Here's a somewhat comprehensive list of D&D (Mostly Forgotten Realms) gods that might help you suss out the eldest-strongest. Several gods claim varying connections to the Domains of Life, Death, and Knowledge, so there's no good way to classify them as a whole and some Domains have been recently acquired as their previous owners were killed off or lost power.
In general, you'd be looking for deities that fought in the Dawn War against the primordials. It's somewhat arguable which of those groups came first (and is thus eldest), or which is technically more powerful (the deities won the war). Also there are other powers that might claim greater power, like the source of the Warlock's Great Old One pact (which is basically and Elder Thing like Cthulhu from the lost reaches of the Far Realm).
So yeah, the answer isn't very clear and, as a DM or a player, you can pretty much tailor things however you want in this regard.
The Forgotten Realms is the most used setting of D&D. There are a few others as well that have sprung up across the years, but there is more content and information printed abut the Forgotten Realms than any other setting.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Yeah that is actually a tough question, the gods tend to get... recycled as it were with their power waning and then the mantle being taken up by another (sometimes mortal) being to carry on their duties. A good example of this would be a deity like Kelemvor who took over the domain of death at one point. There are also some theories that certain of the lords of hell may be as old as some of the eldest remaining gods.
Some options from a different time would be Tharizdun, and Mystra and Lord Ao are ones that you could utilize or get some inspiration from. Since some are no longer in existence after the spell plague.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
In FR it's AO the Overgod. (But he does not take a very active role in the setting other then making sure the other gods don't muck things up. He also does not allow himself to be worshiped. Hitting people with misfortune until they stop doing so)
In other settings it's less clear. Most of the top gods are equals. In Greyhawk it's probably Tharizdun. He was imprisoned by all the other gods for his threat to the universe.
In the Dragonlance setting, the most powerful by far is Chaos, Father of All and of Nothing; followed by Paladine, the Platinum Dragon; Takhisis, Queen of Darkness; and arguably Reorx, Forger of the World and Gilean, God of Balance.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Although the overgod of a setting is usually said to be the oldest, most powerful deity, there can be powers that are greater. In FR lore, Ao does have a master. It is also suspected the Lady of Pain is at the same level of power as Ao. Don't forget the beings from the Far Realm.
After reading this discussion, I am confused. You speak of different gods for each D&D setting. My belief has always been that the different settings are all parts of the Material Plane, and gods exist on the Upper Planes. Therefore, everybody in the Material Plane believes in the same gods, which live in the Upper Planes but can visit any world on the Material Plane. Am I incorrect?
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"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
There are multiple different settings, which could equate to something like a multiverse. Each setting has it's own religions, planes, demi planes, etc. The Forgotten Realms has it's own Pantheon of Gods that are not the same set of gods that are worshipped in the Greyhawk or Dragonlance settings. Some of them however may seems similar, and most will have similar things they are masters of (ala their domains).
Typically The Prime Material Plane is pretty universal and is just used to describe the plane of existence where most of the mortals exist. Then there will be any number of other planes depending on how the setting wants to depict the homes of gods, devils, demons, primordials, etc.
Then do the Outer, Material, and Elemental Planes in Appendix C of the Player's Handbook all encompass the Forgotten Realms?
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"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
Some sources say that The Lady of Pain is the most powerful god in DND (planescape setting). She can supposedly vaporize any other god with a look, or send them to a Maze dimension of no escape. Her whole deal is keeping every other force in the planes from getting into her realm of Sigil. she doesn't allow worship though, like AO, but instead of punishing worshippers until they get the hint, she just smites them
The Chained God - Tharizdun, Creator of the Abyss. It took all of the gods and the nine hells to stop him from destroying existence and the most they could do was seal him away.
Io to be honest is the most powerful supposedly creating all other planes. If you Don't know what Io is it's Bahamut and Tiamat except they are both infused then later Io got in a battle and was separate into Tiamat and Bahamut.
It might be best to try to break this question down into a particular facet of D&D or campaign setting or what type of "powerful" might be considered to be used as "powerful." Hell, even looking up info on "gods" gets vague when it mentions gods, over-gods, primordials, ancient elder evils, demons and devils that have been around since the beginning and command worshipers, then there are demi-gods who sometimes just live a powerful life and other times rule immortally like gods themselves.
