D&D General Religion in D&D: Your Take

[Voadam]

How does religion fit into your D&D campaigns? What models of religions and faiths do you prefer? Are their settings that do religion really well for you? Do you make it an important part of worldbuilding or even play?

I like having a variety and spectrum of religions in my game for players to engage with or not as they choose and for different things to be able to come into play.

I do a cosmological model where divine spellcasters are simply a spellcasting tradition that tap divine power, they are not granted power actively by gods and there are nontheistic clerics and even some magical secret societies use non religious clerical tradition spellcasters.

This allows different god and religious models and makes it easier to use plot elements like heresies and schisms and following false gods and corrupt clerics or infiltrator clerics in good churches or good paladins going overboard in crusades and inquisitions as possibilities.

Cults can spring up over heroes and dragons and giants and angels, gods can be little (nymphs) or big (Olympians) and walk the earth or distant and never seen and there can be different in world theories on what they are and what defines them and what they are like.

I typically run a homebrew mashup setting of multiple campaign setting elements and generally run modules and adventure paths in a fairly open sandbox way with a lot of options for player involvement in choices and some setting development.

The biggest religion thing is the almost continent-spanning henotheistic Holy Lothian Empire from Ptolus with the fantasy fairly medieval church of Lothian an ascended martyred paladin with a vast widespread church structure with political influence and cathedrals and bishops in cities throughout the empire and inquisitors and orders of knighthood and tons of saints, many who are incorporated from outside stuff (including gods).

Lothian allows a lot of fantasy medieval church tropes and options.

Part of my setting backdrop is an imperial civil war including the head of the church seeking to become the head of the empire and assert control over the entire church as a fantasy pope versus bishop control over their bishoprics in outer areas of the decaying empire that have become essentially independent city states. Accusations of corruption of the church flow both ways against both sides.

The empire being henotheistic and having a primary relationship with the Lothian church still allows there to be other gods and pantheons with followers in the empire too, so I use the gods of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms and Golarion and other pantheons in different places in and out of the empire and they can be options for PCs and allow more polytheistic styles of issues with Isis mystery cults and non-christian based styles of polytheistic religions in the world.

I also like having multiple options for cultures so different groups of my Orcs might worship the typical Gruumsh pantheon while others follow the Golarion Orc gods or the Warhammer ones or they might be Klingon culture and have killed their gods, or be fanatical followers of one-eyed Odin.

I am also a big fan of the Conan model where some areas might have overlapping religious traditions that vary regionally, so some people might see Bane as the FR tyrant god while others see him as 4e Dawn War war god with some seeing him as the same being and try for some syncretism with others sticking to only one version as the truth of the God.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I mean, Movie-Crom did send Valeria back to save Conan's life, so he can't be as uncaring as the Cimmerian claims.

Conan had to demand Crom's attention first. And if he didn't listen, to Hell with him.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I do a cosmological model where divine spellcasters are simply a spellcasting tradition that tap divine power, they are not granted power actively by gods and there are nontheistic clerics and even some magical secret societies use non religious clerical tradition spellcasters.

I think D&D would be hugely, hugely benefited by a model of Clerical and Druidic power NOT emanating from specific gods, and indeed in 4E that's the approach that was clearly outlined, and it kind of also the original model for the Cleric which was more that they worshipped "the gods" not "a god" (also reflected in 2E's description of the Cleric which differentiated it from Speciality Priests). Pushing Clerics into being priests of SPECIFIC gods, as most AD&D settings did, was a terrible mistake and helped make the cosmological model even more of a mess.

 

[Maxperson]

I think D&D would be hugely, hugely benefited by a model of Clerical and Druidic power NOT emanating from specific gods, and indeed in 4E that's the approach that was clearly outlined, and it kind of also the original model for the Cleric which was more that they worshipped "the gods" not "a god" (also reflected in 2E's description of the Cleric which differentiated it from Speciality Priests). Pushing Clerics into being priests of SPECIFIC gods, as most AD&D settings did, was a terrible mistake and helped make the cosmological model even more of a mess.

I never viewed specialty priests as clerics of gods and clerics as multiple gods in 2e. To me it came across as clerics were the rank and file priests and specialty priests were basically the officers. A special branch of that particular god's clerics.

Not that you couldn't be a cleric of a pantheon in 2e.

 

[Laurefindel]

Religions in my games are played fast and loose as faith can be a subjective and delicate subject.

