Do you go for poly or mono for the theism in your fantasy setting?
Polytheism. I'm already surrounded by boring monotheism.
>>47502352
Both. I'm not a super-jaded rump ranger like >>47502418
There is one true god and whole bunch of false idols.Just like in real life.
Monolatrism
>>47502352
Polytheism. Just hundreds of gods, Roman Style.
>>47502352
Neither. Gods don't exist in my setting, and no one believes in them.
>inb4 fedora memes
>>47502352
Both. Allthough although most religions, by a wide margin, are polytheistic.
>>47502984
Because that can only work in a fantasy setting.
>>47502938
There is only a single latrine?
Is that based on India?
Scientology, obviously. ;)
Seriously though, polytheism. Half the crazy that goes on only makes sense if there is an 'Immortal Days of our Lives' going on.
>>47502576
Monotheistic followers please stop shoving your religion down other's throats, nobody likes it.
>>47502352
Monotheism currently, but you got Pantheist/Polytheistic tribals, and Mormons! It's a steampunk Antibellum world, don't judge me.
>>47503331
Ahah.
He means there are several gods believed to be real but people usually worship one and not the others. Pieces of the OT suggest this for ancient hebrews. Some historians say hebrews had monolatrism as a transitional step between polytheism and monotheism. First they believed and worshiped many gods, then they considered only one to be worthy of worship, then considered the others weren't even real.
Both. The setting is monotheistic, but I offer players the choice of which Saint to venerate, and each Saint has their own domains, creeds, and requirements for worship.
If you go evil then you have the choice of which demon to worship.
>>47502984
So Edgy and Brave. It's so unique, it's... The average setting my table plays because if we don't, That Guy will get asshurt again and have a meltdown.
>>47502352
Depends upon my mood. If I'm in the Christfag mood, I'll gleefully play a game where I'm some kind of a Demon seeking redemption. If not, then I'll roll a Druid out to preserve the natural world even as the expansion of civilization seems all but inevitable.
>>47502352
>Good Deus everyone!
>I just fornicated with a manatee
Polytheism, but the gods are really just extradimensional superpowered abominations and there's only one REAL god above them, so secretly monotheism.
>>47503384
Sorry, I have to be proper with our "outsourced colleagues" at work, couldn't pass a chance to take a jab on my time off.
I see. Yes, I've seen the principle before just didn't know the word for it.
>>47502352
Poly-polytheism.
There are different pantheons. Hell, a PANTHEON of pantheons. Different people in different places worshipping a wide variety of things. Most are gods. Some are very powerful fae or demons or lovecraftian horrors.
>>47503503
>Professor Zeus!
>>47503346
Maybe you don't. Do you know how fucking hard it is to find a fantasy setting that plays monotheism straight? I'm a Indian, if I wanted Dragon Ball Z: The Religion I'd hang out with my parents.
>>47504739
>a Indian
Just poo my loo up. Fuck.
>>47503384
Question - what's the difference between monolatrism and henotheism?
Because I thought henotheism was the name for what you're describing.
>>47503346
Polytheistic followers please stop shoving your religion down other's throats, nobody likes it.
I like keeping it ambiguous, there are polytheistic religions and monothiestic religions in my setting, and its a setting with very real "divine magic"
There is definitely a near omnipotent, intelligent divine presence. But evidently has no need to be understood by mortals. It interacts with and empowers mortals constantly, and mostly benevolently, but doesn't really seem to push any particular agenda with its actions, and sometimes its actions do contribute to some tragedy or another.
Of course, everyone wants to understand the god, so just like people creating religions to justify the actions/codify the existence of the sun, weather, nature, life, and what have you, so too are there myriad religions which offer varying personifications and categorizations of the divinity. In some interpretations, it is all one god, in some it is a few, and in some it is a hundred.
Monotheism, but with different aspects of virtue and goodness and whatnot represented by saints. Gives a common ground for divine characters but also allows for variety in methodology and ideals.
Multiple deities that have little direct contact with mortals. Four core deities, four that are the "children" of the core, and two outsiders. Each god has multiple "faces" with positive and negative connotations (i.e. God of death is also god of peace).
>>47502561
Laughed at rump ranger
Mono-polytheism.
There's only one god, but he's crazy and prone to mood swings/multiple personalities.
Both, there are many cultures in my setting.
>>47503346
>Why can't le Xcucks stop proselytising me so much I remember that I once got a brochure from some catholic priest twenty years ago and have been forever scarred!!!
