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

[Set]

I'm partial to, uh, Zagyg.

Other than the obvious, these are some of my faves (no particular order):
Fharlanghn
Heironeous
Hextor
Incabulos
Istus
Nerull
Pholtus (as a jerk)
Trithereon
Wee Jas
Xan Yae
Zuoken

Celestian and Trithereon are my favorites, but also a fan of Wee Jas, Ehlonna, Heironeous, Istus, Mayaheine, Phaulkon, Rao and Xan Yae. Plus a lot of Roger Moore's 'demihuman dieties,' like Aerdrie Faenya, Arvoreen the Defender and almost all of the Gnomish pantheon! (Loved how the Greyhawk book for 3rd edition had Istus grant both the Chaos and Law domain options. That's just fun. She's the goddess of pre-ordained fate and random happenstance! Suck it up!)

And have a fiery loathing for Sehanine Moonbow, for no rational reason whatsoever. It's not that she's 'new,' I like some 'new' gods like Mayaheine or the halfling death-god Urogalen.

While, in other settings, I'm a fan of some of their evil gods, like Auril in the Realms, or Belsameth in the Scarred Lands, I do not care for any of the evil deities of Greyhawk. Hextor is about as tolerable as it gets. The rest are either utterly mad like Tharizdun, or utterly silly, like Wastri, and I can't find a use for them, or their followers, narratively.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Celestian and Trithereon are my favorites, but also a fan of Wee Jas, Ehlonna, Heironeous, Istus, Mayaheine, Phaulkon, Rao and Xan Yae. Plus a lot of Roger Moore's 'demihuman dieties,' like Aerdrie Faenya, Arvoreen the Defender and almost all of the Gnomish pantheon! (Loved how the Greyhawk book for 3rd edition had Istus grant both the Chaos and Law domain options. That's just fun. She's the goddess of pre-ordained fate and random happenstance! Suck it up!)

And have a fiery loathing for Sehanine Moonbow, for no rational reason whatsoever. It's not that she's 'new,' I like some 'new' gods like Mayaheine or the halfling death-god Urogalen.

While, in other settings, I'm a fan of some of their evil gods, like Auril in the Realms, or Belsameth in the Scarred Lands, I do not care for any of the evil deities of Greyhawk. Hextor is about as tolerable as it gets. The rest are either utterly mad like Tharizdun, or utterly silly, like Wastri, and I can't find a use for them, or their followers, narratively.

I always liked Tharizdun. Sealed evil in a can always appealed to me narratively.

 

[TwoSix]

I always liked Tharizdun. Sealed evil in a can always appealed to me narratively.

Ahh, but was Tharizdun put there by a man, in a factory downtown?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

WHAT THE FRACKITY FRACK PEOPLE???!!!!

I stop paying attention for just a second, and you bring unavoidable DOOM and untold CALUMINES upon yourselves and this thread by batting around THE NAMELESS ONE'S appellation like you are coked up cats and that name is your squeaky toy!

I could feel the BDE (Big Doom Energy) in my sleep. Slap that name from your pieholes, before THE NAMELESS ONE crams an invoked devastation AND a rain of colorless fire where the sun don't shine.

 

[grodog]

one of the things about the WoG is just how many of the semi-deities, demi-gods, and sometimes the gods themselves either live there or wander there. [snip]. The chances of running into a god on Oerth seemed to be uncomfortably high....

Definitely something I’ve been exploring more in our current campaign—the gods of Oerth are active and engaged in the world, and we’ve had more than a few instances of Divine Intervention at the table thus far:

• Nerull responding to his name as the PCs were looting a hidden temple in Castle Greyhawk
• Wee Jas responding personally to a commune in Hardby: described in my blog at A Quick Campaign Update - Haruspications in Hardby
• Zagyg showing up at a shrine in Hardby

It’s fun stuff, and keeps the players and their characters on their toes

Allan.

 

[TwoSix]

WHAT THE FRACKITY FRACK PEOPLE???!!!!

