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Anderlith
2013-08-04, 09:42 PM
So I always feel like Humans got left out when the other races of a fantasy world always have their own pantheons of gods but humans don't. The only game to have a god of humanity is Pathfinder & he's dead :/

I'd like to ask the playground, if you think there should be a god of humanity in D&D & other games & if so what kind of deity would they be?

SiuiS
2013-08-04, 09:50 PM
I think it's just the opposite, elves and such shouldn't have Elf Gods as such. Correlon, Moradin, Gruumsh, Garl, and Yondalla are terrible ideas that get ensconced in monotheistic patriarchal thinking and ruins the point. If you're goin to have religion in a game beyond "good deity helps players, bad deity is monster god" then there should be actual depth to explore.

genderlich
2013-08-04, 09:53 PM
I never liked the idea of racial gods in the first place. It just seems lazy to me - "Okay, and here's the 'god of Elves'." How uncreative is that? Every single elf in the world pays allegiance to that god, just because? Or does he only like the "classic" (boring as hell) Chaotic Good arcane nature-y pretentious dancing swordsman elves, and eschew all the rest that are actually interesting? Establish the Elves' place in the world and then put some actual effort into figuring out what kind of god they would worship. If you want a Human god, do the same.

D&D actually did have a "God of Humans" in the Races of Destiny sourcebook: the Lawful Evil Zarus (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20041203a). He was pretty much a racial supremacist who encouraged conquest and slavery, which in my opinion is the most realistic example of a god who truly does only represent one race. If Zarus (or Moradin, or Corellon, or whatever) is just the god of Humans, why should he care at all about the other races? They serve no purpose to his chosen people beyond being enslaved for the benefit of their "superiors".

Rhynn
2013-08-04, 10:00 PM
First, you're probably playing shoddy RPGs, then.

Second, in D&D, the gods that aren't gods of elves/dwarves/etc. are, in fact, gods of humans, generally. In FR, non-humans are a minority among worshippers of Torm, Tyr, Ilmater, Mielikki, Selune, etc. (That's not even bringing in the explicit human pantheons.) This generally applies to most other fantasy RPGs, too.

Third, plenty of settings have plenty of pantheons. In Glorantha, the elves, trolls, and dwarves each get one pantheon of gods; the humans get four categories of religion (theistic, monotheistic/atheistic, animistic, and mystic), and an uncountable host of pantheons, including from the Storm Tribe, the Solar Pantheon, the Henotheistic Church, the Malkioni Church(es), the Praxian Pantheon, the Hsunchen Spirits, etc. All of those are human-only pantheons (although there are rare freaks in other races who worship human gods).

Maybe if you narrow down your complaint it'll make more sense.

Anderlith
2013-08-04, 10:19 PM
First, you're probably playing shoddy RPGs, then.

Second, in D&D, the gods that aren't gods of elves/dwarves/etc. are, in fact, gods of humans, generally. In FR, non-humans are a minority among worshippers of Torm, Tyr, Ilmater, Mielikki, Selune, etc. (That's not even bringing in the explicit human pantheons.) This generally applies to most other fantasy RPGs, too.

Third, plenty of settings have plenty of pantheons. In Glorantha, the elves, trolls, and dwarves each get one pantheon of gods; the humans get four categories of religion (theistic, monotheistic/atheistic, animistic, and mystic), and an uncountable host of pantheons, including from the Storm Tribe, the Solar Pantheon, the Henotheistic Church, the Malkioni Church(es), the Praxian Pantheon, the Hsunchen Spirits, etc. All of those are human-only pantheons (although there are rare freaks in other races who worship human gods).

Maybe if you narrow down your complaint it'll make more sense.
Calm down.
I said fantasy worlds, not RPG's.
Faerun may be different but it's only one world. (Plus I kind of hate Faerun, sorry maybe I'm a bit biased)

But there are several campaign settings & fantasy books that lack a human deity. Do I really have to list them all by name aside those that do?

Mostly I'm talking about D&D. So let's just stick with that.

Rhynn
2013-08-04, 10:33 PM
Calm down.

Wow, thanks, my blood pressure was through the roof!


I said fantasy worlds, not RPG's.

Oh?


The only game to have a god of humanity is Pathfinder & he's dead :/


I'd like to ask the playground, if you think there should be a god of humanity in D&D & other games & if so what kind of deity would they be?

Oh.


But there are several campaign settings & fantasy books that lack a human deity. Do I really have to list them all by name aside those that do?

That'd be helpful! I can't seem to think of any.

In Greyhawk, the same applies as in FR: Pelor, Saint Cuthbert, etc. are human deities, and this divide holds true basically for D&D historically: in OD&D, non-humans don't have clerics or deities, and in AD&D, they have their own deities, while the non-non-human deities are human deities.

In some other worlds, there may be no, or less, separation. In Dragonlance, the only non-human deity is Reorx (dwarves); the other deities are just worshipped under different names by elves, etc.


Mostly I'm talking about D&D. So let's just stick with that.

Thanks for narrowing your question down, like I suggested! :) But I really would like for you to list D&D worlds where humans have no deities. (Or is your complaint specifically of a lack of a deity whose domain/purview/power is "humanity" ?)

Coidzor
2013-08-04, 10:42 PM
But there are several campaign settings & fantasy books that lack a human deity. Do I really have to list them all by name aside those that do?

Mostly I'm talking about D&D. So let's just stick with that.

My understanding is that generally in those sorts of worlds humans have plenty of gods but their gods know better than to turn up their noses at potential converts unless they're actively villainous or they're generally shown as nonreligious/atheistic in contrast with other species.

Eberron is the only setting I can think of where there's no human deities and that's mostly because there's only the one set of deities that everyone shares or you've got the religions with non-traditional godheads. And if you want a human-only deity... Zarus. You can even what a twist the Burning Hate to really have been Zarus this whole time or something.

Mastikator
2013-08-04, 10:42 PM
The default religion(s) usually ARE the human gods.

But I agree with DoctorStandard on the point that having a god or two for each race is lazy. Not all religions have gods, or at least specific gods, or countable gods. All the pantheons are all the same, just X number of gods each with dominion over Y. No creation story or end of the world story, rarely there are unique ways of prayer. Certainly no place for animism. They're usually just copies of real world pantheons with various superficial changes.
/rant

Rhynn
2013-08-04, 10:46 PM
I never liked the idea of racial gods in the first place. It just seems lazy to me - "Okay, and here's the 'god of Elves'." How uncreative is that? Every single elf in the world pays allegiance to that god, just because? Or does he only like the "classic" (boring as hell) Chaotic Good arcane nature-y pretentious dancing swordsman elves, and eschew all the rest that are actually interesting? Establish the Elves' place in the world and then put some actual effort into figuring out what kind of god they would worship. If you want a Human god, do the same.

