Best fictional religions for RP?

[Max_Killjoy]

I personally like Lovecraftian entities. Something about facing an entity that utterly dwarfs you and is so alien that human morality is potentially nonapplicable, is weirdly reassuring in a scary way (more like a natural disaster incarnate than a person). I tend to expect much more of more allegedly relatable deities (who I feel should know better), which is probably part of the reason I intensely dislike most D&D portrayals of deityhood (what I think about Faerun’s alleged gods is unprintable, and Dragonlance’s pantheon is even worse).

Faerun's deities and totally warped "theology" should make mortals justifiably want to rebel, to overthrow the gods, to storm the planes and tear down the walls and burn the palaces. "Choose one of us as your 'patron', or face suffering to make your mortal troubles seem small, and eventual oblivion!" Ugh. It's blackmail fig-leafed by "divinity".

~~~~

The old "gods" in one of the settings I'm working on have a Lovecraftian element, in that way -- they were like forces of nature, like gravity or light or "entropy", than they were like big powerful petty humans -- combined with elements of the wandering / Quixotic star gods of "space rock" and a certain era of comics, the generational conflict of the mythical history of certain past pantheons, etc. They came from "before" time, and were more like the multiple "souls" of reality than they were gods. They weren't aligned with human concerns because they didn't come from humans -- in a reality where these timeless ultra-powerful entities were actually real and long predated not just mortals or life but the universe itself, I see no reason why they'd have to be highly in sync with mortal concerns. They were fascinated (sometimes morbidly or dangerously) by mortals for a variety of reasons, but their entire experience and thinking and mental space was both larger than and sideways to humans.

They were eventually overthrown and locked away by a group of post-apotheosis formal mortals (the "old gods" can't be destroyed any more than gravity or energy can be destroyed), and those new deities are far more aligned with mortal thinking and concerns because they arose as mortals and are inextricably linked with mortals.

I concur with your assessment. I will admit that the idea of monotheistic faiths acknowledging the existence of rival divinities, and competing therein, is an interesting concept... if executed well. I’ve yet to encounter a D&D setting where it is done well. Even OOTS’s own dabbling in this realm has shown nothing more than a seemingly inherent toxicity of such divine cosmologies, and the risk that a rule-breaker (usuall evil, chaotic, or both) can present to such a realm is enough to make one question why particularly treacherous deities would ever be tolerated.

I do feel the worst decision TSR and WotC made with respect to their fictional religions was to have gods devoted to evil. Not having evil-aligned gods per se, but gods that embrace evil. Having deities that justify their portfolio according to some twisted code, makes for much more interesting and terrifying villains, who are no less evil and can even justify having followers who think alike. There was someone on this forum doing reworked versions of the core D&D deities that was much more like plausible mythology (need to look them up again). As a key example, their Nerull was genuinely terrifying, a force of oblivion devoted to the end of everything, including undead and itself, but it was on the basis that Nerull blamed itself for creating life and thus pain, evil, and suffering, and sought to end what it felt was a mistake. As a result, I could see why a genuinely caring, NG individual would worship Nerull on the admittedly fallacious logic that if life is pain, and pain is bad, life is bad. In contrast, standard Nerull is a cartoonish “reaper” who apparently hates life but loves unlife?

I think that would be LudicSavant's new takes on the D&Deities, and frankly those versions are orders of magnitude more believable -- starting with the fact that the attitudes and practices of the believers, the religion as integral part of the society/culture, that's all front and center.

Spoiler

Show

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...take-on-Nerull
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...nd-Alien-Light
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...the-First-Lich
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...olth-Lady-Luck
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ng-of-the-Gods
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...Laughing-Rogue
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...thnul-the-Many
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...take-on-Hextor

My opinion on deities in a pantheon is that for the most part each should be defined more by their own areas of concern ("domains"), and their own personalities, than by being "the good deity" or "the evil deity" or whatever.

[LibraryOgre]

I agree with all of this. I don't even think that something like this would be difficult to implement in RPGs and gives religious characters so much more to work with.

A long time ago, I wrote a bit on the "generic cleric", as the non-specialty priests in 2e were called. I can't get to it from work (seriously my work filter seems to roll a die every day), but the idea of a priest who was on good terms with multiple deities works well. I also liked borrowing from Shadowrun's interpretation of Voudoun... you had a primary Loa, but you could forge relationships with other loa, and gain their benefits, as well. In D&D, you might even rate that by alignment... from LG, my primary deity should be LG, but I might also have alliances with NG or LN deities, and might be able to perform ceremonies for other deities.

