While they are typically associated with religion or faith, an palladin's spells are divine and they can use a holy symbol as their spell, i cannot see any written requirement for an palladin to worship or swear lojalty to a deity in order to gain their class abillities, so is that the case, do they have to be devout? And if it is not the case, why must an oathbreaker select an deity (and presumably worship that deity) in order to attone for their sins and once again swear their sacred oath?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
A Paladin does not need to have any faith whatsoever in 5e. In older editions they did, but in 5e they swear an Oath to the universe so powerful that they are granted special powers. That Oath can de to a specific deity, but doesn’t have to.
The Cause of Righteousness
A paladin swears to uphold justice and righteousness, to stand with the good things of the world against the encroaching darkness, and to hunt the forces of evil wherever they lurk. Different paladins focus on various aspects of the cause of righteousness, but all are bound by the oaths that grant them power to do their sacred work. Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god.
Paladins train for years to learn the skills of combat, mastering a variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield: power to heal the sick and injured, to smite the wicked and the undead, and to protect the innocent and those who join them in the fight for justice.
The Oathbreaker does not need to “select a deity” to atone. What that entry in the DMG says is that after they have atoned, they select a deity, and it can be the same or different deity than they he’d before, if they even had one before.
OATHBREAKER ATONEMENT
If you allow a player to choose the Oathbreaker option, you can later allow the paladin to atone and become a true paladin once more.
The paladin who wishes to atone must first shed his or her evil alignment and demonstrate this alignment change through words and deeds. Having done so, the paladin loses all Oathbreaker features and must choose a deity and a sacred oath. (With your permission, the player can select a different deity or sacred oath than the character had previously.) However, the paladin doesn’t gain the class features specific to that sacred oath until he or she completes some kind of dangerous quest or trial, as determined by the DM.
A paladin who breaks his or her sacred oath a second time can become an oathbreaker once more, but can’t atone.
My guess is that to be a Paladin in the first place the gods aren’t that choosy as long as they keep their Oath. But after they break their Oath, it takes a certain amount of “divine intervention” to absolve them. Basically, one of the gods sticks their neck out for the Paladin to give them a second chance, so that deity expects some extra from that Paladin after that.
My other guess is when they wrote that passage in the DMG, they forgot that the weren’t requiring Paladins to worship gods in this edition. Either that or they initially wrote Paladins to still need gods, but they changed the PHB to make gods optional for Paladins and forgot to go back and change the words “a deity and” to “a deity or” in the DMG.
If your world literally has gods (especially if, as the late, great Sir Pterry put it "the gods had a habit of going round to atheist's houses and smashing their windows.) it doesn't really make any sense for anyone to be an atheist.
That said, IamSposta has a very good answer and a good way to interpret the discrepancy between the DMG and the PHB. You could look at it like this, a Paladin follows certain ideals, justice for example. It's their devotion to their ideal(s) that give them their powers. If they don't uphold their ideals their "connection" to the power gets severed. Why? Depends on the world I guess. Maybe the gods of justice got pissed of at Patrick the Paladin claiming to be a champion of justice despite not being very just so the gods severed his connection to the divine powers of justice. To earn that trust back he must do more than just swear an oath to justice, ie, he needs a deity to allow him "back in". Think of it as get your driver's license. As long as you don't abuse it you can do whatever you want but if you lose it because of drunk driving you might have to attend AA meetings to get it back.
The only way I could imagine a paladin that wanted to avoid tying himself to a named god is to make him Agnostic, searching for the truth, and believing what was embodied by the Greek philosophers as a search for truth in logic. This similar life quest could be interpreted as a quest for justice. But the problem will always come back to the question, justice by who's standard?
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If your world literally has gods (especially if, as the late, great Sir Pterry put it "the gods had a habit of going round to atheist's houses and smashing their windows.) it doesn't really make any sense for anyone to be an atheist.
Eh, the Athar faction in Planescape already had an answer to that: just because a being's really powerful doesn't make them a god.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If your world literally has gods (especially if, as the late, great Sir Pterry put it "the gods had a habit of going round to atheist's houses and smashing their windows.) it doesn't really make any sense for anyone to be an atheist.
Eh, the Athar faction in Planescape already had an answer to that: just because a being's really powerful doesn't make them a god.
