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Ascension
2008-02-02, 03:33 AM
NOTE: This ended up sort of turning into a homebrew pantheon, despite my original intentions for it to merely serve as a thread for discussing the core pantheon. If the mods feel this is more suited to the homebrew section, by all means move it there. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I mentioned this in passing in my recent rant in the "Oriental" setting thread, but I felt like ranting on it a bit more, so I decided to start this thread rather than carry that post any farther off topic than I did anyway.

My main problem with the core D&D setting is simply this: It tries to be a primarily Medievalish Western European flavored fantasy realm while simultaneously sporting a diverse pantheon of almost Greco-Roman anthropomorphic gods with very particular specializations who are, with a few notable exceptions, all perfectly culturally acceptable as objects of worship.

A D&D-style pantheon would be only logical if the core setting was meant to have a heavily Greek feel. The prevalence of city-states in D&D would correlate nicely with such a setting as well. The problem is, the bulk of the classes and monsters aren't flavored properly for a Greco-Roman game. It's definitely meant to be medieval Europe, but it lacks almost everything that made medieval Europe what it was.

In order for a setting to provide a proper analogue to medieval Western Europe as it exists in the public consciousness, human society must be built around a single powerful church, with some sort of papal analogue who wields enough political power to unify to some extent the culture and actions of the "civilized" world. Pelor or Heironeous would be good choices. Take one of them and elevate him to the undisputed top of the pantheon. Make his church the primary power throughout human lands. This also solves the "problem" of D&D's system of objective morality. It's really not objective, it's simply morality as the chief deity (Pelor/Heironeous) views it.

Now we're starting to get somewhere. By establishing... let's say Heironius for the sake of the following argument, though Pelor would still work... Alright, we've established Heironeous as the dominant god in human lands and the measuring stick for human morality. We'll give him a pope or archbishop or something, some insanely powerful (possibly Epic) divine caster who essentially controls human society. Now that's medieval Europe.

Now this is not to say there should only be one god in D&D. Most of the rest of the pantheon can be saved. The thing is, the other gods will either be socially unacceptable or accepted by a different society.

The racial deities are the easiest to adjust. Simply keep them, but be sure that the cultural intermingling between humans and other races is merely on the basis of trade and rarely (if ever) anything more. Make sure their borders don't overlap. Half-(fill-in-the-blank)s would be viewed as the offspring of infidels and probably not well accepted in human lands.

On a god-by-god basis, here's what I would recommend doing with the remaining non-racial deities in a world where the church of Heironeous is, in the original sense of the word "catholic."

Boccob: Most definitely keep him, but give his followers a cult-like status. Make sure they're persecuted by the followers of Heironeous.

Ehlonna: Make her a druid-only deity, a remnant of the old nature worship Heironeous's followers are trying to stamp out. Merge her "cult" with that of Obad-Hai, either making her an alternate aspect of Obad-Hai or his mate. Since Heironeous won't regard either of them as "good," they're redundant if separate.

Erythnul: Actually, here's one where the core description got it right. Leave him primarily as a god of "savages," but allow his cult a few isolated cells in "civilized" lands. Maybe give his church a strong human sacrifice element in their worship. Ally him with the similarly-aligned demons.

Fharlanghn: Frankly, I would drop him from the pantheon. Perhaps keep him as a legendary figure somehow associated with the protection of weary travelers. Perhaps particularly superstitious individuals will somehow ask for his protection before a long journey, but they wouldn't actively worship him as their sole god.

Hextor: Ahh, we can have some fun here. If Heironius has become the analogue to the Catholic church, it only makes sense that his eternal rival should be reworked with an Islamic flavor. Give his followers a vast kingdom rivaling the size of Heironean lands and give its residents a Middle Eastern appearance. Djinni, the dervish prestige class, all that sort of stuff in D&D can be traced back to Hextorian lands. Depending on the needs of your campaign the Hextorians could be actively at war with the Heironians or they could be in an uneasy peace. I'm thinking that Hextor should be more accepting of racial intermingling than Heironius, with his territories inhabited perhaps by a mixture of humans, orcs, and half-orcs. It is important to keep in mind here that Hextor and his followers are only evil from Heironius's perspective.