1e Clerics could do this -- there was no expectation of exclusivity until 2e specialty priests, which may have come from FR but I'm not sure.

I'd cite the Theocracy of the Pale; there wasn't an expectation of exclusivity, but it certainly existed as a concept before 2e.

I concur with your assessment. I will admit that the idea of monotheistic faiths acknowledging the existence of rival divinities, and competing therein, is an interesting concept... if executed well. I’ve yet to encounter a D&D setting where it is done well. Even OOTS’s own dabbling in this realm has shown nothing more than a seemingly inherent toxicity of such divine cosmologies, and the risk that a rule-breaker (usuall evil, chaotic, or both) can present to such a realm is enough to make one question why particularly treacherous deities would ever be tolerated.

Hackmaster/Kingdoms of Kalamar does this, to an extent, though I'm not a huge fan of how they do it. There's worship, there's being anointed to a deity, and there's being ordained to a deity. Each faith has enemies and allies within the singular pantheon, and different races do tend to skew towards certain deities (orcs are really big into the Emperor of Scorn and the Creator of Strife, but might also like the Shackler, the Dark One, the Locust Lord, or the Battlerager and still be pretty orc-y). Anyone can worship a deity. Someone who is anointed to a deity reaps certain benefits, but also agrees to limit their worship to the deity and their allies. Someone who is ordained is a cleric, and limits their worship to their singular deity.

[Max_Killjoy]

A long time ago, I wrote a bit on the "generic cleric", as the non-specialty priests in 2e were called. I can't get to it from work (seriously my work filter seems to roll a die every day), but the idea of a priest who was on good terms with multiple deities works well. I also liked borrowing from Shadowrun's interpretation of Voudoun... you had a primary Loa, but you could forge relationships with other loa, and gain their benefits, as well. In D&D, you might even rate that by alignment... from LG, my primary deity should be LG, but I might also have alliances with NG or LN deities, and might be able to perform ceremonies for other deities.

Long ago in my D&D days I played a character who wore a couple of necklaces with the holy symbols of every non-loathsome deity in that GM's setting on them, and had a few levels of nonspecific "cleric" that represented "I get this from here, and that from there, and those from these, and..."

[LibraryOgre]

Long ago in my D&D days I played a character who wore a couple of necklaces with the holy symbols of every non-loathsome deity in that GM's setting on them, and had a few levels of nonspecific "cleric" that represented "I get this from here, and that from there, and those from these, and..."

Benny, from the Mummy, comes to mind.

Really, a 3.5 concept for these kinds of clerics that I like: Only domains. You have say, 4 domains at 1st level, get all their powers and can free-cast your spells. As you level up, you get a few more domains, and maybe the option to switch them out.

A lot less CODzilla, a lot less generic.

[Nifft]

I'd cite the Theocracy of the Pale; there wasn't an expectation of exclusivity, but it certainly existed as a concept before 2e.

Yeah I brought them up earlier. They're an exception, not the default. Monotheism should be a thing because it's certainly a viable concept, but it shouldn't be the only thing.

Long ago in my D&D days I played a character who wore a couple of necklaces with the holy symbols of every non-loathsome deity in that GM's setting on them, and had a few levels of nonspecific "cleric" that represented "I get this from here, and that from there, and those from these, and..."

I like that a lot more than the One-True-God type.

It allows spell repertoire expansion, too, as you discover ancient rites of dead cults or pore through the revelations of a holy madman.

[Anonymouswizard]

I have a setting where all magic is prayers to the gods. People follow the religion of the place they grew up, which will likely focus more on a subset of the gods based on what's important to the area, but then it comes down to it a desert magician prayering properly to the god of the ocean will give safe voyage the same as a coastal magician will, because it's giving the exact same respect to the exact same god.

If you particularly revere a deity and they particularly like you then you might recieve boons, but those will generally be along the lines of 'a magic item'.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Kill.
Six.
Billion.
Demons.

Here is a link.

There is no other response when asking about the best fictional religion. And remember, Reach Heaven Through Violence!

[LuminousWarrior]

I'm very fond of non-Evil death deities.

