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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5798216" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 263: September 1999part 4/7Hearth & Sword: This month's main feature is a 16 page piece on the Anglo-Saxon gods. Now this is a slightly odd business, because they have quite a bit in common with the viking ones, only with different pronounciations, and substantial recontextualisation. Although we get a static picture of myths after the event, in a world lacking in fast communication and easy long-term recording and reproduction of information, it's pretty much inevitable that myths would differ even from village to village, and mutate hugely as time passed. That wouldn't work as well in fantasy campaigns where the gods are real and regularly interfere, and magic takes the place of many technological advancements. So what we have here is an alternate take on things they've already covered in Legends & Lore, but in an interesting way. Reality is under no obligation to be internally consistent, unlike fantasy worlds. Nerthus is the chief nature goddess, all about making sure there's a bountiful harvest for people so they can be happy and healthy. This means turning serious miscreants into trees, so they can be productive by producing yummy fruit if all else fails. Her clerics are also fairly nonviolent, but with bonus sleep and charm effects, they can do nonviolent solutions quite effectively. Eostre is the goddess of birth and spring, the new growth part of the natural style. Her priests are strict pacifists, so they're not really adventurer suitable, but they're incredibly good at midwifery, and can communicate with Hares for some reason. Choose life. Choose children. Choose not being a violent druggie. Hred is the goddess of winter, and as this is an era where a nasty winter will kill quite a lot of people, she's not considered very nice. Her clerics don't get a great spell selection, but have access to wizards cold spells, and can enhance them quite substantially over the standard. Double damage ice storm is not to be sneezed at at high level unless you have the appropriate resistance spell. Mannus is the ultimate big daddy of humanity, encouraging them to excel and gently weeding out the lazy and self-satisfied for the good of everyone else. His priests have a decidedly quirky restriction on their proficiency requirements, and are good at buffing, warding and cursing. Classic clerical support duties, really. Woden is of course a younger Odin, demonstrating that Wizards taking over because knowledge of magic lets them do everyone else's job better than them at high level isn't purely a D&D conceit. Amoral and out for themselves, his priests get rune magic, but eventually lose an eye. This doesn't slow them down at all, as the other one gets super-perception. You can see why he'd wind up being considered cooler than all these mundane natural cycle goddesses in the long run. Tir is also fairly familiar as Tyr in the Norse pantheon and Forgotten Realms, although he has yet to lose his hand. It's a hard life, being an honourable warrior god, which is why he encourages warriors to go out in a blaze of glory when age starts to get to them. Keep taking on bigger and badder challenges until something beats you, it's the only way to know just how great you really are. (albeit posthumously) His clerics get to kick ass and see through lies, illusions, etc. But not heal, because magical healing is for wusses.  Thunnor is the unnabbreviated form of Thor, and even more of an impetuous hothead who loves a fight. His clerics get to go berserk, which is always fun, and shoot lightning bolts at higher level. Pretty much what you'd expect then. Ing is the dutiful demigod son of the pantheon heads, wandering the world, and trying to do good wherever possible. He doesn't have priests of his own, but is the guy people often swear oaths on. And to round things off is talk about christianity in the dark ages and the way it interacts with them. (and eventually takes over) They did co-exist for a couple of centuries, but it certainly wasn't a comfortable one. There's plenty of room for adventures bringing them into conflict in interesting ways.  So this has been a fairly cool special feature, giving me plenty to think about in terms of taking existing things and giving them different contexts. The same people act differently in different contexts. The same idea applies to gods. The Oerdian lesser gods: More gods? Well, I suppose we haven't seen quite as many of them as we have new kits in 2e. Although I might have to doublecheck that. Although the funny thing about that is the changes for being a specialty priest of some kind are more significant than the benefits and penalties for the average kit. This is worth thinking about. Anyway, it's Greyhawk time again, showing that this  resurgence really is it's peak in terms of popular support from freelancers, and possibly the public too. Like Star Trek, absence really has made the heart fonder. Atroa is the goddess of spring and the east wind in particular, with general nature control as secondary. This also means she's all about the fertility, celibacy is strictly forbidden amongst her priests. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> As the priests also get regeneration at higher levels, and weather control spells are pretty cool in combat, they don't work too badly as adventurers either. Chauntea could learn something from that. Delleb is the god of sages, not to be confused with the god of magic. He has a black dog for a companion, and indeed, the weight of using knowledge responsibly can weigh on his priesthood a bit, but he remains strictly lawful good so far. His clerics get an unusually large proportion of their spheres from the Tome of Magic, and are rather good at divination. The idea of surprising your enemy with unusual spells, while avoiding those kind of surprises yourself seems a clever one. Kurell is the god of thievery and jealousy, engaging in many similar actions to Norebo, but for very different reasons. Where Norebo is fun-loving and playful, Kurell is a petty-minded vindictive little bastard who holds a grudge like no-ones business and hates anyone better than him at something. Like most gods of thievery, his clerics get to use some rogue skills, and their granted spells make being sneaky easy. Mind you, if they're sticking to their god's tenets strictly, they're likely to tear the group apart eventually, because you can be sure someone'll get something they're jealous of, and then it'll all gradually snowball. So I think the notable thing about these gods is that they're all more specific or alternate takes on ideas that already have a god in charge of them. Which I suppose is how it works in greek mythology, with gods that are children of other gods putting their attention to a subset of their parent's portfolio. And it demonstrates how you can approach the same basic concept, and yet have it's embodiments have very different alignments and personalities. That does give this a certain value, and it does make a pretty good read, without making the clerics particularly under or overpowered. I think this is a positive result.</blockquote>

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