The Book of the Righteous

[Nightfall]

Pretty sure BotR is facing off against Tome of Horrors so you know there will be some big divisions on that one.

 

[Davelozzi]

I agree the BotR is one of the best RPG supplements I own, although as Psion pointed out, it's a lot more useful to someone about to start a campaign than someone who already has a campaign with an established pantheon. Certainly, there's a lot in there that can be adapted, but if I had BotR before I started my campaign, I very well might have just dropped it right in and used the whole thing.

In general, I do find Green Ronin's products are of very high quality. However, I still only buy their when the topic is of interest to me, so I can't really give a fair opinion on many of them.

As for the ENnies, I hope it wins. I've voted for it as a write-in for best supplement for several other awards already.

 

[kenjib]

What's the flavor? Standard European derived trans-continental integrated pantheon?

 

[kenjib]

What's the flavor? Standard European derived trans-continental integrated pantheon?

Hehe -- I just re-read that gibberish sentence.

Standard Eurpean Derived: Typical D&D norse/greek/roman style derivative in both flavor and pantheon dynamic.

Trans-continental integrated pantheon: The same gods are worshipped around the world, and everyone agrees that they created the world and rule sovereign. i.e. there are no local gods worshipped in specific regions that do not interact mythologically with the gods from other regions. It is a unified belief system.

 

[Psion]

Pretty sure BotR is facing off against Tome of Horrors so you know there will be some big divisions on that one.

Monster Supplements have their own category in the ennies.

 

[Psion]

What's the flavor? Standard European derived trans-continental integrated pantheon?

For a little insight to some of the approaches taken, this thread on the Green Ronin forum should shed a little light.

And to answer what you have clarified is the question, the book sort of props up the deities as universal with regard to race or region (they go so far to say as they dislike they idea of race specific deities, so one can only conclude that goes double for culture specific deities), though evil races are quite literally the spawn of the devil. That said, I personally like racial deities and find they fit mythology well.

The book shows examples of how to build deities that spawn in different ways, making it so it is not too difficult to splice in your own. As I alluded to earlier, its a bit late for me to swap in BotR religions wholesale, but I am using the BotR deities as sort of old deities, have faiths as described on new continents I am fleshing out, and swap in some deities under different names (my Ukko from finnish myth = Urian from BotR, etc.)

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

I won't be. ENnies are voted on by the people and I'm not sure enough people have seen this book for it to win. Of course it will depend highly on what it is going up against and what category or categories it is in.

Maybe I should just say "...extremely dissapointed" instead, then. If ever a book deserves some accolades, this is it!

 

[kenjib]

Thanks Psion. Your feedback and the thread seem to confirm my initial glance-through. Sounds like a great book, but a different approach than what I'm interested in. I prefer a more distant/uninvolved, regional, and cultish, approach to gods than a unified pantheon where the gods all recognize one another. I also like ambiguity and dualism, but it seems from his comments that he might have minimalized that in favor of more strict alignment-heavy criteria. Maybe I'll give it a second browse nonetheless.

 

[Nightfall]

Monster Supplements have their own category in the ennies.

In which case I'm not so worried then. Tome can hang with anything WotC can throw out. (At least I hope so...)

 

[Psion]

Thanks Psion. Your feedback and the thread seem to confirm my initial glance-through. Sounds like a great book, but a different approach than what I'm interested in. I prefer a more distant/uninvolved, regional, and cultish, approach to gods than a unified pantheon where the gods all recognize one another. I also like ambiguity and dualism, but it seems from his comments that he might have minimalized that in favor of more strict alignment-heavy criteria. Maybe I'll give it a second browse nonetheless.

Actually, you might be a little misled then. I think that BotR is a bit MORE dualistic than the standard D&D pantheon. Yes, the deities are distributed through the alignments.

However, the non-evil gods are almost universally considered "good by exclusion"; neutral deities have good holy warriors and the great church reqards all of the non-evil deities as holy. The non-evil deities cast off the taint known as corpus infernum, which was thrown into hell and became demons. OTOH, Asmodeus was once among the other deities but did not cast off corpus infernum and becomes the central evil figure of the book. He is outnumbered by the good deities, but he was one of the first deities and is thus very powerful.

It's not quite as dualistic as Zoroastrianism, but there is a bit stronger polarization between good and evil than most D&D pantheons.