D&D 5E Could Theros and Tasha's Cauldron the way they're going to handle real-world pantheons?

[wingsandsword]

Using real-world pantheons seems to be a trend they're moving away from. From 2e to 3e they've dropped things like the Babylonian, Sumerian, Finnish, Celtic, Indian, Chinese and Japanese pantheons, to just focus on Norse, Greek and Egyptian. 5e starts with the Norse, Greek and Egyptian mentioned occasionally, but Tasha's Cauldron contains no references to any of them.

I always presumed that to be them focusing on pantheons that players would actually regularly use in games.

Egyptian, Norse and Greco-Roman gods have more of a place in our culture, and are myths most players would be more familiar with and likely to want to use in a game.

I've seen people play clerics of Apollo or Thor or Thoth. . .I've never seen anyone play a cleric of Sumerian or Babylonian gods, and the only time I've seen a cleric of any Finnish deity come up in a game was in the context of Mielekki and Loviatar in Forgotten Realms. . . and it's been over 20 years since I've seen someone play a cleric of a Chinese or Japanese deity.

 

[Voadam]

I always presumed that to be them focusing on pantheons that players would actually regularly use in games.

Egyptian, Norse and Greco-Roman gods have more of a place in our culture, and are myths most players would be more familiar with and likely to want to use in a game.

I've seen people play clerics of Apollo or Thor or Thoth. . .I've never seen anyone play a cleric of Sumerian or Babylonian gods, and the only time I've seen a cleric of any Finnish deity come up in a game was in the context of Mielekki and Loviatar in Forgotten Realms. . . and it's been over 20 years since I've seen someone play a cleric of a Chinese or Japanese deity.

I blame the 3e god stat blocks and god system. 3e Deities & Demigods (224 pages) had 32 pages more than 2e Legends & Lore (192 pages).

2e was probably the height of official D&D deity descriptions.

3e had the OGL though so I've got a number of great 3e god books.

 

[dave2008]

3e had the OGL though so I've got a number of great 3e god books.

Really, what ones?! I really don't care to much for the 3e Deities and Demigods or Epic Handbook. What 3PP books on gods would be good to look at?

 

[cbwjm]

I wouldn't be surprised if they keep the Egyptian, Norse, and Greek pantheons pretty much like they are in the books currently, that is primarily an example of real world deities and how the domains might be assigned. I'm not expecting there to be much in the way of development of real world pantheons in future products because that's not how this edition seems to be run, as in I don't see there being a big book of gods released at some point. Instead, pretty much any book that deals with the gods will be specific to a campaign setting book.

I'm not sure if they will include references to the MtG deities, I'm not sure how many people would actually know who they are whereas references to earlier campaign setting deities are at least referenced in the PHB.

 

[Faolyn]

A friend of mine and I brainstormed a pantheon that was supposed to be a world-wide one--a handful of gods that everyone worshiped as they desired. However, the gods were unnamed and didn't have official single interpretation or even a single accepted appearance or gender. They had names for the list we came up with, but the names were all along the lines of The Ember or The Balancer; they didn't have "people names." The Ember was fire, but it could be worshiped it as a god of the sun, a god of the hearth, as a god of fiery destruction, or as a god of passion, or something else flame-related entirely. The Balancer was a god of life and death, but some saw it as a kindly psychopomp, others saw it as a dispassionate controller of the wheel of reincarnation, and others saw it as a monster with an unending hunger for death. Individuals might name their interpretation of the god, but it wasn't their true name.

So I'd kind of like to see something like that, with a heavier "Masks of God" approach.

