Canonfire!

Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:06 am How does Oerth deal with imported deities?

This has been somewhat of a burning question lately for me. I mean, I know the world is ours to pretty much shape and mold into our own campaigns, but is there any canon type of perspective on this issue?

Curious to know any of your insight on this one folks!

Jim

Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:47 am

sorry i cant help, but i would like to share something i read some days ago:

in a Dragonlance tale about the kender Tasslehof, he met with a powerfull wizard that summons....demogorgon!

i never thought about finding a greyhawk guy in dragonlance!

Tue Dec 09, 2008 11:34 am

Well, Mayaheine was brought from some other world to Oerth by Pelor. I'm not aware of any other canon imports. I suppose Tiamat is from the Babylonian pantheon, but she is not Greyhawk-specific. Oh, then there is the appearance of The Green Man from Celtic(?) mythology in Beyond the Crystal Cave... also not Greyhawk specific, although I believe a Greyhawk location is given for that adventure somewhere. The original Greyhawk campaign (pre-published Greyhawk) used various Greek and Egyptian gods, I believe.

Don

Tue Dec 09, 2008 11:36 am

In short, they don't.

Unlike the Gods of DragonLance who jealousy guard their world from outside deities due to a semi-divine superiority complex, the deities of the Flaness have no such psychological handicaps offering proof that the deities of the WoG are a superior brand of immortality then the ones offered on other such worlds. They not only allow deities from other worlds to establish faiths in their own purview, but allow mortals as well to achieve divine status offering proof that their superiority is one such as to be unchallenged in the marketplace of ideas.

Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:39 pm

The WoG setting has accumulated a lot of dieties over the years as authors have written them in, and I can't recall seeing any published item to suggest that new gods are forbidden...although, for me, there are enough dieties already out there for a lifetime of storytelling.

But back to the point, there's actually a setting "conceit" that can facilitate new gods.

Dieties in WoG, for the most part, are "distant figures" who interact with mortals through their priests. They rarely intercede directly in affairs on Oerth. In the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer, the authors suggest that direct involvement of any diety is forbidden without a consensus agreement of all dieties. There have been variations on this theme in the earlier campaign products.

Now, there are exceptions to this rule within the fiction, and that topic could fill (and has in the past filled!!) many a lengthy thread, but the upshot is, the "no intervene rule" has made it a fairly benign matter for authors to write in new dieties, since there's not so much "meddling gods" to trip over.

Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:04 pm

OK thanks! Happy

I was wondering only because I hadn't seen anything specific but also knowing how other settings deal with the issue such as the mentioned Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms.

Jim

Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:59 am

Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:14 am

Surtur and Thrym from the Norse pantheon have long been worshipped by Greyhawk giants. I quite like the old racial gods but I think the move to varying racial aspects of the 'human' gods is more sensible.

I haven't bothered to read anything about the 4e pantheon, only a few of which have been adopted directly from Greyhawk. I suppose that a god like Bane could be converted to an aspect of an existing Greyhawk god. However, I certainly do not intend Nerull to die at the hands of the Raven Queen in my campaign and I'm unsure whether Wee Jas and the Raven Queen are all that compatible. It's tricky.

It also seems that many existing racial gods with a Greyhawk history, like Maglubyet, are being downgraded to Exarch status in 4e as servitors of the more powerful racially generic gods.

Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:48 am

Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:25 am

In 4e Bane has become a goblin deity.

Anyway I agree with rossik, D&D should equal greyhawk. Anything in 3e that is core that is not world specific is assumed to come from the original default setting of Greyhawk.

Smile

Jim[/quote]

Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:54 pm

What's a Raven Queen?

Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:06 pm

The Raven Queen is a name given to the new deity of death in the default sample pantheon of D&D 4ed.

In our Tues. night game (which I am getting really bored and tired of... Mad

) I play a human cleric of The Raven Queen.

Embarassed

I hate to say it but I will be glad when we are done with this 4 e stuff and my group goes back to 3.5 (or pathfinder rpg in aug.)

Jim

Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:27 pm

Oerth is largerly undeveloped really. The Flanaess is just a Europe sized area. The rest of the planet theoretically could support imported mythologies from Earth or just the same set of GH gods with different names, like whats done with the Baklunish using Pelor=Al Asran and Nerull=Tharoth.

Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:47 pm

Thanks Mortellan! BTW I love your web comic! I saw that before I came here and even knew you were a member here. Laughing

So yeah, can I have your autograph man? Laughing

I may import some gods that pertain to certain add-on core races such as the ones from the "Races of" splat books. Goliaths, Raptorans and Illumians are all new races that I would like to sprinkle here and there through out Oerik.

Jim

Sat Dec 13, 2008 9:28 am

The Olman gods are direct imports and possibly St. Cuthbert

kirt