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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6167102" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 329: March 2005part 3/7W:fF is out this month. I remember when they were spoiling W:tA in here. Oh how things haven't changed. There's still never been a WoD article in this magazine. And there never will be, it seems. Mesopotamian mythos: Curiously enough, the mesopotamian pantheon wasn't one of those given stats in any edition of Deities & Demigods/Legends and Lore, even though they made a fair number of appearances in the Planescape books. You have to go all the way back to Issue 16 to find a full feature on them, and that was pretty sketchy, trying to cram as many as possible into a couple of pages. Hopefully by putting 12 of them over 11 pages, we can get more depth than 26 over 2. Adad is your basic aggressive and unpredictable weather god, subjecting you to storms or droughts at a whim, to keep people strong and on their toes. Like Thor, this makes him both popular with adventurers and fearfully propitiated by common folk. It takes an englishman to grumble about the weather, but not be scared of it. Anu remains the sky god, the all-father, the guy who tries to keep both the fractious other gods and mortals in order. A thankless job, but one you get to do plenty of smiting in, since there's never a shortage of monsters and criminals in D&D. Belet-ili is the earth mother, a classic dualism that seems to repeat itself over and over again in mythology. It takes two to tango, and it take a village to raise a child. As a priest, you've got to make sure you balance those aspects, and not let your current kids get in the way of making more <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Ea is the god of the water, and also rules lawyers, as he was the one who inspired the creation of the Ark, letting people save themselves when the other gods technically weren't allowed too. Guess that trope is as old as the Code of Hammurabi then. Enlil is the god of the wind and lower atmosphere, showing the mesopotamians had quite a finely tuned set of different deities for various celestial occurrences. He's another one who's all about the status quo, unlike the more flighty wind gods of other cultures. Still, if someone's flagrantly breaking the law, being able to call a tornado does make a big difference in getting them back in line. Ereshkigal is of course the goddess of the underworld, which is always an unpopular but needed job, as you can't have ghosts and zombies wandering the earth whenever they feel like it. You might be able to rescue one or two people from her clutches, but it'll come at a cost and won't last forever, because death always comes back. Ishtar is a lot less benevolent than her 2e interpretation, as they remind us that being obsessed with love often has nasty consequences. She might venture to the underworld to save you, but she'll also dump your ass and treat you like dirt when she gets bored. When your primary pleasure is in the chase, you're never going to be satisfied with what you've got for long. Marduk is the guy who's job it is to actively kick the butt of chaos and evil in all it's forms, and is rather more down-to earth than the embodiments of natural forces. One for the paladins amongst us. Nergal is one of the other well known names from this pantheon, as he's a pretty textbook example of a demon, engaging in cruelty and slaughter, sometimes as a punishment from the other gods, and sometimes just for the lulz, because life is harsh and unfair, so there. His priests can expect to be pretty unpopular if they make their job public knowledge, so they remain pretty secretive. Ninurta is primarily the god of the plough, but all that hard physical labor and good food means he's pretty damn buff, so he has a secondary portfolio in athletics and can do some pretty impressive feats of heroism too. Marduk may volunteer for the big jobs, but it's important to have several backup heroes in case one is already on a quest. Shamash is your basic lawful good sun god, shedding light on matters, and with a secondary portfolio of travel, given the way the sun traverses the sky every day. As with his dad the sky, you'll never lack problems to fix as a cleric of this guy. Sin is the god of the moon, and a lot less naughty than his name would indicate in english. His job is to make sure the natural cycles of life continue as they should, which means he has quite a few druids amongst his followers. So this article does actually manage to introduce some material I haven't seen before, and make it look decently suited to D&D adventurers. That's pretty pleasing. Warhammer gets it's new edition. This is nice. Still a gritty and grim as ever.</blockquote>

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