Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pagan priest" data-source="post: 1141928" data-attributes="member: 7650">First off, I want to say very clearly that I do not want to start any sort of religious debate.  What I want to do is present certain bits of information that many folks might not know.I think that I can safely say that almost everyone reading and posting on these boards was raised in an area where the assumtion of monotheism was the norm.  In other words, everybody was brought up believing that Judaism, Christianity or Islam were the only real choices.  This tends to build the assumtion that everyone, everywhere follows a similar pattern... even those that believe in many Gods.The reality of course is rather different.  As clergy in the particular pagan church I am with, I regularly serve 10 Gods and Goddesses of the Celts.  As do most of the others, I do have one God for Whom I have the strongest affinity.  (There is that holdover from upbringing.)  This does not mean that I do not look to the other Deities for inspiration or help as needed.  The church as a whole has occassionaly called on other Deities for help or information within that Deity's "portfolio".  I have even joined in services for foreign Deities, when it was appropriate to do so.Bringing this into game terms, a cleric would normally serve not one but several Deities at the same time.  Most likely, if the cleric was involved with a large pantheon, there would be regional sub-groups of Gods.  The cleric would then serve either a particular pantheon (Examples:  Roman, Norse...) or a region's sub-group (the Gods of Athens).  Narrowly focusing on a single Deity within a pantheon was rare... it did happen, but it was rare.  Usually, such a narrowly focused cleric would still give some small homage to the other Deities, just to avoid trouble.Most D&D gmes that I have seen make the assumtion that all clerics are narrowly focused on a single Deity, sometimes to the exclusion of all others.  This is fine if the cleric believes in some form of monotheism.  I would have to say that it also simplifies things, and removes certain balance issues.  Just be aware that it is not realistic, and in most cases is an over-simplification of the issue.</blockquote>

Verification