Doing the playtesting for WASTED LANDS has made me think a lot about gods again and how many there are out there.
To recap here are mythos covered in the AD&D 1st Edition Deities and Demigod/Legends and Lore.
- Babylonian, Sumerian, and Akkadian Mythos
- Celtic Mythos
- Central American Mythos
- Chinese Mythos
- Egyptian Mythos
- Greek Mythos
- Indian Mythos
- Japanese Mythos
- Norse Mythos
There are also other categories of myths and legends.
Good coverage, but not everything, to be sure. More Norse gods are listed in the GD&H book and later get a huge feature in Dragon magazine. There are more Finnish Gods too. The Howard/Hyborea gods of Conan also get a listing in GD&H. Though if you grab the PDF or POD versions of GD&H now there are no Melniboné or Hybora sections.
But what is missing?
Despite their coverage in Dragon, we don't get any of the gods of the World of Greyhawk. Same with the WoG Suel Gods. The Roman gods are not covered really. There are all the demi-human gods in the Unearthed Arcana. Then we have more in Dragon and that is not counting what we can get from Castles & Crusades.
We have enough for another volume really. A Deities & Demigods II.
Deities & Demigods II
Collecting all the above material and trying not to do too much duplication here is a proposed Deities & Demigods II for AD&D 1st Ed.
- Demihuman Deities (from Unearthed Arcana)
- Germanic (from C&C)
- Roman
- Slavic (from C&C)
- Suel (from Dragon)
- African
- Australian
- More Aztec
- More Babylonian
- Canaanite
- More Celtic
- Dragons
- Eastern European
- More Japanese
- Mesopotamian
- Persian
- Polynesian
- More Sumerian
- More Greyhawk gods than I know what to do with
That is a lot.
And that is not counting the ones I also made myself, my Greco-Egyptian Gods, and my Roman-Norse ones.
This could get quickly out of hand.
I have been looking for something to replace my "One Man's God" Feature. Maybe this is it.
I'll need to think this one over.
What would you like to see? D&DG format? Later formats? Gods as monsters with HP or Gods as...well Gods? I think Gods as Monsters really runs counter to the idea the original designers wanted but despite that they gave us stat blocks for them and that is what people know.
Lots of different ways to depict the gods. I suppose I'll just have to figure out what works.
Though I suppose most readers here would want something akin to the AD&D 1st Ed presentation.
Have to mull this one over.
I suppose I could just play-test these gods in WASTED LANDS and see how they all come out.
I'm a 1E player, so I'd lean toward that format. That said, I have only had need for a god's stat block twice in 43 years of gaming. With the gods that I created for my own campaign I haven't bothered with stat blocks, instead detailing religions, special spells, holy days, etc.
ReplyDeleteStill, if such a book existed, I'd probably buy it. You might want to have a look at the "Inhuman Gods" series in White Dwarf, too.
You could go crazy and stat them up as Immortals from the gold box
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a lot of fun, I'd definitely love to see it. I think a 1e style with a bit extra god-stuff like holy days and other special bits might work? I know I probably won't need stats, but I don't mind them.
ReplyDeleteThe new version of GD&H you can buy, do they just excise the pages, basically? I have to admit, I kinda wish they'd replaced the removed stuff with maybe an essay on the history and influence of them just to keep the original page count.
The way they wrote them up in DDG wasn't particularly useful to the DM. The table in the back had more useful info (favorite color, bird, clothing style) than the various entries in the book. Who cares how many HP Zues has unless you want to fight him or you are trying to make a meta point about Monty Haul campaigns.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest info on known ceremonies, things they can't do/eat, weapons/armor allowed, colors, any special clothing, favorite spells, etc would useful info. Also any religions they consider friendly and those they hate.
In Dragon Magazine #133 (May 1988), there is a decent article about the Roman Gods, including Saturn, Eris and Mithras. Also a brief conversion of Greek/Roman equivalents, like Jupiter/Zeus and Venus/Aphrodite.
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