Most Interesting Portrayals of Gods in RPGs

[SMWallace]

What have you guys found to be the most interesting portrayals of gods across RPGs and settings for such? "Interesting" being an intentionally subjective word; as long as it sets itself apart from the vanilla portrayals of gods typical to high fantasy and especially D&D in a significant way, it'll be worth sharing. So go wild!

[erradin]

I have an elder-scrolls related one. Gven the popularity of that series, I fully expect to be corrected if I get something wrong :).

I think Morrowid did this, and therefore- to some extend- so did Elder Scrolls itself. But at least three of those referred to as 'divines' or 'godly' among the people of Morrowind were Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha-sil. These were essentially very powerful mortals. They ran cities, conducted experiments, and saw to it that the world ran as it needed through their organization. They had rooms and audience chambers you could meet them in. They had fortresses and literal armies, too. They were treated as very wise, powerful mortals, rather than 'beyond the stars' deities. The series as a whole also held to the practice that Daedric Princes (powerful otherworldly creatures, some indistinguishable from demons) were revered as nearly deific as well. Though this approaches the more common DnD version of deities in its manifestation.

[Milo v3]

I always found living mortal gods interesting, like from Greek or Egyptian myth who do things like cause the sun to travel across the sky by travelling through a river on a golden boat or via a magic chariot. Or a god who is tied to a reoccuring natural event so he keeps dying and coming back to life forever and ever.

[Eldan]

I have an elder-scrolls related one. Gven the popularity of that series, I fully expect to be corrected if I get something wrong :).

I think Morrowid did this, and therefore- to some extend- so did Elder Scrolls itself. But at least three of those referred to as 'divines' or 'godly' among the people of Morrowind were Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha-sil. These were essentially very powerful mortals. They ran cities, conducted experiments, and saw to it that the world ran as it needed through their organization. They had rooms and audience chambers you could meet them in. They had fortresses and literal armies, too. They were treated as very wise, powerful mortals, rather than 'beyond the stars' deities. The series as a whole also held to the practice that Daedric Princes (powerful otherworldly creatures, some indistinguishable from demons) were revered as nearly deific as well. Though this approaches the more common DnD version of deities in its manifestation.

They could be very powerful, too. When a meteor the size of a city block was falling down on vivec's capitol city, Vivec went up to it and talked it down. Then he left it hanging there as a warning to his people.

[Khedrac]

I liked the way that deities work in Glorantha...

1. Different places could have mutually exclusive accounts of mythic events (and regular history) - and both accounts can be true.
2. The gods used to be a lot more active but the coming of time has in effect frozen their ability to interfere with the world.
3. Powerful mortals can interfere with the gods - even to the extent of changing their natures or swapping similar gods around to see the effects on their worshippers.
4. Several of the gods did manage to learn from their experiences (eventually).

[Regitnui]

They could be very powerful, too. When a meteor the size of a city block was falling down on vivec's capitol city, Vivec went up to it and talked it down. Then he left it hanging there as a warning to his people.

And when he left/died, said meteor resumed its course, momentum and all. Bye bye Vivec city, hello massive volcanic eruption, goodbye most of the island.

Taking the Elder Scrolls example of mortals given deific power, we can go the Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere. There, something called Adonalsium broke into 16 shards, and each of these ended up in the hands of someone. These 'shardbearers' built worlds that reflect them, sometimes teaming up. More importantly, the shards can pass on to somebody else, which eventually happens in the Mistborn series. Holding one or more shards makes you a god.

[Fri]

The gods in exalted are close to the portrayal of gods in Discworld. Basically there are many gods of small things made of belief, and most of them are not that powerful. For example, there might be a god of the small lake behind your village, who promise to protect your village from disasters/bandits with small payment of one dog sacrifice per year. But eventhough that god might be powerful for the mortal inhabitants of the small village, it's actually small fry, and a random player character could easily punch it to oblivion. But there are of course bigger, more powerful gods that are worshipped thorough the realm, like the Sun God or whatever.

