Deific Musings [Archive] - Wizards Community

Deific Musings [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Aegis_Chiron
06-28-07, 08:23 PM While reading Queen of the Depths, a question came to mind:

Elves on every world have the same pantheon, with a few variations. So do Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Orcs, and just about every other race in D&D. Except Humans. Why do humans have different gods for each realm?

I can think of many RW reasons, but I honestly cannot think of any in-game reasons for this, other than creation myths. If anyone has some thoughts, let me know...

Thanks
Lord Karsus
06-28-07, 10:28 PM -Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and other "Demihumans" were all created by their specific deities, in their image, and what not. The origins of Humans is specifically left vague, so that so many different ethnic groups can exist.
MarkusTay63
06-29-07, 02:48 PM Demi-humans and humanoids were created by their gods.

Humans CREATED their gods.

Hence why we are the 'Race of destiny'. ;)

Humans are the only mortals who have power over the devine... if you don't believe me, just ask Karsus. :D
Shemeska the Marauder
06-29-07, 02:51 PM Humans probably evolved on their own and had gods that sprang from their beliefs as they spread to various worlds across the prime material. Demihumans on the other hand appear to have had an opposite history, being created by their gods rather than the other way around (which probably places their races as being somewhat younger in the grand scheme of things).
Lord Karsus
06-29-07, 06:43 PM -Also, from an out of game stand, the authors are never going to delve into the "origins of man", because by doing so, they would have to be choosing one faction over another, effectivley making the belief structure of one group right, and the belief structure wrong. I don't think WotC would ever want to take a "risk" like that, for potential backlash from any group.
Lord Karsus
06-29-07, 06:43 PM Humans are the only mortals who have power over the devine... if you don't believe me, just ask Karsus. :D

-I am the divine.
Yanagita Kunio
06-29-07, 07:28 PM Also, it's not too meta-game to point out that of the various species in D&D, humans are the ones spread out across the most different ecologies, environments, et cetera, whereas even when interloping/migrating most of the demihumans tend to settle in environments that they're acclimated to. IE, elves in forests, dwarves & gnomes in mountains and cave systems, halflings in plains.

This might affect how divinity manifests itself--an extended example:

It says a lot that Moradin is both the dwarven creator god and the god of craft and war: his attributes say something about what dwarves view as fundamental to their identity, and in turn about how they view their connection to the larger world. Extrapolating farther, it demonstrates how imbedded their environment is in dwarven identity--stone and metal are a part of the way they think about themselves.

Theoretically, if a group of dwarves were isolated under very different conditions than usual--put a crag-dwelling Gold Dwarf nation in the midst of a coral atoll on an ocean--and they'd begin to develop deific images that represented the changes in concept of identity brought about by their different experience, as well as "stretch" the (perceived) portfolios of existing deities. Not that such new deities would necessarily supplant the originals...but would rather be liasons in between the core imagining of dwarven-ness--represented by the central Morndinsamman--and the realities of daily life.

For example, Thard Harr of the Jungle Dwarves is a sort of liason figure. An even more extreme case would be Deep Duerra, who could be characterized as a filling a kind of deific vacuum in the experiential lives of the lives of duergar.

Lolth, btw, would be an example of how worshipper-deity is a two-way conversation. Since deities are active, salient presences, there's more to it than worshippers moulding divine beings to fit their needs. [Crap--everything I write ends up being a schill dielecticism]

---

By contrast, humans are spread willy-nilly across worlds with no unifying conception of who they are or what attributes represent all humanity. Each culture/community creates it own understanding of its attachment to its environment (or lack thereof), to its labor, and to the larger cosmos.

It doesn't surprise me that deities "work differently" for humans than other species: there's not a nice steady, coherent body of concepts to form portfolios such that a small group of racial gods could capture the imagination and worship of humans across many environments...let alone across planes.

As Faerun history suggests, localized gods tend to merge or consume/be consumed to create gods with more power, more flexible portfolios, and a higher Q-rating.

I'd also propose a time element--since a human generation is less absolute time than a demihuman generation, there is also more "conceptual churning" occuring as successive changes in zeitgeist and ortgeist occur as a result of cultural diffusion, conflict, environmental changes, et cetera.

