A Question Of Family Roles In D&D.

[Mellon Collie]

A friend an I are looking at creating characters for a campaign along the lines of a god parent helping the younger in a mutual quest of revenge but I'm unsure if God parents are a thing in D&D or if they'd come under a different name... Anyone able to point me at something that will help?

[Inevitability]

The Divine Ranks And Powers (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm) section mentions the following (emphasis mine).


Rank 0
Creatures of this rank are sometimes called quasi-deities or hero deities. Creatures that have a mortal and a deity as parents also fall into this category. These entities cannot grant spells, but are immortal and usually have one or more ability scores that are far above the norm for their species. They may have some worshipers. Ordinary mortals do not have a divine rank of 0. They lack a divine rank altogether.

However, there's no official way to play a DR 0 creature at low levels.


Alternatively, you could take the half-fey, half-celestial, or half-fiend template to represent a supernatural ancestry.

[Gildedragon]

There's also a "template" of sorts for demigod in the DMG2

[Malimar]

The existence and role of godparents is the sort of fine detail that generally won't be covered in most setting books (and it's not a general D&D thing, it'd vary from setting to setting). So this one is "ask your DM" territory, especially if they're using a home setting.

(The "fairy godmother" is a common enough trope in fairy tales that I would imagine it's fine for most fantasy games, even if the concept is originally specific to one particular real-world religion.)

[Gildedragon]

The existence and role of godparents is the sort of fine detail that generally won't be covered in most setting books (and it's not a general D&D thing, it'd vary from setting to setting). So this one is "ask your DM" territory, especially if they're using a home setting.

(The "fairy godmother" is a common enough trope in fairy tales that I would imagine it's fine for most fantasy games, even if the concept is originally specific to one particular real-world religion.)

Actually this is a good question
Do you mean a parent that is deity
Or
Some being that acts as a co-parental figure for the PC?

[tedcahill2]

I think he means god parent as in, "person chosen by parents to be the child's guardian in the event of their passing".

If that's correct I think your "title" would depend on your influence in the kids life. If his parents died when it was an infant he likely calls you dad. If he was older he would likely refer to you as his guardian, or master (if he's your apprentice in any regard). The term "god parent" has been around since the 1400 or 1500's (to the best of my recollection). With dying young being much more common in the periods that most fantasy games take place having a god parent was common for someone affluent enough to take on other peoples children.

Many children in those days were seen as free labor, or in exchange for food and shelter anyway. Many churches would take in orphans as well, so that angle could work if you're a cleric, and while you travel with him to aid in his revenge you could meanwhile be trying to talk him out of it.