That might or might not be the case, but it really depends, doesn't it?

In D&D (well, past AD&D 1E PHB/DMG only, where non-humans IIRC do only have one deity per race), non-humans usually don't just have a deity, they have a pantheon. These are very much in the style of real-world polytheistic pantheons like the Norse, Greek, Roman, etc. pantheons, in that there's a central "father"/"mother" deity (Corellon Larethian, etc.) and an assortment of deities of various things. This goes for elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and even the drow (and giants, at least in FR).

The standard D&D elven pantheon includes deities of various alignments, and deities for things like the moon, archery, love, lore, etc.

But then, in Glorantha, the position of Aldrya makes perfect sense: all plants are Aldrya's children, and elves are walking, talking, thinking plants (and vegetaricannibals). Aldrya is life to them, in a very concrete way: their lives are governed by Aldrya's Song. For the trolls, Kyger Litor is the Mother, and every Mother (who are revered beyond all others in troll society) is a representative of Kyger Litor. Both elves and trolls have other deities (usually ascended elves/trolls), but they are all subject to the main mother deity. The dwarves "worship" Mostal, the World Machine (by faithfully performing the duties assigned to them by their superiors), and acknowledge no god or spirit; Mostal is more of a concept, and absolutely not a personalized deity.

Edit:

No creation story or end of the world story, rarely there are unique ways of prayer. Certainly no place for animism.

Well, I can immediately think of two settings where this isn't the case: both FR and Dragonlance have creation stories. FR has had pretty precise descriptions of priesthoods and their rites (including when they pray) since AD&D.

navar100
2013-08-04, 10:54 PM
I use one.

Jaqyde (Neutral)
god of humans, half-humans, causes, helping

Defender of Humanity, Jaqyde promotes the Human Spirit to get things done. He doesn't hate the other races, but if something needs to be done, only a human has the strive and stubbornness to get it done. He dislikes half-humans stereotypically siding with their non-human bloodline (usually it's the half-elves but half-orcs as well), and encourages them instead to embrace their human-half by engaging in human culture. He instructs his human followers to embrace the half-humans.

If there's one thing Humanity will fight for, aside from self-defense, it's a Cause. Fighting doesn't have to be literal, but Humanity likes to promote Ideas and Concepts beyond themselves more so than mere territory. Morals. Ethics. Philosophy. The Intangibles are important. Jaqyde follows what he preaches. His personal Cause beyond himself is to liberate the Drow from the clutches of Evil (Lolth). Whether they return to the Elves or remain independent are equally fine with him as long they achieve Redemption. Jaqyde will accept Drow clerics, especially males, but he is friend and ally to Eilistraee and does not compete with her for Drow worship.

Jaqyde also encourages his followers to aid others when they can. It's not an order because aid under compulsion is slavery, not charity. To a follower of Jaqyde, no compliment is more precious than to be told "You're the man!" as a form of thank you.

Despite being Neutral, Jaqyde does support an order of Paladins. Paladinhood was originally a Human tradition, a Cause dedicated to fighting against Evil. They are Protectors. At times they are Avengers. Jaqyde honors their Code and traditions. They voluntarily chose to put themselves in harm's way so that others don't have to, the ultimate helping of others. Jaqyde is proud of them.

Jaqyde also supports an order of Druids. As with paladins, Druidism was also originally a Human tradition. Elves can claim all they want about their being one with nature, but it was Humans who first dedicated their lives solely for the purpose of protecting the Natural World, a Cause. Jaqyde respects nature deities and his druids may cooperate with their followers, but Jaqyde has no special relationship with them. Jaqyde reminds his druids that Humanity is also part of nature. Cities and civilization are not the enemy. Hunting and forestation are a not a sin, but his druids should teach the proper methods to avoid excess of depopulation and deforestation. Tree farms are encouraged for a steady supply of wood.

Mando Knight
2013-08-04, 10:54 PM
Faerūn is like that because it's probably the most developed and all-encompassing out of all the official D&D campaigns... not only do different races have different pantheons, but so also different regions (though some are merely different aspects of a "main" pantheon's deity, in a kind of Venus/Aphrodite/Isis/Ishtar kind of way).

In a way, D&D is the way it is because it assumes (whether implicitly or explicitly, depending on the setting and edition) a humanocentric/polytheistic situation not unlike the Roman Empire... the humans "import" the other races' most relevant gods (generally chief deities and deities that "fill the gaps," as it were) and mark them as a "god of Race X" in addition to their normal portfolio.

Alternately, one can view the gods the other way around: if they created the races (and literally are the "god of Race X"), then the race and its divinely instituted culture were created to follow the god's preferences (Elves are beautiful and love nature and magic because those are things that Corellon likes). If the gods didn't create the race, then they became known as the gods of their races because the races' cultures highly value the things that fall under the gods' respective portfolios, and they thus worship the gods that hold/represent the same ideals.

Which brings us back to Humans. Generally, once again going back to the humanocentric hypothesis, Humans are too diverse for the latter mode (the culture embraces the god) to be applied monolithically as is usually done for other races (though Elves do have the major split between the good Elves under Corellon and the evil Elves under Lolth). However, if the former is assumed, then the "Human god" is usually dead, killed by something that now has divine power, and humanity has further fractured culturally to fall under the influence of other gods (lacking the uniting force of a divinely-maintained single culture).

The "Human god is dead" idea is implied by 4e's default setting (AKA "Points of Light" or "Nerath," the latter name being said setting's last major empire)... and that Asmodeus is the one that did the deed (he more-or-less created the Tieflings through devils corrupting the Human empire of Bael-Turath, he betrayed and killed a god whose name is now lost to history to get his power, etc.).

Kane0
2013-08-04, 11:31 PM
I'd like to ask the playground, if you think there should be a god of humanity in D&D & other games & if so what kind of deity would they be?

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252754) is my god of humans.

Jay R
2013-08-04, 11:34 PM
If there is a God of Thunder, a Goddess of Spring, a Sun God, a moon Goddess, a God of War, and a God of the sea, why in the world would there be an Elf God?

Don't elves live through the same thunder, spring, sun, moon, war and sea that humans do?

Anderlith is correct that D&D pantheons are often inconsistent, but the in consistency isn't the absence of a racial god for humans; it's the presence of racial gods for other races.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-04, 11:37 PM
I don't see it as much, myself.

You've got worlds like Krynn (Dragonlance), Cerillia (Birthright), and Tellene (Kingdoms of Kalamar, for Hackmaster), where there's a single pantheon, but each culture approaches them differently.

