Combining Monotheism with D&D deities

[Turjan]

I'm sure it's just the Western lens through which I am viewing Hinduism but, for those of us who think in Western terms, this is hierarchical. In Western thought, the macrocosm is generally superior to the microcosm. When Hinduism (to the degree that this is even a thing, given that there is no actual -ism) has been explained to me in person or in print, I have always understood there to be a hierarchical relationship between the ultimate godhead and the household divinity.

Yes and no. I think the problem here is that we use our analytical logic on this philosophy. We think in "either/or" categories. The monotheistic Indian philosophies are more of the "as well as" category. The small household divinity may be seen as a separate god, but is very often considered just as a single aspect of one of the 3 or 4 "greater" gods of the pantheon. Of these, Siva may be seen as the creator and destroyer of the world, but Visnu may also play the role as creator and protector. A third believer may see Devi as the superior mover. I don't want to go into details (1. they vary widely, 2. this gets a bit too religious and is not really important for this discussion ), but the points to keep in mind are that (i) small gods are often seen as aspect of a greater god, and (ii) that these greater gods all bear aspects of the creator.

The trinity Brahma/Visnu/Siva is a more philosophical one without real influence on everyday religion. Instead, monotheists often pick one of the greater gods as their "overgod". Nevertheless, this is often not to exclusion of the other gods, but an integrative apporach that sees the other entities as manifestations of the same thing. For us, this may seem hierarchical. The philosophy behind it is not, because everything is part of the same entity .

But there is hierarchy between a goal and a path. Path is, in my view, inferior to goal. The goal is perfection; the path is not perfection. Non-perfect things are inferior to perfection.

Except that one of the three paths is indeed perfection . As not everyone has the time and the means to go this path, there are - luckily - two additional others .

Okay, the original question was how to integrate such a philosophy into a D&D campaign. It may be a bit difficult, because the D&D religions are, though polytheistic at first glance, carbon copies of aspects of christian religiosity. I just wanted to point out that there are models to replace this system by a more freeform one that integrates ostensible antagonisms.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Oh and yeah making the DnD deities saints is a good idea and one I've used in an otherwise 'monoteistic' setting (during medieval times it was more common to invoke saints than it was to call on God, and even now the Virgin Mary is 'more popular' than Jesus in many countries)

Hmm, that last bit is an odd claim to make, though I must admit that any further commentary on it probably veers to close to a discussion of religion for this forum. Suffice it to say I've read a lot of medieval history and literature and, IME or IMR, there's a lot of calling directly on God.

To be fair to saints:

It works, given the real world nature of saints rather than whatever you actually want to make of the term, if:

the DnD 'deities' in question could be demonstrated, by whatever means are available to the populace, to be real human beings or similarly mortal/incarnated creatures who had a demonstrable relationship to the one god in question. Further, the saints would have had to demonstrate miraculous intervention after their death and their lives would have to stand up to some degree of moral scrutiny.

In history, there were plenty of saints who now seem suspect by these standards. St. Christopher is the most famous example. Our earliest records of his mortal life seem to indicate that he was a dog-headed man. But I also know of a Southern Italian saint who appears to be the prince otherwise known as Budha. In both cases, however, the entity in question was known to be a holy mortal who had divine insight, and there were attributed miracles.

If the gods in question can fit these criteria according to the knowledge of the populace that will sponsor their cult than they can make it.

Otherwise they might do better to have a valar style relationship with the over-deity. Don't know much about the history of arch-angels, but they might qualify as well.

Not trying to be pedantic in a rules lawyerish sense. Just trying to point out that there are issues with becoming a saint. It's not just a wily nilly means to co-opt rival religions.

Now religious practice, on the other hand, that's a whole nother can o worms.

 

[fusangite]

The RuneQuest world, Glorantha, has a monotheistic culture (called the Brithini I believe) existing alongside pantheistic ones. I see no reason why you couldn't do the same in DnD. Cleric powers don't necessarily have to come from a real god anyway.

Great example Doug! In fact, all of the principles I apply to running religion in games come from Runequest. For those who have not looked at Runequest, I cannot recommend it highly enough for its take on religion and how to make it function in a pertinent and realistic way.

That stated, there is a problem with how Runequest ultimately chose to run its monotheists for D&D purposes. The Malkioni (the larger category the Brithyni were part of) were the equivalent of D&D's arcane casters. So while the sociological/religious observations about how they got along with polytheists are quite helpful, very little can be gained here on a game mechanical level.

 

[DMScott]

The RuneQuest world, Glorantha, has a monotheistic culture (called the Brithini I believe) existing alongside pantheistic ones.

Glorantha has a cosmological structure that supports (at least) three different types of worship: polytheistic worship of distinct gods arranged into pantheons, animistic worship of spirits, and worship of an abstract monotheistic god (including reverence of saints). The interesting thing is that all three are objectively correct, at least until the actions of mortals change things.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that - there's also the notion of "misapplied worship", in which somebody might for example believe they are revering a saint but it's actually a polytheistic god or perhaps a spirit. See HeroQuest (the recent RPG by Issaries, not the older MB/GW boardgame) for ideas as to just how crazy this can get.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I make their equivalents IMC saints.