Technically it does. Or rather, how do you tell difference and does it matter? :P One could also point out the difference in not believing in a god and not accepting their existance. To paraphrase Sir Pterry once more. Even if you know that the gods exist you don't to believe in them. It would be like believing in the postman. ;)
A good example of this in literature is Sanya from the Dresden Files. As one of the Knights of the Cross he is analogous to a paladin. He grew up in communist Russia where religion was doubted. He has been told that a nail from the cross in embedded in his blade that can slice through steel. He thinks it might be aliens.
Play it how you want, but the PHB clearly talks about the powers of a cleric and paladin coming from a god.
Cleric
"Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.
Harnessing divine magic doesn’t rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes....
Creating a Cleric
As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes lists of many of the gods of the multiverse. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign.
Once you’ve chosen a deity, consider your cleric’s relationship to that god. Did you enter this service willingly? Or did the god choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How do the temple priests of your faith regard you: as a champion or a troublemaker? What are your ultimate goals? Does your deity have a special task in mind for you? Or are you striving to prove yourself worthy of a great quest?"
Paladin
"Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
The concept of a paladin, has been a holy knight, of some god or goddess. Even evil paladins have an evil god patron. But play your campaign and paladin as you want. This isn't as much of a rule as the concept of the class. Every concept can be tweaked, as long as your DM is ok with it. I have thought that warlocks should have a better option for choosing a clearly good aligned powerful patron, maybe an archangel or such. That isn't in the class concept, but I think it should be. So play your godless paladin and have a great time doing it! The game can be customized as much as we want, only limited by our imagination and the DM's tolerance! ;)
Play it how you want, but the PHB clearly talks about the powers of a cleric and paladin coming from a god.
Cleric
"Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.
Harnessing divine magic doesn’t rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes....
Creating a Cleric
As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes lists of many of the gods of the multiverse. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign.
Once you’ve chosen a deity, consider your cleric’s relationship to that god. Did you enter this service willingly? Or did the god choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How do the temple priests of your faith regard you: as a champion or a troublemaker? What are your ultimate goals? Does your deity have a special task in mind for you? Or are you striving to prove yourself worthy of a great quest?"
Paladin
"Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
The concept of a paladin, has been a holy knight, of some god or goddess. Even evil paladins have an evil god patron. But play your campaign and paladin as you want. This isn't as much of a rule as the concept of the class. Every concept can be tweaked, as long as your DM is ok with it. I have thought that warlocks should have a better option for choosing a clearly good aligned powerful patron, maybe an archangel or such. That isn't in the class concept, but I think it should be. So play your godless paladin and have a great time doing it! The game can be customized as much as we want, only limited by our imagination and the DM's tolerance! ;)
that is specifically for clerics however, many spellcasters cast divine spells without being connected to any particular gods, for instance druids (some druids worship nature deities, but their magic comes from nature itself, they are extensions of it and there is an clear difference between an druid who reveres and respects an nature deity with an cleric of the nature domain), rangers cast divine spells but that too comes from "the divine essence of nature itself" just like a druid does rather than from nature gods, heck xanatar's guide to everything even mentions clerics who serve an philosophy or force rather than an deity, while the paladin class feature says that an paladin casts spells "as an cleric does" clearly there are large differences in what spells are available to each class and the abillity scores used to cast, many oath of conquest paladins are said to swear allegiance to bel the archdevil, oath of the crown paladins seem to swear allegiance to an ruler or society itself even if some do swear allegiance to an god of law, oath of the ancients paladins predate clerics by a few hundred or thousand years, like all of these oaths seem quite separate to the worship of gods, and for an paladin to just take up the worship of an god independent of these other structures and systems they are also connected with seems kind of like blasphemy and false worship, heck they even say "Charisma is your spellcasting abillity for your palladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions", the idea of god worship does not seem to be as central to the concept of the paladin anymore, and it seems like the designers do not assume paladin spells come from the gods anymore
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
The class concept and the PHB clearly mentions gods and deities multiple times, even referencing the gods that are frequently worshipped by paladins. The class is intrinsically linked as being a holy (unholy) knight. Yes, there are conquest paladins, but even they can be worshipping some evil deity or quasi-deity such as an archdevil. I have seen good aligned conquest paladins also (harder to frame your oaths and such, but generally want to terrorize evil, so they are less likely to plague the land). So the whole game concept is only limited by our imagination and what the DM is willing to let you do.
While a cleric has to get their power from a god, there is nothing that says they have to worship that god. The god grants the cleric power because they believe that doing so will increase their hold on the world, not because the cleric is particularly pious.