But you've also got worlds like Faerun, where the "core culture" has a pantheon, each major race has its own pantheon (the elves the Seldrane, the gnomes the Lords of the Golden Hills, etc.), and major human cultures have their own pantheon (i.e. Mulhourand and Chessenta), somewhat mimicking Earth, where different cultures had their own pantheons of deities. While later editions de-emphasized this, 1st and 2nd edition had numerous pantheons, sometimes with overlapping portfolios (Halani Celani and Sune share the pool Evergold, for example, both being goddess of beauty). There's even syncretic & divergent deities within the Faerunian pantheons... several elven deities are combinations of deities of the Seldrane and those of the Yuirwood elves, and Tymora and Beshaba were once both part of Tyche.

The original worlds were written to be very human-centric... that the "human deities" are those that are in the main book, while the racial deities tend to be relegated to Monstrous Mythology or Demihuman Deities reflects this.

Rhynn
2013-08-05, 12:04 AM
If there is a God of Thunder, a Goddess of Spring, a Sun God, a moon Goddess, a God of War, and a God of the sea, why in the world would there be an Elf God?

Don't elves live through the same thunder, spring, sun, moon, war and sea that humans do?

Actually, Glorantha approaches this very well, too.

Not only do the elves have their own Sun God, (almost) all human pantheons have their own Sun God. The Solar Pantheon worshippers of the Dara Happan Empire know that the Sun is Yelm, the Emperor of the World, who ruled it before Time began, and rules it again. The Heortlings, meanwhile, know that the Sun is Elmal, the Loyal Sun, who left the Sun Tribe and joined the Storm Tribe. (But some crazy heretics worship a god called Yelmalio, a corruption of Elmal and a supposed loyal son of Yelm, the Emperor Sun.) The Darkness-spawned trolls don't have a Sun God, but they have an enemy-god of Death (e.g. the Sun). And the Malkioni wizard-priests know that the Sun is simply an elemental Essence and that all those silly barbarians just have a bad habit of worshipping natural phenomena as gods and spirits.

And all of these people can successfully draw different kinds of magic from their Sun-worship.

What that comes down to, of course, is the nature of divinity. (Not that Gloranthan gods aren't concrete; it's just that they're defined by belief and experienced through your faith rather than as an objective reality; except, of course, when you encounter them on the Hero Plane as objectively real beings separate of your own beliefs...)

And then there's Artesia's Known World, where there are something like six gods of the Sun (but no goddesses, since the Sun is masculine): Agdah Cosmopeiia is the Cosmos Sun, Islik is the Sun King and son of the Sun Bull, there's the Solar Lion, the Black Sun, and so on... many cultures worship one as "their" deity of the Sun, but with the exception of the Sun Court church of Islik, they acknowledge all the others.

TheCountAlucard
2013-08-05, 12:23 AM
Exalted's a non-D&D example. Every physical object or location in all Creation has a god who oversees that as his or her domain, from the might Imperial Mountain to the grain of rice on the road; their puissance is directly influenced by the size of its domain. Likewise concepts narrow and broad have gods in Heaven that work in a complex bureaucracy, powered by the influence of their concept on the world, and the prayer they receive; a god of Secrets Known to Two Hundred People isn't that powerful, but the goddess of Battle plays the Games of Divinity with her sisters and the King of Heaven himself.

As such, races such as the fabled Dragon Kings, Lintha, Jadeborn, and othetd will have a patron deity, but so do cattle, carpenters, bureaucrats, and magic swords. By no means are you required to worship all or even any of the ones that are likely applicable to your character.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-08-05, 12:42 AM
Human Gods? Well, there's always
http://factpile.wikispaces.com/file/view/The_Emperor.jpg/84451401/The_Emperor.jpg

Calmar
2013-08-05, 05:49 AM
In one of the Gary Gygax Q&A threads, Gygax stated that originally there weren't any racial deities in his world Greyhawk. Elves, for instance, tended to worship Obad-hai and Ehlonna before the other deities. I think this is the way it should be.
Ancient real world cultures often tended to identify foreign gods with their own ones, too.

SiuiS
2013-08-05, 06:00 AM
I never liked the idea of racial gods in the first place. It just seems lazy to me - "Okay, and here's the 'god of Elves'." How uncreative is that? Every single elf in the world pays allegiance to that god, just because? Or does he only like the "classic" (boring as hell) Chaotic Good arcane nature-y pretentious dancing swordsman elves, and eschew all the rest that are actually interesting? Establish the Elves' place in the world and then put some actual effort into figuring out what kind of god they would worship. If you want a Human god, do the same.

D&D actually did have a "God of Humans" in the Races of Destiny sourcebook: the Lawful Evil Zarus (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20041203a). He was pretty much a racial supremacist who encouraged conquest and slavery, which in my opinion is the most realistic example of a god who truly does only represent one race. If Zarus (or Moradin, or Corellon, or whatever) is just the god of Humans, why should he care at all about the other races? They serve no purpose to his chosen people beyond being enslaved for the benefit of their "superiors".

Love that guy. Total Whacko.


This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252754) is my god of humans.

Ooh, neat.

Totally Guy
2013-08-05, 06:41 AM
I'm going to say... Sithrak the Blind Gibberer. What a god.

Felhammer
2013-08-05, 07:07 AM
A single God of the Elves is lazy. A whole pantheon of Elven Gods is completely different.

No one scoffs at the idea of Valhalla existing in the same world as Mount Olympus. It should be no different for other races' pantheons.

Talya
2013-08-05, 07:14 AM
The default pantheons are mostly human gods.

Racial pantheons are simply cultural pantheons. In The Real World, every civilization and empire had its own pantheon of Gods. (In Forgotten Realms you see this with several human civilizations having their own sets of Gods in addition to the more commonly accepted pantheon.) Since Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Drow, Gnomes, Halflings, etc. all have their own civilizations/empires, it's a no-brainer that they'd have their own gods/pantheons.


On a smaller scale, this was also the case in the inspiration for D&D's fantasy races. Among the Valar of Middle-Earth, Aulė created the dwarves, setting a precedent for future fantasy racial deities. (Note that the same cannot be said of the Elves, who were created directly by Eru Ilśvatar.)

ellindsey
2013-08-05, 08:40 AM
In one of the Gary Gygax Q&A threads, Gygax stated that originally there weren't any racial deities in his world Greyhawk. Elves, for instance, tended to worship Obad-hai and Ehlonna before the other deities. I think this is the way it should be.
Ancient real world cultures often tended to identify foreign gods with their own ones, too.