This is going to sound silly, but--apply the whole idea of "belief influences god-concept" idea to our world: imagine what a US culture-deity of Freedom would look like and act like in 1910...versus in 1940...versus in 1970.
Zsych
07-01-07, 07:35 PM I think FR humans come from earth.

... On Dark Sun... Humans and elves were both descended from halflings, so I think that the elves and humans there would've had different gods(though I only know Dark Sun through a couple of novels)
Lord Karsus
07-02-07, 12:54 AM I think FR humans come from earth.

-Or, perhaps it's the other way around...;)
Psionycx
07-02-07, 02:34 AM Well, it's not stricitly true that elves (dwarves, gnomes, etc.) all have the same gods on all worlds.

Dark Sun elves don't have any gods (neither does any other race on Athas since godly power can't exist there). Dragonlance elves worship gods from Krynn's pantheon, the same as other denizens of their world. Eberron elves either practice ancestor worship (of Deathless ancestors for the most part) or else follow one of the other religions of their world.

The Seldarine are originally from the Greyhawk campaign setting and were carried over into the Forgotten Realms along with several other now key elements like the drow and Lolth (though not Elistraee or Vhaeraun who were added later in the FR setting).

The original explanation was that elves were not native to Toril (and probably aren't native to Oerth either). Back in 2E the elves were probably one of the most prolific users of magical space travel (spelljamming, which a teaser reference to is on page 230 of the FRCS). Portals have also been used to explain the demihuman and humanoid migrations into Toril (especially for elves and orcs).

Not surprisingly races on worlds where they arrived as immigrants (Oerth and Toril) share common pantheons probably due to having come from a common place of origin. In contrast, worlds where they seem to have arisen through parallel evolution have different religious beliefs.

It was also generally accepted in 2E that some of the gods of Faerun were immigrants from other worlds, notably Loviatar, Mielikki, Oghma, Silvanus and Tyr amongst others. This is still considered to be true in 3E in the case of Tyr at least, plus the Mulhorandi (Egyptian) and Untheric (Babylonian/Sumerian) pantheons.

This all made a lot more sense in 2E when the (A)D&D worlds shared a common cosmology. Then they went and broke it in 3E by introducing an FR-only cosmology, in theory to make FR more self-contained, which was mostly pointless because they went ahead and retained the fact that the Realms has gods and races from other worlds anyway.

Some of the FR gods are purely local, one would say primal. These are Selune and Shar (the original Light and Darkness), Chauntea (the World), Mystra (several incarnations but always Magic), Talos (Destruction) and Tempus (Conflict). However, their identities and nature shift a bit through history in response to their worshippers and interactions with each other and with other gods that entered Toril's cosmos (apparently with Ao's permission). As more people's migrated to Toril they brought new gods with them and the ranks of the divine swelled. Divine ascensions and such also added to the god population (Azuth, Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, etc.).

So you have a lot more gods today than you would have in the beginning, even allowing for attrition. Plus some of the gods will be shared with other worlds because they came from the common origins.
Aegis_Chiron
07-02-07, 01:19 PM I based my comment that most demi-humans and humanoids have the same pantheons off of the 2E Books of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes & Halflings, and Monster Mythology. But I do appreciate the correction in your post Psionycx. I just choose to believe that those worlds are the exception to the rule.
Psionycx
07-02-07, 01:46 PM Well, we only have a limited number of clearly defined worlds to choose from so the data sample is small.

The Seldarine are definitely widely worshipped and were considered the primary gods for elves on Oerth, Toril and most (but not all) worlds in the Spelljammer setting.

I think the Mulhorandi pantheon also bears some scrutiny here as well, because they're a case of a human pantheon that is worshipped on more than one world. This illustrates that humans too may share gods across worlds, at least in scenarios where the humans migrated between the worlds in question.

Open worlds, which are worlds that are easy to get to via spelljamming or planar travel, seem to have a high likelihood of sharing gods with other worlds. Closed worlds like Athas, Eberron or Krynn seem to evolve unique religions instead.

