God's and Policy

Hmm. I looked, but the search thing isn't working properly.

Opinions tend to become somewhat heated on the subject, but let's stick to a meta point of view. The question is what monotheism adds to the GM's interpretation of the setting. If the Abrahamic God is active and has His own clerics, are they just like other clerics? Does that mean He is just one of the many equally active and valid gods of the planes, the tutelary god of a particular human group? That's a perfectly valid interpretation -- after all, a lot of gods probably claim to be the Creator -- though few claim to be the only god in existence. (The Old Testament God didn't, at least it seems from some readings of the text.) It might not go over well theologically with your players, though.

Are His clerics special, with powers or moralities superior to those of other clerics? Then why do all those other religions survive? If He is an entity above other gods, what purpose do supposedly good gods serve? They wouldn't lie about being God. Are His clerics inferior, worshipping an entity that either doesn't exist or does not -- at present -- seem to work miracles on demand? Then how does His religion survive in the face of gods that offer proof of their existence, and have powers they can employ in the missionary effort? What role would such a cleric serve in a party?

You ask whether Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would have split into different gods. If this is so, and known to believers, then it would argue -- at least to an outsider -- that these are relatively straightforward gods of various national groups of humans. In the Planescape Universe, each probably claims to be the Creator. Certainly the religion will command that its faithful be monotheist, and not acknowledge or worship other gods. Whether it declares those gods to be actively evil is going to be a decision you will have to make, with all its ramifications for relations between pantheons and what it says about those gods' relationship to the Abrahamic God.

Ironically, monotheism in a sense is already a part of Planescape: the Athar who worship the Great Unknown are basically Deists. Signers are Monists of the solipsist flavor, and Believers of the Source are a kind of Deist or Pantheist as well, depending on your interpretation.

If you would like to make traditional monotheism a part of Planescape, one way to do it might be replacing all of the traditional pantheons with high-ranking angels and devils from real-world magical traditions. Gods of fire become the Archangel Michael, or Gabriel. Gods of trade become the Aethyr Murmux, or the Archangel Marc. Goetia and the Golden Dawn writings make for good interpretations of these things, or you can pick up game material from sources such as GURPS Cabal (an excellent collection of data for a planehopping game heavy on the magic) or In Nomine (which actually discusses Archangels and Demon Princes and how to play an angel or demon, or a human, serving them). This has the advantage of introducing monotheism while maintaining the diversity of "flavors" available to clerics, celestials, and infernal entities.

I believe that deities who change dogma slightly can obtain belief under multiple forms. I don't own Deities & Demigods, for example, but reviews I've seen discuss it covering the Greek and Roman pantheons as essentially the same entities. Worship of Jupiter feeds Zeus just fine!

Whether a schism creates a new god, then, is probably a function of how far the change goes. Greater deities with larger portfolios probably also have a much easier time manifesting in different aspects.

In real-world history, Christianity began as a sect of Judaism. The fundamental doctrinal difference is whether or not the Messiah has actually arrived yet. Islam is a much more radical break with the past, and al-Lah absorbed traits of the local moon deity more than he did the Judeo-Christian one. So the Jews and Christians are probably closer to worshiping the same deity, but it's easy to say they're different gods; Islam is further away, and might have arisen from a different god entirely. Perhaps a pagan moon deity managed to rise in status! Here's one possible storyline: the Jewish god, attempting to update his religion in a struggle with the local and much more powerful Greco-Roman pantheon, sired a child trained up as a Messiah. This hero-deity rose to demigod rank and joined the "pantheon" with the older god at the head. A third spirit attempted to take advantage of the reorganizational turmoil, but was quashed and became an aspect by which the older god could receive worship, making a Trinity. Islam was born from a clever move by a foreign moon deity, which patterned the absorption of its name and several of its worship activites into a monotheist religion like the Trinity's.

Modern day versions of Christianity are probably comfortably aiming at the same God -- Mormons, Baptists and Catholics all understand each other fairly well. Sufi mystics and Shi'a imams are probably likewise intercompatible. There are also interesting questions to be asked about combining religions. The Baha'i faith, for example, seeks to reconcile all of these religions. To whom does Baha'i worship go? One of the old gods, or a new one, or none? Your call.