[LudicSavant]

I think that would be LudicSavant's new takes on the D&Deities, and frankly those versions are orders of magnitude more believable -- starting with the fact that the attitudes and practices of the believers, the religion as integral part of the society/culture, that's all front and center.

Spoiler

Show

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...take-on-Nerull
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...nd-Alien-Light
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...the-First-Lich
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...olth-Lady-Luck
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ng-of-the-Gods
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...Laughing-Rogue
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...thnul-the-Many
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...take-on-Hextor

Yup, that version of Nerull is indeed mine. Glad you guys like them, by the way! Wonder if maybe I should post the rest of the set on GitP, since a lot of folks have been requesting it.

[sktarq]

Wonder if maybe I should post the rest of the set on GitP, since a lot of folks have been requesting it.

Please Do....massive fun.

[LibraryOgre]

I'm very fond of non-Evil death deities.

When I play the Realms, I actually include Kelemvor, even before the Time of Troubles, because I don't want the god of the dead to be evil. A nice LN seems far more reasonable.

[Max_Killjoy]

When I play the Realms, I actually include Kelemvor, even before the Time of Troubles, because I don't want the god of the dead to be evil. A nice LN seems far more reasonable.

Do you include the thing about the wall and obligatory worship?

[Nifft]

When I play the Realms, I actually include Kelemvor, even before the Time of Troubles, because I don't want the god of the dead to be evil. A nice LN seems far more reasonable.

Hmm, I wonder if Wee Jas has been described as "nice".

[PhoenixPhyre]

As to gods of death, I actually have two who are associated with parts of that portfolio.

The first (the Hollow King) is the executioner, the assassin of the gods. He presides over the untimely end of those who commit crimes or contract with demons. He doesn't really have a separate church establishment in the main play area other than a few separate organizations of priests, assassins, and spies who actively carry out his work on those that can't be arrested publicly.

The second (Melara, Lady of Mercy) is associated with rest, winter, natural endings, and healing. She's a downright nice person and her clergy are traveling healers and graveyard tenders. Her only real big no-no is creation of intelligent undead (as that prevents a soul from traveling on to whatever its destination might be). Her worship is part of the Church of the Seasons, the primary religious organization in one of the main countries.

For all 16 of my gods, while there may be people who feel more attuned to one or the other (and clerics are sponsored by a specific god), most people venerate whichever one is important right now. In the main country the 4 seasonal gods get pride of place but the rest are appeased in season. No racial pantheons exist--dwarves in that one country tend to primarily worship the god of mountains, stone, and endurance but dwarves elsewhere may not be religious at all or may worship any of the others or all of the others.

There are also groups that are animists (venerating the local spirits), those that revere ancestors (some of whom have actually ascended to demi-god status), one that is a hybrid of worshiping two of the gods in particular but mainly through the Queen Ascendant, an ascended mortal who is now a demi-god.

The difference between the gods and the demi-gods is that demi-gods are less powerful individually but also less bound by strictures and more able to intervene. They have warlocks, not clerics (although the overlap in abilities is strong). Gods are basically the customer-service middle-management of the universe, each taking care of a few mortal-facing areas. The gods are not responsible for the elements or most other, non-mortal-focused things. The current set was chosen by the operating mechanism of the universe (which doesn't get involved with mortals) from powerful mortals after the last set sacrificed themselves (not entirely voluntarily) to keep the universe functioning after BAD THINGS (ie: PCs) happened to it.

[LibraryOgre]

Do you include the thing about the wall and obligatory worship?

TBH, I find it largely irrelevant. I'd probably use it as it was first presented... for whose who either denied the gods entirely or who broke faith with them.

Hmm, I wonder if Wee Jas has been described as "nice".

Compared to Myrkul?

[Anonymouswizard]

When I play the Realms, I actually include Kelemvor, even before the Time of Troubles, because I don't want the god of the dead to be evil. A nice LN seems far more reasonable.

Ah, Kelemvor. He's probably the only FR deity I actually like, because he does seem to care about everybody and wants to be fair, but was essentially overruled by the other gods.

Plus there's a lot to be said for LN gods of death/the dead. My setting includes a LN god of death who would probably come off as LN (I rarely use alignments), they're also the god of healing because they don't want mortals to die before their time (an idea I try to import to any setting honestly).

