Deities and Demigods ~ Thank You God!

[Aaron L]

That wonderful picture in Monster Mythology of Corellon and Gruumsh fighting showed G with an eyepatch, if I recall correctly. But in the 1E D&Dg he was a cyclopsorc. I always assumed he couldn't heal back his eye, but he was able to fix his face and make himself look like he always had one eye.

 

[Information]

...but I was always under the impression that he originally had two eyes and lost one in a fight with Corellon (which is why orcs hate elves so much). Am I misremembering?

I think you are right. 1st Ed.'s Unearthed Arcana refers to it, as does the 2nd Ed. Monster Mythology.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Hey, I've got a Deities and Demigods question of a different sort...I flipped through the book at my local gaming store and was quite shocked by the picture of Gruumsh, the one-eyed god of the orcs. He was drawn as a cyclops! I know he's only got one eye, but I was always under the impression that he originally had two eyes and lost one in a fight with Corellon (which is why orcs hate elves so much). Am I misremembering? I always pictured Gruumsh as either wearing an eyepatch or having a gaping open hole where one of his eyes should be.

Can anyone provide confirmation or rebuttal?

Johnathan

Yeah, Gruumsh lost his left eye in an epic battle against Lord Corellon. I don't really think that he would change himself into a cyclops to save his face (in the figurative sense) before his minions. Also, he woulnd't care about beaty, and this is such a good excuse for him to make the orks hate the elves!

In Masters of the Wild, there's a prestige class "Eye of Gruumsh", Orc (or Half-Orc) Barbarians who put out their right eye, to balance out the impaired vision of their god.

I think that they either stayed with the cyclops image cause it was in the 1ed version, or the artist just got that wrong.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Example: Moradin is the most powerfull god (rank wise) of the D&D pantheon (why? I don't know), with the sole exception of Corellon larethian who is his equal. Moradin has the anhiliating strike ability, wich allows him to obliterate anything of a lower divine rank than him. The DC (fort) to avoid being utterly destroyed is 91. Most gods can' t make that save, even with an always 20 rule.

So we have a rule set that makes the dwarf god able to destroy the rest of the pantheon on a whim. "Nice".

I don't believe that Moradin would just wipe out every lesser god.

First off, he's lawful good, so he's not given to mindless destruction. That would be both evil and chaotic.(Give Cyric that ability and the Faerûnian pantheon, as well as a lot of the racial pantheons that are used in the Realms, would be much smaller in a split second!).

Second, he, being the very image of a dwarf, would rather fight them directly than using any fancy magic.

Third, what would he gain from destroying everyone else? Whom would he insult if there is no more Gruumsh and other orc or goblin gods (except Lord Corellon and the rest of the Seldarine, of course ;-)) He just likes trading blows and insults too much for robbing himself of all that fun!

 

[seankreynolds]

Anyway, I hope someone does stat write-ups for the various humanoid gods, like the rest of the orcish pantheon (especially Gruumsh's son, whose name I forget, who is dumb as a fence post but is one of the strongest of the Greyhawk pantheon), and Maglubiyet. Aw, why not everybody in Monster Mythology?

Faiths & Pantheons (out next month) has write-ups of all of the demihuman deities. By "write-ups" I mean half-page entries with domains, church info, dogma, and stuff like that--NOT DDG-style deity stat blocks with hit points, ability scores, etc.

 

[poilbrun]

Faiths & Pantheons (out next month) has write-ups of all of the demihuman deities. By "write-ups" I mean half-page entries with domains, church info, dogma, and stuff like that--NOT DDG-style deity stat blocks with hit points, ability scores, etc.

Will there at least be guidelines to give stats to gods? I'd like to be able to use both books (F&P and D&Dg) together in a multiplanar campaign (which I am actually running). I may sound quite not in my place in this thread, but I'm also going to use Upper_Krust's IH/WPS, and as such, this kind of information is useful for me... And quite sincerely, I find it strange that two books about the same subject by the same company put out with only a one-month interval cannot be used together...

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Will the short write-ups contain DR or Class Levels of the gods, or just the same as in FRCS (I'd love to see how many levels Vhaeraun has in comparison to Lolth and how much their DR differ)

 

[MulhorandSage]

TO be a major player in the FR you have to be a Munchkin, otherwise how are you going to keep up with Elmunchkin and his gang?

Well, how about:

Developing and controlling trade routes, courting political favor with major factions, finding a lesser god and promoting his or her religion to prominence, looking for a section of open territory (such as, say, the Border Kingdoms) and developing your own kingdom, or repopulating abandoned dwarven mines in some forgotten far corner.

All these things can make you a "player" and they don't involve grand amounts of power or any confrontation with Elminster. And then there's what people do in the real world to become a "player"; find someone powerful (such as Elminster) and ride their coattails as hard as you can. You want to become a "player"? Don't read Deities and Demi-gods. Read Machiavelli. Sod ninth level spells, find out what makes people tick and exploit it for all it's worth.

The point is that you *don't* beat the Realms by being a munchkin. In fact, only a "munchkin" wants to beat a world at all, or obsesses about the NPCs that stand in the way of such a campaign destroying goal.

Scott Bennie

 

[ruleslawyer]

...quite sincerely, I find it strange that two books about the same subject by the same company put out with only a one-month interval cannot be used together...

Poilbrun: The reason why F&P and DDG "cannot be used together," so to speak, despite the fact that they are both WotC products and released at similar times, is because WotC has a policy of making the classbooks and so-called "cap" books (MotP, the PsiHB, DDG, and the upcoming ELH) purely optional for FR players. The idea is that you should be able to buy a book like Magic of Faerun without needing Tome & Blood, run planar adventures in FR without needing MotP, etc. WotC intends that FR players shouldn't have to buy supposedly "optional" books in order to keep up with FR-specific rules. I LIKE this policy. I'm very happy that F&P won't cross-reference DDG, and if it does cross-reference the latter book without giving me a play option that DOESN'T involve DDG, I will be VERY annoyed, since I'll feel like I'm being told to buy two $30 books to get the FR deity rules instead of just one.

Anyway, that's the logic. Of course, the fact that WotC can't please all of the people all of the time will always resurface to haunt them.

 

[LordMelkor{Talos}]

Posted by Flexor The Mighty:


Mordenkeinen is one of the very few PC's that would be covered under the Epic Rules, the rest of the circle of 8 is made up of 17-20th level wizards. Bigby, another big boy, is 19th level. They are easily handled with the core rules.

How many FR NPC's are epics?


If I were to do a Realms/Greyhawk crossover, Circle Of Eight would be in 20th-30th level range, while Acerarak and Vecna close to 40.