Do Fantasy Pantheons Make Sense?
2023 ж. 10 Қыр.
179 446 Рет қаралды
How does Polytheism function? Why do so many Fantasy worlds seek to emulate it? And do they do a good job at doing so? Let's discuss Worldbuilding, Fantasy, and Faith, and why Fantasy style Polytheism is such a strange concept.
#dnd #fantasy #history #worldbuilding #religion #ttrpg #polytheism
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Great video! Fantasy polytheism is actually very close to a very specific form of real world polytheism: Henotheism. In henotheism, one god in a pantheon is worshipped exclusively, while still recognizing the existence and importance of the other gods.
Yeah. It kinda looks like something of a tribal henotheism, except the gods usually focus on their domains rather than being patrons of specific tribes.
@@DanielMWJ It’s kinda similiar to how the gods were treated in ancient Mesopotamia, except the Sumerian/Babylonian deities were usually patrons of city states as well as representations of cosmic and natural forces.
D&D polytheism works more like multiple belief tolerant monotheisms in a way. Sure that god exists and is worshipped but we follow ours. We will ask the healing god for safe sea passage not a sea or storm god, etc.
@@Weirdoid Yeah, like I said, henotheism.
@@Weirdoid That's not my understanding of it. Each mortal is expected to have a patron, or primary, deity, but it's normal to pray and make offerings to multiple deities. How well someone follows their patron will determine what afterlife they earn, but exclusive worship is not demanded or expected. A farmer may worship Chauntea as their patron, but make an offering to Waukeen when they come to town to sell their surplus produce at market. If a loved one is on trial, they may pray to Tyr. Anyone who goes on a sea voyage had best make an offering to Umberlee. And if they're ever inclined to murder someone, they might try praying to Bhaal. Chauntea is fine with her followers revering Waukeen, Tyr, and even Umberlee when appropriate. Not so much Bhaal, but that's because they're enemies and murder is out of line with Chauntean doctrine.
There's a detail in the Forgotten Realms' city of Waterdeep that I love that relates to this: There exists in the world a chaotic evil sea goddess named Umberlee, who rules over sharks, evil shark-people, krakens, and ship-sinking storms. She is temperamental, evil, petty, and hated by most folk in the world. But ironically, the good city of Waterdeep does worship her... because it's a port city. The lighthouse is a temple to her. There is a tax on all ships in her name. There's a weeklong festival every year in her honor. Because if anyone doesn't pay respects to her, they don't sail out the city alive.
I mean, yeah. Good gods you pray to for their love or favor and follow their tenets. Evil gods you pray to to avoid their ire and simply want to appease them.
Well.... yeah, pray to her and she'll just chill. If not, it's over 😅
Umbrelee might be a D&D representation of IRL sea god/goddess worshiped throughout the real World (even in Medieval Europe albeit under a guise), except we don't have the definitive version for the real world counterpart, like gender, alignment and motivation. The worshipers don't consider that the IRL sea god/goddess is evil but do think that the god/goddess has a temper and shouldn't be treated lightly. They also often consider that Ocean itself is an Otherworld, and presume that Ocean has their own set of rules.
Lol this what gangs and organised crime do
So a realistic depiction of worship. Ancient Greeks were prone to contribute to the local temple in the hopes the deity will ignore their transgressions at least as often as prayers for good fortune.
This is a pet peeve of mine as a theology nerd: a polytheistic religion is _one religion._ Polytheism isn't the same thing as multiple monotheisms, the gods don't have competing sects. The PHB even goes out of its way to point that out, but most D&D players seem to ignore it. Hades wasn't classically associated with evil, hospitality (a cornerstone of ancient Greek morality) plays an important part in his most prominent myth (the one that retconned him into existence to upstage Persephone, Mycenaean goddess of the dead)
George RR Martin (with the Seven) and to a lesser extent JRR Tolkien (who built a beautiful pantheon but was entirely too Catholic to commit to it) did a nice job of portraying this through a concept that is at least part of the theological discussions of many polytheistic religions: That there is one "divinity" of which the gods that we know are aspects of. In a sense, the gods are the personified lenses through which our puny human brains can perceive that foundational divinity. Heck, there's plenty of monotheistic philosophy that does the same thing. Of course, that's only one way to properly portray polytheism, but at least it's something in a genre that so rarely gets it right in any way.
@@GregMcNeish It's weird how people talk about the Trinity like they think aspects and epithets (important parts of _all_ theology) are some incomprehensible mystery that's unique to Christianity
Well actual monotheism would be the absolute wierdest stance to take in a world such as dnd as it would involve actually denying the other gods irrationally and in a way entirely unlike the atheist characters who are consistent.
I was thinking persephone was probably already associated with death but I hadn't seen anything to confirm that yet.
Minister of justice, minister of social- and health care, minister of finance... Often naming gods to be gods of this and that is misunderstood by Christians and in fantasy created in countries where Christian religion is mainly influential. It is just addressing for those, who do not know anything about these gods... like telling that "this person over there is human of deliveries, fast food and sarcasm". Does not mean, that this person have only those three themes in their life, but just pointing something where to start for person who does not know that person at all. In fantasy, writer of fantasy made definition of what is reality, what is and exists, and what does not (also author could chose leave it open), while in real world religions have "beast guesses". Humans does not speak only truth about persons, but instead have many different, even contradicting, believes and sayings about the person(let's say, what is truth about Britney Spears? I do not know, but lot of people think they know, and may tell very different story from each others, what is the truth). So, somehow there is believe that humans know gods even better than humans? Point is, that there is no objective truth, unlike in fantasy, where author tells "this is truth", "this god is this kind, and does this thing(s)". Other thing is, that in polytheism or in animism, main idea is not often in gods or spirits so much as in your own behave. Rituals really are focusing to manipulate yourself and everyone who take part of ritual. You change mind setting, change your behave, etc. For example, while in fantasy sacrifice for gods usually mean you offer something to the god, and that probably vanish, but in real world religions it has many possible ways what sacrifice is. For example sacrificing food may actually mean, that you and all other people in community will eat that food, but in ritualistic manner, once in year event (somewhat similar as Christmas meal or in USA Thanks Giving is). It is not really giving it physically to gods, but altering and regulating your own behave. Sacrifice for gods also may mean giving food for animals in wilderness, and maybe therefore boosting ecosystem. And/or it may also be about regulate your greed, and made sure that you do not start take too much from world to yourself, but share and lower your interest to overdo things. I have animistic religion. I personally focus on mainly one goddess, and therefore pay special attention to some aspects in my life and my behave, and slowly try to alternate some of it. Slowly changing myself, and maybe even people and other things around me. But also, I see other gods and religions very interesting, and all of them may teach me something. Monotheistic, duatheistic, polytheistic, animistic... does not really matter for me. "Your gods are not less real than my gods" could be principle in here. Main point is not, are gods real or not, main point is, what you can learn from them? Is Hitler real? Does it matter? What you can learn from him? Maybe what may happen if you focus on fear and hate in your life? ..things like that. Most of religions does not have "good" and "evil" at all... but more likely "cause" and "effect". There is things, what are beneficial or nice, and there is things what create suffering, and some situations same doing causes different things. Many religions have more likely "chaos" (unpredictable things) and "order" (more predictable things), and often balance between them, since going too much in one direction isn't usually good (something what you would feel happy about in the end).
My theory is that Murder Hobos are a small but disproportionately powerful minority within D&D. And their existence alone give Bhaal enough strength to continue their existence. In a way, those murderous adventurers are the best adherents Bhaal could ask for. As they ritually cut down npc's and mobs to empower themselves. Earning Boons in the form of levels and skills. As an reward for their bloody handed actions.
Bhaal is the God of EXP progression. I love it.
@@datdabdoe1417 The EXPIRED for the EXP god?
While Baldur's Gate games are somewhat adjacent to the official Faerun lore and metaphysics, the game's driving force: a prophesy makes a point, that Bhaal may increase in power if someone causes a huge number of senseless wars and murder. Starting with Iron Throne causing iron shortage and creating a pretext for war between Baldur's Gate and their neighbor to the south (Tethir?) and continuing in Throne of Bhaal with Five amassing armies to bring war to all of the Sword Coast it seems, that Bhaal derives power from murder and war in general (although, you can argue, that so shall Tempos and maybe Talos get stronger as well), not just specifically those done directly by worshippers. Although in latter case, the involvement of Bhaalspawn, bearing Bhaal's essence is crucial to the plan, as they each act both as reapers and the ones being reaped. And the whole ritualistic nature of this event is guided by a priestess of Bhaal.
I imagine assassins guilds all have an altar to Bhaal...
Accidental Bhaal worship is the pinnacle of all PC's progression in power.
What most people don't understand about worship in DND is that performing an action in a domain, even if not in their name, still grants the god power. For example, while people might not murder in Bhaal's name, the murder itself gives Bhaal power, so the red dragon that just burned a town and murdered its inhabitants while uncaring of Bhaal still gave Bhaal power.
It varies, lesser deities need major stuff for it While a greater like Tyr, just need law to be practiced
Also bhaal is a quasi deity now, it's weird
So its like the Chaos Gods in warhammer, you could be a cultist of Khorne and kill in his name but even if your not the sole action of murder increase his power and influence in the mortal realm
The intensity of the following and of the rituals also matters. That's how an evil God with a small but dedicated cult, that live their lives and sacrifice the life of others for him can be just as powerful as a good God with millions of followers.
This isn't true in Greyhawk.
I don't need convincing, I am saying for a long time that people have no idea how polytheism works and always create those through the lens of monotheism.
If you look at Ancient History you'll find that quasi-monotheism within a (taken globally) polytheistic society was very common.
@@Anndgrim What is quasi monotheism supposed to be? Do you mean henotheism? If so, then you would still not be correct, that was mostly a thing in the Near East, probably based on the skyfather mythology of the proto Indo-European people that seem to had developed first that kind of mythology. But if you look at the places before they arrived or the places that remained outside their cultural influence, then you will see that this simply was not the case. Thus you are mistaken, by looking at the world through a flawed lens.
@@Drudenfusznah he’s right in fact polytheism is basically non existent pick a religion and there’s always a biggest creator God or two conjugate forces “Wat about Hindoos huh” Yeah it’s Brahma In Egypt it’s Atum In Greek it’s Kronos or the Aeon depends Polytheism is actually illogical it’s more like a mischaracterization of demon/angel worship
@@DrudenfuszHenotheism is still a thing that exists. It wouldn’t be hard to assume in the case of dnd, Henotheism is how worshipping gods works.
@@vipersniperpiper6093 True, henotheism still exist, and sure you could do that in D&D, but D&D doesn't provide that on its own, since what ever D&D does it is not henotheism either.
It's one of the reasons why I particularly like TES as a setting. The imperial cult has 9 gods, and each and every temple in the 9 major cities of Cyrodiil has 10 altars, a main altar dedicated to the pantheon as a whole, and in 8 of the cities this central altar is then ringed by 9 smaller altars dedicated to each god specifically, placed in a different order depending on which god is the 'pateon deity' of that specific temple. The only reason there aren't an equal amount of patron deities to temples, is that the temple in the capital has no patron, and the major cities were originally divvied up to the gods that freed the empire from the elves, with no foreknowledge that a human would one day ascend to the ranks of the divine. The religion as a whole, is a single organized church body, where all the gods are expected to be given there due deference, but priests dedicate their lives towards furthering the domains of a single god, in the knowledge that others will dedicate themselves to the other 8. In some of the outer provinces, the imperial cult then begins to break down from one omnipresent pantheistic religion, into multiple separate monotheistic religions, that just do happen to recognize certain other monotheistic religions as equally legitimate like in a TTRPG setting.
