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Ranis
2009-09-14, 11:08 PM
It occurred to me tonight that in all of the D&D editions that I'm aware of, there are no deities for humans. All of the other races, even Kobolds, get a god, or at least someone/something to say "I created this thing on the material plane," but humans have nothing.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I missing something? A friend of mine says that it's to show that humans need no deistic support to exist, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case.

Crossblade
2009-09-14, 11:16 PM
Pelor is usually the bread and butter god for most humans.

Altima
2009-09-14, 11:16 PM
It is implied that, unless stated otherwise, if a god isn't directly tied to a certain race, it is a human god. Because humans are better that way.

Berserk Monk
2009-09-14, 11:17 PM
Pelor is usually the bread and butter god for most humans.

Pelor? What's the worst he can do? Give you a bad sun burn? I require a more bad ass deity to explain my existence. For heaven's sake, I walk around everyday in a chainmail vest.

taltamir
2009-09-14, 11:19 PM
Pelor? What's the worst he can do? Give you a bad sun burn? I require a more bad ass deity to explain my existence. For heaven's sake, I walk around everyday in a chainmail vest.

pelor absolutely rocks...
1. Improved healing
2. Absolutely annihilates undead. (about the only cleric that can effective turn high level undead)

What MORE could a cleric want?

Anyways, as said before... Each race gets ONE and ONLY one god... humans get every single other god that isn't race specific. Which there are TONS of.

Thrawn183
2009-09-14, 11:19 PM
Vecna? extra characters

Captain Six
2009-09-14, 11:21 PM
Defining a specific deity (or a lack of one) for the human race would be impossible to do without alienating a few customers due to conflict of beliefs so it is left vague. This would be the obvious answer at least, I have no confirmation.

Dracons
2009-09-14, 11:24 PM
There is a god for humans in races of destiny.

Gnorman
2009-09-14, 11:25 PM
Don't forget about Zarus.

SparkMandriller
2009-09-14, 11:26 PM
Because Zarus sure hasn't forgotten about you.

Hawriel
2009-09-14, 11:27 PM
Any god that is not specificly an elf, halfling, ect god is by defalt human. Humans have more gods than any other race. Alot of gods used to be human.

St. Cuthburt, Helm, Mystra, The Red Knight, Kelemvor all used to be mortal humans befor granted godhood.

D&D has always has a human sentric point of view. 3rd ed still has it to a small degree. Humans are usualy the most dominant race in published campaign worlds.


EDIT
Damn thats a lot of ninjas

Kosjsjach
2009-09-14, 11:28 PM
Don't forget about Zarus.

I thought of him when I read the title.

Figures. The only human-specific god, and he's a super-Nazi.

Xey42
2009-09-14, 11:44 PM
First time I read the page for Zarus, I got through the first two paragraphs and thought "wow, this certainly reminds me of some other human creation story i've read somewhere else..." and skipped the rest of the descriptor.

Boy was i surprised when i read the rest of it later :P

Also, from the same book, Urbanus (from the page before, even) is pretty much a human centric god. Hes listed as the god of cities, but he really only shared all his visions with humans (only going so far as to say he 'accepts' non-humans)

The Neoclassic
2009-09-14, 11:54 PM
Humans are usually assumed to be the "default" race, most flexible/adaptable/diverse, so why limit them to one racial deity. *Sighs*

taltamir
2009-09-14, 11:57 PM
humans are the shortest lived player characters... with the exception of orcs... the rest of the races can spend a lifetime discussing things like religion and coming to agreements. Humans, on the other hand, often just go with the flow becaue their days are so numbered...

Orcs live even less than humans, but have one god because they are simple, and bloodthirsty folk... whose only god is evil, and had all the other worshipers / gods slaughtered making him the ONLY orc god.

Kylarra
2009-09-15, 12:01 AM
Don't forget about Zarus.
LONG MAY HE SHINE

I posit that the Burning Hate is but a lesser aspect of Zarus.