[Beleriphon]

I've always like Eberron's take on the deities. They are absent, or at least entirely hands off, to the point there is no direct evidence they actually exist. Nobody can up and talk to Aueron, even clerics with the highest level spells that contact deities only contact a powerful outsider who thinks they understand the will of a deity (ie. they have faith they do just like mortals).

[Regitnui]

I've always like Eberron's take on the deities. They are absent, or at least entirely hands off, to the point there is no direct evidence they actually exist. Nobody can up and talk to Aueron, even clerics with the highest level spells that contact deities only contact a powerful outsider who thinks they understand the will of a deity (ie. they have faith they do just like mortals).

Even that's ambiguous; the 'gods' might be legendary, but normal, dragons; superpowerful outsiders that live beyond mortal reach; the collective belief of mortals without a distinct form; or entirely nonexistent. Eberron is great for moral ambiguity, so long as you stay away from the 'paragon' outsiders (Angels, demons, devils, slaad and modrons).

[Dienekes]

Dragon Age has some interesting interpretations of gods, though it's somewhat spoilery.

Spoiler

Show

So far there are several pantheons of gods, each for different cultures and species that have myths that are totally contradictory. However, as the games goes we peel back some details to reveal what's going on.

There are the gods of a group of barbarians, we don't know much about them.

The elves have a pantheon of ancient gods that protects the race. However, as of the latest game it has been revealed that they are actually impossibly old elven mages that are locked away in (more or less) the setting's plane of magic. They used to rule the world with an iron fist before their imprisonment. However, they can still interact in part with the world, and can possess mortals, effectively living forever and manipulating the flow of events.

There are the Elder Gods, which are ancient magic dragons that lead the first human empire by teaching them blood magic and other means of fueling expansion through blood. There are a few clues that they may be the same or similar to the elven gods, just incredibly old insanely powerful mages.

Then there's the Maker, the big God. Who may or may not exist. His modus operandi in legends doesn't fit the pattern of what the Elven Gods or the Elder Gods did things, so he probably wouldn't be one of those great mages of the past. But if he ever did exist, he is very hands off. Possibly, he abandoned the world completely when his Messenger was killed.

Which is largely how I like gods in settings, a bunch of competing religions each with maybe a drop of truth in them but twisted up, ancient, and contradictory.

[LudicSavant]

I've been rewriting the "classic" D&D pantheon to be something rather completely different lately. (Nerull, Olidammara, Erythnul, The Deep Ones)

I've always like Eberron's take on the deities.

I especially liked Keith's original take on the Blood of Vol, where the undead were kinda like Bodhisattvas.

I've posted about this before, but what the heck.

My original take on the Blood of Vol (well, with a few edits) can be found on page 95 of Sharn: City of Towers, in which it is presented as a variant sect of the faith. Faiths of Eberron comes closer than many other books, but there are a few crucial differences. To sum up my view of the faith:

• The Blood of Vol is founded on the premise that gods exist. However, it takes the question "What just god would allow suffering" and concludes "None" - that if gods exist and suffering exists, the gods must be responsible for the suffering. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods - they kill us for their sport.
  
• The second piece of this is the idea that divinity lies within blood. Essentially, we all have the potential to be gods. The problem is that this takes time. Which is why the gods afflicted us with disease and mortality - so that we will die before we can rise to their level. It's not unlike the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Eternal Life.
• Following the FoE approach, those who seek the divinity within can approach this greater power. But in my vision, they can't ever reach it. You simply don't have enough time in this life to attain true divinity; the hostile gods will always stop you. Which means that the ultimate goal of the BoV is to find a way to destroy the gods - to defeat death itself.
  
