D&D General Deities in D&D: Gods as Tulpas versus Gods as Progenitors

Scribe

Legend
I think the answer I would likely want is 'all of it' if I was playing in a fully realized world/setting. If I'm just in a small corner of a world, or a more limited campaign there are any combination of ways to do it, but in a 'full world' scenario, theres appeal in all of these approaches.
 

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Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Disclaimer: I know religion is a touchy subject, so out of respect, I've tried to stay away from naming active real religions in the real world. Hopefully I didn't overstep anywhere in this post. While I'm probably not going to mark this as a (+) thread because I want there to be a discussion of identity of deities in D&D, please remain courteous to other people and stay away from discussing real world religions as much as possible.

Gods have been a part of D&D for a very long time. According to Wikipedia, the first D&D product to officially detail gods was Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes, published by TSR in 1976, about two years after D&D was first published. The book heavily focused on mechanically translating gods and mythical creatures/heroes to the game, some from real-world pantheons and some stolen from the worlds of Elric and Conan. It gave short descriptions of the gods and their abilities, typically around two paragraphs in length, and the book assumed that the gods existed and could be interacted with in worlds other than Earth. Not much was said about the nature of godhood and how the gods existed, as the focus was on providing rules for the gods, not explaining how to include them or why they would exist in your game. It wasn't until AD&D's Deities and Demigods was published in 1980 that D&D's pantheons and rules of worship were codified in a form that has stayed relatively consistent through the editions (please correct me if I've missed something or made a mistake).

Deities and Demigods introduced the idea that divine powers were divided into different levels: Greater Gods, Lesser Gods, and Demigods. It also introduced the idea that clerics at least partially gained their power from their faith, not purely from deities rewarding them with spells, and that worship is required to achieve and maintain apotheosis. The book even recommends taking the control of a character away from a player if they somehow become a god or demigod. Thus began the "Gods as Tulpas" phase of D&D, where worship itself had inherent power, which was further detailed in the Planescape setting.

However, these ideas are not completely true in all D&D worlds. In Dragonlance, the gods went without mortal worship for over 350 years after the Cataclysm without losing their status as gods. In the Forgotten Realms, Ao the Overgod doesn't need or want worship, which is proven in the Time of Troubles. In Eberron, the existence of the gods is debated both by scholars and theologians in setting and fans of the setting. In Exandria, the pantheon (which uses the Dawn War Pantheon plus a goddess from Pathfinder) seems to have mostly been around since the beginning of the world, and worship doesn't seem to be a necessary part of godhood (evidenced by the fact that the Raven Queen become a goddess by usurping the former god of death with a magical ritual). In Theros (originally a M:tG setting, but is still an official 5e setting), gods do gain their power from worship and mortals can become gods if enough people worship them, but there seem to be some gods that have been around forever without the need of mortal worship (Kruphix and Klothys).

However, there are settings where most gods seem to be Tulpas, but most of the fantasy races were created by gods, causing chicken-and-the-egg question that a lot of settings do not address. If the gods created the D&D races, and the gods only exist because worship gives them power . . . how did the gods exist to create the races? Or how did the races exist in the world to create the gods? Some D&D worlds don't even give an answer to the question if the gods exist, much less answer this question. This issue is what spawned the idea for this thread; finding a way to reconcile the "What came first, the God or Mortal Races?" question, taking inspiration from a lot of different worlds to find a possible answer, and delving into the definition of deities in the many worlds of D&D. This is largely an issue with worldbuilding, but also could be brought up in games among philosophers, theologians, and other scholars that have disagreements on the answer.

Category #1: Gods as Tulpas​

"I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em."


In this type of world, the gods are tulpas (magical creatures that were originally imaginary, but became real due to people believing in them enough). Humanity (and/or the other fantasy races) existed before any gods, created religions and started worshipping gods that didn't exist, until eventually the worship became powerful/potent enough for the gods to actually start existing as extremely powerful, sentient, magical creatures. Theros, Discworld, and Planescape more or less fit into this classification, where most of the gods and god-like entities were created by the worship of mortals, not the other way around. As for how the sentient mortal races came into existence before the gods did, the answer can either be through natural evolution, or they could have been created by other powerful creatures that aren't technically gods (like the Primordials from D&D 4e).