Kord: Kord could be refluffed as an aspect of Heironius rather than a separate deity. I like that. Kord can be a representation of Heironius's more chaotic aspects, a liberal branch of the Heironean church. Perhaps the Kordites walk a thin line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, always on the verge of excommunication but not quite heretical.

Nerull: His fluff is about right. My only change would be to limit his worship specifically to necromancers. Other people may fear and respect him, but only necromancers are crazy enough to worship him. Someday down the line he will be revered by goths, but not yet. Not yet.

Obad-Hai: Consort/aspect of Elhonna. See my entry on the other nature deity.

Olidammara: Ahh, what to do with Olidammara... The trouble here is, I like Olidammara. I like him a lot. He's a fun god. The problem is, he's hopelessly Greek. The "western" world perceives gods as above human nature. Olidammara is an undeniably "human" god. I'm afraid I'll have to drop him. It hurts.

Pelor: Pelor, like Kord, is repurposed as an aspect of Heironeous, perhaps with an epithet like "The Light of Heironeous." He would generally be portrayed as more forgiving than the big H. At the risk of mild blasphemy, Pelor is the Jesus to Heironeous's God the Father.

St. Cuthbert: St. Cuthbert should be just that... a saint. I picture him as a martyred paladin of Heironeous, elevated to sainthood by the "pope," who is associated with divine vengeance. Perhaps give him an epithet like "Heironeous's Hammer." Ooh, that makes me think, perhaps he could be a Charles Martel-like figure who was given credit for turning back the tide of a Hextorian invasion of Heironean lands.

Vecna: The man who became a lich who became a god. The very concept of men becoming gods is very Greco-Roman. It doesn't fit well with a European concept of what it means to be god. I would personally make him a servant of devilish forces. In fact, I wouldn't have him be a god, but rather a prophet of sorts who is a strong advocate of devil-worship. His followers would be spread throughout human lands, but secretively. His influence would be pretty widespread. Evil human kings would pay lip service to Heironeous to maintain their power, but their true allegiance would lie with the followers of Vecna. Go all out, have him originate a Black Mass in brutal parody of Heironean worship.

Wee Jas: Pretty much what I said about Boccob.

Basically, while all gods may be "equal" in D&D, that doesn't mean that some can't be, like Orwell's animals, more equal than others.

I think my favorite element of this setup is how the entire good-evil axis is flipped on its head depending on whether you're viewing it from a Heironean or Hextorian point of view. You could have two paladins, both "lawful good" in the sight of their god, but each able to smite the other as evil. It's a nice step towards a more subjective alignment system.

Farmer42
2008-02-02, 03:48 AM
I have to disagree with you. You have completely ignored the Norse pantheon in your view of Western religions. Ignoring the fact that your church history is faulty, the Greyhawk pantheon, especially with the inclusion of the Planescape style cosmology, is much, much more Norse than Greco-Roman. Which, by the way, is Medieval, Western, and European.

doorknobdeity
2008-02-02, 04:30 AM
The Norse aren't really medieval as we commonly know it. I, and everyone I know of, thinks more of the era of armored mounted knights (meaning, what, 11c onward), and a Western Europe dominated by the Catholic Church. Besides, hadn't most of them converted by then?

In any case, I had similar thoughts, but took a different track. I made some of the pantheon saints in a monotheistic faith: St. Bahamut, the first King of the Dragons to convert, or St. Heironeous and St. Hextorius, brothers and kings who brought the faith to their lands, one through kindness, the other through battle. These deities might also sponsor orders (military or otherwise) analogous to, say, the Jesuits, Templars, or Benedictines. St. Cuthbert, for example, I could see as the patron saint of an order similar to the Jesuits, but one emphasizing their role in the Inquisition, while Boccob's faithful I could see sitting in a monastery copying out (spell)books all day long. Other deities-- especially evil ones, or ones with a wilder bent-- would be pagan gods, the worship of whom is actively discouraged, but that doesn't stop a farming village from doing their annual festival/ritual to Obad-hai to ensure a good harvest, even if they consider themselves to be faithful devotees of the Church. The line could be blurred to a degree-- there are numerous saints that were probably old pagan kings or gods that became assimilated into the faith. I heard that Hermes was retconned into sainthood.