I heard that a reason that Greek mythology had Zeus engage in so many extramarital excapades was that it served as a way to incorporate "smaller," local deities into the greater Hellenistic religion. "Oh, Dionysus? He's a son of Zeus."
Well... more like 8 now after some pointy eared pricks came around ;-D I also like how the Imperial Cult started as a fusion of other religions in order to meet in the middle. Mainly the elven mainstream religion at the time and the Nords with some nedic faith sprinkled in. The gods do indeed all exist but even so their worship can be vastly different and their personalities could manifest in so many forms. I really like that.
It goes even further. Most provinces actually have their own religions. In Skyrim (the place, not the game) the Nords worship their old gods, Shor, and Kyne, and so on. These gods have parallels to the Imperial pantheon, and have been equated as Imperial culture began to dominate Skyrim, but there are still points of worship that are different. The elves somewhat worship some of the Imperial Divines, but also worship deities like Magnus and Trinimac and Phynaster that the Imperials do not. The Dark Elves of Morrowind don't worship any of the distant and immaterial gods on Man. They worship their own living gods: the Tribunal. Their religious practices also include ancestor worship, sacred necromancy (though they'd not call it that) and veneration of various non-divine heroes and saints. They also have some fear of the Daedra And the Daedra are an interesting case in that they are a group of old gods/demons who are not openly worshipped by most people, but are still worshipped in secret by many, and directly trafficked with by the very powerful or the very foolish. And all of that is before you get into all of the defunct religions, or the really weird mystic and metaphysical stuff supposedly behind the world's creation and continued existence. There's a lot of cool stuff in The Elder Scrolls.
The Elder Scrolls series does it better than most games.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof And I would say Dragon Age is a close second. I think that series also does religions well.
One of the things that I love that the Elder Scrolls does that not a lot of others do is the admission that, at least to our modern sensibilities, many stories of mythology are kind of ridiculous. The obvious one is Sheogorath. But one of my favorite little details is the God "Tu'whacca" of the Redguards. Now, this God is generally accepted to be the same as Arkay, the usual God of Death. However, most stories say that Arkay was an elf that ascended to Godhood. If you know the Redguards you know they aren't going to worship a filthy elf. So Tu"whacca has a different origin. He had always been around. However, before the creation of the world there was no death. So he was the "God of Nobody Really Cares." Actual quote and it is treated completely straight. From Malacath being "shat out" of Boethiah to the psilocybin fueled screeds that constitute the "Sermons of Vivec" The Elder Scrolls is ridiculous. And it fits. Mythology is kind of silly. Life is kind of silly. I hate how serious Gods can be in fiction. So serious barring maybe one or two designated tricksters. Zeus is one of the prime inspirations for so many fictional Gods but he transformed himself into a Swan to get laid. How many bearded old sky Gods did that huh?
(norse) Thor and Loki crossdressed to sneak into a domain of Jötun to recover Thörs lost hammer. Loki is a natural shapeshifter but he had to disguise his brother as a woman. granted, the Ice Giants weren't too keen on how women looked like so he "passed" despite being a bulky man with beard. (japanese) after Amaterasu became a shut-in in a cave due her brother literally throwing shit at others, the world was left in darkness because Amaterasu is the sun. Ame-no-Uzume danced really hard to lure her out, so much that her clothes came undone, every other God laughted so hard that Amaterasu took interest and finally came out of her cave. (aztec) Quetzalcoatl got so drunk that he.... did unrequested stuff to his sister. When he sobered up and realized what he had done he inmolated himself out of shame. more than often, polytheism has Gods which are VERY human in nature , having whims, vendettas, personal goals and screw ups. Because they aren't perfect, they're bound to commit silly stuff. While Monotheistic religions tend to favor perfect Gods which are by default out of human comprenhension.
I swear Michael Kirkbride said somewhere that he wrote the Sermons of Vivec working long hours at night with coffee, cigarettes, and liquor. I think if that guy wrote something off shrooms we’d have a new world religion by now
Also the elder scrolls is a lot closer to real life polytheism than others. In Skyrim for example, it's the three goddess of family, nature, and beauty that get worshiped the most and have big temples in the busiest city but folks call on the other gods in other situations, even ones that are seen as antagonistic. The priests of the gods of death are few in number and manage the gravesites. One city has a temple to a man who was elevated to deity. And there are little or cultural gods, and there are whole societies who worship God's of "evil" domains convincingly, often just out of a social-ancestral affiliation
@@Ellimist000 Two cities have a temple of Talos, he also have a statue and altar in 2 other cities.
I'm remembering that in a Pathfinder campaign I was in, I occasionally had my character pray to different deities when relevant: to Pharasma for a dead loved one's safe passage into the afterlife, to Desna for safe travels, to Sarenae for her own atonement, to Iomedae for strength and valor in an upcoming fight against a wicked foe, .etc.I had fun with this and felt like I was engaging with the setting. But I was surprised when I was informed that this wasn't the case at all and I was accidentally playing her as some weirdo heretic. And I understand it's 100% my fault for just assuming gods having dominions meant they worked like real world polytheism. But it was still frustrating.
lol fucking nutty DM. it would only be wierd if you were praying to a "good" aligned god and then turned around and prayed to a "evil" aligned god, as neither would be particularly happy about you trying to play both sides.
Huh, I did the same in DnD and it seems to be a common practice. People pray to Umberlee to appease her while travelling at sea, and then pray to Kelemvor for the departed. Only clerics are more specialised, but it doesn't stop them from appeasing other gods when it's their domain. I think your DM is strange, though I'm not sure if Golarion's pantheon works in a similar way.
Yep, no matter how nuanced I tried to be there was thar line on the character sheet I was expected to fill out. Deity, singular.
@@Duchess_Van_Hoof Fill it in as "See attachment", then create your attachment.
pathfinder has made a new mechanic for 2e where a character can also have an entire pantheon as their choice of religion now, complete with mechanics for clerics and paladins although the fact there's various different pantheons, some of them basically made of random gods in-universe people decided went well together, does suggest it's a habit of religious people in golarion to just pick a god or group of gods they like, and basically exclusively worship them
I think in D&D we have a rather skewed view because the players, being adventurers, were interacting with churches and institutions, or if they had a cleric, a single point of reference of someone with a patron Deity. In one campaign, one of my characters was a Warlock with a religious streak, but he venerated multiple gods for various situations do counter the idea of the Monotheistic coded polytheism. He had a Primary deity but he didn't cast the others aside. He used his religion skill to set up alters to or explain the various gods to the rest of the party, most of who were new players. Then we eneded up transported to play in a world without gods or worship so that aspect of his character was a little pointless, but it was funny that the creep mind bending warlock was more pious then our light domain cleric.
Generally, I think how they use gods in d&d games is not how the people in the world do. Players do not care about the immortal soul of their fictional character, so most do not roleplay acts of devotion or obeying tenants of the god's faith. In the Forgotten Realms, for instance, your soul gets used to expand the walls of the city of the dead if no god comes to claim you after you die; this is a very powerful threat that gods just do to keep the prayers coming without really having to go over their way to keep mortals in line.
The dungeon master's guide's gods and pantheons section states explicitly that the average citizen of the forgotten realms will pray to multiple gods for different things throughout their day.
@@abfg616yeah that’s how we’ve always played idk where people get the idea that everyone does it wrong comes from from games maybe?
@@abfg616 Indeed, the basic gist is most people will have a Patron Deity and they might give donations or attend services of that deity out of choice, but if you are about to interact with another god's field you'll likely say a prayer to them. Sailors may not have her as their patron but most will still donate for example to Umberlee before they set sail. Farmers may have a different deirty as their chosen PAtron but they will offer a sacriface to Chauntea at planting and harvest time etc etc. It's also why very few of the churches seek converts, at least actievely sure they are happy to get a new member of the congregation for those regular services but honestly who needs it.... Except Eilistraee
And that's a shame. It's not D&D but in Deadlands I was playing a catholic priest. He was a witch hunter, not a preacher so as I wouldn't have to try and convert everyone in my path, but I memorized Bible verses for battle cries, some catholic prayers and rituals of the old west, just to make him more believable and give the players a fun oh crap moment whenever I rose from my seat and started up "ABOMINATION! YE AS I WALK IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH ! I SHALL FEAR NO MONSTER AS THE LORD AND MY SHOTGUN IS BY MY SIDE!" I'm paraphrasing there of course, but it was a lot of fun for me and the others at the table. Even converted the atheist PC gambler.
One of the things that always bugged me about a lot of fantasy gods (especially in games like D&D) is that they feel so "elemental". Like if people saw a lightning storm, thought "hey I bet that's a god", and then built a guy out of it. So now the fantasy world has Lightnor, the lightning god, who's job is just to make lightning happen. Real world gods feel like the exact opposite way round. Thor and Zeus are both gods associated with lightning, but they got there in different ways. Zeus is the most high of all gods, so high and mighty is he that he can smite you down where you stand in an instant. Now, what's something that is 1) high up, and 2) can kill you instantly if you're unlucky? Lightning. Zeus is a whole guy, and he acts in a way that is similar to lightning, so he gets a lightning association. Thor, on the other hand, is a different person. Thor is the protector of humanity, standing just outside of our world to fight off the jotun who would invade us, and so strong that a swing of his hammer can flatten mountains. What is something that is 1) from outside of our world, and 2) sounds like a hammer destroying mountains? Again, its lightning, and so Thor gets a lightning association. The thing about having a whole god with a personality and things they offer aside from just their more elemental domain is it makes worldbuilding so much more interesting. A worshipper of Zeus might hear a lightning storm and feel fear, because someone out there has annoyed Zeus and his wrath might spill over onto them. A worshipper of Thor might hear a lightning storm and celebrate, as it's a sign Thor is still there protecting them. Zeus isn't the king of the gods because he's a lightning god, he is a lightning god because he is king of the gods. Thor isn't protector of humanity because he's a thunder god, he's a thunder god because he's the protector of humanity.
Well, to be fair, this video just mentioned 3 different gods from real life myths, for entryways, doors, and hinges. That's pretty "elemental" isn't it?
I understand the sentiment, but in the actual real life evolution of theism, it probably went like: "We build piles of rock, mountains are like big piles of rock, *gasp,* a big guy build those things! And now the ground is shaking, *gasp,* big guy is angry, let's call him Ooga Booga, Lord of the Mountains, and kill a goat for him, I'm sure he'll like it".
Show me what you got
Not completely accurate. Zeus is a sky god because he comes from the Proto Indo-European sky father Dyeus Phater which literally means sky father, as does Jupiter. The word Dyeus is also how we get the Latin word for god, Deus. Thor, on the other hand, comes from the PIE storm god Perkwunos (same with the Slavic Perun). It seems that the roles of the Sky and Storm god got combined with Zeus. It should also be mentioned that there's evidence that the PIE gods dominated over local gods- the Greek titans are likely an older pantheon of gods who were "dethroned" by the introduction of non-native gods. What I'm saying is that the reason Zeus and Thor are storm gods is because they are a continuation of beliefs in a storm and sky god. Also, real world mythology is complicated, however, many myths likely started out as an attempt to explain the unknown. Ancient people didn't know what caused lightning, so they thought it was some higher deity. The "evolution" of mythology is one of my favorite topics, but it is hard to portray when dealing with real gods in a fantasy world. If I explained every reason why, you probably wouldn't read this comment because of the length.
