D&D 5E What's your favourite pantheon?

[Aldarc]

Then I see no reason to play D&D when games like GURPS, Fate, Hero, Savage Worlds, Cypher System, etc. offer to get even less of your way of the fluff than D&D.

I’m not the sort to send a game designer a thank you card for getting out of my way anymore than I would a send a stranger a thank you card for not killing me. I prefer to thank people for what they actually do well rather than what harm they avoid doing.

 

[dave2008]

Probably something like this (in descending order):

1. My own homebrew
2. Greek based
3. Norse based
4. Dawn War based
5. Greyhawk based
6. Cthulhu based

 

[Aldarc]

A lot of love for the Dawn War Pantheon in this thread.

 

[dave2008]

Another question:

Do any of you keep stats for your deities?

View attachment 125119

Yes

 

[dave2008]

Which is a nice way of saying that it isn't actually part of the game. To be honest, I find these sort of "you can do that in D&D too" explanations to be a weak non-answers. It's the "thoughts and prayers" equivalent for discussion of tabletop roleplaying mechanical support.

Which is again a roundabout way of saying that D&D barely handles religion at all. It's paying lip service to the existence of religion without showing any understanding of it in any form. Maybe we should just acknowledge that D&D doesn't do religion well.

I agree with you, and that is how I prefer it. I guess a supplement on religious options might be fine, but I wouldn't want it in the core books. Of course some on these boards think D&D needs to be more explicit about removing religion to be more inclusive (claiming the default pantheon approach is offensive), but I think it is in a pretty good place at the moment. I simple do not what things to be tied down so much. Give me some tools and I can do the rest. No need to buy pages on religions and ties to a setting I will not use.

 

[Minigiant]

I also think the reason why I like the Dawn War, Greek, and Norse pantheons is because "War of the Gods" works wellinD&D and helps explain why conflicts are sustained. Dawn War, Titanomachy, and even Ragnarok really helps link the cosmos and the playing world as well as it shapes the relationships within the pantheon(s) and the creation of the various races and monsters.

 

[Voadam]

I’m more concerned with their worlds that they designed that evidence how they envision, imagine, and support the role of clerics and gods for their games. Is there a good reason for me to believe that this is not an expression of the typical mode of religious play for the game? You say that they have provided a canvas to draw anything but what have they drawn with it? What have most homebrew games drawn with it? Where then are these worlds with deep religions? What has been the best “art” drawn with these supplies that 5e has provided?

For 5e?

I'd say Eberron Rising of the Last War. I have not seen the Sword Coast for FR or Theros or Wildemount, but Eberron has always shown lots of different styles of religion deeply embedded in the world ranging from various druid sects, the Blood of Vol, ancestor spirit reverence, Silver Flame pseudo medieval church options, Dragon cults, Lord of Dust cults, Quori cults, and a standard D&D style polytheistic pantheon. Many of these are significant cultural factors in different areas and show up prominently in the setting. Having one of the four big nations be theocratic paladin land for example.

The PH and DMG provide light details for a number of sample pantheons and different religious setups and leave it at that.

D&D in general has more with a wide range. The FR pantheon books from 2e are a good example.

 

[Aldarc]

For 5e?

I'd say Eberron Rising of the Last War.

That is a 5e book, albeit an adaption of a 3.5e setting from 2004, so all the things that you list were present in 3e and 4e. I will definitely grant you that Eberron is better than average for D&D - hence why I listed it on the first page of this thread - but it hardly disproves the overwhelming trend for how faith and religion in D&D are shallow with little mechanical reinforcement. Theros's piety offers a step in the right direction IMHO.

 

[grodog]

But to provide an example, I used to play in a game with a woman who goes by the name Timeshadow online. Here is a link to her blog, The Grand Tapestry. She uses her own rule-system now, but originally we were playing D&D.

Edit: She had several religions in her game, both incredibly flushed our with holidays, rituals, etc. Each was unique to a different continent. One of monotheistic, another pantheistic, and another a combination of animism and hero worship. Each had requirements clerics had to meet or their gods refused to grant them spells. It was fun. Some players didn't like the requirements; they didn't play clerics. No problem there.

What Urutsk: The World of Mystery is all about

URUTSK: The World of Mystery is a setting, which in its simplest terms, is a world with its history, starting in a period where star-farin...

thegrandtapestry.blogspot.com

I've gamed with Kyrinn at the North Texas RPG Con, she's an excellent desginer and DM!

Allan.

 

[grodog]

Another question: Do any of you keep stats for your deities?

Yes and no. No, in that sense that the players haven't confronted a god directly in quite awhile, but Yes in that god-like beings can and do appear in the campaign from time to time, and the players may or may not choose to engage in combat with them. And having at least some stats/ranking among gods helps with knowing how they interact with each other, too.

I also use WotC's old "The Primal Order" series of books to flesh out religions in D&D, and provide some mechanical structure to why deities crave worship and clerics try to spread the faith. Excellent stuff. The books are available on DriveThru at DriveThruRPG.com - Hostile Work Environment - The Largest RPG Download Store! and for a recent blog post overview of how to use the TPO books in-game, see Why Your Atheist Is Getting Pwnd and Dreams of Darkness

Allan.