Monotheism in a D&D World: Brainstorming Ideas

[Libertad]

Taiia from Deities & Demigods

An interesting aspect of fantasy literature is the use of a creator deity. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series did not overtly state their world’s cosmology, but there were implications of a single god responsible for the creation and oversight of reality. This is not a surprise as both men were very religious Christians. Deliberate or not, it’s quite common for a writer’s personal beliefs and experiences to feature in their work.


There is a lot of appeal to polytheist settings, in part because multiple deities offer a lot of variety for players and thus more potential character concepts for Cleric PCs. But in recent days I’ve wondered about ways of creating a monotheist D&D setting which does not simply replicate the Abrahamic God. The goal of this is not to create a religion which demands only worship of one deity or who believes in one deity, but a setting cosmology where the existence of but one deity is an objective truth. Even in settings where one entity is responsible for the creation of reality itself (Ao from Forgotten Realms or the High God of Dragonlance), such “overdeities” are often distant figures who are not worshiped.

True Monotheism vs. Monolatrism and Dualism

Many campaign settings for Dungeons & Dragons attempt to go the polytheist route, but this doesn't always feel genuine. As mentioned in my earlier Pantheist Priest post, true polytheism is rare. A lot of fictional religious traditions acknowledge the existence of multiple deities but clerics and mortal populations choose to honor one. This practice is actually monolatrism, for monotheism is both the belief and worship of one deity. There is also the case of dualism where both divinities are equally strong and divine. While Christiantiy and Islam have a Satanic figure and enemy of God, his power and wisdom is but a fraction of the true Abrahamic deity.

In some rare cases there are deities (such as Lolth of the Forgotten Realms) who keep their followers in the dark about the existence of other gods and goddesses so that they can consolidate their power base. This is a more accurately monotheist, but it is often a constructed lie which flies in the face of cosmological evidence in the campaign setting. In this case, the setting is still polytheist and monotheism is objectively false.

Nature Spirits, Demonic Cults, and the Granting of Spells



Oath of Druids by Daren Bader

In some settings divine magic can come from non-godly sources. Druids draw their power from nature itself, while demon lords and archdevils can grant spells to mortal followers despite not being true gods. While most D&D settings have divine spells as an essential part of deity worship, in a monotheist setting this may not necessarily be the case. Below are a list of options for one to use in a monotheist setting.

Option One, Lesser Servitors and Patrons: A monotheist deity may act through divine intermediaries such as angels and saints to commune with the faithful. Perhaps the One God’s wisdom is too great for any mortal mind to handle, so they instill an infinitesimal fraction of their essence into numerous servants to carry to the mortal realm.

Or maybe so-called “divine” spells are merely a powerful entity sharing its gifts with another; a powerful dragon or nature spirit may be able to instill spells, but they are not gods because they can fall prey to the vices of arrogance and short-sightedness. They are merely children of the One God, like everything else in the universe.

Option Two, Stealing the Gift: An individual’s communion with the One God results in holy gifts in the form of spells, meant only for the most virtuous of servants. Demons, devils, and false prophets might have found a way to tap into this universal consciousness of divinity and take the spells which rightfully belong to the One God.

This is an especially vile form of spellcasting, for it allows otherwise good men and women to be tricked into following selfish and wicked folk who wield divine magic as “proof” of the One God’s favor.

Option Three, the Nature of Magic: Arcane magic is ill-described in most settings as-is. It is an irreligious form of spellcasting which comes about via study or a supernatural entity in one's ancestral bloodline. Christianity and Islam (I cannot say for sure about Judaism) posit magic as a negative force granted by demons, evil spirits, and the like. One could go this route, although in this case this can be very restrictive on party dynamics if clerics and mages are expected to be mortal enemies.

The Adversary



Eye of Sauron from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings

As a monotheistic setting requires an unorthodox reworking of the cosmology, this raises the ever-important question of the deity's status and why evil occurs. The true god might be equivalent to a wise parental figure who seeks to guide mortal kind to greater awareness and prosperity. In many cultures the presence of evil is caused by a fallen figure, a malevolent force which seeks to lead the righteous away from the oneness of God.