There are two solutions to the "any deity can grant any cleric any spell" problem. One is to have each deity have a code of conduct, similar to a paladin's code of conduct, and violators lose their powers. The other is to do what I am doing in my Pathfinder game as part of a bigger rework of Pathfinder's magic system and make it so which spells a deity is capable of granting at all are dependant on the domains they have dominion over.
I was literely going to commet that that's how it works in Pathfinder. You could also do it like i did and have Divine Magic works throue belifes, in which the cleric isn't worshiping a god but the Domain they represent, you aren't a Cleric of Serenrae but a Cleric of Healing. Serenrae is just an influencer sponsored by the Healing Domain. This is also why all gods who share a domain gives the exact same benefits from the domain. Both Abadar and Asmodeus are sponsored by Order, they just market it in diferent ways as to throw a wide net
This is why atonement exists but it was always a bigger burden on the paladins in regards to their oaths.
This is sort of how it might work in my setting as I move away from d&d into more narrative systems. Magic users being particularly favored mortals which are a cross between a cleric, warlock, and a paladin. Blessed by a specific deity in a reciprocal pact of sorts and following that deities tenets. The more powerful the god, the more powerful the magic, but the stricter the tenets.
That's too christian tho. The gods usually only "punished" you in pre-christian faiths when you directly insulted them.
Unless I remember incorrectly this is how it worked in 3.5. I think they had specific domains a cleric could pic spells from. Maybe I'm misremembering. Seems like a much better system. Can't see a reason for Eldath to gift a cleric a flaming sword.
Divinity differs from world to world in d&d, but since you are coming at this from a Forgotten Realms centric place for all d&d, a god of murder makes perfect sense. The domain of a god in the Realms is more than clever marketing; it is the area they influence and try to cultivate. Every act of murder is an act of worship to that god, so they might not have an organized religion (as most chaotic deities tend not to). You are increasing the reach of murder as a power in your world with every murder, though. That is why the greatest deities in the setting are for things people cannot help; like gods of races, classes, basic acts or aspects of humanity (ie, love, murder, honor, death...) it is not that there is a grand temple to murder so much as there is no way to completely stop murder in a society that makes the god of murder powerful. Furthermore, you also have the relationship between gods and worshipers backwards. Worshipers give gods power through acts of worship, but not all acts of worship are created equal. Donating a copper does not give as much divine power as say taking a vow of silence as an act of devotion, so you can easily have a greater god with a small but devoted following willing to do whatever they wanted; hence why human sacrifice is so popular with evil gods in the Realms. Gods literally die without worship in the Forgotten Realms, so they are more dependent on worshipers than worshippers are on them. Lastly, pantheon in the Realms are gods grouping up for mutual self interest. The head of the pantheon gets a percentage of the worship of those under it and in return, they get protected from those whose interests conflict. Interests conflicting is not what you might think either because the god is there to spread the poser of its domain, so a god of murder and justice might work together; ie, murder god incourages striff so a peaceful person strikes out in anger and kills someone while the justice god draws a witnesses gaze towards the scene so the murderer is caught. They both get a hit off of that sweet, sweet divine power because everyone sees how murder and justice are working and have power over their lives. Mr. Rexx has a video that explains this better if you are curious, and other d&d worlds sometimes work different (ie, Mystara has mortals that achieved Divinity in place of gods who have domains as an area of interest more so than an area to rule so you can have a Thyassian god of war, an Oslandic god of war, a Henn god of war... and none are "the war god" in the entire world.)
the worship is power is entirely a artficial in the realms and is a rule imposed by the overgod AO, also the grouping are also decided by AO because he doled up the territories where the gods have influence for instance the eastern continet is ruled by the divine burearcies of china
@@the83094 you have this wrong, actually. Gods are free to choose their allegiances and groupings [See Jergal and the Dead Three and Kelemvor, Bastet and Nobanion, Bastet and Shar, Cyric and the entire Second Sundering]. Ao has jurisdiction of Toril as a whole. Over in Kara-Tur, the Divine Bureacracies are presumably also subservient to Ao. There are also gods that do not technically fall under Ao, such as the interloper gods [most popularly the Raven Queen]
@@the83094 AO's domain is Divinity, so even if it is an arbitrary rule, it is how it works in the Realms because he says so, just like the goddess of magic removed the ability for mortals to cast spells higher than 9th level because of what it was doing to the weave. Gods are nothing if not arbitrary. AO is also a Realms diety only, it seems, as he is not mentioned in other settings and other settings seem to have different rules; Thanatos, the 5e MtG crossover setting explicitly says the gods are a product of mortal belief and mortals created gods with their powers and personalities being the product of the collective dreams and beliefs of that realm given shape, so no AO. In the fiction, AO also says some things to imply he has a boss too, but I do not think he actually names a name. In 3rd Ed, they had rules and hard numbers as well as stat blocks and divine rankings posted for all the major gods in the Realms. Mr.Rexx did a video on it, and it is pretty well researched, but he threw out contradictory information, which d&d has always had continuity problems. I think that is one of the better summaries from when they actually cared about it. The thing about Divinity in the Realms is it is added to whatever you already have, so you can be an archlich on your own power but have divine might added to that (Vecna, for instance). Your divine power is in the overgod's ability to limit, but you might have abilities outside of that from being a primordial, arch mage, lich, mind flayer, arch fey, demon prince, arch devil, ancient dragon, or whatever that AO has no power over. In the time of troubles, he limited gods to one avatar and took away their immortality, for instance. They were all powerful monsters, mages, and people in their own right, though. Gods like the Raven Queen are arch fey too, and when they are can send avatars outside the Realms minus their divine power to act however they want. In 4e they had her in a three way war with Orcus in the Shadow Fell, but was unable to outrightly win because she is not a goddess there and the shadow fell is a seperate plan from the prime matterial where the gods get juiced by Divinity. You also have the elemental princes, who are the biggest primordial in the elemental planes, who are gods whenever they are about what is happening on the Realms, but exist as primordials on their home plane. The 5e campaign, Princes of the Apocolypse has 4 cults trying to summon the evil elemental prince's that are technically gods in the setting for their respective elements.
Nice to see someone mentioning Mystara in the wild.
Very well said
There seems to be a little misunderstanding regarding Bhaal in the Forgotten Realms. When he still was around he was the god of death itself. Meaning he had the power to refuse to let your soul get into whatever afterlife dimension your personal divine patron had chosen for you. Your soul was damned to stay in the material plane with all the unpleasant things that belong to that. At the same time he had the power to refuse any kind of resurrection. So you just did not want to raise his ire.
not really if a soul was bound to a specific deity or fiend through worship or a deal there would be nothing Bhaal could do to stop the soul as he's quite a weak god. i mean the demon prince Orcas has more power over death than Bhaal does and Orcas isn't even a god.
@@DreZatoKorPrii doesn't change the fact that Bhaal got domain over death itself when he and his buddies Myrkul and Bane got their powers from Jergal. If people don't actually die if the god of death decides so, their souls can't leave and get into heaven or hell or anywhere else really.
@@AW-ix5qg not how it works. the Raven Queen is the god of death that gets souls where they need to be. Bhaal only has dominion over violent deaths. even then the people most likely to die violent deaths are those bound to the hells anyway and most archdevils are stronger then Bhaal on their own and they want souls damn it.
Depends what Era you are talking about. WotC retconed a lot of stuff in the Forgotten Realms so they could better control the IP. In the TSR days, you could have any god there to have any domain; there were conflicting information about who did what (ie, there was an orc god of death, an elf god of death, Hel, Hadies, and Osirus were also different death gods that all existed there... it did not present a consistent narrative and you could not copy write Zeus, so they made their own pantheon and simplified it to one god per domain to unify the world because it was hard to keep track of the theological and personality differences between Friya and Gia for the casual player. At the start of 3e you had one god per domain, but some of those domains were really specific; ie Tiamat is the godess of "evil dragon flight." I would not bet on any lore as WotC are changing it all the time; ie, they had a weakened orcus kill and impersonate Primus, the greatest lawful neutral diety in the multiverse in one of the novels which has major implications for how demons and gods interact just for a surprise twist in a novel.
@@DreZatoKorPrii I kind of doubt the Raven Queen was part of the lore backnin the day, I'll have to read up on that.
Rime of the Frostmaiden in D&D 5e is a good example of people “worshipping” a god to protect themselves from them. Auril doesn’t actually care about the sacrifices of warmth, food, or even people, that the towns are making. But the people hope it’ll stay her wrath a little.
Same happens with Umberlee, her worship is mostly focused on appeasing her.
Happy to see this campaign being repped, I love it dearly.
@@SwayRod836 Wonderful, have an awesome time with it! After 5 years of playing the hobby it was the first campaign that I ever saw through to the very end as a DM. One of the better organized campaign books I've seen as well.
Playing that campaign right now & with how things are going? The entire party wants to see her a corpse, just utterly done with her.
I'm playing this in a group rn and this is exactly what I was thinking about watching this video
This kind of reminded me of a system that did polytheism pretty neatly - Exalted. It was an eastern-style polytheism, so all the gods were a part of a vast celestial bureaucracy, and people were expected to worship them according to a prayer calendar (so as to keep the power balance between gods and people since the system is very corrupt). All the gods worked in a hierarchy, where you'd have, for example, the god of war, and their subbordinates - the gods of war of a given direction, and each of those would have more regional gods of war and so on and so on. All in all the buraucracy had probably over a hundred named gods in the RPG, and in-universe their numbers were in the tens of millions in the highest eschelons alone, let alone the billions of more local gods...
From what I understand, in Pathfinder's Golarion, gods aren't actually fueled by faith. Although mortals have ascended to godhood, what typefies a deity in that world is the concept they represent. So long as the concept exists, they exist. In that regard, could they be a little closer to real world religion?
Mystara (the bx d&d setting) also had ascended mortals to fill the role of gods. Their domains were more areas of interest, so an aphation godess of death did not step on the toes of the Thyation god of death because they did not care what silly ideas mortals get in their heads. Pathfinder never went into the detail for their gods because they never had ways for the players to interact with them directly. In 3e, they had stat blocks for avatars, gave rules for divine rank and limitations of gods because it was assumed you could potentially fight an avatar of Loth or something. They also had rules for how a character could become a god in 3e, but pathfinder was vague about it (I think the trial of the star chamber with the "drunken god" was the only way to become divine, but that was a throw away line in a lesser God's back story). I think it was "Wrath of the Righteous" where there were two waring sects of the same god that had both sides getting divine power to clerics and paladins; kind of implied gods might nor be real, divine casters are just powered by faith. Do you know an adventure where you actually run into a god in pathfinder that is not just a priest or celestial servant?
@@rynowatcherYou could potentially run into Hylax as her divine domain is in a moon of the material plane in the golarion system. It's much easier in Starfinder because of spaceships and her followers do make the pilgrimage there. She doesn't have stats, though.
@@Ditidos in theory you can run into any god, I suppose, if the gm says you do, but d&d, for instance, there are adventures where the god shows up to do specific plot relevant things. Two 5e campaigns have gods as the final bosses that you fight, for instance. Is there an official adventure path where a god shows up as a specific plot point?
@@rynowatcherI don't really follow the adventure paths but I know that an NPC of the Iron Gods adventure path ascends to godhood at the end of it. That and I know one of the main deities is going to die soon in either an adventure path or a supplement book, but that's it and I don't know how exactly is that going to happen (gods dying is a stablished thing, the serpentfolk god died once but it's better now and Aroden dying is what marks the beggining of the Age of Lost Omens). Now that I think about it, though. In 1e there were stats for Cthulu, Dagon and some other entities from the lovecraft mythos, albeit I think none of them were true deities by that mythos.