• How do you go about doing this when no one has ever seen a god? Good question. Perhaps you have to take away their worshippers. Perhaps you have to build up enough power that you can reach some higher realm beyond the known planes. Either way, it's something that's difficult to do in a mortal lifespan... and that's where the undead come in. The undead escape the curse, and by living many lifespans, they have the potential to gain knowledge and power, to advise the living, and to be their champions in the battle that is to come. At the same time, they are martyrs. Because the ultimate divinity lies in the blood, and they no longer have it. Even if the cruel gods are defeated and the new age brought to the world, they have thrown away their ultimate potential to serve in this great battle. So the typical worshipper doesn't want to be undead; he wants to be immortal.
  
• Why the BoV is commonly seen as "worshipping undead" is because they are devoted to their undead champions. The peasant farmer knows HE has no hope of fighting the gods - but he believes that the vampire knight may one day save us all from death. What the farmer CAN do is give his blood to the vampire, and this he does willingly.
  10:35 PM
• When it comes to mindless undead, the BoV simply has no qualms about using them. They believe that once you're dead, your soul is destroyed by those cruel gods. There's nothing special about the body left behind, and if your body can serve your community, great. The warrior sworn to the BoV fights the gods in life with his faith, and when he dies, he wants his bones to rise up and continue the battle.
  
• I never intended the Blood of Vol to be a "EEEEVIL" faith. They creep people out because of their association with undead, blood rituals, and the like. But in their eyes, they are heroes. If they are successful, they will bring an end to death for all living things. The followers of the Sovereign Host are worse then fools - they are empowering the very gods who have brought death to the world. They must be stopped - it's too bad, but it's for the good of all. So ultimately, the BoV is a religion based on positive principles: saving the entire world from death. This ties to the fact that I think very few people WANT to be evil. My view of good and yours may be very different. But the BoV peasant firmly believes that in giving his blood to the vampire, he is saving the world.
• The flip side of this is the Order of the Emerald Claw. They HAVE always been the EEEVIL side of things. They're the extremists who tarnish the name of their entire faith in the eyes of the world, just like so many religious extremists in our world. Likewise, the Emerald Claw is supposed to be directly interested in doing whatever Erandis wants, not whatever the faith dictates. And at the end of the day, ERANDIS isn't interested in saving the world from death. She's using this faith to manipulate the masses - but her goals are as selfish as the most corrupt priest of the Silver Flame. Again, the key to Eberron is that corruption can be found in ANY church - the evil ones as well as the good ones. So the EC has always been intended as purely evil pulp villains - but the BoV is a faith that can appeal to tens of thousands of perfectly decent people.
• A final thing I'll say is that the Blood of Vol also seemed to me to be an archtypically Karrnathi faith. The gods hate you and want to destroy you. Death is the end - there's no happy after life waiting for you, just the utter destruction of your soul. All you have is your friends and your family, and the fight to make this life worthwhile. You will support the champions and fight the cruel gods, and when they kill you, you will rise from the grave and continue the battle until they grind your bones to dust. And some day your people will defeat the gods themselves.

So that's my take on the Blood of Vol. In my opinion, community is very important to the faith; we have to stand together, because the universe itself is against us. Rather than being atheistic or selfish, it's actually a sort of grim altruism; if they succeed in their struggle, they'll save even the unworthy fools who worship the Sovereigns.

My intent was also to create irreconcilable differences between the three major faiths - faiths which in and of themselves could all be positive forces. The Silver Flame hates the Blood of Vol for its use of undead and negative energy. The Blood of Vol doesn't care about the Silver Flame, but hates the Sovereigns as the source of suffering, and is forced to oppose the followers of the Host. And the SH doesn't much care about either of the others, but that doesn't solve its troubles with the BoV.

Anyhow, there you have it. I'm fine with all the various forms the BoV has taken, but personally I like the struggle against the cruel gods.

[Prime32]

I've always like Eberron's take on the deities. They are absent, or at least entirely hands off, to the point there is no direct evidence they actually exist. Nobody can up and talk to Aueron, even clerics with the highest level spells that contact deities only contact a powerful outsider who thinks they understand the will of a deity (ie. they have faith they do just like mortals).