There are many gods but they (and everything else in the universe) are just facets of the universal goddess, who herself is one of infinite universal deities, all of which emerge from nothingness which in itself could be considered the absolute "real" god.
Some barbarians think that their tribe's god in particular is the one true god, but they're wrong. Only nothing can really claim to be absolute.
>>47503346
I'm sorry you've encountered beliefs conflicting with yours.
Are you triggered?
Do you need a safe space?
Polytheism if gods are real
Monotheism if not
Because monotheism doesn't quite make sense and doesn't really work for good storytelling.
>>47504959
Strictly speaking, what the other anon described was henotheism. Monolatrism is like henotheism, but goes one step further to the point that, while the monolatrist accepts the *existence* of other divine beings, he does not consider them worthy of worship.
Henotheism is, "There are many gods, and you can worship whichever you want, but this one in particular is mine." Monolatrism is, "There are many gods, but only this one is worthy of worship, and if you worship others you're doing it wrong."
Really the only difference between monolatrism and monotheism is the terminology. Monotheistic systems also often accept the existence of some class of spiritual beings other than the One True God that are wrongly worshipped in some cultures, but they just don't even call them gods. Monolatrists say the heathens worship false/inferior gods; monotheists say they worship demons or fictions.
>>47502352
On the surface poly, beneath it nothing.
Clerics and Paladins channel cosmic energy through belief and the nature of their belief alters it to do what the domain of their god says.
Nobody talks with them directly and most religious experiences are actually the personal interpretation (or delusion) of the individual.
Death is abstract and scary because no one knows what happens when you die and people who are brought back to life remember nothing of the experience.
This allows the players to forge their own belief system and impose it upon the universe (at least subjectively) and allows for a more rich discussion of the nature of existence because the cosmology is unknown.
>>47505444
Hey, man, the Satanic Panic was a real time. And this hobby still bears some of the scars.
I get the feeling that about 70% of gamer disfunctionality comes from shitty 'Christian' parents.
>>47506037
So, kind of a sliding scale - 'Our God', 'Best God', 'Only God'.
Got it. Thanks!
>>47506442
Man fuck you if you think for an instant that more than 1% of people playing any kind of traditional game were even ALIVE when that went down.
Two settings I've used. One has one extremely primary god and lots of lesser gods, one has no true gods but lots of things that people worship as being divine.
>>47506502
Yeah, but they get the hear about it from their elders, which and see the stupid detritus of it (Chick Tracts, that one Tom Hanks movie, etc) to keep the image 'alive'.
The occasional shitty religious parent still shows up now and then to fan the flames some more.
Not saying it isn't mostly bullshit, but it's got a source.
>>47506502
I think you grossly underestimate how many older people play pnp games.
I'm 34, and I know a fair few guys my age and older that lurk /tg/.
>>47502352
Boyh
Monotheism is the main good guys and polytheism range from Great bros. ( dwarves and elves) to assholes and shit lords (Norsemen)historical fantasy or bust, mother truckers
>>47506442
>played with an old fa/tg/uy.
>he is a math teacher at the local Catholic High School
He was the coolest guy I ever met. Had both a copy of OD&D and Dragons Raider ALS, mostly because his parents liked him gaming but didn't like D&D.
Only played twice, once his dad saw a game of OD&D with his friends and saw nothing wrong with it.
Maltheism.
The Gods exist and they hate you. Luckily, they are bound to not interfere directly, though they constantly try to do so indirectly.
I do both.
The nature of god is uncertain and the divine is apparently powered only by faith. Because of this, there are numerous religions that range from something resembling Shintoism, to animism to Christianity, with heresies and denominations at every level.
All of them receive divine powers, so all of them have some claim to be the true religion.
>>47506771
Abbey of Everyman, is that you?
>>47502352
Polytheism but all the gods are gone, what remain are twisted mortal men who have given themselves to perverse magics, masquerading as gods on a dying world.
I play agnostic. You're never going to see direct influence from a god but you'll see a bunch of things they supposedly did. Clerics still work because if you worship a kind god, you'll teach yourself "his" healing spells with or without divine intervention.
>>47507023
>>47506771
Wow, so fukkin dark. I bet you love Batman V Superman
Polytheism. I like making gods and there's not too much to work with when you just have one god.
>>47502984
Fedora memes
>>47502352
>Hermes isn't Hermes
One job etc etc etc
>>47507246
Don't blame me, my players all wanted a not!Dark Souls game so I gave them one.
