Early clerics and the gods

[wingsandsword]

In the earlier editions of D&D, there were no gods listed in the PHB. Those of us who started with the earlier editions, how long did you play without clerics having gods? How long did you play before you actually started noting the gods, or having clerics mention, refer to, or in some way acknowledge a god or the gods?

My game(s) probably went 3 years before any thought was put to actual gods. Clerics were no different than magic-users or fighters – just characters with certain abilities innate to the class, not because of another being.

My games always had gods.

When I played in the 2e era, even with the disclaimer in the PHB that actual gods are optional and clerics can be Generic Good or Generic Evil, every campaign I ran had an actual pantheon (or various orders of one god in a monotheistic campaign I once ran). Every DM I ever knew ran with gods, and the idea of Generic Clerics without gods because they hadn't been put in the world or detailed was something of a running joke of the lazy DM and Clerics of Agnosticism.

In junior high, playing Basic D&D, at 12 I didn't quite realize the idea that it was supposed to be fantasy deities, the Cleric class looked so blatantly meant to be a medieval Christian crusader priest (I was a history geek even as a kid), right down to spells like Sticks to Snakes. So, when they said "holy symbol", I automatically thought they meant crucifix (after all, it said right in the Vampire entry that a holy symbol wards them off), and all clerics were Christian, so even as a kid fumbling around, Clerics acknowledged a god.

 

[Alzrius]

I keenly felt the absence of gods from the first supplements I bought (back in 2E), and was rather annoyed with that. Legends & Lore was no help, since I thought it was kind of cheap to have a fantasy world use historical deities. Monster Mythology largely made up for that, though the lack of human deities was still somewhat irking. Even the human deities from specific campaign worlds were rather unsatisfying, as it didn't seem right to use them in a generic game.

Eventually, I stopped worrying about it so much, and more and more deities were published in various magazines and supplements, though, so it all worked out.

 

[Celebrim]

In the earlier editions of D&D, there were no gods listed in the PHB. Those of us who started with the earlier editions, how long did you play without clerics having gods? How long did you play before you actually started noting the gods, or having clerics mention, refer to, or in some way acknowledge a god or the gods?

I've never played a D&D character of any class that didn't have a patron diety of some sort - although some characters have been more pious than others.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I think Deities & Demigods was probably responsible for the fashion of picking a single patron deity. By 2e, it became almost a meme... "D&D characters don't have to pick a god, but if they do, it's one god and one god only."

Actually, I think it's more sensible to pick a pantheon, which is certainly allowed in the 1e rules but was rarely done in practice. Our Norse-themed cleric would pray to Odin for wisdom but to Thor for victory, and maybe seek to appease Loki. Just seems more flavourful to me.

 

[Baron Opal]

Oh, sure. People from the north worshiped the Norse pantheon, those from the south worshiped the Egyptian pantheon and those from the west worshiped Mithra, Crom, Ishtar... a couple others. To the East, we went not.

 

[Celebrim]

Actually, I think it's more sensible to pick a pantheon, which is certainly allowed in the 1e rules but was rarely done in practice. Our Norse-themed cleric would pray to Odin for wisdom but to Thor for victory, and maybe seek to appease Loki. Just seems more flavourful to me.

One of the things I liked about Book of the Righteous was that it had actual polytheism. Historically speaking, 'jealous gods' were the exception rather than the rule and the default assumption that people made was that the best way to avoid offending any of them was to worship all of them. The relationship between people and dieties was much closer to the relationship of a catholic to the catholic saints (a system more or less explicitly intended to help ween polytheists off polytheism).

Oh, sure. People from the north worshiped the Norse pantheon, those from the south worshiped the Egyptian pantheon and those from the west worshiped Mithra, Crom, Ishtar... a couple others. To the East, we went not.

QFT. Spot on.

 

[lukelightning]

I think Deities & Demigods was probably responsible for the fashion of picking a single patron deity.

That's one of the things I like about Eberron. It explicitly states that the vast majority of people worship the whole pantheon. Even good people give some respect to the Dark Six. "Hmmm, I'm going on an ocean voyage...better go to the shrine of the Fury and make a donation to ensure a safe journey..."

 

[TerraDave]

Clerics in OD&D are implicitly Christian (their imagery is based on medieval Christian crusader-priests, they have level titles like Acolyte, Vicar, Curate, and Bishop (and Lama, which always seemed odd...), they carry crosses for holy symbols, and most of their spells are obviously derived from Old and New Testament miracles). Even Supplement IV (Gods, Demigods & Heroes) doesn't really change this -- there's no provision in that book for clerics actually worshipping any of the included deities.

In Basic D&D (at least up to the release of the Gazeteer series) clerical religion is handled abstractly -- IIRC the Mentzer Basic Set goes so far as to specifically advise the DM not to assign specific religions and patron deities (or at least not real world-derived ones) to cleric characters.

In AD&D we'd usually assign our characters patron deities (even the non-clerics -- there's a spot for it on the old goldenrod AD&D character sheets after all) chosen from D&Dg or the World of Greyhawk set but it was only window-dressing -- we didn't, for instance, grant clerics different spells or abilities based on what deity they worshipped (not even the suggested stuff from the WoG set). There also wasn't any attempt at consistency -- deities were assigned based on "coolness" and alignment, rather than by culture, region, etc.

It wasn't until the 2E era that I started trying to craft an actual pantheon for my game-world.

Not a bad summary. Lama is a tittle in Tibetan Bhudism (though arguably more appropriate for the monk class...in 3.5 it could be a PrC for cleric/monks). There is a famous one in the news a lot. D&D is first and foremost a stew pot of different influances.

I remember "no god" D&D, but as soon as the idea that "there are gods" got out, I was all over it. Still, it is worth noting that there are old versions of the game with de facto "godless" clerics, and 3.0 actually made more of an effort to incorporate them in an explicit way (while leaving a no deity option).

 

[Umbran]

One of the things I liked about Book of the Righteous was that it had actual polytheism.

Folks, please let us not get into "actual" religion here. It is not appropriate fodder for these boards.

 

[T. Foster]

Not a bad summary. Lama is a tittle in Tibetan Bhudism (though arguably more appropriate for the monk class...in 3.5 it could be a PrC for cleric/monks). There is a famous one in the news a lot. D&D is first and foremost a stew pot of different influances.

Yeah, I know what a lama is (I didn't at age 9, but I've figured it out in the intervening years ), what I meant by it seeming "odd" is that since pretty much everything else about the cleric class in OD&D is at least implicitly medieval Christian the Tibetan Buddhist level 7 title seems incongruous. I suspect it was probably thrown in deliberately as a bid to 'universalize' the class and remind readers that the scope was intended to be bigger than just medieval Europe (even though everything else about the class is medieval European). Surely they could've come up with another Christian-derived title for 7th level clerics had they really wanted to (archbishop and cardinal surely being the two most obvious).

For those who don't remember (or never played it), here's the full list of cleric level titles from OD&D:
Acolyte
Adept
Village Priest
Vicar
Curate
Bishop
Lama
Patriarch

"Anti-clerics" (i.e. chaotic clerics with reversed spells and no Turn Undead ability) have different titles:
Evil Acolyte
Evil Adept
Shaman
Evil Priest
Evil Curate
Evil Bishop
Evil Lama
Evil High Priest