Most forms of divine magic in Eberron are strongly implied to be powered by personal belief, not deities. I.e. everyone is a cleric of a philosophy. The Lord of Blades has clerics who can cast spells, despite being a mid-level warforged artificer with no divine traits. The only exception that comes to mind is how the Silver Flame sometimes empowers people.

That said, the setting also has Il-Lashtavar and the rakshasa rajahs, which are anthropomorphic personifications of concepts - basically the only reason they're not counted as gods is that they don't use the divine rank rules from Deities & Demigods. It is implied that some of Eberron's evil gods may have been based on the rajahs, and some of the rajahs (like Tiamat, who embodies the potential for evil in the hearts of dragons) are gods in other settings.

[TheCountAlucard]

Basically there are many gods of small things made of belief, and most of them are not that powerful.

Many gods? Check. Most not that powerful? Sorta check, depends on how powerful "that powerful" is. They're still capable of deeds beyond human capability. "Made of belief?" Noooo. Mortals can disbelieve in the lake-god's existence all they want, and it won't make a whit of difference. Mortals "believing in it" doesn't really do anything either, though prayer and sacrifice do provide a tangible benefit to spirits.

I'd say it's more rooted in Shinto and other animistic religions than it is rooted in Discworld.

But eventhough that god might be powerful for the mortal inhabitants of the small village, it's actually small fry, and a random player character could easily punch it to oblivion.

Assuming that the players are playing characters who could "punch it to oblivion." If the party lacks spirit-cutting attacks, then it can safely stay immaterial and continue acting up.

But there are of course bigger, more powerful gods that are worshipped thorough the realm, like the Sun God or whatever.

Point of order, the Unconquered Sun has very little at all in the way of worshippers during the Second Age, and it's doubtful that his mystic puissance has anything to do with the sacrifices made in his name.

[kieza]

I prefer hands-off deities, like how Eberron did it. I want there to be some room for questions of religious doctrine, and it's hard to have that when you can call up a deity or one of their representatives with a mid-level spell. Plus, it's nice when priests can be somewhat ambiguous: "oh, he spontaneously cast a healing spell! He's more-or-less good aligned!" takes a potential mystery out of the game.

I also like the "powerful beings mistaken for gods" schtick, whether they're sufficiently advanced aliens, nigh-omnipotent mages, or just powerful creatures with no "divine" qualities about them.

[TheCountAlucard]

kieza: This is less of a problem in a game where you don't assume that every priest is a spellcaster.

[Eldan]

I love that version of the Blood of Vol. Never saw it before, but it's lovely. It sounds like something that would fit right into Planescape, too.

[AceOfFools]

Point of order, the Unconquered Sun has very little at all in the way of worshippers during the Second Age, and it's doubtful that his mystic puissance has anything to do with the sacrifices made in his name.

Fun fact: the gods in Exalted are part of this huge Celestial Bureaucracy, with the Unconquered Sun at the top of that hierarchy. According to his writeup that position entitles him to percentage of all prayers to any god in the whole hierarchy.

Even without all the really cool things Exalted does with its gods, the idea of a Celestial Bureaucracy with a ponzi-scene like way of allocating prayer is both interesting and different.

Also, not being a god in no way disqualifies you from receiving the benefits of being worshiped (represented in game as the cult background, which functions the same for gods, demons, fair folk or enlightened mortals that GM allows to take it).

[Garimeth]

So in my world the God's are mostly distant and not a big part of the world, but religion is. A few centuries ago in setting a great hero qwas resurrected by a priestess (big deal in my setting - only known resurrection in anything approaching recent history) and the hero came back with the arcane knowledge to lock away the great evil that the continent was fighting, despite not being a spell caster, he claimed this knowledge was given to him by the god of magic. This caused a huge resurgence of devotion to the Gods, particularly in the country those two hailed from.

