Polytheism

[werebrownie]

Example: There's a race war (say, precipitated by the trickster god you mentioned... ) between the elves and the humans (or the dwarves, etc.). If you use a "shared" god between the two pantheons, it would be possible, perhaps even likely, that clerics and/or paladins- all good-aligned- worshiping different aspects of the same deity would be fighting against each other. The issue is:

• It's feasible that such a war could occur- neither side need be "wrong," per se, or be violating the ethos of their faith/god.
• How would a god react in this situation? Let them fight it out, granting spells to both sides and letting them die (and watching the number of his faithful diminish in the process)?
• Or would he/she/it deny their spells/abilities, thereby causing a "crisis of faith?"

it's going to depend on the nature of the god in question and the specifics of the war itself. there's no right or wrong action for a god to take. just sitting here i've thought of a few dozen possible actions for a few dozen variations of the scenario presented. there's just no blanket answer for this one.

 

[kenjib]

What if you reverted to the older religious format of the fertile crescent where every city, kingdom, or tribe has it's own god - kind of like a mascot?

All of these gods combine in different ways as people interact, some are subsumed into subservient positions into other pantheons, some are elevated to the leadership position as a given city gains ascendency over an area, myths and legends are created around the gods to justify these propaganda shifts, etc.

In this way, the fates of the gods are intimately intertwined with the people who worship them and myth mirrors history.

It's seems only a subtle change from the standard D&D cosmology when you really think about it, but it could have big implications and a dramatic effect on the mood of a setting.

 

[Tony Vargas]

IMC, I used polytheism, but with the odd twist that the gods were relatively new to the world. Most of the PC races are 'young,' having been around for only a few tens of thousands of years, and the 'elder' races claim that the gods simply didn't exist before (though whether the gods created the young races, or began apearing when the young races started worshiping them is left up in the air - as are a lot of other things). In spite of that, there are various creation myths.

For the pantheons, I liberally stole and corrupted names from RL mythology, including greek, roman, egyptian, babylonian, & zoroastreanism, with the fictitious deities only bearing a faint resemblance to thier namesakes.

...

I also drew inspiration from Glorantha, which has already been mentioned, specifically the prevelence of individual cults dedicated to each god. Mechanically, I took the Cleric's bonus Domain spells/powers and granted them to any character who was sufficiently devout and Initiated into a mystery cult. I made it fairly easy, so most 'young race' characters would have access to at least a little divine magic.

Doing so gives a feeling of the gods being many and varied and directly involved, which is nicely polythiestic. However, it also means that each character is generally devoted to only one god, which is very un-polytheistic...

 

[Davelozzi]

Loosely based on Catholicism, there would be one prime creator. Beneath him would be a multitude of Patron Saints. The Patron Saints are typically the ones you would pray to for miracles (spells), and each of them would have very specific domains (probably two or three domains to each Saint).

That's pretty much what I use in my campaign world, with a couple of exceptions. The above religion (The True Church of Andarien) dominates several kingdoms including the one in which my campaign is set. But other races and other human cultural groups worship their own pantheons, which are mostly of the more standard polytheistic variety. Andarien is not a creator (actually he was once mortal) -- he is a bringer of order. His saints are effectively demi-gods which put a different spin on his teachings, or focus on a certain aspect of them. Within the areas dominated by his church, the main religious enemies are cults worshipping the various devils and demon lords.

 

[barsoomcore]

Barsoom's pretty different from all this.

The gods didn't create the world, or the people in it, or anything really. There's different weird gods in all sorts of places, with all sorts of different ways of interacting with/worshipping them. Many places on Barsoom have no gods whatsoever and have only shrines, usually dedicated to one or another of the seasons, used for civic events and so on. In at least two different countries, a god has actually been in charge of the country itself. Right now God is running things in a country called Caedmon, and a hundred years ago the Demon Goddess was in charge of the land of Tianguo.

But none of the beings are really "gods" in the usual D&D sense.

All of the gods on Barsoom are former mortals who found ways to transform themselves into divine creatures. Some then sought worship, or power, or to protect their former peoples. Some hid and tried to keep their existence a secret, fearing that more powerful gods would try to destroy them (indeed there are several gods that keep an eye out for anyone who looks to be getting too powerful and smacks them down. Of course, there's mortals doing exactly the same thing, so hiding is a pretty rational notion on Barsoom).