This goes even more so for a paladin who may or may not get their power from a god and even if they do, they may or may not know which god has granted them the power.
While a cleric has to get their power from a god, there is nothing that says they have to worship that god. The god grants the cleric power because they believe that doing so will increase their hold on the world, not because the cleric is particularly pious.
This goes even more so for a paladin who may or may not get their power from a god and even if they do, they may or may not know which god has granted them the power.
again the caveat from xanatar's guide to everything about clerics in some settings getting power directly from concepts and philosophies or who worship entire pantheons exist but is up to the DM to implement, and athas where the gods straight up died and clerics get their power from the elements nowadays. Otherwise i agree with this and think it makes sense
The class concept and the PHB clearly mentions gods and deities multiple times, even referencing the gods that are frequently worshipped by paladins. The class is intrinsically linked as being a holy (unholy) knight. Yes, there are conquest paladins, but even they can be worshipping some evil deity or quasi-deity such as an archdevil. I have seen good aligned conquest paladins also (harder to frame your oaths and such, but generally want to terrorize evil, so they are less likely to plague the land). So the whole game concept is only limited by our imagination and what the DM is willing to let you do.
nothing says an conquest paladin has to be evil, they are the archetypical crusader and while they are implied to fall closer to lawful neutral or lawful evil, that is not at all reflavouring the class. Also archdevils are not able to grant divine spells, there is a reason why you can be a warlock of an archdevil but not an cleric of an archdevil, they cannot actiually grant you spells directly, but they know a few arcane secrets that no wizard could ever learn that they are willing to share with you, for a price. Yes the class is the archetype of the holy knight, but holy does not mean gods per se. And we still have subclasses comming out that shy away from the concepts of the divine, the oath of the crown paladin does not give one flying shit about the gods, they just want to fight for king and country, an Arthurian knight
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Before this thread becomes too old to necro, I just want to lay down two cents for posterity: Anyone who makes an atheist Cleric or Paladin is more interested in himself/herselflarping and explaining why they're so special than playing the game with other people. This character's backstory is so contrived and unnecessarily derived it will make other players around him/her ask, "Why not just play something else? Like a fighter... Fudge it, just blow my brains out the next time you tell me you don't need to believe in a god to smite something." In my opinion, it's not creative but distracting and even a little destructive towards the intended creativity of the "holy" or "sacred" warrior.
Believe it or not, I think there's plenty of creative space in the implied sandbox of paladin/cleric, and if you don't like it.... just play a different class! They're all pretty great! Atheist Fighter: heck yea! Atheist Wizard: makes sense! Atheist Bard: Sure why not?
ps. I felt someone had to say it, everyone was too encouraging for this nonessential, extra stuff. I for one appreciate the Lawful Good ol' devotion paladin paddlin orcs in the name of Tyr.
I'd say there's someone who lacks creativity, and it's not the people who are playing clerics and paladins who don't follow a god. Playing a cleric who doesn't worship the gods has always been a legit choice in D&D, barring a few setting-specific exceptions, and there are plenty of ways to roleplay it. Provided you're actually willing to use your imagination instead of automatically declaring it impossible.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
First, throwing clerics and gods into a thread about paladins and their potential gods is a straw man. They are not relevant to this this discussion at all. Second, there are ample reasons one can make a non-religious paladin that are not contrived or self-centered. Third there are some oaths, looking at you crown and glory, which seem more like a stretch for it to involve god than not, while some, devotion and redemption seem, imo, to fit better with gods involved. Others, like ancients, can go either way pretty easily.
Your want your paladins religious, great. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. Either way, don’t get judgmental about how other people choose to play.
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While they are typically associated with religion or faith, an palladin's spells are divine and they can use a holy symbol as their spell, i cannot see any written requirement for an palladin to worship or swear lojalty to a deity in order to gain their class abillities, so is that the case, do they have to be devout? And if it is not the case, why must an oathbreaker select an deity (and presumably worship that deity) in order to attone for their sins and once again swear their sacred oath?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
A Paladin does not need to have any faith whatsoever in 5e. In older editions they did, but in 5e they swear an Oath to the universe so powerful that they are granted special powers. That Oath can de to a specific deity, but doesn’t have to.
The Oathbreaker does not need to “select a deity” to atone. What that entry in the DMG says is that after they have atoned, they select a deity, and it can be the same or different deity than they he’d before, if they even had one before.
