re Frostburn: Everyone worships ICE?!

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Is this in print somewhere? I thought Loki was a norse Olidimarra... very CN, but fought with the other gods as much as he played tricks on them...

Deities and Demigods, he's listed as CE. I hate that. Hate it hate it hate it. In fact, I don't mind D&Dg that much at all except for Loki being Evil. He should be something more like Chaotic Chaotic.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

It's called Frostburn, not Heatburn. If you want fire spells or magic items, you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll be in the desert themed book that's coming out next.

Putting fire spells in a book called Frostburn is not intuitive. If someone is looking for a cold spell, they'll look to Frostburn.

As a side note, I'd love to see WotC create a weather generator that incorporates all the weather effects from the DMG, Frostburn, and future books. It's often too much bookkeeping to keep track of it all, but a nifty weather generator could do it all in one fell click of a button. Of course, WotC seems to want to miss the boat on electronic aids so I won't hold my breath.

 

[ThoughtfulOwl]

Sure, snow and ice and sleet are a the basis of nature in Icefell settings. But you'd think a few intelligent sapiens living in the area would hold WARMTH and FIRE in high enough regard to include them in ... oh, I don't know ... reference to deities and/or prestige classes and the like. Most of us hairy creatures are warm-blooded, after all. We like to keep our body temperatures at a certain comfort level.

But nooooooo -- it's all blue and white and freeze-your-tuchas-off icy beauty throughout the whole darned book. Gimme a break! What's up with that?

Apart from the fact that as others already said Frostburn is more a collection of cold-themed elements than the Complete Book of Cold Places, you are struck in a big false premise: that people worship what they like over what they fear (or that worship is triggered only by awe and respect and not by fear and opportunism).

It isn't thet simple; in fact it's often the opposite. Just look at the ancient RL mythologies: many deities are portrayed as petty, demanding or vindictive, yet they were worshipped all along; lightning, floods, earthquakes, plagues: name a misfortune and there was some god responsible for it.

In a way, it assuages fears. If I'm a primitive who doesn't know how and why lightnings develop and how I can avoid being hit during a storm, I feel more safe knowing that they aren't random, but fall according to Zeus' purposes: after all, I'm reasonably safe as long as I don't make him angry at me. Then I can go the extra mile and make offerings to the gods so that they don't harm me; but if I don't want to be struck by lightning I won't give offerings to the god of Grounding: that's just asking for trouble from Zeus; nah, I'll go directly to the source. This way, I turned an unexplicable danger into something I can control.

Now, let's say I live in a polar environment. Sure, fire keeps me alive, but it's also a tiny, pityful thing easily quenched by all snow and ice out there; in this landscape, it's the gods of cold that hold sway, not some upstart fire deity who finds herself sorely outmatched.
So when the adepts of fire knock at my door i'll say thanks but no thanks: no point in praying to your burning patron if it gets the much stronger and more pervasive cold gods breathing down on my neck in displeasure; I'd rather appease them so they don't send an avalanche to bury my puny fire.

 

[Remathilis]

Re-Read the cleric section; all the PH gods are worshipped to a lesser extent. These deities (Angrist, Hleid, Iborighu, etc) have a particular affinity towards the cold and their power is greater there (greater influence) but they are hardly a pantheon unto themselves.

There are just as many worshippers of Pelor and Kord there as thier is Hleid and Angrist.

BTW: Loki proves his evil ways in Ragnarok; betraying the Asgardians during the final days. The D&DG pantheon seems drawn from this endtimes mythos (Tyrs hand is gone, Baldur is dead (or will be soon)) so Loki's evil side is represented moreso than his older chaotic side found in the journeys of Thor.

 

[Felix]

Loki proves his evil ways in Ragnarok; betraying the Asgardians during the final days. The D&DG pantheon seems drawn from this endtimes mythos (Tyrs hand is gone, Baldur is dead (or will be soon)) so Loki's evil side is represented moreso than his older chaotic side found in the journeys of Thor.

Ok, that a reason for it. But really, a CN god (or like Ankh-Morpork Guard said CC) will betray you sometimes, but that doesn't automatically make him EVIL. Neutral characters sometimes do Good things, sometimes do Evil things, and sometimes they don't consider the G-E effect.

Maybe Ragnarok shows his Evil like the Journeys show his "Good", in which case, he's still be CN.

Meh, give me the mischevious Loki any day.

/We now return you to your discussion of Boston, er, I mean Frostburn.