Or perhaps the deity is entirely beyond morality, equivalent to a force of nature of the cosmos which simply is. That very same deity might have multi-faceted personalities, the creator and the destroyer, bringer of harvests and plagues. Different cultures might worship and prize different aspects as befits their circumstances. In a way it is similar to druids who revere different aspects of nature, or religious denominations who share certain core assumptions but differ on several key issues.

Or a potential idea is that the deity is actually malevolent, a cruel tyrant who cares more for loyalty above all and will inflict a host of plagues upon nonbelievers. This is more common in some Japanese Role-Playing Games, where the mortal priesthood is not just corrupt but the creator of the world itself is a tyrant who the heroes must destroy or seal away. Such a campaign is the most unorthodox one, as it puts heroic PCs against the power structure of not just established religious orders but the cosmology itself.

Going for a classic fantasy trope of good vs. evil is a ready-made trope common in fantasy media as well as our own culture. But making the leader and/or originator of evil a deity or equivalent power would make the cosmology a dualistic one instead of a monotheistic one. If the monotheistic deity is truly good, why does she/he not vanish evil from the world? Is the creator omnipotent and/or omniscient? Why are mortal heroes and good-aligned outsiders relied upon as intermediaries?

As these very questions have yet to be answered in a satisfactory manner in the real world and spawned centuries of debates among philosophers and theologians, you don't need to concoct an answer in your own campaign immediately.

Monotheism for Pathfinder

The 3rd Edition book Deities & Demigods had an entry on designing a monotheist cosmology for D&D. It also contained the sample deity Taiia, a universal entity of creation and destruction with major denominations honoring different aspects (and thus a different set of domains). The guidelines were that a monotheist deity should have at least 20 domains, which at the time there were 22 domains total in the Player's Handbook. In Pathfinder's Core Rulebook, that number has almost doubled to 35 domains! This is not including the myriad new domains provided in supplements for either game.

As the vast majority of domains govern aspects of the world (artifice, fire, war, etc) with only a few specifically devoted to morality (chaos, evil, good, law), one should allow Clerics to pick 2 domains of their choice as a sufficient option. A Cleric with Chaos and Liberation might be drawing upon the One God's teachings of overthrowing tyranny and fighting unjust social structures, while another Cleric of that same deity derives inspiration from Artifice and Fire to build great creations and temples. Evil, Madness, and Void might be a little too macabre for a "fair and just" deity of light, but otherwise 32 domains is more than enough for most character concepts.

Further Reading

This idea has been bandied about before, so here's a list of articles and threads:

Monotheism in Fantasy RPGs

Does monotheism have a place in fantasy?

Monotheism or Polytheism?

Making Monotheism Work in Pathfinder

How would you handle a monotheistic religion?

Although it's purely in the idea stage, I'm also hard at work on writing up a sample monotheist fantasy setting. I might explore it in future posts if this one generates enough interest.

[Wartex1]

Here's an idea about why the world would be justified as is with the one god.

Maybe the one god is bored, and the world is his game. There's evil and magic and fantastic beasts to create epic battles and conflicts to provide enjoyment, but like any TRPG player, he gets attached to certain beings. Divine magic would be the god providing said abilities to his or her favorite beings.

[TheCountAlucard]

Part of the problem, as has been brought up in other threads, is defining what a "god" is. The dictionary definition of a lowercase-g god is a superhuman spirit or being worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes. Pretty much anything of CR ~9 or over (or most spellcasters who get to third-level spells) would qualify if it could manage to foment a cult for itself.

Obviously the in-game bar for divinity isn't granting spells to clerics, either, since Orcus and Asmodeus can do such despite being a demon and a devil, respectively.