@@Ditidos I know that d&d has always had no problems throwing their gods at the players; temple of elemental evil in 1e had two gods show up, becmi d&d had "immortal level modules" where you fought gods, 2e had die vecna die where the whispered one is a God and main villian you fight at the end, 3e had red hand of Doom where you fight tiamat at the end, and 5e had tyrany of dragons where you fight tiamat and frost maiden where you fight the God of winter... I am not saying it is hard to find instances where other games throws gods against the players, I just cannot recall a pathfinder adventure path where you directly interact with a god.
I mean, it was obvious that this would happen right? DnD is mostly based on a time period almost defined by its adherence to a strictly monotheistic religion, and then people shove a pantheon just because we need to have some variety for the cleric. It would obviously end up with some... weirdness
i think this is it. DnD was created at a time when BOTH western european medeivalist fantasy AND neo pagan fantasy were hugely popular, so the original grognards just tried to shoe-horn them together (and with the cthulhu mythos as well which they all liked even tho it was not popular at the time). they were far from alone, this was a trend throughout fantasy fiction in the 70s. you could synthesize all these very different worlds together in a way that made more sense, but they werent super worried about gods beyond their mechanical utility (which is why all the early gods had stat blocks)
There is a lot of DnD that shows that it's really a tabletop skirmish system at heart, and they've tried to attach bits to it to make it feel more real, but ultimately it's still a system of killing monsters for XP. The alignment system, spell memorisation and the religion have always felt horribly off for me.
I will point out, average citizens in various settings will pray to multiple gods at any given time for specific things
@@atomicash2475 yeah, it's literally only the priests and priestesses that even get close to exclusive worship. So, you know, it's literally just like every other polytheistic religion in history.
important to note that, especially in the case of Hades, some of these "evil" reputations are a completely modern interpretations that would not have been how the actual worshipers will have seen them (gods were never paragons they were people with flaws too, and god of death was not out to get you, nor was he the devil, he just had a job to do). Hades actually has one of the least disturbing reputations in the Greek pantheon.
I think the masterpiece of fantasy religion is Runequest's Glorantha. I'm not sure if there are any other universes that come close in detail and depth, and it's definitely worth a look for anyone looking into it. It focuses a lot on taking worship of gods and integrating it into social settings, ie. your characters have families, and cultural backgrounds, and that obligates the characters to appease those gods to empower their communities, and different social contexts and life paths lead you to seek out the patronage of different gods, and there are gods of EVERYTHING (there are, for example, different fire gods for the cooking hearth and the brick kiln).
Came here to say this. It is the case in Glorantha that players are typically initiates in particular cults, but they're lay members of pretty much all of them. And as a fantasy setting the gods do give magic, but none give all the spells.
Another "I came to say this" here.
@@kevingreenlee7070 Well, historical polytheism would be a situation where most people didn't initiate at all but just stayed on as lay members in a lot of cults. The reason for the high degree of initiation in Glorantha is that it actually gives you acess to quantifiable magical benefits - if historical religions had offered that I think they would have seen more initiates too. ;)
Greg Stafford was very knowledgeable about polytheism
"Ritual sacrifice," such a broad subject. He only focuses on the sacrifice of humans when talking about the broad and complexity of polytheism. A sacrifice is giving up something. Be it food, coin, livestock, etc. So Bal not being powerful is actually to opposite, he would basically be taking from other deities
As somebody with somewhat of an anthropology and comparative religion background, this (and more broadly, religion in general) is pet peeve of mine. There's just so many worlds out there, whether pure fiction, RP setting or whatever that just /fantastically/ drop the ball the second gods come up. Many don't go any farther than a simple X is the god of Y list and often entirely skip the actual religion (the teachings, social experiences, etc that folks actually experience and practice). Others will just take certain of the super-basic assumptions from the religion they're most familiar with and apply it to everything, all the time. Neither of which is necessarily bad, but like, there's so much more that can be done. One of the first things they try to do in any good class or text about religion as a whole is get it through your head that whatever you think you know about religion as a whole, is almost certainly wrong. A huge percentage of religions don't actually do 'devotion' at all, or are particularly interested in morality as such. In many areas it's largely pragmatism: we've got spooky neighbours with spooky powers, how do we best go about living without having them do spooky things to us, or ideally, do spooky things for us. They're nice to them for precisely the same reason a peasant is nice to their local nobility. (See also 'the good folk') Sometimes it's an expressly transactional/reciprocal relationship. A religion might not even /have/ deities, or might not see them as being of primary import, despite their power. There's ones where gods have immense personal power, and ones where they're just cogs in a larger system. Never mind things like syncretism, drift over time, reformation movements, splinter groups, or the fact that there are folks who would identify as members of two or more distinct religious traditions at once... including religions that don't officially allow it. And for the sake of examples of doing it better.... The Deeds of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon (also one of the the best fantasy takes on the classic D&D type paladin), and the absurdly epic webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons, especially with the in-world extra notes that accompany every page.
Some of the other conversations here have reminded me of an older fantasy novel, the title escapes me, but in it there's a god that isn't really worshipped. If there's somebody you want dead badly enough, you can pray to him to kill them. Usually, nothing would happen, but sometimes the target would indeed die. Or you would. The neat thing wasn't the actual application of this, but the social response to it ... As you might expect, this particular practice was quite illegal, with any attempt to do so, even just to the degree of having gathered solid information on how, being a death sentence. With one notable exception: if you performed the ritual and it worked as intended, you're automatically innocent, because the crime isn't the death, it's trying to invoke death on somebody who doesn't deserve it, and if the ritual worked, well, the god's decided that the death was just, so who are they to punish you for it?
religious studies dweeb here. So many of the MOST interesting ideas in fantasy fiction come from the diversity of religious beleif and practice throughout human history. for some reason, these ideas never make it into fantasy religion itself and its so uncool
" @Daemonworks "As somebody with somewhat of an anthropology and comparative religion background, this (and more broadly, religion in general) is pet peeve of mine." Really? If I go to Athens, I will find the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, patron goddess of the city. I won't find a temple to Apollo. For that, I would have to got o Delphi. While the Greek pantheon had many gods, the fact is, a city would pick one (or in the case of Sparta two) and regulate all the others as secondary in terms of worship. Just like the polytheistic religion of Christianity does.
@@MrGreensweightHist i mean things were different in different eras, but there were in fact MANY temples to different gods in ancient athens, including multiple different versions of athena, multiple versions of zeus and apollo, hepahaestus, and others. Yes one god was seens as 'patron' of the city, but each city generally had its on localized versions of most major gods. and zeus wasn't less a 'king of the gods' in a city dedicated to athena.
@@deaconlasagna8570 "es one god was seens as 'patron' of the city, but each city generally had its on localized versions of most major gods" Just like in fantasy cases such as D&D. Glad we are in agreement. In D&D Ao remains king of the gods, like Zeus was. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to worship him. in fact, he is one of the least worshiped deities in D&D because, unlike the others, he takes a hands off approach to mortals. Fantasy worlds capture polytheism correctly.
As a Norse Polytheist, you make a lot of great points. Exclusivity was/is not common in Polytheism, because of specialization. Just as you would not ask your medical doctor for tax advice or help fixing your car, so too do normal people ask multiple deities for help in different situations. This specialization and skill with certain issues is why the average person would worship or venerate many different Gods and Goddesses within a pantheon.
What is a solid, modern tome to own for reference/learning about the 21st Century Nordic pantheon, teachings, and rituals? I am an English speaker, and far from bilingual. Thanx.
There is none. If you want to understand Neo or current day Asatru you need to read and be familiar with The Prose Edda, The Edda, The Havamal, & The Culture of the Teutons are some core books. Any of the translations of the few surviving Islandic poems (sorry I can't remember any of the names at the moment) or books such as Gods by Johan Egerkrans are also good reads. Unlike the Abrahamic faiths Pagan faiths do not have a single unifying scripture. To follow a Pagan faith seriously requires quite a bit of reading, study, and discussion with others. Pagans do not have a single worldwide religion as we don't have a recognized council or Pope that tells us what and how to believe.
@@CooperativeWaffles There are a lot of good starting points. The easiest for newcomers would probably be Our Troth Volumes 1 and 2. There is no centralized or standardized one true theology, but there are different varieties of Norse Polytheism. The Havamal is a good starting point for the lore, followed by Sagas of the Icelanders for a well rounded take on Asatru (one of the varieties). If you're interested in applying the religion in daily life, Temple of Our Heathen Gods has some good books available as pdfs for download for free.
That's why the line "deity" makes me irritated on D&D sheets. If I am not playong a cleric or a paladin, they would probably not have A deity singular.
@@Hrafnskald great recommendations!! 👍
That was pretty interesting! One thing you randomly reminded me of is in Age of Sigmar, where there was originally a large number of death deities, presumably implied to cover lots of different niches, before Nagash came along and started killing them off. Sorta dodging the bullet for the writers for having to come up with allot of different death deities.
Don't forget Morr (or as he is called now, Morrda.)
Bruh, Warhammer was great before AoS. It actually cared about history references, had different styles of organized polytheism like Roman and Middle Eastern, they even had local patrons and immigrant cults.
@@SMT-ks8yp I know, right? This whole video made me constantly think of Warhammer Fantasy as an example of how to handle it correctly. The priests are dedicated because they want the rituals to go properly, and everyone else besides certain knightly orders dedicated to one god venerates each member of the pantheon at the appropriate time and place. Certain cities or regions have different interpretations of each god that elevate them above their stature in other cities or regions, but it's not like someone from Middenheim only worships Ulric or someone from Talabheim only worships Taal. The problems of 'evil deities' and magical priests is pretty well handled as well.
About Bhaal, the thing about him and other gods such as him, that are evil, can also get power not just from worship, but also from fear. Especially the fear his followers cause directly. Or sometimes even the fear they themselves inflict by influencing the world. In that same vein, Silvanus, which is also a niche god usually only worshipped by druids, is also very powerful because he also gets power from the plants and animals. Also, the worship in DND worship various gods most of the time, because they tend to have contact with many different gods. And each god and each temple tends to have different specialties. For example, some gods would maintain libraries and provide services in that sense, others would provide cosmetic treatments or massages, others would give you actual protection through paladins. In DND, Gods and their temples work a lot like secular companies. You might be a very avid customer of one, but you can't live with the services of just your local shoemaker.
I think the Stormlight Archive did a really good job at displaying the ancient polytheistic mindset through the spren, essentially little creatures of many varieties that congregate around concepts and ideas that resonate with them. Thus you have flamespren, fear spren, anger spren, creativity spren, and many powerful, unique spren who are worshipped as gods, but still classified as the same ‘kind’ of being as the smallest and simplest spren.
Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms, mentioned on his YT channel, that the "normal" folk in the realms, pray to evil gods. Especially popular with sailors is the evil goddess of the sea, Umberlee, they pray that she leaves them alone. One also prays to Talos, god of destruction, when caught in a terrible storm out in the open, or in a terrible fire destroying a settlement.
(Hindu)Polytheist here 👋 True 👍
(Most) Hindus of the Gupta Empire would've called you a Ritualistic Atomist & outright denied that you're a believing Hindu rather than a superstitious Illiterate. 😂
I think Runequest's Glorantha does this the best. If I remember right, the guy who wrote the setting was a mythologist, so the religion in the setting is incredibly fleshed out. In the Six Ages/KoDP games, you pray and build temples to the various deities as you need to. Its worth checking out if you haven't looked into it
Glorantha, best fantasy world ever.