Gnorman
2009-09-15, 12:06 AM
LONG MAY HE SHINE

I posit that the Burning Hate is but a lesser aspect of Zarus.

Or vice-versa.

Sinfire Titan
2009-09-15, 12:09 AM
pelor absolutely rocks...
1. Improved healing
2. Absolutely annihilates undead. (about the only cleric that can effective turn high level undead)

What MORE could a cleric want?

Anyways, as said before... Each race gets ONE and ONLY one god... humans get every single other god that isn't race specific. Which there are TONS of.

You forgot a bullet:


Effing EEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL!


Reference: Symbol of Pain, PHB. Numerous threads concerning this topic. Basic memdom aside.

Thajocoth
2009-09-15, 12:10 AM
Humans get all the non-specific gods. Warforged, however, are in need of a deity.

Dracons
2009-09-15, 12:12 AM
Humans get all the non-specific gods. Warforged, however, are in need of a deity.

Lord of Blades. The becoming God. Eberron isn't really a true diety campaign.

That being said, In Forgotten Realms, Gond could be their god. God of creation.

Pika...
2009-09-15, 12:18 AM
It occurred to me tonight that in all of the D&D editions that I'm aware of, there are no deities for humans. All of the other races, even Kobolds, get a god, or at least someone/something to say "I created this thing on the material plane," but humans have nothing.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I missing something? A friend of mine says that it's to show that humans need no deistic support to exist, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case.

The Book of Vile Darkness details how humans were created by a group of gods. Or at least, how they originally attempted the process, but failed when their proto-human race prooved to violent and deadly. They then took "what they learned", and made the current version of the Human race. However, the original survived and his descendants are still around, but that is neither here-nor-there.

Also, I believe one of the 3.5 splat books (Races of the Wild maybe?) had a creation myth where Humanity was birthed to a Halfling mother, and was fathered by both a Dwarf and an Elf?

Pika...
2009-09-15, 12:21 AM
humans are the shortest lived player characters... with the exception of orcs... the rest of the races can spend a lifetime discussing things like religion and coming to agreements. Humans, on the other hand, often just go with the flow becaue their days are so numbered...

Orcs live even less than humans, but have one god because they are simple, and bloodthirsty folk... whose only god is evil, and had all the other worshipers / gods slaughtered making him the ONLY orc god.

Ah, no. There is an antire ORc pantheon.

See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_deities

taltamir
2009-09-15, 12:43 AM
even better... so orcs and humans as short lived... ah heck. I bet there are splat materials expanding each race to have an entire pantheanon... heck there should be so many gods, considering beings can ascent, and devine rank 16-19 rule lower ranked gods as "kings would commoners". plus every mortal / god crossbreed is an automatic divinity 0 demigod who is immortal save being slain in combat.

Seatbelt
2009-09-15, 01:05 AM
What about Wastri? God of Human Supremacy and ...frogs.

Ormur
2009-09-15, 01:14 AM
It's probably a because D&D is so human centric that all races except humans are virtually monotheistic while humans basically have all the rest. Of course there is Zarus for the racist humans and he's pretty similar in that respect to many of the evil racial deities.

Most of the other races also have the creation myths to go by their exclusive deities. What about humans in D&D? They seem to indicate that humans have no specific creation myth and that they came later. But if they were created later why are there so effin many of them. I think it would make more sense if humans were the first humanoids on the material plane and the rest were either created later or came from their respective deities planar dominions afterwards.

I figure that the healing domain would make Pelor the favourite of the human commoner while the upper classes would favour Hieronymus, St. Cuthbert and Hextor according to alignment and then the rest.

Thurbane
2009-09-15, 01:30 AM
What about Wastri? God of Human Supremacy and ...frogs.
What I like about Wastri is that he has the glaive as his favored weapon, and grants the War Domain. Hellooo reach. :smallbiggrin:

SparkMandriller
2009-09-15, 01:41 AM
What about Wastri? God of Human Supremacy and ...frogs.