That's basically how I'm setting up the campaign I'm starting. There is one pantheon of gods. None of them are race-specific, but different races do tend to gravitate towards different gods. Elves tend to worship the goddess of nature and forests (but aren't required to), Orcs tend to worship the god of fire and chaos, etc. Each culture may also have their own take or interpretation of the gods, possibly seeing them as appearing as a member of their own race, but the underlying pantheon is the same for everyone.

Lord Torath
2013-08-05, 09:24 AM
Hah! I've got a world/setting with no gods for humans! Dark Sun! :smallbiggrin: (Of course, there're no gods for anyone else, either :smalltongue:)

I agree with the sentiment that racial gods really aren't necessary at all. I rather like how Dragonlance handles things that way. I'd imagine that most smiths of all races venerate Reorx.

Dimers
2013-08-05, 09:51 AM
In Greyhawk, the same applies as in FR: Pelor, Saint Cuthbert, etc. are human deities ...

Saint Cuthbert may not be a deity of humans, but he (and Zuoken? I think?) is a deity who used to be human. You get some of that in Forgotten Realms, too -- Kelemvor, Cyric, Midnight, all that bunch -- and anywhere else people ascend to godhood. That's not a feature of traditional 'Western' mythologies so far as I recall, but it does show up in 'Eastern' tales.

Talya
2013-08-05, 09:59 AM
I prefer FR partly because of its expansive mythology and all the support for it. Including related campaign settings on the same world, (Kara-Tur, Maztica) Abeir-Toril has no fewer than 215 different deities, demigods, quasi-deities, dead powers, and similar -- not to mention the lords of the nine hells and of the abyss and similar. The depth this allows is just stunning.

Waar
2013-08-05, 10:05 AM
So I always feel like Humans got left out when the other races of a fantasy world always have their own pantheons of gods but humans don't. The only game to have a god of humanity is Pathfinder & he's dead :/

I'd like to ask the playground, if you think there should be a god of humanity in D&D & other games & if so what kind of deity would they be?

No, religions and races should not conform 100 % to each other on a one to one basis, it is (most of the time) much more interesting to have several religions competing over the same population, (in effect there should be several gods all claiming to be the "god of humanity" :smallwink:)

prufock
2013-08-05, 11:05 AM
Rather than "god of humans," maybe it would be better to ask this questions as "what god created humans." Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc have a creator god. Humans have/had Zarus, but he's not in the standard pantheon.

Unlike some other posters, I think that it makes perfect sense for each race to have its own deity, especially if the races were created by deities in your campaign world. Each deity makes its people in its own image, and I think it's still possible to have lots of nuance with this concept. For instance, WHY create your own people. Dwarves may be created basically as slaves of the Mine Foreman, elves as a narcissistic display of what a people "should" be like, gnomes to annoy the other races, orcs to kill elves because Gruumsh just hates Corellon, etc.

As far as the standard pantheon goes in the PHB, I've always viewed Pelor, Heironeous, Cuthbert, Hextor, and to a lesser degree Kord, Farlanghn, Wee Jas, Nerull, Erythnul, and Boccob as human deities, though not necessarily strictly human. If I had to peg one of these as the creator, it would be Pelor.

obryn
2013-08-05, 11:55 AM
90% of all gods in most settings are "human" gods. I have the opposite problem.

Why do human cultures get separate pantheons for different nations, whereas all elves everywhere worship the Elf Gods. And all dwarves worship the Dwarf Gods. It's part of the basic sci-fi/fantasy problem where pretty much everyone who's not a human is defined by their species, with minor variations.

-O

Anderlith
2013-08-05, 02:07 PM
If there was a god of humans what traits do you think if would possess?

Learning & War, Creation & Destruction?, I feel like they would have to be a duality somewhere. Humans are inherently conflicted beings. What with our id, ego & super ego all vying for control

I feel like the God of Humanity would kind of be a Mad Scientist/Artificer both noble & ignoble.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-05, 02:55 PM
Didn't 4E have more malleable deities? I mean, I know that Corellon tended to be associated with eladrin, and Bahamut with dragonborn, but they seemed pretty malleable and more based on their domains to me. Maybe that's just because I didn't read enough of the lore.

Dovius
2013-08-05, 03:04 PM
I've always thought that the general lack of Human specific gods was just an extension of their usual 'niche' in fantasy worlds: They're very versatile, but not particularly talented at any specific calling, allowing them to choose pretty much any profession or class and be equally good at whatever they chose (Instead of Elves and a pre-disposition to wizardry, and half-orcs and beating things up, and so forth...)

Hence, instead of a race-specific god that they'd be at least partially obligated to follow, they can instead follow any one that they choose on their own terms.

MtlGuy
2013-08-05, 03:21 PM
So I always feel like Humans got left out when the other races of a fantasy world always have their own pantheons of gods but humans don't. The only game to have a god of humanity is Pathfinder & he's dead :/

I'd like to ask the playground, if you think there should be a god of humanity in D&D & other games & if so what kind of deity would they be?


I don't know why humans get the short end of the godstick, but here's a recent comparable that might offer some ideas... until recently Marvel never had a problem describing Thor as a 'god of thunder', he's since been downgraded into a 'prince of thunder' (at least in the most recent cartoons). Was this done to appease the extreme minority/extremely vocal parents and religious groups worried about Marvel/Disney corrupting their youth with tales of polytheism? I don't know, but it's that kind of useless moral panic that got Ernie and Bert pulled from Sesame street. Has this lesson been sent to WotC? Yes, back in '94 or '95 artwork and titles of cards for MTG got removed/edited for this reason, (removed satanic symbol from unholy strength, resurrection -gone, earthbind... too BDSM... gone). So perhaps they're not willing to stir the pot and get into a conflict with groups that have a disproportionate amount of political clout than they deserve.

obryn
2013-08-05, 03:28 PM
Didn't 4E have more malleable deities? I mean, I know that Corellon tended to be associated with eladrin, and Bahamut with dragonborn, but they seemed pretty malleable and more based on their domains to me. Maybe that's just because I didn't read enough of the lore.
That's correct. While many elves and eladrin worshipped Corellon, he wasn't an Elves-only god. And while many dragonborn worshipped Bahamut, he was probably the most popular choice for paladins of all races. There were no specific racial deities.

-O

Rhynn
2013-08-05, 04:29 PM
Rather than "god of humans," maybe it would be better to ask this questions as "what god created humans." Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc have a creator god. Humans have/had Zarus, but he's not in the standard pantheon.

That varies by setting too, obviously.

Reorx created dwarves, and then the Greygem created gnomes and kender. (I think humans, elves, and dragons were pretty much created as a joint effort by most of the gods? Can't recall anymore.)

In FR, many nonhuman races who have gods were created by their progenitor races (the Sarrukhs, Batrachii, etc.). Several types of human, and IIRC elves, planar-travelled onto Faerun from Earth, Oerth, etc.