And even if there is an "objective single god," it doesn't necessarily follow that he or she would be worshipped or even acknowledged as such across the whole setting. Kobolds will still probably worship powerful dragons, degenerate cultists will still probably make sacrifices to demon lords or archdevils, Aboleths will still probably claim to be older than this universe and its god, and so on.

[Karl Aegis]

Cut out the middlemen and just worship your DM. Nothing in any D&D world has or ever will have more power than the DM.

[McStabbington]

Well, an in-depth analysis of how this particular problem is resolved IRL would smash forum rules to splinters, but the very first hurdle that would have to be cleared in making a monotheistic game would be creating a consistent, in-game answer to the Problem of Evil.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the Problem of Evil is a derivation of a logical argument known as an argument against an inconsistent triad. Basically, the logical argument works in two steps. Step one proceeds by demonstrating that some person or system believes and upholds as true Statements A, B and C. Step two then demonstrates that while any two of A, B and C can be accepted as true, you cannot logically accept all three as true because A, B and C are logically inconsistent.

For monotheistic religions, the Problem of Evil posits that the following statements are logically inconsistent:

A) the one true Deity is all-powerful.
B) the one true Deity is all-good.
C) Evil exists.

C seems on the face of it to be fairly indisputable, yet as a matter of marketing, if nothing else, any believer in the one true Deity is going to want to claim that said Deity is all-powerful and all-good. I mean, it's just a lot easier to pitch to the unbelievers that they should get in the good graces of the god with all the power and all the good rather than simply a lot of either. But that just brings to the forefront the question of why such a deity would allow evil to exist.

Historically, most monotheisms have tried to resolve this by adherence to what are known as theodicies, or justifications or defenses of their deity in the face of evil, which all proceed by attempting to argue that evil really doesn't exist. Doubtless most of us are familiar with some of those theodicies: that evil serves a greater good or greater plan, that confronting evil builds the souls of believers, that evil stems from some evil outsider or betrayer of the cause that will be dealt with during some form of final judgment. Some more recent work on the Problem of Evil has reintroduced the idea that maybe the one true Deity isn't all-powerful (this, for instance, is the tack taken by Deists who argue that God set the universe in motion and then let it operate under the laws of physics apart from subsequent intervention) or that the Deity isn't all-good.

Now, just to be clear, this is not an attempt to argue for any one position. As a matter of logic, any one of the three can be discarded without problem, and discarding any one offers intriguing narrative possibilities. One of the most powerful themes of the LotR series, for instance was a theodicy that evil ultimately fades away because of it's self-defeating nature, and that even those good, compassionate acts which seem in the short run harmful in the long run prove critical to defeating evil. Preacher was a comic series with a brilliant plot centered around foiling a purported one true deity that proved ultimately to be quite malevolent. And Supernatural built an entire series around the premise of a deity that ultimately abdicated power.

Any answer offers strong narrative possibilities and consistent logic. What is crucial, however, is to recognize that the Problem of Evil is, well, a problem, and one that needs to be addressed before you introduce the setting to your gamers.

[goto124]

I read that polytheism is popular because you can have several gods fighting each other for power/followers/good/evil/what have you, which makes for a compelling setting waiting to tell compelling stories. Players can choose to follow any one of them for whatever personal reasons, or even switch from one to the other, or...

What purpose does monotheism serve? How does the explicit monotheism contribute to an interesting setting?

In a fantasy setting, B does not have to be true Followers will of course believe the god(dess) is all-good, but this only means she'd put up a nice facade of 'goodness'.

If everything was nice and easy and all the sugar things, life would be rather boring wouldn't it? So she has to set up challenges, have evil in the world, etc. She doesn't want pure goodness in the world, she wants an interesting world.

[Mando Knight]

Historically, most monotheisms have tried to resolve this by adherence to what are known as theodicies, or justifications or defenses of their deity in the face of evil, which all proceed by attempting to argue that evil really doesn't exist.

I think a better phrasing of the argument isn't be that evil doesn't exist, but rather that dualism (Good and Evil as equal in their opposition, which is implied by the problem) is false... that in spite of its actions and apparent power, Evil is permitted to exist only as far as it pleases the one that defines Good.

