I'm in a homebrew world of my own creating. Rewriting history, so no Venca, no Boccob, maybe the raven queen. Also need a reason for the drow to exists. I need help, how can I reate gods. it feels hard because there are different kingdoms and different beliefs. help me!
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"In the beginning: Gods. Then one god was like, 'I'm bored. Look I made a thing, isnt it great?' Then another God was like, 'Oh yeah? Well I'm going to make an even better thing with blackjack and hookers.' And thus the different races came to be."
I guess you need to ask yourself what sort of world you are creating. Your Gods are really a reflection of that and visa versa. Do you have one god that different people worship different aspects of it? Do you have three main gods to reflect good, neutral and evil? Do you have race based gods? Do you have dormant or dead gods where different faiths are trying to awaken/resurrect them? Do you have a new pantheon whose gods are all competing for worshipers and very active in the world or old gods who have long since distanced themselves from this world. Do the clerics get their spells from representatives of the gods such as angels and arch devils? Iy really comes down to what you want to create and how complex or streamlined you want them to be.
Really when its all said and done, make your gods reflect your campaign and your players. If you have some gods you really like the sound of - start there. Let us know more about your world and we can throw ideas at you after that.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I have always used the pantheons from previous D&D editions which I just slap a new paintjob and nametag on them if needed.
In the current world I've built, the gods are few but go by many names. Vecna may also be known as "The Masked One" and "Loki". However, I also never fill out the pantheons in full, players have this bad habit of finding a random diety that hasn't been thought of and researching them. It's more fun to toss in information about the diety if it sounds like they might fit into the story.
Because I don't like making maps, my campaign world is a reskinned map of Europe, using the Norse, Roman/Greek, and Egyptian deities. My background idea (though it hasn't really come up in play) is that many of the "different" deities are just different cultural perceptions/aspects of the same entity. For example, Ra and Apollo are the same entity, filtered through the perception of different worshipers.
In my world the elves and dwarves lost their culture when the mind flayer enslaved them and broke them, in a attempt to destroy their society. The humans and orcs still have their culture, but there are different nations and kingdoms so it's hard to pin down a one true god. i like having a bunch of gods for each culture or race.
Pretty much, the gods don't represent much more than concepts and/or ideologies.
Malar is the diety of the hunt and were-creatures, he's also very prideful and won't allow his name to be used as a tool. All this according to my world, and a touch of his actual lore.
Gruumsh is described as a chaotic god, in my world Gruumsh is still the primary Orcish diety but he is more like a short tempered war god who doesn't think before he acts.
I let my players help define what the dieties represent by their actions and interpretations, spinning it together with what I know about the pantheons.
Just start with the minimum you NEED to run the game. So if the party has a cleric you'll need to start there with who they are going to have as a god and link the required mechanics to them(domain etc). From there I would flesh out more about that one god and where it fits in the world because the player will want to know that as 'they are mortal reflections of their gods will' or something like that.
The rest of the gods just flesh them out as you need to. Beyond the party cleric, gods are really irrelevant unless you want them to play a bigger hand in your world/game.
"In the beginning: Gods. Then one god was like, 'I'm bored. Look I made a thing, isnt it great?' Then another God was like, 'Oh yeah? Well I'm going to make an even better thing with blackjack and hookers.' And thus the different races came to be."
Polytheism in a nutshell.
You should teach Theology. I would have loved you as a teacher lol!
I'm in a homebrew world of my own creating. Rewriting history, so no Venca, no Boccob, maybe the raven queen. Also need a reason for the drow to exists. I need help, how can I reate gods. it feels hard because there are different kingdoms and different beliefs. help me!
I have a homebrew world, been running a campaign in it for 8 months, I have not defined the pantheon up front, you don’t need to. Session 1 if you have a cleric you need 1 god, that’s it, the god they worship, from then on just create gods as required. This town needs a temple, who will it be, this bad guy worships and evil god, who is it.
What I will ask is why even in a homebrew you don’t want to take inspiration from existing gods in DnD, end of the day they are just a name. But if you don’t then just create a random list of names and give each an area of nature they are responsible for.
The drow were the descendants of dwarves, driven into the underdark and their pantheon split off from the main one with darker reflections of the original pantheon. They swore an oath of vengeance and engage in blood rituals to carry out their vengeance. The end.
