Writing Religion into a Campaign Setting

[Bardsandsages]

You don't need to "stat out" gods unless you intend to have actual combat with them. I think providing stats for such things often does more harm than good.

We currently have two god-specific supplements out. Gods of the Dead provides 4 related gods that deal with death and undeath. Blessed Ladies of Law is a trinity of goddesses that focus on the law, but interpret it differently. We're planning more in the series. In neither product do we stat out the gods.

Unless you are planning out a full blown mythology for your setting, you probably want to deal more in concepts than actual personalities. How you define the gods depends on what issues are important to the people in your setting, and how do they view the world around them. If religious themes won't come into play, all you need is a name, domains, and general idea of each god. The trouble with using "real world" dieties often comes up unexpectantly when you find out a player in your group is an expert on it. My friend Chris and I screwed up a DM a great deal when he decided to use the Eygptian pantheon and we kept correcting him on the different gods he was using.

So generally, consider the overall themes of the game and craft the gods accordingly, not so much in terms of detailed descriptions (because who'se gonna see them?) but how they fit into the culture. Besides, we're talking abut gods. They can change their appearance if they want anyway.

 

[Wombat]

Gods don't have stats.

Gods are gods -- they are metaphysical beings beyond the ken and power of mortals.

They do not have limited and simplistic fields of influence, but are complex, overlapping, at times contradictory-seeming beings.

Look at the Greek gods for one way to view the gods -- I mean, Zeus has a shrine in Greece dedicated to "Zeus-who-drives-away-flies"!

 

[WayneLigon]

Does a name, and domains with a brief description work or do I need to go all the way with their descriptions and stat them out and everything. (A Note Gods do not manifest themselves in the world often, and they rarely influence the gameplay, preferring to let their servents work out their own troubles, and only lending aid in the form of extra luck and somesuch)

I never bother 'statting' them out; in most of the worlds I've run, it wouldn't matter. I'd certainly make a note of their descriptions. Or, technically, their depictions: how the major culture that worships that god shows him or her in statuary, on coins, etc; it adds flavor, but it's not something you need to run out right now and do. You also don't have to do all that work up front. In most regions, one or two major deities are going to be predominant. Just do those. It can be really brief, on the order of:

Khoschie is depicted as a powerful warrior on horseback, carrying a spear. His priests often carry spears with braided horsehair decorations.

Hadaramantha's statues show her with three faces; one serene, one sad, one happy. She is always shown holding a baton twined with roses.

I would make a note of the ones who are likely to affect game play with direct intervention, and the method of that.

 

[Ebonyr]

Good point Psion. I guess I was mostly thinking of something else.

 

[GreatLemur]

For information on the Indian and Slavic mythology, I think your best bets are probably the Encyclopedia Mythica and good old Wikipedia.

They do not have limited and simplistic fields of influence, but are complex, overlapping, at times contradictory-seeming beings.

Look at the Greek gods for one way to view the gods -- I mean, Zeus has a shrine in Greece dedicated to "Zeus-who-drives-away-flies"!

Yeah, that's an interesting element of real-world religion that isn't often addressed in fiction: Gods would often have several unrelated (or very weirdly, tangentially related) portfolios. Apollo is often thought of as a sun god, but he was also the god of medicine and, conversely, a bringer of disease. Then, for some reason, he was also the god of music and poetry.

Another interesting phenomenon is the tendency of gods to have different identities--either just titles or whole new names and appearances--which worshippers would address for different purposes. There's that "Zeus-who-drives-away-flies" shrine, of course, and then characters like Dazbog--the Slavic sun god--who had a dark and evil aspect called Chernobog. Things get especially interesting and complicated in Hinduism, where you've got Shiva, who is benevolent, but who is also Rudra, the destroyer. Also, he's part of a trinity of gods that are are really one God. And, on top of that, he's got five different avatars. And then there are the hugely-interesting syncretic religions, like Vodoo and Santeria . . . or, now that I think about it, Christianity. (In the real world, this kind of thing happened two cultures met and decided that two of their similar gods were really the same guy, or when new philosophies changed existing religion. Just what this would mean in a world where the gods are real, who the hell knows. Could be a fun idea to explore in a deity-focused campaign.)

Egyptian mythology gets even more bizarre. Not only did they do a lot of adopting and adapting from every culture they encountered, but they even conceived combined forms of multiple deities (who still had normal, separate identities) under which the whole group could be addressed at once, and perform some function appropriate to their united power. This wasn't like the Hindu and Christian trinities (in which three beings are seen to truly and continuously be one formless supreme being), but more like some kind of Japanese giant robot cartoon: separate entities joined together for a specific purpose.

 

[Stormborn]

(First, I think we need to be careful treading to close to discussions of real world religions. No need for this thread to be closed.)


To the OP: Dog Soul's Sahashra and Russiya settings deal with a mythic India and Slavic setting respectfully. In the case of Sahashra I know there is some relgion supplements in the works that will adress the gods of the setting. I will point this thread out to the author and see if she can at least give you a list of books to check out.


Are name, alignment, domains, and brief descriptions all you need for a campaign? That depends. Mainly it depends on you and your players. If you want to focus a lot on the intiruges, goals, or power of a church/temple/cult then you are going to need more detail - not about the god so much as the worshippers. When looking at a culture, any culture, their philosophical and relgious beliefs are an important component of who they are and what they do. If you want to create a well rounded and detailed world then I would suggest putting some time into developing these things out. Ditto if you have a player who wants to be a cleric, paladin, etc or even just a devout member of a religion. One thing you can consider, if you don't want to spend great amounts of time on it, is to ask any player who is interested in such a character to work with you to develop their faith within the confines of the world you have created. Dont be afraid to make changes to things that dont have a huge impact on the game itself.
OTOH, there are pleanty of RPG games that you can play that don't require much more than the basics, if even that.

 

[William_Ward]

Having one major religion makes things easier. It can also easily be modeled after real world religions, with minor adjustments.

 

[Umbran]

IN my current game world, PCs don't interact directly with deities in person - so the stats of the god are not important.

However, I do more than just list a name and portfolio. A god and its clerics have a place and function in the world, they have holy days and doctrines and a whole bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with game stats. That is stuff of great value to a player.

 

[Kesh]

As far as Slavic gods, you might want to pick up Frost & Fur. It has a section on Slavic myth and religions.

 

[Ghendar]

IMO, if you stat out a deity (god/goddess) they can be killed. How does that make them a god? I hope I didn't open another can of worms here. :\

I tend to agree. However, it's all up to individual DM preference and there is ample precedent in mythology.
In all of my worlds (up to this point anyway) gods are so far above mortals as to be unkillable. Only a god can kill another god.

It would be interesting to create a campaign world where gods were not quite so omnipotent. Hmmm