In that country the Church is polytheistic and every priest worships every god. I'm hesitant to compare to the real world, but think of Catholicism and their treatment of Saints if they did not believe in monotheism - though obviously they do. More Catholic than Greek. This group also wields enormous political power.

In the southern regions they are more Greek. Everyone acknowledges the Gods and their domains, but other than minor cultural impact (sailors praying to the God of travel and luck) there is not a huge impact. Clerics are devoted to individual Gods.

In the northern regions the society is more pagan in nature. The Barbarians revere spirits and nature, they acknowledge the Gods, but do not worship them. The elves practice a form of ancestor worship and have a cycle of re-incarnation. The human kingdoms are isolated communities, and have a blend of the other two regions but revere the God of Knowledge above all others.

Lastly, Gods do not grant magic and all "priests" are not "Clerics". People with magic are referred to as having Talent, and they are taught how to use it by way of various traditions which represent their class training. Some priests with Talent become Clerics and some priests have no Talent at all. Not many people have Talent.

[Psyren]

Most of the Golarion deities are standard - battle-hungry God of War with no allegiances, honorable and righteous deity of paladins, fickle nature deity etc. - but two that stand out for me personally are:

- Cayden Cailean, the Drunken Hero, who accidentally became a god on a dare while dogbuggered out of his gourd. He tends to be pretty popular and I've even seen folks port him into other settings.

- Irori, Master of Masters, who monked so hard that he ascended to godhood upon achieving mental, physical and spiritual perfection.

I also like their god of magic, Nethys, because being crazy helps explain how such a powerful/knowledgeable entity doesn't just solve all the problems in the setting himself.

[TheCountAlucard]

Fun fact: the gods in Exalted are part of this huge Celestial Bureaucracy, with the Unconquered Sun at the top of that hierarchy. According to his writeup that position entitles him to percentage of all prayers to any god in the whole hierarchy.

True. I'm just saying he has very few actual worshippers, so it's not running off something like "human belief sustains your existence" because very few mortals even know about the Unconquered Sun.

Also, not being a god in no way disqualifies you from receiving the benefits of being worshiped (represented in game as the cult background, which functions the same for gods, demons, fair folk or enlightened mortals that GM allows to take it).

I wouldn't quite put it that way - gods and demons in particular get more tangible benefits from their Cults than others do, and Celestial gods in particular get the benefit of their prayer congealing into ambrosia.

[goto124]

So er... any interesting portryals of gods who're actually powerful gods, grant powers etc?

OotS has the gods control specific domains (Goddess of the Hunt, Goddess of the Moon, so on). I have a goddess who's essentially the game developer of the world she runs. These gods are closet to human authority figures, just on a larger scale, and their powers relate to which part of reality they control.

[TheCountAlucard]

So er... any interesting portryals of gods who're actually powerful gods, grant powers etc?

"Powerful" is just short of meaningless here.

Is Thor "powerful?" Is Ares? Skamandros? Boccob? Athena? Nara-O? Ao? What's your criterion?

[Regitnui]

So er... any interesting portryals of gods who're actually powerful gods, grant powers etc?

Well, there's the Codex Alera and the Great Furies. Like Dark Sun, there are no actual, visible gods. What there are, however, are furies; individual spirits of the elements that range from (in air) a mote to the atmosphere, (water) from individual raindrops to the entire ocean. The greatest of these are called Great Furies; one we see is a volcano able to wipe out a city in a matter of minutes, another is a living storm and the last a mad mountain.

Towards the end of the series, we meet the fury of the entire continent, even planet. She isn't a god or even grant powers. What she does do is allow the one she is bonded to to use their powers to the greatest effect; changing seasons for example. It's close to what D&D likes, especially on Athas.