The setting works in cycles, at the end of every cycle the gods die and their divine life essence/source of all magic related to their main godly aspect returns to the primordial Sun where new gods are birthed and the world returns to the cycle of happy sunshines and rainbows.
However the previous gods' apostles/heralds refused to hand in their gods' resignation letters, and hogged all the magic to themselves. Mortal men can't handle raw divinity so they all got Cronenberged. Its up to the players' job to kill them and either give up the essence of divinity to the primordial Sun and restore the order of nature or usurp the essence of divinity for themselves and rule over a dying shithole.
>>47502352
Depends on the culture. I have monotheistic and polytheistic faiths, all the fuck over the board. They're sort of all correct.
>>47506442
>I get the feeling that about 70% of. disfunctionality comes from shitty parents.
Sounds about right
Non-Western Monotheism. There is a One-Above-All, but there are numerous diety-like beings that act as intermediaries to its power, because it doesn't directly care about what we do.
I also had an idea of turning the players and villains from an old mutants and masterminds campaign from when I was a kid into "gods"
>>47502352
Poly. I tried to do monotheism once but the players were just generally uninterested in it. I think having a diverse array of dieties to chose from appeals to a wider ranger of players, with a monotheistic system you probably only appeal to one or two people in a group.
There are several well recognised gods, and many spirits of lesser and obscure domains which are indistinguishable from gods in terms of power. There are gods for fucking everything, because I find that mildly amusing.
>>47505283
I was in a campaign like that. The DM was fairly religious, so he just substituted the names of gods with those of saints and martyrs.They worked the same and people still used magic; they just got them from saints doling out divine energy.
>>47502352
In truth there are same handful of Gods being worshiped across the world in different forms throughout time but the way in which the world's resident mortals worship them changes over time. Some worship all the true Gods as they have always existed in a pantheon. Some cultures add their great heroes or completely fictional Gods that have never existed to the pantheon. Some think their particular patron or matron is the one true God and the others are false.
Who worships whom and in what form is usually the result of celestial rivalries and falling outs between all powerful brothers or divine cat fights between omniscient sisters over who that one Dwarf champion was more faithful to. Societies who come up with completely fictional gods or don't worship the gods tend to not last long as they lack favor in heaven
>>47506442
Well, my mom was a Christian and I turned out fine. Hell, despite her trying to teach me the book of Genesis (that I honestly suspect she doesn't believe), I still came out a Agnostic Atheist. To make things even more interesting, unlike just about apparently everyone ever on r/atheism I had a splendid family life and am close to my parents even today. Honestly I don't get that one fat guy wearing a fedora (every group I've been apart of has one) that gets butthurt whenever I play a Cleric.
Or a Angel, or a Demon seeking redemption. But I would also attribute their general shittyness to having terrible parents (or just parent), still that's no excuse. You don't start creeping up on the grill or my friend's little sister who is a damn good roleplayer in her own right. A base, bare minimum of standards should be applied to human behavior. Look, the Autistic guy may be obnoxious and have no social skills but he's a total bro and isn't shitty to anyone.
The "Autist" is just a fuck up who has no one to blame his shitty life on but himself.
>>47506005
I'm sorry you think your beliefs are worth imposing on others, but the only person making an imposition is the christcuck acting like one true god is the only truth there is to consider.
The natural state of belief is solid agnosticism, anything else is the faithful deluding themselves.
>>47506502
The satanic panic was in the 90s, not the 70s
>>47506142
I usually do either that or simply a neoplatonic view of the world minus the hatred of the physical.
No gods are real gods, if there's a demiurge 99% of the time it's a completely non-sentient entity who pretty much just sparked things. The deist god with less anthropomorphism.
>>47502352
Henotheism for priests, polytheism for clerics, monotheism for warlocks.
>>47506657
>norsemen
>evil
Butthurt bong detected
>>47505283
>"common ground"
Inter-factional christian fighting got pretty bloody. Look up the cathars or arianism.
>>47502352
Both, more, I give different culture groups different religious bases.
Elves have a pantheon, humans have ditheism and bitheism depending on your interpretation, dwarves kind of worship mathematical ideas in what could be called a religion (they don't think of it like that though).
I like my settings to be diverse, so each place the party visits has a different taste.
>>47508399
Nah, try butt hurtGerman, where the norse stole our shit and called it their own. Much like how the Romans stole from the Greeks.
>>47503346
This bait is only worthy of /pol/acks.
You think people give a shit about your fee fees here?
>>47508391
Change Places with Heno and Mono and I'll accept this.
>>47508545
>norse
>stealing from druids
considering how geographically prolific the norse were and how militarily successful they were in establishing colonies places, the idea that they were syncretising with the druids rather than the other way around is a bit baffling.
This is ignoring the notion that the syncretising of cultures wouldn't have been fairly mutual.gauls are better than both, of course.
>>47511852
We can all agree that Clerics are basically faithsluts though, right?
There's a Thing in the world that tells people to do things. It gives them astounding power, the power they need to do that thing, and as soon as it's accomplished the power goes away.
People call that Thing God.
>>47508355
>The natural state of belief is solid agnosticism,
Then I guess religions came from space
>>47506575
>that one Tom Hanks movie
which one is that?
>>47507526
Well, shit, not that guy but I think your campaign idea actually sounds really cool.
>>47505283
This is by far the best way to adapt a monotheistic setting to a system like D&D that expects polytheism.
Polytheism.
However, with the exception of two twin gods, every pantheon in the setting has only one god. They all viciously hate each other for claiming to be THE god, and will wage war on each other on a daily basis. At best, they will begrudgingly team up to stop a greater threat. After that, it's back to trying to kill each other. The aforementioned twin gods has a sibling rivalry, but will generally work together.
All gods are different aspects of one true God.
Polytheism, however there are some henotheist nations in which only one god is worshipped.
The gods do intervene in the world so atheists are seen as stupid and theists are just seen as an uncommon thing.
>>47502352
animism
>>47515482
>theists are just seen as an uncommon thing.
but... what? theists just believe that god(s) is/are real. theists would be almost ubiquitous in that setting
>>47516062
As in its generally weird to not /worship/ a god, not just believe in them.
>>47516458
Meant to reply to
>>47516131
>>47502352
There are hundreds of thousands of Gods, some of them more or less powerful than others.
Some cults accept the existence of other gods, some declare their own god as the one true god. despite evidence to the contrary.
>>47502352
Monotheistic religions rapidly replacing polytheistic religions, with the last pagans trying to hold out against the forces of NotChristianity and NotIslam. The morality is depicted more evenly than it sounds.
>>47516735
Hello Varg
>>47511866
He didn't say that at all.
He isn't even British. Where the fuck did you get Druids?
>>47503346
Here we fucking go
The gods are all cartoon versions of themselves, or extreme versions of their stereotypes while also being consolidated.
God is Zues is Pelor is Jupiter is whoever else is at the very top. Same with all the gods. The gods are aware of this. Some don't care, some find it hilarious. Pelor in particular thinks the idea of gods and worship is silly, but he still supports good for the sake of good and will help those who invoke his name selflessly.
>>47520064
>he doesn't know about germanic druids
There's a few gods who created the world and different races, then there's one patron diety for each class. Worshipping a single diety is the norm, but I guess you'd likely pick one of the first four and one of the twelve, now that i think about it. huh.
>>47502352
Every culture in my fantasy setting has it's own gods, save one, they are atheist wizard bastards with their own massive city isolated on a demi-plane attached to the world near the antarctic ocean.
The real key is that all the gods are parasites and a symptom of a world that has gone wrong as the inheritors of creation bow to them rather then the other way around.
Only a few select champions end up realizing this truth. They have to fight those that prop up those parasites and have them grow strong so that the immortals can be harvested for their lifeforce by the BBEG. All the while dealing with the fallout that some of them are followers or admirers of some of those immortals.
I like moral conundrums.
No Gods (none in any position of power anyways, some demi and little gods exist in secret) in my setting. Humans slew them as their claim to power which pissed the elder races off.
>>47502352
My setting's faiths include:
>One inscrutable god, plus ancestors and saints as intermediaries
>One god, one missing prophet expected to return, prophet is said to have personally murdered local deities
>A few greater gods, capable of interacting with the world in limited ways through idols
>A lot of smaller "gods" that you can actually personally meet and interact with; nature spirits and demons and such
>>47502352
Both, for various cultures. Though I've noticed that my players tend to prefer poly, so I'm going to put more weight on that.
Animism
>>47502352
I go formonopoly.
Multiple religions of differing sorts, depending on the culture. Of course, since gods aren't active and all magic is the result of the same source, I suppose it's a moot point.
