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The fantasy worlds of D&D and Pathfinder have an advantage over our world in that the gods have an empirically verifiable effect on those worlds. Our world has a variety of competing religions and faiths and an increasing number of people who doubt the veracity of any of them. If army chaplains could heal the wounds of their companions with a touch of their glowing hand, like D&D clerics and paladins can, our world would likely have a very different outlook on religion. As it is, we as worldbuilders have to deal with this difference as best we can.
There are two main approaches that a typical campaign setting takes to religions: universal gods, or local pantheons.
Universal Gods
In this approach, the same gods hold sway over the entire campaign setting. This is what most campaign settings (eg. Faerûn, Greyhawk, Golarion) tend to use. It is the easier approach for the creator of the world, because they only have to think up one batch of gods (usually adding in some new ones in later supplements), and it is easier for the players because they don't need to navigate a treacherous web of home-brewed theology.
Universal deities make sense for a setting where the gods regularly channel their power through devoted clerics and paladins and often make their will known through prophecies and avatars. After all, if a deity is verifiably real and easily accessible in this fantasy world, wouldn't It easily find worshipers across the campaign setting's many lands and cultures?
However, the universal approach presents its own set of worldbuilding problems. In the real world, all our various cultures and civilizations were shaped by their varying approaches to gods and religion. But with universal gods, there is unlikely to be much variation in how a specific god is worshiped from one culture to the other - after all, each god can make Its will known and specify exactly what form of worship it expects. This can rob the setting of some variety and stifle regional flavor. If you think about language a lot (like I do), you also have to come up with names for each god in all the different cultures and justify why, for instance, the god of war would let his worshipers in Country A call him Drapandeshar while his worshipers in Country B call him Miletis.
It also makes religious conflict more difficult to justify. If Country A predominantly worships Gods 1, 2, and 3, and Country B also tends to honor Gods 1, 2, and 3, it seems unlikely that there will be any religious conflict between the two countries. Additionally, if God 2 gets in a fight with God 3, that means a holy civil war in all the many countries those gods are worshiped, something which the rulers of those countries are unlikely to put up with. Now, if Evil Country C worships Evil God 4, that's obviously a point of contention, but now you have to justify why Gods 1, 2, and 3 have so little influence in Country C, and vice versa for God 4. This is the sort of thing you need to think about when you are creating your world and your theology.
Local Pantheons
This is that treacherous web of home-brewed theology I mentioned above. The advantage of this approach is that it more closely mirrors the religious situation in our own world. Some gods hold sway in one part of the world, but other gods take precedence in other parts. Look at early medieval Europe as an example: in Britain, Francia, and Italy they worship one god and a plethora of interesting saints; in the Byzantine Empire to the east they worship the same god but in a slightly different way; down south in Arabia, North Africa, and Spain there is another monotheistic religion that worships the same god but in a very different way, and they rule over a large number of people who worship in the first two ways; in the Norse lands they worship a pantheon of gods, and they worship the same ones down in unconquered pagan German lands, just with slightly different names; back over in Ireland they worship a different collection of gods. and another assortment of gods again in Lithuania, and again in Finland, and so on. It's all delightfully complicated and interesting.
This sort of theology can work when gods are less directly involved with the affairs of mortals - they are separate from us, and their ways are inscrutable. The less the people in the world know about how the gods truly work, the more leeway the GM has in utilizing the gods. It can also work in a world where the gods take an active role and sometimes even intervene directly, but this requires the gods to be less omnipotent and omnipresent than the gods of the Universal approach described above. Think more along the lines of the Greek gods - absurdly powerful but not omnipotent, constantly in conflict with each other and interfering with mortal affairs, and recognizably human in their motivations, even if their actions are divine.
If there are multiple competing pantheons and religions, they can be used to lend character and interest to different campaign regions. Maybe in one land they worship four elemental deities while in another they worship gods that take the form of animals with human characteristics. Maybe one civilization worships a Good god who is constantly at war with his Evil twin brother. Maybe another civilization worships a peaceful and introspective Divine Oneness. The possibilities are endless, and each one can lend your setting a unique flair.
The most obvious problem is that this approach requires a lot of work. Instead of creating a dozen or so gods for your entire campaign setting, now you're creating a handful for this region here, a pair for that civilization, a big group for that region over there... ugh, how did I talk myself into this? First of all, if you don't think this approach is worth it, don't do it - as I said above, the Universal Gods approach is a lot easier, and most campaign settings use that. But if you are willing to take on that workload, there are ways to lighten it. For one thing, remember that you don't have to create a whole new religion for each kingdom - most of the time, a given religion or pantheon will be shared by many neighboring countries and peoples. Also, as hinted at above, they don't all have to be fully fleshed-out pantheons. A lot of religions are monotheistic. Don't be afraid to experiment with bitheistic or tritheistic religions either. And for religions that have too many deities to count, just flesh out a handful of important ones and you can create new ones later as the situation calls for it.
When you have a plethora of different religions, the first question is always 'Which one is right?' In the real world, that question can be hard to answer, but in a fantasy world it can get even more complicated. After all, all of these fantasy gods are 100% verifiably real in their fantasy world. the worshipers of each religions have to deal with the fact that there are other gods out there that offer an alternative path. But aside from that even, there is the larger question of 'Who created the world?' Each religion tends to have their own creation story, and even in the people of the campaign setting are free to believe one or the other according to their predilections, the GM at least should know the real answer. Here are a few of my favorites:
- The gods cooperated in creating the world, then fell into fighting amongst themselves.
- The elder gods created the world, then faded into obscurity as their offspring rose to fight for control of the mortals on it.
- The world already existed and it was full of monsters, like some kind of cosmic dungeon. Then the different groups of gods arrived like divine adventuring parties and began to clear away the worst of the monsters and carve out their own domains to rule.
- The gods are actually created and nourished by the faith of their followers. When a new faith arises, new gods form; when a religion dies, its gods lose power and fade into obscurity.
Now that I've covered the two main treatments that gods get in campaign settings, I'd like to touch briefly on a couple related topics:
Racial Gods and Pantheons
This is an a common sight in a campaign setting with a Universal Gods cosmology: '...God of War, God of Healing, God of Treachery, God of Gnomes...' One of these things is not like the others! This goes back to what I was saying in Where Are All the Halfling Kingdoms? about how races other than humans (and maybe dwarves and elves) are treated as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the setting. To have a God of Gnomes alongside more generalized gods of concepts like war and sailing and farming implies that either A) the gnomes have one god that covers all of those things for them, in which case why can't all those other general gods be consolidated into one, or B) gnomes worship those other gods too alongside the god that is specifically for them, in which case what does the Gnome God even do? Please please please, if you are going with the Universal Gods route, make those same gods apply to all the races. Otherwise, at least make separate pantheons for each race.
Alternately, +1,000 XP to the GM who makes a campaign setting with a God of Humans.
Historical Pantheons
Do you love the idea of having a number of separate but competing pantheons in your campaign, but hate the idea of creating like a hundred new gods all by yourself? Fortunately for you, our ancestors have already done the work for us! It's actually pretty common for homebrewed campaign settings to employ the gods of the Egyptian, Norse, and or Greco-Roman pantheons, and older editions of D&D encouraged it with their Deities & Demigods books. It's great for the GM because all the mythology has already been created, offering them a treasure trove of interesting tidbits to pick through and mine for ideas. It's great for the players because they probably already know at least a little bit about those gods, so they have an easier time choosing a god in character creation and they have some idea of how to react to those gods in-game. A priest of Loki? Oh, you'd better watch out! A priest of Dionysus? Right on, buddy, let's party!
Why not try putting a unique spin on a pre-existing mythology? I mentioned before how my buddy ran a conquistador campaign where the conquering forces were followers of the Church of Horus. You might also try going beyond the big three (Egyptian, Norse, Greco-Roman) and read up on Hindu, Aztec, West African, Finnish, or pre-Christian Slavic gods.
There are downsides of course. For one thing, if you are using pre-existing gods, you can never truly make them your own. It makes your campaign setting less original (if you care about that sort of thing) - no matter how much time you put into creating a unique civilization, if they worship Zeus your players will think of them as Greeks.
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"Gods and Religions Part 1?" you may be asking. "What can I expect from future installments? I hope it's not more blabbing on about worldbuilding stuff I already know." First of all, I wish you wouldn't be so negative. Secondly, no it won't all be worldbuilding stuff - I've planned a wide variety of posts related to gods and religions that I will be releasing in the indefinite future. I'll (probably) be talking about a new set of rules that rewards characters for their faith even if they aren't clerics or paladins, ways to make temples and offerings more interesting, how to use relics and holy objects in your game, and even a new priest class that is squishier but more magical than the cleric. So be excited for those! I know I am!
-your pantheic d20 despot
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