Knaight
2013-08-05, 11:09 PM
I don't think that it's necessary - they probably just need to embrace polytheism already. As is they have some sort of henotheism, the occasional embarrassingly bad attempt at atheistic philosophies, and an insistence on there being pantheons everywhere. Basically, they are trying to merge polytheism and monotheism, doing a terrible job on it, and then sticking in atheism as an after thought and doing a terrible job with that too. Adding a human god isn't what is necessary here, scrapping the entire system and rebuilding from the ground up so that something actually coherent comes out of it is.

Scowling Dragon
2013-08-05, 11:18 PM
The Iron Kingdoms (Which has a realy Good Pantheon) has 1 God that directly created and supports humanity and he has....a strained relationship with Humans.

Felhammer
2013-08-06, 12:07 AM
I don't think that it's necessary - they probably just need to embrace polytheism already. As is they have some sort of henotheism, the occasional embarrassingly bad attempt at atheistic philosophies, and an insistence on there being pantheons everywhere. Basically, they are trying to merge polytheism and monotheism, doing a terrible job on it, and then sticking in atheism as an after thought and doing a terrible job with that too. Adding a human god isn't what is necessary here, scrapping the entire system and rebuilding from the ground up so that something actually coherent comes out of it is.

The odd system makes sense in the light that gods gain power by having worshipers. You don't want to share that power with other gods. You want it all to yourself. That's why all of the organized religions feel more like Catholicism than Greco-Roman Polytheism.

Atheism was added so as to entice more players to be Clerics (i.e. "You don't have to worship a God! Be your own man!"). It's also why the Cleric's spell list became so powerful.

Geostationary
2013-08-06, 12:56 AM
The Iron Kingdoms (Which has a realy Good Pantheon) has 1 God that directly created and supports humanity and he has....a strained relationship with Humans.

Oh, Menoth. At least he gave his faithful a mecha powered on literal divine will. And lots of fire. He likes that.

SiuiS
2013-08-06, 03:21 AM
A single God of the Elves is lazy. A whole pantheon of Elven Gods is completely different.

No one scoffs at the idea of Valhalla existing in the same world as Mount Olympus. It should be no different for other races' pantheons.

I totally scoff at this. The entire great wheel falls apart when you're trying to have both religions and beliefs and weirdness which defy convention and categorization, AND planescape style "we wizards are basically scientists and have catalogued everything" in the same go.

Felhammer
2013-08-06, 03:45 AM
I totally scoff at this. The entire great wheel falls apart when you're trying to have both religions and beliefs and weirdness which defy convention and categorization, AND planescape style "we wizards are basically scientists and have catalogued everything" in the same go.

It's not that hard to manage.

You adhere to a pantheon of gods and are bound to their rules and their dogma. Good Vikings go to Valhalla, while bad ones go to Hel. Greeks go to the Underworld. Devils steal the souls of people they are interested in (most likely prior to death) and also lay claim to the faithless/unwanted.

Planescape mucks things up when it comes to belief but in a world where Gods are actually real and intervene in the affairs of mortals (including chatting with Priests), then the mystery of the great beyond really isn't as mysterious as in our world. The afterlife is cataloged because one can simply phone an Angel to get all the info.

Knaight
2013-08-06, 01:05 PM
Atheism was added so as to entice more players to be Clerics (i.e. "You don't have to worship a God! Be your own man!"). It's also why the Cleric's spell list became so powerful.

Except for it makes no sense, on account of the presence of the gods being so incredibly obvious in the setting that a cleric not believing in them beggars belief. A cleric not wanting to associate with them in particular is one thing, and to some extent they do point that way in that regard, but occasionally verbiage comes up suggesting that the D&D gods and their frequent and direct intervention just aren't having their existence believed.

Anderlith
2013-08-06, 08:07 PM
Except for it makes no sense, on account of the presence of the gods being so incredibly obvious in the setting that a cleric not believing in them beggars belief. A cleric not wanting to associate with them in particular is one thing, and to some extent they do point that way in that regard, but occasionally verbiage comes up suggesting that the D&D gods and their frequent and direct intervention just aren't having their existence believed.

I would make the case that perhaps they just believe that they are insanely powerful creatures.

The chance of a commoner killing a god is the same as killing the Tarasque are the same. Zero. But the Tarasque isn't a god, to a lowly commoner (or adventurer) the gods just look like big angry creatures at the top of the food chain of big angry creatures

Scowling Dragon
2013-08-06, 08:41 PM
Oh, Menoth. At least he gave his faithful a mecha powered on literal divine will. And lots of fire. He likes that.

He mainly uses it too go too war against people that are busy fighting an undead horde.

Arathnos
2013-08-06, 09:27 PM
90% of all gods in most settings are "human" gods. I have the opposite problem.

Why do human cultures get separate pantheons for different nations, whereas all elves everywhere worship the Elf Gods. And all dwarves worship the Dwarf Gods. It's part of the basic sci-fi/fantasy problem where pretty much everyone who's not a human is defined by their species, with minor variations.

-O I'm not defending lazy writing or setting design, but I will attempt to address this from my personal perspective:

I have always thought that the reason behind this attitude is that in many of the original fantasy stories that the genre evolved from, especially with regards to tabletop gaming, the demihuman cultures were all tiny compared to the kingdoms of man.

Take Tolkien dwarves for example, and then extrapolate them to any average fantasy setting. The dwarves in Tolkien are very much in a state of decline, and they have lost much of their former glory.

Stepping away from Tolkien now, picture the dwarves like that in any given fantasy setting, of which many are a direct copy, and imagine that maybe at one point, there were three or so varied dwarven pantheons.

The dwarves of Mount Dwarfington worshipped the Dwarfkind pantheon, while the dwarves of Mount Dwarfville worshipped the Kindofdwarf pantheon. When Mount Dwarfville was destroyed and lost to the ages, the knowledge of the Kindofdwarf pantheon went away. Then, when the Dwarfington dwarves reclaimed the ancient halls of Mount Dwarfville, they colonized it and continued, of course, using their own pantheon.

Now, this example would be much more interesting of more settings actually described the events as such and went into detail about WHY there is only one pantheon, and I think too many people focus on keeping the old traditions without putting any thought into them. It is FINE to have a cliché setup in your world, it can be a ton of fun, but you still need to put the thought behind it.

Again, there is no real excuse for being lazy, but I can certainly see the original impetus behind the design choice, and I think it has just stuck around. Just my two coppers.

Porthos
2013-08-06, 10:17 PM
Except for it makes no sense, on account of the presence of the gods being so incredibly obvious in the setting that a cleric not believing in them beggars belief.

