![]() ![]() Of course, in FR's case this requires the existence of an even greater divine entity, the overgod Ao, who created the universe all these gods exist in and has the power to simply decree things like that. (3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, p.264-5) By Ao’s decree, a deity’s power is in part derived from the number and fervor of his worshipers, and so deities can no longer afford to ignore their faithful. The close of the Avatar Crisis brought a change to the way the deities of Faerun relate to their followers. One of the consequences of the crisis was that the overgod Ao, angered by the deities' disregard for their followers, decreed differently. ![]() Before the Time of Troubles, a god's power was derived directly from their portfolio and their mortal worshippers were irrelevant. The simple answer is that, at the time, it didn't. How did they do this if the power of a god in the Realms depends on their mortal followers? However, the world of Aber-Toril was supposedly created by Selune and Shar, two goddesses that formed out of primordial nothingness and created the whole world of the Forgotten Realms before any mortals existed. A god with a large portfolio and a huge flock of worshippers is more powerful than a god who has only a small portfolio and receives few prayers - remembering that FR society is generally polytheistic, and a deity who does not necessarily have a large number of dedicated followers may still receive many prayers from those dealing with their domain and derive strength this way. It is true that in the Forgotten Realms, the power of a deity is explicitly tied to their popularity amongst mortals. So what about the Realms, then? Gods didn't always need worshippers ![]() Of course, if you have a world where the power of gods is associated with the belief invested in them by mortals - say, the Forgotten Realms - this question is valid. A philosophy that only one person believes in isn’t strong enough to bestow magical power on that person.īut this doesn't generally apply to the gods as described earlier, and in context I would interpret this as being necessary only because there isn't an actual god to provide the power instead. The power of a philosophy stems from the belief that mortals invest in it. The only place it comes up here is in the Forces and Philosophies section of this chapter, which describes allowing characters who might normally be divinely empowered to instead draw their abilities from personal belief and conviction in a philosophy or ideal, but notes that: It is a default assumption of D&D that gods exist and supervise the world in some capacity, but neither of these sections ever suggests that the power of a deity is in any way constrained by its number of mortal followers or that a given deity needs to have followers at all - this idea is almost completely absent! The first chapter of the Dungeon Master's Guide, A World of Your Own, details the Core Assumptions of the game and has the section Gods of Your World, about the different kinds of pantheon and belief system you can use. The idea that the power of a god is derived from the belief placed in the god by its worshippers is a common one in fantasy, but it is not universally true in the genre generally or in D&D specifically. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |