LetsBuild5e:Religion
Contents
What do people believe?
The Gods with a Thousand Faces
We have decided to have a unique pantheon of gods for the setting. (Decision: [1] ) Some powerful fiends also feature in religious stories. (Decision: [2] ) Some gods are purely local or racial, but many regional pantheons are in fact understood to be the same gods with many different names. (Decision: [3] ) The gods are all variably depicted as male, female, both or neither. (Decision: [4]) Worship of the gods, both collectively and individually, is the main form of religious expression, but oracles, religious self-defence groups, and abstract philosophies are also widespread in the starting region. (Decision: [5])
The Old, Old Story
The core myths (Decisions: [6] [7] [8]) are:
- I: Trickster-god once conned the chief fiend into signing a pact that prevented the evil creature from outright slaughtering or destroying mortals. But they had to sign the pact themselves to do it, which prevents the gods from interfering too directly in mortal lives either.
- II: A folk-hero stole the blood of the injured elder-dragon god and gave it to mortals to drink, who became sorcerers; chief-god punished folk-hero, but the secret was already out.
- III: A second folk-hero, child to the previous one, planned to steal the Divine Language from the gods; trickster-god was impressed with the folk-hero's plan and assisted in its completion. Because a god had helped, the folk-hero escaped the worst wrath of the other gods. The words that were stolen were enough to bind powerful beings to the first warlock pacts.
- IV: Death-god is chief-god's older sibling, but yielded the chiefdom willingly because all things come to Death anyway.
- V: The warm-blooded humanoid races were originally one race. Elder-dragon-god left them on the dark side of the world, and gave the light and fruitful side to the dragons. The humanoid races realised they had been sold short, and tried to dig right through the world. Elder-god divided them into many different races and cultures to confound them.
- VI: Elder-dragon-god preferred its creations, the dragons, over its own children, the other gods. When elder-dragon-god sundered the humanoid races, Chief-god realised that elder-dragon-god had become a tyrant, deposed elder-dragon-god, and took power. Elder-dragon-god now sleeps uneasily somewhere. (In the human version of this myth, chief-god led death-god and their other siblings to depose elder-dragon-god; in the orc version, chief-god showed their worthiness by having the courage to do it single-handed, and death-god merely helped with the aftermath. Orcs also believe that they were specifically created by chief-god at this point.)
- VII: As punishment for rebellion, trickster-god was tasked to accompany the younger folk-hero (for Myth III) to get wisdom from the end of the earth. Trickster-god faithfully completed this task, using trickery for good, and was thus reconciled to wisdom-god. The wisdom they retrieved gave mortals the understanding necessary to turn the Divine Language into new forms of magic. This is the origin of wizards.
- VIII: Every god has a tendency to wander the Earth in disguise, doing things which fit them; in particular, Love-god periodically assumes an avatar and wanders the world as a romantic hero.
- IX: The wounded priest-ruler owned the sacred artefact of healer-god, but was unable to use it. Another folk-hero handled the device unknowingly, and by this innocence gained the power to cure priest-ruler. This shows the merit of travelling adventurers.
Words and Pictures
The humans and orcs of the Old Imperial culture and its successors in the magocracies mostly depict the gods as heroic orcs and humans, except that the Trickster is usually shown as a dark elf or other non-orc, non-human. The trickster-god is a noted shapeshifter, but is usually depicted as female. The steppe tribes avoid direct depictions of the gods, and instead depict their regalia or other inanimate attributes. Traditional dwarvish culture holds that a god may be depicted in any form, but it is the written or carved name of the deity that makes it a meaningful depiction. Traditional gnomish culture favours ostenatious and complex depictions of the gods, often using heroic statues completely covered with names, praise-names and hymns to the relevant deity. The halflings use a system, developed by the steppe halflings, where each god is represented almost exclusively by a simple pictogram derived from the steppe tribes' symbolism for the gods. The predominant elven culture is iconophobic: direct depictions of the gods are forbidden - even their names are only written in specific contexts - but songs and recitations are used widely to refer to and praise the gods.
It is unknown to non-dragonborn whether the dragonborn even worship the same gods as the warm-blooded species. The insect-people have a lifestyle that is mysterious to outsiders: it appears highly ritualised, but no conventional religious observance has ever been noted. (Decisions: [9])
One player, Mr the Geoff, has done some work developing Orc lore.
