D&D General The Generic Deities of D&D

[Eltab]

God of Accounting and war.
They are generally quartermaster corp.

The guys who draw up the Government's budget, the Military budget (presumably but not necessarily in that order), then order supplies &c &c

 

[DammitVictor]

When someone has to tell me the plural of anecdote is not data it normally follows with something absurd that just does not jive with reality. And then they quote some study.

My gaming group in high school, minus myself, was practically 100% Catholic and learned to play D&D from official school clubs led by school faculty at Catholic middle school.

I met my girlfriend because she was friends with a bunch of kids whose youth pastor brought them to one of my Pathfinder games. I know neopagans don't normally code as "religious", but she in turn introduced me to the kindred I worship with.

I feel like I caught the tail end of the Satanic Panic in the early 90s, and there are surely some ugly little holdouts still hiding amongst the general population... but for the most part, the churches are on our side now, and Dungeons & Dragons is seen as a wholesome alternative to sex, drugs, and rock & roll.

 

[Lanefan]

Another short story is some ancient gawds a little. But the gawd Cobol or internet or gawd of programmers started feeding them data.

Now THIS is on to something!

Cobol - Lawful Neutral deity of stability and longwinded oratory
Fortran - Chaotic Good deity of simplicity and insects (bugs)
Basic - Neutral Good deity of children and education
Assembler - Neutral deity of creation and the universe
Html - Chaotic Evil deity of trickery, deceit, lies and misinformation
Java - Chaotic Neutral deity of recreation and (wasted) time

Any others?

 

[Eltab]

Assembler

Assembler is the deity who uttered in Truespeak to create the fundamental nature of the universe.

 

[dave2008]

Well, sure, that's obvious enough. My point is the D&D crowd is not noticably more nor less religious than the general population. Heck, two of the main co-authors for the Theros book have advanced degrees in theology and are pretty religious.

OK, I wasn't try dispute that, I was just admitting my perspective bias

 

[Minigiant]

One thing I always pondered was having the Generic gods being the one who kept the "Fuedal Medieval Era Stasis" on the universe. There would be a god for each job grouping.

God of Kings
God of Nobles
God of Jesters
God of Priests
God of Merchants
God of Knights
God of Rangers
God of the Navy
God of Farmers
God of Herders
God of Smiths
etc etc

And all the demihumans are either side projects or old projects of the gods what weren't King. The God of Smiths created Dwarves. The God of Nobles made Elves. Like the God of Infantry created orcs after the God of Nobles for elevating the God of Cavalry to the God of Knights.
And that's why orcs don't ride horses and hate elves.

 

[Aldarc]

Seems like a look at the most popular medieval saints would be a great start for assembling something like that.

Also, I would also take a look at Iron Kingdoms. There was a main ascended god and then a range of saint-like figures of humans who later ascended and were canonized.

 

[Minigiant]

Seems like a look at the most popular medieval saints would be a great start for assembling something like that.

Also, I would also take a look at Iron Kingdoms. There was a main ascended god and then a range of saint-like figures of humans who later ascended and were canonized.

That could work.
Well religions tend to have a lot of saints.

Which god would create dragons and dragonborn?
God of Merchants? God of Tax Collector?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I tend to have gods getting power from some social phenomena. The more of the phenomena there is in the multiverse, the stronger the god is. For example, Bane is the god of painful discipline (which includes emotionally painful discipline but that isn't as fun), so if a kid gets his knuckles smacked by a nun's ruler, Bane gets some juice, and if a soldier is executed for violating his superior's orders, then Bane gets a big bonus from the multiverse.

Once they get enough juice, gods can venture into non-social things like storms, nature, the sea, and the sun, but these are really just for branding.

Going back to Bane, it doesn't really matter if a hobgoblin, a dwarf, a unicorn, or a dragon is getting the discipline, so long as the discipliner and the disciplinee both know discipline is taking place (any audience knowing it is discipline and taking some meaning from it is a bonus). Bane doesn't get anything if an ogre beats up some farmer because the ogre is bored even if the ogre claims it is discipline.

Bane obviously doesn't want to run out of power, so he set up organized religions to encourage societies to use discipline. Bane focuses his attention on societies that are pro-discipline, often run by races that are pro-discipline (like hobgoblins). Bane may have something to do with those races and societies being pro-discipline. He has discovered that attempting to bring discipline to kender, pixies, and fantasy role playing gamers are all a waste of his time and resources.

That is an interesting way of going about it, but it leads to some big changes in power structures. Like someone said before, the God of Sex would really be the most powerful being in the multiverse, likely followed by a god of tribute (taxes included since they are just a modern form of tribute) and then Death (Look, everyone dies, but they only do it once. Most people have sex and pay taxes far more often)

A better reason to spread your faith, out of selfless love, building a relationship with a God or Gods benifits the worshippers.

As for Clerics it's a skill, to atune yourself to a God's essence well enough that you drink in their freely offered holy divine light like a plant drinks in sun light.

But, that doesn't work for all types of gods presented in the DnD worlds. A god of war doesn't spread their religion out of selfless love for the people, that doesn't fit with how we imagine a war god working.

The plants drinking in sunlight is a good analogy for a type of clerical system, but again, there is a problem. Does the sun care about the grass? I would propose it does not. The sun gives of light regardless of if there is grass to grow or not, and some times the sun's light is harsh and kills the grass.

In which case, in that system, I would say it needs to be explained by the gods care about clerics, because there would be no need to, they might not even realize they have clerics at all. Which is at odds with the type of aid we generally see in DnD.

 

[MGibster]

D&D has always had an odd vibe I've come to call monotheistic polytheism. There's a pantheon, sure, but most PCs tend to favor one god to the exclusion of all others. Assuming they can be bothered with religion in the first place. One of my GM's had a little laugh when I wrote down "As Needed" under deity worshiped on my character sheet. I told him my character prayed to whatever god it was appropriate to pray for given the situation.

In my last campaign, I drew inspiration from Greek/Hindu mythology when it came to creating the religion. It was polytheistic, there was no single orthodoxy or authoritative text, there were no race specific gods, and outside of certain state sanctioned holidays or events religion was largely a personal matter. Most people were in agreement about the big things -who rules the gods, who has domain over what, and that kind of thing- but there were little differences in stories, how to worship, etc., etc.