D&D General Gods, huh, what are they good for?

[David Howery]

< tangent >

“Gods, huh, what are they good for?”
Deus ex machina, of course.

< /tangent >

"absolutely nothin', say it again...."

quote from all PCs who aren't clerics or paladins...

 

[Minigiant]

Imagine a campaign where the established "Big" pantheon tends to try and stamp out the "little" gods before they mature.

I theoryrafted the opposite for a campaign.

The younger Civilization pantheon (War, Peace, Knowledge, Might, Forge, Grave) repeated invade the older Elemental pantheon whenever they break out their prisons as the Middle aged Patron deities play both sides.

 

[Hussar]

Imagine a campaign where the established "Big" pantheon tends to try and stamp out the "little" gods before they mature.

That's kinda/sorta how Scarred Lands works. The Titans actually created everything, including the Gods. The Gods rebel, since the gods get their power from mortals and the Titans keep wiping out all the mortals and restarting the world every few thousand years.

 

[plecostomus]

"absolutely nothin', say it again...."

quote from all PCs who aren't clerics or paladins...

I think this is true, in the sense that when you decide how your gods work you should consider how satisfying it would be to play a devotee of said god. If you don't take that step, you're probably writing a book instead of making a TTRPG campaign setting.

There's a 3P book for Dragonlance called Dragonlance Companion, and one thing I pulled from it that I loved was suggestions for things the gods and their clerics do in the world.

• For example, Chislev is a god of nature, but she is not anti-development. She rewards responsible land development and farming with things like "good weather conditions, bountiful harvests, or bestial protectors to guard the community". So here is a god with visible magical effects for everyone in the world, and her clerics and druids can play the role of mediator to help communities enact sustainable development.
  
  
• For Shinare, a god of commerce and wealth, the book suggests her clerics are mostly rich entrepreneurs, but their earnings "must serve their communities". Further, "Some of them travel from town to town to aid struggling businesses. Most mercantile guilds have one of Shinare's clerics as a patron and advisor."
  
  
• One more from Dragonlance Companion just because I really like it: clerics of Sirrion, the god of fire and transformation, keep ever-burning flames in their own temples, but also function as the setting's firefighters and controlled burn operators, because Sirrion sees fire as an agent of change rather than destruction.

So here we have a version of the Dragonlance setting where gods are doing visibly good things for the world and their clerics and other devotees often play certain roles. It's a great starting point for a player to make a cleric of one of these gods. And it adds magic to the world- Your party reaches a remote village while traveling and find it's guarded by an entire pride of lions. Your party is walking through the woods and sees clerics singing and setting the undergrowth on fire. In theory they might find these scenarios a bit strange and worthy of investigation. So this kind of setting prep doesn't just help your potential cleric players, it helps you.

Also maybe don't set your Dragonlance campaign during the Cataclysm or the War of Souls if you want to enjoy any of this.