D&D General The Greyhawk Pantheon: How Greyhawk Approaches Deities (& Demigods)

Another interesting aspect of Greyhawk gods in Greyhawk is how divorced they are from the religious nations and how this changes over time.

You have the Caliphate of Ekbir, the See of Medegia, The Prelacy of Almor, The Theocracy of the Pale, The Archclericy of Veluna, The Horned Society, and Iuz.

In the original 1980 folio there are no listed gods with the sole exception of Iuz being identified as a Demi-God. Deviltry is identified as the religion of the Horned Society. Which gods are venerated in places such as the Prelacy of Almor though is not defined.

In the 1983 boxed set there are listed gods, but again it is not defined who the religious countries venerate other than Iuz and the society. The Theocracy of the Pale makes no mention of Pholtus of the Blinding Light, that is left for other sources to define and hints about religious intolerance.

In 2e we start to have some references in the core setting books, but not many. In From the Ashes Pholtus is mentioned in the Pale's Entry but nothing for Ekbir. Medegia and Almor were wiped out in the Greyhawk Wars. The Church of Hextor is shown to be huge in the Great Kingdom remnants.

In 3e we have some more mentions like the sidebar in the D&D Gazeteer on Al'Akbar mentioning his faith dominates the culture of the Western Nations and that the Pale "is ruled by a clerical hierarchy in the name of the god, Pholtus."

Of note Al'Akbar did not even merit a mention in the reduced list of deities in the 2e From the Ashes box but is in the WotC late 2e Greyhawk Player's Guide as a Demigod.

In the 3e Living Greyhawk Gazetteer it lists commonly worshipped gods in each Kingdom as part of their gazetteer entry. Also you can see that the Caliph of Ebir is a cleric of Al'Akbar, the canon of Veluna is a cleric of Rao, etc.
 
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Snarf, what's your problem with Nudizrath, anyway? It's not like the thing's obsessive, and it's aim isn't the best. Besides you didn't start entertaining adventurers thinking it was a safe job, did you?

:cool::D
 


Aw....

Thank you! Seriously.

I wrote a lot (a LOT) about Greyhawk in my earlier essays. And over time, all that writing about why Greyhawk was so awesome and why we needed to have it back really changed the way I thought about Greyhawk.

Over time, I realized that what made Greyhawk so awesome for me wasn't the way it had certain elements of "old school" play, or sword & sorcery, or "muscular neutrality," or ... a lot of the things that I assumed were hard-baked into the setting at the time.

It was that Greyhawk was so open-ended. That it was a campaign setting that people really made their own. That it was evocative (filled with empty spaces, and areas "off the map," and ancient destroyed civilizations) but not prescriptive.*

And that's what I want for everyone else. Don't play Greyhawk like I did. Make the Greyhawk that you want! If you find some of this stuff (like the pantheons, and the blurred like with divinity) helpful ... cool! If not, I know that you'll have something that you will find equally amazing and magical.


*As a reminder, the WoG 1983 boxed set was written by an "unreliable narrator." Which means that even though it is mostly rumors and adventure hooks, even the things within it can't be taken as absolutely true.
This is very interesting, because it's essentially the same philosophy as PoLand / Nerath / Nentir Vale campaigns – take the rough sketches and make it completely your own. They divorced it from Greyhawk but included classic modules in the game world depicted on the map from Conquest of Nerath because they wanted it to be truly flexible in mining D&D's past without being beholden to any sort of a "canon history of Oerth, Castle Greyhawk, and the surrounding lands and Great Powers." Same thing with the Dawn War Pantheon - they wanted to break the wheel of assumptions.

I think people try to say the same thing about making the Realms your own thing, but when the content keeps getting churned out that advances the plane based on "living Forgotten Realms" Adventurer's League modules, then it doesn't feel like your own. This was the problem with Greyhawk in 3e - it was "Living Greyhawk."

D&D works best when you can take the campaign and modules and make them your own rather than being part of a larger universe, you just don't know it yet.
 


In D&D, power equates level and tier. Epic characters are epic beings.

To become a "god" is something different. It means, there is a group of people who are formally "worshiping" the creature. It is the existence of a "temple" and a "priesthood" that defines what is or isnt a "god".

"Godhood" is in the eye of the beholder, especially as is a social construct, with customs and actions pertaining to shared worldview.



