D&D 5E Forgotten Realms deities in 5E: Who the hell is Marthammor Duin?

[doctorhook]

Yesterday WotC revealed the cleric pregen from the 5E Starter Set. On the second page, it notes that this character is a cleric of "Morthammor Duin, the dwarf god of wanderers, travelers, and outcasts--those who move among strange lands and foreign peoples." Who is this deity? I haven't heard of him (her?) before, so I assume he's fairly obscure. If he's obscure, why do I want my players (brand-new table-top roleplayers for 5E) to play a divine character who's not likely to encounter another follower of the same deity in most published material?

(I realize there are some significant and possibly erroneous conclusions I'm making above, but bear with me.)

I'd like to run the Starter Set out-of-the-box in the Forgotten Realms, as presented, for both convenience and immersion's sake. I'm not a huge FR fan, but I don't dislike it at all; I just sometimes find it clunky, over-developed, and overly-composite. One feature that I dislike the most is the sprawling pantheon, particularly the racial pantheons. I realize that the elaborate pantheon of squabbling, world-interfering deities is arguably the defining feature of the Realms, but it's the one part that I think may alienate new players by virtue of its sheer scope. In contrast, one of my favorite features of 4E core (rather than 4E FR) was its neat-and-tidy pantheon; 4E core had twenty main deities who together covered pretty much every portfolio, but left room for any other divine beings to appear as exarchs, and all without the ugliness of racially-exclusive deities.

I'm not advocating pruning the FR pantheon, but is there way for me to run FR with a simplified, "For-Dummies'-style pantheon? Acknowledging that the Starter Set is still out of our hands for the next few days, is it worth keeping Morthammor Duin as the cleric pregen's deity?

Thanks for your input.

 

[Matt James]

Why not just switch out Morthammor with Moradin? Problem solved, eh?

 

[thalmin]

From the Forgotten Realms Wiki

Marthammor Duin (Mar-tham-more doo-ihn), is the young, neutral good dwarven god of wanderers and patron of dwarves who have left the clanholds to explore the world. He is also known as Finder-of-Trails, Watcher over Wanderers and the Watchful Eye. He is also an exarch of Moradin.^[1]
He approaches life with a gnome-like demeanor, curious to see what lies beyond the horizon and always willing to trade stories of travels. His is the rare spirit of dwarven exploration, and the spark of curiosity his followers associate with bursts of lightning.

 

[Mirtek]

He's part of the dwarven pantheon since at least 1992. Not just in the FR, but in the multiverse as a whole. Like most racial deities he transcends campaign settings. He's also known under the alias of Muamman Duatha

 

[TerraDave]

More like: Who in the Bytopia is Marthammor Duin?

 

[Remathilis]

Apparently, he has some pedigree.

Marthammor Duin (Mar-THAM-more DOO-ihn), known on other worlds as Muamman Duathal (Moo-AM-man Doo-AHthuhl), is the protector of dwarves who make their lives in human society in the North, rather than keeping to mountain or deep-delve enclaves. Commonly known as Wanderers, all such dwarves make offerings to him in appeasement for good fortune. Marthammor is the patron of adventurers and explorers and all those dwarves who travel or live far from the dwarven homelands, allowing them to find routes to escape or to victory in their travels. He also watches over dwarven craftsfolk of any good alignment, keeping their homes and persons safe. His secondary aspect as god of lightning is unique among dwarves. The Finder-of-Trails is a growing cult in the North, and he may be evolving into an intermediate power. {Demihuman Deities, 2nd edition}

The reference to him being Muamman Duathal means he also appeared in Monster Mythology


Muamman is the protector of adventurers, travelers, “expatriates” in non-dwarven or mixed communities, and all those dwarves who travel or live far from the dwarven homelands. His is a growing cult in those worlds where many dwarves have become urban dwellers, and he may be evolving into an Intermediate God. His secondary aspect is unique among dwarves: as a god of lightning, which he often uses as an omen. He is on good terms with Dugmaren, and the theme of traveling to gain knowledge is a shared concern of these gods. {Monster Mythology, 2nd edition}

So he thematically fits for a gold dwarf priest who wandered north. Much better than yet-another-priest-of-Moradin.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Makes a lot of sense for a gold dwarf far from home!

One thing about Duin that makes him a good fit is that he's a god of new horizons and new experiences, which is a good thing to encourage a new adventurer to do. His shrines are also pretty common on the surface (because dwarves on the surface are wandering pretty far from home), which tends to make him one of the more recognizable dwarven gods.