My guess is that to be a Paladin in the first place the gods aren’t that choosy as long as they keep their Oath. But after they break their Oath, it takes a certain amount of “divine intervention” to absolve them. Basically, one of the gods sticks their neck out for the Paladin to give them a second chance, so that deity expects some extra from that Paladin after that.
My other guess is when they wrote that passage in the DMG, they forgot that the weren’t requiring Paladins to worship gods in this edition. Either that or they initially wrote Paladins to still need gods, but they changed the PHB to make gods optional for Paladins and forgot to go back and change the words “a deity and” to “a deity or” in the DMG.
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If your world literally has gods (especially if, as the late, great Sir Pterry put it "the gods had a habit of going round to atheist's houses and smashing their windows.) it doesn't really make any sense for anyone to be an atheist.
That said, IamSposta has a very good answer and a good way to interpret the discrepancy between the DMG and the PHB. You could look at it like this, a Paladin follows certain ideals, justice for example. It's their devotion to their ideal(s) that give them their powers. If they don't uphold their ideals their "connection" to the power gets severed. Why? Depends on the world I guess. Maybe the gods of justice got pissed of at Patrick the Paladin claiming to be a champion of justice despite not being very just so the gods severed his connection to the divine powers of justice. To earn that trust back he must do more than just swear an oath to justice, ie, he needs a deity to allow him "back in". Think of it as get your driver's license. As long as you don't abuse it you can do whatever you want but if you lose it because of drunk driving you might have to attend AA meetings to get it back.
As a matter of truth, an Atheist is his own god.
The only way I could imagine a paladin that wanted to avoid tying himself to a named god is to make him Agnostic, searching for the truth, and believing what was embodied by the Greek philosophers as a search for truth in logic. This similar life quest could be interpreted as a quest for justice. But the problem will always come back to the question, justice by who's standard?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Not really. no. :)
Not even remotely close to accurate.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Eh, the Athar faction in Planescape already had an answer to that: just because a being's really powerful doesn't make them a god.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The Bleakers had a simpler answer. None of it effing matters, we’re all doomed anyway.
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Technically it does. Or rather, how do you tell difference and does it matter? :P One could also point out the difference in not believing in a god and not accepting their existance. To paraphrase Sir Pterry once more. Even if you know that the gods exist you don't to believe in them. It would be like believing in the postman. ;)
A good example of this in literature is Sanya from the Dresden Files. As one of the Knights of the Cross he is analogous to a paladin. He grew up in communist Russia where religion was doubted. He has been told that a nail from the cross in embedded in his blade that can slice through steel. He thinks it might be aliens.
A paladin without a god, is called a fighter! lol
Without a god or goddess, the paladin (or cleric) has no spells. It's kind of intrinsic in the classes. ;)
Incorrect. Neither class actually requires the character serve a deity.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Play it how you want, but the PHB clearly talks about the powers of a cleric and paladin coming from a god.
Cleric
"Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.
Harnessing divine magic doesn’t rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes....
Creating a Cleric
As you create a cleric, the most important question to consider is which deity to serve and what principles you want your character to embody. Appendix B includes lists of many of the gods of the multiverse. Check with your DM to learn which deities are in your campaign.
Once you’ve chosen a deity, consider your cleric’s relationship to that god. Did you enter this service willingly? Or did the god choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How do the temple priests of your faith regard you: as a champion or a troublemaker? What are your ultimate goals? Does your deity have a special task in mind for you? Or are you striving to prove yourself worthy of a great quest?"
Paladin
"Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power comes as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god."