I tried to do a little investigating on such things in just the Forgotten Realms setting and general D&D stuff. Although I feel that it wouldn't take much to change a fact of whose most powerful into someone else.
Ao - The OverGod who was powerful enough to throw all other gods onto the Prime Material plane then they displeased him. He doesn't accept worshipers or grant them powers as he is far above needing such and usually does not interact directly with mortals. He promotes and demote deities as it suits him. But his only real concern seems to be making sure that the normal gods are staying true to their divine domains. (Also heard that he's allowed mortals to become gods if there is a vacancy and the mortal will fill the divine profile. He is also the creator of "Realmspace" which is the solar-system-like crystal sphere that holds the Forgotten Realms worlds and stars. Although it was theorized (not sure if it was an in character theory or out of character theory) that says that Ao wasn't able to stop the "Spell Plague" because it was coming from the Far Realm, which is outside of Realmspace and thus outside of his power.
The next two gods I'm listing a stat or two known from the D&D 3e book "Faiths and Pantheons" put out in 2002 that lists LOTS of gods and even the stats for some.
These are also stats from what I assume to be the actual gods (meaning that their avatars are listed in a separate area.)
Bane - As far as most levels go (although it might not be a good way to judge things) Bane has the most levels out of the gods with stats listed in the book. A total of 65 levels (+17 more than Chauntea.) He is considered a Greater Deity and has a Divine Rank of 17. Still, there is like a whole page stating what other stuff each god has and many of them have the line "always received a 20 on attack rolls" and "always does maximum damage" on attacks.
Chauntea - As far as Divine Rank goes (although it doesn't really state too much on what that does) Chauntea has the highest divine rank out of the gods with stats listed. She is considered a Greater Deity and her Divine Rank is 19 (+2 more than Bane) but her number of level is 48. Still, there is like a whole page stating what other stuff each god has and many of them have the line "always received a 20 on attack rolls" and "always does maximum damage" on attacks.
I have more info on this book of god stats (which doesn't typically translate well into current edition) if someone was interested in some snippets.
Lady of Pain - There seems to be less said about her designs than there is Ao, but she is probably easier to find (but doing so will probably end in character death, maze, or permanent insanity.) I seem to recall reading that she was able to block all the gods from having access to the city of Sigil where she lives (some characters have theorized that she's imprisoned there.) She absolutely does -not- want worshipers. Whenever a group has tried to worship her, she has made an appearance and murdered pretty much all participants in nasty ways. In other cases, she puts people in nigh unescapable mazes. Though I thought I read that she left someone alive once to spread the word of her horror visited upon attempted worshipers. Of interesting note, a 2e D&D adventure "Die Vecna Die" Vecna tried to make himself supreme and this was "the closest the Lady of Pain came to being overthrown."
Now lets change from "powerful" to "oldest"
Ao - I figured that for the Forgotten Realms that Ao was the oldest as he created the place. But then I came across, when looking at Ao's power, that he allowed other gods entrance to Realmspace. So maybe there are regular gods who have existed in other crystal spheres before Ao created the crystal sphere of the Forgotten Realms. Also, I see no notice of how long Ao might have existed before he created Realmspace.
Ghaunadaur - I did come across a quote from Lolth in the novel "Ascendancy of the Last" where she says that a different deity that some drow worshiped called Ghaunadaur (actually a god of oozes, jellies, slimes and the such.) Her quote is "Ghaunadaur was old even before Ao's time." To further muddy those waters, some have speculated that Ghaunadaur is the same entity as the Demon Prince Juiblex (again, a demon prince of oozes, jellies, slimes and the such.)
Selune and Shar - Selune and Shar are the two credited with creating the Astral Sea where the gods live, having done so after Ao created Realmspace. This creation was opposed by the Primodials that also existed at that time. Again, other gods might be older and simply didn't live in the area Selune and Shar created before then. The "Faiths and Pantheons" book states that the oldest myths say that Selune and Shar created Chauntea who asked for warmth to create life. Selune created the sun and Shar hated it and the two have fought each other ever since.
