D&D General The Generic Deities of D&D

[dave2008]

Considering the absurb amount of Hades=Satan literature out there, I'd say you're still doing it in a relatively unique fashion. Plus, you're probably not doing it in quite the same fashion as Dresden Files, so I'd say you're safe.

Probably true as I haven't read those books. I was more inspired by this web comic: Punderworld

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Have you had a look at RuneQuest? It takes a similar approach to that described by @Sepulchrave II.

I wonder which version of RQ would be the best to pull out the world-building rules? Cause I don't see myself ever actually playing or running RQ itself.

 

[Lanefan]

Keep religion fluid. Have conflicting accounts. Avoid an overarching cosmology.

One can quite easily do the first two of these while still keeping an overarching cosmology.

There's the deities as the deities see themselves (as an actual everlasting cosmology, which they are), and the deities as mere mortals see them (which changes all the time). How this happens is that the actual deities present aspects of themselves to mortals, aspects which are suited to the particular culture those mortals follow; and those aspects rise and fall and morph and whatever.

I'd give examples from my own system, only my players sometimes read this stuff and in a great many cases they are as yet unaware of exactly who is an aspect of who. They did recently learn (as I mentioned upthread) that the Elvish deity they know as Corellon is in fact an aspect of the Gnomes' Bearovan, which might give an idea of how deep this runs.

D&D tends to have much clearer boundaries, and has less fluid figures. So I would suggest blurring boundaries and liquifying your deities.

Liquifying deities - is that the latest version of "will it blend"?

 

[Lanefan]

In my greyhawk campaign, since dwarves and elves are not playable races (gnomes and halfelves are), I use Ulaa for dwarves and gnomes, and Ehlonna for Elves. Works out well imho and simplifies the pantheon a bit.
Most orcs would worship (and follow) Iuz though. Halflings would revere Beory (Also not playable race)

The players revere Fharlang, Heironeous (The pally in the group), one is a warlock of Bel and one a Nature priest of Beory. The gnome wizard did not state his belief so far, he would either pray to Ulaa or eventually to Boccob.

I think I could not do similar things in FR eventually, you could replace Ehlonna with the goddess that Drizzt reveres, Milekki or so, but you got no Mountain god like Ulaa wit hties t odwarves and gnomes there (Maybe there is one but I am not aware of this)

My experience is that PC do worry about their own god if they do at all. So a Pantheon with 35 gods is nice fluff but a load of baggage also.

I want there to be, at the very least, a deity of each general alignment (better yet, of each specific alignment) for each playable race*; such that a player who wants to play a Cleric of race X and alignment Y has a deity to follow without having to go out of culture.

* - or significant culture, for Humans.

And yes, this means I end up with 60 or 70 deities written up; and a boatload more not yet written up as their cultures haven't become significant (yet), but so what?

I'd far rather have this all in place ahead of time than have to scramble to invent a new deity every time a player wants to bring in a Cleric of a race-alignment combo not done before.

 

[MGibster]

I dislike linking clerics to the alignment of their deities. In my campaign, I have a god of storms and the sea who is a vicious being prone to sinking ships and battering down buildings with high winds. But you can placate this god and make it less likely that he'll jump up and land on you with both feet with the proper ceremonies. So who worships this god? Everyone. Sailors invoke his name to spare their ship and thank him for the wind and land lubbers worship him to thank him for the necessary rains that help their crops grow and sparing them from floods and other water related calamities. Good clerics focus more on placating the god and benefiting from what he brings to the table and evil clerics focus on the destructive side.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I wonder which version of RQ would be the best to pull out the world-building rules? Cause I don't see myself ever actually playing or running RQ itself.

I'd recommend the Glorantha Sourcebook. It doesn't contain any rules, it's all information about the world. About half of it deals with the gods.

EDIT: What's missing from Glorantha Sourcebook, in terms of using this material in an rpg, is the concept of cults. In RuneQuest, cults are similar to Greco-Roman mystery cults. One is not born into a cult, one chooses to join. Cult members rise thru the ranks of lay member/initiate/rune lord or priest. Each rank provides benefits, such as training in particular magic or skills, and requires certain duties. Each cult has allies and enemies in the game world.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Considering the absurb amount of Hades=Satan literature out there, I'd say you're still doing it in a relatively unique fashion. Plus, you're probably not doing it in quite the same fashion as Dresden Files, so I'd say you're safe.


Huh, I was unaware of that. Knowing that's a thing does make it easier to do a take of the Persephone story as a cosmic smear job. I've always liked the idea of Hades just being a chill guy who wants to do his job of tending to the souls of the dead with his loving wife and cute puppy.

If you and @dave2008 have not yet, you should start reading Lore Olympus. Great take on Hades and the story of him and Persephone (along with a lot of the other dieties, though some of them are still worthless pieces of crap [looking at you Apollo] )

 

[dave2008]

If you and @dave2008 have not yet, you should start reading Lore Olympus. Great take on Hades and the story of him and Persephone (along with a lot of the other dieties, though some of them are still worthless pieces of crap [looking at you Apollo] )

I read some of that a few years ago. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about it, but something eventually rubbed me the wrong way so I stopped reading it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I read some of that a few years ago. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about it, but something eventually rubbed me the wrong way so I stopped reading it.

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. I still read and enjoy it. I actually caught up this morning which is why I was thinking of it

 

[wingsandsword]

Let me tell you of a great setting called Eberron and its Sovereign Host back in 2004.

I remember Planescape books explicitly discussing it as a possibility in the AD&D 2nd edition era, On Hallowed Ground was one book that talked about it in 1996, including discussing the game-mechanical aspects of serving an entire pantheon. Eberron didn't invent the idea of a D&D cleric worshiping a pantheon as a whole.

2nd edition AD&D was intentionally very vague and versatile on who a Cleric could serve (an aftereffect of the 1980's moral panic around D&D), and offered lots of options: philosophies and concepts, entire pantheons, just the generic concept of "good" or "evil". . .and specific deities.

Players have always gravitated to the specific deity option, even when other options were presented.