Also: the pope "controlled human society"? I realize that events like the Inquisition have left the impression that the Catholic Church was all-powerful, but that simply wasn't so.

Swordguy
2008-02-02, 05:11 AM
Be prepared for a whole lot of religious bickering. Just a warning.

That said, I rather like this take on D&D gods. It's different, and seems slightly more logical, at least to fulfill the goal of a more Dark Ages/Middle Ages Europe-centric game. A solid and consistent homebrew, if nothing else.

LCR
2008-02-02, 05:23 AM
I think the main difference in religion between DnD and the real world, is that i n DnD, Gods are real, you can see their influence and it is not uncommon for them to interfere with mortal affairs. That's completely different from the real world, where religion is something more metaphysical. In a world, where Gods have actual powers (and invest it in their followers, e.g. the Clerics), you can't have a monotheistic society without major problems.
Also, the pope did not "control" Europe, he had some influence, but he did definitely not rule Europe.

From a player's perspective, I find the DnD pantheon (may it be modeled after Norse or Greco-Roman Gods) much more enjoyable. I mean, how boring would it be if there was only one God who's always right ... That'd kill the fun. I want human Gods. I want to see them err. I want to usurp their place.

On another note: The Islamic and Christian God are one and the same. Both religions acknowledge this. You can't make them "rival" Gods without killing the spirit of what you want to achieve.

Armoury99
2008-02-02, 05:37 AM
the pope "controlled human society"? I realize that events like the Inquisition have left the impression that the Catholic Church was all-powerful, but that simply wasn't so.

Not all powerful, but very powerful and so fitting the analogy.

Your Norse point is good, but those races didn't really have organised religion in the way that D&D presents it. Also, Norse gods are actually very Greek in style: larger than life humans, wandering the earth having adventures, full of folly and hubris and overeaction to mortal activities... and of course they're lead by a thunder god who's son is the strongest man in the world.

The last great viking escapade is 1066, so the time argument is also right - but D&D is such a tangle of periods that it fits no historic category without significant revision.

As an idea for unifying the pantheon, I like this alot. It also increases the flavour of the deities involved and brings a more 'realistic' background to the game and that can only be good. D&D has always avoided anything approaching a decent look at theology as if it was the plague and - at least in my gaming circle - is renowned for crappy mythologies and masses of personality-less overredundant gods. Something like this has been necessary in every campaign I've ever played - even those that wanted a Greek/Norse feel.

its_all_ogre
2008-02-02, 06:38 AM
the dnd religious model will never be similar to real earth.

firstly the races are actually different and alien in many ways.
despite the fact that humans are all the same, differing only in shades of skin colour, we have huge racial issues and i am not convinced they are actually much better now than 20 years ago, when taking the whole world into account.
genocide would be what happened in a dnd world with 'real' humans, elves, dwarves and goblins. have no doubts.
secondly magic.
wizards have little reason to worship a god when, compared to a commoner, he is a god from 5th level onwards.

finally IRL god does not step down and kick ass.
kord/heironyus etc do.
you cannot compare them i feel.

MeklorIlavator
2008-02-02, 08:25 AM
I think this is a good way of making the pantheon more believable. Just a couple of points:
In Medieval society, there was at times a strong belief in Miracles, and thus a more interventionist deity makes sense. Also, during the crusades, there was a belief that Islam was a completely different religion. Ascension, you could play this up by having the Hexorians view themselves as a brother religion to the Heironeousians, perhaps changing a few tenets but keeping most of the same framework.

philippos
2008-02-02, 09:47 AM
I think this is one really good way of dealing with the core pantheon and there could easily be other areas of the world that view the setup differently. the whole Xgod is the top of the heap, could be cultural and each god has taken time to deal with a specific group, while still being involved with (to a lesser extant so saints aspects etc) each others cultures. way to go OP.

of course I scrap that pantheon most of the time and use my own, but I might consider using it after reading this.

