Modern Gods

[Urizen]

Garfield: God of Cats and Lasagna.
Stimpy; God of Flattulence(sp?)
Beavis and Butthead: Demigods of Mischief, Patrons of the dimwitted.

 

[jeff37923]

Xeroxes, ancient Greek God of office machines.
Ramen, Hindu god of college carbohydrate consumption.

 

[Bayushi Seikuro]

I think whoever suggested about cults following obvious works of fiction had a good idea. That, and the fact that worship of 'old' gods, like Neptune, or what have you, will never really 'die'. It'll just change, go underground, etc. -- you don't really advertise that you're a Chaos worshipper on your resume.

I think back to George Carlin's bit about worshipping the Sun as opposed to any other religion. Why? Because I can see the Sun, I can feel the Sun, it's predictable in what and when it does things.

EDIT: One thing I just thought of is the way a 'cult' - in the true sense of a small group of people following a set of beliefs, not the standard gaming definition - might work in D&D.

A guy starts out having some kind of horrible distress. Out of nowhere he just invokes some other god's name. Some how things work out.

It's like the lucky charm effect. Heck, I had a computer that had constant problems. After I'd explored about every option, I gave my computer a Name. Surprisingly, after that, very few problems.

I could see someone somehow imagining things have True Names of Power, and gathering likeminded people.

Sorry. Was a tangent, this whole post. Maybe there's some insight in there tho.

 

[Turanil]

Don't forget the absolute King Of All Gods Before Whom All Shall Bow, worshipped almost everywhere and most openly, even by followers of other religions:

The $ god...

 

[SWBaxter]

I might suggest creating some new ones though. How about Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin as the God and Goddess of Rock & Roll?

An interesting take on this kind of thing is the Unknown Armies RPG, which deals pretty extensively with postmodern myths. Makes a good sourcebook, at any rate.

 

[Michael Dean]

I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It's been a while since I read it but there are numerous "modern" gods who are fighting against the "old" gods throughout the book. So there are individual gods of television, credit cards, and technology who are allied against Loki and Anansi for example. Very interesting characters overall.