D&D 5E Need advice: Making Religions, Not Just "Here's The Gods. Pick One"

[FormerlyHemlock]

I want to create religious systems and doctrines within D&D, and stay out of the traditional pantheon systems.

There will, of course, be the gods around, but a lot of it feels like comic book hero discussions. "Which is better: Lathander or Pharasma?" I want to move from there to developing actual doctrines, especially in a world where all of the gods can exist and be real, or just some of them, or even none of them.

Any advice?

This isn't exactly religious per se but you might find it inspiring:

My current campaign has religions and "gods" in it (many of whom are just monsters and NPCs as low as CR 5), but the real movers and shakers are based off the book Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones. The idea is that each of the seven siblings "farms" one or more aspects of human society. More on that in a second, but in order from oldest to youngest:

Archer (handsome golden boy with a friendly smile) farms magic, wealth, and power. He thinks he got all the cool stuff.
Shine (fat girl with thick, muscular arms) farms trickery, violence, crime, and leadership. She thinks Archer's a chump and she got all the cool stuff.
Dillian (golden girl who smiles like Glinda the Good) farms nature, health, law enforcement, and beauty. She acts like she got all the cool stuff but secretly she envies Shine's stuff. Control freak.
Hathaway (middle child, quiet-spoken man) farms history, family, farming, and teaching. He just wants to be left in peace, but he farms things that he thinks are important.
Torquil (handsome, lanky, stylish man, rambunctious and fun-loving) farms music, religion, recreation, love, and food. As far as he's concerned, he got all the fun stuff. Everyone else's stuff is boring.
Erskine (huge man with a small head, has trouble speaking in full sentences, mostly good-natured but has a temper) farms industry, water, waste/garbage, and transportation. Erskine feels like he always gets stuck cleaning up after other people's messes, and he farms the nasty but necessary jobs that no one else took upon themselves.
Venturus (huge young man with a normal-sized head) farms research and invention, housing, time, and technology. As the baby of the family, the others are supernaturally compelled to look after him and take care of him, but they don't always like it. Venturus farms things that no one else was visionary enough to claim, but he has ambitions to someday eclipse even Archer, whom he envies and admires.

The mechanics of "farming" are: the farmer receives virtual credit for 10% of whatever it is they are farming. (E.g. for wealth, if 10,000 gold in wealth is produced, Archer receives 1000 gold worth of credit.) That credit can be used to either create goods (1000 gold worth of money wherever Archer needs it to be) or to destroy it on a 1:1 basis (Archer can cause 1000 gp to vanish from your bank vault) or to conditionally destroy on a 1:1 basis (owner becomes consciously or subconsciously aware that 1000 gp will vanish unless he takes certain actions as mentally specified by Archer). For personal qualities such as magic, violence, healing, etc., credit can be spent on a per-day basis to both halve proficiency bonus AND impose disadvantage. For example, Shine could farm 10 4th level soldiers' capacity for violence and spend that farmed credit to reduce one of those soldiers' attack bonus from +4 to +3 (+2 from strength plus +1 from proficiency) and impose disadvantage on all his attack rolls; or Archer could cause half of a wizard's spell points to vanish, his spellcasting proficiency bonus to be halved (reducing spell DC), and all enemies to have advantage on saving throws against the wizard's spells. The farmer is also aware of all farmed activity: you can't make money without Archer being aware of it, and you can always get Erskine's attention (on some level) if you shout down a latrine loud enough.

The long and the short of it is that merchants and wizards will avoid crossing Archer almost at any cost, priests and cooks will avoid crossing Torquil, warriors fear Shine's wrath as well as Dillian's (who wants to lose half your HP?), etc., etc. It's not a religion but it has many of the features of an old, pagan religious system, which probably isn't surprising when you consider that the original source material (Archer's Goon) is not-so-subtly sketching out a family of demigods.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wfo-VWqyL._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

 

[Imaculata]

Something that came up in my campaign, was that the local church of Saint Anna* also had a more extreme sect, lead by a group of zealous paladins. These guys still followed the same gods, but worshiped it in a far more extremist way. They were busy building their own church outside the city, in the slums, while spreading their extremist propaganda. They were also the ones who funded the construction of the original church of St Anna. They brand their followers with a symbol of the goddess of the sun, which the poor people in the slums do willingly. All of the paladins are lawful good, but their methods are rather harsh. They are so good, that they are practically villains.

