Chaosmancer
Legend
The Core is setting agnostic.
So far, nearly all of the published adventures have taken plane in the Realms. Thus making it the default setting for adventures.
But that isn't what he said. He said the realms was the default setting for the core, which is supposedly setting agnostic.
Depends on the setting. In the Realms (judging by what I've read on the wiki), gods seem to fight each other for portfolios or at least kill each other and take the dead god's portfolio.
Have you ever read or played the In Nomine RPG? If not, the basic concept is that demons and angels are fighting for the hearts and minds of humanity, and the primary way they do that is by taking Words, each of which represent a theme in the cosmic Sympathy. By taking these Words, they can give them a more good or evil "feel" among humanity, and thus influence humanity to one side or another. The Words held by the archangels and demon princes are extremely broad and powerful. But under them, the lower-ranked celestials (a term used for both angels and demons) may have Words that represent minor aspects of of the greater Word. The game likes to use the following as an example: there's Saminga, Demon Prince of Death. Somewhere under him, there's the demon with the Word of Choking to Death. And under that demon, there's one with the Word of Choking to Death on Chicken Bones. All three exist, even though Saminga's Word contains the other two.
Extrapolate that to what Maxperson said. In the Realms, you have Istishia, greater god of elemental water. It won't actually increase his power or give him any other benefits if he kills Umberlee, intermediate goddess of the oceans, or Eldath, lesser goddess of pools and waterfalls, and takes their portfolio.
"Depends on the Setting" but the thing I'm being told is that all settings are homebrew, and thus we should only be discussing the core. Which immediately makes no sense, if we have to start looking at settings.
I could see that sort of system working for FR, but that isn't how the DnD portfolios are generally conceived to my knowledge. Also, since the gods are fighting and killing for portfolios, it doesn't make sense that general portfolio's like "wisdom" or "truth" or be just floating around without owners. Those are far more than "choking to death on chicken bones"
The Realms seems to have a rule where each portfolio can only be held by one god. Greyhawk doesn't have that rule.
Also, Wee Jas is the god of death and magic (extrapolation: necromancy spells), Boccob is the god of magical knowledge and foresight (extrapolation: divination spells), and Vecna is the god of evil secrets (and probably only grants Magic and Knowledge because he is/was a lich). There's no actual overlap here.
Evil and dangerous secrets. That has always been understood to include evil and dangerous secrets about magic, which overlaps with magical knowledge and magical knowledge about death.
If you only look at the last three parts of Cuthbert's portfolio, it does look like Heironeous'. Which is why you have to look at Cuthbert's entire portfolio, which very clearly makes the two gods very different. Cuthbert is not a knight in shining armor. If anything, he's the old guy who tells you important info and then smacks you over the head with his cudgel when you don't listen to him.
I never said that they were the same god, I was pointing out that there is a lot of overlap.
Which, again, for both of these Maxperson's claim was that the Cosmic Order isn't being disrupted by these ascending gods, because they are taking portfolios from the cosmic order that were unclaimed. But, since those aspects of their portfolio's clearly overlap with other gods, then that seems incredibly bizarre to claim.
Heironous is the God of Paladins, so he clearly cared about Honesty before St. Cuthbert ascended and took that Portfolio. so wouldn't that have disrupted the cosmic order? I'm not saying the two were the same, but clearly the cosmic order changed when St. Cuthbert ascended.