Monotheism in D&D

[NewJeffCT]

I think it was fusangite who recently posted on his putting Christianity into his gaming world and how one would do that, good sources, etc. It got me thinking, which is very hard to do. ;=)

What I would like to know is how one would adapt D&D to a primarily monotheistic system without changing the clerical spells and domains in the PHB? I am sure things like this have been bandied about in the past – I just do not recall at this time. Fusangite seems much more open to changing and/or modifying D&D as it is than I would be. I would prefer to change my one God system to fit Core D&D.

My initial thought was that different sects of said God would be worshipped by different folks, as there are different aspects of Christianity (Catholicism, Baptist, Episcopal, etc, and then within Baptist, you have Southern and others) or aspects of Islam or aspects of Hinduism and these different sects or aspects would apply to various clerical domains. It does not have to be God from a Christian, Islamic, Jewish or other faith. It could just be Bob, the God of Jeff’s World. I'm sure I would need the equivalent of Satan for the bad side of things as well.

If it has been done here in the past, please post a link. Thanks!

 

[Emiricol]

I believe a selection of "saints" for players to associate with might be a good way to add domains. If I were doing this, I would have a core list that all priests have access to, and then saints would add both domains and specific spells that didn't make the main list.

 

[Khayman]

I believe a selection of "saints" for players to associate with might be a good way to add domains. If I were doing this, I would have a core list that all priests have access to, and then saints would add both domains and specific spells that didn't make the main list.

That's what I've done in my campaign set in the 1400s. Divine casters of a Christian bent receive one domain from the Lord and get additional ones by invoking a patron saint. Using a saintly relic or calling upon a saint for aid adds additional domains.

(Incidentally, I've changed the divine spellcasting classes to PrCs, and clerics receive one domain at 1st and additional domains at 5th and 15th. They have temporary access to additional domains through saints or relics. I've also limited magics that raise the dead.)

 

[fusangite]

Hey Jeff! Nice to be cited so many times in the opening post in a thread. I hear you regarding not messing with the core of D&D but instead creating stuff that fits with it. That's actually my usual mode of operation when I work with D20 -- the 13th century game I'm doing right now is kind of a departure.

I think Emiricol has hit the nail on the head here: what you are looking for is an intermediation paradigm. If you want to have one god while maintaining the clerical spell system, the sensible thing to do is to adopt demonic magic. When I use the term "demonic," I'm using it in its pre-Christian neutrality.

Magic in the Hellenistic/Roman world was overwhelmingly demonic and it is into this system that Christianity was first established. Judaism had already adapted its monotheism to this environment with some quite interesting results.

Essentially, in both the Christian and Hellenized Judaic systems as well as monotheistic Greek philosophies like Platonism, there was a remote unknowable, unreachable, all-powerful perfect God. This God was too perfect, incomprehensible and all-encompassing to interact directly with the corrupt physical world. Thus, the only way God could act in the world was through intermediaries. These intermediaries were called "daemons" by the Greeks -- they went by such names as angels, demons and powers. Sometimes these things were visible, sometimes invisible. Sometimes these things were hypostasized individuals ie. humans who were invested by God with some part of himself. This was how many early Christians comprehended Christ and some of his Gnostic successors like Simon Magus. These people had been given God's powers or God's crown, bridging the mortal world with the godhead.

Saint Augustine understood the pagan gods as demons and helped to create our Christian understanding of demons: angels who had been given a task to do by god but had rebelled and done something else with the power with which god invested them.

It is into this environment that the Cult of Saints emerged: the Platonic idea that one could pray to God through one of his agents was Christianized. What is interesting in the cult of saints is that unlike hypostasized individuals like the Samaritans' Moses, the Gnostic Christ or Simon Magus, the nature of the saints remained purely human. They were simply good intermediaries because they sat near to God's right hand in heaven.

So, now down to game terms, here are a number of options for intermediaries:
(a) Saints: This is a pretty easy Christian ripoff to perform. Clerics pray to God through saints and the merits of the saints ensure that God hears and responds to their prayer. Saints often have portfolios (e.g. St. Christopher: travel), allowing them to map even more easily to pagan divinities and to the domains list.
(b) Angels/Demons: The cleric is associated with an angel or demon. Clerics pray to the angel/demon to intervene on their behalf and the angel/demon uses the powers god has delegated him to do so. As with saints, angels often have portfolios (e.g. Michael: war).
(c) Hypostasized Individuals: This is great if you have a god-emperor type entity in your campaign, essentially a permanently souped-up kind of pope who is partly united with the godhead, combining in hypostasis both a human and a divine nature. I think this would be by far the most fun, especially because it is not such a well-beaten path and therefore allows for more creativity. Still, I can't imagine more than about 3 of these guys in a world so you would probably still need to supplement them with saints and angels.

Hope this helps!

 

[Ry]

I did this for my campaign; Pelor, Cuthbert, and Heironeous became "Servitors" - angels in service to the higher power. Clerics and Paladins typically revered the God, but served in emulation of the Servitor Angel, since the Servitors' pursuit of holiness was more tangible as a path towards the light of God. This kept D&D straight out of the core rules, mechanically speaking. You can just as easily call them saints, or use a mix, depending on the iconography you want to design for your game.

 

[Lord Morte]

My initial thought was that different sects of said God would be worshipped by different folks, as there are different aspects of Christianity (Catholicism, Baptist, Episcopal, etc, and then within Baptist, you have Southern and others) or aspects of Islam or aspects of Hinduism and these different sects or aspects would apply to various clerical domains. It does not have to be God from a Christian, Islamic, Jewish or other faith. It could just be Bob, the God of Jeff’s World. I'm sure I would need the equivalent of Satan for the bad side of things as well.