Tharizdun - Listed as an interloper god from Oerth (Greyhawk campaign setting), Tharizdun is credited with creating the chaotic Abyss during the Dawn War which became the place of the Primordials that the gods were fighting. As a note, the demons already existed before the creation of the abyss and Tharizdun basically made a home for them too in his bid for more power.
Asmodeus - Yes, the lord of the lawfully aligned devils is ALSO on this list. Most of this info comes from a 2e book called "Guide to Hell" that was put out in 1999. In it, it describes Asmodeus (whose name was Ahriman) being a LAWFUL giant serpent who teamed up with the other super powerful LAWFUL serpent Jazirian (deity of couatls) to bring the chaos of creation into order. The two completed most of that quest until they tried to decide on what the center of the universe would be (Jazirian was good and wanted Celestia while Asmodeus was evil and wanted Baator) and the two hurt each other trying to drag the other to their center before falling apart from each other. So this makes Jazirian and Asmodeus very old too. Oh, and Baator already had a ruler before Asmodeus fell there and replaced him. That ruler was Zargon who was listed as an Elder Evil and sometimes as a Demon Prince.
Aboleths - Aboleths have perfect memory that is passed down to their offspring. And they remember the world before there were any gods (and hate the gods for freeing the world from their grip.) The oldest aboleth (some websites say "originator of the species" is simply called "The Eldest" originated from the Far Realm and aboleths spread out from there. If there is any creature in the D&D world who could give you an accurate answer as to "oldest deity" it would be an aboleth. The race of aboleths recall a time that predates the gods, but they do recall certain "Elder Evils" who inhabit the Far Realm who do not act in a deity-ish way towards mortals.
Piscaethces "The Blood Queen" - this is the elder evil who, without trying to, created the aboleth race just by passing through. I don't have much other info on her except that I've seen two sites seem like they were quoting something by saying "she travels the currents of probability between infinite realities" and the aboleths know that she created them just as a by product of her passage.
OKAY well what about gods created by Gary Gygax when he started D&D?
Well Wikipedia states that Gygax didn't create any gods for his game and the early Clerics (one of the original classes of D&D) simply called upon "the gods" without mentioning anything in particular. Gygax seemed to not think of it as important as none of the characters were going to be of levels high enough for them to actually meet any gods. So early players called upon gods from Norse or Greek mythology or even Crom from the Conan universe. Players wanted Gygax to create specific deities for their clerics to call upon so Gygax created two gods as a joke. St. Cuthbert, who would beat with his cudgel to see his point of view, and Pholtus, whose followers were fanatical and didn't believe in other gods. Both of these gods were suppose to be good aligned and Gygax later expanded on the deities to include evil and neutral gods. For the Greyhawk campaign, St. Cuthbert and Pholtus are still around.
Okay, I think that's enough text for now. Let me know if you want more info on a specific thing (I'm currently adding older books to my collection and reading extra stuff on-line.) Hopefully this answered some questions, but probably also broadened the scope to a tiring degree.
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Good luck and may you roll 20's when you need them and 1's when you need a laugh. - myself
There is also the mild and forgotten Jergal. It has been around since death became a thing. Jergal decided to step back because it became bored and has allowed others to gain power by tapping its divine font. It literally relegates itself to an accountant of the dead, but if it were to decide to tap its actual potential, who knows. I see that Jergal is relegated as a demigod or of lesser power, but that is more due to the fact Jergal is just an observer and non-player in the pantheons of the gods. I am uncertain if the other gods even know when Jergal came into being. It is death and is powered by all death. The other gods are always trying to gain power and look tough, trying to flex on each other, but Jergal just does not give a poop. I have always thought that if Ao is the progenitor of everything, Jergal is the other side of that coin.
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IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
Who is the oldest and/or most powerful god in 5e? Is there a god of world building or god of life, death, or knowledge?
Here's a somewhat comprehensive list of D&D (Mostly Forgotten Realms) gods that might help you suss out the eldest-strongest. Several gods claim varying connections to the Domains of Life, Death, and Knowledge, so there's no good way to classify them as a whole and some Domains have been recently acquired as their previous owners were killed off or lost power.