In the forgotten realms, not only does the power of the gods depends on the number of followers but also on their fervor, so, a god with less followers but each follower as twice as much fervor as the ones of other gods, that will be enough to give them the same amount of power.
That's exactly how the "evil" gods like Bhaal and Umberlee maintain power, too. While the Good gods are prayed to now and then, it's probably small things like saying grace before a meal or doing a small donation on holy days. Few people are heavily devotedly religious irl so why should the fantasy world be any different? But if you're willing to worship an Evil God, you *really* want to. You'll sacrifice every day if you could, and zealously promote their goals. A prayer is a prayer, so if it's ten from you or one from ten people means little difference to most deities
@@aetherkid Umberlee is a bad example of that since most people who would be going to sea would likely offer a prayer to Umberlee (please don't drown me)
@@chloegoodwin2482 to be fair there are multiple sea gods which might help with that.
This is really interesting. In my homebrew fantasy world, I have a more "classical" polytheistic patheon. Or rather several. The gods of each pantheon are venerated by the followers of that pantheon equally, although there are regional differences between different countries. One pantheon are 4 gods of spring, summer, fall and winter, each with fitting domains attached like harvest, sickness, death, strength, light, birth etc. But all are equal and each one has at least a shrine in each settlement. In the major cities you will find a temple of each god, more often than not at the same place. The other pantheon is a Sisterhood of the creator godesses of all life, which is basically a pagan religion, and venerated more in the "less civilized" regions. Each goddess is seen as the creator of one of the "intelligent species", like the elves, dwarfs, humans, halflings etc, so they have a special place of honor among these species, but each of those goddesses is again held in high regards (for those who follow that old pagan religion). Except for the creator goddess of the Lizard people, Scarats and other evil species, who got twisted and corrupted in a divine war, which now basically has her own monotheistic religion among the evil species. Then there is the triumvirate of Elder Gods, who basically form the basis of reality itself, and are more philosophical concept than an actual religion. But here also all three powers stand equally (a good of creation, destruction and balance). Then there are outliers, like one country who chose to only follow the Summer god of the first pantheon, when an eternal winter struck, becoming a monotheistic theocracy. Also your example with the priests is somewhat like I did it in my world. The priests of the temples are mere servants of faith, they know the rituals and help the people with issues concerning their god. But clerics, i.e. divine warriors with god given powers, are really rare. There are maybe a dozen in the entire country, and maybe half of them serve in temples, while the others are adventurers or heroes who roam the land.
Two points. First, I don’t think the fact that D&D cleric spells “work” would make such a huge difference from real life polytheism. In history, lots of people were disinclined to abandon their gods and worship new ones even when the new one’s powers were proven, or thought to be proven. Consider the story of Moses; when he supposedly turned his staff into a snake to prove he was a real prophet, the Egyptians don’t all fall down and worship YHWH. They basically say, “Oh yeah? Well our gods can do that too!” And they proceed to prove it. This is basically a henotheist story: when Moses’s rod swallows up the Egyptians’ rods, the moral is not “YHWH is the only god,” but “Our god can beat up your god.” Likewise, the early Christians’ enemies did not deny that Jesus had cast out demons, walked on water, or raised Lazarus from the dead. Their response was more like: “Big deal. A dozen other so-called prophets did the same thing. We’ll be impressed when one of them kicks the Romans out.” Modern skepticism suggests that all these stories are false, and maybe they all are, but the point is, people believed them at the time and still didn’t flock to worship the miracle-workers’ gods. Second, you have a valid point that real polytheists worshiped different gods for different occasions much as we go to different medical specialists for different ailments. But not only were priests dedicated to a single god, as you point out, but whole cities had single patron deities also. Corinth was dedicated to Aphrodite, Athens to Athena, Pessinus to Cybele, and so on. The tendency for even polytheists to have a favorite god seems to run pretty deep.
I literally was just talking to my friends about the sustainability and logistics of a sustained death cult in a fantasy setting and how it never quite seemed right.
I mean, death cults worked in real history. Estimated 20-80k sacrifices yearly by the Aztecs (by some accounts, I still expect it to be less than that personally), for example. "But how?" you may ask. Well the answer is simple: They not only sacrificed willing sacrifices, but criminals, people captured in warfare, and slaves who outlived their use (as slaves were not just criminals, but they also had slavery for those who had fallen into debt). A death cult in a fantasy setting would work similarly; capture enemies of your religion to sacrifice, sacrifice criminals of your cult who break the rules, and sacrifice elders who outlived their usefulness. Why let someone pass in peace when you can kill them in honor of your god? And also, not all fantasy realms handle domains the same; for example, in Forgotten Realms, where Bhaal, lord of Murder is from, anyone who committed a murder, regardless of their beliefs, fuelled Bhaal. Deities of races, and unavoidable facets of life such as hunger? Their power grows regardless of what mortals believe. Its weak gods, with tenuous domains who need active worship to survive and garner power; someone like Anhur, who served as a demigod guardian of the Mulhorandi Empire, lives and dies based on if said empire continues to thrive; if his peoples are conquered, another conquering war deity might absorb his portfolio and powers.
death cults easily exist IRL and you think a fantasy setting cant have it? get real lmao
@@user-jq1mg2mz7o No need to be rude dude.
They just have really strong recruitment
do you mean because in a world where the afterlife definitively exists, death would loose its oomph, and thus why would anyone worship it?
It's a shame that the original writers of the D&D settings weren't more into cultural study. The compulsory henotheism of the Forgotten Realms is one of the things that really turns me off the setting. One of the things that I liked about Planescape was that gods were just kind of there and a lot of people just weren't so impressed, especially considering that the gods were banned from Sigil on pain of death and you could go see the bodies of dead gods if you so chose.
There is no compulsory henotheism in Forgotten Realms except for in the case of worshipping specific (usually evil) gods, like Cyric or in specific cultures.
@@chloegoodwin2482 about as compulsory as taxes. Pick a god to protect you or get used as cement until you eventually dissolve into oblivion.
The Wall of the Faithless, or how "good deities" are malovent beings who demand worship on pain of eternal suffering. And if you do it right like you're told, you are instead slowly devoured through osmosis by the deity. Which is different from being eaten by a demon somehow. I swear, undeath is looking better by the hour here.
instead of assuming an author lacks cultural study, consider that perhaps the writers of the Wall of the Faithless are making a creative decision and a point? "youre so stupid" is a pretty close minded assumption when it's clearly just a different thing they're aiming for
Something to consider when putting a polytheistic religion in a fantasy setting is the nature of that settings magic. In the world of Spellsword, magic is extremely commonplace and the only barrier to becoming proficient is the time and resources needed to study and practice. In this context, a temple could be an avenue where one can learn magic under the tutelage of a priest for the purpose of serving people on behalf of their gods, with certain more significant spells essentially being miracles that require partnership between the priest and the deity. This video helped solidify some of my thoughts on the matter, so thank you.
the Bhaal point is excellent and often underappreciated, I think. In a lot of traditions, gods just ARE and didn’t necessarily need your offering to sustain themselves, but it’s evidence of your gifting and request. In mesopotamia, some new parents would put an idol of the demon pazuzu in the infant’s room because pazuzu would recognize the idol as praising him and protect the kid from lesser demons. But there is no such for evil deities in d&d style worlds. They’re just evil and selfish and only the most sociopathic or psychopathic would follow
That is a misconception. You don't have to 'follow' a god to make an offering to them and there are plenty of gods who are 'evil' that you should make an offering to under certain circumstances to protect yourself, eg. Umberlee, Talos, Talona, Beshaba, Shar, the list goes on.
@@chloegoodwin2482 Perhaps, but his argument is that the way in which deity and cleric magic manifests and the personalities of the darker deities dissuades people from doing that.
@@DrakelisExcept that is why people pray to Umberlee. They do it to try to avoid her wrath. And if that logic holds for one evil deity, then it should hold for others.
@@bobbiesheetz1863That makes sense actually. Although arguably its a double edge sword, because by being worshipped to by fear, You dissuade more people from actively worshipping you. Meaning she'll always be just a minor diety.
I was just thinking about this this morning. How there may be a specific god most may prefer, but that the other gods are prayed to when praying for something like safe travels. I was going to research Greek polytheism to get an idea how to best portray it.
Greek cities often had Patron deities, which is the chief deity prayed to in that region. That didn't mean the other gods of the Pantheon weren't prayed to - they just handled their specific roles. A city that picked Apollo as their deity would go to him for most of their day-to-day problems first, and to Zues or Demeter or Hermes for something more specific.
One thing to consider in d&d and similar systems, we only see the heroes perspective who likely focuses on one deity whereas the commoners likely do venerate multiple gods depending on what they are doing at any given time
I recommended this before and I'll do it again. Try the Basics of Economics, because in a large number of Fantasy worlds, the Economic system is either streamlined to have 1 currency, which still hasn't happened in our world, and only kinda happened in Europe. OR the currency is ignored all together, people don't talk about exchange rates, why this island nation that is isolationist uses the same currency as the mainland, and why hyperinflation or hyperdeflation hasn't kicked in. The Economics of a fantasy world could be so fascinating to bring up and discuss, but I haven't really seen anybody talk about it.
Fear and Hunger has a very interesting Polytheistic Pantheon in my opinion
Loved both games!
Yes!! I was just talking about this in the context of Baldurs Gate to my boyfriend. As a practicing polytheist, it annoys me to no end how polytheism exists in DnD. It is so one dimensional and often monotheistic. You hit a lot of the points that I would hit, but I have a couple of suggestions for DMs who wish to make their polytheistic fantasy world feel a little bit more like real world polytheism that you didn't mention. I don't feel like these would be hard to implement, and can feel more fleshed out without going too hard into the harder to understand theological concepts. One, have temples to more than one deity grouped together, or people that venerate multiple gods. A festival to multiple related deities would work as well. These all existed in our real world past, and there is something to be said about the meaning of certain gods being worshipped together. An event or temple celebrating Artemis and Apollo could be a celebration of light, a celebration of family and children, of a bountiful season of hunting and harvest. Which would be different than Artemis and Athena. That could be about the protection of young women, protecting warriors in the wilderness, and so on. The connection between deities can be an important part of what is being celebrated or worship and offer world building opportunities to show what that culture values. Two, having deities being multifaceted. So so many fantasy deities and pantheons are flat. It can be a little hard to understand at first, but it makes lots of sense in practice that a deity can prevent or cause the same thing. Demeter can bring bountiful harvests or cause devastating blights, as shown in the Homeric Hymn that details the myth of Peresphone and Hades. As I've been playing BG3, I've thought how much more interesting it would be to combine Shar and Selune into one goddess. One who can shine a glorious light in the darkness and be a beacon of hope, while also being a keeper of secrets and that which is hidden. Not just slapping one or two domains together but thinking about how those domains exist in dimensions. How they have two sides to the same coin can make a much more enriching story and character for that deity. Overall, great video and thank you for pointing this out! It is so fun to think about
The concept of Selûne/Shar as two aspects of the same god exists - New/Dark Moon Heresy, according to the followers or Selûne and Shar respectively. It’s just not a super widespread belief.
