So who, in a tabletop D&D game, has ever had a good deity directly intervene to help out the PCs?
Because in my experience, that is something that simply never happens.
I have. Miracle spell, divine intervention cleric ability.
Generally treat both as a wish spell as long as it's relevant to Deities portfolio.
That's super cool!
Also in my games Deities sometimes -direct- their Clerics. You lay down for a long rest and suddenly you're in their divine domain and a representative of the god (either an image of them, a talking idol in a church environment, or an angel) literally gives you information and/or directions on what the deity wants you to do. Whether that's recovering a relic (Like Shar asks Shadowheart to do with the Spear) or opposing an injustice or curing a disease.
I also tend to play with the idea of Omens of Displeasure and stuff. Like waking to find a your deity's favored animal glaring at you through the window of the inn you slept in. Or their favored weapon having a thin layer of rust that needs to be cleared away. Or their holy symbol being tarnished and in need of polishing.
Follow a deity who loves spirits, wines, or booze? Your beer is skunky, your wine is practically vinegar, and your spirits seem watered down.
Similarly, your deity's pleasure can manifest in the opposite direction. Or you gain some minor temporary benefit like at some point during the day I reach past the DM screen and roll 1d4 to add to your attack roll or saving throw because you're Blessed. "But I didn't cast
Bless!" Yeah, I know. You're still blessed.
Gotta be a -big- thing you do to get Blessed like that, though. And it only applies to the one roll.
Hey, you know those "Supernatural Gifts" in the PHB? You guessed it. Serving the gods, as a cleric or otherwise, can result in boons.
I've had someone walk into an old temple to a god that is practically no longer even worshipped by anyone, just a haunted old ruin, take the time to clean and polish an altar and statue of the god before making a simple offering of food and incense... And gave them a small reward for it because a tiny act of kindness made a huge difference to that forgotten god. Sure it was just a basic potion of healing made from tears coming out of the statue, but it was -something-.
I do the same kinds of things with my Warlock PCs. And depending on the terms of their arrangement with their patron and the relationship they seek to foster... sometimes it can be -very- amicable.
Heck, I once played a warlock in a game called "The Night Mothers" in which all these mothers of monsterkind were working together as warlock patrons and minor godlings to try and protect their 'Children' from a harsh church inquisition. I was actually playing a Corpse-Bride style character who was robbed and murdered by her lover after she fled from her home, begged for vengeance, and got turned into a Revenant Hexblade Warlock, CE, who killed her former lover and harmed a bunch of others in her backstory before she got Helm of Opposite Alignmented to LG by a priest who wanted to save the souls of even the most wicked people. She treated the Night Mother of Undeath as a mother, and the priest who had put the helmet on her as a father, and had a good relationship with both as she sought to protect good aligned undead from the church inquisition and eventually branched out into helping good monstrosities and aberrations, too. Don't get me wrong, the Night Mother also wanted her to protect evil undead because she wasn't so picky and they butted heads over it time to time... but it was a -thing-.
Deities and Patrons are a part of the character and a part of the world. I've never been ashamed to have them act like it.
I mean, I think their focus as a studio was telling interesting stories, not doing worldbuilding by making sure the characters are somehow a representative sample.
I'm sure they could have made an interesting story around a character with a positive relationship with their good-aligned god. But there are ultimately just 10 characters (or 11 if you count Dark Urge), and that wasn't a route they chose to go. It really doesn't tell you much about the Realms as a whole or Larian's view of the setting in terms of religion.
If nothing else, the Ilmater temple in Rivington shows priests of a good god being overall pretty good dudes.
Sure. It's not intentional or some specific message. It's just weird to me that there's no good relationship among the origin characters.
Like I noted, before, Ketheric had a good relationship with Myrkul. They both got what they wanted out of it for the most part without betrayal. I would say the same about Bane and Gortash. Not so much Orin and Bhaal in the Durge playthrough since Bhaal wants his "True Heir" rather than Orin to be the Chosen and she betrayed you... But in the regular playthrough they're pretty close?
She doesn't get the Slayer form in the normal playthrough, though. So it's not -entirely- amicable, obviously.