He's more dwarven than most wandering gods, and more wandering than most dwarven gods, which sits at a good point.

 

[doctorhook]

Thanks for the background info thalmin, Mirtek, and Remathilis!

Muamman is the protector of adventurers, travelers, “expatriates” in non-dwarven or mixed communities, and all those dwarves who travel or live far from the dwarven homelands. His is a growing cult in those worlds where many dwarves have become urban dwellers, and he may be evolving into an Intermediate God. His secondary aspect is unique among dwarves: as a god of lightning, which he often uses as an omen. He is on good terms with Dugmaren, and the theme of traveling to gain knowledge is a shared concern of these gods. {Monster Mythology, 2nd edition}

So he thematically fits for a gold dwarf priest who wandered north. Much better than yet-another-priest-of-Moradin.

Makes a lot of sense for a gold dwarf far from home!

One thing about Duin that makes him a good fit is that he's a god of new horizons and new experiences, which is a good thing to encourage a new adventurer to do. His shrines are also pretty common on the surface (because dwarves on the surface are wandering pretty far from home), which tends to make him one of the more recognizable dwarven gods.

He's more dwarven than most wandering gods, and more wandering than most dwarven gods, which sits at a good point.

I agree it's a pretty good fit for the character as-presented. I'm also hopeful that the Starter Set may have some other ties to Marthammor Duin, given Mearls' comments about the pregens' backgrounds fit well into that adventure.

That said, is nobody else annoyed by or uncomfortable with racial deities? "Sorry, you're a dwarf, so you have to worship this dwarf travel-god; we don't serve your kind in the elven pantheon."

 

[Remathilis]

That said, is nobody else annoyed by or uncomfortable with racial deities? "Sorry, you're a dwarf, so you have to worship this dwarf travel-god; we don't serve your kind in the elven pantheon."

While my own home-brew world has a one-world pantheon, I gotta admit there is a neat element to be gained from having racial deities. It allows each race to worship unique deities, keeps PCs on their toes when dealing with alternate faiths, allows conflicting concepts of creation and history, and makes the world seem bigger. I mean, our own world pulls ideas from Celtic, Egyptian, Norse, Greek, Afirican, Native American, Middle-Eastern and Far-Eastern faiths, why should the Forgotten Realms be limited to one set of deities?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Looking at the FR Greater Deities list... it seems like everything is actually pretty well condensed to a potential 4E-ish number.

There are 21 deities listed under 'Greater' for humans... however 4 of them are the four elemental deities, another 6 are evil deities (and thus wouldn't ordinarily appear in a regular deity list) and the last one is primarily a Chultan god (Ubtao) The remaining 10 greater deities are as follows:

Chauntea - goddess of agriculture
Kelemvor - god of death
Lathander - god of birth and spring
Mystra - goddess of magic
Oghma - god of knowledge
Selune - goddess of the moon and stars
Silvanus - god of nature
Sune - goddess of love
Tempus - god of war and battle
Torm - god of duty and loyalty

So that gives you an easy list to use as your primary functionality for gods in the Realms. You really needn't go much further than that if you didn't want.

However, if you did want to add a few more, you have another couple of steps. First off, you can add in the four Greater Deities of the demihuman races:

Moradin - dwarven god of creation and smithing
Corellon - elven god of music and arts
Garl - gnome god of humor and trickery
Yondalla - halfling god of bounty and family

And then you could also add in the remaining 6 non-evil Intermediate deities:

Bahamut - god of wisdom and justice
Gond - god of artifice and craft
Ilmater - god of endurance and suffering
Mielikki - goddess of forests and autumn
Tymora - goddess of fortune and skill
Waukeen - goddess of trade and money

So for a baseline game... you could stick with the 10 Greater Deities and use them. Or if you wanted more variation... add in the other 10 and give yourself 20. Or mix and match as you feel is needed... like using the 10 Greater human deities plus Moradin and Corellon (getting you closer to what 4E's setting went with in terms of domain and gods.)

Speaking personally... I'm probably going to end up looking at the actual domains the PH gives us and then determine off of that which and how many of the FR gods I'm going to make available for cleric selection. So for instance... if there's only five domains as were mentioned in the last playtest packet (Knowledge, Light, Life, Nature, and War)... then I'll probably just offer up to my players the five greater deities that align to them that they can select from:

Oghma - knowledge
Lathander - light
Chauntea - life
Silvanus - nature
Tempus - war

But we'll have to see. I'm actually hoping we might get up to about 8 domains because I'd love to see Magic, Protection/Justice, and Trickery available as well.