The Nature of the Gods

Today we are going to discuss an important element of most fantasy campaigns: the deities. What is interesting about most fantasy campaigns is the fact that the people KNOW the gods exist. Through the use of divine magic and planar travel the mortals of the fantasy world interact with deities that listen to and respond to their prayers. I have found that this idea is often difficult to reconcile with our conceptions of faith based religions. If you really think about it the paladin of Bahamut does not need to have faith in his deity because he knows that the god exists. This stands in sharp contrast to modern Christians who must use faith to support their beliefs since they have no obvious evidence of God's existence.

The knowledge of the existence and power of the gods create an interesting dynamic in most campaigns. Indeed, people do not have faith in a deity as much as they serve a particular deity over the others. In this sense fantasy deities are more like patron saints rather than a true polytheistic pantheon. Historically polytheists venerate all the gods to make sure they do not get in trouble. Even though they might more devoutly worship a god related to their profession they still acknowledged the others for fear of that god's power over other spheres of their lives. Promote this in your campaign, instead of having the dark gods only spoken of in whispers and their followers shunned, have people sacrifice some of their livestock and crops to the god of disease lest he punish them by taking everything.


often when you use the traditional system of fantasy deities you end up using the god's as one dimensional representations of virtues and vices and alignment rallying points rather than sentient beings of great power. So in my own world building I have used several methods to create a more historically accurate polytheistic pantheon.

First and foremost, the gods and their roles have overlap, one goddess might represent the fertility of women where as another represents the fertility of the land.

Secondly, the gods don't always answer the prayers of their followers. This is a great tool because it drives home the idea that the gods are sentient and have whims and tempers. An example of this is not letting a divine spellcaster heal or buff someone who has slighted the god in the past or not letting that caster harm someone who is dear to the deity.

Thirdly, vary the worship of the god's from country to country. between Rome and ancient Greece there were different names, spheres of influence, and stories for the gods. For example in my current campaign the goddess of lust, battle, beauty, and pleasure is seen as a goddess of enlightenment by the wild people who worship her first and a tempting devil by the elves and other more ordered societies who see her as a trickster. Another example is that in that same world the main god of law and justice is seen as a tyrant by the wild peoples where as the "civilized" societies see him as a savior and bringer of peace.

Remember also that gods are not really good or evil, they just are. The followers of a god should be the source for the overarching alignment of the cult because after all pestilence is not evil, but people who would worship it probably are.

Finally, gods manipulate their followers and gods make mistakes. Common to the stories of most polytheistic religions is that the gods lie, seduce, and manipulate mortals into achieving their agendas. There is a mountain of roleplay that can be mined out of a paladin being misled by his deity, or by having an all powerful god using the party to get revenge on its unfaithful lover or servant. The gods themselves can also be misled or lied to by mortals and one another.


I feel that by treating your deities like sentient beings instead of bots that always follow whats written in the book you can add a great deal of flavor to your campaign.

More to follow on this as I will be posting my deity system for my current campaign.

- Spin