Do you include the thing about the wall and obligatory worship?

The thing that annoys me the most about the wall is that when Kelemvor very reasonably decided not to use the darn thing it was the good gods who lost all the worship. Because apparently promoting ideals or helping people means diddly squat, the only way for good deities to have loads of worshippers is to be the only path to a good afterlife. It's not like they didn't manage before the wall was created, did they just spend the entirity of the wall's existence lazing around because they knew they had an easy ticket to worshippers, and suddenly when they have to put actual work in again they're all upset? So they gang up on a guy who is trying to treat people fairly and force him to institute a punishment for people who didn't suck up to anybody enough. Sounds like any rage against the heavens is very justified.

Because really, who sounds like the good guy here. The person attempting to set up a system where people get rewarded according to their deeds, or the guys wanting to turn the afterlife into a game of nepotism?

[Nifft]

Compared to Myrkul?

Don't know enough about Myrkul to have an opinion on that.

Ah, Kelemvor. He's probably the only FR deity I actually like, because he does seem to care about everybody and wants to be fair, but was essentially overruled by the other gods.

Plus there's a lot to be said for LN gods of death/the dead. My setting includes a LN god of death who would probably come off as LN (I rarely use alignments), they're also the god of healing because they don't want mortals to die before their time (an idea I try to import to any setting honestly).



The thing that annoys me the most about the wall is that when Kelemvor very reasonably decided not to use the darn thing it was the good gods who lost all the worship. Because apparently promoting ideals or helping people means diddly squat, the only way for good deities to have loads of worshippers is to be the only path to a good afterlife. It's not like they didn't manage before the wall was created, did they just spend the entirity of the wall's existence lazing around because they knew they had an easy ticket to worshippers, and suddenly when they have to put actual work in again they're all upset? So they gang up on a guy who is trying to treat people fairly and force him to institute a punishment for people who didn't suck up to anybody enough. Sounds like any rage against the heavens is very justified.

Because really, who sounds like the good guy here. The person attempting to set up a system where people get rewarded according to their deeds, or the guys wanting to turn the afterlife into a game of nepotism?

Huh, he does sound nice.

[Paleomancer]

Plus there's a lot to be said for LN gods of death/the dead. My setting includes a LN god of death who would probably come off as LN (I rarely use alignments), they're also the god of healing because they don't want mortals to die before their time (an idea I try to import to any setting honestly).

A nice idea, though I like the idea of a LG death god even more. A deity that takes time to be compassionate to, and mourns for, every soul that transitions from life to death, while still aware of its cosmic role and responsibilities therein, would be a fantastic character. Making it the patron of certain (reasonable) paladins or necromancers (in the old sense of people who speak with the dead) would be fantastic... I need to write this up

The thing that annoys me the most about the wall is that when Kelemvor very reasonably decided not to use the darn thing it was the good gods who lost all the worship. Because apparently promoting ideals or helping people means diddly squat, the only way for good deities to have loads of worshippers is to be the only path to a good afterlife. It's not like they didn't manage before the wall was created, did they just spend the entirity of the wall's existence lazing around because they knew they had an easy ticket to worshippers, and suddenly when they have to put actual work in again they're all upset? So they gang up on a guy who is trying to treat people fairly and force him to institute a punishment for people who didn't suck up to anybody enough. Sounds like any rage against the heavens is very justified.

Because really, who sounds like the good guy here. The person attempting to set up a system where people get rewarded according to their deeds, or the guys wanting to turn the afterlife into a game of nepotism?

I've long wondered why even add such a bit of fluff to the setting at all? The wall adds nothing and seems like something a truly "good" deity would reject, even if it came at a cost to their own power (if mortals are expected to make sacrifices, why not deities who allegedly embody such virtues?). Especially since the setting makes it clear rejecting the gods through this is "wrong," and not even just a cultural perception either. If I remember correctly, in some hack Faerun novel I read ages ago, supposedly the whole "get rid of the wall" was a plot by Cyric to game the worship system and "destroy" the gods of good, or some similar alleged excuse. Given that Mystra has been destroyed at least twice, I think, for minor offenses, why doesn't someone just put Cyric with Tharizidun and throw away the key?