In these worlds, the gods are basically glorified imaginary friends. They're figments of the imagination that got enough worship that they became real. A lot of the times in worlds like these, gods will actually change over time based on how people worship them changes. In the real world's history, the identities of gods changed as they were worshipped in different ways. For example, Poseidon was originally worshipped as the god of the underworld, the leader of the Mycenean gods, and husband of Demeter, but how he was worshipped changed so much over the course of several hundred years that he stopped being the Top God of the pantheon, became the god of the seas and earthquakes, and was married to one of the Nereids instead of Demeter. The same thing would happen in a world where gods are tulpas, causing certain gods to completely change in their divine portfolios over the course of hundreds of years. Tharizdun could become a god of alcohol and partying. Tiamat could become a goddess of trade and merchants. Pelor could become an evil god sunburns and skin cancer. The identity of gods would be as fluid as culture is. Their religions, identities, and lives could change as easily as the people that worship them do, just like in the real world. So, while gods in this type of world can often be very powerful, they're ultimately also dependent on the worship of mortals. So they're less likely to commit any acts that would destroy the world or kill a bunch of their worshippers (Eberron's Mourning, Exandria's Calamity, Krynn's Cataclysm), because that would make them less powerful, potentially even killing them. At best, they try to gain worshippers by being benevolent. At worst, they're energy vampires that feed off of your worship in order to make the world a worse place.

I enjoy worlds where the Gods are Tulpas, because it feels familiar to how religions and mythologies from the real world evolve and gives a clear definition of what a god is: a being of divine power created by mortal worship. The fact that mortals get to influence gods in these types of worlds is an idea that I've been meaning to play around with for awhile now. I just think that it's a fun balancing force to have in the world that can echo some aspects of the real world (churches could have religious "unions" that negotiate with their gods and even make demands).

Also, I just recently read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, so these types of gods have been on my mind and inspiring my worldbuilding a lot lately.

Category #2: Gods as Progenitors​

These truths the Maker has revealed to me:
As there is but one world,
One life, one death, there is
But one god, and He is our Maker.


In Category #2 worlds, the gods are progenitors. They existed before and created humanity and the other fantasy races. They probably created the planets and other planes of existence, too. And, unless there's some in-world justification, don't need worship in order to continue existing. Humanity and the other sentient races often worship their patron gods as parental figures, some races choosing the god(s) that created them as the main deity that they worship (Gruumsh for the Orcs, Moradin for the Dwarves, etc). Worlds that fall into this category are Exandria, Krynn, and maybe Eberron if you count the Progenitor Dragons (otherwise, Eberron firmly falls into Category #4).

In these worlds, the gods can feel more similar to how gods from real world religions have been worshipped. They're magical creatures of immense power that have been around longer than basically everything else in the world. Their word is absolute, mortals normally have no power over them, and since they aren't giant energy vampires, they can nuke all of the people that worship them without any major personal repercussions (barring stuff like "divine contracts" that restrain the gods of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance).

I enjoy worlds where the powerful entities that are worshipped were involved in the creation of the world (and its people). It helps evoke myths from a lot of real world mythologies that I grew up with. And having the PCs meet or talk with the god(s) that created the world will never not be cool.

Category #3: Gods via Apotheosis​

I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.
Holding the power did strange things to my mind. In just a few moments, I became familiar with the power itself, with its history, and with the ways it might be used. Yet, this knowledge was different from experience, or even ability to use that power.
For instance, I knew how to move a planet in the sky. Yet, I didn't know where to place it so that it wouldn't be too close, or too far, from the sun.


Most D&D worlds do have some way for mortals to become gods, but don't choose this approach as its main source of gods. As far as I'm aware, it's only been built in to the core identity of a single official world (the Immortals of Mystara), but this answer helps evoke a different theme and stories than the other types of worlds. Dark Sun might count, but becoming a Dragon or Avangion doesn't really count as becoming a god, even if it is ascending to a higher state of being.

In Category #3 worlds, "godhood" is a status to achieve, not a consequence of mortal worship or constant fact of existence. So many settings include some form of apotheosis that it's just not worth mentioning all of them. However, this option is kind of built-in to the core of D&D in some editions, where the PCs eventually gain godlike abilities at higher levels. It would be pretty easy to make a world where all of the gods used to be heroes or villains that gained enough magical power to achieve apotheosis. As I said earlier, similar stories have happened (or are in the process of happening) in a lot of D&D worlds (the Raven Queen, Mystra 2.0/3.0, Vecna, Raistlin, etc). This style of world could be good at making the players feel like they have a long-term goal and reason to keep playing after the main quest is finished (assuming that the main quest doesn't already involve their apotheosis). D&D could do better at supporting high-level play, and building in options for apotheosizing the PCs and allowing them to punch the other gods in the face and take their stuff is a logical evolution of a lot of D&D campaigns.

