FR gods, too many?

[Zaukrie]

If you want a system that explains/discusses the worship of a pantheon and specific dieties at the same time, try Book of the Righteous.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think the problem is with the FR religious system, not the number of gods. In Faerûn each village and city has a limited number of shrines and temples. One is led to believe that the inhabitants of that community only worship one of the gods represented by a temple or shrine. However each god only has a limited portfolio. What if you can't find a temple in your community whose god has a portfolio that's important to you?

You offer a quick prayer to that deity without a temple.

As it says right in the new FRCS, while most people worship one deity above all others, they are not above praying to these other deities when they have to. Even good-aligned seafarers make their offerings to Umberlee when they start a journey - and they need neither a temple nor a priest of Umberlee for that.

Clerics in the Forgotten Realms are not necessary for everyday worship - the people pray, and the gods hear them. Of course, whether the god chooses to answer is up to them...

Clerics are there to spread and reinforce their faith - they remind the people that their god is out there and deserved respect. Having a temple with a permanent clergy attached to it helps to channel the worship - but in the end, none of this is needed for a sincere prayer.

 

[Desdichado]

If you want a system that explains/discusses the worship of a pantheon and specific dieties at the same time, try Book of the Righteous.

Book of the Righteous is an absolutely righteous book. Aaron Loeb is my new hero of game design.

 

[Nightfall]

Funny, he never had any effect on the games that I ran. Actually, one of my old friends had always assumed that Ao was the DM himself and should only be used in-game on super-rare occassions if ever at all.

Yeah but you've never had to deal with some of "fanatics" on the FR WotC boards... Some are just whacked out man.

Btw Josh is correct. Book of the Righteous kicks MAJOR writing ass.

 

[Arnwyn]

In the Forgotten realms there are dozens upon dozens of gods in one form or another, IMO way too many./snip/
Just my opininon, whats yours?

I think the number of deities in FR is just fine.

I'll probably just want to echo Jurgen's post. Most of the deities are, in fact, lesser deities only. Really, there are only just a few "big" ones, and then a bunch of really small ones underneath (it's just that with FR, they're all detailed if you need them, which is nice).

Further, I think people tend to forget the size of the Realms. Again, echoing Jurgen, there are millions and millions of people.

So, I'm okay with the number of deities.

What it needs is a book on religions in Faerun. There's a smattering in the FRCS, but not much, and in my mind, it's pretty inconsistent.

I would like to see a chapter on each religion, which includes:
1) a description of the hierarchy in the church, including titles. Also, more information on rituals, rules and moral behaviours.
2) where the church is influential, where it is not, where it is outlawed, etc. Numbers of followers,
3) relations with other churchs
4) location of temples, shrines, and monestaries. Maps and NPCs would be nice as well.
5) spells and relics that are specific to the faith (but go easy on the prestige classes and feats - we have too many already)
6) a history of the church - what challenges, schisms, heros have gone by in the past
7) rumours, quest ideas and politics - enough to run a religion-centric campaign.

Oy. I'm guessing you're somewhat new to the Realms?

Virtually everything that you have mentioned above is in the three FR (2e) "god books": Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities. If you are running a game in the Realms in which clerics figure in any prominent role, you'd be doing your campaign and players a disservice if you didn't have this book. Other than the avatar stats and deity-specific spells (some of which have been updated to 3e in some other FR books), the 3 god books are "edition-free".

As Oaken25 noted above, the 3e version (Faiths & Pantheons) really stunk it up compared to the above 3 books.

 

[WhatKu]

I like the FR pantheon. I was recently making a ship guard [think reaver from Mongooses Ultimate PRCs], and in Greyhawk, as far as I can tell, I would have had to chose between the elmental god, and one of the various war gods. In FR, I can grab the Mulhondrai War Gods, Umberlee, The Red Knight, Helm, Torm, or lots of other gods to fit however I thought he should be. If he protects ships from Pirates and evil sea creatures selflessly, I can get Torm. If hes more of a Captain type, I can choose Valkur. Its nice.
The one thing I dislike about FR, is the Drow and their Pantheon. I thought AO decreed that gods power was based on their worship/temples/etc. How can most of the Drow gods stay alive? Loth should have abosrbed them by now, since the overwhelming majority of Drow worship Loth. Also, they had to go and make the CG "good dark elf" god. Why wouldnt they just choose from the normal Elven Pantheon? Argh.

 

[Numion]

Think about Shaundakul, god of travelers. You would probably give a short prayer or small offering to Shaundakul at the beginning of a long journey. But where do you do that? Are you allowed to do it if you officially worship another deity?

You don't have to be inside a temple of a god to pray to him or offer to him. I would guess that to be true of real world too; I don't know anyone who would say their go-to-sleep prayers at the church, but they rather do it next to their beds.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

It's hard to draw comparisons between the Greeks and FR, because the Greeks didn't have individuals worshipping a single god; they worshipped the entire pantheon, and made prayers to whatever god or goddess was applicable to their specific current situation.

Actually, this is more or less how it is in the Realms. See FRCS Page 39, 1st column, last paragraph. To sum up, you pledge your soul to God X (unless you want to end up as brick and/or mortar in the afterlife), but you are free to make any kind of situational offering you want to God Y. Going into a big battle? Make an offering to Tempus. Gonna set sail? Make a sacrifice to Valkur or Umberlee.

 

[Oaken25]

Yeah but you've never had to deal with some of "fanatics" on the FR WotC boards... Some are just whacked out man.

Btw Josh is correct. Book of the Righteous kicks MAJOR writing ass.

Hey! Don't call me a fanatic Nightfall. Okay, well maybe I am a little......

BTW, there's no bouncing smilely here.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I got really tired of elven deities when I found out there was a wild elven nature deity and a wood elven nature deity. Why do they have two deities who do exactly the same thing?

I'm looking right at the Elven Pantheon listing on page 239 of the FRCS. Under Portfolio, exactly -one- elven god has "nature" listed, and that's Rillifane Rallathil, patron of the Wild Elves.

Now I think one can say that every god in the Elven Pantheon is a "nature deity" to some extent, but only Rillifane Rallathil is specifically one.