It makes perfect sense if you take the Planescape path. Those beings are incredibly powerful. Some of them are even worthy of respect. But what they are NOT are gods, nor should they be worshiped as such.

There. Done. Simples. :smallsmile:

Rhynn
2013-08-06, 11:21 PM
I have always thought that the reason behind this attitude is that in many of the original fantasy stories that the genre evolved from, especially with regards to tabletop gaming, the demihuman cultures were all tiny compared to the kingdoms of man.

Yeah, this is often the case. In WFRP, the default setting is the Empire; the dwarves mostly come in two types: "imperialized" dwarves and dwarves from the mountain homes in the east; the elves come in one type: forest elves from Athel Loren.

Similarly, in Dark Sun, the default setting is the Tyr Region. Halflings come from the Forest Ridge (or from exile bands wandering the Tablelands), elves come from a very narrow number of similar tribes (that probably split off from each other anyway), etc. The world of Athas could have tons of different kinds of elves (I know everyone loves that!), perhaps in the style of ElfQuest, but they're not around the Tyr Region. With only a tiny portion (something like 1/40 or 1/50 I think) of the world mapped and described, DMs can fill out the rest with anything they want.

HarnMaster/HarnWorld is perhaps a pretty extreme example. The default setting, the island of Harn, is about the size of Britain; it has a very small human population (something like 1 million IIRC). There is one dwarven kingdom with one city, and one elven kingdom, both with populations only in the tens of thousands. These cultures are "monolithic" because they are tiny. (They are also explicitly unique; there's no dwarves or elves elsewhere on Harn, as far as I recall the lore.) The humans, meanwhile, have a variety of cultures on Harn, and the much more populated continent has great kingdoms and empires aplenty.

I enjoy it a lot, personally. It's much easier to do both depth and breadth if you limit yourself to a smaller region of play. Harn in HarnWorld, the Empire in WFRP, the Middle Kingdoms in A:AKW, the Savage Frontier in FR, the Tyr Region in Dark Sun... and as you have time, you can develop neighboring regions, then their neighboring regions, and so on; and as the PCs increase in power and mobility and their interests lay further afield, they range further from their "home base." It also lets you keep the players on their toes: if the default cannibal-pygmy halflings of Athas are a culture unique to the Forest Ridge, you can surprise them with different twists on the race (like the Jagged Cliffs halflings) in distant regions; and the same goes for elves, dwarves, and thri-kreen (who actual sourcebooks give different versions of, in fact, mostly found only on the Crimson Savannah).

SiuiS
2013-08-07, 03:06 AM
It's not that hard to manage.

You adhere to a pantheon of gods and are bound to their rules and their dogma. Good Vikings go to Valhalla, while bad ones go to Hel. Greeks go to the Underworld. Devils steal the souls of people they are interested in (most likely prior to death) and also lay claim to the faithless/unwanted.

Planescape mucks things up when it comes to belief but in a world where Gods are actually real and intervene in the affairs of mortals (including chatting with Priests), then the mystery of the great beyond really isn't as mysterious as in our world. The afterlife is cataloged because one can simply phone an Angel to get all the info.

The gods are just Outsiders who smack the **** out of anyone who says they aren't gods. There is no basis for belief; It's a terrible system with bot internal and external/metagame components. It's hard to view the gods as gods because they aren't presented that way. It's hard to play a character who believes in a god when the player knows the god, really isn't.


Except for it makes no sense, on account of the presence of the gods being so incredibly obvious in the setting that a cleric not believing in them beggars belief. A cleric not wanting to associate with them in particular is one thing, and to some extent they do point that way in that regard, but occasionally verbiage comes up suggesting that the D&D gods and their frequent and direct intervention just aren't having their existence believed.

See above, actually. Although I find wielding divine power without a patron, frankly absurd. You're a sorcerer, not a cleric.

BWR
2013-08-07, 04:15 AM
I'm sounding like a broken record when I plug Mystara, but that's partially because the other settings I would mention have already been mentioned. While there are what appear to be racial Immortals, they are actually cultural. Sure, the dwarves of Rockhome and splinter groups worship Kagyar almost exclusively, but that's because he took the proto-dwarf race and reshaped them and founded their current culture. Naturally, with a bunch of tradition-minded and rather insular, slow-moving people, they will stick to what they know. Likewise the Shadow Elves were adopted by Rafiel who has guided and aided them for milennia and most follow him.

Likewise, the largest elf group worship their two main Immortals because the first was a religious/cultural leader who reinforced and saved their way of life, and the second founded the realm they live in. There are other elven groups that worship other Immortals, and not necessarily based on culture. Sea elves tend to worship Calitha Starbrow because she exemplifies the sea elf mentality, but there are others like Protius (worshipped equally by just about all sea-living beings). Wendar, a country that's about 50/50 elf and human, have their own set of Immortals worshipped about equally by all the populace. Elves living in lands dominated by other cultures tend to worship the most popular local Immortals.

Many humanoids tend to worship one or only a few Immortals, but this is mainly because one of their number ascended and takes care of his people. This holds true among humans too, looking at the Ylari (the Arab-clones whose founder, a Mohammed-clone, created an Islam-clone and ascended) or to a lesser extent the humans of the Minrothad isles, who worship mainly Minroth.
There are plenty of ancient Immortals whose popularity waxes and wanes, those who don't really care about mortal worshippers, those who are worshipped or payed homage to out of fear, those who are worshipped almost universally, those who have perhaps only one small cult and those who are equal opportunity abusers.

Jay R
2013-08-07, 11:34 AM
There should be no human gods for the same reason there should be no elf gods, dwarf gods, or lichen gods.

A god's race isn't human, elf, dwarf, or lichen; it's "god".

There's no inherent problem with a god that all elves worship, but She's not an elf.

[And it's more likely that wood elves worship the god of the wood, sea elves worship the god of the sea, etc.]

Rhynn
2013-08-07, 12:18 PM
There should be no human gods for the same reason there should be no elf gods, dwarf gods, or lichen gods.

A god's race isn't human, elf, dwarf, or lichen; it's "god".

There's no inherent problem with a god that all elves worship, but She's not an elf.

[And it's more likely that wood elves worship the god of the wood, sea elves worship the god of the sea, etc.]

Two problems with this: first, if the [race] god created the race, there's a pretty good chance of that whole "in his/her image" thing...

Second, there's the whole issue of ancestor worship and ascended gods. The dwarves of Dragon Age more or less worship deified dwarves, for instance.

And anyway, I take it to be "elven god" in the sense of "English Church" - that's not the church's/god's ethnicity, it's the church's/god's domain.

Not that your approach isn't sensible - it's just not the only one. In Harn, the elves (and dwarves) worship Siem, god of dreams, for instance, and it makes sense.