DementedFellow
2008-02-02, 10:10 AM
Maybe I'm weird, but in a game where people can take on avatars of deities and even the deities themselves, becoming a deity isn't that unlikely.

I never saw anything wrong with the Core Pantheon, myself.

Serenity
2008-02-02, 10:23 AM
Why in the world should the D&D pantheon have to work like Medieval Europe's just because the world has medieval trappings? Why can a large pantheon of equally socially acceptable gods only exist in a blatantly Greek styled culture? Not that I don't like your take; it's interesting and quite well thought out. But I just don't agree with the premise that there's any inherent problem in the pantheon as presented.

puppyavenger
2008-02-02, 10:51 AM
Any chance of getting something like this for racial dieties or how the humans veiw them?

sbarrie
2008-02-02, 11:28 AM
You can incorporate most any god as a saint or archangel. St. Cuthbert, St. Pelor, St. Kord, Wee Jas the Shadow of Heironius, etc.. People and cults could still emulate them (getting levels in divine classes), possibly under the oversight of the Church of Heironius.

Consider making Ehlonna and Obad-Hai nature deities of different regions - like one is worshiped by pseudo-Celtic holdouts, the other Slavic.

Yahzi
2008-02-02, 12:09 PM
My main problem with the core D&D setting is simply this: It tries to be a primarily Medievalish Western European flavored fantasy realm while simultaneously sporting a diverse pantheon of almost Greco-Roman
As Frank Trollman (and others) have noted, the entire concept of D&D is set in the Iron Age, when individual, isolated city-states were the centers of power, and sailing around, killing people, and taking their stuff was considered cool.

Medieval Europe was about kings and armies, not heroes and adventuring parties.


In order for a setting to provide a proper analogue to medieval Western Europe as it exists in the public consciousness,
If you had said "historically," I would have agreed. However, I'm not so sure the "public consciousness" is that picky. :smallbiggrin:


human society must be built around a single powerful church,
Muslims? The Crusades? The Mongols and heathen Chinee?

Medieval people were aware that just over the border there was an entire civilization dedicated to the worship of the wrong god. In D&D, it's a dozen wrong gods rather than one or two, but the principle holds.

You're right that any specific society should be monotheistic (to retain the Medieval flavor) but that doesn't mean you can't have several different societies, each placing a different god at the top. Or, more to the point, each little nation worships one god, and you have a dozen popes instead of a pope and a caliphate.

I mean, Europe managed to have three popes at once, and that was with just one god. :smallbiggrin:

Ascension
2008-02-02, 01:03 PM
You're right that any specific society should be monotheistic (to retain the Medieval flavor) but that doesn't mean you can't have several different societies, each placing a different god at the top. Or, more to the point, each little nation worships one god, and you have a dozen popes instead of a pope and a caliphate.

I mean, Europe managed to have three popes at once, and that was with just one god. :smallbiggrin:

That sounds reasonable. I had never thought about it in precisely those terms. Since the PHB description basically says that people follow different gods based on class and alignment rather than geographical region, I had always pictured that any given city you came across would have altars to nearly all of them. Maybe not Erythnul or Vecna, but pretty much all the others sounded like they were supposed to be universally acceptable. If we instead divide the gods geopolitically, with different nations in different regions revering different deities, they can pretty much all be left as presented in the core rules.

Closet_Skeleton
2008-02-02, 01:36 PM
Also, Norse gods are actually very Greek in style: larger than life humans, wandering the earth having adventures, full of folly and hubris and overeaction to mortal activities... and of course they're lead by a thunder god who's son is the strongest man in the world.

The Norse Gods rip off a lot of things from Ancient Greece (giant predessors, drunkern oaf gods). The Norse Pantheon is not lead by a Thunder God and Thor is not Odin's son in every version.


The last great viking escapade is 1066, so the time argument is also right

The only important thing the Vikings did in 1066 was the Battle of Stamford bridge, where they were led by a Christian King (Harald Hardrade).