I don't remember what acessory this was in, because it was a long time ago, but I seem to recall that the term "Forgotten Realms" was explained as referring to the fact that Toril was once a frequent destination of cross-world travellers, but this has since declined making the Realms seem "forgotten". The presence of so many foreign gods seems to bear this out.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Aegis_Chiron 06-28-07, 08:23 PM	While reading Queen of the Depths, a question came to mind: Elves on every world have the same pantheon, with a few variations. So do Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Orcs, and just about every other race in D&D. Except Humans. Why do humans have different gods for each realm? I can think of many RW reasons, but I honestly cannot think of any in-game reasons for this, other than creation myths. If anyone has some thoughts, let me know... Thanks
Lord Karsus 06-28-07, 10:28 PM	-Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and other "Demihumans" were all created by their specific deities, in their image, and what not. The origins of Humans is specifically left vague, so that so many different ethnic groups can exist.
MarkusTay63 06-29-07, 02:48 PM	Demi-humans and humanoids were created by their gods. Humans CREATED their gods. Hence why we are the 'Race of destiny'. ;) Humans are the only mortals who have power over the devine... if you don't believe me, just ask Karsus. :D
Shemeska the Marauder 06-29-07, 02:51 PM	Humans probably evolved on their own and had gods that sprang from their beliefs as they spread to various worlds across the prime material. Demihumans on the other hand appear to have had an opposite history, being created by their gods rather than the other way around (which probably places their races as being somewhat younger in the grand scheme of things).
Lord Karsus 06-29-07, 06:43 PM	-Also, from an out of game stand, the authors are never going to delve into the "origins of man", because by doing so, they would have to be choosing one faction over another, effectivley making the belief structure of one group right, and the belief structure wrong. I don't think WotC would ever want to take a "risk" like that, for potential backlash from any group.
Lord Karsus 06-29-07, 06:43 PM	Humans are the only mortals who have power over the devine... if you don't believe me, just ask Karsus. :D -I am the divine.
Yanagita Kunio 06-29-07, 07:28 PM	Also, it's not too meta-game to point out that of the various species in D&D, humans are the ones spread out across the most different ecologies, environments, et cetera, whereas even when interloping/migrating most of the demihumans tend to settle in environments that they're acclimated to. IE, elves in forests, dwarves & gnomes in mountains and cave systems, halflings in plains. This might affect how divinity manifests itself--an extended example: It says a lot that Moradin is both the dwarven creator god and the god of craft and war: his attributes say something about what dwarves view as fundamental to their identity, and in turn about how they view their connection to the larger world. Extrapolating farther, it demonstrates how imbedded their environment is in dwarven identity--stone and metal are a part of the way they think about themselves. Theoretically, if a group of dwarves were isolated under very different conditions than usual--put a crag-dwelling Gold Dwarf nation in the midst of a coral atoll on an ocean--and they'd begin to develop deific images that represented the changes in concept of identity brought about by their different experience, as well as "stretch" the (perceived) portfolios of existing deities. Not that such new deities would necessarily supplant the originals...but would rather be liasons in between the core imagining of dwarven-ness--represented by the central Morndinsamman--and the realities of daily life. For example, Thard Harr of the Jungle Dwarves is a sort of liason figure. An even more extreme case would be Deep Duerra, who could be characterized as a filling a kind of deific vacuum in the experiential lives of the lives of duergar. Lolth, btw, would be an example of how worshipper-deity is a two-way conversation. Since deities are active, salient presences, there's more to it than worshippers moulding divine beings to fit their needs. [Crap--everything I write ends up being a schill dielecticism] --- By contrast, humans are spread willy-nilly across worlds with no unifying conception of who they are or what attributes represent all humanity. Each culture/community creates it own understanding of its attachment to its environment (or lack thereof), to its labor, and to the larger cosmos. It doesn't surprise me that deities "work differently" for humans than other species: there's not a nice steady, coherent body of concepts to form portfolios such that a small group of racial gods could capture the imagination and worship of humans across many environments...let alone across planes. As Faerun history suggests, localized gods tend to merge or consume/be consumed to create gods with more power, more flexible portfolios, and a higher Q-rating. I'd also propose a time element--since a human generation is less absolute time than a demihuman generation, there is also more "conceptual churning" occuring as successive changes in zeitgeist and ortgeist occur as a result of cultural diffusion, conflict, environmental changes, et cetera. This is going to sound silly, but--apply the whole idea of "belief influences god-concept" idea to our world: imagine what a US culture-deity of Freedom would look like and act like in 1910...versus in 1940...versus in 1970.
