Monotheism in a Polytheistic setting?

[Daniel D. Fox]

Have any of you messed with this at all? I am really wanting to have a monotheistic organisation / faction in my setting.
In fact, I almost want it to be as strong a religion as the polytheistic options.

I am thinking that the people of this country/province will mostly be monotheists and, hopefully, that will be one of hte points of contention between them and the neighbouring countries.

Anyone had success with this? Failure? Tips? Tricks?

Yes. Read about the Divine Source here - http://deismaar.pbworks.com/Divine+Source. Put thru a request to join the wiki, as I keep it private.

It's a monotheistic approach to treating a pantheon of gods as singular faces of one singular god.

 

[SKyOdin]

Personally, I don't think separating monotheism and polytheism worshippers into two separate countries that don't like each other is the best way to handle having both monotheism and and polytheism together in the same setting. There is no reason you can't have both a monotheistic religion and a polytheistic religion existing side by side in the same country.

Let's look at Hinduism, the poster child for real world polytheism, with its numerous major, minor, and local gods. However, certain sects of Hinduism are more monotheistic than polytheistic. In these sects, the highest of the gods, Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer, are seen as forming the Trimurti, a concept not unlike the Christian Trinity. Other sects of Hinduism see Vishnu as an all-powerful God, with all other deities as his subordinates. So while Hinduism is nominally a polytheistic religion, there are Hindu worshippers who can say with a striaght face that it is a monotheistic religion. (Please note that all of this is gross-oversimplifications of the extreme complexity and diversity of Hindu religion).

Another thing to consider is religious syncretism, which is very common in East Asian countries. In Japan for example, it is commonplace for someone to turn to a Shinto temple to pray for good fortune, and later ask Buddhist monks to perform a funeral. In this case, Shinto, an animist/polytheistic relgion, and Buddhism, a religion that denies the existence of gods, exist side by side, sharing the same worshippers. (Once again, any discussion of real world religion comes with the disclaimer that it is very complicated, diverse, and resistant to one-line summaries.)

I for one am tempted to use a syncretic religious model in my next campaign setting, with Divine classes associated with a monotheistic religion and Primal classes associated with an animist/polytheistic religion.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The first thing to do is to decide what the fictional reality behind the mechanics is. Is there one creator who is for some reason (perhaps he wants to give people a chance to side with him, perhaps he is hoping that some of his enemies will rejoin his side, etc) is delaying the final showdown with some rebellious underlings? Or maybe it's not so much that he is holding off on the final showdown as it is that the rebellious underlings are similar or superior in power so world is something of a battleground. Is the deity some kind of cosmic manifestation of the creation principle with a corresponding destruction principle somewhere around the bend? Maybe the other gods are ascended beings who are trying to make the world over in their image rather than accept their place in the cosmic cycle. Is there a happy pantheon but one member decided it would be better without all the others around? Or maybe it's an evil pantheon and the one member is trying to change the way things work. Perhaps there was once a pantheon but this god is the only surviving member.

If you figure out what kind of spiritual reality there is in your world, then it will give you a starting point. If the god of the monotheistic religion is really the creator god and the world is the way it is because he is still engaged in dialogue with rebels hoping that they will come back to his side, that yields a very different campaign world than one where the monotheistic religion is devoted to a rebel god trying to overthrow a happy or tyrannical pantheon.

There is also the issue of whether you really mean a monotheistic religion or simply a henotheistic religion. The monotheistic religion would maintain that there is only one god while the henotheistic religion would not necessarily deny the existence of other gods but would follow, honor, and worship only one god. Now, in practice, there is a good deal of overlap between the two categories--especially in a D&D campaign where the existence of the beings identified as gods could well be an established fact. A monotheistic religion would not necessarily need to deny their existence or power--it might well simply argue that they are "gods" of a different order from the god that they worship. For instance, a monotheistic religion of a creator god might accept the existence of other gods as devils or demons (which would be more or less plausible depending upon the characteristics of those gods) or even as powerful natural forces which are, nevertheless, not of the same order as their creator and are not worthy of worship. A henotheistic religion, on the other hand, could accept them as beings of the same order as the one that they follow and simply not follow them on ethical (they are wicked), devotional (we demonstrate our devotion to our god by eschewing all others), or racial/national (he is our god; you may follow yours as you see fit) grounds.

From a campaign perspective, you also need to decide whether you intend the monotheistic/henotheistic god to be an option for PCs. Obviously, only some options are going to work if you want the monotheistic god to be an option for PCs. If said monotheistic god is the rebel trying to subvert an otherwise happy and shiny pantheon his followers probably won't make good protagonists in a traditional heroic campaign. If you intend for them to be PC options, you also need to decide if they are to coexist in the same party with polytheistic divine (or devoted PCs). If you do, you have another hurdle of challenges to overcome--obviously the good rebel trying to destroy the tyrannical pantheon approach wouldn't work. (The safest bet would probably be a henotheism based on devotional or racial/national lines).

