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Topic: DMing Question
Ozimander
$$$$$$$$$$$
posted 06-02-2003 01:26:53 AM
How many gods and goddesses is it usually good to have? I have 29 as follows:

Index
(Gods & Goddesses)

Larethadin , [Lair-th-A-din] God of Magic (Chaotic Neutral)
Gaia, [Gae-a] Goddess of Nature and Purity (True Neutral)
Obadmara [Oh-Bed-Mah-Rah], God of Death (Neutral Evil)
Ehlogard, [Eh-Low-Gard], God of Dwarves, Courage, Combat (Lawful Neutral)
Feralusal, [Fair-Ah-Loo-Sal] Goddess of Elves, Youth, Vitality (Neutral Good)
Corellon, [Core-El-On] God of Navigation, Moon, Wanders (Chaotic Good)
Pharod, [Fair-Rod] God of Justice, Law (Lawful Good)
Fortuna, [Four-Choo-Na]Goddess of Luck, Chance, Irony (Chaotic Neutral)
Olicuth Ja’deth, [Oh-Lee-Cuth Jah-Death], God of Undeath, Corruption (Chaotic Evil)
Obadai, [Oh-Beh-Eye] God of Craft, Harvest, Smithwork (True Neutral)
Kanasius, [Can-As-Eeeus] God of Lawyers (Lawful Evil)
Bagran Toor, God of Destruction, Storms, Conflagration (Chaotic Evil)
Naraquare, [Nara-Q-Air] Goddess of Water, Purification (Neutral)
Solonor, [So-Low-Nor] God of Air, Travel, Flying (Neutral)
Gerek, [Ger-Ek] God of Earth, Oath, Solidity (Neutral)
Saimaphore, [Sa-Eye-Mah-Four] Goddess of Fire, Passion, Power (Neutral)
Carnagash, [Car-Nah-Gash] God of Knowledge, Books, Scribes (Neutral Good)
Vacena, [Vah-See-Nah] God of Hospitality, Halflings, Parties (Neutral Good)
Steven, [Stee-Ven] God of Tea, Diplomacy (Neutral)
Pedalla, [Peh-Dalla] Goddess of Scolding Hot Liquids (Chaotic Neutral)
Hannal Pyo, [Han-Al Pie-Oh] God of Passion, Poetry, Lust (Chaotic Good)
Joul, [Jaw-ll] God of Oceans, Waves, Seas Winds (Chaotic Neutral)
Ydevar, [Ed-Evar] Goddess of Bad Luck, Misfortune, Clumliness (Chaotic Neutral)
Rynwor, [Rin-Wore] God of Plague, Illness (Chaotic Evil)
Monteron ,[Mah-Te-H-Ron] Goddess of Winter, Coldness, Ice (Neutral)
Myrill, [My-Rill] Goddess of Joy, Happiness, Dancing (Chaotic Good)
Illiastar, [Ill-Ee-As-Ter] God of Time, Janitorial Duties (Neutral)
Corjenar, [Core-Jen-Arr] God of Revenge, Murder, Distrust (Chaotic Evil)
Lynira, [Lie-Neera] Goddess of Felines, Nobility (Lawful Good)

If you can add anything, feel free to. New gods that is, I feel the gods are as detailed as they need to be.

Ozius

Steven Steve
posted 06-02-2003 01:28:03 AM
My name is steven
"Absolutely NOTHING [will stop me from buying Diablo III]. I will buy it regardless of what they do."
- Grawbad, Battle.net forums

"Don't want to sound like a fanboy, but I am with you. I'll buy it for sure, it's just a matter of for how long I will be playing it..."
- Silvast, Battle.net forums

Ferret
Poing! Poing!
posted 06-02-2003 01:28:57 AM
It's never bad too have too many gods, or beings that call themselves gods. The only time to stop with them is when you can't think of a role for a new one.
Drysart
Pancake
posted 06-02-2003 01:32:29 AM
quote:
Fazum'Zen Fastfist stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
My name is steven

STOP IT

Nicole
The hip-hop-happiest bunny in all of marshmallow woods
posted 06-02-2003 01:34:04 AM
That's a bit excessive, unless you're going to fit them into pantheons and have certain ones ascribed to certain religions and stuff.

A great amount of fun I'm having with writing up my current world is the tensions between the two groups of gods... the real, godly-gods and the living dragon-gods, the latter vehemently denying the former's existance, and the former regarding the latter as simple mortals and declaring it heathenism to worship them .



I just spent
my last cent
purchasing this poverty.

Palador ChibiDragon
Dismembered
posted 06-02-2003 01:41:02 AM
quote:
Nicole was naked while typing this:
That's a bit excessive, unless you're going to fit them into pantheons and have certain ones ascribed to certain religions and stuff.

Nicole has a good point. As just one group, that's too many. Break 'em into seperate groups, and it may not be enough.

Each group of gods will likely have a god to cover each of the "important" things. Things such as Fatherhood, Motherhood, the Sun and Moon, War (allways important), Wisdom, Love, Death, Fertility, and Art/Knowledge.

Within those groups, you can have demigods and/or saints for the minor things. Travel, lost causes, music, and childbirth are good examples.

Outside of these groups, you can have some odd cults.