Zsych 07-01-07, 07:35 PM	I think FR humans come from earth. ... On Dark Sun... Humans and elves were both descended from halflings, so I think that the elves and humans there would've had different gods(though I only know Dark Sun through a couple of novels)
Lord Karsus 07-02-07, 12:54 AM	I think FR humans come from earth. -Or, perhaps it's the other way around...;)
Psionycx 07-02-07, 02:34 AM	Well, it's not stricitly true that elves (dwarves, gnomes, etc.) all have the same gods on all worlds. Dark Sun elves don't have any gods (neither does any other race on Athas since godly power can't exist there). Dragonlance elves worship gods from Krynn's pantheon, the same as other denizens of their world. Eberron elves either practice ancestor worship (of Deathless ancestors for the most part) or else follow one of the other religions of their world. The Seldarine are originally from the Greyhawk campaign setting and were carried over into the Forgotten Realms along with several other now key elements like the drow and Lolth (though not Elistraee or Vhaeraun who were added later in the FR setting). The original explanation was that elves were not native to Toril (and probably aren't native to Oerth either). Back in 2E the elves were probably one of the most prolific users of magical space travel (spelljamming, which a teaser reference to is on page 230 of the FRCS). Portals have also been used to explain the demihuman and humanoid migrations into Toril (especially for elves and orcs). Not surprisingly races on worlds where they arrived as immigrants (Oerth and Toril) share common pantheons probably due to having come from a common place of origin. In contrast, worlds where they seem to have arisen through parallel evolution have different religious beliefs. It was also generally accepted in 2E that some of the gods of Faerun were immigrants from other worlds, notably Loviatar, Mielikki, Oghma, Silvanus and Tyr amongst others. This is still considered to be true in 3E in the case of Tyr at least, plus the Mulhorandi (Egyptian) and Untheric (Babylonian/Sumerian) pantheons. This all made a lot more sense in 2E when the (A)D&D worlds shared a common cosmology. Then they went and broke it in 3E by introducing an FR-only cosmology, in theory to make FR more self-contained, which was mostly pointless because they went ahead and retained the fact that the Realms has gods and races from other worlds anyway. Some of the FR gods are purely local, one would say primal. These are Selune and Shar (the original Light and Darkness), Chauntea (the World), Mystra (several incarnations but always Magic), Talos (Destruction) and Tempus (Conflict). However, their identities and nature shift a bit through history in response to their worshippers and interactions with each other and with other gods that entered Toril's cosmos (apparently with Ao's permission). As more people's migrated to Toril they brought new gods with them and the ranks of the divine swelled. Divine ascensions and such also added to the god population (Azuth, Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, etc.). So you have a lot more gods today than you would have in the beginning, even allowing for attrition. Plus some of the gods will be shared with other worlds because they came from the common origins.
Aegis_Chiron 07-02-07, 01:19 PM	I based my comment that most demi-humans and humanoids have the same pantheons off of the 2E Books of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes & Halflings, and Monster Mythology. But I do appreciate the correction in your post Psionycx. I just choose to believe that those worlds are the exception to the rule.
Psionycx 07-02-07, 01:46 PM	Well, we only have a limited number of clearly defined worlds to choose from so the data sample is small. The Seldarine are definitely widely worshipped and were considered the primary gods for elves on Oerth, Toril and most (but not all) worlds in the Spelljammer setting. I think the Mulhorandi pantheon also bears some scrutiny here as well, because they're a case of a human pantheon that is worshipped on more than one world. This illustrates that humans too may share gods across worlds, at least in scenarios where the humans migrated between the worlds in question. Open worlds, which are worlds that are easy to get to via spelljamming or planar travel, seem to have a high likelihood of sharing gods with other worlds. Closed worlds like Athas, Eberron or Krynn seem to evolve unique religions instead. I don't remember what acessory this was in, because it was a long time ago, but I seem to recall that the term "Forgotten Realms" was explained as referring to the fact that Toril was once a frequent destination of cross-world travellers, but this has since declined making the Realms seem "forgotten". The presence of so many foreign gods seems to bear this out.