D&D 5E Racial Deities

[Oofta]

I've always used racial deities in my home campaign, but made sure to make connections between the different pantheons.

I based my world largely on Norse mythology. In Norse mythology, beings of races were acknowledged as having as being just as powerful as the the rulers of Asgard. The line between dark elves and dwarves was a little blurry but I just clarified who did what and changed a few names to make things fit.

So in my cosmology, Moradin made Thor's hammer, Garl Glittergold wove Sif's hair and Frey and Freya were originally elven deities that have now crossed over (and are most popular amongst half elves). Lollth rules over Svartleheim, while most other evil deities, demons and devils are Jotun.

If I had a different base mythology I might have done something different but this made sense for my adaptation.

 

[cbwjm]

I can take them or leave them, not all settings have had them, Dragonlance had just the 21 gods and some were revered by certain races more than others. My homebrew settings may or may not include racial deities although currently I'm working on a setting and it is more like Dragonlance with some races just naturally gravitating towards certain gods.

One reason why I'm happy to include racial gods, however, is that this is similar to real world mythology, each culture has their own gods, I would certainly consider elves and dwarves distinct cultures so it isn't surprising that they each have their own pantheon.

 

[aco175]

I have thought to group the gods into powers, but to have many names for the powers. The sun god would have a elf name and a human name, maybe a few. I always thought that each culture would view the god in terms that they relate to. Over the years the elf sun god would be painted and written to look like an elf, while humans would make him look human. Same god though in reality. This can lead to groups of followers being at odds with each other over who loves god the right way and which tenant to follow and how.

It does or should change based on power divine spells allowing communication, but the messages are filtered through mortals who have their own faults and goals.

 

[Elderbrain]

It depends. If Humans have specifically human gods (i.e. Thor, Zeus, etc. who were all basically Humans writ large), then why wouldn't Elves, Dwarves, etc. have gods of their own races? And we know that Humans, etc. can become gods themselves (i.e. Hercules Imhotep, and so forth), so why wouldn't a mortal who undergoes apotheosis retain his original racial characteristics, manner of looking at things, etc.? And the reverse is true - maybe Dwarves look and think like Dwarves because Moradin made 'em in his own image... I can see a scenario where the gods are actually raceless and genderless, and just take on whatever form they chose when interacting with mortals, but that doesn't work for everyone. The standard racial pantheons (Elf, Orc, etc.) are part of what makes D&D what it is, and they've been around for a long time - if it ain't broke, why fix it?

 

[Lanefan]

I've always had racial pantheons, being a mix of published D&D ideas plus my own creations and tinkerings, with the specific intent of each race having enough deities covering enough alignments that a player could play a Cleric of almost any alignment in almost any race if so desired. (there's still a few gaps but nothing game-breaking) Humans have cultural pantheons (Norse, Greek, etc.). Monsters have...well, whatever they have. Nobody ever bothers asking.

Behind the scenes, and unknown to some players and nearly all characters, the trick is that many of these so-called deities are in fact each just aspects of something bigger. There's only 21 true deities in my system - 5 major and 16 not-quite-as-major - plus a few independent things that have bugged their way into the system over time (this is in place only to allow design space for the extremely remote possibility that a PC somehow manages to find a way to ascend to divinity).

And yes, every culture uses a different calendar. Complicating things is that my world has 2 moons with vastly different cycle lengths (one is 20 days, one is 80); some cultures use one, some the other, and some neither to base their 'month' on; and none of them have the same count of years as each has a different 'year 0'. For simplicity I as DM simply picked one of these calendars at the start of the campaign and said "this will be the standard one we'll use for play purposes"...and so the entire campaign has thus far been dated in Elvish.

Lanefan

 

[Zardnaar]

I like them but I also like variety. For FR/GH use em for Eberron don't use em.

 

[gyor]

Racial dieties were always.... odd. Like, in Greyhawk and FR, you had "general" gods. Were they the human pantheon? Area pantheons? What? They just didn't quite make sense to me.

On the one hand, I do like the idea that different cultures had different gods. Elves had different cultures, ergo different gods. But? This became all elves, irregardless of local elf culture, or all dwarves, irregardless of culture, etc. It became very odd.