(* The church named after a local saint, and the biggest church in town)

This is an example of how you can have multiple groups worshiping the same gods, but in different ways. Plus it is also interesting to explore where the lines of power run. Did the city build the main church in town, or was it funded by outside groups, and do they hold some sway in politics? A bunch of lawful good paladins make for excellent villains.

 

[77IM]

A few quick things to keep your work relevant:

1) Focus on how the clergy and followers of each religion function in society. For example, which temples offer the PCs healing? Do any offer other services (magic item identification, for example; or things like messenger service or teleportation; or free food and board for the poor; or martial training and missions; etc.)? Are any antagonists, like evil cults, or troublesome, like two religions that are at odds with each other? Is there a state religion, or are some religions outlawed? These are things that actually impact game play, so the players might care about them. The finer points of doctrine aren't relevant to most games so don't even mention it.

2) Give each religion 2-3 really stupidly obvious descriptive elements. Like, a religion in which the clergy wear purple robes and giant hats, and they begin and end every conversation with, "May the Eye of Misfortune never gaze upon you," and their temples look like giant stone beehives or pineapples or something of that shape. Outlandish descriptive elements help the players remember the religion. "Oh yeah, the Eddurites? Those are the purple guys with the Eye of Misfortune stuff, right?"

3) For the cleric player: Summarize 1-2 beliefs and 1-2 practices for each religion. No more, because you don't want the cleric player to get overloaded with information and have trouble deciding between religions. The practices shouldn't be onerous, but should be things that regular people wouldn't do very often (e.g., pray 5 times a day, while turning to face a holy site). The beliefs should be things that are non-obvious or contradict other religions (e.g., belief in an afterlife and belief in reincarnation are somewhat contradictory; it's possible for a religion to believe in both, but also possible to believe in just one, and believe the other guys are just wrong about it). Ideally, the beliefs motivate the PC to action in some way (e.g. "never suffer an undead to exist" or "the only true virtue is helping the less fortunate.") Really good and interesting beliefs are hard to do right; the other posters on this thread give some good advice about it.

 

[Istbor]

Don't limit yourself to just one religion per deity, especially if that deity is worshiped by more than one race. Religions are social institutions created by the worshipers, and it makes sense for there to be different religions, or at least different denominations, in different areas.

Here's an example from my Homebrew world of Tenesia:

Necris is the Goddess of Death. She is depicted in many forms, with paleness being one of the common threads. In areas where starvation is a big concern, she is usually depicted as being woefully emaciated (imagine the pictures of the Nazi concentration camp survivors). In war torn areas, she is often depicted as carrying her own severed head in one hand and a sword in the other. Elves (who are immortal and more like fey in Tenesia than on other worlds) see her very much in the form of a ghoul, and they find it offensive to even craft an image of her, because they think it invites tragedy. Dwarves (who are immortal beings of elemental fire and stone in Tenesia) see her as a specter that no stone or fire can hold at bay if she wishes to come for you.

There are a few religions around Necris.

The first focuses on appeasing her so she doesn't bring death and ruin upon the living. The dogma of the religion involves the belief that her vanity rivals the pleasure she takes in killing the living, and they offer prayers and sacrifices in the hope that doing so will persuade her to stay her hand if only for another day. This religion is not exclusive of most other religions, and people who are sick or elderly may engage in such worship even if they are of other religions. Hiring priests to pray and sacrifice on one's behalf is a common practice for the wealthy, particularly among kings and queens.