Otherwise, I tend to take a polytheistic approach; characters and even clerics are encourage to do what most inhabitants of the world do; pray to the god that has power over the issue at hand, even if it's an 'evil' deity. Taking to the seas? Better pay homage to the Goddess of the Sea, even if she's a despicable b***h. Spring is late in coming? Somebody didn't pay their dues to the winter god or goddess. Or perhaps the sun god is being a prick? Regardless, the gods are playing their power game and mortals are stuck in between.

I also like to incorporate lesser, more local deities in my game. My last FR game played around the area of Everlund prominently featured Shiallia - a Korred deity of nature also known as the 'midwife of the high forest'. Not exactly the most player-facing deity and she didn't have any temple, shrine, or dedicated followers, but she was important to the local population and had a big part in the story.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It seems to me that a 'specialty' priest would be the priest that tended a particular temple or was in charge of or lead the rites/rituals of a specific god but not that they'd ONLY worship that specific god within the pantheon. Only that they were the keeper of that god's house within the larger family of gods within the pantheon.

But I don't know how it actually worked historically.

 

[Celebrim]

I think D&D would be hugely, hugely benefited by a model of Clerical and Druidic power NOT emanating from specific gods, and indeed in 4E that's the approach that was clearly outlined, and it kind of also the original model for the Cleric which was more that they worshipped "the gods" not "a god" (also reflected in 2E's description of the Cleric which differentiated it from Speciality Priests). Pushing Clerics into being priests of SPECIFIC gods, as most AD&D settings did, was a terrible mistake and helped make the cosmological model even more of a mess.

I don't have "druids" in my game as part of the "no real religion" rule and also because I find the D&D druid too narrow, but I do have shamans and shamans do work by a general transactional model of getting divine power through multiple sources. That makes, in your conception, all of my clerics "specialty priests".

I don't understand why you think have specialty priests makes the cosmological model even more of a mess. In the cosmological model I outlined above, it makes perfect sense that no god is handing out power to an agent without some strong oversight about how that power is used. Likewise within my setting, since shamans are acting more as free agents for anyone willing to loan power, it makes since that clerics and society in general tend not to trust them in the slightest and indeed generally treat them as suspicious workers of black magic. I mean who knows what they might be up to, right?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree that there are other ways. What I disagree with is the idea that gods needing worship/belief to exist is a bad way to do it or one that doesn't make sense given how D&D works. We should all just pick the way we prefer and not try to slam the ways of others as "bad" when bad is just your(general you) opinion.

The issue isn't that it is (necessarily) a bad way.

It's that it's been done to death. Over and over and over. Nobody considers alternative approaches 90% of the time, and because FR is always being pushed so hard, its way gets front and center billing every. single. time.

Does anyone know if Greyhawk deities work that way too? I sure as hell hope not.

 

[Voadam]

Definitely not true of Oerth of Greyhawk, Oerth of Faerun, or Krynn. What D&D setting are you thinking of?

Can you tell me what you are referencing in Greyhawk for Gods warring against other gods?

Iuz is in the world and led the Greyhawk Wars, but that was mostly mortal politics. St. Cuthbert is said to be against him but I don't remember the setting saying it has come to a direct god on god fight though I have seen references that it could.

Correlon and Lolth as a war between gods gets included because the nonhuman gods are incorporated, though not particularly Greyhawk specific.

Hextor and Heironeous are described as clashing and fighting and seeking to destroy each other but that seems mostly it that I can think of.

 

[Celebrim]

It seems to me that a 'specialty' priest would be the priest that tended a particular temple or was in charge of or lead the rites/rituals of a specific god but not that they'd ONLY worship that specific god within the pantheon. Only that they were the keeper of that god's house within the larger family of gods within the pantheon.

But I don't know how it actually worked historically.

That's more or less how it worked historically leaving aside that practices vary so widely that it's impossible to make a single claim.

Priests didn't generally claim only their god was worth worshiping and would have attended public rites of other deities, it's just they were initiated into the secrets and mysteries of a particular cult and set aside to perform the particular duties of keep that deity propitiated. In my game, most priesthoods are modeled loosely after the Vestal Virgins, albeit with standards that vary widely depending one what that god cares about. The reason for this is that it's only those sort of sacred orders in polytheistic society where you can see a match between D&D's assumption that being a priest also gives you access to sacred and divine power. Normally, the idea of priest was confined to rites of propitiation and not necessarily to that the priest himself acquired power from his office. That said, Gygax I think was heavily influenced by Egyptian polytheism which very much was about spells cast by the priests to accomplish basic tasks.