Monotheism in D&D

[AFGNCAAP]

Here's another idea, if you like:

Rather than creating saints/powers/etc. for the montheistic faith, how about creating different "paths" or "aspects" of worship? For example, here's what I did IMC:

There are 4 different "paths" of worship: the Path of Light, the Path of Darkness, the Path of Nature, and the Path of Magic. Clerics that channel positive energy, paladins, & the like follow the Path of Light; clerics that channel negative energy, blackguards, & the like follow the Path of Darkness. Druids, rangers, and clerics with nature-based domains (like Animal, Plant, & elemental domains) follow the Path of Nature. Most arcane spellcasters, psychic characters, mystic theurges, & clerics that have magic-based domains (like Magic, Mind, etc.) follow the Path of Magic.

Now, these paths can reflect different ideas/philosophies/denominations of a monotheistic system. The Path of Light could be the "default" or mainstream path of worship. The Path of Nature could be a denomination/sect which believe that closeness to nature = closeness to the divine. The Path of Magic (or if you rather, Path of Knowledge) could reflect a more intellectual/scholarly pursuit or approach to faith. And, the Path of Darkness could either reflect the "destroyer" aspect of the deity (ala the idea of Creator/Protector/Destroyer trifold deity), or it could reflect the main group of demon/devil/daemon/yugoloth/demodand/fiend worshippers IYC (with Evil-aligned members of the Paths of Magic/Knowledge & Nature as other subversive groups, variants of this other group, etc.).

With this system, you limit particular domains to certain paths (& allow other domains to all paths)--thus, the PCs & NPCs can have any pair of domains that they wish to take (as long as it's permitted by that path). If you wanted, you could claim certain domain combos are for particular saints/powers/etc., or not.

 

[NewJeffCTHome]

Thanks, a lot of good ideas here. (This is New Jeff away from work, if you couldn't tell)

 

[Starman]

You could do worse than read Sepulchrave's story hour. The church in his campaign is modeled after medieval Catholicism. He has done of fantastic job of it. And it's just a damn good read, besides.

Starman

 

[Samothdm]

I basically have monotheism in my campaign world. It's all fantasy but I used real-world religions as inspiration.

I use saint-like beings as intermediaries as some have suggested in order to cover off all the domains and such, and I have various factions and stuff in the various churches that each specialize in domains. That part's easy.

The difficult part comes from the world-building cosmology aspect. I have three main monotheistic world-religions. Each one thinks that their god is the "only" true god and the other gods are demons or some other evil type beings.

Well, you obviously can't have three gods in the world if you're going for monotheism. But, if you do only have one main god and just a bunch of different religions interpreting him in different ways, it makes it difficult to explain why the god would allow a cleric or paladin of one particular religion to use offensive spells against a cleric, paladin, or follower of a different religion even though they're all supposedly worshipping the same god.

That part's been tricky. I have it figured out from my world-design aspects, but the players think about it often and find it difficult to not think about it in real-world terms. I keep telling them, "If you are a follower of Religion X, you really think that the followers of Religion Y are pagans and demon-worshippers. And, they think the same thing about you." But, they question all the time "How can there be three monotheistic religions? That doesn't make sense." Having all the different factions and sub-groups within each religion doesn't help, but my campaign is mostly about political and religious intrigue.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Here's a brief overlook at the religion of my homebrew campaign Ulunsuti:

Before the dawn of time there was the Progenitor, and he was alone. The Progenitor's first act of creation was to make himself a companion, thus was born the Progeny. The Progenitor's next act of creation was the formation of Eutopia, the place of truth. At the heart of Eutopia was a void, and in imitation of his sire the Progeny began to create. But the creation of the Progeny was but a pale reflection of Progenitor's handiwork, it was he who created our world. Maddened by his own imperfection, the Progeny devised that if he could not be a perfect being, he would be the perfect non-being. The Progeny collapsed in upon himself and gave rise to the bottomless pit known as the Abyss. Wracked by sorrow at the fate of his scion, the Progenitor retreated from the cosmos, sealing the Celestial Gate behind him.

Although their creators were now gone the twain worlds lived on. Just as our world host a myriad array of mortal creatures, Eutopia is the domain of the immortals. In time some mortals began to pay homage to the immortals, for their devotion the immortals would grant them a small preternatural boon. Eventually the immortals that acted as the patrons of mortals formed a fellowship by investing a portion of their blood to a communal pool called the Sanguine Well. From this font of power the Patrons could grant their followers a great number of abilities. That order of mortals that entered into a blood bond with the Patrons were known as Druids.

Each of the Patrons had domains that they were associated with, acting as living representatives of those concepts. Among these was Aurelia, Patron of wisdom and light. Legend told of a great source of light beyond the Astral wall, and Aurelia yearned to unlock its secrets. Drawing upon the power of the Sanguine Well, Aurelia unlocked the Celestial Gate and entered Celestia, the realm beyond. When Aurelia returned, she came with a new message, the word of the Progenitor. Aurelia brought this message to her brethren the Patrons. While many were receptive to her words, others were skeptical.

After she brought her message to the Patrons, Aurelia was determined to carry the news of the Progenitor to the realm of mortals, at which point she met opposition. Fearing the loss of power and influence over their mortal followers, a rebel faction of Patrons made war upon Aurelia and her followers. During the ensuing battle the Sanguine Well was destroyed, leaving the Druids powerless and throwing the mortal world into chaos. Taking advantage of the situation, a cabal of Wizards seized power, driving the Druids into hiding, and carving the known world up into personal fiefdoms. The war between the Patrons lasted centuries, until the followers of Aurelia gained the upper hand. The rebel Patrons were bound, and taken past the Shadow wall, where they were cast into the Abyss.