Calmar
2013-08-07, 03:44 PM
That's basically how I'm setting up the campaign I'm starting. There is one pantheon of gods. None of them are race-specific, but different races do tend to gravitate towards different gods. Elves tend to worship the goddess of nature and forests (but aren't required to), Orcs tend to worship the god of fire and chaos, etc. Each culture may also have their own take or interpretation of the gods, possibly seeing them as appearing as a member of their own race, but the underlying pantheon is the same for everyone.

Yeah, me to. And there I was thinking how smart I were, before I discovered that that's aparently the very way the creator of the game used to handle things from the brginning. :smallbiggrin:

Besides, in every game I took part in, the gods were mostly just treated as some abstract source for divine powers by the players, because no one was ever really interested in roleplaying detailed piousness.

Rhynn
2013-08-07, 04:27 PM
Besides, in every game I took part in, the gods were mostly just treated as some abstract source for divine powers by the players, because no one was ever really interested in roleplaying detailed piousness.

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World taught me that there is a very easy fix to this problem: give piousness game-mechanics effects!

In A:AKW, you gain Invocation Points with a deity's aspect when you sacrifice or offer to that aspect. These points can be used to call upon a limited array of magical effects, based on the aspect of the deity (like bonuses to Farming skill tests from the Earth Goddess, etc.).

In the first session, at the very first shrine my PCs came across, both of the old-faith characters stopped to make offerings, and returned later, over and over, to make more. (The third PC was of the patriarchal oppressive church religion, but wisely overlooked this, as most people in his position do in the region.)

In that same campaign, my players - who have never been very interested in roleplaying religion - played almost fanatical old-faith defenders, taking on witch-hunters and inquisitors out of their own initiative, at great personal risk and cost, just because they felt it was right.

All because you can get small bonuses from playing piety.

HarnMaster also has piety mechanics that make it matter a lot, but I haven't gotten to run that one for my group yet (and don't think the divine magic fits the setting too well anyhow).

Lord Vukodlak
2013-08-07, 05:42 PM
In my own campaign setting there is a group called "The Cult of Oblivion" they don't believe in gods. While they admit that the beings called Hiraxus, Kalar, Aryn Rose, Garthos, Charon and others(names of gods in my campaign setting) are indeed powerful beings they argue they aren't really gods just beings of immense power who harness the faith of worshipers for there own gain. The point to mortals who've ascended to godhood such as Hiraxus and gods who've been killed such as Garthos as proof that the deities are just powerful beings not the creators or masters of the universe.

They also believe that if all the gods were to die it would elevate the rest of the world into an age of enlightenment as the power the gods were hoarding for themselves would be shared with everyone.

In my setting Clerics without a patron deity are presumed to get there power from Demon Lords, Archdevils, Old Ones or by one of the deities they claim not to worship. If your actions are furthering a divine patron's goals he may grant you divine spells despite your refusal to acknowledge him.

—
In my setting the racial gods pull some double duty, Moradin is both god of the forge and the creator deity for dwarves. The Halfling patron deity is also a god of travel and luck, the gnomish deity is also worshiped as a god of invention and humor Corellon is the god of elves, the hunt and archery etc. The god of vengeance and retribution is also the god for catfolk...

Felhammer
2013-08-07, 06:55 PM
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Lord Vukodlak
2013-08-07, 07:17 PM
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In my own setting Clerics are devoted to a singular deity but most regular folk tend worship multiple gods they may have a favorite but they'll offer up a prayer or an offering to any deity whose portfolio seems to regularly overlap with their life.

Felhammer
2013-08-07, 07:58 PM
In my own setting Clerics are devoted to a singular deity but most regular folk tend worship multiple gods they may have a favorite but they'll offer up a prayer or an offering to any deity whose portfolio seems to regularly overlap with their life.

+1 :smallsmile:

Clerics are understandable since they are specialists but Joe Dirtfarmer needs all the gods to make his life better, not just a single one.

BWR
2013-08-08, 02:04 AM
It's also possible to be a cleric devoted to a pantheon rather than just a single god. Again, Mystara has examples of this with the Church of Thyatis, Church of Karameikos and Church of Traldara. Several people have been mentioned as worshipping multiple Immortals, such as Fain Flinn from the Penhaligon trilogy.

Also, in the myths there are mentions of certain people dedicating their lives to the worship of a single god, such as Maron in the Odyssey, who served Apollo.

Sebastrd
2013-08-08, 01:17 PM
That's basically how I'm setting up the campaign I'm starting. There is one pantheon of gods. None of them are race-specific, but different races do tend to gravitate towards different gods. Elves tend to worship the goddess of nature and forests (but aren't required to), Orcs tend to worship the god of fire and chaos, etc. Each culture may also have their own take or interpretation of the gods, possibly seeing them as appearing as a member of their own race, but the underlying pantheon is the same for everyone.

I run my homebrew the same way.

Sebastrd
2013-08-08, 01:34 PM
90% of all gods in most settings are "human" gods. I have the opposite problem.

Why do human cultures get separate pantheons for different nations, whereas all elves everywhere worship the Elf Gods. And all dwarves worship the Dwarf Gods. It's part of the basic sci-fi/fantasy problem where pretty much everyone who's not a human is defined by their species, with minor variations.

-O

It actually makes sense even if it was initially unintentional. Because of the longevity of such races, there is very little cultural variance from one generation to the next. Humans live relatively short lives and are spread over the face of most entire worlds. That combination creates a lot of diversity. Elves and dwarves, on the other hand, live long lives in relatively small geographic areas. Traditions last a long time and not much changes from one generation to the next.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that adaptability tends to be a uniquely human trait. It is very common in myths and fantasy for elves, dwarves, etc. to be inextricably tied to a geographical feature, area, climate, or Age. The destrucution/alteration of their homeland or a shift in "the way of things" regularly results in the decline or elimination of demihuman races.

Bogardan_Mage
2013-08-08, 07:54 PM
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Rhynn
2013-08-08, 08:24 PM
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There's no reason most D&D settings can't work this way. I always figured that is exactly how clerics work in FR: a priestess of Selune in Waterdeep will turn to Tyr's priests for prayers for justice, and even a priest of Tyr will propitiate Umberlee when he embarks on an ocean voyage down the Sword Coast. (Of course, some deities I see more as "cults": Talos, Bane, Cyric, etc. are not deities generally acknowledged, but rather worshipped in small, secret shrines.)

The Forgotten Realms in 3.X gets stupid about this, with every single mortal having to choose a single deity or be thrown in the Wall of the Faithless.

Fortunately, that's incredibly easy to ignore. If you want to keep the Wall, put those who faked piety in life in the Wall.

