Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I'm taking my second lap through the Discworld books, the first since Sir Terry died, and I've reached 1992's Small Gods, arguably his best work. (And it's pretty close to a must-read for players of clerics, paladins and the DMs that want to make religion a focus in a D&D universe.)
In the book, Pratchett lays out that gods -- other than a hypothetical but unseen creator god -- rely on the belief of worshipers to survive. Too few, and they dwindle in power, becoming disembodied spirits with only the loosest sense of identity if they lose all their worshipers. In contrast, a god with a great deal of worshipers becomes ever more powerful, eventually becoming the focus of world-spanning religions and having all sorts of supernatural powers at their disposal.
This is also, of course, how gods in many D&D worlds work, including the Forgotten Realms, but the idea was present in multiple 2E books outside that setting, as I recall.
Where did this idea first originate? In Small Gods, Pratchett says this idea originated with the Gnostic Heresy, but a look at the (somewhat impenetrable) Wikipedia entry doesn't discuss the notion that belief empowers gods, at least not that I can see. Pratchett was familiar with roleplaying games -- the protagonists hear gigantic invisible dice rolling off in the distance multiple times in his first two Discworld novels -- so it's not impossible that he got the idea from a D&D book. But D&D authors are even more aware of Pratchett, and it seems like they would be more likely to get the idea from him, similar to how the tension between Law and Chaos comes from Moorcock.
Or is this all from a pre-existing source that both Pratchett and D&D authors took the idea from? Anyone know?
In the book, Pratchett lays out that gods -- other than a hypothetical but unseen creator god -- rely on the belief of worshipers to survive. Too few, and they dwindle in power, becoming disembodied spirits with only the loosest sense of identity if they lose all their worshipers. In contrast, a god with a great deal of worshipers becomes ever more powerful, eventually becoming the focus of world-spanning religions and having all sorts of supernatural powers at their disposal.
This is also, of course, how gods in many D&D worlds work, including the Forgotten Realms, but the idea was present in multiple 2E books outside that setting, as I recall.
Where did this idea first originate? In Small Gods, Pratchett says this idea originated with the Gnostic Heresy, but a look at the (somewhat impenetrable) Wikipedia entry doesn't discuss the notion that belief empowers gods, at least not that I can see. Pratchett was familiar with roleplaying games -- the protagonists hear gigantic invisible dice rolling off in the distance multiple times in his first two Discworld novels -- so it's not impossible that he got the idea from a D&D book. But D&D authors are even more aware of Pratchett, and it seems like they would be more likely to get the idea from him, similar to how the tension between Law and Chaos comes from Moorcock.
Or is this all from a pre-existing source that both Pratchett and D&D authors took the idea from? Anyone know?
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