[SimonMoon6]

{Scrubbed}

[The Jack]

{Scrubbed}

[Psyren]

Benny, from the Mummy, comes to mind.

Wasn't he used as part inspiration for the iconic Factotum (or was it iconic Chameleon) too?

[Anonymouswizard]

My next biggest beef is the "everything works like the monotheistic religion that I happen to know about" conceit that runs through most such fictional religions. This includes the already-mentioned "treating polytheistic religions as if they were monotheistic". This also branches out into character classes like Paladin and Cleric, both of which are heavily modeled on That Of Which We Must Not Speak (real world religions, one in particular, in fact). Most priests of polytheistic religions would have no use for plate mail armor, yet they automatically become proficient in it. And the concept of "religious warrior" meaning "a worshiper of the one and only one Lawful Good deity because there is no other deity" is plainly ludicrous in a polytheistic fictional religion, in which the LG gods are no more or less important than any other gods.

Just honing in on a couple of points, because they're the parts of your post that deserve the most discussion.

First off, I have seen monotheistic priests in a pantheonic religion work (in The Dark Eye), but it's a very loose pantheon, the way miracles work means that gods having exclusive priests is better for them, and if you weren't a priest you just prayed to the god that was most suitable (good chance it's the god of agriculture, maybe the god of healing, and you'll invoke the god of death at funerals...). Full miracle working priests are also rare, most villages have to make do with a wandering priest to perform religious rituals. Oh, and before I go into it in a more generic fashion, the priests all had a focus depending on their patron, and only those of the goddess of honour tend to be shown in armour with weapons (because most have other things to spend the Thalers on).

On the Cleric and Paladin, the Cleric is tied up with a load of problems I have. O off it's supposed to be a wandering warrior priest, that's why they have armour proficiency, and was originally intended as a priest of the vague 'gods of good' (heavily implied to stand in for TWSNBN). They also began this random tradition a lot of games have with seperating 'arcane' and 'divine' magic, rarely with any actual reason given in-universe. Magic is no longer magic, it has to be it's own specific type of magic. In general I've begun removing 'priest' classes from my games and treating all magic as 'divine' magic, at least from the point of view of the characters.

The Paladin is essentially the problems of the Cleric, taken up to eleven. It's an incredibly specifc wandering religious knight with minor magic powers, or in 5e a more fighty wandering warrior priest.

My next biggest beef with fictional religions for RPGs is the "all the gods are real (except the ones worshiped by people that you know in the real world)" concept. This makes little to no sense to me, since I consider the story (the mythology) to be the most important part of a religion. If you're telling me Marduk is real, than I know he created the Earth out of Tiamat's corpse. But if you tell me that the Greek and Norse gods are true too, and they have their own different creation myths... and everything in those religions is ALSO true... well, I have a problem with that. I'm not a big fan of the shamanistic "everything is true, even contradictory things" idea.

The other alternative is that everything in those mythologies is false (none of the creations myths are real; actually the Earth just sort of showed up one day and, oh yeah, Tiamat is still alive). But I have a real problem with that. If the stories are false, and the gods' only reason for existing is in the truth of those stories, well, then the gods shouldn't exist.

The gods have been definitively proven to exist? My settings don't have them as firmly established, otherwise everything gets a bit too black and white.

[SimonMoon6]

{Scrubbed}

[Max_Killjoy]

I feel like you're looking at things wrong.

Can you give an example of a fictional polythiest faith behaving monotheistic?

Most D&D and D&D-like settings get polytheism wrong in exactly that way, expecting each person to have a deity they're dedicated to as if it's a collection of monotheistic faiths that grudgingly recognize each other as valid -- instead of most people going to all deities, to each for the things that deity is connected to / concerned with.

[LudicSavant]

The "pick one god to worship, but acknowledge others" mode of belief is called monolatry or henotheism (depending on the particulars). It is distinct from both polytheism and monotheism.

[Florian]

@SimonMoon6:

Have you taken a look at how Golarion handles those issues?

There're "tiers of divinity", but those tiers do not reflect "power" and "power" doesn't reflect station of a deity. The highest tier are the "functional deities", with the deity been the representation of some "cosmic truth" or "basic building block of the multiverse" (ex: Pharasma is death and life, Apsu is the beginning of the circle, Groetus is the end of the circle and so on.), while the lowest tier are so-called "hero deities", like Cthulhu, Thor, spirits of the land and such.

