D&D 5E Other gods in the Demiplane of Dread?

[The Big BZ]

So my group played our second session of Strahd last night. We like it a lot so far despite some of our group hating the aesthetic almost as much as they hate atmospheric TIE fighters but we came across the deities of Barovia for the first time, ie the Morninglord and Mother Night and we had an interesting discussion...

If Barovia is on the Demiplane of Dread do the other gods of the multiverse have access to it? And if they do not, have do characters whose abilities are divine have access to their abilities?

Anyone cast some light in the darkness for us??

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

On a purely gameplay note, I would recommend not cutting off divine classes (and probably warlocks as well) from their abilities.

You could view that one or the other of the two gods of the plane will respond to prayers, even if they are directed at a different god. Or that while the other gods of the multiverse can't directly intervene on the demiplane, they can still grant spells to their emissaries etc.
Or the whole "divine powers are simply manifestations of pure faith" business, and a god being able to hear the prayers is unnecessary.

 

[Ezequielramone]

I think that is not explained on purpose. I'm playing a cleric in CoS. The DM didn't interfered with my god. He only says things like "your deity's power is week here" but nothing in the mechanics.
I became a werewolf because many narrative reasons, now I serve the lady of night.
But, if I have to run this I see 2 ways:
- their gods don't have power to interfere in that realm but can grant power to one or two followers in there.
- they can't do anything, not even give you power, in that case I'd tell the players prior playing that they will lose their deity's powers and will have to embrace a new one. They could have a few session without power. Maybe you have to change a bit the adventure in order to present new deities earlier in the adventure.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If they are people drawn to Ravenloft from other realms, I’d allow the PCs that use divine magic to continue to do so – limiting divine magic would be something players would need to know in advance, in my opinion. Now, if they’re all natives, it’d be fair to say that the only divine choices are the two listed.

 

[Jer]

If Barovia is on the Demiplane of Dread do the other gods of the multiverse have access to it? And if they do not, have do characters whose abilities are divine have access to their abilities?

Anyone cast some light in the darkness for us??

The older Ravenloft boxed sets had possible explanations for this that align with what Cap'n Kobold says above. One thing that they also suggested as a possibility is that the demiplane itself (or the dark powers that controlled it) were the ones granting clerical powers to PCs and others for their own reasons.

To a degree it was a handwave - the boxed sets were basically suggesting that somehow clerics get their powers and you shouldn't think too hard about it. But I thought that ambiguity brought about a bit of creepiness that could spin into a decent bit of character work for the cleric as he finds out more about the demiplane and starts to question the very nature of his connection to his deity (none of my players were interested in that kind of existential characterization when I ran Ravenloft though - they preferred to just think of it as world that was D&D by way of Hammer Films. Which I will admit was a whole lot of fun.)

 

[Rils]

I think that is not explained on purpose.

Actually, spoiler alert, but it IS explained in the book. The Morninglord and Mother Night are the deities worshipped by the Barovians, but neither one of them is responsive. And while divine classes still gain their spells from their deities, a more direct connection to those deities is blocked by the Mists. The book even says that spells like augery or direct pleas to a deity are actually answered by Strahd. Sometimes he pretends to be the deity but gives out-of-character responses for them (e.g. a healing god telling their cleric to end another's life "out of mercy" instead of healing them), other times he responds as himself (basically "I'm Strahd and I'm the only Power here, sucker").

 

[The Big BZ]

Thanks guys!

 

[Remathilis]

So my group played our second session of Strahd last night. We like it a lot so far despite some of our group hating the aesthetic almost as much as they hate atmospheric TIE fighters but we came across the deities of Barovia for the first time, ie the Morninglord and Mother Night and we had an interesting discussion...

If Barovia is on the Demiplane of Dread do the other gods of the multiverse have access to it? And if they do not, have do characters whose abilities are divine have access to their abilities?

Anyone cast some light in the darkness for us??

For what its worth, the 2e/3e settings had some interesting thoughts on this.

* The Faiths of Ravenloft fell into two catagories: interlopers (deities that came with the domain when it was taken into the Mists) and "native" deities (those only found in the DoD). Interlopers included Belenus (Celts), Osiris (Egyptain), Bane (Faerun) and the original Morninglord (retconned in CoS). Homemade faiths include Zahkata and Ezra. Zahkata is clearly spelled out as a false God by the book (a manifestation of the Dark Powers), and Erza is less clear; the 2e specialty priests of her (Anchorites) lost all of their abilities if they left the DoD, implying they might be connected to the Dark Powers or Mists in some way. The interlopers tend to be warped in some way in RL to reflect the culture of Ravenloft, but its vague as to whether they are connected to their original deities or not.

* For non-natives sucked into Ravenloft, the question is even murkier. In 2e and 3e, clerical magic was altered to fit with Ravenloft's prohibitions on certain types of magic (divination, planar travel, necromancy, etc) and it was implied that clerics felt their deities were more "distant" than previously. It was deliberately left vague if the Dark Powers were somehow affecting the connection, or if they were replacing the connection entirely to fool the priest into thinking he was still connected to his Deity.

Either way, I'd still allow divine characters in RL, but I'd make the question of exactly WHO is granting them their powers an unanswered one...