Category #4: Gods as Unknowable​

Also known as, "the Eberron approach", Category #4 worlds are where the gods are not known to exist. As I've said, Eberron is the main example of a Category #4 D&D world that comes to mind, but there's at least three other D&D settings where this is true: Ravenloft, 2e Dark Sun (I know 4e Dark Sun had gods in the ancient past), and Ravnica (yes, I'm counting Ravnica). This category isn't much like the others, because the other categories are objective answers in the setting about what gods are. Category #4 is just The Shrug of God about whether or not gods exist in the setting. The Deity Dilemma in these worlds has an answer, but the answer just isn't known, and is up to the DM to decide. Clerics, Paladins, and other religious characters in Category #4 worlds, like in the real world, have never seen their god and don't know if they exist. In Ravnica it's stated that there used to be religions that worshipped gods, but whether or not those gods were real is up for debate. In Ravenloft, it's speculated that Ezra's clerics actually get their spells from the Dark Powers. In Eberron, even the angels that claim to serve members of the Sovereign Host admit that they've never met the gods they follow. Keith Baker has even said that if a god from the Forgotten Realms were to travel to Eberron, most people on Eberron would reject their claims that they're a god and refuse to worship them, because they disagree on the definition of deities.

There are obvious benefits to this choice. It makes for more diverse types of religions to be possible/common in the world. It's familiar. You can still have stories about the gods and religious characters in the game without confirming if the deities exist or not. There are some trade-offs made when you choose to make a Category #4 worlds, but depending on the execution, it can be well worth it.

(Sidenote: I've had this idea recently of a setting where gods get power from their worshippers, but only once the worshippers die, as their souls are then absorbed into the god and assimilated into their consciousness. Like the Mindhive trope, but on godly proportions. I'm not aware of any D&D worlds where the gods are actually just the amalgamated souls of dead people, but I think it would be cool. If there are any old D&D settings or 3rd party settings that use this model of gods, please let me know. If there aren't any yet . . . I might have to do something about that.)



To conclude, D&D settings don't have a consensus about how religion and the gods work. It tried to for awhile, but that was made permanently impossible with AD&D having settings with diametrically opposed takes on religion and deities, which was further cemented by Eberron in 3.X. Core D&D's take on religion has changed a lot through the editions and some settings have blurred the lines between the categories. Some were always in-between two or more categories (Dragonlance seems like it should easily fall into Category #2, but it has aspects of Category #3). Some settings started in one category, but shifted into another later on (the Forgotten Realms started in Category #2, but shifted into Category #1). D&D's information on religion started out as a "here are some gods we took from the real world and some stolen from IP that we don't own, use them as you wish in your games", and eventually evolved into a complex, nuanced, and often infuriating mess of contradictions and overlap that adamantly refuses to fit into nice and precise classifications. D&D 5e's DMG guidelines on the topic just tells you about different types of religions, gives you a bunch of examples, and tells you to figure out how it works in your world (which is good for supporting different views and options, but probably not good at accommodating new DMs and players that just wanted to know how religion works in D&D).

As stated earlier, please be kind and respectful. Feel free to correct me on anything that I got wrong or add more categories that you think I missed (I cut out some because they had too much overlap with the other categories or just weren't common in D&D). Oh, and if you've made a world or played in/DMed for a setting that uses one of these "divine classifications", please feel free to share your experience here and how it affected things.
We should just talk about stuff like this. Way less contentious, and it's not like everyone isn't going to play their own game anyway.
 


Clint_L

Legend
Right now I'm using Exandria as my base world, but I don't really use the gods much, period. In my head, they aren't much relevant to the game, so I guess I just think of them as powerful entities that have the ability to grant magic. Some might claim to be progentitors, some might be the product of worship, at least one (in the source material) is a straight-up con artist - I just make the decision on a case-by-case basis, should it become relevant. Plus, I'm open to what the players want for their character, so I want to make sure that whatever I come up with doesn't close doors for no good reason.
 

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
That's kind of a mix of Category #2 and Category #4, isn't it? Where the gods kind of "transcend human understanding", but objectively exist and have probably been around for a very long time. That version of deities is definitely intriguing to me, it would be cool to see a world that was designed more like that. That is similar to what the worshippers of the Sovereign Host believe to be the nature of the gods of Eberron, but that isn't confirmed.
I wouldn't call such gods unknowable, or at least that wasn't my intent. Transcendental beings can still be knowable, one just does not come to know them purely through direct observation. Revelation and theoretical philosophy/theology become important sources of knowledge, and the former is a lot more practical in D&D universes where divination magic is explicitly real. More or less, it is the difference between empirical knowledge (and inductive reasoning) vs. abstract knowledge (and deductive reasoning.)