Please note that Golarion is resented through a marked humanocentric, cultural and racial lens. The main write-up takes an Avistani POV (roughly, greco-roman understanding of deities), which can be markedly different from how the Orisian, Azlanti or Tian-Xia POV is. Even a major deity like Phantasma can be understood in different ways or even be worshiped under separate aliases.

@Max Killjoy:

Hm... Ok, compare the D&D "Great Wheel" to the PF "Great Beyond" and it actually makes sense (PF explains it better):
- You have 9 aligned Outer Planes and a soul will end up in one of them
- You can worship a deity that is not an exact match with your own personal alignment. See: One Step rule.
- Deities have their own domains within and as part of a Outer Plane with slightly different rules than their parent plane.

Let´s compare some cases:
- Anton (LG) is a Paladin, following the Paladin Code of Abadar (LN)
- Bettina (LN) is a Helknight, following the Godclaw Pantheon (ranging from LG, LN to LE), feeling the strongest connection to the teachings of Torag (LG), but has a strong leaning towards slipping to LE.
- Christopher (LE) is a Samurai and follower of the Order of the Black Daimyo. Being a Tian, his actual believe is in the philosophies of Sangpotshi and Tamashigo (roughly: buddhism and shinto)
- David (N) is a Druid and by default a follower of the Green Faith.
- Elisabeth (LE) and Fiona (LN, leaning towards LG) are sisters and both hail from Cheliax, both are followers of the Sisters of the Night pantheon. E is a Sanguine Angel and has progressed to the stage that the was granted outsider apotheosis, while F is a Diabolist and her soul is twice shackled by a contract with Hell, once for being granted the power of a Diabolist, the second time for having signed an Infernal Contract, even while she voluntarily serves in the Shining Crusade.

Now, when they all die, their souls will reach the Boneyard, be judged and sent to their final destination.

Anton could either end up in "generic" Heaven (LG), or be granted a place in Actun, Abadars realm on the Plane of Axis, despite the difference in alignment.

With Bettina, things will get a bit more complicated. Her "generic" destination would be Axis (LN), but she could also be granted a place in Forgeheart, Torags realms in Heaven. Being a Hellknight, she tapped into a lot of power gained from Hell, you know, the usual deal of "Fight fire with fire", but unless she really slipped and got into a binding contract, Hell would not be her final destination.

Christopher might be a member of a purely worldly order inspired by General Susumu, but the Black Daimyo will not have any real reason to drag his soul to Hell. Rather, he is bound for reincarnation after judgement, with a Karma that will have him deal with either Kami or Oni in one way or the other.

David will be judged and reincarnated as part of the natural order.

Elisabeth is out of luck. Outsiders are already the merging of body and soul and have no final destination, unless their patron deity directly interferes. She can only hope that one of the Bitch Queens likes her. Fiona is also out of luck. She sold her soul twice and even while she's battling alongside Paladins to fight a demonic incursion, she's used her free will as a human to sell her soul to Hell for power.

I think it´s easy to see where that differs from, say, the stupid things that the Forgotten Realms did with the Faithless and the Wall of the Faithless, all that. It´s actually quite interesting to read up on the whole "River of Souls" concept and how that meshes with the Planes, deities and pantheons.

[Thinker]

My main beef with a lot of fictional religions is that they are created backwards. The whole point of religions is to have an explanation for the natural world (without having to, you know, learn science). People make up stories about why the sun is in the sky only during the day or how the Earth (and those extra little dots in the sky that can't be very important) were created, often with a bias towards explaining things that aren't true (like why are humans (especially MY particular group of humans) the most important things in all of the universe?). Only after we learn that it's Apollo's chariot that is the sun and that Marduk made the Earth and the Milky Way out of the corpse of Tiamat, only then do we start worshiping Apollo and Marduk.

In other words, it is the stories that should come first and THEN the worship of gods, not the the other way around. Too often, in fictional religions for RPGs, the gods get created first (we need a god of Plants because there is a Plant domain in the game... what interesting stories are there about him? Who cares?)