Actually, not making a clear resolution to it can be just as interesting: there isn't a single widely-accepted answer here, so leaving it apparently unresolved can be viable, as well. Is that evil priest's connection to divine power stronger than the god's control over it? Is the god actually evil? Or is there something greater at work than either the priest or the players understand? The players don't even need to know that, except that in the end there is one real god of the realm: the DM.

Or you can take that to an end: the "good" in "all-good" is "for the betterment of the story" rather than any normal ideal of good and evil.

[Mastikator]

Cut out the middlemen and just worship your DM. Nothing in any D&D world has or ever will have more power than the DM.

And yet the players always derail the DM's plan, always without fail.

[goto124]

Cut out the middlemen and just worship your DM. Nothing in any D&D world has or ever will have more power than the DM.

I've been thinking about a Paladin of the Fourth Wall. I wonder how wierd it can get

[MysticMonkey]

I will probably repeat something said in one of those articles here, if so i apologize for being redundant.

In the real world, polytheism and monotheism have existed at the same time, in various forms, for thousands of years. The difference is merely cultural.

In established fantasy worlds like forgotten realms or dragonlance, the gods are more involved in the world and more attention had been given to the pantheons. The Chronicles of Narnia were written shortly after Lewis' conversion to Christianity and that was part of the point of the stories. I have read mixed accounts about Tolkien's theology of LOTR, but it seems to me that there was less concern for the creators presence or lack there of in the stories which were part of a linguistic project for him and also more focused of the characters who are taking responsibility for things.

So in any homebrewed world, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to have both. The belief would have to be cultural wide. But polytheist cultures are not resistant to strange gods and can often, over time, find a place for them in their own pantheon. Cities and people might focus on singular gods but polytheists don't need to worship every god just believe that there is more than one. But there could easily be pockets of monotheists here and there, perhaps isolated from other groups of their race.

[Honest Tiefling]

One question I have, is why does the monotheist god need to be all powerful and have created the world? What if they sprang up from the thoughts of mortal races or from when the first murder occurred or the first spell was cast? Then you could ditch the adversary altogether, because the god is still in the process of ascending to ultimate power and that's why there is evil.

Or the god does some dualistic thing and is both good and evil, because without one the other would not exist. They can be their own adversary! Heck, the evil side could be more of a figure that tempts and sways the weak to evil, and evil exists because people choose it, and the god provides. The god makes the rains, the seasons and the crops, but does not force followers to pick good OR evil, but lets them choose. The idea that mortal races pick their own destiny.

[Roetroc]

I agree with the Teifling in that a single entity that is not all powerful would be the way to think about it.

It needn't be still ascending rather just limited in power.

The natural fabric of the universe- its laws and chaos - is the 'adversary' that the god is trying to overcome.

This could would in a area where the laws of nature are as we see them now and the god is trying to make his followers place in the world more prosperous, or nature could be wild and dangerous and the god uses his powers through his followers in order to fight back against a hostile world.

[Anonymouswizard]

I will probably repeat something said in one of those articles here, if so i apologize for being redundant.

In the real world, polytheism and monotheism have existed at the same time, in various forms, for thousands of years. The difference is merely cultural.

In established fantasy worlds like forgotten realms or dragonlance, the gods are more involved in the world and more attention had been given to the pantheons. The Chronicles of Narnia were written shortly after Lewis' conversion to Christianity and that was part of the point of the stories. I have read mixed accounts about Tolkien's theology of LOTR, but it seems to me that there was less concern for the creators presence or lack there of in the stories which were part of a linguistic project for him and also more focused of the characters who are taking responsibility for things.

So in any homebrewed world, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to have both. The belief would have to be cultural wide. But polytheist cultures are not resistant to strange gods and can often, over time, find a place for them in their own pantheon. Cities and people might focus on singular gods but polytheists don't need to worship every god just believe that there is more than one. But there could easily be pockets of monotheists here and there, perhaps isolated from other groups of their race.