Like others have mentioned, all in all, this is a very human-centric view of the different planes, and it rubs me the wrong way. Its a kind of implicit fantasy racism that feels off. Its like the cliche of the going to viist a generic town. What kidn of town? Invariably human one.

I can't speak to Greyhawk, but the main Faerun Pantheon is basically a racial Pantheon for humans, or at least one of them.

See once the humans of Faerun had a bunch of Pantheons, the Yuirwood Pantheon, Talfir Pantheon, Jhaamdath Pantheon, Netherese Pantheon, Mulhorand Pantheon, Unther Pantheon and some others,along with racial pantheons.

But as these different peoples worshipping these different pantheons started meeting up and intermixing more, and so did their Gods, so because AO declared that their couldn't be more then one God (more powerful then Demigod) holding a particular portifiolo in a single Pantheon, the these Gods battled it out.

Eventually many Gods died or got demoted to Demigod, forging the Faerun Pantheon.

Three major exceptions to that we're the Mulhorandi Gods (Mulhorandi Gods mostly kept to Mulhorand territory with a few exceptions) Untheric Gods (same as Mulhorand, but for Unther), and racial Gods for Elves/Halfling/Dwarves/Giants/and so on.

A couple of Deities had dual citizenship, Sharess/Bast and Mask ended up was a members of both the Faerun and Mulhorand Pantheons, and Tiamat and Hoar ended up dual citizen of the Untherite and Faerun Pantheons.

Also just because a racial Pantheon exists doesn't mean that those Gods exclude worshippers outside of that race.

You can be a human or Dragonborn worshipping Corellon, even though he is the God of Elves.

Back in 2e there was more limitations, but those have been tossed long ago.

And of since the Tuigan invasion caused an increase in Shou in Faerun, and then the Spellplague and possibly the Sundering as well, you likely have the appearance in Faerun of The Path of Enlightment (worships the Celestial Emperor and the Celestial Buracurcy), The Way (not deity centred), The Padshans (Buddhism proxy), and the religion of 8,000,000 gods.

Malatra in Kara Tur also has the Lords of Creation, a form of pre Hindu Vedic religion where Indra is depicted as a woman instead of a man.

Out in Zakhara they don't really do racial Gods, instead the divide is between Enlighten Gods who follow the teachings of the Loregiver, and Savage Gods which is every other deity. Oh and they also have a religion where people worship living idols, statues that are alve and grant benefits for sacrifices.

Then in far off Matizica they have their own Aztec inspired Pantheon and the Catlord of the Tabaxi.

On the continent of Osse they worship Spirits and Ancestors.

 

[jgsugden]

I don't treat them as racial deities as much as regional deities, like we had different deities for the Greeks and Norse.

As an example: The residents of a region are mostly Elves, the people of that area predominantly worship the Elven mythos, but there are exceptions to both of those things - non-elves in the region, elves that worship other Gods, and non-elves that worship the Elven Gods.

My world mythologies tend to have one Uber good deity and one Uber evil deity. Then there are many regional mythos - often homebrew, but sometimes from other settings, the real world, or the D&D racial mythos. As my current homebrew world is infinitely large, there is a place for anything and I've told players they can come to me with any idea for a setting, religion, etc... and I'll find a way to work it into the game. So far, a lot of players have elected to use the racial Gods for their PCs of the related race. As such, I'd say there is still a desire, at least amongst my players, for the racial deities.

 

[Guang]

I think having a racial deity among other more general deities adds flavor. I don't like entire racial pantheons. So Moradin as patron of Dwarves and craftsmen, great. Many dwarves worship him, but some worship whatever other gods are present in the setting. Each race having an entire set of gods that they all worship, and nobody but them worship, kinda rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Mephista]

I can't speak to Greyhawk, but the main Faerun Pantheon is basically a racial Pantheon for humans,

And yet, as others have said, you see non-humans worship the "human" dieties but not the humans worshiping the elf, orc, etc dieties. Much of the stories and myths of Faerun revolve around the human gods, including Mystra. She literally is the magic of the entire plane. How do you fit the elven god of magic into this mythos?

The entire design feels wrong to me.