Then again, there's no reason you can't have various religions in various regions. Maybe the Holy Church of Tyr is almost all-encompassing in Cormyr, and other religions are persecuted; maybe Waukeen is in the same position in Sembia. Creating religions out of the deities could be a very interesting exercise. The Cormyrian Holy Church of Tyr may have very little in common beyond basic precepts and mythology with the faith of Tyr in Waterdeep (cf. Roman Catholic vs. Eastern Orthodox), etc.

jedipotter
2013-08-08, 09:23 PM
So I always feel like Humans got left out when the other races of a fantasy world always have their own pantheons of gods but humans don't. The only game to have a god of humanity is Pathfinder & he's dead :/

Am I missing something, fantasy worlds and games have tons of human gods.






I think it's just the opposite, elves and such shouldn't have Elf Gods as such. Correlon, Moradin, Gruumsh, Garl, and Yondalla are terrible ideas that get ensconced in monotheistic patriarchal thinking and ruins the point. If you're goin to have religion in a game beyond "good deity helps players, bad deity is monster god" then there should be actual depth to explore.

I don't get why elves, or any race, should not have their own gods. If your race likes/does/is interested in X, then you have a god for it.

Anderlith
2013-08-08, 09:34 PM
Am I missing something, fantasy worlds and games have tons of human gods.
A god of humanity. A god who's purview is human. There isn't one. There are a few gods that identify as human or used to be human. But no gods want to claim creation & shepherding of humanity.

Bogardan_Mage
2013-08-08, 10:00 PM
The Forgotten Realms in 3.X gets stupid about this, with every single mortal having to choose a single deity or be thrown in the Wall of the Faithless.

Fortunately, that's incredibly easy to ignore. If you want to keep the Wall, put those who faked piety in life in the Wall.
The Wall of the Faithless even gives a perfectly pragmatic reason for non-Clerics to have a patron and needn't be seen as worshipping that god to the exclusion of all others (unless the rules actually say this, I'm not that familiar with Forgotten Realms. If they do I'd argue for a houserule against it because it's absurd).

Rhynn
2013-08-08, 10:30 PM
The Wall of the Faithless even gives a perfectly pragmatic reason for non-Clerics to have a patron and needn't be seen as worshipping that god to the exclusion of all others (unless the rules actually say this, I'm not that familiar with Forgotten Realms. If they do I'd argue for a houserule against it because it's absurd).

The Wall as anything but punishment for active wrongdoing creates a somewhat horrible theological/moral/ethical/metaphysical situation, though, where misotheism and maltheism seem almost inevitable.

Bogardan_Mage
2013-08-08, 10:39 PM
The Wall as anything but punishment for active wrongdoing creates a somewhat horrible theological/moral/ethical/metaphysical situation, though, where misotheism and maltheism seem almost inevitable.
I thought that was the point?

Mando Knight
2013-08-08, 11:47 PM
The Wall as anything but punishment for active wrongdoing creates a somewhat horrible theological/moral/ethical/metaphysical situation, though, where misotheism and maltheism seem almost inevitable.

Myrkul (the now-dead god that erected the Wall) and Kelemvor (his successor as god of death) could very well hold that to be active wrongdoing. The gods don't have some passive existence in the Realms, they're active in promoting their causes. To not declare one as your patron is an insult to them all, and as FR doesn't have generic afterlives for the Faithless, Myrkul and Kelemvor use these unclaimed souls to build their Wall. (It's better than them just handing the souls over to the few that actually do use unclaimed departed souls... unless you'd rather have all the Faithless head to the Abyss) Who would sponsor the support of departed souls that don't even pay lip service to a deity similar to themselves, anyway?

Rhynn
2013-08-09, 12:24 AM
I thought that was the point?

I don't think so. It's always seemed like an incongruity to me, because the setting isn't really depicted in a way that accounts for the horror that is the Wall of the Faithless... but that may just be the general lack of attention to the importance of religion in D&D. Other RPGs do it much better - RuneQuest/HeroQuest, Artesia, etc. ...

Felhammer
2013-08-09, 01:58 AM
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jedipotter
2013-08-09, 05:56 AM
A god of humanity. A god who's purview is human. There isn't one. There are a few gods that identify as human or used to be human. But no gods want to claim creation & shepherding of humanity.

Oh, well, I can tell you why that is...... See that is a little too ''real'' for some people. To have a fictional god that made fictional humans in a fictional fantasy setting or game would drive many people crazy. So they just avoid the issue and have humans come from no where.

Mando Knight
2013-08-09, 09:26 AM
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A cleric would also be generally allowed to petition other deities for their assistance when relevant... just because you work at Sears doesn't mean you can't go to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple gallons of milk. (It would be at least frowned upon to offer prayers to a rival deity, of course)

Sebastrd
2013-08-09, 11:22 AM
The rule books also do a poor job of showcasing how a normal person views the gods (so as to help people who are only familiar monotheism jump the gap into understanding how true polytheism works). It doesn't help that the Forgotten Realms (WotC's best selling setting) is rife with fundamental problems when it comes to the divine.

To which books, exactly, are you referring? I seem to recall them explicitly illustrating the relationship average folks have with the pantheon, i.e., praying to applicable deities at appropriate times while possibly having a favorite or two.

And what are the fundamental divine problems in the Realms?

Frozen_Feet
2013-08-09, 06:03 PM
Races are stand-ins for other cultures. Greeks and Hindis don't worship the same gods in our world, why would it be strange if Dwarves and Elves to each had their own separate pantheons?

The actually weird thing is how standard fantasy settings feel the need to make all pantheons true for their setting. :smalltongue:

Bogardan_Mage
2013-08-09, 07:29 PM
I completely agree with you but *so* many players do not see it that way. The rule books also do a poor job of showcasing how a normal person views the gods (so as to help people who are only familiar monotheism jump the gap into understanding how true polytheism works). It doesn't help that the Forgotten Realms (WotC's best selling setting) is rife with fundamental problems when it comes to the divine.
Well if you're going to reject game mechanics that many players misunderstand, you're going to have a hard time running a game, I think.


A cleric would also be generally allowed to petition other deities for their assistance when relevant... just because you work at Sears doesn't mean you can't go to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple gallons of milk. (It would be at least frowned upon to offer prayers to a rival deity, of course)
Oh, yes, I didn't mean to imply that clerics couldn't do that, just that they had a clear reason for choosing a single deity in the first place.

Roland St. Jude
2013-08-09, 08:40 PM
Sheriff: This thread has trended into real world religion, which is an Inappropriate Topic here. As useful or relevant as it might be, real world religion is not permitted here, even in relation to gaming or other permitted topics.