[dungeoncrawl] Re: Monster deities
- From: Johnathan Detrick <jdetrick@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: dungeoncrawl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 14:32:38 -0400
I've been debating with myself if eliminating the humanoid deities
would make the humanoids more interesting or less interesting.
At the moment I lean toward more interesting. Think about it.
Right now almost all orcs worship one deity, all gnolls worship one, all
troglodytes worship one, all kobolds worship one....etc, etc, etc. It
gives the races a little more flair, but it also makes them very
static. One tribe of orcs is much the same as another, which isn't much
different from the one that exists half a continent away. Because they
have only one god, they tend to be pretty homogenous.
If we eliminate their one god, and give them multiple deities to
choose from, we create greater diversity within the species. That makes
them more interesting. Who would want to play a human if they all had
to worship Tempus? That's basically how I feel with all the orcs
worshipping Grummsh.
Of course, the downside is inherent in the upside. If we make them
diverse like that, have we just taken away all that makes orcs
interesting (assuming that they are interesting) and turned them into
human with pig snouts? I'm not sure.
My other problem is that I like the idea of playing with the
histories of these races. Let's say the gnolls (one of my favorite
humanoids) have a grand racial history of how there god deposited the
best and brightest on this planet, and they are destined to rule it
someday. Of course, that's all a lie. Actually, the gnolls on this
world were magically created by an evil and insane transmuter, who
crossed an orc with a dog. He crafted their phony mythology for them to
see what they would do. We could do some great plots as the gnolls set
out to conquer great swaths of territory, and the heroes can only stop
them by finding the secret of their race, which will demoralize them
enough for the demihumans to fight back. I somewhat interesting plot,
which we can't do if the gnoll god is hanging around.
One final point to consider. I am for starting out with no other
deities carrying over from other Realms. But I think we could do oodles
of cool plots that involve those other deities trying to make their way
into this world. It works great for the player characters on this
world, as these plots are always massive and very exciting, and it
involves us with our old characters as well.
jimkaren@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I think that's where Ao comes in (and
> maybe with the other racial deities, as
> well). After all, only the Faerunian
> pantheon fought Dendar the night
> serpent - not the far eastern,
> mulhorandi, or demihuman. This was a
> subject I discussed at length with
> Shawn - what to do about those powers?
>
> John has a point in that the world is
> new, but I'm worried that consolidating
> all worship might dilute the whole
> point of having other races.
>
> Bottom line is, if we get rid of the
> other pantheons, let's come up with a
> reason for the races existing. Again,
> if we think our characters would be too
> stubborn on this point, we can always
> have them overruled by Ao -
>
> > Speaking in that vein, would our
> characters even think to populate the
> world
> > with monsters? I mean, from a world
> developing standpoint you almost need
> > them to make the world interesting to
> adventure in, but would the characters
> > think that way?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Johnathan Detrick
> [mailto:jdetrick@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 2:16
> PM
> > To: dungeoncrawl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [dungeoncrawl] Re: Monster
> deities
> >
> >
> > Everything you say is true, but
> aren't we starting a world from
> > scratch? The people may believe they
> have been around for centuries,
> > but in reality, aren't they starting
> on a brand new world? With that
> > being the case, do we have to follow
> the same rules as most worlds?
> >
> > jimkaren@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > I've been giving some thought to
> that
> > > for a while - I'm not sure where I
> > > personally fall. I think that most
> > > campaign worlds include monster (and
> > > demihuman) pantheons to stay
> consistent
> > > with "vanilla" D&D.
> > >
> > > But then why do different races
> exist?
> > > If they aren't each governed by
> their
> > > own pantheon, how did they come to
> be?
> > > Were elves around before humans, for
> > > example? If you follow traditional
> D&D
> > > chronology, Dragons were one of the
> > > earliest races - did they worship
> > > this "current" pantheon?
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Just some more thinking from
> John.
> > > > I figured that we would just
> > > assume that most (if not all) of the
> > > > typical monsters are present on
> the
> > > new world (gnolls, orcs, ogres,
> > > > etc). I think that sounds good.
> The
> > > first few DMs that use them could
> > > > always put a more interesting
> spin on
> > > them, but for a start we assume
> > > > they are all there.
> > > > So the question becomes, who
> do
> > > they worship? There are tons of
> > > > monster deities (like
> Blibdoolpoolp,
> > > Gruumsh, Lloth, etc) and they seem
> > > > to be consistent amongst all
> campaign
> > > worlds. Do we want to break
> > > > tradition? Is there anyone that
> > > would want to be a generic god over
> all
> > > > humanoids? Do you think that
> some of
> > > the evil deities, like Amrikol,
> > > > would absorb the evil humanoids
> into
> > > their faith? It could be quite
> > > > interesting that way. I'd love to
> > > see the way the orcs worship
> Amrikol,
> > > > versus the way the humans might
> > > worship him.
> > > > What do you think?
> > > > I can tell you right now that
> > > most of my characters that are gods
> > > > feel that there is no reason to
> have
> > > specific deities for all of the
> > > > non-human races. We may have some
> > > (like Nelik) that get quite a strong
> > > > demihuman following, but I'd
> rather
> > > see the other races worship
> > > > different deities. And I love the
> > > idea of the evil gods using the fact
> > > > that there is no dwarven god or
> orc
> > > god or svirfneblin god to sway
> > > > potentially neutral races to their
> > > ways.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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