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Writing Religion into a Campaign Setting
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 3154279" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Statting out a god is easy: everything approaches infinity. Any questions? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>As for designing your own, I did this for my game, and warning: it's a lot of work unless you want to go monothestic (and even then, would different races follow the same god/dess?).</p><p></p><p>First, decide what types of deities you want and-or that make sense for your world. The interests of player choice and game mechanics somewhat dictate there needs to be at least one deity covering each alignment (though some can overlap, of course) so players can play Clerics/Druids of any alignment or ethos they want. Then, decide whether the different races get their own deities or not. Will there be more than one Human culture represented? After doing this step, I wound up with 60(!) deities to flesh out...</p><p></p><p>This is where outside sources can really help. I stole liberally from the various published sources for the non-Human deities (Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Gnome, other), and took some real-world deities as foundations for mine; mostly the Norse, as to me D+D is not D+D without Norse! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Then, for each deity I wrote out:</p><p> - Sphere(s) (war, agriculture, nature, fertility, death, arts, mining, etc.)</p><p> - Cleric types supported (normal, druid, war; war clerics are a homebrew class)</p><p> - Cleric alignment (Clerics must be this)</p><p> - Follower alignment (followers tend toward this but are not bound to it)</p><p> - Follower types (who normally follows this deity, include adventuring classes)</p><p> - Details (totem animal, weapon of choice, raiment colours, etc. - not all deities have all of these)</p><p> - Holy days or times (full moon, dawn, equinox, 3rd day of each month, etc.)</p><p></p><p>Then, each got a short write-up that includes typical temple type and description (e.g. solid stone keep, hidden grove, showy arts palace, simple wooden hut, etc.), sacrifice and offering details, whether followers are actively sought out and converted or not, ways in which the deity interacts with other deities (if known), and what the deity is rumoured to look like if-when it manifests (this happens in my game, now and then).</p><p></p><p>Behind the scenes, I dreamed up a divine framework or system that any deity can fit in.</p><p></p><p>All this was a lot of work, but the payoff is that I'm pretty much set for life now; any future campaigns I may run can simply use the same system, tweaked to suit the particular world or setting.</p><p></p><p>Hope this helps! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Lanefan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 3154279, member: 29398"] Statting out a god is easy: everything approaches infinity. Any questions? :) As for designing your own, I did this for my game, and warning: it's a lot of work unless you want to go monothestic (and even then, would different races follow the same god/dess?). First, decide what types of deities you want and-or that make sense for your world. The interests of player choice and game mechanics somewhat dictate there needs to be at least one deity covering each alignment (though some can overlap, of course) so players can play Clerics/Druids of any alignment or ethos they want. Then, decide whether the different races get their own deities or not. Will there be more than one Human culture represented? After doing this step, I wound up with 60(!) deities to flesh out... This is where outside sources can really help. I stole liberally from the various published sources for the non-Human deities (Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Gnome, other), and took some real-world deities as foundations for mine; mostly the Norse, as to me D+D is not D+D without Norse! :) Then, for each deity I wrote out: - Sphere(s) (war, agriculture, nature, fertility, death, arts, mining, etc.) - Cleric types supported (normal, druid, war; war clerics are a homebrew class) - Cleric alignment (Clerics must be this) - Follower alignment (followers tend toward this but are not bound to it) - Follower types (who normally follows this deity, include adventuring classes) - Details (totem animal, weapon of choice, raiment colours, etc. - not all deities have all of these) - Holy days or times (full moon, dawn, equinox, 3rd day of each month, etc.) Then, each got a short write-up that includes typical temple type and description (e.g. solid stone keep, hidden grove, showy arts palace, simple wooden hut, etc.), sacrifice and offering details, whether followers are actively sought out and converted or not, ways in which the deity interacts with other deities (if known), and what the deity is rumoured to look like if-when it manifests (this happens in my game, now and then). Behind the scenes, I dreamed up a divine framework or system that any deity can fit in. All this was a lot of work, but the payoff is that I'm pretty much set for life now; any future campaigns I may run can simply use the same system, tweaked to suit the particular world or setting. Hope this helps! :) Lanefan [/QUOTE]
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