 

[cbwjm]

A friend of mine and I brainstormed a pantheon that was supposed to be a world-wide one--a handful of gods that everyone worshiped as they desired. However, the gods were unnamed and didn't have official single interpretation or even a single accepted appearance or gender. They had names for the list we came up with, but the names were all along the lines of The Ember or The Balancer; they didn't have "people names." The Ember was fire, but it could be worshiped it as a god of the sun, a god of the hearth, as a god of fiery destruction, or as a god of passion, or something else flame-related entirely. The Balancer was a god of life and death, but some saw it as a kindly psychopomp, others saw it as a dispassionate controller of the wheel of reincarnation, and others saw it as a monster with an unending hunger for death. Individuals might name their interpretation of the god, but it wasn't their true name.

So I'd kind of like to see something like that, with a heavier "Masks of God" approach.

I do something similar in my current homebrew setting. I have a single set of gods with titles like the Stag King, the Thunderer, the Tyrant, the Ocean Queen, etc. I've recently built up a few faiths so that those who follow the Wyld will place greater importance on the Stag King and the other gods of the natural world while those who follow the faith of the Learned place greater emphasis on the Archmage, the Sage, and the Lady of Poisons (a dual aspect god. one side dealing in medicine, the other in pestilence and poison). The other gods are still worshipped but are of lesser importance. Different faiths can have some crossover with the gods that they primarily worship, but they might place importance on different aspects of their portfolio.

 

[Voadam]

Really, what ones?! I really don't care to much for the 3e Deities and Demigods or Epic Handbook. What 3PP books on gods would be good to look at?

I am a fan of Lore of the Gods by Dragonwing Games in particular as a 3.5 successor to Legends & Lore. The hero stats are crap as a 20th level nonmagical hero with no real equipment is not anywhere near CR 20, but the culture and god narrative descriptions are pretty fun.

They have an updated Pathfinder 1e version as well.

A bunch of early 3.0 ones I have for small pantheon books (Norse Gods, Egyptian Gods, etc.) are no longer available.

There were also a bunch of books that included old pantheons as a part of them though not the focus. Necromancer Games had Ancient Kingdoms Mesopotamia for example and there were a bunch of Egyptian ones.

 

[Voadam]

A friend of mine and I brainstormed a pantheon that was supposed to be a world-wide one--a handful of gods that everyone worshiped as they desired. However, the gods were unnamed and didn't have official single interpretation or even a single accepted appearance or gender. They had names for the list we came up with, but the names were all along the lines of The Ember or The Balancer; they didn't have "people names." The Ember was fire, but it could be worshiped it as a god of the sun, a god of the hearth, as a god of fiery destruction, or as a god of passion, or something else flame-related entirely. The Balancer was a god of life and death, but some saw it as a kindly psychopomp, others saw it as a dispassionate controller of the wheel of reincarnation, and others saw it as a monster with an unending hunger for death. Individuals might name their interpretation of the god, but it wasn't their true name.

So I'd kind of like to see something like that, with a heavier "Masks of God" approach.

Check out Midgard Worldbook for a published setting with a similar Masks set up. There are multiple pantheons but it is not known if the gods are just masks of similar ones from other pantheons or not.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

They can of course argue, but I am pretty sure that is currently the official stance. And frankly it would be odd, IMO, if they were not aspects / avatars of the same entity.

This Takhisis wiki claims they were officially determined to be the same entity in both 4th and 5th edition, but with a quick look I couldn't find the references in the books they listed.

EDIT: Found it in the 5e DMG, it was under the dragon orbs:
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EDIT 2: Evidently it goes back to 1e. pg 111 of the Manual of the Planes:
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EDIT 3: So here is some more 5e area confirmation from WotC: Monster Mythology web article.
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You won't find Dragonlance sources claiming anything like that, and for good reason. They have different agendas, homes, followers, alignments and methods. About the only thing they have in common is a five-headed dragon avatar and a rivalry with a platinum dragon.

 

[Ancalagon]

In my Yoon Suin campaign, there were hundreds of gods, the majority of them undetailed, and with a fair amount of overlap.

This turned out to be a remarkably easy way of doing it, because I didn't have to worry about "consistency" anymore. Some of the gods were very strange... but they granted powers to those who worshiped them so, they all had their followers.