I stop paying attention for just a second, and you bring unavoidable DOOM and untold CALUMINES upon yourselves and this thread by batting around THE NAMELESS ONE'S appellation like your coked up cats and that name is your squeaky toy!

I could feel the BDE (Big Doom Energy) in my sleep. Slap that name from your pieholes, before THE NAMELESS ONE crams an invoked devastation AND a rain of colorless fire where the sun don't shine.

"All you gotta do is say my name three times. Three times in a row, it must be spoken unbroken."

 

[grodog]

If you want to design your own deities, "The Book of the Righteous" is perhaps one of the best rpg books ever written period not just on that subject. It is for 3e but I think you could pretty easily migrate that part to any edition of D&D.

Any sense of how this compares to WotC’s pre-MtG series, The Primal Order? They’re the gold standard in my mind for pantheon and RPG religion design: DriveThruRPG

Allan.

 

[Demetrios1453]

WHAT THE FRACKITY FRACK PEOPLE???!!!!

I stop paying attention for just a second, and you bring unavoidable DOOM and untold CALUMINES upon yourselves and this thread by batting around THE NAMELESS ONE'S appellation like you are coked up cats and that name is your squeaky toy!

I could feel the BDE (Big Doom Energy) in my sleep. Slap that name from your pieholes, before THE NAMELESS ONE crams an invoked devastation AND a rain of colorless fire where the sun don't shine.

I'm confused on exactly which god you mean. Could you tell us which one, perhaps repeating several times and spelling the name out s-l-o-w-l-y in the text? Maybe repeating the name aloud as you type it in and as you re-read the post for errors a few times? We just want to be sure!

 

[Parmandur]

I'm confused on exactly which god you mean. Could you tell us which one, perhaps repeating several times and spelling the name out s-l-o-w-l-y in the text? Maybe repeating the name aloud as you type it in and as you re-read the post for errors a few times? We just want to be sure!

Speaking of the Elder Elemental Eye...

I do feel like the Greyhawk chapter was laying some breadcrumbs for future Advebture products: the Elemental Evil Conflict outlined out the Princes of the Apocalypsd campaign and suggested using that in Greyhawk (among other 5E Advebtures already in print mentioned throughout the DMG), but also dedicated a lot of space to describing the T1-4 Campaign. Then latter in the Ventela Flannaes section, it mentions four big Dungeons:

• White Pluke Mountain (and directs the resder to Tales from the Yawning Portal)
• The Temple of Elemental Evil
• Ghost Tower of Inverness
• Castle Maure

No 5E product contains the last 3...currently. But grouping them all together and describing them in the area around the DMG hub city...might make sense for a new QftIS style book ("Quests in the General Vicinity of the Nyr Dyv" or something). Throw in Forgotten Temple of What's His Name for good measure, that's a book right there.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Speaking of the Elder Elemental Eye...

I do feel like the Greyhawk chapter was laying some breadcrumbs for future Advebture products: the Elemental Evil Conflict outlined out the Princes of the Apocalypsd campaign and suggested using that in Greyhawk (among other 5E Advebtures already in print mentioned throughout the DMG), but also dedicated a lot of space to describing the T1-4 Campaign. Then latter in the Ventela Flannaes section, it mentions four big Dungeons:

• White Pluke Mountain (and directs the resder to Tales from the Yawning Portal)
• The Temple of Elemental Evil
• Ghost Tower of Inverness
• Castle Maure

No 5E product contains the last 3...currently. But grouping them all together and describing them in the area around the DMG hub city...might make sense for a new QftIS style book ("Quests in the General Vicinity of the Nyr Dyv" or something). Throw in Forgotten Temple of What's His Name for good measure, that's a book right there.

I definitely feel that there's going to be a new ToEE 5e update, re-write, or at least homage coming up in the near future. Even though PotA already exists as a spiritual homage, they could definitely go back to the original, or something close to it.

Also, I read that as "White Puke Mountain", which was quite funny. Statements like "The volcano vomited forth its lava" suddenly become much more interesting and hilarious...