I believe in the existance of magic, not because I have seen proof of its existance, but because I refuse to live in a world where it does not exist.
Hireko
Kill a fish before breakfast each day
posted 06-02-2003 04:21:10 AM
Also it depends on the size of your world. A world with millions of people in it spread over five continents is going to have more gods, and more pantheons, than a one continent world with a few hundred thousand people.
Those who dance are thought insane by those who can't hear the music.
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael
I posted in a title changing thread.
posted 06-02-2003 07:44:08 AM
Here's some general thoughts on deities in your campaign setting:

Where's the God of Belly Button Lint?
There are such things as "too many damned gods". Gods should only embody something obvious (death, the sun, nature, etc), or something keenly important to a given people (valor, courage, hatred, evil). You don't need a separate entity for every element, either. Lathander from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, for instance, embodies Good and the Sun at the same time. Zeus was the chieftan of the Olympian gods, but he's also the Lightning god.

Also keep in mind that even polytheists had a certain sort of "Angel" type troop. In Zoroastrianism, you see the assorted spirits of light that attend to Azura Mazda and his allies against Ahriman. In Greek mythology, you see the Furies (female vengeance), Muses (patrons of the arts and intellectual sciences), and the assorted naiads, dryads, sylphs, etc (nature spirits). In D&D, the more powerful entities could easily be represented not by the avatars of deities or the deities themselves, but by creatures like the assorted celestials (devas, archons, aasimon, guardinals, etc) or even particularly high-levelled and deity-blessed "Celestial" versions of common critters (like dryads, etc).

In other words, don't worry about the hassle that comes from creating gods you don't plan on making an issue of. Which brings us to...

In the name of the Lore
What days are holy? How do the various churches go about celebrating? Are there sacrifices to the gods? What sort? (animal and plant offerings burnt? human sacrifice? What kind of human sacrifice?) Are there festivals? Does everyone have a personal patron god or goddess whose rituals and rites they abide on the appropriate days, or do REALLY holy people more or less have every day off as they go around respecting the rituals of all the gods?

Likewise, try to have a rudimentary dogma prepared. There's basically two versions you can go with in regards to this. The first is to sit down and hack out what races worship what individual deities, work out their creation myths, etc. That will take a LOT of work on your part. Pick up a book of Greek of mythology. Read it. Pick up a book of Norse mythology. Read it. You could quickly find yourself causing yourself all sorts of grief as you try to cook up a distinctive mythological system for each cluster of gods.

The other option is to do what EQ did: One story of how the world came into being, and give each race a patron deity. It's faster and easier, but you lose some of the depth that you'd have if you had two cultures growing up on opposite sides of the world (Native American mythology versus the Hindu/Aryan Varna system versus the Norse mythological standards). Which brings us to...

Herne the Hunted, God of All Small Rodents Destined To Die With A Wet Crunch
Anything that believes, popular gaming theory goes, can contribute belief that feeds gods. That means that potentially any sentient (or, for that matter, nonsentient animals, animistic spirits of rock and terrain, etc) entity can worship a god and that god can feed on the juice to exist.

That means that orcs, goblins, gnolls, kobolds, centaurs, satyrs, elves, dwarves, genasi, pegasi, unicorns, treants, etc might all have wildly varying and differing religious bases for belief. In other words, what do sentient nonhumans and demihumans worship?

For that matter, what about forgotten elder gods, worshipped in whispers by cults where great temples once stood. What about Cthulhu, waiting dreaming in ancient Ry'leh?

Or more to the point, what's the limitation on realistic religious knowledge you're willing to impose on the players? Unless you're actively going to DO something with a specific deity's troops, the sort of list you provided is all you really need. A ranger with "orcs" or "goblins" as a favored enemy might know something about their respective pantheons, but most people wouldn't. YOU should know, and have a private list with names, but if you're not planning on making deities a major issue in your campaign, don't break your back trying to work out complete faiths and churches/organizations for every piddly little demiurge. They can show up in clues the heroes have to research or roll knowledge:religion checks to understand the nuances of, but you hardly have to work every fine detail down. You'll find this useful the first time a PC comes along and is hot to know the specifics of the assorted religions. Make yourself some notes and work out the details as necessary.

"KISS me!" or in other words, "Final thoughts"
KISS can stand for "Keep It Simple, Stupid" and that's a GM's best friend. Elegance in simplicity. Pull a holy ritual out of your ass on the fly if necessary, and sell it with lots of detail, but don't write EVERYTHING out. That would be annoying. So keep it simple, stupid. Especially with deities. Most parties have one, perhaps two deities they pay close attention to (and usually then only if they have a ranger, paladin, druid, or cleric in the party) and the rest are pretty background noise, unless there's an opposing evil deity whose minions they do battle with.

Anyways, my $0.02 on campaign settings and their deities.

Lyinar's sweetie and don't you forget it!*
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. -Roy Batty
*Also Lyinar's attack panda

sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me

Vorago
A completely different kind of Buckethead
posted 06-02-2003 07:47:55 AM
Weird, I clicked this thread without logging in first, and Ozimander was on my ignore list (Global ignore list? Wha?) I logged in, and fine, no problem

Odd

Ruvie's Alt
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
posted 06-02-2003 08:41:12 AM
Where's the god of swords?
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