ShadowSiege
2008-02-02, 02:27 PM
The Norse Gods rip off a lot of things from Ancient Greece (giant predessors, drunkern oaf gods). The Norse Pantheon is not lead by a Thunder God and Thor is not Odin's son in every version.


That's more of a convergent evolution of the belief system than blatant ripping off. The general rule is that the number of gods worshiped by people reduces as time passes. Starting from the one god/spirit for everything, it starts getting pared down to polytheism akin to the Greeks, Native Americans, Norse, Hindu, Egyptian and other religions. From there, it may or may not be replaced by monotheism.

In regards to the drunkenness, if drinking, eating and sex were the best parts of your life of misery, it's a pretty natural conclusion that "Hey, the gods must do this all the time it's so much fun!"

tbarrie
2008-02-02, 03:33 PM
In order for a setting to provide a proper analogue to medieval Western Europe as it exists in the public consciousness, human society must be built around a single powerful church, with some sort of papal analogue who wields enough political power to unify to some extent the culture and actions of the "civilized" world. Pelor or Heironeous would be good choices.

Those brief god write-ups in the PHB are admittedly vague, but I always had the impression that the church of Pelor already held that position in the default pantheon.



Now we're starting to get somewhere. By establishing... let's say Heironius for the sake of the following argument, though Pelor would still work... Alright, we've established Heironeous as the dominant god in human lands and the measuring stick for human morality. We'll give him a pope or archbishop or something, some insanely powerful (possibly Epic) divine caster who essentially controls human society. Now that's medieval Europe.


To echo what others have said, I think you're badly overestimating the power the pope had in medieval Europe.



Hextor: Ahh, we can have some fun here. If Heironius has become the analogue to the Catholic church, it only makes sense that his eternal rival should be reworked with an Islamic flavor.

Does it? Catholics and Muslims worship the same god. A different culture with different views regarding who really knows Hieroneus's will would be a more natural analog for Islam.

kamikasei
2008-02-02, 04:16 PM
Does it? Catholics and Muslims worship the same god. A different culture with different views regarding who really knows Hieroneus's will would be a more natural analog for Islam.

Speaking as generally as possible so as not to bring the real-world religion hammer down: that is very debatable. The ecumenical, universalist impulse to say that two religions are just worshiping the same thing in different ways is not necessarily automatic or widespread. Any number of people on either or both sides of such a divide could regard the other as not merely differing in worship, but actually worshiping a false god and being deluded by evil spirits, etc. It is not unknown in the modern world for one religious group to accuse another of worshiping Satan, or for the Pope to be called the Antichrist. Now put that in a world with a broad pantheon of Good and Evil gods and Evil outsiders being worshiped as gods...

Closet_Skeleton
2008-02-02, 05:01 PM
That's more of a convergent evolution of the belief system than blatant ripping off.

How do we know that? The sources we have for Scandanavian/Teutonic dieties are all Roman or Christian. The Vikings could easily have been influenced by Greek ideas or the Greeks and Scandanavians could have existed side by side before one migrated.


The general rule is that the number of gods worshiped by people reduces as time passes.

Like in the Roman Empire, where the bigger the empire got, the more gods they had?

I don't know what theory this is (my Wiki-fu suggests that it's a German school of thought called Religiongeschichteschule), but it's probably highly debatable. Claiming that there's a progression of religious belief just sounds like an excuse for claiming someone else's beliefs are primitive compared to yours. You're also suggesting that there pre-set are levels of progress, which is utter nonsense from a scientific perspective.


Starting from the one god/spirit for everything, it starts getting pared down to polytheism akin to the Greeks, Native Americans, Norse, Hindu, Egyptian and other religions.

You missed out ancestor worship.


From there, it may or may not be replaced by monotheism.

What evidence is there that monotheism can't come first? The demise of the worship of Aten shows that monotheism doesn't only come at the end of a progression. In Bronze Age societies such as Egypt, city states had single patron dieties, when several cities where joined into a country then that country would worship a pantheon made up of the patron dieties. Polytheism has evolved out of monotheism in this way.