My current project features a world with both polytheistic and monotheistic religions, but then again there is no evidence of anything beyond the material world. Magic seems to work like divine programming (complete with glowing screens and keyboards hovering in midair), but the world don't know enough to make the connection.

One question I have, is why does the monotheist god need to be all powerful and have created the world? What if they sprang up from the thoughts of mortal races or from when the first murder occurred or the first spell was cast? Then you could ditch the adversary altogether, because the god is still in the process of ascending to ultimate power and that's why there is evil.

Or the god does some dualistic thing and is both good and evil, because without one the other would not exist. They can be their own adversary! Heck, the evil side could be more of a figure that tempts and sways the weak to evil, and evil exists because people choose it, and the god provides. The god makes the rains, the seasons and the crops, but does not force followers to pick good OR evil, but lets them choose. The idea that mortal races pick their own destiny.

How about all the one god can do is tempt, either towards good or towards evil?

I like the idea of a monotheistic god that isn't all powerful, as this is the actual reason why magic in my world works like programming in my world. The god, basically powerless to actually interact with the world beyond manipulating chance, sacrificed himself to essentially overlay an interface to the world to allow humans access to the power of creation.

Nobody has actually worked out that though, all they know is that about 2000 years ago a philosopher discovered magic.

[Flickerdart]

A creator deity is not necessarily good, and there exist philosophies that assume the big man upstairs is at best negligent and at worst malicious. Both have their place in a fantasy setting:

• A malicious deity has an obvious function - he is the source of the PCs' troubles in a rather direct way. A creator deity might be malicious for many reasons - he wants his creation to constantly evolve, he created existence only for the purpose of creating suffering, or the sapient races disagree with him over what should be and the whole free will thing makes it hard to just mindwipe everyone. He could wipe everyone out and start anew, but there are many reasons why he doesn't - if only because, like a player who's tired of savescumming, he's already wiped a thousand universes and is finally willing to let this one play out.
• A negligent or neutral deity might not view any process that happens in the world differently from any other. Murder, theft, and arson are all the same as plants growing or gravity. The deity is literally just there to make sure that effect follows cause - the sun rises, people are born, live, and die, chemical reactions take place as they should, etc.

Either way, devotion to such a deity is likely to be very different from ye olde "gimme some heals, brah" that you get with Pelor and the rest of them. You'd need a vastly different cosmology too - it's not terribly likely that there's much of an eternal reward in this case, but a particular bent of creator deity might like to create many worlds and shove souls through them depending on their behaviour or his whims.

[goto124]

the world is his game. (snip) but like any TRPG player

like a player who's tired of savescumming

AKA he is a Sims player?

*places people in pool*
*removes ladder*
MWAHAHAHAHA!

[erikun]

Re: Spellcasting and Magic

This one seems like a fairly simple problem to resolve, although how exactly one person might resolve it may be different from how another person resolves it. (which is somewhat part of the problem) It's rather helpful to note that magic does exist in the D&D world even without deities, in the form of arcane magic. So it's clear that deities are not directly necessary for spellcasting, at least with the core D&D rules. From there, it's just a matter of how a person wants to reason that Clerics can still cast spells. Perhaps Clerics are no different from other spellcasters, just having a different spell list with no Arcane Spell Failure chance? After all, Bards have a different spell list as well and also have no Arcane Spell Failure chance, although only in light armor. Perhaps divine spellcasters get the power from a different source than arcane spellcasters, one that is a bit "nicer" to life, hence why it has greater access to healing and restorative spells.

Honestly, I would think that Celestials and Angels (and Devils/Demons) are a considerably larger concern to the cosmotology than spellcasting. After all, the general assumption with Angels/Demons running around is that there is a "good" side and an "evil" side and there are creatures taking each. Although certain choice spells, such as Dictum and Blasphemy, come to mind as potentially problematic as well.