You didn't mention Protestant, Calvinism, Armenianism or Methodist.

This about pretty much mirrors the monotheisitic belief system I've developed for my campaign world. The One True Divine is worshiped by the Many-Fold Faiths, various sects with different doctrines but similar beliefs. Each sect reveres a particular saint of the OTDivine above the rest and grants access to certain domains. There are meant to be about 400 saints, so that if a player wants to pick his own Domains he can and just has to name the saint of his sect. The OTDivine is supposedly the only source of TRUE divine magic, although ancestor or nature-spirit worshipper (Druids, Rangers and Spirit Shamans) do gain spells for their efforts. Have to work on an explanation for that.

What I realised after was that is my system is basically standard DnD polytheism, but with different paint on. The trick is in the fluff, the simple fact that the saints aren't gods, they are only the representatives of God.

While an divine Adversary, such as Satan, can be an interesting plot point, it's not necessary for an artificial belief system (real-world belief systems, I don't know enough to comment). Easy enough to imagine a sect that takes up a doctrine of predetermination that said God has already chosen who'd get into Heaven so what you do on Earth has no bearing, allowing all sorts of awful behavior, or who believe God has charged them with a sacred duty and will allow them into Heaven if they die in service of that duty. It is easy enough to imagine, because these are real world examples. I read an article/post sometime in the last few days about an extreme Christian sect/church that thought that the Indonesian tsunami was the righteous work of God destroying the heathens and non-believers (can't recall where it was at, otherwise I'd post a link, sorry). Evil can be acceptable if doctrine allows for it.

The trick is whether these sects would gain divine spell casting. Based on your comment about the bad side of things, I assume that your monotheisitic god is one of Justice or Love, such as is taught about in the Judeo-Christian religions, who'd probably not grant special privaledges to such people. But you could have a True Neutral deity in a fantasy world, who doesn't care about such things provided people worship It.

Chances are I've offended someone somewhere in this post, sorry.

 

[John Morrow]

What I would like to know is how one would adapt D&D to a primarily monotheistic system without changing the clerical spells and domains in the PHB?

As other's have suggested, the key is to have Outer Plane beings work as intermediaries and the focus of different sects and the Domains. I wanted to keep the core of the D&D cosmology but I wanted to have monotheism and religion as a matter of faith in my current world. All of the clerics are bound to an Outer Plane being of some sort -- a saint, angel, devil, demon, or other powerful Outer Plane being that's the exemplar of a philosophy (I've only got one big Outer Plane divided into regions). The saint, angel, devil, demon, etc. determines the Domains that the cleric has access to.

The "One God". if one exists, exists beyond the Outer Plane as the creator of all and is simply a matter of faith for all of those in the Material Plane. There is no direct communication, though some Outer Plane beings claim to have contact and may (I leave this open, to allow "faith" as an element). Some of the other Outer Plane beings claim that the "One God" is a myth and either claim they are the gods or there are no gods, just powerful beings and philosphies to help you transcend to higher power levels. Druids, on the other hand, follow the spirit of the world they inhabit and have more local concerns, the collective spirit of the life on the world being a powerful composite deity-like being in their own right.

 

[DMScott]

What I would like to know is how one would adapt D&D to a primarily monotheistic system without changing the clerical spells and domains in the PHB?

I cheat and use dualism instead of monotheism - people believe there are two divine entities in opposition/balance with each other. One usually has the positive attributes associated with it (life, growth, knowledge, light, etc.) and the other has the more negative attributes (death, decay, destruction, darkness, etc.). Both are necessary for the world to function, but mortals have an obvious preference for the more benevolent of the two. Then I just split domains among them.

To create religious (ahem) debate, I have different cultures view the divine duality differently. Some worship only one of the divine entities, others see them both as parts of a greater whole. Some believe the entities are eternally at war, others feel both are playing their ordained parts (and perhaps even believe in some greater truth that does the ordaining). The entities themselves are so far beyond mortal concerns that they can't be usefully questioned on these issues, all commune/divination type spells go through formally mortal servants (the equivalent of saints) who of course give answers consistent with what they personally believe. It's not hard to create at least as big a mess as we see in our own religious history this way...

 

[Insight]

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.

That said, there's nothing wrong with MODELING religion in your game after a real-world faith. In fact, a lot of D&D cosmology is based in part on real-world beliefs, especially when it comes to Norse and Greek mythology (you can find out more about this is Deities & Demigods and/or the Manual of the Planes). But I think you are treading on thin ice when porting a real-world religion such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, etc into your game unless you are CERTAIN every one of your players will be on board with the idea.

 

[jerichothebard]

I use a monotheistic religion as the basis for my campaign's religion. It works pretty well.

I require all clerics to take Sun as a domain, and let them pick the other with few restrictions (Death, Evil, Destruction, and Water from the PHB are out, others from other sources will be determined as required).

As for the general worship, there are three real directions people go - roughly equating to the paladins (Lawful, honorable, very strictly fundamental), the clerics (scholarly, charitable, extroverted) and the monks (who are chaotic IMC) (introspective, personalized, humble). Though they differ greatly in their philosophy, the three sects usually work together. Usually.

ORB himself is NG, and believes in allowing the mortals to choose their own destiny. He is rather aloof, actually. He openly gives his power and blessing to those who ask for it, in as great a measure as they can handle, with a few notable exceptions (undead are abominations in his eyes). His servitors are given a great deal of free rein to act as they choose, and on at least one historical occasion, took up arms against the army of the Church of ORB itself. Though, the historical recordings of that time muddle their true motivations.