And yes, progenitor is part of it, but not much the point, if that makes sense. That is, these are gods who create, yes, but the point is to examine what it means for Justice or Hope to be sapient, divine, powerful. How does the world form and change in such a context? How would a deity-as-concept respond to the messiness and imperfection of a world that doesn't cleanly reflect their essential nature? Etc.

On the point of mantling from the Elder Scrolls, I never understood why someone would want to do that. Sure, you get the powers of a god for awhile, but your personality is eventually more or less completely consumed by the god's identity, as shown with Sheogorath in Skyrim. Which is basically the same thing as dying.
I personally never got that sense for mantling, or at least I wouldn't consider that a successful example if it did, in fact, result in the destruction of the Champion of Cyrodiil's ego.

The way it is usually phrased is that one must "walk the steps of the dead," but there are theories that this is not necessary, simply a way many have done it. If this is true, then the idea may be more akin to "taking up another's story" that has ended prematurely. Instead of allowing that story to wither away in obscurity, then, "mantling" allows one to resume it, and take it in new directions.

This is especially important for the ninth Divine, Talos. Talos is a mortal who ascended to godhood (unless you believe the Thalmor and...yeah you shouldn't do that, they're fascist bungholes.) He did so in various ways, but one of them was by mantling the dead god Lorkhan, who is effectively the creator-trickster, a Coyote or Loki figure who persuaded/deceived/coerced/convinced most of the other immortal spirits to invest their eternal-ness into making a mortal world, in which time would flow and things could actually change ("prior" to this, if "prior" can have meaning in this context, time did not pass in the usual sense: existence was a soup of past, present, ant future all mingled together, each influencing the others.) For his "deceit," Lorkhan was slain, his heart (divine spark) torn out and buried when it couldn't be destroyed. So there is a massive conquering-hero/noble-creator/trickster-underdog shaped hole in the narrative of existence, a story left only half-finished. By mantling a dead power rather than a living one, you don't need to subsume yourself; you just need to pick up enough of their trappings to "count" as them metaphysically. From then on, you get to decide what it means to be that being, and as long as your decisions aren't too radical too fast, you will always be correct, because you are that being, and a sapient being can always change who they are, even the gods (in Tamriel, anyway.)

Something to note, here, is that the original source of the idea of "mantling" actually comes from the Old Testament, specifically the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elisha was Elijah's student, but he was also Elijah's close friend. When he knew it was time for Elijah to go to heaven (one of the very few individuals to go bodily), he asked for a "double portion" of Elijah's spirit, and was essentially told "okay, but if you aren't worthy you will get nothing." He was, of course, worthy, and took up the mannerisms, lifestyle, and (most importantly) the distinctive clothing of his master. He was, in one sense, "becoming" Elijah, while at the same time being still fully himself.

So, "mantling" someone who is alive (which was... technically sort of true with Sheogorath) is a dangerous and potentially self-destructive thing, but all forms of apotheosis carry risk in Tamriel and elsewhere. (One of the other Tamrielic ways, CHIM, usually results in the would-be practitioner deleting herself from existence, called "zero-summing." They just instantly disappear in a puff of logic, like God does in the Babelfish vignette from Hitchhiker's Guide.) To become eternal, godly, one must be willing to risk not just being terminal, since that is already the human condition, but outright terminated. Whether the Champion of Cyrodiil was lost in Sheogorath or not is, I'm sure, a matter of great debate.
 

Nice write up. In my homebrew, I go for a refinement of the fairly common idea that pantheons of gods represent civilization vs. primordial nature (in this case, a bunch of god monsters, some of whom eventually became gods (as seen by Sekolah creating the identity of Malar to influence the non-aquatic world). Each god represents some civilized notion (good or bad, and there about as many of both), and usually show up to some humanoids or fey about the time they are trying to move up from hunting and gathering and try to impress the natives. Some notions take better with some groups, and this has led to the mistaken notion of racial gods, which gods will try to correct or confirm as it benefits their interest.

They aren't directly interested in souls (that is pretty much alignment outsiders' thing), but they do recruit among alignment outsiders whose goals parallel theirs to be their servants (devils like to work for the God of Tyranny, and not just because Asmodeus used to be a devil, but also because tyranny causes a lot of LE behavior). Some alignment outsiders even seek out gods of different alignments hoping to sway the god, thus many a LG angel is serving a CG god hoping to push the god to respectability like Jeeves with Wooster.

Some (possibly all) gods fuse with a non-god for a time, and sometimes this results in the non-god taking over for the god (Asmodeus being a "good" example of an alignment outsider taking over a god's gig). Other gods don't seem to be disturbed by this. They were disturbed when Lolth, after being displaced from godhood, made a deal with the Subconscious of the Abyss to steal another godhood in exchange for spending part of her year as a demon lord (who acts much more juvenile and capricious [albeit still very cruel] then her cold, calculating goddess self). Steps were taken to make sure that couldn't happen again.