Let me add, by the way, that this is an amusing possibility to push to extremes. What if some god really does have a unique manifestation for every worshiper, and what would the consequences of that be?

So far, I'd say yes.

A god grabs all the belief-energy it can. If the belief-energy isn't aimed in the right direction, they can't catch it. That "free-floating" belief, which isn't at first aimed at a god, can create one. How far from the truth a worshiper's belief must stray so that the belief-energy can no longer be collected, is certainly an adjustment you can make to your setting.

Please consult our current list of Dead Topics, which includes a run down on the difficulties to be found in statting up monotheism in Planescape. The links to the Forum Rules, and the Dead Topics list can be found here:

[url=/forum ]Rules and Dead Topics[/url]

Re: long long dead threads - once a thread is past it's expiration point (I believe it is currently set to threads that are over a year old since the last post) they cannot be posted to without an administrator stepping in to revive them. The idea is to avoid threadomancy or the more common reply to a thread long long long after the subject or even the original poster is gone. A new thread on the topic would be more fitting.

The evolution of deities as their worshiper base changes is a totally different topic from the Abrahamic gods, so sure. It's not like it wasn't an issue for Anubis followers for awhile there. It's possible that's actually the biggest advantage of a pantheon, the rest of the pantheon steps in to pick up the slack while a power is in the middle of shifting.

I'm not attempting to relate this to any of the Abrahamic faiths, but it's also possible that a D&D deity can be multi-aligned (Shekinester immediately comes to mind). The same deity could be genuinely one alignment as worshipped by one tribe and a completely different alignment as worshipped by a different tribe.

There's also the concept of multi-aspected deities (Aspect A has one function, say agriculture, with an associated alignment, and an Aspect B of war, with a different alignment).

In Ravenloft there is a god (Ezra), that has 3 different sects with different Alignments (all kinds of lawful). So it might happen that a gods sects split up, but still the god worshiped is the same.

Now let's take a fictional god that has a base of worshippers. One day a new prophet appears and claims to fulfill something, that was stated in old prophesies. Some people follow him, others don't, but still they worship the same god. Later someone else comes along and claims to be a new prophet. Again some people follow him, others stay in the old sects. And within these sects there are other prophets, that see things within the faith a different way and will find followers. Still it stays the same god, and the religion could continue this way a few more times. Some prophets are sucessful, others not, some sects will prosper, others will die out.

The less gods there are, the more likely it its for a church to split up into different sects. Cause within a pantheon everyone has a chance to worship the gods that fits best with his morals, behavior and believes. If you have a pantheon with only two gods (one good and one evil for example), your choice is rather limited. The sects may or may not cooperate. If one or more of them believes to be the only true way to worship this god and all others to be heretics, they will most likely fight even if they are worshipping the same god.

Just wanted to add that "Complete Divine" does talk a bit about sects and schisms. Recall that clerics can differ from a deity's alignment by one step, so you can have some very different interpretations of the core dogma and still be worshiping the same god. This can even be formalized into schisms that become different churches of the same deity.

I suppose a formal break between an old religion and a new would be worship that promotes an alignment impossible for the original deity. A Chaotic Good god could have a Neutral Good sect, but if that sect schisms and develops a Lawful Good offshoot, that worship will definitely not be going to the original god.

I suddenly imagine a potential irony in the unity of Rings. Imagine if that happens, and repeated schisms drive later worshipers to Lawful, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil, and finally up to Chaotic Neutral, by which time worship could potentially go back to the original god!

Finally, note that clerics can't be true neutral unless their deity is. Thus, it might be the case that the Outlands is home to a large number of minor religions that have schismed off of the LN, NE, CN, or NG sects of various major deities.

On a completely tangential note, you can actually do this with three. They all have to be lined up on the Good-Evil axis or the Law-Chaos axis, but it can work: a NG deity with LG and CG sects, a NE anti-deity with LE and CE sects, and a TN deity with LN and CN sects, for instance. Or LN, TN, and CN. Either could make an interesting cosmology, especially if the TN deity declines for some reason to accept worshipers that go on the other gods' "axis."

You know... I'm picturing the nine alignments now as the eight trigrams, plus a taiji in the middle for TN...