@@possum8865 didn't know that! Not as brushed up on my Faerun lore. Very interesting, surprised a fantasy pantheon would mess with syncretism. It's can be a messy and confusing concept at first
@@annie1352 a lot of gods in D&D have Portfolio's. selune is the goddess of the moon, stars, navigation, navigators, wanderers, questers, seekers, and non-evil lycanthropes. shar is the goddess of darkness, forgetfulness, loss, and night and secrets. and while shar is an evil god she does provide a rather "good" thing is the power to forget things, she or her priest will help you forget something from an haunting memory or your entire life for something in exchange. and syncretism is also shown again in one of the origins of the two main dragon gods Bahamut and Tiamat, with both of being born due to the Asgorath the most powerful dragon god being split in half in the dragon and giant war, and from those two half's Bahamut and Tiamat formed.
Honestly, the best iteration of Polythiesm that I've seen in a fantasy roleplaying setting is probably Glorantha, from RuneQuest.
Maybe he'll make another video explaining how Glorantha gets it right :D
This would be a great series with each video covering a separate setting's pantheons. I vote for Golarion (PathFinder) next. Then perhaps: · Oerth (AD&D Greyhawk) · Warhammer FRPG · World of Hârn (AD&D) · Disc World (Pratchett)
Where is Glorantha? It had the advantage of being created by a self-described pagan and shaman, the late Greg Stafford. It also had the advantage of being implemented in multiple rule sets. There is also the system in Tunnels & Trolls, where clerics convince other characters to contribute to their charities, sometimes because they can heal PCs or NPCs (as medics). The only "gods" were MUs who had largely retreated from the mundane world.
This was neat! That people would worship and sacrifice to many different gods is something I've thought about myself for my worldbuilding, but I never delved as deep into it as here. Thanks a lot man!
This has bothered me as well. It's closer to a bunch of monotheistic religions smushed together, which history shows should lead to religious wars rather than coexistence. Anyone come across a fantasy setting that does polytheism justice?
The Elder Scrolls kind of does? The Nine Divines are more like a Roman/Greek Pantheon and some Daedric princes have aspects that are part of the Dunmeri culture quite similar to the Latin American indigenous religions I think.
@@srikrishnabhat6793Agreed, the 9 divines have separate domains and are prayed to dependant on the blessings a given person wants, and while there are houses of worship that specialize with a particular god or goddess of the Aedra, but it's in a way similar to the ancient temples around greece. It's for people pursuing the mysteries of a particular deity or embracing a specific lifestyle. Unlike real world polytheism, they're portrayed as unambiguously good. But that's where the Daedric Princes come in. Sure some are just evil pure and simple, but there are many who are just very complex individuals with their own dominions, and even those who are untrustworthy have reasons for people to try bargaining with them.
Sound, thanks for the reply! I'll check it out so.@@srikrishnabhat6793
Exalted does a good job.
This is how I made polytheism in my game world: There are 6 main gods: Sun, Moon, Life, Death, Magic and Nature. All worshipped to some degree by the population. Their priests don't get powers from their gods, but they do sometimes answer prayers. There is no Cleric class available for prayers, instead they are replaced by Witches, who have the same powers, but different lore. They are basically to people what druids are to nature. Besides the 6 main gods, there are also arch spirits that rule over piece of land which they are one with. The Lily rules over an ancient forest, the River Devil over a cave system, the Wisp Queen over a swamp. Arch spirits are not exactly worshipped, but people are aware of their existence and know it is important to be good neighbors.
I really like this set up. Would you mind expanding more on your witch lore? I'd love to hear how they differ from the classic cleric and more like people druids. Also why is the River Devil the ruler of caves? Wouldn't he or the Lily cover waterways?
@@amandaslough125 Witches fill a similar role in society clerics do, minus the religious things that are still done by priests. Many witches are not actually able to use magic and heal with medicine. I am thinking of making Witch also a background that gives Medicine and Herbalism proficiency. The River Devil's domain is based on the Barbarossa Cave.
Great video! This actually hit on a couple things I was very deliberate about when creating my homebrew setting’s pantheon. 1- find ways to have the gods’ domains (even the more “evil” ones) intersect normal people and what they’d care about. 2- have the gods provide protection (or at least, be believed to do so) in their respective domains. It creates a more immersive world where most people have incentives to give at least token offerings to ALL the gods, to try and stay on their good side. After all, the humble farmer wants a good price for his crops, so an offering to the god of trade and commerce is just good sense. The baker is getting up there in years, so heck yeah he’ll want to make sure he’s in good standing with the goddess of death, because he’s gonna be passing her way sooner rather than later. And even the city-dwelling assassin wants decent food available and for their house not to get destroyed in a storm, so occasionally even she gives a little consideration to the god of storms and the harvest.
a fascinating parallel that this makes me think of is how weird the Jonah and the Whale story is for being in a monotheistic text and shows just how differently religion used to be thought about. Basically when Jonah is on the boat god brings a storm but then it says that all the people on board are like "hey whose god is doing this, I'm cool with mine who pissed off their god?" and instead of some lecture about there being one god Jonah just says "oop, it's mine, my bad guys, don't worry your gods are probably still cool with you but i pissed mine off" then they toss him overboard.
This was a really good video. The first of yours I've seen, and you've earned a sub! By training, I am a Classical Archaeologist. I'm also a huge DnD nerd and worldbuilder, and this is something i've been thinking about and developing in my own world for a long time. I think that there is a way to make a more realistic polytheism, but it essentially requires homebrewing an entire cosmology, and several cultures and traditions, all from scratch, and then developing a system that enables players to engage meaningfully with those various mythologies and deities. In the world I'm currently building, very sword and sandal/bronzepunk, I'm trying to develop a something like this. I think one of the important things to sort of...gamify, if you will, is the ability for players to interact with a variety of gods in meaningful ways that have impact on the player/campaign/etc. For example a weal and woe/boon system where a character can gain or loose favour, or appeal to a given divine figure over others, for specific things is a good start. I haven't quite figured out how to do it mechanically, but I'm thinking something where a player might choose a given pantheon, or select a set of 3-5 deities that they regularly pray/sacrifice/etc to and their boons related to ability to do things in-game, like being attached to stats or proficiencies. For example, if a character does AB or C that earns favour with, say, Mystra, they might get a +1 to their WIS or INT score for a set amount of time, or have advantage on WIS/INT saving throws for a given amount of time, etc. But I think there also needs to be mechanics in place to allow players, as would function in a traditional polytheistic system, to beseech other gods for other things/purposes that they specifically need (oh, you're going on a steal mission and you have disadvantage on stealth? Sacrifice to the Lord of the Thresholds; on a successful roll you can negate disadvantage/get advantage/gain +1 to DEX, etc. Such a system would probably work best in opposition to/existing as a foil to a mono/henotheistic system like most DnD games have now where a player MIGHT select ONE diety they are particularly devoted to.
The German fantasy Pen&Paper RPG "Das Schwarze Auge" (DSA) has a pretty good theology, called "Zwölfgötterglaube" = "the belief in the twelve gods". That is the dominant religion among the humans and it venerates 12 gods who are all responsible for various domains. But apart from the normal people who will worship all of those gods you also have "Geweihte" ("votaries") who will dedicate their lives to one specific deity while still being respectful to the others. Those gods are also not worshipped in the same way in the entire world. For example, the god of fire, earthquakes, smithing and crafts, Ingerimm, is being worshipped as Angrosch by the dwarves and is their main deity. And another people of humans call him Bal' Ingra and worship him as the master of fire, volcanoes and gold. And there are a dozen other deities that are basically and adaptation of Ingerimm being worshipped by different peoples. As another example there is the Lowangen Dualism, which acknowledges only two of the twelve gods: Praios, who is the god of the sun and law, is being seen as the "good god" and bringer of all happiness, while Boron, the god of death and sleep, is being seen as the "evil one" and bringer of all bad things. I'm always astonished at how much work the creators put into the theology of that game. The gods change over history, they change from culture to culture, there are schisms and fusions of pantheons or completely different pantheons altogether (non-humans often worship different gods), there are sects and cults and subgroups... So, if you feel like looking at it, there is an incomplete English version of the Wiki under wiki-aventuria dot de. Start with the article titled "Twelvegods".
Loved the video! While we don't see it very much in modern DnD or the similar games, in older ttrpgs (and some osr games) we used to see clerics have a limited spell list based on their God. When that is in play the system becomes a bit more polytheistic, and I enjoy the flavor it adds.
I could see a god of the undead being worshipped in the "please protect me from the evil skeletons that pop out of the ground randomly" way.
KZhead recommended this after another video that had nothing to do with what I'd been watching, but as a player of role-playing games and a storyteller/dungeon master, along with an avid reader of fantasy novels, this was a really interesting video, and I'm happy to have watched it. You got my subscription!
This is a great video! I've been reading Bujold's Five Gods stories, and they're a great example of what you're talking about, I think. The gods are very involved, and people can dedicate their efforts to a single god, but everyone still worships all five of the gods, and some of the characters interact with more than one of them. Really a fun faith and magic system!
That's why personally I love the pantheons of Eberron. With the Sovereign Host representing civilisation and their more evil counterparts, the Dark Six, the wild and cruel side of nature and human(oid)s, even good guys will occasionally give a token sacrifice to one of the Six to ward off some danger, like sea storms. It's very similar to the role of Set, to me, and it feels very realistic. The other cults and faiths are also all so diverse - not just deities but all sorts of ascended councils and weird powers, that it makes sense that people would not think of venerating other pantheons or gods. It's the best, most life-like system I've come across.
Fascinating points made! This was very entertaining, informative, and inspiring. I makes me want to flesh out my home brew ideas even more! Thank you!!
Originally the cleric in d&d was a polytheist priest. As the game evolved there came specialty priest that today had eradicated the generic polytheist cleric. In 5e you are forced to pick a single god out that decies your extra spell domanins. Thanks for a good video
In 5e it’s not picking a specific God it’s picking a specific Domain. A cleric of the Forge for example could equally venerate Athena and Hephaestus because they are both gods of craft
I have always felt like this basic notion makes sense, and you just articulated this idea for me, finally. I have read things that describe people going to the huge main temple in Greece--the PANtheon--and splitting their tithe up amongst several of the dieties represented there (while saving the best part of the tithe--say, the fattest calf--for their most favorite of the Gods). I have read of similar habits among the viking Norse, and even in modern times polytheistic cultures, like, say, Hindu people, or some tribal cultures, seem to give all their deities a measure of deference. As a ttrpg game master I have been tempted to run clerics within polytheistic pantheons (such as, perhaps, ancient Greece or Republican or early Imperial Rome) as basically being expected to venerate ALL the gods, at least to some degree. Thank you for speaking something I have never really been able to fully articulate!
Speaking of Temples: Most temples in Hinduism still have idols or altars to multiple deities. Most large ones will try to have some point of veneration for all major deities
Even Rome with its many temples didn't really have exclusive faiths. If you weren't part of the clergy, you probably went to the relevant temple for any issue, and attended various festivals for multiple deities. You didn't become an adult, signed a paper and sold your soul to a specific cult. Not unless you were planning on becoming a priest or such.
