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

[Voadam]

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

Most of the direct Greyhawk material I have read does not mention a tie between faith and power at all.

Xagyg ascended by capturing demon lords and demigods in a big magical artefact trap and using their power to make himself a demigod.

From the 1e boxed set major gods are worshiped but rarely interact in mortal affairs for example and explicitly few hold them as patrons.

 

[Weiley31]

4E Dawn War origin/Forgotten Realms Dieties+Some Greek mythology trends thrown in+depending on the gods, they can be distant or a major part of a person(Think Neverwinter Nights' Aribeth)+Baldur's Gates 3 take (which I heard is a kitbash combo of how the gods/act from 2E and 3E).

 

[Maxperson]

Most of the direct Greyhawk material I have read does not mention a tie between faith and power at all.

Xagyg ascended by capturing demon lords and demigods in a big magical artefact trap and using their power to make himself a demigod.

From the 1e boxed set major gods are worshiped but rarely interact in mortal affairs for example and explicitly few hold them as patrons.

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The 1e Deities and Demigods might be where it is said. That book would cover 1e Greyhawk by default.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

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.

From the 1e DDg:

The source of a deity's god head is in some way connected to his or her earthly worshipers, though in what manner the gods derive this power is a mystery totally beyond mortal (or immortal) comprehension. However, it is true that a god's power often increases or
decreases as the number of his worshipers varies. Thus deities, and clerics as their agents, constantly try to increase the quantity and quality of their worshipers.

The notion of the gods needing worship - and their power being proportional to their worshippers' number (and quality) comes to D&D primarily through Leiber (Lean Times in Lankhmar and Under the Thumbs of the Gods) and Moorcock (where it's pretty ubiquitous), but the trope has a long history. Also in Fred Saberhagen, IIRC.

The Epic of Gilgamesh suggests that the gods would starve without their worshippers' sacrifices; Aristophanes in the Birds has a flock block the smoke rising to the gods and threaten to starve them - these are related ideas.

It crops up biblically - you defeat your neighbour, kill and enslave the population, steal the idol and other temple goods (usually to melt down) and disempower the god.

Much more recently, Pratchett and Gaiman.

I think it's a pretty persistent idea.

 

[Zeromaru X]

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.

It's certainly not the most helpful way to do it if you want to have the focus on the faithful and not of on the gods. One of the most common complains I've read about the Forgotten Realms is how the focus is too much on the gods, to the detriment of other plots that do not feature gods. And not only fans complain about this, but also many Forgotten Realms' writers as well (including Ed Greenwood himself).

Yet, making worship/belief a prerequisite for the gods' level of power and even existence automatically makes the gods big players on the setting, because, well they need their worship juice. Which in turn makes it more difficult to make stories that do not feature gods, because, really it makes no sense no having the gods involved in a setting where their own existence depends on the level of their involvement.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I don't have a problem with it. Those stories are wrong. Over the prime planes there are thousands of different gods who all created everything all by themselves. That makes those stories very clearly wrong. They didn't all create everything. Instead the mortals created the gods through their belief. They believe that X god created everything, so X god comes into existence with a story about that god creating everything.

This take just like nullifies the fantasy of the fantasy genre. It makes all gods just a product of collective schizophrenia...

 

[Xeviat]

My setting has an animistic spiritual system. Except for the big gods, gods of the elements or world wide features like the Sun and the Moon, gods are very local. Some gods have religions built around them, like a church that follows the teachings of their founders and keeps the founder's swords; the spirits of those swords have become the gods of the faith.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

So what? Just do it differently in your own game if you want to. I don't see the problem.

 

[Voadam]

This take just like nullifies the fantasy of the fantasy genre. It makes all gods just a product of collective schizophrenia...

I disagree that it nullifies the fantasy. The Warhammer/40K Chaos gods explicitly work this way and that feels very fantasy to me.

A world where belief affects reality supernaturally seems very fantasy to me.

Fantasy can work many different ways.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I disagree that it nullifies the fantasy. The Warhammer/40K Chaos gods explicitly work this way and that feels very fantasy to me.

A world where belief affects reality supernaturally seems very fantasy to me.

Fantasy can work many different ways.

Well, Warhammer is the kind of setting were collective schizophrenia creating things makes sense...