Designing the Perfect Gods for Your Campaign

[robconley]

Hmm...

I just let the players that want to have religion part of their character's field of interest make those details themselves. Saves me a lot of time as GM to focus on a better game and the player feels good about contributing.

If you ever built a temple as a site for a adventure, described the rooms, and populated it; you just created many of the elements of that deity's religion.

And you are right about allowing the player to make up the details for something you having. Unlike you and your NPCs, the player has to deal with his religion on a day by day basis. So elements that are not that important to creating an adventure are important to running the character.

However none of this is about describing the diety as an NPC.

Sure the fact that describing Thor uses a Hammer suggests that hammers are an important implement to clerics and followers of Thor. But if you have started with the religion, at some point you would put down that the priests use hammers in their rituals . But along with that you would have a lot of other useful information for running an adventure involving that deity.

I will say that describing a deity as a NPC is a lot easier than coming up with a religion. People just relate better to people than some nebulous organization. But in this case is it the description of the nebulous organization is going to be a better tool for creating adventures.

 

[Mallus]

Whoa Malius...those are all intensely awesome. I love the Dog and the Eroded God especially. Great stuff! Consider them Yoinked for my home game!

Glad you can use them! I wish I could take credit for them, but they're all my friend John.

BTW, if your interested in more of our stuff, check the 2nd link in my .sig. The gods were originally posted there, along with cool --or so we think-- setting details as we came up with them. It's literally the work in progress.

 

[Nlogue]

Glad you can use them! I wish I could take credit for them, but they're all my friend John.

BTW, if your interested in more of our stuff, check the 2nd link in my .sig. The gods were originally posted there, along with cool --or so we think-- setting details as we came up with them. It's literally the work in progress.

Reading it now. Very cool stuff! Its funny! A lot of it reads like Razor Coast on 4E crack. Great!

The main focus city of Razor Coast is Port Shaw on the Razor Sea.

 

[GreatLemur]

I'm less and less a fan of night-omnipotent high fantasy deities, these days. Lately, I really dig the idea of there being no qualitative difference between "gods", "demons", and "spirits", and all such creatures being somewhat geographically limited. So there wouldn't be any deities known throughout the whole campaign setting, and if a divinely-empowered character is going to have access to their god while travelling, they might just have to physically (or, okay, maybe symbolically) carry it with them.

I also want to try playing with explicitly, deliberately man-made gods: things like fetish idols and egregores.

Now... my friend John and I are trying a less-is-more approach when it come to religion for our groups new homebrew. Just a paragraph or two describing the mystery cults found in the campaign's base city. A little local color that the DM can expand on as needed. Such as...

I should've mentioned it in your original thread, but I really love the hell out of your setting. Loads of great, great ideas. In fact, I should go copy and paste them now for later theft.

 

[Greja]

For a lot of campaigns I have noticed that there is trouble with new players adopting gods for their characters. There is a lot to learn when first starting the game, too much when there is a lot of religion. Look at Forgotten Realms with it's hundreds of gods, from the god of streams to the drow god of vengeance (not to be confused with the dwarf god of vengeance). Its hard to roleplay properly when you dont understand the world, especially when you stop to think of the best god to go to for the ressurection of your friend* and you have no memory of where to go. For this reason I opted for 7 major deities.

The Seven dieties in my campaigns are the gods of: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Sun, Moon, and Blood. When you think of a smaller detail of religion, then thiink of which god is best suited to that domain/detail. Rage and Passion for example are both covered by the god of Fire, Duty and Endurance are domains of the Earth god, while Death and Thievery are covered by the goddess of the Moon. Multiple gods may be appropriate for the same goal, and they often work together (creating smaller cults that worship the union). The gods all have names, but new players feel right at home going to the "Sun Lord" for some aid in destroying undead, etc. I've included an old .doc file, which is missing some sections because it wont take my more updated .docx files

*Or even more complicated: A godless mercenary who kills children for gold but died trying to save his love's life.

 

[robconley]

For a lot of campaigns I have noticed that there is trouble with new players adopting gods for their characters. There is a lot to learn when first starting the game, too much when there is a lot of religion.

