Which deities and pantheons have you used in your D&D fantasy settings?

[Li Shenron]

Pretty much what the title says

The questions in more details:

1- [See attached poll] Have you used deities from real-world pantheons, from D&D fictional pantheons, or your own custom deities?

2- If you have used real-world deities or pantheons in your D&D campaigns, which ones?

3- Do you stick to one source per fantasy world (e.g. Greek deities only or FR deities), or do you mix deities from different sources (including possibly your custom)?

4- Do you allocate separate pantheons in your fantasy world, depending for instance on location or race (e.g. a Northern and a Southern pantheon, Dwarves worship the Norse pantheon, Elves have elven deities...)?

5- Have you used non-deities-based religions in your fantasy world?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Although I'm not a DM, as a player I've seen a mixture of very clearly D&D-derived deities (Bahamut and Tiamat being semi-comon) with a custom twist; I've also seen deities that were pretty clearly derived from real-world pantheons (a Thor-type god of storms/thunder). We rarely use the gods precisely as-is, though, so you could probably say that it's "custom"--certainly some deities show up that are more generic than anything else.

I'm...not sure that we have had any strictly non-theistic religions. We had a druid for a little while who revered Nature itself, seemingly with little regard for social structure, so that might count there.

I have not (yet) seen race-specific pantheons. Gods who care about particular races, sure, but everyone recognizes that they're powerful beings. Whether that entitles them to worship is a separate concern.

 

[Celebrim]

Have you used deities from real-world pantheons, from D&D fictional pantheons, or your own custom deities?

In terms of religion, I early on adopted a feel from Robert Howard or Fritz Leiber of a world with many many deities, and the feel of Greek myth where heroes regularly interact with deities. I came up with this notion that there were 1000 gods - a number so large I'd never run out of room for creativity. Occasionally when I was very young I would borrow a real world deity or one from Greyhawk, but I usually just invented them on the spot when I needed a new evil cult (and kept poor notes). However, gradually certain invented deities became reoccurring - Lado the Builder, Aravar the Traveller, Usurl God of Death, Sormkortek God of Rats, and so forth.

If you have used real-world deities or pantheons in your D&D campaigns, which ones?

I honestly can't recall, but in an organized fashion, then no. Some names may have slipped in during my games before 8th grade or so when I started to formalize my homebrew, but I can't recall which. I'm real world religious and I know wrestled with this question back as early as 6th grade as what was the most appropriate way to approach religion in the game. I decided it was by far the safest to make sure everything was obviously unreal and invented, and at some level unserious. Importing my own religious beliefs in the game would be blasphemous. And while I really didn't think I would be offending gods I didn't believe existed, I knew people who were pious Hindus and of other faiths, and I didn't want to offend them. So I extended to them the same courtesy that I wanted myself. As a highly polytheistic setting, there are elements of the style and presentation of the religion that I borrow from real world polytheism, particularly Greek and Hindu, but I try to never go as far as do even a pastiche of a real world religion.

Do you stick to one source per fantasy world (e.g. Greek deities only or FR deities), or do you mix deities from different sources (including possibly your custom)

I mix. The latest iteration includes a large number of my homebrew deities, a few Greyhawk deities (goblin, elven, and dwarf deities), and a few deities from Green Ronin's 'The Book of the Righteous'.

Do you allocate separate pantheons in your fantasy world, depending for instance on location or race (e.g. a Northern and a Southern pantheon, Dwarves worship the Norse pantheon, Elves have elven deities...)?

There are so many gods no one region or city worships them all, but usually each city selects 6-12 as official patrons that they in turn patronize. Most nations in turn also have a national patron deity. But which gods a region or city worships and which they consider alien isn't really divided along ethnic or regional lines, but simply one what is important to that regions history and most of all economy. Mining towns the world over are going to worship one or more chthonic deities, and probably one or more gods of metalworking. Farming towns are going to worship gods of sun, agriculture, and water. Mercantile towns worship gods of trade, industry, and travel. Cities and regions have a particular character, so one might worship a chaotic god of earth, and another a lawful god of earth. One might worship a good god of death, and another an evil one. One might worship the god of cunning and deceit, and another a good of justice and fairness. And it's a sort of hodge podge that is dynamic and always changing. The chaotic evil god of storms is always working to supplant the chaotic good god of water in the favor of the people, and so forth.

I do largely divide the pantheons on the basis of race, but even that isn't perfectly clear cut because the different racial pantheons are intermarried and/or interbred, so that one deity might count as being in two pantheons or a town might worship a consort of a deity that is normally considered to belong to a different racial group. Also in areas with a racial minority, a deities cult might end up crossing racial lines. The gods themselves largely act as if they were all of the same race with separate families. The dynamics are somewhere between a dystopian portrayal of the suburbs and Game of Thrones.

Have you used non-deities-based religions in your fantasy world?

No. I want a distinctly ancient feel to the world, like something that reflects in a way bronze age culture. Modern and post-modern conceptions of religion I don't feel have a place in what I'm going for.

