New Design and Development: Pantheon

[Scholar & Brutalman]

A New Design and Development: Pantheon by James Wyatt. Corellon, Bahamut and Bane are in the PHB.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bane is a terrible name, whether for a Batman villain or for a god.

Bahamut: Here's another example of a familiar, draconic face showing up in a somewhat new light. Maybe it was the Platinum Knight prestige class in Draconomicon that did it, but something convinced me a long time ago that Bahamut was a much cooler god of paladins than Heironeous ever was.

I figured that out about 30 seconds after Heironeous was introduced in the Sorcerer's Scroll. Bahamut has tons more flavor than Paladingod the Paladin God ever did. Having a brother isn't flavor.

 

[Masquerade]

One of our goals with the new pantheon was to loosen the tight associations between gods and races that has in the past led to the creation of whole pantheons full of elf, dwarf, orc, and goblin deities.

This is my favorite part. One step toward making new races easier to introduce.

 

[Hussar]

Meh, what's wrong with Bane? It gets the point across. Then again, I'm not a Realms follower, so, it doesn't come with any baggage for me. Isn't he the one that got whacked in the Time of Troubles?

 

[Irda Ranger]

Meh, what's wrong with Bane? It gets the point across. Then again, I'm not a Realms follower, so, it doesn't come with any baggage for me. Isn't he the one that got whacked in the Time of Troubles?

Yeah. You can't keep a good god dead.

And when I say good, I mean bad. So bad, it's good. For plot hooks.

 

[Irda Ranger]

This is my favorite part. One step toward making new races easier to introduce.

Not to mention we no longer have the "Dwarven god of just war" and the "Human god of just war" and the "Gnomish god of humorous war machines" etc. etc. absurd starting condition.

I much prefer Corellon as a "King of All Fey."

Hail! my Lord Oberon.

 

[Miles Pilitus]

Meh, what's wrong with Bane? It gets the point across. Then again, I'm not a Realms follower, so, it doesn't come with any baggage for me. Isn't he the one that got whacked in the Time of Troubles?

He got better.

 

[M.L. Martin]

There was a time when the team working on "the world" of D&D thought we could get away with creating general rules useful to clerics regardless of which pantheon existed in the campaign, and then presenting a variety of fictional and historical pantheons for DMs to adopt or adapt as they saw fit. I believe it was Stacy Longstreet, the senior D&D art director, who pointed out that this solution would leave us in a bit of a bind.

Anyone want to bet that they were in this phase of design when they talked about use of elements like Thor back at GenCon, and later on decided to trim things back to a unified 'core' pantheon?

 

[Hairfoot]

I can't migrate my account. Looks like Hairfoot's days of posting at the wizboards are over!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Meh, what's wrong with Bane? It gets the point across.

So would Ebil Badass, but I don't like that name either.

The professional settings should have names better than those thought up by 12 year old DMs.