I'm in a homebrew world of my own creating. Rewriting history, so no Venca, no Boccob, maybe the raven queen. Also need a reason for the drow to exists. I need help, how can I reate gods. it feels hard because there are different kingdoms and different beliefs. help me!
Have you looked at altering/re-skinning actual historical and mythological gods from real-world religions?
Reality is stranger, and more varied, than fiction :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
You don't have to think too hard.
"In the beginning: Gods. Then one god was like, 'I'm bored. Look I made a thing, isnt it great?' Then another God was like, 'Oh yeah? Well I'm going to make an even better thing with blackjack and hookers.' And thus the different races came to be."
Polytheism in a nutshell.
I guess you need to ask yourself what sort of world you are creating. Your Gods are really a reflection of that and visa versa. Do you have one god that different people worship different aspects of it? Do you have three main gods to reflect good, neutral and evil? Do you have race based gods? Do you have dormant or dead gods where different faiths are trying to awaken/resurrect them? Do you have a new pantheon whose gods are all competing for worshipers and very active in the world or old gods who have long since distanced themselves from this world. Do the clerics get their spells from representatives of the gods such as angels and arch devils? Iy really comes down to what you want to create and how complex or streamlined you want them to be.
Really when its all said and done, make your gods reflect your campaign and your players. If you have some gods you really like the sound of - start there. Let us know more about your world and we can throw ideas at you after that.
If you want to see Matt Colville building Gods for his world setting check out the two videos below.
They tend to be long and rambling, as they're (edited) recordings of live streams, but it gives you an example of someone else doing it.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I have always used the pantheons from previous D&D editions which I just slap a new paintjob and nametag on them if needed.
In the current world I've built, the gods are few but go by many names. Vecna may also be known as "The Masked One" and "Loki". However, I also never fill out the pantheons in full, players have this bad habit of finding a random diety that hasn't been thought of and researching them. It's more fun to toss in information about the diety if it sounds like they might fit into the story.
Because I don't like making maps, my campaign world is a reskinned map of Europe, using the Norse, Roman/Greek, and Egyptian deities. My background idea (though it hasn't really come up in play) is that many of the "different" deities are just different cultural perceptions/aspects of the same entity. For example, Ra and Apollo are the same entity, filtered through the perception of different worshipers.
In my world the elves and dwarves lost their culture when the mind flayer enslaved them and broke them, in a attempt to destroy their society. The humans and orcs still have their culture, but there are different nations and kingdoms so it's hard to pin down a one true god. i like having a bunch of gods for each culture or race.
So don't have full stories but only concepts?
Pretty much, the gods don't represent much more than concepts and/or ideologies.
Malar is the diety of the hunt and were-creatures, he's also very prideful and won't allow his name to be used as a tool. All this according to my world, and a touch of his actual lore.
Gruumsh is described as a chaotic god, in my world Gruumsh is still the primary Orcish diety but he is more like a short tempered war god who doesn't think before he acts.
I let my players help define what the dieties represent by their actions and interpretations, spinning it together with what I know about the pantheons.
Just start with the minimum you NEED to run the game. So if the party has a cleric you'll need to start there with who they are going to have as a god and link the required mechanics to them(domain etc). From there I would flesh out more about that one god and where it fits in the world because the player will want to know that as 'they are mortal reflections of their gods will' or something like that.
The rest of the gods just flesh them out as you need to. Beyond the party cleric, gods are really irrelevant unless you want them to play a bigger hand in your world/game.
You should teach Theology. I would have loved you as a teacher lol!
Beware: no one will care. Unless your gods actually *do* things, your players will see them as "lore" and ignore anything to do with them.
Have a vague idea and fill it in more if it becomes relevant.
I have a homebrew world, been running a campaign in it for 8 months, I have not defined the pantheon up front, you don’t need to. Session 1 if you have a cleric you need 1 god, that’s it, the god they worship, from then on just create gods as required. This town needs a temple, who will it be, this bad guy worships and evil god, who is it.
What I will ask is why even in a homebrew you don’t want to take inspiration from existing gods in DnD, end of the day they are just a name. But if you don’t then just create a random list of names and give each an area of nature they are responsible for.
The drow were the descendants of dwarves, driven into the underdark and their pantheon split off from the main one with darker reflections of the original pantheon. They swore an oath of vengeance and engage in blood rituals to carry out their vengeance. The end.
I don't think this thread is relevant anymore. Check the timestamp before posting.
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