Other than having my player's PC's encounter a pair of drunken wizards debating whether gods were part of some earlier extra-universal incursion (like the more recent Far Realm one), I have never spent much time on why they gods exist (if they players didn't care, I didn't have much reason to give it more thought).

I have pretty much pilfered Pathfinder and the 4e pantheon (and occasionally some other god) for the pantheon. No use completely reinventing the wheel.
 

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle
I enjoy worlds where the Gods are Tulpas, because it feels familiar to how religions and mythologies from the real world evolve and gives a clear definition of what a god is: a being of divine power created by mortal worship.
The bolded part is what I try to avoid when using gods to tell stories.

I like gods to be deeply weird. My main setting has pretty strong physical laws, and the gods just…ignore them. They can be in many places at once, occupy the same space as other objects, create or destroy energy or mass, etc.

They certainly aren’t beholden to mortals for their existence. They sang existence into being together in the time before time.

Odin is the storm, Thor is lightning and thunder, Pelor is sunlight and the dawn. If Pelor left existence, the physical laws of the universe would change, and…we would somehow live in a world without the dawn.
 

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Something that always struck me about deities in D&D is that even though we're told that there are pantheons of gods, and most people worship the pantheon as a whole, praying to whichever god is appropriate for what you want- you pray to the god of war for protection in battle, and the god of nature for a good harvest- player characters seem to be urged to choose a specific patron god.

At one point, the Forgotten Realms setting actually stated every character should have a patron deity, or risk not being able to return to life if slain.

Certainly, Clerics have always been pushed towards selecting a deity to provide their Domain (even in editions where you could get more than one, when nothing should really stop you from taking two Domains of different gods in the pantheon).

Some heroes in fiction and myth do have patron deities, who help (or don't) in varying degrees- Elric has Arioch (though maybe their relationship is more like a Warlock patron). Conan has Crom (who doesn't seem to do much, but then again, Conan isn't much for prayer).

But even in 2e, where the idea of worshipping a pantheon, a concept, or even a philosophy was stated as possible (and, in fact, you could get 2nd level spells just from faith alone, even if your god was out of reach, or might not even exist!), the settings still seemed to push the patron deity concept.

Goldmoon isn't a priestess of the gods, or even the gods of good, but of Mishakal in particular. You'd probably be hard pressed to find any Cleric of the Faerunian pantheon in the Realms (and even Paladins, Rangers, and Druids in the Realms tend to worship one deity or another in particular).
 

Disclaimer: I know religion is a touchy subject, so out of respect, I've tried to stay away from naming active real religions in the real world. Hopefully I didn't overstep anywhere in this post. While I'm probably not going to mark this as a (+) thread because I want there to be a discussion of identity of deities in D&D, please remain courteous to other people and stay away from discussing real world religions as much as possible.

Gods have been a part of D&D for a very long time. According to Wikipedia, the first D&D product to officially detail gods was Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes, published by TSR in 1976, about two years after D&D was first published. The book heavily focused on mechanically translating gods and mythical creatures/heroes to the game, some from real-world pantheons and some stolen from the worlds of Elric and Conan. It gave short descriptions of the gods and their abilities, typically around two paragraphs in length, and the book assumed that the gods existed and could be interacted with in worlds other than Earth. Not much was said about the nature of godhood and how the gods existed, as the focus was on providing rules for the gods, not explaining how to include them or why they would exist in your game. It wasn't until AD&D's Deities and Demigods was published in 1980 that D&D's pantheons and rules of worship were codified in a form that has stayed relatively consistent through the editions (please correct me if I've missed something or made a mistake).

Deities and Demigods introduced the idea that divine powers were divided into different levels: Greater Gods, Lesser Gods, and Demigods. It also introduced the idea that clerics at least partially gained their power from their faith, not purely from deities rewarding them with spells, and that worship is required to achieve and maintain apotheosis. The book even recommends taking the control of a character away from a player if they somehow become a god or demigod. Thus began the "Gods as Tulpas" phase of D&D, where worship itself had inherent power, which was further detailed in the Planescape setting.