In general, you'd be looking for deities that fought in the Dawn War against the primordials. It's somewhat arguable which of those groups came first (and is thus eldest), or which is technically more powerful (the deities won the war). Also there are other powers that might claim greater power, like the source of the Warlock's Great Old One pact (which is basically and Elder Thing like Cthulhu from the lost reaches of the Far Realm).
So yeah, the answer isn't very clear and, as a DM or a player, you can pretty much tailor things however you want in this regard.
Super ignorant question.... What is the Forgotten Realm?
The Forgotten Realms is the most used setting of D&D. There are a few others as well that have sprung up across the years, but there is more content and information printed abut the Forgotten Realms than any other setting.
Yeah that is actually a tough question, the gods tend to get... recycled as it were with their power waning and then the mantle being taken up by another (sometimes mortal) being to carry on their duties. A good example of this would be a deity like Kelemvor who took over the domain of death at one point. There are also some theories that certain of the lords of hell may be as old as some of the eldest remaining gods.
Some options from a different time would be Tharizdun, and Mystra and Lord Ao are ones that you could utilize or get some inspiration from. Since some are no longer in existence after the spell plague.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
In FR it's AO the Overgod. (But he does not take a very active role in the setting other then making sure the other gods don't muck things up. He also does not allow himself to be worshiped. Hitting people with misfortune until they stop doing so)
In other settings it's less clear. Most of the top gods are equals. In Greyhawk it's probably Tharizdun. He was imprisoned by all the other gods for his threat to the universe.
In the Dragonlance setting, the most powerful by far is Chaos, Father of All and of Nothing; followed by Paladine, the Platinum Dragon; Takhisis, Queen of Darkness; and arguably Reorx, Forger of the World and Gilean, God of Balance.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Although the overgod of a setting is usually said to be the oldest, most powerful deity, there can be powers that are greater. In FR lore, Ao does have a master. It is also suspected the Lady of Pain is at the same level of power as Ao. Don't forget the beings from the Far Realm.
After reading this discussion, I am confused. You speak of different gods for each D&D setting. My belief has always been that the different settings are all parts of the Material Plane, and gods exist on the Upper Planes. Therefore, everybody in the Material Plane believes in the same gods, which live in the Upper Planes but can visit any world on the Material Plane. Am I incorrect?
"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
There are multiple different settings, which could equate to something like a multiverse. Each setting has it's own religions, planes, demi planes, etc. The Forgotten Realms has it's own Pantheon of Gods that are not the same set of gods that are worshipped in the Greyhawk or Dragonlance settings. Some of them however may seems similar, and most will have similar things they are masters of (ala their domains).
Typically The Prime Material Plane is pretty universal and is just used to describe the plane of existence where most of the mortals exist. Then there will be any number of other planes depending on how the setting wants to depict the homes of gods, devils, demons, primordials, etc.
Then do the Outer, Material, and Elemental Planes in Appendix C of the Player's Handbook all encompass the Forgotten Realms?
"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
Yes, the shadowfell, feywild, elemental, astral, abyss, etc all exist in the forgotten realms.
The Lady of Pain in sigil is pretty neat. She's not a god, she beats up gods on a whim.
Then, there's Ao, who's an overgod that judges all the gods of Forgotten Realm. And Ao has someone even bigger than him to get orders from.
Thanks, MadClergy
"Well met, adventurer. You seem like a curious sort who enjoys the finer things. Permit me to thrust upon you my latest masterwork, years in the making." Volothamp Geddarm
Some sources say that The Lady of Pain is the most powerful god in DND (planescape setting). She can supposedly vaporize any other god with a look, or send them to a Maze dimension of no escape. Her whole deal is keeping every other force in the planes from getting into her realm of Sigil. she doesn't allow worship though, like AO, but instead of punishing worshippers until they get the hint, she just smites them
Also she has swords for a face. badass
The Chained God - Tharizdun, Creator of the Abyss. It took all of the gods and the nine hells to stop him from destroying existence and the most they could do was seal him away.
Io to be honest is the most powerful supposedly creating all other planes. If you Don't know what Io is it's Bahamut and Tiamat except they are both infused then later Io got in a battle and was separate into Tiamat and Bahamut.