Meanwhile, D&D has the "Divine power source", which relates to the Astral Plane and its thoughtscape. Those mages that can utilize the astral magic may or may not be "gods" depending on who chooses to worship them.
 


A few quick notes:

  • the 1983 boxed set listing omitted the Suloise goddess Osprem from the roster of deities
  • Lenard Lakofka did create the Suel pantheon, with Gary’s blessings, beginning as far back as 1977, but most-visibly through his Dragon articles and L1-5 series of Lendore Isle adventure modules; see my summary of his works at An Index of the D&D Works of Lenard "Leomund's Tiny Hut" Lakofka
  • Lenard also wrote two unpublished articles for Dragon, detailing the Common gods and Unkbown gods of Greyhawk, similar to his Suel series; these were sold last fall, and will be published by the Lakofka Archive team in due time via our site at Lakofka Archive - Anna B. Meyer

Allan.
 

This is very interesting, because it's essentially the same philosophy as PoLand / Nerath / Nentir Vale campaigns – take the rough sketches and make it completely your own. They divorced it from Greyhawk but included classic modules in the game world depicted on the map from Conquest of Nerath because they wanted it to be truly flexible in mining D&D's past without being beholden to any sort of a "canon history of Oerth, Castle Greyhawk, and the surrounding lands and Great Powers." Same thing with the Dawn War Pantheon - they wanted to break the wheel of assumptions.

I think people try to say the same thing about making the Realms your own thing, but when the content keeps getting churned out that advances the plane based on "living Forgotten Realms" Adventurer's League modules, then it doesn't feel like your own. This was the problem with Greyhawk in 3e - it was "Living Greyhawk."

D&D works best when you can take the campaign and modules and make them your own rather than being part of a larger universe, you just don't know it yet.

I think a key point with FR is that unlike all the rest of D&D settings, FR predates D&D and is designed for storying in general and being something that grows and evolves over time. FR is as much designed for Video Games, Comics, Board Games, Card Games, Movies, Novels, as it is TTRPGs. It's why it's the most successful at transmission efforts.

Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Darksun, Spelljammer, Mystara, Birthright, Planescape, etc... we're all designed first and foremost as D&D TTRPG settings, FR wasn't, although it absorbed a bunch of Settings that were, and it was designed specifically to be a living setting driven by novels by the time it was published.

That comes with alot of pros and cons when it comes to playing in the setting. It has even more Gods then Greyhawk, sharing the none human pantheons and monster deities with Greyhawk, real world pantheons with the real world, some deities with Nerath, and unique religions in other continents like Kara Tur, Zakhara, Maztica, etc...

If you want a deep immersive lore setting setting that evolves like Marvel comics, where you have stories you can keep up with between Games, you got FR, if you want setting that works like a basic scaffold other settings work better.

It just works better for everybody to let FR be FR instead of the attempts at making it work like regular D&D settings like Greyhawk, use other settings for the Scaffold approach.
 

I think a key point with FR is that unlike all the rest of D&D settings, FR predates D&D and is designed for storying in general and being something that grows and evolves over time. FR is as much designed for Video Games, Comics, Board Games, Card Games, Movies, Novels, as it is TTRPGs. It's why it's the most successful at transmission efforts.

Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Darksun, Spelljammer, Mystara, Birthright, Planescape, etc... we're all designed first and foremost as D&D TTRPG settings, FR wasn't, although it absorbed a bunch of Settings that were, and it was designed specifically to be a living setting driven by novels by the time it was published.

That comes with alot of pros and cons when it comes to playing in the setting. It has even more Gods then Greyhawk, sharing the none human pantheons and monster deities with Greyhawk, real world pantheons with the real world, some deities with Nerath, and unique religions in other continents like Kara Tur, Zakhara, Maztica, etc...

If you want a deep immersive lore setting setting that evolves like Marvel comics, where you have stories you can keep up with between Games, you got FR, if you want setting that works like a basic scaffold other settings work better.

It just works better for everybody to let FR be FR instead of the attempts at making it work like regular D&D settings like Greyhawk, use other settings for the Scaffold approach.
Yeah, the point of the section of the DMG is to provide a demonstrable template for a bare-minimum D&D Setting: and it fits the role well.
 

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