However, these ideas are not completely true in all D&D worlds. In Dragonlance, the gods went without mortal worship for over 350 years after the Cataclysm without losing their status as gods. In the Forgotten Realms, Ao the Overgod doesn't need or want worship, which is proven in the Time of Troubles. In Eberron, the existence of the gods is debated both by scholars and theologians in setting and fans of the setting. In Exandria, the pantheon (which uses the Dawn War Pantheon plus a goddess from Pathfinder) seems to have mostly been around since the beginning of the world, and worship doesn't seem to be a necessary part of godhood (evidenced by the fact that the Raven Queen become a goddess by usurping the former god of death with a magical ritual). In Theros (originally a M:tG setting, but is still an official 5e setting), gods do gain their power from worship and mortals can become gods if enough people worship them, but there seem to be some gods that have been around forever without the need of mortal worship (Kruphix and Klothys).

However, there are settings where most gods seem to be Tulpas, but most of the fantasy races were created by gods, causing chicken-and-the-egg question that a lot of settings do not address. If the gods created the D&D races, and the gods only exist because worship gives them power . . . how did the gods exist to create the races? Or how did the races exist in the world to create the gods? Some D&D worlds don't even give an answer to the question if the gods exist, much less answer this question. This issue is what spawned the idea for this thread; finding a way to reconcile the "What came first, the God or Mortal Races?" question, taking inspiration from a lot of different worlds to find a possible answer, and delving into the definition of deities in the many worlds of D&D. This is largely an issue with worldbuilding, but also could be brought up in games among philosophers, theologians, and other scholars that have disagreements on the answer.

Category #1: Gods as Tulpas​

"I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em."


In this type of world, the gods are tulpas (magical creatures that were originally imaginary, but became real due to people believing in them enough). Humanity (and/or the other fantasy races) existed before any gods, created religions and started worshipping gods that didn't exist, until eventually the worship became powerful/potent enough for the gods to actually start existing as extremely powerful, sentient, magical creatures. Theros, Discworld, and Planescape more or less fit into this classification, where most of the gods and god-like entities were created by the worship of mortals, not the other way around. As for how the sentient mortal races came into existence before the gods did, the answer can either be through natural evolution, or they could have been created by other powerful creatures that aren't technically gods (like the Primordials from D&D 4e).

In these worlds, the gods are basically glorified imaginary friends. They're figments of the imagination that got enough worship that they became real. A lot of the times in worlds like these, gods will actually change over time based on how people worship them changes. In the real world's history, the identities of gods changed as they were worshipped in different ways. For example, Poseidon was originally worshipped as the god of the underworld, the leader of the Mycenean gods, and husband of Demeter, but how he was worshipped changed so much over the course of several hundred years that he stopped being the Top God of the pantheon, became the god of the seas and earthquakes, and was married to one of the Nereids instead of Demeter. The same thing would happen in a world where gods are tulpas, causing certain gods to completely change in their divine portfolios over the course of hundreds of years. Tharizdun could become a god of alcohol and partying. Tiamat could become a goddess of trade and merchants. Pelor could become an evil god sunburns and skin cancer. The identity of gods would be as fluid as culture is. Their religions, identities, and lives could change as easily as the people that worship them do, just like in the real world. So, while gods in this type of world can often be very powerful, they're ultimately also dependent on the worship of mortals. So they're less likely to commit any acts that would destroy the world or kill a bunch of their worshippers (Eberron's Mourning, Exandria's Calamity, Krynn's Cataclysm), because that would make them less powerful, potentially even killing them. At best, they try to gain worshippers by being benevolent. At worst, they're energy vampires that feed off of your worship in order to make the world a worse place.

I enjoy worlds where the Gods are Tulpas, because it feels familiar to how religions and mythologies from the real world evolve and gives a clear definition of what a god is: a being of divine power created by mortal worship. The fact that mortals get to influence gods in these types of worlds is an idea that I've been meaning to play around with for awhile now. I just think that it's a fun balancing force to have in the world that can echo some aspects of the real world (churches could have religious "unions" that negotiate with their gods and even make demands).

Also, I just recently read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, so these types of gods have been on my mind and inspiring my worldbuilding a lot lately.

Category #2: Gods as Progenitors​

These truths the Maker has revealed to me:
As there is but one world,
One life, one death, there is
But one god, and He is our Maker.


In Category #2 worlds, the gods are progenitors. They existed before and created humanity and the other fantasy races. They probably created the planets and other planes of existence, too. And, unless there's some in-world justification, don't need worship in order to continue existing. Humanity and the other sentient races often worship their patron gods as parental figures, some races choosing the god(s) that created them as the main deity that they worship (Gruumsh for the Orcs, Moradin for the Dwarves, etc). Worlds that fall into this category are Exandria, Krynn, and maybe Eberron if you count the Progenitor Dragons (otherwise, Eberron firmly falls into Category #4).