[DigoDragon]

I had a campaign where the gods were giant quantum computers (in orbit around the planet or buried deep within the earth) that could make tiny adjustments to reality by way of subtle manipulating the strings (String Theory). The world and its inhabitants was like a massive chess game and they fought each other by manipulating probabilities to favor their own "side" (worshipers). Being computers, they had no feelings or empathy. They simply made moves based on what their worshipers perceived them to be (for example, the computer representing Pelor would makes moves that allowed for the best possible survival outcome of injured followers, while the Ehlonna computer worked towards preserving the planet's biosphere).

If a particular computer "won the game" by achieving its goals, then the board is reset and a new game is started (yes, this is pretty much doomsday for the planet's inhabitants).

A player asked if any of the computer could ever 'crash'. I said a General Protection Faults/BSODs is where legends of dead gods come from.


I came up with the idea based on theories that the universe is just a computer simulation.

[AceOfFools]

True. I'm just saying he has very few actual worshippers, so it's not running off something like "human belief sustains your existence" because very few mortals even know about the Unconquered Sun.

That's one way of looking at it.

Another is that gods can transfer the benefits of belief to others that mortals neither worship nor know.

Of course, it is objectively false in Exalted that gods are created by belief in them, and I never meant to imply it was.

I just thought the idea of prayer tithes to greater gods in a great one if you have large (animistic) divine hierarchies, and it can allow for secret but powerful gods in settings where that is true.

[TheCountAlucard]

It's still not belief, though. A guy who doesn't believe in Ahlat but performs the Hecatomb is still gonna end up netting motes for Ahlat.

[Garimeth]

So er... any interesting portryals of gods who're actually powerful gods, grant powers etc?

OotS has the gods control specific domains (Goddess of the Hunt, Goddess of the Moon, so on). I have a goddess who's essentially the game developer of the world she runs. These gods are closet to human authority figures, just on a larger scale, and their powers relate to which part of reality they control.

The Gods in my game are powerful, they just don't grant magic, magic is a force of nature that some people have the ability to manipulate. The Gods from time to time intervene and cause miraculous occurrences, but for reasons not understood by humanity do not take a more active role.

[Absol197]

In a world I'm developing, there are seven gods; they're (very roughly) based on the Seven Deadly Sins, but with the idea that all the gods are neutral. The goddess of lust is also the goddess of love - her portfolio encompasses the Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, and Neutral aspects of love, sex, fertility, and reproduction. Likewise, the individual deities domains have "regions" that exemplify all aspects of their domain. So the god of Death has a place that is analogous to a Good-aligned plane, and a place analogous to an Evil-aligned plane, and both are under his control.

Because they're not able to talk directly to mortals under normal circumstances, different religions in different areas of the world have different names and understandings of them. To use a real-world reference, in ancient Greece both Ares and Athena are deities of war. But the actual goddess of war would get any prayers that were directed to both of these "deities," because the concept that the mortals are praying to is one that falls into her portfolio. But those who pray to Athena as the goddess of wisdom would actually be sending their prayers to the actual god of wisdom, a different entity.

To complicate things, the gods themselves get stretched thin over time. Basically, as they're sending their energy and focus and concentration across the multiverse to maintain their domain, they start becoming more...mechanical? I guess that's the best word. Like when you start a new job, or a new semester at school: in the beginning, you're attentive and focused and trying your hardest, and going above and beyond the call of duty. But as time goes on, you start to get tired and stuck in your rut. Eventually you're just going through the motions. When the gods get to that point, usually once every ~6,000 years, they "recur," concentrating their energies into the mortal world and being born in a mortal body. After a few decades living as a normal human, they're made aware of their divine nature, and their divine powers and memories begin to come back to them, and a couple of years later they're back to work, but with a renewed purpose and vigor. It's like a divine vacation - take some time off, stop worrying about running the freaking universe, and when you get back you feel refreshed and ready to do things right again. It also means that multiple versions of a certain deity can be the "correct" one. To use another real-world example, both Ishtar and Aphrodite might be difference recurrences of the same entity.