An unfortunate truth about game settings is that most people don't care about most of the content of the setting. It is a game first and foremost. Players want to know the minimum amount of information possible to play the game and not how the world is theorized to work according to some religious philosophers. As a game creator, your opportunities for exposition will inform things like class choices, character abilities, monsters, and the problems that the players encounter during play. The people who interact most with the gods are those who play priestly characters and they're almost certainly not going to read your stories about why the sun is in the sky or why the stars come out at night. Therefore, for a game setting, it is best to figure out what you want your religions to do first and fill in some details later.

My next biggest beef is the "everything works like the monotheistic religion that I happen to know about" conceit that runs through most such fictional religions. This includes the already-mentioned "treating polytheistic religions as if they were monotheistic". This also branches out into character classes like Paladin and Cleric, both of which are heavily modeled on That Of Which We Must Not Speak (real world religions, one in particular, in fact). Most priests of polytheistic religions would have no use for plate mail armor, yet they automatically become proficient in it. And the concept of "religious warrior" meaning "a worshiper of the one and only one Lawful Good deity because there is no other deity" is plainly ludicrous in a polytheistic fictional religion, in which the LG gods are no more or less important than any other gods.

I agree that polytheism being regarded like monotheism is annoying. Still, warrior priests aren't that big a deal. They have some historical support and it makes sense if you want to bring in-game religion into the game for the players. Your NPCs can all wear robes and contemplate existence. The clerics and paladins will actually solve problems. Though, the idea of a priest who has a primary connection with a single deity has support in some ancient polytheistic religions.

My next biggest beef with fictional religions for RPGs is the "all the gods are real (except the ones worshiped by people that you know in the real world)" concept. This makes little to no sense to me, since I consider the story (the mythology) to be the most important part of a religion. If you're telling me Marduk is real, than I know he created the Earth out of Tiamat's corpse. But if you tell me that the Greek and Norse gods are true too, and they have their own different creation myths... and everything in those religions is ALSO true... well, I have a problem with that. I'm not a big fan of the shamanistic "everything is true, even contradictory things" idea.

The other alternative is that everything in those mythologies is false (none of the creations myths are real; actually the Earth just sort of showed up one day and, oh yeah, Tiamat is still alive). But I have a real problem with that. If the stories are false, and the gods' only reason for existing is in the truth of those stories, well, then the gods shouldn't exist.

You have a few options to resolve this:

• Syncretism - What I call Jupiter, you call Zeus. You don't have to go full on one-to-one, but you can have some of the main gods be approximately the same.
• You're only getting part of the truth - Tiamat was used to create the earth, but not all of the earth. Just the earth over in Mesopotamia.
• Someone is wrong - The earth really is Tiamat, but Gaia is a real being who was created by Chaos from the still-forming earth after Tiamat died. Both perspectives are the truth, just not with all of the facts.
• None of them have the truth - The gods can control the natural world without being its creator.
• The gods aren't such a big deal - They don't control the natural world, but they want people to think that they do either out of malice or to protect them from the truth.

I'm not sure why you need a religion to be fully accurate in the first place.

[Max_Killjoy]

The "pick one god to worship, but acknowledge others" mode of belief is called monolatry or henotheism (depending on the particulars). It is distinct from both polytheism and monotheism.

Absolutely, but there appears to be confusion in many fantasy settings (fiction, gaming, or both) about what they're actually presenting. The deities are presented as the "god of this" and the "god of that" and so on, but the mortal characters too often act like Conan and Subutai during their conversation about each other's gods and which is the greater.

In a way I think that "patron deity" is just another cheap stand-in for creating actual an actual "person" as a character, in the same way that Alignment and Race and even Class are... something that can be written in on the character sheet and repeated as shorthand, "I'm a level X (race) (class) follower of ______!"

[Nifft]

Absolutely, but there appears to be confusion in many fantasy settings (fiction, gaming, or both) about what they're actually presenting. The deities are presented as the "god of this" and the "god of that" and so on, but the mortal characters too often act like Conan and Subutai during their conversation about each other's gods and which is the greater.

I think there's some spillover from our experiences with evangelical / proselytizing people IRL which leads some players to treat their particular patron as a monotheistic deity, which must "win" against other gods by converting NPCs to their One True Faith.

This is obviously stupid if the whole pantheon is equally divine.

But it's understandable that some people come to portray what a religious character would behave like through the lens of monotheism.

[LudicSavant]

Absolutely, but there appears to be confusion in many fantasy settings (fiction, gaming, or both) about what they're actually presenting.

I agree.

(10characters)