Gods and their temples in your games

I've never taken a campaign to god-killing level, or even to the interacting-with-gods-on-a-regular-basis level. I like to treat the power of gods as based on their followers, so killing a god without destroying their religion serves little purpose.

I'm also not a very big fan of "God Wars", holy wars between the followers of two different gods? Sure. But battles between the gods themselves are just silly. Either their awesome power is pointless because their foe has equal power, or their awesome power is wasted because their foe can undo everything they do instantly.

I want to apologize that there will be several posts in a row because my computer is acting up and I am doing this on my phone and it does not handle multi quoting very well.

I don't always have big god wars in all my campaigns because ibut I do have churches who work against each other and try and kill clergy and followers. For example any time I use the classic DnD pantheon I play up the issues between Heironeous and his half brother Hextra. If I run a game set in Kingdoms of Kalamar I will play churches against each other. In the setting they list what gods really have a grudge against other gods.

In Forgotten Realms I had a player playing a cleric of Helm and one a paladin of Tyr. Now in the books the two gods get along but their clergy often don't. There is a intense rivalry not that do dirty tricks but they definitively tried to show each other up.
 

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One question, primarily to those who tie the power of a god to its number of followers, what is a follower exactly?
In a polytheistic pantheon, especially one where people do know for fact that all the deities really exist like in D&D hardly anyone would just worship one god. They might slightly favor one god over others because of their profession, tradition, birth, etc. but most people would follow the rites of several, if not all, gods and pray to whatever god their support they need of think they have angered.

The way I look at followers is this way. You have clergy, the priest, clerics, lay folk who are active members in the church. Then you have true believers these are the people who do their best to follow the tenets of their church, pay a tithe or in some cases donate food, items or even time to the church. While they know there are other gods they have chosen to dedicate their worship to this one deity as their patron deity.

A lot of people don't have a patron deity and unless it is Forgotten Realms it does not matter. These people generally go about their lives they may honor the various gods on a major holiday, they may pick a specific god to pray to for help that fits the need they are praying for.

In my games I have special perks for the faithful. A non cleric type PC who role plays his worship, tithe to the church tries for the most part to live the tenets and has a holy symbol finds that the symbol allows them to heal 1D6 three times a day . There are a few other things depending on the deity involved. For example if its Pelor the holy symbol can be activated as a light source that last for an hour or a combo of an hour.
 

The cleric works directly for the church, if applicable, and spends his money on equipment to better enable him to perform this job.
If anything, shouldn't he be the one receiving money from tithes? :hmm:

In my game the money he spends on equipment and in a lot of cases the church will pay for equipment is not counted when figuring out tithes it is usually the loot you find and your 10% of your share goes to your church.

An active cleric does not have to pay for healing potions are wands of cure light though they may not have any at the time. And clerics on a specific mission for the church get what they and the party need that the church as to help them accomplish the mission.

One way I control gold is my using methods to make players part with it. Taking a cue from Shadowrun unless PCs live on the road all the time they have to play for a life style every month that pays the rent and upkeep of their home.

Clerics don't have to do this because they have rooms at their home church and can get lodgings for free at any of their churches on the road.

Mages can belong to guilds and schools which charge them membership fees but that includes access to libraries, rooms to stay in and help identifying items.
 


And speaking of classical religions, it doesn't really matter, because the gods themselves don't wholly care. They establish an internal heirarchy on their own, I mean Zeus and Hades were constantly bickering over who should rule Olympus, but that didn't stop people from praying to Ares for strength on the battlefield or Mercury for swift and safe travel or any other major or lesser deity.

A player could indicate that they are specifically a Cleric of War, therefore they follow Mars. I mean the whole fun part to godly "pantheons" is all the drama! Maybe today you are a follower of Mars, but then Pluto makes you a better offer....until Saturn shows up and threatens to melt out your eyeballs and light your chest-hair on fire if you don't start following him and his Titan buddies. Of course this assumes you have a worldly active pantheon(who wouldn't? They're so much fun! And you just might get to score with a god!)

I have a Xena/Hercules style game and this happens all the time with the gods and as the party traveled from Greece to Rome to Britian I threw in the other gods and it would be fin watching the gods tempting and offering bribes and sometimes threats to make the PCs do their bidding.
 

1. Can you kill them?
2. Do they play a major part in your world?
3. Do you just hand wave them away except for letting the cleric have access to divine magic?
4. Do your good temples all get along is the only strife if there is any between good and evil churches?
5. Do you require your clerics to tithe to their churches?
6. Do the cleric gods every get angry with the cleric and block access to his spells?

Using the same format to make it easier for me to answer...

1. Wound, definately. Kill? Supposedly, but I don't ever see it being done by PCs. For one thing, it would require destroying/discrediting all the gods believers (in my major homebrew, belief has the power to make things real, if that belief is strong enough.)

2. Well, somewhat. I've finally worked out a creation story using them and they have played a major role in one campaign, but they're usually in the background and only come into play through paladin or cleric characters.

3. I used to, though I've slowly been incorporating more and more of the pantheon as I play.

4. Nope - there's actually been cases of one of the good gods followers hunting down those of another good faith at the bequest of the god. Haven't had any cases of the good and the bad churches working together, though.

5. Yes. 80% or more in some, in fact. In return, such churches may provide assistance, information and/or gear in return for the "donations".

