D&D General Reducing Faerun pantheon (The Dawn War treatment)

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hey fine people,

just as an exercise of thoughts, I'd like to reduce the number of gods of Faerun (across all pantheons) to a small number, much like 4e Dawn War pantheon. Which would you keep to create a comprehensive, yet not saturated, pantheon that could cover all races and important folios?

 

[Prakriti]

There are, what, 5 major nature-related deities? Silvanus, Chauntea, Mielikki, Eldath, Shiallia... pick one. There's also Gwaeron Windstrom (nature, tracking) and Valkur (sailors, the sea). Dump 'em.

Then there are 4 "Gods of Fury:" Talos, Auril, Malar, and Umberlee. Again, pick one, probably Talos.

Then there are all the heavily-armored gods relating to defense, vigilance, justice and war... Helm, Torm, Tyr, Tempus, the Red Knight... Again, pick one or two at most. Maybe Helm for vigilance and war, and Tyr for justice.

Azuth and Savras can be axed. They're just underlings of Mystra anyways.

Oghma can absorb Deneir for sure, and maybe even Gond and Milil (oddly, Milil is the god of poetry and song, but Oghma is the patron god of bards).

Moander and Talona can be rolled into one single god of corruption, poison, and disease.

The Dead Three... should have stayed dead. We don't need Cyric, Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, AND Kelemvor representing death/the dead. Pick one.

Loviatar can just go. Either roll her portfolio into the god of death or the god of fury, or let Ilmater serve in her place.

Lliira, Waukeen, Selune, and Tymora (combined with Beshaba) can stay.

Lathander's portfolio can probably be rolled into Chauntea's portfolio.

Amaunator should have stayed dead. Axe him.

Shar can take over for Leira and Mask.

Keep the elemental gods (4E turned them into primordials): Kossuth, Istishia, Grumbar, and Akadi.

That leaves us with...

Chauntea (Nature)
Talos (Fury)
Helm (War)
Tyr (Justice)
Mystra (Magic)
Oghma (Lore)
Talona (Corruption)
Kelemvor (Death)
Ilmater (Compassion)
Lliira (Joy)
Selune (Light)
Shar (Darkness)
Tymora (Luck)
Waukeen (Trade)
Grumbar (Earth)
Akadi (Air)
Kossuth (Fire)
Istishia (Water)

 

[TwoSix]

I always liked this article for a remix of the Faerunian pantheon. It leaves 27 gods, but mixes them up into different religious practices.

Organized Faiths and Silent Gods: Redesigning Religion in Forgotten Realms - Tribality

This week we have a guest post from Nitai Poddar that looks at religion in the Forgotten Realms and offers a variation where faiths coalesced and organized into a system of religions, each with its own dogma, values and philosophy. Forgotten Realms is the original homebrew setting, a patchwork...

www.tribality.com

 

[aco175]

I always liked the number of gods, it gives me lots of cults to mess with the PCs. If you are looking to cut down on more, check which ones the players take as their gods. I generally see Tempus, Lathander, Chauntea, Tymora, and Tyr. Lathander and Chauntea can be combined to make just 4.

Evil gods can have Bane, Lovitar, Talos, and Bhaal. You can throw in an elemental god rather than 4 and maybe Asmodues to make a devil cult.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, I hope this isn't an unfair thing to say but personally, the Faerun pantheon seems like the worst pantheon to do this with, and the one I'd least like to do this with, because Faerun has a lot of interest weird gods and cults, and the vast number of them somehow feels a bit more... real... in a weird way than the precise, neat setups of most settings.

One thing worth asking though, for doing this is, what's the actual objective - is it:

A) A pantheon for adventurers - i.e. gods important to normal people but not important to lunatics running around breaking into cursed tombs and getting into "stand your ground" situations with dragons are subject to elimination - which the Dawn War one kind of is, though not too badly.

or

B) A pantheon for a world - i.e. unless a god is broadly applicable to a lot of the population, they can go.

Also with the FR I'm so tempted to do a "worst of the worst" narrowing down, with everyone's least favourite, most tacky gods. I think that could work.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I dunno, we could just wait a week or two and see who's left. Gods in FR seem to die and get replaced more quickly than the NPCs do.

At least in Greyhawk where there are redundant gods between the Sueloise, Baklunish, Oeridian and Flan pantheons the gods have the common decency to stay immortal.

 

[Quartz]

Something you might do is use the concepts of syncretism and aspects. If you have two or more similar gods perhaps they are actually the same god (syncretism), or aspects of each other or a greater god.

 

[Mecheon]

If you have two or more similar gods perhaps they are actually the same god (syncretism), or aspects of each other or a greater god.

Completely agree on this. Look at similar ones and just go "Yeah, they're the same, just worshipped as different things in different regions"

 

[humble minion]

If you want an alternative approach, instead of just combining allied gods, or gods with similar interests, combine opposites. Every god becomes a janus-like two-faced figure, with a good and evil aspect (or several of them!). Opens up a lot of scope for plots and intrigues within religions in-campaign when PCs can't just assume that because someone's a cleric of god X, they're of alignment Y.

(you can probably trim a few down or combine them as well, tbh, minor gods become alternate aspects of the dual god)

Without attempting a complete list...

Tymora and Beshaba is basically canonical anyway.
Selune and Shar
Chauntea (and Gwaeron and Mielikki and Lurue) and Malar (in the good/evil duality model we don't need Silvanus anymore either, he can go in here too)
Umberlee and Valkur
Llira and Loviatar
Ilmater and Talona
Tyr/Hoar/Bane (and possibly some others, like maybe Ladguer, Helm, Torm?). I think the mirror-image thing works better when the gods your combining have the same lawful/chaotic alignment aspect - it's hard to combine a LG with a CE god...
Kelemvor (in his vaguely NG, pre-Cyric's trial iteration) and Myrkul (and you can stick Urogalan in there too)
Leira and Cyric. And probably Mask as well.
All the magic gods - Mystra, Savras, Velsharoon
Bahamut and Tiamat, of course.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I mean, I hope this isn't an unfair thing to say but personally, the Faerun pantheon seems like the worst pantheon to do this with, and the one I'd least like to do this with, because Faerun has a lot of interest weird gods and cults, and the vast number of them somehow feels a bit more... real... in a weird way than the precise, neat setups of most settings.

One thing I definitely like about pantheons like those in the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk is that the pantheons are big, messy, and lack logical structure - just like real-life polytheistic pantheons. Everyone knows about the 12 Olympians for the Greeks, but Greece had dozens, if not hundreds, of lesser gods that people also worshiped at the time. Some did get absorbed into better-known deities, but a whole bunch didn't, leaving Greek mythology cluttered with dozens of minor deities. The fact that the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk also portray their pantheons as being the result of syncretism between multiple older pantheons gives them a further realistic touch. Settings with smaller, logically organized pantheons, such as Dragonlance or even Eberron just seem a bit a bit too sleek and stylized in comparison...