 

[Legatus Legionis]

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[Bluenose]

In my homebrew settings there's a few deities (the Sun Emperor, the Moon Goddess, Lady Death, the Storm King, some others) known by various names in all the parts of the world I've detailed; with different attitudes depending on the local culture. There's more that are known in some cultures and not others, usually regarded as children of the greater deities. There's a lot of local deities, famous city-founders, legendary tribal heroes, some former mortals who are now worshipped as demigods. Then there's places which recognise the existence of gods but prefer to deal with local spirits for their magic. And I've got plans for other types of religion, if the campaigns move into areas where they'd be sensible.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I've used Norse, Greek, and Egyptian deities mostly. Obviously without some significant re-skinning those are human deities that don't fit especially well for demi-humans, so the D&D fictional pantheons are rowed aboard to fill those gaps. And then, of course, I've had a few campaigns where I've used multiple pantheons that were entirely of my own creation. I think my next campaign I'm going to go that route again to a degree, creating all new pantheons by cherry-picking from all three sources.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I usually just use the PHB deities. However, I have always been upset that in the core group of deities that there isn't a trickster. Yea, there's Olidammara but I'm looking for something like a Coyote or Raven. Or The Trickster from Thief The Dark Project. So I added one to the last game I ran. Which led to a wonderful sub plot where the fighter got cursed, lost an eye and had to go on a quest to regain it.

 

[Gilladian]

Pretty much what the title says

The questions in more details:

1- [See attached poll] Have you used deities from real-world pantheons, from D&D fictional pantheons, or your own custom deities?

2- If you have used real-world deities or pantheons in your D&D campaigns, which ones?

3- Do you stick to one source per fantasy world (e.g. Greek deities only or FR deities), or do you mix deities from different sources (including possibly your custom)?

4- Do you allocate separate pantheons in your fantasy world, depending for instance on location or race (e.g. a Northern and a Southern pantheon, Dwarves worship the Norse pantheon, Elves have elven deities...)?

5- Have you used non-deities-based religions in your fantasy world?

1. I use my own custom Deities, which were originally (25+ years ago) drawn from a fictional pantheon in a gaming product I used at the time.
2. Never have used real-world deities - came "close" when playing a quasi-egyptian campaign, but still used faux names.
3. I have one pantheon for all races and parts of the world, but many of the minor deities and saints vary from place to place, and are sometimes drawn from "real" religions, but fictionalized (including names) or are stolen from other rpg resources.
4. see 3 - no, there's one pantheon - they're "real" gods, and everyone worships all of them - albeit with variant names and sometimes variant aspects. Everyone knows that Nelora, Elanora, Eollana, and Nelanorith are all the same goddess in different aspects - fertility goddess of the hobbyt folk, agriculture goddess of the human kingdoms in Miraboria, or elvish goddess of the tended garden, etc...
5. I've never used a non-deity system, but I'm considering it for a variant campaign world in which wizards rule city-states on a huge island/mini-continent, and where magic dominates religion.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

When I'm running a campaign in one of my custom settings, it's all home-brewed deities.

If I'm using a published setting, I always include a bit -or a lot, depending on the case- of Planescape, so in those cases the full PS god-galore is included, with both made-up and real-world deities. Access to deities for the PCs will depend on the circumstances, though.

 

[Wik]

Pretty much what the title says

The questions in more details:

1- Have you used deities from real-world pantheons, from D&D fictional pantheons, or your own custom deities?

Yes to all three. In my current campaign, there are nine "deities" (we call 'em "Passions") that are good or neutral, and countless evil deities ("furies") that work as smaller cults.

2- If you have used real-world deities or pantheons in your D&D campaigns, which ones?

Mesopotamia's Inanna/Ishtar is a big one, as well as the Greek Hera. Those are the two big ones I drew from, though one of my faiths has ties to the Elysian Mysteries.

3- Do you stick to one source per fantasy world (e.g. Greek deities only or FR deities), or do you mix deities from different sources (including possibly your custom)?

Nope. I mix and match. And file off the serial numbers. I change names, genders, backstories - anything I can to muddy things up a bit. But I try and keep the core conceits the same... after all, that's why I stole 'em in the first place!

4- Do you allocate separate pantheons in your fantasy world, depending for instance on location or race (e.g. a Northern and a Southern pantheon, Dwarves worship the Norse pantheon, Elves have elven deities...)?

Nope. I don't think individual races should have their own gods - I like the idea that the Gods are gods, and that people take advantage of the situation and worship as needed. I do think individual races/cultures focus on specific gods, and I make sure that each culture/race has its own ways of worshipping.

Gods also have different names in different regions. But everyone worships the same gods, regardless of where you are in the world. This is, of course, just a matter of taste.

'quote]5- Have you used non-deities-based religions in your fantasy world?[/QUOTE]

There are cults galore in my games, because I think they make great villains. I also have a few PCs/NPCs who have worshipped elder gods in the past (this never ends well for anyone, of course).

As for philosophies and religions? I have in the past, but in my current world, no. I'm thinking of starting up a "cult of the emperor", where people worship the current ruler as in the lineup for divine ascension. But whether or not I do this is still in debate.