In these worlds, the gods can feel more similar to how gods from real world religions have been worshipped. They're magical creatures of immense power that have been around longer than basically everything else in the world. Their word is absolute, mortals normally have no power over them, and since they aren't giant energy vampires, they can nuke all of the people that worship them without any major personal repercussions (barring stuff like "divine contracts" that restrain the gods of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance).

I enjoy worlds where the powerful entities that are worshipped were involved in the creation of the world (and its people). It helps evoke myths from a lot of real world mythologies that I grew up with. And having the PCs meet or talk with the god(s) that created the world will never not be cool.

Category #3: Gods via Apotheosis​

I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.
Holding the power did strange things to my mind. In just a few moments, I became familiar with the power itself, with its history, and with the ways it might be used. Yet, this knowledge was different from experience, or even ability to use that power.
For instance, I knew how to move a planet in the sky. Yet, I didn't know where to place it so that it wouldn't be too close, or too far, from the sun.


Most D&D worlds do have some way for mortals to become gods, but don't choose this approach as its main source of gods. As far as I'm aware, it's only been built in to the core identity of a single official world (the Immortals of Mystara), but this answer helps evoke a different theme and stories than the other types of worlds. Dark Sun might count, but becoming a Dragon or Avangion doesn't really count as becoming a god, even if it is ascending to a higher state of being.

In Category #3 worlds, "godhood" is a status to achieve, not a consequence of mortal worship or constant fact of existence. So many settings include some form of apotheosis that it's just not worth mentioning all of them. However, this option is kind of built-in to the core of D&D in some editions, where the PCs eventually gain godlike abilities at higher levels. It would be pretty easy to make a world where all of the gods used to be heroes or villains that gained enough magical power to achieve apotheosis. As I said earlier, similar stories have happened (or are in the process of happening) in a lot of D&D worlds (the Raven Queen, Mystra 2.0/3.0, Vecna, Raistlin, etc). This style of world could be good at making the players feel like they have a long-term goal and reason to keep playing after the main quest is finished (assuming that the main quest doesn't already involve their apotheosis). D&D could do better at supporting high-level play, and building in options for apotheosizing the PCs and allowing them to punch the other gods in the face and take their stuff is a logical evolution of a lot of D&D campaigns.

Category #4: Gods as Unknowable​

Also known as, "the Eberron approach", Category #4 worlds are where the gods are not known to exist. As I've said, Eberron is the main example of a Category #4 D&D world that comes to mind, but there's at least three other D&D settings where this is true: Ravenloft, 2e Dark Sun (I know 4e Dark Sun had gods in the ancient past), and Ravnica (yes, I'm counting Ravnica). This category isn't much like the others, because the other categories are objective answers in the setting about what gods are. Category #4 is just The Shrug of God about whether or not gods exist in the setting. The Deity Dilemma in these worlds has an answer, but the answer just isn't known, and is up to the DM to decide. Clerics, Paladins, and other religious characters in Category #4 worlds, like in the real world, have never seen their god and don't know if they exist. In Ravnica it's stated that there used to be religions that worshipped gods, but whether or not those gods were real is up for debate. In Ravenloft, it's speculated that Ezra's clerics actually get their spells from the Dark Powers. In Eberron, even the angels that claim to serve members of the Sovereign Host admit that they've never met the gods they follow. Keith Baker has even said that if a god from the Forgotten Realms were to travel to Eberron, most people on Eberron would reject their claims that they're a god and refuse to worship them, because they disagree on the definition of deities.

There are obvious benefits to this choice. It makes for more diverse types of religions to be possible/common in the world. It's familiar. You can still have stories about the gods and religious characters in the game without confirming if the deities exist or not. There are some trade-offs made when you choose to make a Category #4 worlds, but depending on the execution, it can be well worth it.

(Sidenote: I've had this idea recently of a setting where gods get power from their worshippers, but only once the worshippers die, as their souls are then absorbed into the god and assimilated into their consciousness. Like the Mindhive trope, but on godly proportions. I'm not aware of any D&D worlds where the gods are actually just the amalgamated souls of dead people, but I think it would be cool. If there are any old D&D settings or 3rd party settings that use this model of gods, please let me know. If there aren't any yet . . . I might have to do something about that.)



