The New Core Pantheon

[Thurbane]

I loathe, loathe, loathe using real-world deities in D&D. If Thor, why not Vishnu? Why not Yahweh? I think it sets a bad precident.

Real world mythology also brings in baggage which I'd prefer to leave out. Thor is a Norse deity, which makes no sense in a world without Scandinavia. And people have varying degrees of knowledge of myth. It's tough as a DM when you have deity X in charge of such and such and a player says "actually she was a goddess of blah blah blah" or "My priest of X is excempt from the laws of the land, because in real life history they were exempt from secular law..."

And "real world" deities don't fit D&D's alignment system. Athena as patron of Paladins? The goddess who turned a woman into a spider just because she claimed to be a better weaver? Most deities in myths, including a certain very popular one, can only be seen as "good" if you start with the assumption that anything a god does is good by the very nature of the fact that anything a god does is good.

Agreed - on all points.

 

[coyote6]

If it looks like Set and quacks like Set...

Would that be a viable alternative -- file the serial numbers off, and borrow real-world gods? Then you can have as much flavor as you want to import, and skip the baggage (or try to, at least).

 

[JohnSnow]

Some scholars believe the Romans had no myths about their gods until they associated them with their Greek counterparts & imported the Greek myths.

No, no, no! Until the renamed the Greek gods, the Romans had their own gods. They were just crappy, like:

Jeff, the God of Biscuits
Simon, the god of hairdos

And so forth.

(Points for the reference.)

On topic, I have no problem with an "all-star hodgepodge." Something like:

Aphrodite/Venus/Isis/Ishtar (Love - and iconic)
Artemis/Diana/Mielikki (pick a name)
Asmodeus*
Bahamut*
Corellon*
Hades (Underworld)
Loki (Mischief & Trickery) - replaces Olida...whatshisname.
Moradin*
Obad-Hai* (just like the unnamed nature god of Celtic myth)
Odin (Sky, the all-father. Odin's more FUN than Zeus).
Pelor*
Poseidon/Neptune (Sea. Duh!)
Set (Revenge).
Thor (Thunder, Strength - replaces Kord, who's a cheap rip-off).
Tiamat*
Vecna*
Yondalla*

At that point, you've kept the 9 D&D gods that anyone's likely to remember. St. Cuthbert, Athena, Hermes/Mercury and one or two others would cover every memorable deity in European myth or D&D that isn't a direct copy of one of the above.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

No, no, no! Until the renamed the Greek gods, the Romans had their own gods. They were just crappy, like:

Jeff, the God of Biscuits
Simon, the god of hairdos

And so forth.

(Points for the reference.)

"Thank God you've got some gods, 'cause we had these crap gods."

Eddie Izzard.

 

[The Little Raven]

"Thank God you've got some gods, 'cause we had these crap gods."

Eddie Izzard.

"And the Greeks, they had the god of thunder, the god of war, the god of running and jumping and stuff..."

 

[RFisher]

I loathe, loathe, loathe using real-world deities in D&D. If Thor, why not Vishnu? Why not Yahweh? I think it sets a bad precident.

Well, some people like to avoid putting deities in the game that still have a serious following in the real world. Which may well be a wise path for D&D. In any case, that's a perfectly valid division. Having Thor doesn't mean you have to have Vishnu.

I have at least three games on my shelf, by the way, which do include Yahweh. I don't think any of them got any serious flak over it. As a Christian, I have no beef with that either. Heck, when I got my Basic Set with no deities named, I figured good old monotheistic Christianity (or a simple analog) was the assumption for the medieval European analog setting.

Real world mythology also brings in baggage which I'd prefer to leave out. Thor is a Norse deity, which makes no sense in a world without Scandinavia. And people have varying degrees of knowledge of myth. It's tough as a DM when you have deity X in charge of such and such and a player says "actually she was a goddess of blah blah blah" or "My priest of X is excempt from the laws of the land, because in real life history they were exempt from secular law..."

Of course, this has always been true in the real world as well! A lot of people who call themselves Christians have a pretty poor understanding of the faith. I've heard that Buddhist leaders lament that so many Buddhists effectively worship Buddha as a god. The similarity between the Roman Mithra & Isis to the original Persian & Egyptian deities were likely only skin deep.

And "real world" deities don't fit D&D's alignment system.

Sure they do. Most are TN, IMHO.