Medieval Europe was about kings and armies, not heroes and adventuring parties.

When was the world ever about heroes and adventuring parties? What is the real world analogue to an adventuring party?

Pirates/Bandits
Archaelogists
Explorers
Missionries
Hunting experdition
Field trip

Fantasy doesn't really fit into the real world at all.

Blackadder
2008-02-02, 06:07 PM
Speaking for the Catholic church, there are over 3,000 saints, if you want to give an single god route, simply go the Catholic way, unless it's a Heretical god, we declare it the "Saint" of such and such and bam, suddenly your simply worshiping a tiny aspect of the super-god rather than just a standard D&D style god.

Think I'm kidding? Start reading up on your Catholic saints and some Catholic holiday's the earlier history of the church was a long-series of co-opting existing religious and integrating parts of their faith into Catholicism.

Yami
2008-02-02, 06:29 PM
When was the world ever about heroes and adventuring parties? What is the real world analogue to an adventuring party?

Pirates/Bandits
Archaelogists
Explorers
Missionries
Hunting experdition
Field trip

Fantasy doesn't really fit into the real world at all.

How about the Knights of the Round Table? Ever read Beowulf? St. George and the dragon. These are set in the times of adventurers, where one man could be badass, and others would bow before him. When you have large empires, kings and armies, you no longer need to hire a motley crew of homicidal maniacs to go kill goblin marauders.

If you want to play in a more medieval times, I say go with a Birthright style campaign. I mean, if you are an all powerful wizard, you should craft your own kingdom and try and use it's resources to further your plans. Unless kingdoms and towns are small things of no use to you.

But I digress

I've never found much of a problem with the core pantheon, but then again I've also found little use for them as well. They've some decent gods, but as often as not I'll have little temples and churches to homebrewed dieties when the party needs outside divine casting. I can't really see this greek feeling you get, since the greek gods, on a whole, worked as a dysfunctonal family, rather than diffferent warring factions. I see the D&D gods as seperate entities rather than parts of a combined whole. I mean, think about it, We've how many gods dealing with death in D&D?

Lolzords
2008-02-02, 06:38 PM
I like what you've done with Hextor, but instead of dropping Olidammara, I would change him to a her, purely for the whole "lady luck" feel.

Tequila Sunrise
2008-02-02, 06:59 PM
Hextor: Ahh, we can have some fun here. If Heironius has become the analogue to the Catholic church, it only makes sense that his eternal rival should be reworked...

I was so sure you were going to say "with a Satanic flavor".

Anyway, you are right that the d&d pantheon doesn't really fit in a medieval world. But I also think that most people find greek-style pantheons more fun in their rpgs than gothic-style gods, so I think ideas like yours will always be reserved for home brews.

TS

Tequila Sunrise
2008-02-02, 07:07 PM
I was so sure you were going to suggest reflavoring Hextor as a Satanic figure.

Anyway, you are right that the d&d pantheon doesn't really fit in a medieval world. But I also think that most people find greek-style pantheons more fun in their rpgs than gothic-style gods, so I think ideas like yours will always be reserved for home brews.

TS

doorknobdeity
2008-02-02, 07:19 PM
Some more thoughts:

Medieval Christians apparently thought that Muslims worshiped a pantheon that included Apollyon (a demon referenced somewhere in the Bible) and a goddess named Termagent-- the Song of Roland makes much of this. In addition, in some primary sources from the Crusades, I've found that the Muslims referred to the Franks as "polytheists." Make of that what you will. As both sides accused the other of being pagans, I don't think having unrelated religions for your Frankish and Muslim analogues would be that untrue to the spirit of the times.

Racial deities could be integrated into the local super-religion the same way I suggested for Bahamut or Heironeous-- they are a historical figure who spearheaded their race's conversion, or an old pagan god who has been turned into a saint of Religion X (though this wouldn't jive very well with the whole "divine power made manifest" thing).