The concept of a paladin, has been a holy knight, of some god or goddess. Even evil paladins have an evil god patron. But play your campaign and paladin as you want. This isn't as much of a rule as the concept of the class. Every concept can be tweaked, as long as your DM is ok with it. I have thought that warlocks should have a better option for choosing a clearly good aligned powerful patron, maybe an archangel or such. That isn't in the class concept, but I think it should be. So play your godless paladin and have a great time doing it! The game can be customized as much as we want, only limited by our imagination and the DM's tolerance! ;)
that is specifically for clerics however, many spellcasters cast divine spells without being connected to any particular gods, for instance druids (some druids worship nature deities, but their magic comes from nature itself, they are extensions of it and there is an clear difference between an druid who reveres and respects an nature deity with an cleric of the nature domain), rangers cast divine spells but that too comes from "the divine essence of nature itself" just like a druid does rather than from nature gods, heck xanatar's guide to everything even mentions clerics who serve an philosophy or force rather than an deity, while the paladin class feature says that an paladin casts spells "as an cleric does" clearly there are large differences in what spells are available to each class and the abillity scores used to cast, many oath of conquest paladins are said to swear allegiance to bel the archdevil, oath of the crown paladins seem to swear allegiance to an ruler or society itself even if some do swear allegiance to an god of law, oath of the ancients paladins predate clerics by a few hundred or thousand years, like all of these oaths seem quite separate to the worship of gods, and for an paladin to just take up the worship of an god independent of these other structures and systems they are also connected with seems kind of like blasphemy and false worship, heck they even say "Charisma is your spellcasting abillity for your palladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions", the idea of god worship does not seem to be as central to the concept of the paladin anymore, and it seems like the designers do not assume paladin spells come from the gods anymore
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
The class concept and the PHB clearly mentions gods and deities multiple times, even referencing the gods that are frequently worshipped by paladins. The class is intrinsically linked as being a holy (unholy) knight. Yes, there are conquest paladins, but even they can be worshipping some evil deity or quasi-deity such as an archdevil. I have seen good aligned conquest paladins also (harder to frame your oaths and such, but generally want to terrorize evil, so they are less likely to plague the land). So the whole game concept is only limited by our imagination and what the DM is willing to let you do.
While a cleric has to get their power from a god, there is nothing that says they have to worship that god. The god grants the cleric power because they believe that doing so will increase their hold on the world, not because the cleric is particularly pious.
This goes even more so for a paladin who may or may not get their power from a god and even if they do, they may or may not know which god has granted them the power.
again the caveat from xanatar's guide to everything about clerics in some settings getting power directly from concepts and philosophies or who worship entire pantheons exist but is up to the DM to implement, and athas where the gods straight up died and clerics get their power from the elements nowadays. Otherwise i agree with this and think it makes sense
nothing says an conquest paladin has to be evil, they are the archetypical crusader and while they are implied to fall closer to lawful neutral or lawful evil, that is not at all reflavouring the class. Also archdevils are not able to grant divine spells, there is a reason why you can be a warlock of an archdevil but not an cleric of an archdevil, they cannot actiually grant you spells directly, but they know a few arcane secrets that no wizard could ever learn that they are willing to share with you, for a price. Yes the class is the archetype of the holy knight, but holy does not mean gods per se. And we still have subclasses comming out that shy away from the concepts of the divine, the oath of the crown paladin does not give one flying shit about the gods, they just want to fight for king and country, an Arthurian knight
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Before this thread becomes too old to necro, I just want to lay down two cents for posterity: Anyone who makes an atheist Cleric or Paladin is more interested in himself/herself larping and explaining why they're so special than playing the game with other people. This character's backstory is so contrived and unnecessarily derived it will make other players around him/her ask, "Why not just play something else? Like a fighter... Fudge it, just blow my brains out the next time you tell me you don't need to believe in a god to smite something." In my opinion, it's not creative but distracting and even a little destructive towards the intended creativity of the "holy" or "sacred" warrior.
Believe it or not, I think there's plenty of creative space in the implied sandbox of paladin/cleric, and if you don't like it.... just play a different class! They're all pretty great! Atheist Fighter: heck yea! Atheist Wizard: makes sense! Atheist Bard: Sure why not?
ps. I felt someone had to say it, everyone was too encouraging for this nonessential, extra stuff. I for one appreciate the Lawful Good ol' devotion paladin paddlin orcs in the name of Tyr.
I'd say there's someone who lacks creativity, and it's not the people who are playing clerics and paladins who don't follow a god. Playing a cleric who doesn't worship the gods has always been a legit choice in D&D, barring a few setting-specific exceptions, and there are plenty of ways to roleplay it. Provided you're actually willing to use your imagination instead of automatically declaring it impossible.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
First, throwing clerics and gods into a thread about paladins and their potential gods is a straw man. They are not relevant to this this discussion at all.
Second, there are ample reasons one can make a non-religious paladin that are not contrived or self-centered.
Third there are some oaths, looking at you crown and glory, which seem more like a stretch for it to involve god than not, while some, devotion and redemption seem, imo, to fit better with gods involved. Others, like ancients, can go either way pretty easily.
Your want your paladins religious, great. If you don’t, that’s fine, too. Either way, don’t get judgmental about how other people choose to play.