Tiamat and Bahamut--Why Use Real World Mythology?

[Zurai]

Actually, the thing I think that is rather odd is that there seems to be very little consistency with which head is where...

Tiamat is a Chaotic deity. Some inconsistency is a good thing, IMO.

 

[Mirtek]

Tiamat is a Chaotic deity. Some inconsistency is a good thing, IMO.

Actually no, she's lawful evil.

 

[Zurai]

Actually no, she's lawful evil.

Oops. Well, she used to be Chaotic! (shows how long it's been since I used Tiamat, huh?)

 

[Mirtek]

Oops. Well, she used to be Chaotic! (shows how long it's been since I used Tiamat, huh?)

AFAIK she was lawful since AD&D 1e, not sure about OD&D.

IIRC Takhisis was chaotic, but she and Tiamat are seperate entities since 2e

 

[TwinBahamut]

Where, as a Dragon-God, he bore more resemblance to the D&D bahamut than any Biblical behemoth!

Yep.

Actually, I (probably like many people) was exposed to Bahamut from Final Fantasy a long time before I ever played D&D, and longer still before I knew Bahamut was a D&D deity. He is probably more iconic to Final Fantasy than he is to D&D (and he is cooler as a black cosmic dragon than a cheesy platinum dragon anyways).

Tiamat is also a classic dragon of Final Fantasy, as the original Fiend of the Air, one of the first set of the Four Fiends, along with Lich, Kraken, and Marilith. She even has multiple heads in some versions.

While I normally agree with keeping D&D close to mythology and avoiding the idea of D&D as a meeting point for every real world religion, Bahamut and Tiamat belong to a Pandora's Box that isn't going to close.

 

[Dragonhelm]

What exactly is the point here? The Tiamat vs. Bahamut thing makes no sense in regards to well-known mythology, and throwing in that weird thing about Io splitting makes it even more confusing. Tiamat is the one who was split into two and Bahamut has nothing to do with Tiamat. You might as well throw in Amaterasu as their bratty teenage daughter along with their wacky neighbor Odin.

What are your thoughts on the inclusion of Thor?

Show some originality and imagination here Wizards. It's 4E, you've went and redone most of the cosmology already, so what's keeping you from making up original names for your gods?

How about Takhisis and Paladine?

IIRC Takhisis was chaotic, but she and Tiamat are seperate entities since 2e

Takhisis is LE as well. Takhisis just believes that she is the ultimate law.

I guess we should mention how Tiamat and Bahamut were the inspiration for Takhisis and Paladine in this thread, and how that dates back to 1984.


I have to say that I really dig how the 4e pantheon is shaping up. Bahamut and Tiamat are iconic to D&D, and they're dragon deities (giving a much-needed focus on dragons). I like that Thor is included, just because I love the Marvel Comics version. Lolth makes sense being iconic to D&D. And so on and so forth.

Nothing against the Greyhawk deities. They're cool. I would rather see them in a Greyhawk supplement, then have the new D&D pantheon serve as the general set of deities.

 

[Zurai]

AFAIK she was lawful since AD&D 1e, not sure about OD&D.

Tiamat was the farthest name in the Chaotic corner of the original alignment chart, IIRC.

I reserve the right to be wrong again, though

 

[Green Knight]

Of course, IMHO opinion that's were they belong, not on the list of default deities for humans.

Personally, I don't see why gods should be restricted to only having one race worshipping them. Why can't Bahamut have Human worshippers, too, in addition to his dragon worshippers? Or Elf worshippers? Or Dwarf/Dragonborn/Air Genasi/etc worshippers? Why is it that only 'human' deities can have worshippers from other races, but 'nonhuman' deities can't? I've always thought that was silly. And it's nice to see D&D going in a direction where deities can be worshipped by anyone who likes their ideals. And really, we're talking about gods, here. Is there really such a thing as 'an elf god' or 'a dragon god'? Or are there just gods who first appeared as dragons, but then started to appear as other kinds of beings to other kinds of worshippers?

Bahamut, for instance, likely appears very differently to different worshippers. As a great platinum dragon to some, to a platinum haired human/elf/dwarf to others, to a platinum colored dragonborn, or to an air elemental of massive proportions. So what's wrong with that?

 

[Ashardalon]

What are your thoughts on the inclusion of Thor?

Ion't know about you, but I Shiva at the very Thoth. Yes, I'm that a-Freyad.

On a more serious note, while this particular example is not from real-world mythology beyond the names, more famous names can help set some of the mood of the setting, for example. Also, their presence might help in showing how to 'build' homebrew gods better than made-up gods. I'm not sure if Thor is confirmed-confirmed, or if he was just name-dropped at the 4E announcement (which he definitely was), but I'd hope that he isn't the only real-world god to join the ranks of the default pantheon.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

For me, this remember me of the world of Conan...

And I love it.