6. Yep. I've had a paladin stripped of his abilities until he atoned, had one cleric stripped of his spells for going against tenet and even had one cleric struck dead for mortally offending a deity (in the last case, it was an NPC of an evil cleric and a plot point. The party brought evidence of the cleric's offenses before the unholy altar - while the priest was in the middle of trying to summon an avatar and the offended god).

However, I do allow for "fallen" or demagogue clerics who claim to be worshipping a god, but are in truth abusing the power they've been granted. As above, usually the god only retracts the power when the offenses are made known - either by another priest calling the offender out, or the offense being made known in a temple. This of course means that my campaign's gods are not omnipotent; they need eyes and ears on the ground to know if something's wrong. It also gives me an excuse for why a deity employs champions, priests, angels and avatars.
 

1. Can you kill them?
2. Do they play a major part in your world?
3. Do you just hand wave them away except for letting the cleric have access to divine magic?
4. Do your good temples all get along is the only strife if there is any between good and evil churches?
5. Do you require your clerics to tithe to their churches?
6. Do the cleric gods every get angry with the cleric and block access to his spells?

1. Possibly, but very difficult, it would be the culmination of an epic quest to weaken a god, discover and exploit his vulnerabilities, gain allies and sufficient personal power to do the deed. Failing or abandoning the quest would be quite likely. Success would probably involve one of the party having to take the place of the deceased god, in some capacity. Since the endgame would be the end of the campaign this would be possible. (Quasi-deities and weaker demigods are much easier to kill, though still likely an epic task.) Gods have an alarming tendency to come back from the dead, though...

2. Yes, but this is coloured by the attitudes of the players. A lot of players don't care or actively avoid fantasy religion, and pushing it down their throats is as counterproductive as it is in the real world. To those players who are interested there is plenty to become involved with as regards religious institutions, holy places etc.

3. As I said above, some players aren't interested. Generally, I require players of divinely powered PCs to be somewhat interested, and not using their "religious" PCs solely as parodies or criticism of organised religion. I would probably allow a "just the powers" cleric in a dungeon crawl game lacking social context.

4. In my campaigns there is plenty of competition between religions of all kinds, but it's less likely to get seriously violent between good religions. I do run a fairly black and white world, with plenty of aggressively evil organisations and religions, giving plenty of reasons for non-evil faiths to try and get along despite their differences. And I really hate the tendency in some games to turn LG churches and paladins into evil, intolerant fascists while remaining LG.

5. It depends on the church. Lawfulish faiths tend to have a formal tithe or similar. Less organised religions may lack the internal civil service to collect a formal tax, especially if they don't have temples, but their clergy generally make charitable donations or sponsor related activities.

6. As a DM I'm much less willing to do this nowadays than in previous years or editions. Unless the player wants to go through a crisis of faith, this generally denotes a lack of communication between the DM and player or differing expectations, in which case punishing the player is likely to aggravate matters further. I find its crucial that the players of PCs with strong institutional or religious connections have a well-defined ethos and clear and unambiguous expectations from the game. I've seen too many car wrecks from assumption clashes to take this subject lightly.

I prefer the 4e approach where heretics keep their spells, but have to deal with the social consequences, with church hit squads and maybe angry angels. This keeps the PC a viable adventurer while providing adventure hooks, and allowing for non-suicidal heresy. Now the spells of heretics may change in appearance in an involuntary way to reflect the changing faith of their source, and heretics who diverge greatly are more likely to move to another religion closer to their new tenets.
 
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The Churches/religions and their faithful figure prominently in my games. The Gods themselves, not really. No god killing stuff in my D&D games. But I have no problem with that kind of thing in say Glorantha or another similar heavy mythology type game where interaction between gods and mortals is common.
 

Originally Posted by Elf Witch: I am curious on how different DMs handle and use the gods in their games.
1. Can you kill them?
2. Do they play a major part in your world?
3. Do you just hand wave them away except for letting the cleric have access to divine magic?
4. Do your good temples all get along is the only strife if there is any between good and evil churches?
5. Do you require your clerics to tithe to their churches?
6. Do the cleric gods every get angry with the cleric and block access to his spells?

Ferghis:
7. What happens to a soul after they die? If they end up going to different places, how are the destinations chosen?

I ask this because the lower planes seem to have a large number of souls to "deal" with, while I think most people, in most settings, would worship deities residing in the upper planes. More specifically, aside from some noteworthy exceptions (Orcus, Asmodeus, Bane) most of the rulers of the lower planes (demons, devils, and others) are usually regarded as lesser deities, if that. How do they get such a large "share" of souls?
 

One question, primarily to those who tie the power of a god to its number of followers, what is a follower exactly?
In a polytheistic pantheon, especially one where people do know for fact that all the deities really exist like in D&D hardly anyone would just worship one god. They might slightly favor one god over others because of their profession, tradition, birth, etc. but most people would follow the rites of several, if not all, gods and pray to whatever god their support they need of think they have angered.

That's basically what I normally assume in my campaigns. One cleric = one deity, but everybody else can and does "worship" many deities normally.

Anyway, I have heard a lot of people who use the "tie the power of a god to its number of followers" idea, but I've never heard anybody using a system to keep track of such number. Even if you do that, the numbers are presumably from the thousands up, so it's probably not worth having headaches figuring out if Joe the Blacksmith is a 75% worshiper while Jim the Cartwright is only a 35% :)
 

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