And, when the gods recur, they have the ability to tell mortals how they should go about worshipping to get the most out of it. The "correct" religions experience a boom when the gods recur, but over the next several millennia, with the gods unable to communicate directly, new sects and dogmas and ideas start to spread, and old knowledge and stories are lost and replaced with slightly less correct versions, and that's how the regional variations come into being. So the recurrence that the gods go through is not only a way to get a little break to refresh themselves, but also a time for them to recalibrate and "reset" the knowledge of the mortal races back to where it's supposed to be, like fixing a watch: set it to the right time, knowing that it'll start to slow down eventually and need to be recalibrated again later.


~Phoenix~

[Ravens_cry]

Not a setting, but one of my favourite ideas I really want to incorporate into a campaign world is the 'Elemental Gods' described way, way back in Dragon Magazine #77, pg. 22. They had an awe and majesty, an inhumanity that made them both terrific and terrifying. They were not good or evil, male or female, they simply were, the embodiments of their concept and related secondary and tertiary concepts. They were distant enough you can have all the fun of schisms and wars while still being real enough that you can have all these wonderful little rituals, like blessing of crops, flocks children, and the dying and taking care of the dead.
I read about them in a second hand copy, and I knew, I knew this is how I wanted the gods in a setting to be. Real but eldritch.
Smaller, tutelary gods, presiding over smaller concepts, like beer, bread, metal crafting and so forth also fascinate me. Small gods, the household idols, with the crafter being a kind of priest.

[Kol Korran]

One of the most unique concepts of faiths I've read was in Eberron- The Becoming God. Basically, the god doesn't exist yet, but it's worshipers are building it, from remnants of a blasted magical wasteland (The Mournland). The warforged followers believe that the god created them, so they could build it. A bit weird, but fascinating how it's portrayed! Now they scour the land for bits of interesting components to gather for their engineers to build the body of their god- a gigantic huge construct, who will then come alive.

On the subject of Eberron's faiths: I loved the Faiths of Eberron book. It is in my pinion, one of the best books depicting fantasy religions. Why? For several reasons:
1) The faiths deal with quite a lot of existential questions- What is life and death? What is a god? Who are the gods? Are there gods? What is my place in creation? and so on... I never understood the concepts of worshiping "a god of war/ a god of love" or a god that deals with but one singular aspect of life. I love that the various faiths of Eberron try to deal with the basic questions that believable religions try to deal with.

2) They come up with different answers: The Sovereign Host view vary widely from The Silver Flame, The Blood of Vol, The Becoming God and so on, and they are all quite compelling and interesting in their own way. Their entire concept of how creation is organized, and more is utterly different! They feel like truly competing and interesting philosophies, points of debate, belief and faith, rather than just someone who has a portfolio and domains, but otherwise is quite like the other gods.

3) They deal with the structure, tenets, handling and worship in the religions themselves, not just the gods: The priests of different religions have more than just different domains, they are treated differently by their flock, by their faith, have different responsibility, outlooks and more. So do the worshipers, so do the holy days, so does EVERYHTING.

4) They interact with other faiths: The different faiths have quite a lot to say about other faiths, and the interactions are just so interesting and juicy!

5) They have a real place in the world: From the continent enveloping Sovereign Host, the rise and history of the Silver Flame in Thrane, The Blood of Vol's rise and involvement in the last war, the religion of The Lord of Blades and more. The religions don't just exist in a limbo...

6) Room for interpretation: The religions leave enough philosophical room to have so many different and interesting concepts of faith and worship within them, which gives them a more realistic feel, and a great potential for roleplay.

7) They have lots of mysteries: Most of the religions leave a lot of loose ends, which tantalize the imagination. Not all is known, lot all is revealed, not all is understood. Quite a lot of it may challenge the religious characters. Which is the point of faith- putting your trust in something, despite the lack of concrete proof. KNOWING in yourself that it's true, no?

In short, I highly suggest to read the book, even if you're not playing Eberron. The way they deal with fantasy religions in the book is just amazing! Best Splat book I ever acquired.