This is why I adopted the handful of gods, many names approach. Also I only focus on my main campaign area and don't really worry about the rest of the world. Most of my gods also embrace what I call catholic or universal ideals so it would be realistic for different cultures to interpret the deities in their own way. Finally when I need variety I use lesser beings that have a narrow geographical scope. They are sort of like "angels" to the major gods.

I posted about them here. Plus you can see my idea at work about focusing on the religion not the deity.

DANNU (DAN-NU) - The Mother of Mercy, Lady of the Green Earth, the Hearth Mother

Dannu is the goddess of mercy, love, home, and fields. Dannu is worshipped by peasants thourghout the Majestic Wilderlands. The church of Dannu works to bring aid and relief to the peasant when they suffer. The church of Dannu has special relationship with the church of Mitra . Together the two churches work to bring justice and peace to the Wilderlands. Also the church of Silvanus and Dannu cooperate on many matters.

SYMBOL: A Sheaf of Wheat on a Green Circle

http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/gods.html

 

[Voadam]

I generally don't design gods for my games, I use existing ones. Depending on the setting I will use the ones provided and when I homebrew I add in from many sources, often using multiple pantheons I find cool (real world, Melnibonean, Warhammer, Palladium, Various D&D worlds, etc.).

I generally like god stories and god products, I find the divine cosmology often an interesting part of a campaign background even if it does not directly impact the game I am in.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm less and less a fan of night-omnipotent high fantasy deities, these days. Lately, I really dig the idea of there being no qualitative difference between "gods", "demons", and "spirits", and all such creatures being somewhat geographically limited. So there wouldn't be any deities known throughout the whole campaign setting, and if a divinely-empowered character is going to have access to their god while travelling, they might just have to physically (or, okay, maybe symbolically) carry it with them.

You, sir, are clearly my long lost gaming brother.

 

[Halivar]

I design the gods in my campaigns using a formula I posted on ENWorld waaaaay back in 2004: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=105251

 

[Eosin the Red]

I don't really do the gods thing. There are various "beyond human understanding" entities (or maybe those are explanations of natural order) who have active religions.

The main proponents of the greater gods and the spirits that most would consider to be gods are actually a disparate group of angelic beings who have waged a war using mankind as proxy soldiers. There are four primary "camps" of these spirit creatures.

• Fenn: Great northern gods who are near giant status and carry the war forward in an up close and personal way.
• Aesir: Calculating gods designed on a mix of Greek, Celtic, and Saintly influences. They are the main religious figures and responsible for man's war against the Hungry Darkness.
• Jann: Violent parochial gods who dominate the lives of their followers. The Jann lost their immortality and now subsist on a blood tithe to maintain their youth and power.
• Re: Nature spirits who have retreated from the world but teach their human "children."

The Hungry Darkness is an unfathomable force that "infects" otherwise good beings. Demons, undead, and such are simply fallen spirits who have been perverted by the Darkness.

Paladins serve an individual spirit and are the primary agents of the immortals in the world. They serve the agenda of their patron rather than an ethical stance.

My goal is to design religions with some murkiness and lack of definitive proof. I also want to inject a taste of the mythos into the evil. I include the powerful angelic creatures as an explanation for totally larger than life characters or monsters. I want them to flavor the system as powerful but fallible and ultimately defeatable creatures rather than gods whom are a magnitude of power beyond mankind. If my world was Vampire the angelic spirits would be 5th Generation Antidiluvians.

The design of supernatural evil is also meant to maintain a theme. Once again I'll use Vampire as an example: A game of mortals could fight multiple vampires from multiple clans and factions. From the players POV they see dead vampires not an overarching vampiric society with all its politics and factionalism. The same holds true in The Last Dominion, the Hungry Darkness desires only to spread its inhuman hunger across the world ushering in an age of utter desolation. Players oppose the Hungry Darkness by defeating the individual plans of undead villains even though those creatures have nothing to do with their unfathomable master.

The design concept is a monolithic hydra. A central evil with many and varied heads to give the campaign and world a bit of variety and believability. Nobody wants to fight undead all the time but by creating an evil that encompasses all the supernatural elements you can weave unique encounters into the game without stretching credulity. A lich and a demon lord may work together to accomplish some goal although one will not be happy about his position in the arraignment.