In my dark fantasy campaign which took place in a world with set number of gods (and that fact made it possible, as I had to prepare all of them in advance, opposed to filling out the blanks) I showed my players the world where people don't cultivate just one god, but are more keen on some than the other depending on their situation in life
This is something I push in my world personally. I remind my players constantly, and have the NPCs act with the assumption that each of the gods of their pantheon has a specific domain, and they say prayers or perform rituals to that deity based on what they want/need/desire. In the civilized areas of the Empire, each God in the pantheon has their own devoted church/clergy, but their heads all meet to form a sort of religious council on the mortal plane. So the church of each deity in the pantheon is aligned with each other to some extent. This is something I find Elder Scrolls does well with it's Nine Divines (Yes Talos counts, don't at me.) A warrior might venerate the god of war far more often than others, but he still offers his prayers to the fertility/harvest goddess to ensure a bountiful crop, because he's quite fond of having food. He still curses the arch-fiend of insects for the weevils in his hard tack, and he even seeks the wisdom of the knowledge god that his forces might have good intelligence on enemy troop movements, to say nothing of hoping the god of Forge and Flame offered his blessings to the man who made his blade and maille.
This is an excellent video! Great nuance, perfect delivery.
There is a proper name to this kind of practice, which i forgot, but it's certainly not polytheism. What we see in fantasy TTRPGs is a very monotheistic view of polytheism, where each person picks a favorite god and worships them alone. It makes more sense for paladins, who often make vows (sometimes to deities) and clerics, who are specialists in religion (as you mentioned), but for other classes and especially the common folk, that's not how religion works. Regarding the ending of the video: it's not surprising that the "fantasy religion" that became common in D&D and similar systems is nothing like religions in the real world. After all, it didn't organically develop throughout history. It was made up by a bunch of people in a few years. Even the iterations that it did get serve completely different purposes, than the naturally occurring iterations of real world religions and beliefs.
Monolatry: believing in many gods but only really worshipping one.
This is how i thought dnd worked, except for Paladins and Clerics i don't realy hear about gods nor do i chose to ingage with them, so it have left me beliving that non fanatical characters ether worthips all of them (most relevant), agnostic (seemingly most popular for players), or Atheist/Anti-theist (what i usally go for (spices up things)). Whenever the party do have a Cleric or Paladin (or even Anti-Paladin) their god(s) becomes the partys patrion diety, not by chose but by conveniance
I think most games are set up their gods as competing monotheisms. Most game designers and players have never experienced or actually looked into actual historical sources concerning societies that worshipped multiple gods. The only classes that should focus on a single God would be the religious facing one's, and even then, they should acknowledge and tip a nod to the others. Great video!
@TreeFrog851 well in dnd gods can forms groups which allows them to share worshippers and for protection. and you can worship different gods for your different needs.
or maybe because 1. players dont care about cultural anthropology and that's almost always just the DM's who care 2. it's more gameable this way 3. you're literally describing Near East monolatry/henotheism that existed for millenia
I am apparently classified as a worldbuilding masochist, since there’s almost 400 major gods in 1 culture alone. There is 1 god which is the patron of a specific day of the year, meaning there’s at minimum 365+1 major gods. However, different sects of the culture disagree which gods are major enough to deserve a day, adding many of them. One of the major gods is also the first emperor of one of this group’s countries. There is also a god of murder, as one of the 28 major gods of death. This god is seen as both the cause of murders, and the one who helps solve them and protect the souls of the murdered, so people pray to them for the purpose of protection and catching murderers
Mad respect for the sheer ambition.
In case of minor deities, like "god of murder and ritualistic human sacrifice", their power in relation to bigger deities might be explained in 2 ways: 1. Their power might be more limited in scope and variety, than power of their boons. Bigger diety might give you wide variety of powers, or simply answer your prayer. God of murder might be able to only kill a chosen person, under heavy conditions and sacrifice from a follower 2. Smaller amount of followers means less miracles needed to perform. God of harvest might need to spread their power over thousands if not 10s of thousands of priests who frequently help normal folk, while god of murder may only have a few hundred followers, he has much less people that need to be satisfied, which might lead to similar proportion, especially if followers of a smaller deity are more devoted/fanatical than regular folk that are much more casual about their worship.
Smaller, more specific gods reminds me of the time I was working on something inspired by the concept of the Celestial Hierarchy. It was basically beurocratic pantheism: there's a god for /everything/. More or less literally. The catch being, the god of this specific stone has limited power and even less authority. It's not really supposed to /do/ anything on it's own, though you might be able to slip it a bribe to get it to bend the rules a bit and make the rock to hit that guy in the head. The better placed the god, the more they can do, the more they're authorized to do within the system, provided you perform the correct rites, pay the appropriate offerings, the more impressive things can get if you can motivate them to bend the rules, but also the bigger risk if you screw up a bribe attempt. No actual worship here - lots of rites being performed, offering being made, but it's not devotion, it's transaction.
It seems pretty similar to Hinduism, which isn't really one religion as much as it is a family of religions that share some of the same characters. Not everyone worships all of the gods, and their specific functions can vary from denomination to denomination. It differs from some modern European polytheism, but that's hardly representative of the world as a whole. Of course there's the elephant in the room: the gods are actually real, so the "religions" aren't the same kind of thing as our real-world religions. It's more like a nationality or a favourite sports team, and in that context it makes a lot more sense to pledge devotion to one individual.
I think that most of the problem derives from generating priest classes. Making priests who are exclusive worshippers of one particular deity or Immortal (Mystara4Life) is the simplest solution, especially for allowing splatbook extra class options. The transition from the original "Standard Cleric" to a plurality of priest classes appropriate to established campaign worlds with polytheistic cosmologies, like Forgotten Realms, was messy. We saw this with the transitioning of the Duchy of Karameikos from B/X and BECMI D&D to 2nd Edition AD&D, where a dysfunctionally confusing range of options for Karameikan priests were offered - standard clerics of the Church of Traladara or the Church of Karameikos (each having different pantheons, without denying the existence of the other Church's Immortals), clerics of an alignment philosophy (Chaotic, Lawful or Neutral, based on the good and evil-free alignement system of B/X and BECMI D&D), clerics of an Immortal Sphere, and kits for clerics of a particular Immortal. It was effectively too many variables, within a rules edition which didn't allow for much differentiation of clerical skills and powers. You were meant to choose one of the two Churches to be part of, but then you still had to choose between being a cleric of a philosophy, a Sphere, or of a particular immortal, or not bother, and you could see the elastic of the Standard Cleric as a template, or an archetype stretching precariously, with cosmological indecision left to players to fix. The Standard Cleric is still the most naturally useful role for a priest to fill in any adventuring party in my opinion, with the good mix of undead turning, healing and combat magic, and the ability to tank defensively with enough armour. And it makes more sense for a Monotheistic cosmology, or a real medieval based setting where monotheism is dominant even if not entirely the true cosmology of the DM's campaign world. This is doubly so for Paladins, who don't make any sense whatsoever abstracted from a monotheistic religion and/or cosmology with a very binary dualism of good vs evil, especially with their very specifically New Testament saintly abilities like healing by laying on of hands. The generalising of Paladinnyness to all alignments and deities in 5th Edition is an absolute abhorrent absurdity to me, and one of the things which means I will never buy or play it. But that was another utility of the Standard Cleric, which is that it allowed for that kind of a campaign setting, whereas the standardisation of seperate priest classes for different deities in later rules editions imposes an anti-monotheistic bias in terms of what kind of settings can be played.
All hail Anoia, the Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers... when you're searching for something that you can't find that might have been placed in a drawer or cupboard at one point in time.
Having a world where deities are not only active but also intervene in mundane matters (i.e. solving a person's problems) has a problem that needs to be addressed: such a helpful god would be more and more requested, until there's a point where the concepts of pray and demand mix together and people would expect the deity to act. I like to use gestures as an example: praying is generally associated with holding hands and talking upwards, while demanding is associated with a person pointing downwards towards the other person/entity. Throughout the process, people transition from asking upwards to downwards. This is a minor problem, but problem nonetheless, and the easy solution (making the gods seldomly granting requests) has an impact on how the deities are perceived by the population, and what kind of story is being told during the campaign.
Great Video. Very interesting. In my D&D world I have set up a series of gods and demi-gods loosely based on the Norse Gods and stated that they are generally all worshiped by all people as needed. Much closer to true polytheism. The problem that I have is the D&D cleric is too much just another magic user and often their god is an afterthought. I like the piety system set up in Mythic Odysseys of Theros. I would love to see the entire class based much more on this system and less on, 'you level up and you get some new spells.' The only way the current system makes sense is if the cleric is on a specific mission for their deity in which gaining XP and leveling up are a result of the cleric moving forward on their god's mission.
I enjoy Kobold Press' work, and have been borrowing it in my homebrew campaign. The gods in their Midgard setting have "masks," which is to say that two gods from two different cultures could maybe be the same god, and no one is sure. Since some of them are stolen from the real world (Thor, Odin, Sif, etc) they also have a broader, more realistic scope to their domains and involvement in culture. Furthermore, they have fey lords and animal lords that have domains of their own, and could be analogous to the lesser deities in real life.
I haven't finished watching the video yet, and I have to say that this is one of the hardest ones to go through not because of the subject matter (I enjoy it), but the background music keeps clicking in my head as Sade's Smooth Operator , which keeps distracting me from the video. I've been rewinding and rewatching segments because of that. Great content as always though!
this makes me think of the Discworld stories. In Pyramids, Pratchett mentions that asking whether the gods exist is likely to result in a lightning bolt with a note attached saying, "Yes. We do"
This was great! I'm actually interested in the social implications of this now. Would you consider doing a video on an example society that explores this idea of personality cults around clerics and makes it a central feature of their religious practice?
Dungeons and Dragons polytheism works because it is what is needed. Just like the Greeks needed their gods to explain the world dnd needs theirs so the heroes have healing, quest hooks and enemies. Which is why I hold most dnd gods in contempt; while needed for the game most often they have no grounding in the reality they are supposed to exist in. And did you really have to drag Hades over the coals? Among his companions he is a literal paragon of honor and virtue in comparison. The only real reason people dislike him is the domain of the dead. (He isn't even the god of death; that guy works for him though) If people could accept the mortality of the human condition with something other than horror Hades would be beloved.
Thanks a lot, your analysis is quite relevant, and raises subjects that are not thought of often enough.
I think the way people (used to) adhere to polytheistic worldviews and still show our attraction to them through stuff like fantasy-based games or books etc is just fascinating
Theros! Dnd did a crossover book with magic the gathering for their greek mythology world and they added an entirely new gameplay system for all classes to worship all gods. Since all the theros gods are active beings and didnt need clerics to intervene on their behalf, all characters could get minor divine powers and spells my doing things in any of the gods names. It was a really cool way of adapting real polytheism to fantasy games
That book is so good and definitely worth it just for the devotion system but you also get the banger ancient legally distinct greece setting.
I mean Tolkein had his cake and ate it too when it comes to fantasy theism in a VERY similar way to how the forgotten realms does. Ao and Eru Illuvitar map pretty closely onto each other, as do the Valar and Maiar onto the greater and lesser gods of dungeons and dragons. That said, neither setting really makes sense from an IRL polytheistic lens for obvious reasons, yeah.
Part of it is that he never dives into religion outside the cult of Sauron. That and the Numenorians being friends with Ulmo. We don't really get any clergy, festivals, temples or anything else. I guess it is because of the Valar deciding to abandon humanity to its fate after Morgoth was overthrown.
LotR is monotheistic
I like how the video was just genuinely exploring the topic and not trying to say fantasy religions is bad.
As a polytheist and a fantasy lover, I agree and its always sort of bugged me. Ive always wanted to write a really cool fantasy world with its own very cool traditions and pantheons that arent just greek, nordic, or english gods with new names or christian allegories
If you were interested in East Asian inspiration, or just wanted to have a reference for living polytheism, Kokugakuin University tends to have high quality encyclopedic articles about the Shinto religion.