It might be best to try to break this question down into a particular facet of D&D or campaign setting or what type of "powerful" might be considered to be used as "powerful." Hell, even looking up info on "gods" gets vague when it mentions gods, over-gods, primordials, ancient elder evils, demons and devils that have been around since the beginning and command worshipers, then there are demi-gods who sometimes just live a powerful life and other times rule immortally like gods themselves.
I tried to do a little investigating on such things in just the Forgotten Realms setting and general D&D stuff. Although I feel that it wouldn't take much to change a fact of whose most powerful into someone else.
Ao - The OverGod who was powerful enough to throw all other gods onto the Prime Material plane then they displeased him. He doesn't accept worshipers or grant them powers as he is far above needing such and usually does not interact directly with mortals. He promotes and demote deities as it suits him. But his only real concern seems to be making sure that the normal gods are staying true to their divine domains. (Also heard that he's allowed mortals to become gods if there is a vacancy and the mortal will fill the divine profile. He is also the creator of "Realmspace" which is the solar-system-like crystal sphere that holds the Forgotten Realms worlds and stars. Although it was theorized (not sure if it was an in character theory or out of character theory) that says that Ao wasn't able to stop the "Spell Plague" because it was coming from the Far Realm, which is outside of Realmspace and thus outside of his power.
The next two gods I'm listing a stat or two known from the D&D 3e book "Faiths and Pantheons" put out in 2002 that lists LOTS of gods and even the stats for some.
These are also stats from what I assume to be the actual gods (meaning that their avatars are listed in a separate area.)
Bane - As far as most levels go (although it might not be a good way to judge things) Bane has the most levels out of the gods with stats listed in the book. A total of 65 levels (+17 more than Chauntea.) He is considered a Greater Deity and has a Divine Rank of 17. Still, there is like a whole page stating what other stuff each god has and many of them have the line "always received a 20 on attack rolls" and "always does maximum damage" on attacks.
Chauntea - As far as Divine Rank goes (although it doesn't really state too much on what that does) Chauntea has the highest divine rank out of the gods with stats listed. She is considered a Greater Deity and her Divine Rank is 19 (+2 more than Bane) but her number of level is 48. Still, there is like a whole page stating what other stuff each god has and many of them have the line "always received a 20 on attack rolls" and "always does maximum damage" on attacks.
I have more info on this book of god stats (which doesn't typically translate well into current edition) if someone was interested in some snippets.
Lady of Pain - There seems to be less said about her designs than there is Ao, but she is probably easier to find (but doing so will probably end in character death, maze, or permanent insanity.) I seem to recall reading that she was able to block all the gods from having access to the city of Sigil where she lives (some characters have theorized that she's imprisoned there.) She absolutely does -not- want worshipers. Whenever a group has tried to worship her, she has made an appearance and murdered pretty much all participants in nasty ways. In other cases, she puts people in nigh unescapable mazes. Though I thought I read that she left someone alive once to spread the word of her horror visited upon attempted worshipers. Of interesting note, a 2e D&D adventure "Die Vecna Die" Vecna tried to make himself supreme and this was "the closest the Lady of Pain came to being overthrown."
Now lets change from "powerful" to "oldest"
Ao - I figured that for the Forgotten Realms that Ao was the oldest as he created the place. But then I came across, when looking at Ao's power, that he allowed other gods entrance to Realmspace. So maybe there are regular gods who have existed in other crystal spheres before Ao created the crystal sphere of the Forgotten Realms. Also, I see no notice of how long Ao might have existed before he created Realmspace.
Ghaunadaur - I did come across a quote from Lolth in the novel "Ascendancy of the Last" where she says that a different deity that some drow worshiped called Ghaunadaur (actually a god of oozes, jellies, slimes and the such.) Her quote is "Ghaunadaur was old even before Ao's time." To further muddy those waters, some have speculated that Ghaunadaur is the same entity as the Demon Prince Juiblex (again, a demon prince of oozes, jellies, slimes and the such.)
Selune and Shar - Selune and Shar are the two credited with creating the Astral Sea where the gods live, having done so after Ao created Realmspace. This creation was opposed by the Primodials that also existed at that time. Again, other gods might be older and simply didn't live in the area Selune and Shar created before then. The "Faiths and Pantheons" book states that the oldest myths say that Selune and Shar created Chauntea who asked for warmth to create life. Selune created the sun and Shar hated it and the two have fought each other ever since.