But does he have an awesome hat?

This is important to me.

Armoury99
2009-09-15, 03:42 AM
What about Wastri? God of Human Supremacy and ...frogs.

All hail the Hopping Prophet, god of Amphibians, Bigotry, Complete Total Awesomeness and Self-Deception

Fear Him. And his leaping frog ninjas.

Coidzor
2009-09-15, 04:29 AM
<_< >_>

It's because most of the humanoids are just the results of gods, well, playing god with whatever tribes of humans they were able to steal when they were still playing with skins and flint knives.

Burning Hate, but does it still work? http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=846926

Yuki Akuma
2009-09-15, 05:57 AM
Actually, humans are, like, the second-youngest race (halflings being the youngest). Or possibly the youngest.

Depending on which creation myth you read.

Humans are still pretty young by cosmic standards!

Leon
2009-09-15, 06:52 AM
Menoth - Creator of Humans
Morrow & Thamar - Ascended Humans (one good, one evil. Also Brother and Sister)

Assassin89
2009-09-15, 06:55 AM
Also, I believe one of the 3.5 splat books (Races of the Wild maybe?) had a creation myth where Humanity was birthed to a Halfling mother, and was fathered by both a Dwarf and an Elf?

That story is in Races of Destiny, as is the myth that humans were the first race created by all the deities, using a mold. The deities then argued and the mold broke. Several deities then attempted to recreate the mold, but instead created the other races. Humans did not appear until the sole human created by all of the gods rebuilt the mold.

Ichneumon
2009-09-15, 07:25 AM
That story is in Races of Destiny, as is the myth that humans were the first race created by all the deities, using a mold. The deities then argued and the mold broke. Several deities then attempted to recreate the mold, but instead created the other races. Humans did not appear until the sole human created by all of the gods rebuilt the mold.

So all other races are like non-perfect relica's of what humans were supposed to be? That creation myth certainly is not anthropocentric.

Calmar
2009-09-15, 07:28 AM
Because Zarus sure hasn't forgotten about you.

:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

Roderick_BR
2009-09-15, 07:28 AM
Also, I believe one of the 3.5 splat books (Races of the Wild maybe?) had a creation myth where Humanity was birthed to a Halfling mother, and was fathered by both a Dwarf and an Elf?
... That would actually explain a lot of things....

... agh... can't get that image outta my head now. Thanks!

Triaxx
2009-09-15, 07:33 AM
I found it rather interesting, more that since humans tend to be so widely varied in culture and location that they require more gods.

On the other hand, the idea of humans not having a god, and just borrowing gods from the other races, was a great idea for an RP. We spent several game years questing to create a god for the humans.

I've always treated it instead of the other races being mistakes while trying for humans, that they were templates. Early attempts. Gods created these other races, each with their own ideas on what the race should turn out to be. And once those were finished, they collabrated to create humans, taking pieces of each creation. The cleverness from Kobolds, the durability of orcs, elven creativity, and so on. And in the end create one race that has some of them all, but not all of any of them. So humans ended up as Jacks of all Trades, as evidenced by No Favored Class.

Teron
2009-09-15, 07:50 AM
For what it's worth, a number of the gods in the default setting are part of pantheons specific to certain human nations (or fallen nations) in Greyhawk proper; I know Heironeous, Hextor and Wee Jas are among them, at least.

LibraryOgre
2009-09-15, 09:20 AM
It occurred to me tonight that in all of the D&D editions that I'm aware of, there are no deities for humans. All of the other races, even Kobolds, get a god, or at least someone/something to say "I created this thing on the material plane," but humans have nothing.

Has anyone else noticed this, or am I missing something? A friend of mine says that it's to show that humans need no deistic support to exist, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case.