Re: Role of the Monogod (and adversity)

Unless a decision is made to use an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good god, then I don't see much conflict with a single deity existing and pretty much everything in standard D&D being the same. You do lose the "evil fanatical Clerics working for their deity try to destroy the world" plot, but you can still have evil fanatics of any other class and if divine magic isn't tied to worshipping the monodeity, then you could even have misguided Clerics doing exactly the same thing.

It's probably better to make some sort of decision on how involved said deity is in the daily lives of people, though. If only the greatest mages can even glimpse at the idea that only one deity exists, then it would be rather hard for most characters in the setting to really recognize any difference. I mean, if the local band of Cleric say they're getting powers from a different deity and they're still getting their powers, then who can tell the difference? On the other hand, if divine spellcasters and only divine spellcasters can get magic from the one deity, then they would tend to have a much greater say in society. That would probably lead to some places in the setting becoming overly divine-controlled, especially if the Clerics can get away with saying things and suggesting laws which don't necessarily run counter to what the monodeity wants.

It would also bring up the question of what, if anything, would cause a divine spellcaster to lose access to their spellcasting and divine abilities.

[Karl Aegis]

It would also bring up the question of what, if anything, would cause a divine spellcaster to lose access to their spellcasting and divine abilities.

DM says you can't access divine spellcasting. You can't access divine spellcasting. Question answered.

[Anonymouswizard]

DM says you can't access divine spellcasting. You can't access divine spellcasting. Question answered.

To expand on this, it might be easier to say that divine (or arcane) magic simply doesn't exist. In fact why does the split have to be arcane/divine, for example:

Magic is just magic, it is all based around telling the spirits which wield the power of creation to do your bidding. However, there are two ways to cast magic, academic magic revolves around using the Reality Manipulation Interface to command the spirits (wizards), while enlightened magicians can see and talk to the spirits directly. The only downside is that these spirits are stupid, and will do exactly as asked.

[Honest Tiefling]

How about all the one god can do is tempt, either towards good or towards evil?

It could also be a god that choose NOT to eradicate evil. Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I could also see a god that lets mortals choose their own path, or sets down multiple paths for them, some good, some evil. Why is there evil in the world? Because mortals choose evil and this god is uninterested or incapable of destroying evil. Even if it is a supreme being, why would it force people upon a particular path of good or evil?

[veti]

I've several times run campaigns in a monotheistic setting. It's really not that complicated.

One, clerics can be of any alignment (obviously). They're all part of one church, but they just see its doctrines differently. It's not hard to get plenty of inspiration for how that might work. There are organised factions within the church, with philosophies ranging from charitable to fascist, but it's not obligatory to belong to any of them.

Two, the god is mostly non-interventionist, but if it does choose to do something, it will be far from clear why it's happenning. In the wake of any natural disaster, great or small, there will be no shortage of amateur prophets, augurs and doomsayers keen to tell you what specific form of wickedness the Almighty was targeting this time. Plus a lot of more levelheaded people saying "it's just weather, get over it".

There is plenty of scope for fighting, both covert and overt, between factions of the church - they theoretically report to the same hierarchy, but that hierarchy is too far away to effectively enforce much discipline on them. There are even holy wars.

To the more complex theological and cosmological questions: these are obviously hotly debated by scholars, but since there's no likelihood of anyone arriving at an authoritative answer - and indeed, most scholars wouldn't even want to do that (because it'd put them out of a cosy indoor job) - there's no real need for the DM to take a stand on these at all. Let the players adopt whichever theory makes them happiest. Job done.

[Anonymouswizard]

It could also be a god that choose NOT to eradicate evil. Perhaps I didn't make this clear, but I could also see a god that lets mortals choose their own path, or sets down multiple paths for them, some good, some evil. Why is there evil in the world? Because mortals choose evil and this god is uninterested or incapable of destroying evil. Even if it is a supreme being, why would it force people upon a particular path of good or evil?

I just gave a suggestion, there's many others. I've used this exact argument in real life.