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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 4805950" data-attributes="member: 3146">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).</blockquote>

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