old Norse?

No, they arent "gods" in the polytheistic sense.

The Norse term goð, means "invoked one". Not "worshiped one". These are "helpful nature beings", such as thanking a storm for raining on the crops.

There are no priests, nor temples. The only formal religious leader is a shamanic, the vǫlva, and she is animistic and her office more an oracle.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

For one among many examples around the planet:

Among Jewish traditions, both the worship of other gods and even the appearance of worshiping other gods, are forbidden. There is a rabbinic debate whether D&D qualifies as the "appearance" of worshiping other gods. Where so, the entire game becomes forbidden.

But players who come from Christian families, from the dominant religion in the US, might not understand why something like this would be culturally sensitive.

are you implying there aren't christians who would disapprove of the idea of their characters worshipping fictional deities? you're not really selling me on this being a matter of the cultural impact of a dominant religion, much less...friggin'...ethnocentrism.

EDIT: also, given that eberron still has fictional gods, even if the matter of whether or not they actually exist in the world is intentionally murky, i'm not actually sure shifting the "default" status of DND gods to eberron's view would meaningfully change that debate.

 

[Zardnaar]

Where there are already reasonable solutions within D&D to welcome diverse cultures − factions and Eberron-style religious relativity − the core rules should prioritize them.

I doubt we will see a "Norse Pantheon" in D&D 2024 core rules, nor Egyptian, etcetera. But to mention Norse by name and then to be offensive (misrepresentative, insulting stereotypes) toward Nordic cultures, is obviously objectionable. Same goes for every reallife reference.

Where do you draw the line just to be clear. Is it things like clerics or the various pantheons in the PHB?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For example, in Hebrew, to "religiously coerce" and to "rape" is the same word (אנס).


Religious coercion includes atheists satirizing sincere Christians, and Christians demonizing Nonchristians, as well as ignorance and ethnocentrism generally.

Mod note:

I don’t speak Hebrew. But after a few minutes of using various translation sites, “אנס” seems to have more than one meaning, mostly some kind of coercion in general, with “rapist”and “violator” being common.

However, no translator kicked out any definition of the word that translated to “religious coercion” in particular. It also doesn’t seem exactly congruent with your choice of examples.

So this post comes off as suspicious to me. It feels like you’re playing linguistic games I can’t follow due to my unfamiliarity with the language in question. And that behavior seems at odds with my warning to you about earlier in this thread. But I’m not certain.

To be clear: You’re on extremely thin ice, here. Consider your future posts in this thread very carefully, and compose them with caution.