Tharizdun - Listed as an interloper god from Oerth (Greyhawk campaign setting), Tharizdun is credited with creating the chaotic Abyss during the Dawn War which became the place of the Primordials that the gods were fighting. As a note, the demons already existed before the creation of the abyss and Tharizdun basically made a home for them too in his bid for more power.
Asmodeus - Yes, the lord of the lawfully aligned devils is ALSO on this list. Most of this info comes from a 2e book called "Guide to Hell" that was put out in 1999. In it, it describes Asmodeus (whose name was Ahriman) being a LAWFUL giant serpent who teamed up with the other super powerful LAWFUL serpent Jazirian (deity of couatls) to bring the chaos of creation into order. The two completed most of that quest until they tried to decide on what the center of the universe would be (Jazirian was good and wanted Celestia while Asmodeus was evil and wanted Baator) and the two hurt each other trying to drag the other to their center before falling apart from each other. So this makes Jazirian and Asmodeus very old too. Oh, and Baator already had a ruler before Asmodeus fell there and replaced him. That ruler was Zargon who was listed as an Elder Evil and sometimes as a Demon Prince.
Aboleths - Aboleths have perfect memory that is passed down to their offspring. And they remember the world before there were any gods (and hate the gods for freeing the world from their grip.) The oldest aboleth (some websites say "originator of the species" is simply called "The Eldest" originated from the Far Realm and aboleths spread out from there. If there is any creature in the D&D world who could give you an accurate answer as to "oldest deity" it would be an aboleth. The race of aboleths recall a time that predates the gods, but they do recall certain "Elder Evils" who inhabit the Far Realm who do not act in a deity-ish way towards mortals.
Piscaethces "The Blood Queen" - this is the elder evil who, without trying to, created the aboleth race just by passing through. I don't have much other info on her except that I've seen two sites seem like they were quoting something by saying "she travels the currents of probability between infinite realities" and the aboleths know that she created them just as a by product of her passage.
OKAY well what about gods created by Gary Gygax when he started D&D?
Well Wikipedia states that Gygax didn't create any gods for his game and the early Clerics (one of the original classes of D&D) simply called upon "the gods" without mentioning anything in particular. Gygax seemed to not think of it as important as none of the characters were going to be of levels high enough for them to actually meet any gods. So early players called upon gods from Norse or Greek mythology or even Crom from the Conan universe. Players wanted Gygax to create specific deities for their clerics to call upon so Gygax created two gods as a joke. St. Cuthbert, who would beat with his cudgel to see his point of view, and Pholtus, whose followers were fanatical and didn't believe in other gods. Both of these gods were suppose to be good aligned and Gygax later expanded on the deities to include evil and neutral gods. For the Greyhawk campaign, St. Cuthbert and Pholtus are still around.
Okay, I think that's enough text for now. Let me know if you want more info on a specific thing (I'm currently adding older books to my collection and reading extra stuff on-line.) Hopefully this answered some questions, but probably also broadened the scope to a tiring degree.
Good luck and may you roll 20's when you need them and 1's when you need a laugh. - myself
There is also the mild and forgotten Jergal. It has been around since death became a thing. Jergal decided to step back because it became bored and has allowed others to gain power by tapping its divine font. It literally relegates itself to an accountant of the dead, but if it were to decide to tap its actual potential, who knows. I see that Jergal is relegated as a demigod or of lesser power, but that is more due to the fact Jergal is just an observer and non-player in the pantheons of the gods. I am uncertain if the other gods even know when Jergal came into being. It is death and is powered by all death. The other gods are always trying to gain power and look tough, trying to flex on each other, but Jergal just does not give a poop. I have always thought that if Ao is the progenitor of everything, Jergal is the other side of that coin.
IMHO, Earthdawn is still the best fantasy realm, Shadowrun is the best Sci-Fi realm, and Dark Sun is the best D&D realm.
The Lady of Pain is really cool.
I think Ghaunadaur is either a Great Old One or one of their servitors. Or maybe Juiblex.
Is the Dawn War still a thing in 5e?