I thought the large difference in style between fantasy polytheism and real-world polytheism was partially a conscious choice on the authors to distance their game from real-world connotations. A way to be respectful to the very real people who follow and followed various faiths.
I've thought the same but now think that's just really ignorance of it. How man fantasy writers are there in the west that come from an actual polytheistic religion? They really just have no idea how to write it. They might have done some research but that's as far as it goes. As far as I know, there has been any western fantasy RPG by a Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, even native American/Canadian/South American. I belive there's a been a few asian novelists but I haven't read any yet and don't know if they even go into religion.
@@Space_Ranger You're probably right, at least for a lot of fantasy it's mostly ignorance. In some cases though I think they are at least aware of their ignorance at least and therefore try to just do their own thing rather than try to do something close to a real world belief and come across as offensive about it. I don't have any references for this though - it'd be interesting to hear from fantasy and RPG authors on the subject!
@@mikeesplace Yes me too.
@@Space_RangerI think the closest you'd come to it in the modern west would be the relationship of the Catholics and their saints. That's still not really polytheism , but its the closest to it.
@@rebeccaholcombe9043 I agree but at least that makes more sense that what some have created for games. Admittedly It's been a long time since I played D&D and especially in an established world. So I'm not current on what's been happening, but it sounds like not much has changed. But they way many have been created, there should be holy wars going on ALL of the time!
The Elder Scrolls does a decent job here I think. Since you have the Aedra and the Nine Divines. The Dunmeri worship the Daedra and some of the in-game books in all the 3 main series games provide a small look into the Dunmeri culture and their relationship to the Daedra with The House of Troubles consisting of troublemaking daedra (Malacath, Molag Bal, Mehrunes Dagon and Sheogorath).
Also, it's nice how different religions there have different interpretations and role of the same divine beings.
I love how complex and nuanced the Dunmeri religion is.
First video I've watched from you and it's a pretty enjoyable one! I think the issue with western fantasy pantheons stem largely from the fact that most authors are familiar with the fantasy polytheism portrayed in media rather than IRL polytheism (so it's a feedback cycle, in a sense). And also the fact, as you said, that it is a lot of work that simply isn't worth doing if it's not the main focus of the story. Even if the author/DM is an absolute worldbuilding fiend, the audience typically does not have enough time or attention to want that level of detail. Tbh most fantasy pantheons are just religious-flavoured magic systems to me, as someone from a Chinese (Taoist) background. Also, I just noticed something about the worldbuilding about Journey to the West - there's not much explanation about the pantheon at all. Because it's assumed that the target audience already knows all about it. When Sun Wukong was rampaging against Heaven and fighting other deities, they come with abilities and items that honestly don't make sense thematically. That's fine for the audience, because we already know their full backstory and why they have those. A fantasy author doesn't have that luxury, everything has to be built from the ground up. There's an anime, Noragami, that does this pretty well I think. It's based on Japanese Shintoism with plenty of creative liberties. There's some major gods but they're always presented as a Big Deal, and the MC is a minor god trying to rebrand his image and do side jobs in order to build up a following.
I think this is an interesting perspective and will be trying to pull some of this into my DnD games, but I also think it is important that we are trying (as a GM) to fulfill a fantasy. Most of the time even if you make it a proper pantheon unless someone is playing a character that would dive into it they may never know. So it becomes more of how it feels when interacted with rather then any accuracy. Least that’s how I see it, but this is still fascinating and will definitely try to put some of this as background world building stuff.
Thank you for the educational video, you’ve helped me put words to a particular pet peeve of mine around Forgotten Realms gods worship. It’s also interesting to hear just how weird fantasy polytheism is very different from real world polytheism. It’s good to keep in mind different domains and think about how active gods and their followers are in a fantasy world. One god and their followers being able to solve every problem would have major consequences and rippling effects. I’ve always liked gods who are more like forces of nature, and sometimes bordering on the uncanny or alien. I’ve also heard a take that gods and their priests have limited use of their power because of a Cold War situation; if one god goes full ham, all the others will be forced to as well, thus sparking an apocalyptic power struggle. Thank you for the video, it was a wonderful watch!
This is also part of *why* the relationship is so different: worshipping a deity in Faerun isn't a matter of flinging praise into the void, or powerlessly hoping for their benevolence. Gods are *active* and confer power directly to those they deem worthy. Your relationship with a given deity, *especially* as a character class that draws power from them, isn't servanthood. It's an arrangement where you and the god share the same goals, and they empower you to pursue them. This goes doubly for settings (like Faerun) where even the gods who hold control over fundamental forces NEED worship to even exist. And everything in Faerun is canonically held in check by the threat of mutually assured destruction. Personally I prefer "gods *as* natural forces" too, but the point remains so long as they have an active influence in the world.
Many of the other players and gm/dm/st in the fantasy games I play treat the pantheons like christianity with a new coat. Effectively, like there is only one god to their player or one selected above all. They have a very christian perspective of worship. It's to be expected in a christian society. However the way many handle it has bothered me. Being an oceanic pegan, I tried explaining polytheism to them and well that never went well. The only exception to my grievance is a Pallor priest, that god I find to be a straight conversion of christianity and when forced to play a priest, I act as such.
Something I forgot to bring up. The minor gods of house and hearth would be strange in most fantasy settings. Nymphs', satyrs, and many fey would be these minor gods, not monsters to hunt......Goblins would also fit in this, having a house goblin or kobold would be a creature to appease not banish.
In the Forgotten Realms at least, people favored by a god gain special powers and privileges. Highly capable individuals, like adventurers, will tend to throw in with the deity that grants them favor. It might seem kind of like a collection of different monotheistic faiths, but it's really more devotion to the god that's deigned to intervene in that character's life. Commonfolk don't have such incentive, and they do tend to be a lot more flexible, reaching out to different gods at different times and under different circumstances. Clerics in particular are powered by a specific deity's essence. There's no prohibition keeping clerics of different gods from coming together and working toward a common goal. There's no prohibition keeping them from getting favors or assisting the faithful of other gods. There can even be temples that venerate multiple gods. But that specific cleric is literally the conduit of a specific god, so again, it might come across like monotheism with polytheistic paint, but there's a practical reason for it in that setting's cosmology. Moreover, in D&D cosmology, while the gods are not usually jealous, when a person dies, their soul is judged and claimed by a god, to be brought to their divine domain. Any soul that isn't claimed is then doomed to wander the Gray Wastes, hopeless and full of regret. So, there is a certain pressure to throw their lot in the with the group that dominates their locale. But that doesn't mean they can't seek blessings or favors from other gods, or even gods that don't align with theirs. My point is, fantasy faiths don't correlate to real-world religions all that closely. Those worlds operate under different principles than ours, so they can't. If you want to make a setting that can foster something akin to modern day Neopagan worship, you'd need to start with the circumstances that enable it.
In many of the largest fantasy settings (i.e. Faerun) people are typically given a place in the afterlife of whichever deity's realm best reflects their behavior or whichever one they most fervently worship. And since people only have one soul and one eternal destination for that soul, it's in the best interests of people to hedge their bets with one god who they believe will most benefit them in this life and in the next.
Didn’t expect a video abou DM’ing to teach me so much about the real world. Great video! I had a discussion with someone about a similar topic and they had some interesting ideas regarding polytheistic worlds where the gods aren’t real, or at least aren’t known to be. what’s important is the client/patron relationships as you’re doing rituals or sacrifices or whatever to achieve a specific result. So as long as the religions/gods/cults etc can deliver on their promises, their organizations will thrive, which is the equivalent of their god thriving too
"a worldbuilding masochist" is that a challenge?
I have played around with the idea of a fantasy campaign with three major religions, each with their own set of gods. The Court of the Golden Sun had benevolent deities (goddess of sun/law, god of moon/change, goddess of earth/water/life; and 7 minor deities of the Virtues), The Court of the Silver Tree (nature centered religion with one main deity and a number of minor deities for seasons and ecologies), and the Court of the Iron Crown (conquest centered/evil religion with one main deity and 7 minor deities of the vices). The Court of the Silver Tree usually, but not always, got along with the Golden Sun. The Iron Crown got along with no one. Different areas or realms would promote, ignore, or persecute the three religions differently.
Consider taking an idea from the Hârn World Setting... Hârn has different sects worship the same gods under different names and pantheons. The idea that deities are the same or separate aspects is heretical to some churches. While in others, upon gaining higher positions, such is taught as sacred knowledge. The bureaucracy and royalty prevent this knowledge from spreading. Few sects even consider such insanity worth their breath. How could there be truth to it when armies clash on the battle field with clergy slinging spells gained from the sameGod? Poppycock! ￣￣￣￣￣￣ My proposal: Each set of deities is a pantheon of their own aspects of the same deities. The different churches dedicated to each pantheon worship the separate aspects of the same deity. Depending on how one honors a deity and performs the rituals to gain/avoid attention, blessings, and spells bring forth that aspect of the god.
We actually have an example of Divine magic of a sort in the first book of Homer's Iliad - When Agamemnon drives off Chryses, priest of Apollo, when he comes to the Greek camp to ransom his captured daughter, the priest invokes Apollo, reminds him of all the favours the priest has done for the God (erecting shrines and sacrifices in his name) and thus compels the God to intercede in the priest's behalf. Modern readers often fail to understand this because the verb used there is "prayer", but the Ancient Greeks' understanding of the term was very different from ours, and the text the follows was readily understood by ancient readers as magic compulsion of the God, Apollo - who by the way had a very dark streak, often ignored by modern readers, but very present in the minds of the ancient Greeks.
I mean, yeah there IS a lot murder in the forgotten realms. and how intense the worshiper is also very important in the lore
D&D already has solved this, Bhaal is very much a quasi deity due to how often his cultists murder eachother, though one person, through fervent zeal can make up for a lack of numbers with their devotion. But either way, the strongest gods in d&d arethose that you would find in most civilizations, gods of Life, Cultivation, Nature, Growth, the Sun, Lightning, Sea, Merchentile, Luck and so on, very generic domains that most people would pray to. And if lets say a peasant in the middle off nowhere decided to just pray or give thanks to the sun....this automatically gives power to the god of the sun in that setting, its how it works in general. Its why evil religions dont spread beyond their niche, unless its very organized like the Church of Bane because they are very much organized and the religion speaks to many people. You wanna become strong and powerful? Climb up within the ranks of Bane's clergy and you may have your own land and subjects to rule over.
Murder isn't particularly uncommon, people kill other people somewhere everyday
this was always jarring for me but that is in part because I am a polytheist, I do worship multiple gods and goddesses(Primarily the Hellenic deities), you hit on a lot of parts that always just bug me about polytheism in dnd worlds. The historian Bret Deveroux has an entire section of excellent blog posts about historical polytheism. However one thing that I think is the nature of the cleric class kind of shapes how religion in dnd worlds tends to look like.
This has perfect timing with planes cape coming back. Thank you so much for this!
This has really helped clarify for me why, as a pagan, my use of polytheism is often surprising to other DnD players. I'm glad to have stumbled on this channel!
I'm atheist ⚛️, so nope😂
Fedora intensifies
@@shovel662 I am a girl and and an atheist (or more accurate apatheist), still I can look at fantasy religions and how much sense they would make. And fantasy polytheism are usually really bad.
I have never seen a fedora tipped this hard. t. atheist.
Great video! You helped me to understand some issues i had while building my own pantheon of gods. Thank you!
This is exactly the kinds of things I find facinating. Excellent deep dive!