Monotheism in a Polytheistic setting?

[Derren]

Well since the gods don't have stats in 4e, one could look at it as a particle/wave problem.

Thats not correct. 4E gods have stats and are the big bosses of 4E. Just look at Tiamat.

 

[nightwyrm]

Good deities could send messengers to the ascended deity informing him of his error. Not sure that I can see how the ascended deity could continue with this mistake without calling into question his intelligence, wisdom, and/or alignment.

Of course part of your example AFAICT relies on the premise that a deity was actually able to successfully fake his identity (the demon you mention) in the first place. This bit of reasoning essentially is circular (the same messenger angels could pretty quickly spread the word among the highest eschelons of mortal priesthoods). I can see a demon masquerading as a god at a local level, but at the point at which a mortal is able to ascend to be a god that seems far-fetched.

That depends on whether the ascended mortal believes what the messenger says is true. Alignment is no guide to truth or lies. Even something like detect lies can only detect whether someone is intentionally lying, not whether what someone is saying is actually true.

Being powerful is no guarantee of knowledge or wisdom.

 

[Umbran]

Those beings are not unspecified in the important senses. You seem to be suggesting that the clerics of these gods really don't know what they're doing when they cast commune, and they might was well just be asking some random passer-by. Otherwise I don't get the implications of this.

I meant it was unspecified in that we were not talking about communing with a particular, specific god. In a specific campaign, there might be some reason to trust or understand the answer given by a particular being - but were were talking in the generic sense, so it was unspecified.

Let me put it another way - "Demon" and "Devil" are human classifications - depending on the cosmology of the world, they may not be metaphysically meaningful. Nor may the words "Chaotic Good" have the same meaning to the gods as they do in the rulebook. A heftily Lawful Good god may look upon a True Neutral god as being relatively chaotic and evil.

And, if the god you are asking has "skin in the game", such that how you react to the question is important, the answer may be slanted to suit, no?

It isn't that the clerics don't know what they are doing - it is that when you are talking about entities that have their own goals, trusting them to be direct and literal is only wise if your GM promises that they will always be direct and literal.

And, of course, if the PCs aren't casting the spells themselves, and are getting their answers through NPCs... well, then what they get is filtered through a mortal agent who may have his or her own agenda or beliefs.

The point being that the existence of the spells does not necessarily clarify all areas of doubt and uncertainty in the mortal populace. Things may be clear if the GM wants them that way, or they may be murky.

 

[Dire Bare]

Good deities could send messengers to the ascended deity informing him of his error. Not sure that I can see how the ascended deity could continue with this mistake without calling into question his intelligence, wisdom, and/or alignment.

Of course part of your example AFAICT relies on the premise that a deity was actually able to successfully fake his identity (the demon you mention) in the first place. This bit of reasoning essentially is circular (the same messenger angels could pretty quickly spread the word among the highest eschelons of mortal priesthoods). I can see a demon masquerading as a god at a local level, but at the point at which a mortal is able to ascend to be a god that seems far-fetched.

Still not buying your arguments. If other deities send messengers to our wannabe "one true god" to inform him he's way off base and they don't appreciate it . . . why should he care? Either our one god realizes he's not the only game in town but decides to instruct his worshippers otherwise, or he truly believes he is the only true god and all the other "so-called" gods and their servants are deceivers.

It's also possible that our one god knows he's not the only god in town, and doesn't wish to deceive his followers . . . but his mortal followers have created a church venerating him as a monotheistic deity. Sure, they can commune with their god and his servants, but the answers to a commune spell are often vague and subject to interpretation, depend on the questions asked, and are interpreted by a biased priesthood. And even if the god manages to get "the truth" to his mortal servants, the high-up priests capable of casting commune might decide to deceive the general lay worshippers anyway . . .

. . . so much room for fun conflict and confusion! I'm actually getting inspired by this thread to work up a new monotheistic religion for my campaign!

And, of course, you can have a campaign where there truly is only one god . . . and all of the other gods truly are demons deceiving their worshippers!!!

 

[Dire Bare]

For the players, yes, this will be largely unimportant. For the NPC followers, though, this is of ultimate importance. If the PCs decide they want to become allies/enemies of this religion or even make a PC of this religion, it will be important as well.

If this religion IS the "correct" one, there will likely be world-sweeping ramifications should this religion start a crusade against others. Followers of other Good faiths will be devastated to learn that they were following demons et al all along, while Evil faiths will simply chug along as is (for the most part). No one likes to be told they've been lied to, however, except maybe the priests of a God of Lies.

If this religion is "wrong", then the priests simply become another statistic for PC's to kill.

Hmm, still don't see it. I don't doubt that most DMs who create campaigns with opposing poly and mono faiths will probably answer this question for themselves, and may or may not share it with their players. But, again, I don't think it is a question that HAS to be answered by the DM, even in his own secret heart!

All of what you describe could go down regardless of the "truth" of the situation, and whether the players know that truth, and even if the DM knows that truth.

 

[coyote6]

And, when you are asking questions about gods, you accept the answers form unspecified beings from another plane because... the spell description in the PHB tells you to? Note that the characters in the game world don't have copies of the PHB...

More importantly, note that WotC adventures have said that it is possible to "intercept" communes & similar spells, and give false answers. Cf., Lord of the Iron Fortress, and maybe Bastion of Broken Souls (Bastion at least indicates that deities can be unable to answer certain questions). IIRC, LotIF specifies that wish is enough to intercept communes on a particular subject.