That's pretty much what I do, my "Gods" are outlined, basically and very briefly, as such:

Raahn the Benefactor, the Protector, the Guardian, etc. : Good God.
Below him are the Archangels and Saints. Archangels are basically minor gods who've always been otherworldly. Saints started as mortal creatures (There are elf, dwarf, halfling, lizardman, orc, etc. saints) The saint's alignments* head all the way down into neutral territory. Clerics of Raahn pick domains like a generic good Cleric as found in the PHB. Clerics of a specific Archangel or Saint pick from its more reduced list of domains but gain other, more subtle benefits due to the more "personal" nature of the divine connection

Asmodeus the Adversary, the Tempter, etc. : Big Bad God, Evil "Fallen" Twin of Raahn.
Below him are the devils which carry the same load as the Archangels, only evil. And the Apostates which carry the same load as Saint's, only evil. Asmodeus is not after the destruction of the world or any such thing, but the domination of all worlds. See above for Domains, just think Eeeeevil.

Demogorgon the Destructor: Really, really bad dude
Demons: the soldiers of Demogorgon. Demogorgon and the other Demons are the epitomy of Chaos. They exist to destroy, cause chaos. They are the true Outsiders. Aligned with neither Raahn or Asmodeus, they are the only thing that can cause Raahn and Asmodeus to call a truce and team up with the express goal of casting out the demons from the material plane. If you run into a Demonworshiper in my game, you've run into the craziest, most vile, most evil person there is. Of course, there are those idiots who think they can control Demon-forces, but they almost always bite it sooner or later. There are no "clerics" of the Demons. But the TaintPrCs (See UA) come into effect here quite well.

The Others:
Much like rycanada, I have spirits that deal mostly with nature and other natural (elemental) forces. Druids, baby. Druids.

*I don't use alignments as written. I use Honor and Taint (see the UA Variant thread. The link to that post is here. Link to thread here ). Alignment is only used when characters are generated to figure out the general attitude of the character and the amount of starting honor, then it's pretty much discarded.

Didn't the FR setting have an overgod named AO?

My main Good God was named Ao, but my more moronic players kept calling him A-hole, which didn't do good with holding the more serious side of our gaming sessions.

 

[Turjan]

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that - there's also the notion of "misapplied worship", in which somebody might for example believe they are revering a saint but it's actually a polytheistic god or perhaps a spirit. See HeroQuest (the recent RPG by Issaries, not the older MB/GW boardgame) for ideas as to just how crazy this can get.

I like this part of magic in HeroQuest. There may be penalties connected with the misapplied worship, especially if the revered entity is actually not very powerful. The most dangerous situation comes up, if the hero travels into the Otherworld (think D&D plane), because the worshipper will enter a false home located on the entity's true Otherworld. This results in much trouble, because the hero will be meeting different inhabitants of that plane than he originally bargained for. Getting back home is even more troublesome.

I agree, Glorantha is full of ideas for D&D campaigns .

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Okay, the original question was how to integrate such a philosophy into a D&D campaign. It may be a bit difficult, because the D&D religions are, though polytheistic at first glance, carbon copies of aspects of christian religiosity.

That's something I've noticed as well and it's one of the reasons I really dislike the D&D pantheons (except as a part of the D&D settings and, even in those I try to reinterpret their worship closer to traditional polytheism). The idea that "religion" is Christianity plus or minus a few bits (minus Jesus, plus Mohammed=Islam), (minus monotheism, the trinity, and substitutionary atonement, and minus all morality incompatible with the sexual revolution (except maybe for LG deities)=D&Dland). Etc. It's a pernicious force in the academic study of religion and in the less sophisticated D&D version, it's even more annoying.

 

[fusangite]

That's something I've noticed as well and it's one of the reasons I really dislike the D&D pantheons (except as a part of the D&D settings and, even in those I try to reinterpret their worship closer to traditional polytheism). The idea that "religion" is Christianity plus or minus a few bits (minus Jesus, plus Mohammed=Islam), (minus monotheism, the trinity, and substitutionary atonement, and minus all morality incompatible with the sexual revolution (except maybe for LG deities)=D&Dland). Etc. It's a pernicious force in the academic study of religion and in the less sophisticated D&D version, it's even more annoying.

Let's not beat around the bush here. D&D religion is even more incoherent than that. Yes, it's based on Christian ideas but Christian ideas as comprehended by atheists.

 

[Aeric]

IMC, there is a newer, dominant monotheistic religion and an older, polytheistic religion. The monotheists claim that there is only one true god(dess), and that the so-called gods of the old world are actually archons who defied the goddess by letting the mortal flock worship them as gods.

In the east, there is another monotheistic religion that worships a single goddess, but it claims that she is the last survivor of many gods. The two don't get along very well.