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D&D General The Generic Deities of D&D

dave2008

Legend
4e interestingly changed most of this with its core pantheon. Tiamat wasn't just a dragon goddess, she was the goddess of avarice and revenge. So much so that some didn't believe she or Bahamut were actually dragons. It also introduced new deities like Torog, Melora, and Erathis. So, humans, elves, dwarves, etc. could all worship a version of the same pantheon.

EDIT: And it was insinuated that Moradin was the head of the pantheon.
 
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Undrave

Legend
If you want to build your own Pantheon, The Angry GM has a GREAT article on it: Conflicted Beliefs: Building a Perfect Five God Mythology for D&D

And a follow-up: Conflicted Beliefs: Fluffy Story Bulls$&%

4e interestingly changed most of this with its core pantheon. Tiamat wasn't just a dragon goddess, she was the goddess of avarice and revenge. So much so that some didn't believe she or Bahamut were actually dragons. It also introduced new deities like Torog and Erathis. So, humans, elves, dwarves, etc. could all worship a version of the same pantheon.

Ooh Erathis was my jam! A Goddess of Civilization who isn't particularly good.
 
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One more thought: in the last couple of decades, they generally try to avoid "which is the best good?" (no such problem for "which is the worst evil?"), so I think that is why you don't see an Ubergood god that crosses racial bounds (having an Uberdwarf god be LG doesn't LG the "best good" for anyone but dwarves).

Admittedly 5e is pro-LG at least in terms of number of celestials running around, but so far that hasn't translated into LG gods being better/more important in any settings.
 

Undrave

Legend
Interestingly, I recently found out the 4e designers based her on Athena! I had a completely different vision of her back in my 4e days.

Well my vision of Athena is corrupted by the Saint Seiya franchise so I'm not a good judge :p

But I guess there's that whole Arachne thing...

I imagined Earths being very cold and logical. She has her goals and does everything, but keep some of it hidden from Pelor and Ioun because it's not very nice. The Game of Making includes tortures amongst its darkest components.
 

TheDelphian

Explorer
well one issue is that despite moving from one edition to another or one setting to another everyone has access to the old Pantheon. Meaning that it colors how we see it from the outside.

One reason I use my own setting is coming up with a pantheon that I like, can work with and most importantly can remember. Having played for a while I ended up mixing up gods from different campaigns, settings, editions etc. I looked through everything I could find and built a pantheon I reuse game after game.

Basically I covered everything in D&D and did research on real pantheons to fill the gaps so I would not have just the Adventurer's gods but ones for the common folk.

I am proud now I covered some of the things others have mentioned as flaws here such as a god who is in charge of the gods and mundane gods of fertility, the home etc.

As for racial gods I kept it to the main ones using the classics, Gruumsh, Moradin, Corellan, Yondalla etc. The are the Gods of that race. I didn't detail humanoid gods except Gruumsh (To not slight half orcs ) because no one is playing a goblin, gnoll etc. but assume they have their own.

I also created A Gods creation story, not that players read it but it is there.

I think What I am getting at is the Pantheon should be personal to the setting and GM. I dislike multiple, huge pantheons in a fantasy world. I know it its not realistic compared to our history and current state (We fight most often only over a single deity, disagreeing on who that may be) But in a world were the Gods show power and do not work on the same levels of faith we do, it some how bothers me.
 

As has been said, the pantheons that aren't specified as belonging to a specific race are really human deities most of the time.* This basically allows you to represent a variety of human gods and pantheons in your D&D experience. Since most players are presumably human, there are a lot more of these and they make new ones for most settings.

Since we don't have any elf players, they can generally settle for one D&D "elf pantheon" and call it good.

One of the cool features of the shared non-human pantheons is that it serves to bind the multiverse together better. The same applies with the archfiends and such (and there are archcelestials, they just don't get as much screen time). If utilized, this allows for more of a shared world feel, even if your home campaign world is completely home brew. I think that's awesome--being able to create your own thing, but still be a part of the D&D multiverse. You get both individuality and belonging in a way you don't get if you homebrew your entire cosmology, or use a published setting massively altered.

To take it further, there actually are some human pantheons that are considered very common in the multiverse--their presence is found on numerous different worlds. Those are the fantasy historical ones. In fact, Planescape says that there are 5 "great pantheons" which are considered to be the most powerful/influential/widespread in the multiverse. These are (as I recall), the Elven, Dwarven, Greek, Norse, and Celtic.


* This is why I strongly disfavor non-humans worshipping human gods outside of exceptional circumstances (or a world where all races worship the same pantheon). In general, it would be some sort of cultural treason for a dwarf to worship a human deity instead of the dwarven pantheon. What, your own gods aren't good enough for you? It doesn't make a lot of sense. The fact that they sometimes have this be a thing is a flaw in the pattern to me, though I think it is usually applied when they want simplicity in presentation for some editions or products. So instead of presenting each racial pantheon, they'll just present the leader of the pantheon, and if your dwarf doesn't really fit Moradin, you just pick one of the "general" deities instead. It's understandable, but I still believe it's a bad simplification they should have never presented. If you need a sample pantheon without racial distinctions, use one of those (the game has multiple such pantheons). Don't pretend a human pantheon is really just a general one. All that being said, I will admit that D&D presentation of humanity gives reasonable credit to the idea that human deities might be more adaptable and willing to accept worshippers from a variety of races.
 

gyor

Legend
Its not unheard of for human population to worship Elven Gods, like the old human population of the Yuirwood before the elves came worshipping Zandilar, so just use the Elven Pantheon, combining Seldarine and Antiseldarine. I mean Corellon Laretharian is probably the most widely worshipped God in D&D, and not just by Elves, and the rest of the Elvish Pantheons are really independent eminations of Corellon Laretharian, even Lloth who has more then just Drow worshippers as well.

the Elven Gods in part or in whole are worshipped in the Forgotten Realm, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Exandia, Nerath, maybe briefly Dragonlance (I read somewhere that Drow had invaded Dragonlance to spread Lolths worship, but got kicked out), and sort of almost Eberron. In many of these settings they are worshipped by more then just elves.

Alternately Dwarven Patheon could work too, but I think Dwarven Gods are much less often worshipped by none Dwarves except Moradin himself in places like Exandia and Nerath.
 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
4e interestingly changed most of this with its core pantheon. Tiamat wasn't just a dragon goddess, she was the goddess of avarice and revenge. So much so that some didn't believe she or Bahamut were actually dragons. It also introduced new deities like Torog and Erathis. So, humans, elves, dwarves, etc. could all worship a version of the same pantheon.

EDIT: And it was insinuated that Moradin was the head of the pantheon.
The story of IO/Bahamut and Tiamat (Plus other meta elements) really allowed the D&D mythos set to much better fit the one I had been using since 1980 or so. I sort of treat IO as THE Dragon Spirit and Bahamut and Tiamat representations of what happens when great individuals channel that in different ways almost as morality plays on the old theme of how great power corrupts ... but with the possibility that really great power reveals or expresses truths and changes little.
 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules
I redid deities and pantheons completely into a universal model I can use for any campaign I ever run.

There's 21 actual deities, the names of most of which you'd recognize and that come from or represent all the major non-aberrant species and races. All the rest* are simply aspects of those 21, amended to suit the race(s) and-or culture(s) they serve. (it came as a dismaying shock to my players recently when they learned that the deity they'd always known as Corellon is in fact just an aspect of the main deity of Gnomes and isn't an Elf at all!)

* - there's a few oddball exceptions and raised immortals, that in the grand scheme of things don't amount to much.
 

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