I think heresy has some very interesting possibilities. The overzealous inquisitor archetype can be interesting, but what if those inquisitors were actually doing the right thing? Cults to Erythnul would be burned out before they could corrupt and murder half the country, that crazy demon-summoning wizard could be stopped before he inevitably screws up and looses his evil on the world, etc.

Leon
2008-02-02, 07:50 PM
My main problem with the core D&D setting is simply this: It tries to be a primarily Medievalish Western European flavored fantasy realm while simultaneously sporting a diverse pantheon of almost Greco-Roman anthropomorphic gods with very particular specializations who are, with a few notable exceptions, all perfectly culturally acceptable as objects of worship.

A D&D-style pantheon would be only logical if the core setting was meant to have a heavily Greek feel. The prevalence of city-states in D&D would correlate nicely with such a setting as well. The problem is, the bulk of the classes and monsters aren't flavored properly for a Greco-Roman game. It's definitely meant to be medieval Europe, but it lacks almost everything that made medieval Europe what it was.


Given its a fantasy Pantheon it doesn't have to fit any particular outline, it fits with the "Generic" setting it was designed for and after that its up to the DM to tweak the provided information to suit the needs of their setting.

If you choose to not like what the pantheon does then thats your choice - not a inherent problem with the PAW.

Closet_Skeleton
2008-02-02, 08:10 PM
How about the Knights of the Round Table? Ever read Beowulf? St. George and the dragon.

Niether of which are historical stories or particularly medieval in setting. St. George was a Roman soldier, the Knights of the Round Table are Romano British and Beowulf is also set around the 5th century. The medieval flavour of these stories is only there because they were written down (or at least our surviving copies were) in medieval times.

There isn't any point trying to make D&D more medieval. You'd lose 75% of the Monster Manual.

ShadowSiege
2008-02-02, 08:18 PM
How do we know that? The sources we have for Scandanavian/Teutonic dieties are all Roman or Christian. The Vikings could easily have been influenced by Greek ideas or the Greeks and Scandanavians could have existed side by side before one migrated.

I'm saying that it the similarities aren't necessarily the result of theistic plagiarism. I looked a bit further, and similarities between the two are a result of them diverging from a theoretical Proto-Indo-European religion that served as the basis for both. According to the following map, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Neolithic_Expansion.gif, the Greeks, Germanic Tribes, and Scandinavians are all linked to a single migration branch, the Thessalio-Danubian branch


Claiming that there's a progression of religious belief just sounds like an excuse for claiming someone else's beliefs are primitive compared to yours. You're also suggesting that there pre-set are levels of progress, which is utter nonsense from a scientific perspective.

I'm saying that it's a trend, not a progression. I'm not saying any religion is better than another or more advanced. My opinion is that they're all a load of bull, and energy wasted on carrying on with belief in the supernatural is simply that: wasted.

As for pre-set levels of progress, sorry I gave the impression that I was suggesting that, because it's ridiculous as you've said. Levels of progress are assigned either during or after they've passed (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age... Atomic Age, Information Age) as a means of distinguishing certain periods of history based upon a technology's introduction.


You missed out ancestor worship.

Indeed I did. Oversight on my part.


What evidence is there that monotheism can't come first? The demise of the worship of Aten shows that monotheism doesn't only come at the end of a progression.

Actually, Egyptian mythology was merging gods before Aten came along (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amun). Monotheistic worship of Aten replaced the polytheistic religion, and then taken back.

Metal Head
2008-02-02, 08:37 PM
I definitely like this take on the D&D gods. The whole concept of polytheism in the middle ages seemed so weird. I especially like how certain gods might have different aspects. It reminds me of the Seven from Song of Fire and Ice. As some people have pointed out, it's not a completely accurate representation of medieval Europe, but I like it. But imagine all the cheesy Monty Python lines that would be done. "No one expects the Heironean inquisition!"

ShadowSiege
2008-02-02, 08:47 PM
Neither of which are historical stories or particularly medieval in setting. St. George was a Roman soldier, the Knights of the Round Table are Romano British and Beowulf is also set around the 5th century. The medieval flavour of these stories is only there because they were written down (or at least our surviving copies were) in medieval times.

