D&D General Can There Be Non-Problematic Fertility Deities?

[MGibster]

Also, if you're in team "D&D isn't suited for sex stuff" you might want to choose a less yonic descriptor of "true" D&D than "going into holes"

Greyhawk, D&D setting
And the city don’t know that the city is getting
The crème de la crème of the divine and
A pantheon with everything but Aphrodite

I'd let you watch
I would invite you
But the swords we use would not excite you.

 

[SkidAce]

There's no doubt that things like fertility, love, motherhood, etc... can be done wrong, but the thread's title is can they be done right, and the answer is yes.

Quoted for Truth!

 

[SkidAce]

Greyhawk, D&D setting
And the city don’t know that the city is getting
The crème de la crème of the divine and
A pantheon with everything but Aphrodite

I'd let you watch
I would invite you
But the swords we use would not excite you.

One night in Bangkok and the worlds your oyster...

 

[Reynard]

Of interest:

 

[Incenjucar]

I think the relative (though I should say not absolute) dearth of fertility deities in D&D (and D&D-likes) conpared to their abundance in real life is simply because making children and rearing families is not generally the sort of things that comes up a lot for adventurers. From a pure worldbuilding/verisimilitude perspective it makes total sense for there to be fertility deities who have priests that go around and bless people to be more fecund and have healthy children, but a "Fertility Domain Cleric" who can do things like cast Enhance Virility or Purify Womb isn't very useful in a dungeon. I'm sure a creative game designer can come up with some creative spells that could make the concept work but it's not as straightforward as the "the god of storms has blessed you with the powet to shoot lightning at goblins" or "the god of war has given you the ability to hit things really good".

The games do not lack fertility deities, I think people don't know which deities are fertility deities. Most pantheons have at least one, and there are many pantheons.

 

[zakael19]

Purify food and water would save more lives than any dragon killer ever could.

My favorite book series examining what a world with a long period of wizards would actually look like places a big value on necromancy because they can inert tiny things that live in water.

In this context a lot of those are also made by wizards ofc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can’t speak to ToV, but D&D 5e’s game systems are pretty exclusively designed to facilitate games about going into holes and looking for monsters and loot. You’re absolutely right that there’s nothing wrong with using D&D to run a game that isn’t about that. But I would argue that the success you’ve had at running such a game without systems designed to support it (or made your own systems to support it) is a testament to your GMing skill, not to D&D’s flexibly.

Nope. If that were the case it wouldn't be a common experience of successfully running dnd entirely without dungeons of any kind, very much including for brand new DMs.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Depends on the audience. In the past, age ranges for D&D have been given by TSR and WotC as young as 10 years old.

Children can handle the knowledge that people procreate.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Depends on the audience. In the past, age ranges for D&D have been given by TSR and WotC as young as 10 years old.

It's 12+ now, it says so on the PHB.

 

[TheSword]

I know this is about D&D but WFRP has a goddess of the harvest, nature, fertility and love called Rhya.

https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Rhya

She has a full write up along with strictures, and miracles which include fortifying and removing afflictions; defending children and homes; domesticating beasts and controlling them; abundance of food and productivity (and withholding it); and conception.

It’s well put together, broad enough to fit in a non-dungeon crawling adventure and isn’t problematic at all.