This comes about because 3.x stripped a lot of the attributions off the deities. Almost all of the "core" deities in 3.x were tied to specified human ethnicities... Suel, Oeridian, Flan, Bakuluni... Pelor and Obad-hai are both Flan in origin (meaning they come from the people of the Flanaess), Erythnul, Heironeous, Fharlanghn, and Hextor are Oeridian, and Wee Jas and Kord are both Suloise (or from the Suel people). Boccob, Ehlonna, Olidammara and St. Cuthbert are all from the "common" deities list, but that may mean they arose or revealed themselves to mixed populations, instead of being from nowhere.

Same goes with Faerun; most of the deities are associated, at one point in history, with a specific people, but became more general as Faerun became more cosmopolitan and populations became more fluid. In more insular populations (Mulhurand, Chessenta, Unther), local deities still reign.

Ponce
2009-09-15, 09:36 AM
It is only through the will of BANE that HUMANITY shall CRUSH and DOMINATE the lesser races, and take its rightful place on the THRONE of the WORLD.

Kylarra
2009-09-15, 09:43 AM
It is only through the will of BANE ZARUS that HUMANITY shall CRUSH and DOMINATE the lesser races, and take its rightful place on the THRONE of the WORLD.

Fix'd for you.

Pika...
2009-09-15, 10:17 AM
So all other races are like non-perfect relica's of what humans were supposed to be? That creation myth certainly is not anthropocentric.

Yeah. It sounds like a complete ripoff of the 2nded Elf Creation myth from Complete Guide to Elves.

Very original WotC. :smallannoyed:

Pika...
2009-09-15, 10:22 AM
... That would actually explain a lot of things....

... agh... can't get that image outta my head now. Thanks!

Hasn't been able to leave mine for years. :smallbiggrin:

chiasaur11
2009-09-15, 10:32 AM
Yeah. It sounds like a complete ripoff of the 2nded Elf Creation myth from Complete Guide to Elves.

Very original WotC. :smallannoyed:

So, wait.

In the guide to Elves, the book flat out said "Elves suck in comparison to humans"?

That's awesome.

Zovc
2009-09-15, 10:52 AM
No one noticed that the "G" is capitalized? I think this thread is off topic.

Pika...
2009-09-15, 10:56 AM
So, wait.

In the guide to Elves, the book flat out said "Elves suck in comparison to humans"?

That's awesome.

No. It was basically the exact same story, but instead Elves were the first race. Their gods were the first to organize and make the "mold", and then every other god/group of gods attempted to make copies of it, but like all bootleg stuff it is never quite as good.

WotC just photocopied the story a few decades later, and changed it to be Human focused. :smallannoyed:

Tiki Snakes
2009-09-15, 11:09 AM
No. It was basically the exact same story, but instead Elves were the first race. Their gods were the first to organize and make the "mold", and then every other god/group of gods attempted to make copies of it, but like all bootleg stuff it is never quite as good.

WotC just photocopied the story a few decades later, and changed it to be Human focused. :smallannoyed:

It's a human Myth. Clearly, humanity bootlegged the idea.

(Also, Zarus is clearly an alternate identity of Pelor, essentially the true face of the Burning Hate. Which is the original aspect is pretty irrelevant. :) )

chiasaur11
2009-09-15, 01:47 PM
It's a human Myth. Clearly, humanity bootlegged the idea.

With much mocking, presumably.

And really, although either way it's an awful creation myth, at least humans feel like a central point for a fair deal of races. Sure, Dragons as a human derivative is unlikely, but everything as an elven derivative is even dumber, considering how much closer most races are to human in design then Elves.

Starbuck_II
2009-09-15, 01:54 PM
It's a human Myth. Clearly, humanity bootlegged the idea.

(Also, Zarus is clearly an alternate identity of Pelor, essentially the true face of the Burning Hate. Which is the original aspect is pretty irrelevant. :) )

Someone needs to retype the Burning Hate with the new evidence.

Yora
2009-09-15, 02:05 PM
Kneel before Zarus! ^^