How detailed are your in-game religions?
- Thread starter tjoneslo
- Start date
tetsujin28
First Post
Since I tend to only run historical campaigns, I use historical religions. And being a scholar of ancient religions, I have a whole bunch of junk to use for my games 
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
My Gods have about a paragraph each, but the gods have an impact on the campaign almost exclusively through the acts of thier worshipers.
They have some myths, creation, why two gods are rivals, and three others are considered strong allies baised on the events rather than powers i.e. the goddess of lies helped the goddess of air win the heart of the god of the sea. but like mhacdebhandia not all gods enforce doctrinal purity, there are good and evil sects of the war god and the goddess of secrets ignores alignment in creating clerics. The gods get fleshed out by PCs - they are in charge of creating rituals, dress and some policy. There are also 3 human saints that can also grant powers the saints have interacted with the players - in visons dreams etc. more than the gods
The largest impact the gods have on the players are the holidays - 8 of 15 gods have holidays like feast of the fools, memorial day and the Sale of Iutar -Everything 15% Off! Great for buying and selling found magic items. plus the Saints Days The regular progression of holidays really structures time in the campaign. Woe to the cleric or paladin who is out exploring when his/her holy festival arrives.
Most gods have a strong regional presence - serving as patrons for cities or kingdoms. This is primarily beacuse of a roman like incorperation of tribal gods into a single unified system 2000 yrs before. So long ago that the true events are shrouded in secrecy and dogma. Two geographically isolated areas have compleatly different beliefs, and animism is popular amoung the human tribes living at the edge of civilization.
They have some myths, creation, why two gods are rivals, and three others are considered strong allies baised on the events rather than powers i.e. the goddess of lies helped the goddess of air win the heart of the god of the sea. but like mhacdebhandia not all gods enforce doctrinal purity, there are good and evil sects of the war god and the goddess of secrets ignores alignment in creating clerics. The gods get fleshed out by PCs - they are in charge of creating rituals, dress and some policy. There are also 3 human saints that can also grant powers the saints have interacted with the players - in visons dreams etc. more than the gods
The largest impact the gods have on the players are the holidays - 8 of 15 gods have holidays like feast of the fools, memorial day and the Sale of Iutar -Everything 15% Off! Great for buying and selling found magic items. plus the Saints Days The regular progression of holidays really structures time in the campaign. Woe to the cleric or paladin who is out exploring when his/her holy festival arrives.
Most gods have a strong regional presence - serving as patrons for cities or kingdoms. This is primarily beacuse of a roman like incorperation of tribal gods into a single unified system 2000 yrs before. So long ago that the true events are shrouded in secrecy and dogma. Two geographically isolated areas have compleatly different beliefs, and animism is popular amoung the human tribes living at the edge of civilization.
My campaigns tend to be fairly cookie-cutter for this.
If it's a box campaign (even Planescape), I'll use that campaign's religion(s).
If it's just me, though, I have this tenency to be really lazy and use the Greek pantheon. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I use the Norse pantheon for dwarves. Elves tend to do the nature spirits + Great Spirit thing (Except for Drow. They get to have Llolth). If somebody wants to specialize in a specific god, I'll generally come up with special powers on the fly. That way, everybody can be unique. One follower of Apollo might have healing powers. Another might be able to use Bard-like music abilities. Yet another might get a Lore ability. And then they'd all have the Sun domain...
If it's a box campaign (even Planescape), I'll use that campaign's religion(s).
If it's just me, though, I have this tenency to be really lazy and use the Greek pantheon. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I use the Norse pantheon for dwarves. Elves tend to do the nature spirits + Great Spirit thing (Except for Drow. They get to have Llolth). If somebody wants to specialize in a specific god, I'll generally come up with special powers on the fly. That way, everybody can be unique. One follower of Apollo might have healing powers. Another might be able to use Bard-like music abilities. Yet another might get a Lore ability. And then they'd all have the Sun domain...
ivocaliban
Explorer
To date no PC in any of my games has ever opted to be Cleric or Paladin. In general, they haven't even been terribly concerned with the gods, but this doesn't mean the gods aren't concerned with them. As Terry Pratchett wrote, "...Gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at." While few of the PCs have actually been atheists (a difficult thing to be when gods manifest in front of your very eyes), they have generally been agnostic and not very curious.
I use the Greyhawk gods for humans, as the game is set in my own version of Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms gods to fill in the demi-human pantheons. Whether the players care to follow any particular god or not, the gods are often involved heavily in the plot of my games. My recent long running campaign is entire based on the awakening of Tharizdun under the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye. The PC, after terrible trials and the realization who the real enemy is, has (for the first time in the player's career) found faith. In Pelor, to be exact.
Long before I knew anything of Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, however, I had created my own microcosmic world that used a mix of my own gods and those of the Hollow World.
I use the Greyhawk gods for humans, as the game is set in my own version of Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms gods to fill in the demi-human pantheons. Whether the players care to follow any particular god or not, the gods are often involved heavily in the plot of my games. My recent long running campaign is entire based on the awakening of Tharizdun under the guise of the Elder Elemental Eye. The PC, after terrible trials and the realization who the real enemy is, has (for the first time in the player's career) found faith. In Pelor, to be exact.
Long before I knew anything of Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, however, I had created my own microcosmic world that used a mix of my own gods and those of the Hollow World.
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