There isn't any point trying to make D&D more medieval. You'd lose 75% of the Monster Manual.

Ah, but there is Robin Hood, a distinctly medieval figure. As for the others, since the Middle Ages is an ill-defined time period of roughly 400CE to 1500CE, you could make a claim to all of them being Medieval, but only on a technicality.

And yes, if we wanted to make D&D more in line with the Middle Ages, lots of things would have to go, such as universal literacy, which was impossible due to the lack of a printing press. Granted, with D&D this can be hand waved by having spell users cast, I dunno, Reproduce Text as part of their taxes or something.

Drakron
2008-02-02, 09:45 PM
Did I missed the memo about were in the DMG it said "after the Fall of the Roman Empire" ...

That is the issue you can never escape, religion have little to do with progress (besides slowing it down) and in terms of culture it certain does not make it more "advanced".

The issue you seem to have is you presume religion eventually go monotheist despite all evidence the whole "lets be Christians" was more of a historical accident that anything else.

Little_Rudo
2008-02-02, 11:35 PM
I do like what direction you are taking the pantheon, but honestly, it's probably easier to homebrew a religious system for your world then to try and shoehorn a good-sized pantheon into a relatively monotheistic feel.

One of my DM's did this to achieve the same sort of feel you're aiming for, and it worked out nicely. The 'main' church is probably closest to a mix of Pelor and Heironeus (depending on if you're a commoner/clergyperson or a paladin/war priest), and is based on the Roman-Catholic church during the medieval and renaissance periods. The church itself is mostly human and dwarven (the dwarves merged it many centuries ago with their established religion), though almost everyone besides the elves has taken it up since the church rose to power during a war sixty-five years ago. Like someone mentioned earlier, saints actually serve a similiar role to demigods: Most clerics follow a particular saint, and this can define their available domains and spells. Very Crystal Dragon Jesus (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrystalDragonJesus). My character in the game is a pacifistic-healer who follows the main church.

There's also a paganistic goddess, who was once commonly worshiped but is somewhat vilified by the major religion. Despite this, most peasant-folk still retain a lot of superstitions and beliefs based on the old religion. She's still worshiped by some tribes and elves (who were alive before the main church rose to power and don't have the same inclination to convert). The third and final goddess is basically the Judeo-Christian Satan; we haven't played long enough to lean more about her.

Sorry, this turned into a rant... just pointing out that, if you want the feel of a monotheistic religion, you probably are better off homebrewing it than trying to shoehorn an established pantheon into the roles.

ForzaFiori
2008-02-03, 12:37 AM
despite what source books and most players say, I think the feel of DnD is (if you forget about the tecnology for a moment) closer to that of the ancient roman/greek/egyptian/norse/what-have-you than to medieval. In the ancient times, there were small cities that were part of larger countries, but most people never left their cities, much like a farmer most likely hasn't been to the capital in a DnD setting. There are stories abounding of Heros and Heroins defeating mythical monsters, fighting for and against gods, of gods coming down and interfering, and wars are on a much smaller scale. Most of this is exactly the same in DnD. In a medieval setting, you have much more movement of people, the mythical creatures have died down, there are much less tales of heros and heroins, much less tales of gods interfering, etc, and battles are on much more massive scales. With the exception of technology (which is at medieval or maybe even renaissance hights), DnD seems much more like the ancient cultures, and therefor the Deities and Pantheons set down are perfect for it.

Jack Zander
2008-02-03, 01:52 AM
The only thing medieval about the DnD setting is the technology level. And even that can get screwy when DMs put gnomes with mechanical skills in their campaigns.

Charles Phipps
2008-02-03, 02:54 AM
For me, I tend to think my biggest problems with D&D aren't that there's no real monotheism. Taoism and Hinduism show that you can have multigod pantheons and the Catholic Church itself said they were severely worried about polytheism developing with the veneration of saints.

But really, it helps tremendously if people remember that D&D isn't the Middle Ages. It's the Hyborean Age.

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Arias, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

You have the Stygians (Egyptians), Aquilonians (Medieval Fantasy), and everyone else under the sun.