All it would take is multiple communes giving multiple contradicting answers to the same question, and all certainty regarding the true answer to said question would be blown out of the water. So some sufficiently powerful third-party demon/trickster god/ur-priest/whatever can, just to mess with people, wish that all commune questions about the true nature of X be answered "Yes".

Or the GM can just rule that divine matters are not the business of mortals, and thus by ancient divine pact, questions about such things go unanswered, or are answered vaguely. Or decide that the gods don't personally answer communes, their servants do, and that those servants can't discuss divine matters; or maybe they occasionally have their own agendas. Etc.

The game mechanics can be used to support uncertainty regarding divine matters.

 

[Dire Bare]

Something else I just realized . . .

If you are basing your D&D monotheism on the one most of us probably know best from the real world, there is a whole freakin' hiearchy of angels inbetween mortals and "God".

Google "hierarchy of angels" (or go to Wikipedia) and you'll see what I mean. Crazy! Not all of this is necessarily accepted by all Christian religions past and present, but all of it was belief at one time or another.

Now imagine how information sometimes flows in your typical corporate or government bureacracy . . .

Totally believable to me when a god says, "Hey man, I'm not the only god, the other guys are cool too," but by the time that message gets filtered down through three choirs and nine ranks of angels, to the high priests, down through the church hiearchy to the local parish and this Sunday's sermon . . . we get, "Our god is the one true god and all others are deceivers!"

 

[Allenchan]

Someone mentioned domains way back, and in my homebrew campaign which has a monotheistic religion, I allow a large pool of domains to the the typical clergy, but followers may also venerate a specific saint or archangel, which allows for more flavor-specific domains.

 

[gizmo33]

All it would take is multiple communes giving multiple contradicting answers to the same question, and all certainty regarding the true answer to said question would be blown out of the water.

Assuming that the NPCs have some sort of minimal attention span. Key to my perspective on this is the notion that what folks are trying to do would require some sort of deception that's long term and sufficient to fool creatures within divine intelligence.

So some sufficiently powerful third-party demon/trickster god/ur-priest/whatever can, just to mess with people, wish that all commune questions about the true nature of X be answered "Yes".

And no one wishes it back. And commune is just an example of one spell that provides this kind of information.

Or the GM can just rule that divine matters are not the business of mortals, and thus by ancient divine pact, questions about such things go unanswered, or are answered vaguely. Or decide that the gods don't personally answer communes, their servants do, and that those servants can't discuss divine matters; or maybe they occasionally have their own agendas. Etc.

Right. DM fiat/design can absolutely solve this problem. The DM can rule that on Wednesdays every single NPC in the world hops on one foot for one hour. All I was trying to do was outline the issues that in (what I'm calling) the default DnD set up, this sort of thing would seem problematic to me.

 

[gizmo33]

I meant it was unspecified in that we were not talking about communing with a particular, specific god. In a specific campaign, there might be some reason to trust or understand the answer given by a particular being - but were were talking in the generic sense, so it was unspecified.

I don't see how this supports the conspiracy we're talking about. If anything, not putting Commune answers under the control of a specific deity would make disinformation harder AFAICT.

Let me put it another way - "Demon" and "Devil" are human classifications - depending on the cosmology of the world, they may not be metaphysically meaningful. Nor may the words "Chaotic Good" have the same meaning to the gods as they do in the rulebook. A heftily Lawful Good god may look upon a True Neutral god as being relatively chaotic and evil.

This is possible but seems to me to fall into the "DM fiat" category. Prior to 4th edition, alignment was a measurable and universal condition. Individual DMs might decide that alignment morals are relative, but the vanilla interpretation IMO was not that way.

Same thing with demon and devil - take 4e for instance. These are creature subtypes, and the rules would imply that there is a physical reality to this. It seems somewhat far-fetched (but not impossible) to treat this otherwise - comparable to saying that an NPC with 18 strength might not actually be physically stronger than one with 10 strength, and instead is just so lucky that every time he attempts a feat of strength he gets a bonus. The DM could say that this is the case, but does not seem IMO to be the intent of the strength mechanic in the game.

And, if the god you are asking has "skin in the game", such that how you react to the question is important, the answer may be slanted to suit, no?

Do I get an insight/sense motive check? Ultimately, based on my "hop on one foot" analogy, the DM can do whatever he wants.

It isn't that the clerics don't know what they are doing - it is that when you are talking about entities that have their own goals, trusting them to be direct and literal is only wise if your GM promises that they will always be direct and literal.

I'm not arguing that the issue would be settled by a single, historical casting of Commune where everyone will just settle for the answer for the rest of eternity. *All* of the various divination spells, divine servants, creatures (clerics and otherwise) with 25 intelligence and contact with various deities, etc. would all have to support this conspiracy.

And, of course, if the PCs aren't casting the spells themselves, and are getting their answers through NPCs... well, then what they get is filtered through a mortal agent who may have his or her own agenda or beliefs.

I can't imagine a cleric continuing to get spells from a deity who is misrepresenting his deities beliefs. So to the extent that there is a conspiracy, it would not be initiated by a mortal agent without approval of the deity IMO.

The point being that the existence of the spells does not necessarily clarify all areas of doubt and uncertainty in the mortal populace. Things may be clear if the GM wants them that way, or they may be murky.

Ultimately I agree that the GM can fiat his way out of this. After all, there's no real simulator that you can run to answer this. Whether or not the players in the campaign find this believable will ultimately come down to whether or not they hold opinions about this similar to mine, for example. And ultimately, it wouldn't be polite of me as a player to be shooting my mouth off about how "oh, that wouldn't happen for real". What the GM says here goes - and if the gods and creatures all behave a certain way then that's how it is.