Another religion sees her not just as the embodiment of death, but they also believe that death is the door to new life. They see Necris as a goddess of "endings and beginnings." The acceptance of a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth is a central tenant of this religion, and accepting death when it comes for you is considered by them as one of the highest acts of faith. This religion also has a high rate of suicides, as those who are in truly desperate straights may see death and rebirth as a way out of an existence they despise. The religion tries to mitigate how often this happens by teaching that suicide is only an act of faith if it is not quick: you must have time to be able to regret or accept death when you see it coming. Therefore the most common methods of suicide approved by the religion are being buried alive, or being burned alive.

A third religion sees Necris, whose realm is one of demons and the damned, as a jailer of all that is unclean. They worship her and offer sacrifice so that she may keep a tight reign on the demons and the ghosts of the evil dead that would otherwise walk the earth without her intervention.

I think MechaPilot gave some excellent advice.

Different regions and peoples of the world, even of the same country may worship a deity in different ways.

You don't need to go so far as to develop a whole new religion either, just in the ways a particular Goddess is worshiped is enough. Maybe the emphasis on a particular domain changes , the iconography, the way the religion interacts with the public even the very way the Goddess appears.

In my campaign setting at home, the twin sisters of Life and Death appear in various forms all throughout the world of Arrd. Some times they are identical twins, other times quite different from one another, and in one case they are not even pictured in a humanoid form. Yet, all of them are accepted as being the same two goddesses.

It can sort of give a reason why there are cloistered clerics and scholars. Making an attempt to learn, study, and remember all of the different forms just one deity may be represented as.

 

[Ath-kethin]

The 3.0 Dieties & Demigods book included a section for each god on the duties and common occupations of their priests and the designs of their temples. That could be useful.

The 3.5 Eberron campaign setting had an approach to gods different from most campaigns., and is worth checking out. Since there is no definitive proof that the Eberron gods exist, the approach the setting takes to religion is little more nuanced than most.

 

[Imaculata]

In my 3.5 pirate campaign, the bloodthirsty Speakers of the Dead worship their own women almost as gods. Previous female captains have huge statues dedicated to them, where the Speakers place objects of tribute in a large bowl for good fortune. These tributes include gold, gems, jewelry, bones, teeth, blood, locks of hair, or fingers. They light candles next to these statues, and believe each captain embodies certain virtues. Lesser women still have statues, but they are small in size, and have far less candles and tributes. They believe that their women have a direct connection to the gods, and must there for be kept content. So they honor their women both in life and death. In life, they often bring tribute to their women in the form of precious gifts, such as garments and jewelry, and pleasure. They believe that as long as their women are content, the gods are content.

This belief goes so far, that disrespecting a female captain or spell caster is actually punishable by death. The women have special pleasure houses for their needs, which they can visit free of charge. And female captains get special rooms in inns, where they sleep in an elevated bed while their company can sleep on the ground, and they are kept cool the whole night by servants with fans. People rise to their feet and bow whenever a female spell caster enters a building, and staring at them is considered very rude.

Just another example of a less generic sort of religion.

 

[Water Bob]

That's some awesome stuff, Imaculata. I may have to steal some of that for my Conan game.

 

[Fergurg]

This is all great advice. Thanks.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

There are a lot of great ideas in this thread many of which I have tried in the past. I definitely second the comments on having deities be worshiped multiple ways. Also, never underestimate the value of looking at fictional works for help.

Slightly off topic observation as well, I find it actually it hard for many players to differentiate between deities in a pantheon type scenario. I often have to clarify things quite often which diety (or their followers) are behind stuff. Perhaps it's just the players I game with, or the influences of real world monotheistic religions, but I seem to end up with a lot of players who just view *every* diety's temples as the Catholic Church, or I end up with a party of Atheists in a setting where they literally JUST spoke with a god/goddess and it makes no sense, and then we end up with the inevitable debate of if gods are just really powerful mortals, or actual Devine beings...etc. Oh players. >_<