Finally, it will make a difference what kind of system you are using. In 3.x, you would want to have a robust selection of domains and prestige classes available if the monotheistic god is to be a potential PC deity. If you are worried about alignment (which is probably only really a concern in an environment where the monotheistic religion is dominant--otherwise there's a lot you can do with a spread as minimal as lawful good, lawful neutral, neutral good), you might work out some kind of a heretic feat whereby priests that would otherwise not be able to receive divine power due to their alignments can get a close approximation from other sources. It would be a feat tax, but NPCs can live with feat taxes. Alternately, you could depart from the core rules about clerics and alignments following the example of Ebberon or Arcanis. In 4th edition, on the other hand, there wouldn't be much work to do at all since the mechanical differences between various deities are minimal. (The only difference between my cleric of Torm and a cleric of Tempus is that I don't have the broken rightoeous rage of tempus feat).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Technically D&D has always handled religion in a monothestic fashion, in that a folllower of Meiliki does not worship Tamora ever. In the real world in polythestic religions all the gods are worshiped in the apporpiate season or for specific boons and blessings. So one would offer to Apollo for healing or Athena for wisdom and so forth.
Only Ebberon follows that pattern.
Now, if you want something akin to real world monothestic religion in your fantasy campaign then you have some issues to consider;
Namely; are the gods active in the world. If not then you are pretty free to do what you like, you should decide what answers divination spell/rituals that ask about the correct course of action and such.
If the gods are active in the world then is that god the One God, if so you need to decide what the other gods are and why they can act in the world. If not then it can default to normal D&D type god behaviour.

 

[gizmo33]

Technically D&D has always handled religion in a monothestic fashion, in that a folllower of Meiliki does not worship Tamora ever.

I'm not that familiar with Forgotten Realms, but I don't recall DnD having anything to say on this topic regarding non-cleric NPCs and their religious habits. I always figured a non-cleric character would attend whatever festivals/temples they wanted to at whatever time. Assuming the opportunity eg. you live in a town with a lot of temples. In a town with one temple you probably just go there, but I never assumed that you'd be burned at the stake for giving a donation to a travelling priest of another god.

Clerics being devoted to a certain deity at the expense of the others is historical AFAIK.

 

[Derren]

The problem is that in default D&D there is hard proof that the gods exist in the form of divine spells. People can even talk with the different gods and receive answers.

With that it seems highly unlikely that there are people who believe that only one god exists and that all others are false gods. At best they can believe that all those gods are one and the same being.

 

[Umbran]

The first thing to do is to decide what the fictional reality behind the mechanics is.

If the characters are ever going to actually find out that reality, or if a major plot point actually hinges on the detail, then yes, this is something a GM should do.

If the point of having a monotheistic religion in the game is to explore the interactions between the mono- and poly-theists, though, this is not necessary, and, in fact, can be detrimental.

A major guideline for GMs that I have found useful is, "Don't specify what you do not have to." Specified facts are restrictions on what you can do later. Sometimes you want or need to make up the details early on. Otherwise, it can be left unspecified until you actually need to know the difference.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I'm not that familiar with Forgotten Realms, but I don't recall DnD having anything to say on this topic regarding non-cleric NPCs and their religious habits. I always figured a non-cleric character would attend whatever festivals/temples they wanted to at whatever time. Assuming the opportunity eg. you live in a town with a lot of temples. In a town with one temple you probably just go there, but I never assumed that you'd be burned at the stake for giving a donation to a travelling priest of another god.

Clerics being devoted to a certain deity at the expense of the others is historical AFAIK.

Well I cannot point to any offical D&D source, my impression, I will admit comes from FR and fiction in novels and Dragon where character mention service to a particular god and never seem to offer any reverence to any other.

As for Clerics being devoted to a single god, it seems to be true of the Romans, I don't know about the Greeks but I don't believe it is true of the Egyptians and I doubt if it was universally so of the various City State and Imperial Cultures of the Fertile Cresent.

 

[Nebten]

For a resource, look up Theocracy of the Pale that worships Pholtus in Greyhawk. You should plenty of matterial of monothesic society within a polytheistic world.

 

[Dire Bare]

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread, I'll just add a few thoughts.

Polytheism and Monotheism have existed side-by-side in the real world for millenia . . . so it shouldn't be all that hard to do in a game.

Monotheism is *not* "all gods are cool, but I worship Athena exclusively". Monotheism is either "there are no gods other than the one true god" or "there might be other gods, but none are worthy of worship except for the one, true god".

The in-game and mechanics problems of . . . "Well, you say that your god is the one true god . . . but my god also gives me power, and we can go visit him in the astral sea, really, right now!" This is easily overcome too.

The problem is that in default D&D there is hard proof that the gods exist in the form of divine spells. People can even talk with the different gods and receive answers.

With that it seems highly unlikely that there are people who believe that only one god exists and that all others are false gods. At best they can believe that all those gods are one and the same being.

You can have the classic D&D cosmology and your monotheism cake too. The polytheistic religions say, "Hey, my god exists!!! We can go visit him/her right now if you want!" The monotheistic religions might say, "Oh, your god exists, sorta . . . but he is only an aspect of my god" or "You god is not a god at all, but a DEMON leading his followers into EEEEEVIL!!!" Which is pretty much what happens in the real world, with the addition of "sorry, but your god doesn't exist at all!"

Christian mythology is a good place to look (obviously, I guess). Many of the "demons" and "fallen angels" are actually repurposed pagan gods of other competing religions. Heck, even some of the good angels are derived from older pagan gods!