The upshot is that since gods are all people who for one reason or another sought mind-blowing levels of power, and were willing to undergo unimaginable torment and risk to acquire same, they're all pretty much insane bloodthirsty freaks. Usually with a strong overdose of paranoia.

Which is fun if you're the DM.

 

[Tuerny]

In any case, if you put together this kind of history, you start getting a pantheon that makes sense. The various gods and goddesses start having relationships that can be expanded.

That is a logical way to go about it but what if your pantheon has entirely different origins such as the city gods mentioned by kenjib or all being created by some other sort of event.

For example in the setting I have been pondering of late the world was originally a great, active egg-shaped confluence of life energy.

The gods were created when a great shell surrounded the life energy and some of the energy was caught outside the shell. These bits and pieces of life energy, when cut off from the original mass became sentient and eventually became the modern gods....
After a great deal of merging, shaping, and deaths (the first of which caused some of the internal life energy to become death energy, eventually dividing the egg in half)

Which kind of leaves genealogy out of things. The of course detailing their relationships and feuds since their emergence also works....

 

[Nellisir]

Hi Jesse...

I've taken to using a single, fairly fixed, but extensive pantheon in my game. The oldest gods are the Elder Host, who created fiends, celestials, elementals, and the Four Races (dragons, giants, humans, and gnomes). Their attention and interests span known existence under a multitude of faces and names, but they mirror mortals as much as mortals mirror them, and they are as prone to jealousy, rage, and lust as the next (grecian) divine power.

They have frequent affairs with mortals, and the divine children are collectively known as the Dalerain. Their attentions are much more likely to be fixated on a particular region.

The lowest class of the divine are the Envidier, super-mortal heros who function as icons, inspirations, and supernatural patrons.

Elves, dwarves, and a number of other races are interlopers from other planes, but their pantheons have generally not survived, have been absorbed into the Dalerain, or have become withdrawn. The Dalerain and Elder Host welcome worship from any and all sources; race is not a barrier.

More later, after the game...

Nell.
Whose players are about to enter the first barrow of the Kings of Woe...

 

[Tuerny]

Hi Nathan


Who might the Kings of Woe be?

 

[Storminator]

That is a logical way to go about it but what if your pantheon has entirely different origins such as the city gods mentioned by kenjib or all being created by some other sort of event.

For example in the setting I have been pondering of late the world was originally a great, active egg-shaped confluence of life energy.

The gods were created when a great shell surrounded the life energy and some of the energy was caught outside the shell. These bits and pieces of life energy, when cut off from the original mass became sentient and eventually became the modern gods....
After a great deal of merging, shaping, and deaths (the first of which caused some of the internal life energy to become death energy, eventually dividing the egg in half)

Which kind of leaves genealogy out of things. The of course detailing their relationships and feuds since their emergence also works....

But can you imagine a priest trying to explain this? Said priest might make some simplifying assumptions, and soon you've got a genealogy that's just a big analogy of what really happened.

PS

 

[Storminator]

I've got a weird one in my game.

Waaaay back when, there were the gods. That was so long ago no one remembers that there were gods, let alone who they were. When the last true believer died, the world was left spiritually naked, unprotected. And into the void stepped Powers.

The general consensus is that these Powers stepped into the raging apocalypse and stablized the world. The truth is the clash of the newly arrived Powers precipitated the apocalypse. If the Powers go at it again, the world might be destroyed...

There are only 2 Powers, good and evil. But there are other forces:

There are ancestor clans. During the apocalypse the spirits of the dead had no where to go, and haunted the world. Some looked over loved ones, and force of will made them into minor gods.

There are other Outsiders, some of whom are setting themselves up as gods where they can.

Then there are the druids. Conventionally, druids gain powers from nature; in my world, the druids are building the powers of nature to stand against another clash of the Powers. Thru human sacrifice, the druids place souls into rocks, trees, streams, animals and the air. A rare artifact is gathering souls to store enough power to reach the sun. The druids work to coerce worship of these spirits, to add the strength of belief to the souls.

Finally, the good Power (and god of the PCs) does contact priests, known as Seers. But Seers are cryptic, and often seem they "aren't all there." One can never be sure what they mean.

PS