Filled with sorrow, the followers of Aurelia left their war ravaged home in Eutopia for a new life in Celestia, but Aurelia herself remained behind. Taking on a mortal guise, Aurelia breached the Ethereal wall to bring the message of the Progenitor to the mortals. Aurelia chose seven mortals to assist in her mission, and these chose seven and so forth, until news of the Progenitor had reached the corners of the known world. Through their faith, the Clerics of the Aurelian Church invoked the power of the Progenitor and deposed the Wizard tyrants, returning the lands to their rightful rulers. Before ascending to Celestia, Aurelia left seven written copies of her teachings to each of her seven original followers, the book known as the Codex Lumen.

The text of the Codex Lumen was written in celestial script and its translation into mundane languages was forbidden, for fear that Aurelia's words might be corrupted. Since only Clerics and scholars knew the celestial language, most people received the message of the Progenitor through the common language commentaries written by the original students of Aurelia, the Seven Sages. The schools of interpretation that arose from the commentaries of each of these Sages formed the foundations of the Seven Aurelian Churches of the Progenitor. Through alliances with various noble houses, each of these Churches became the state religion of one or more kingdoms.

That takes you up to "middle-ages" of my world, but it's currently at the equivalent of the Napoleonic era, focused on an empire forged from recently liberated colonies encroaching on the territory of pre-existing aboriginal cultures.

 

[ssampier]

Not a problem

A monothestic religion in D&D would work fine. The D&DG it gives suggestions for a monothestic religion and includes one good example, Taai. The most difficult is the issue of evil clerics. The monothestic god would be an impartial god (neutral in alignment) that grants spells to everyone.

A historical god--based on Christian, Islam, Judaism, etc. god--would open a can of worms, without any real benefit. Fictionized deities loosely based on real-world theology should be fine.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

You're opening up a can of worms with trying to use real-world religion in your game. Unless every single one of your players is an atheist, agnostic, or worships some obscure God that you're not tinkering with, you could really be causing yourself some trouble. I would use monotheism as a model, but not use a real-world religion as is in your game.

My campaign world attempts to adapt real-world religion to D&D, after all the world is based on our very own Earth. I agree that it there is the possibility of "issues" popping up, but in the 10 years of gaming in this world, I have yet to have a problem. None of my players were atheist, agnostic or worshippers of an obscure God. I suppose you could say the were realized it was a game and didn't stress it (or they were just apathetic about the whole religion thing).

Of course my world, much like Earth, isn't monotheistic. There are still pagans (followers of the various Earth pantheons) and the Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes have their own religious beliefs.

 

[reanjr]

I think the idea of using different denominations and lifting the aligment restrictions is the best way to do it. Each denomination or school of thought would have access to different domains. So there might be a convent devoted to helping the sick and sheltering the downtrodden. They would have access to Healing and Protection. The Crusader's Order would have War and Travel.

You should allow evil worshippers of a good deity, though in such a campaign or it could cause all sorts of issues.

Demon and Devil worship might be a good way of handling such things, though it is not necessary to create a Satan (in the Herbrew sense of Enemy). Most Christians that I am aware of believe all power comes from God anyway. So even the demons and devils (if one believes in such things) would get their powers from God. So there is really no need to have such an intermediary for evil cults. They would just worship a different, darker aspect of the deity. On the other hand, even if the cults worship this other aspect, they may name it after icons from "good" scripture, much as how Lucifer is used in the American Church of Satan, not as an actual entity or object of worship, but as a symbol.

In a planar campaign I am designing I have created the concept of Low Divinity, where gods can not access a plane as easily as normal. Worshippers of those deities without full access to their plane can only grant domain spells and powers. You could use some other method of weakening those who do not follow the one true god.

 

[reanjr]

Well, you obviously can't have three gods in the world if you're going for monotheism. But, if you do only have one main god and just a bunch of different religions interpreting him in different ways, it makes it difficult to explain why the god would allow a cleric or paladin of one particular religion to use offensive spells against a cleric, paladin, or follower of a different religion even though they're all supposedly worshipping the same god.

France and England both called upon the power of God to smite each other. And God answered both their prayers, albeit and different times.

 

[John Morrow]

A monothestic religion in D&D would work fine. The D&DG it gives suggestions for a monothestic religion and includes one good example, Taai. The most difficult is the issue of evil clerics. The monothestic god would be an impartial god (neutral in alignment) that grants spells to everyone.

That's not the only way to do it. Make the Outer Plane(s) beings powerful enough to grant their followers powers and put your monotheistic god above them. Such a god is not necessary either Neutral or impartial. They may simply be non-interventialist.

The Evil clerics could worship Devils and Demons like gods while the Good clerics revere saints and angels for their power as intermediaries and the Neutral clerics derive their power from mortals that have transcended to the Outer Plane(s). In essence, everything stays the same except the Outer Plane beings aren't the gods at the top. You just add an upper layer on top of them were the genuine diety exists. That allows your highest level deity to be Good, Neutral, or even even Evil, using the Far Realm concept.

It also allows the existence and objectives of that ultimate deity to remain unknown to mortals and a matter of faith, which is how I personally like religion to be treated. If nobody knows for sure whether the realm beyond the Outer Plane(s) is Heaven, Nirvana, Emptiness, the Far Realm, or whatever, it helps explain why people follow different Outer Plane beings. Let the clerics believe whatever they want but don't tell them who is right. It's not that difficult to come up with a half-dozen very differnet but plausible interpretations of the cosmos in that sort of situation. It's a lot like real life that way.