To conclude, D&D settings don't have a consensus about how religion and the gods work. It tried to for awhile, but that was made permanently impossible with AD&D having settings with diametrically opposed takes on religion and deities, which was further cemented by Eberron in 3.X. Core D&D's take on religion has changed a lot through the editions and some settings have blurred the lines between the categories. Some were always in-between two or more categories (Dragonlance seems like it should easily fall into Category #2, but it has aspects of Category #3). Some settings started in one category, but shifted into another later on (the Forgotten Realms started in Category #2, but shifted into Category #1). D&D's information on religion started out as a "here are some gods we took from the real world and some stolen from IP that we don't own, use them as you wish in your games", and eventually evolved into a complex, nuanced, and often infuriating mess of contradictions and overlap that adamantly refuses to fit into nice and precise classifications. D&D 5e's DMG guidelines on the topic just tells you about different types of religions, gives you a bunch of examples, and tells you to figure out how it works in your world (which is good for supporting different views and options, but probably not good at accommodating new DMs and players that just wanted to know how religion works in D&D).

As stated earlier, please be kind and respectful. Feel free to correct me on anything that I got wrong or add more categories that you think I missed (I cut out some because they had too much overlap with the other categories or just weren't common in D&D). Oh, and if you've made a world or played in/DMed for a setting that uses one of these "divine classifications", please feel free to share your experience here and how it affected things.

Kruphix and Klothyrs were still born from Mortal worship, they are still the oldest of the Gods still in existance, although Kruphix admits he doesn't know if he's the first version of himself. It's the Titans who did not come from Worship, but rather mortal races fear. No one knows the origins of mortal races on Theros, could be a Planeswalker perhaps.

As for FR, FR does all of the above.

The cleanest way to structure it is FR's Gods, starting with Selune and Shar, start off as generative Gods (I don't use Primordial for a reason).

Then the Primordials show up which are a different kind of God, ones tied to the Inner Planes, instead of the Outer Planes. Primordial Gods like Kossuth still don't depend on Worshippers, but grant divine magic.

Later on the Mulan's Gods come, but because their is a magical barrier, they send Avatars who ended up cut off from their main divinities and who make a series of lesser, mortal avatars using certain worshippers with their own minds. They then destroy the Imaskari Empire and found nations.

Adding to this Gods can grant Godhood to various mortals.

Then AO gets fed up and punishes the Gods by temporarily making them demimortals.

After the Time of Troubles to make the Gods more responsible AO makes them Dependant on mortal worship for part of their power and for their sustainance. There maybe have been elements of this before this, because when Pantheons merged, Gods with shared portfolios had to compete for worshippers to see who ends up dead or reduced to Demigod status (rule didn't apply to Demigods).

Then 4e happens, a bunch of Gods either die or merge, others get demoted to Exarch. Other are simply MIA.

5e brings back a host of Gods, both dead and those who left, plus new ones, who seem to have somekind of grace period to build up either fellowers, as long as they have 1 worshipper right away.

Later on in, AO (WotC) said F*** it, and now allows any God not exclusive to none FR settings to be worshipped in FR. Greek Gods, Celtic Gods, couple of Dragonlance Gods thanks to Spelljammer adding them to the Pantheons of a couple monster religions, Goliath Gods, etc...

None are really Tulpas, but more likely they feed on worship, along with the strength of their portfolios influence on the world.

Oh and Ptah can be worshipped in realmspace, just not on Toril.

PS not even sure where even fit Al Qadim's Gods, who are simular to Eberron's in distance and seem to have an afterlife beyond the Great Wheel or something. Not sure where to begin with the Gods of Kara Tur between the Celestial Burucracy and the Lords of Creation, none of which seems to depend upon worshippers as far as I can tell, but who seem more governed by the Jade Emperor then AO. And then there's Maztica's Gods. Beast cults. Primal Spirits. I'm probably missing something.
 
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James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Another thing that only occasionally seems to happen is deities being worshipped under different names. While there are some instances of this in the Forgotten Realms (Talos being an aspect of Gruumsh, as an example), it's not as widespread as one might suppose in a given setting.*

This can happen for a number of reasons, as faith in a popular deity can spread far beyond the culture that originated it. For example, Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte/Tanit/Ashtoreth are all basically the same goddess, who eventually morphed into Aphrodite.

*I feel I should mention Amaunator/Lathander or Tyche/Tymora/Beshaba, though it's not quite the same thing.

Across settings, of course, this is more common, with the Realms (again) having a wide array of deities that come from other places (including our earth, such as various Finnish, Norse, Egyptian, and Sumerian deities, among others), plus things like Bahamut/Paladine or Tiamat/Takhisis, Lolth/Lloth, etc..

The Realms is also home to the only triune deity I can think of in D&D, Angharradh, while our own world had quite a few (although Angharradh is a hot mess of retcons).

I realize I could have saved a lot of typing by saying "The Forgotten Realms is weird", though not really- Egyptian mythology has examples of gods fusing together like characters from Dragon Ball, and you'll find many gods with different aspects in South Asia.
 

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