How Critical Role STOLE D&D’s Best Pantheon! | Stealing From Older Editions

[@SupergeekMike]

Have you stolen anything from an earlier edition and dropped it into your campaign world? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

[@RS3isRealscape]

i do not like the word stolen borrowed stolen implies i took with force or without permission i am careful whenever possible to seek out the creators of certain new things and ask permission to use them most of old DND editions are covered by scandalized copyright thing except for certain properties like Mind Flayers Beholders ect. and with those i simply change a few things and give it another name but my players understand what they are facing i also only play 3.5 or lower editions 4th edition never happened and neither did 5e anything under Hasbro is not allowed

[@DeDraconis]

I've stolen my friends-from-decades-ago player characters as my NPCs because I have no shame. #SNS

[@gedece]

I used to run generic worlds with some forgotten realms gods, because those were the ones I had data on. I hadn't enough material for a forgotten realms campaign or geography, so I made my own with those gods.

[@helixxharpell]

MIKE, I think your viewers (those who may want to be commercial content creators) should understand that anything they want to publish using WorldAnvil that when they agree to buy and download WA software that everything they do belongs to the company that makes World Anvil. I wish I had read the fine print because I paid for it and now cannot use it. 😮

[@RS3isRealscape]

@@helixxharpell violates the OGL worldanvil=bad

[@mallenwho]

The biggest brain move Matt did was make the Matron of Ravens a mortal who ascended. That move shook the pantheon to its core and directly led to the calamity as per Chloris' actions and also Mulligan's interpretation of Asmodeus' motives. It simultaneously gives every single bad guy mage or lich an end goal: ascend to godhood. It is proven possible! Therefore, there is an infinity of campaign hooks to stop those people. It's kinda like how in the MCU, there is no end of bad guys whose motivation is directly driven by the fact that Tony stark money-and-brained his way to superpowers and fame. If he can do it, why can't they build their own superpowers or network of power?? Genius storytelling!

[@TannerWeinberg]

It's canon within D&D outside of Critical Role that the Raven Queen was an elven royal from the Feywild that sought to become a god to stop a conflict and was betrayed, leading to her people being sent to the Shadowfell. Her being human when mortal (if she is) IS specific to Critical Role, however. In the general D&D mythology there are a number of mortals who ascended to godhood.

[@soundrogue4472]

I mean I had this idea for a while; it's not all that ingenuous. It's a good idea and story telling wise makes sense.

[@gatoneko]

Mortals ascending to "Godhood" is pretty much the whole pantheon of the old 2E Mystara campaign setting.

[@michealbohmer2871]

@@TannerWeinberg In BECMI, all the "gods" ascend from mortals. They are called the immortals but are gods in all but name.

[@mallenwho]

@@gatoneko yea but it's also not special if every single one of them has ascended. Like, why should I stop the guy from ascending? Everyone else did it! One person doing it once is the perfect amount of precedent for crazy quacks to attempt, and to throw off natural order of things to do so.

[@SanjayMerchant]

Gotta love on an object lesson in the fact that you can't copyright an idea, only the expression of the idea.

[@Treebohr]

One of the major reasons I love the Dawn War pantheon is that the 4e gods actually tell you what they want. In 5e, the gods are just names and alignments, but in 4e, each god has a short write-up that includes a few quick bullet points on what they require from their followers. Characters who worship gods should be able to find out what that worship entails.

[@amiablereaper]

That's such a shame. I started with 4e, never got into 5e, and it seems like every single element of the game is a downgrade. Even if 4e had it's own problems they were trying to escape, that's no reason to release such an awful, incomplete product. Also Asmodeus pops up as the lord of hell in pf as well, so when I got into Pathfinder I was like "ah, there you are again, you bastard"

[@lukerabon7925]

Yeah, they did that in the other editions before 5e too. WotC just doesn't want to put out lore anymore

[@amessinger]

If you're playing 5e in the Forgotten Realms, there's a massive wiki out there with ample info about the FR gods. It covers their personalities, their pasts, their relationships with each other, and more. It's honestly a little overwhelming, so I just take what I want and leave the rest.

[@Aurora_Lightbringer]

​@@amiablereaper It's very on brand that you can never escape Asmodeus no matter what game you jump to.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Exploring what worshipping a god means is literally the most important part of playing a character that worships a god. Faith is a deeply personal thing, regardless of whether it's a real person or fictional character. Demanding that worship toward any god means a specific set of rituals is a fundamental misunderstanding of what worship is.

[@StonedHunter]

When you think about it, 4e and later Matt just did what happens in real life with mythology and gods. They take some old and rework them, then add in what they feel is missing. Go check the progression of just about any well known deity in the real world and you'll see just how different they start from how we know them today. It's honestly really neat.

[@EchoMirage72]

Just as what the Romans did with the Greek Gods.

[@StonedHunter]

@@EchoMirage72 and as the Greeks themselves with the pre-helenic pantheon

[@skylark7921]

Bro I’ll never get over how Aphrodite used to be a war goddess

[@BigKlingy]

@@skylark7921 Interestingly it's pretty common for love goddesses to also be war goddesses, across several cultures. See: Ishtar, Anat.

[@skylark7921]

@@BigKlingy oh ya def, see also Freyja. But like Aphrodite specifically threw me for a loop since the most commonly known stories about her are like “tell me I’m the prettiest goddess” and “my lover and I got pranked by my husband” and “my son fell in love with someone I don’t approve of so I’m going to be the pettiest bitch who ever lived” (that last one is actually kinda indicative of watered-down war-goddessery now that I think of it lol)

[@pazz]

Matt for his home game: Cool Pantheon! I'll just use that! Years later: Whoopsie, Our home game became a wildly successful franchise, guess I'll kind of change the names 🤷

[@zebwilliams8945]

Exandria is another "planet" or continent or something like that of Forgotten Realms. Lolth was in a recent episode. Joe (forgot his last name) showed up to fight Vecna and stole the hand to go bring Tiamat back. It's very much established that Matt's world is similar to Greyhawk or Faerun. It's the same universe but different "realm" whatever that word technically entails.

[@pedrogarcia8706]

@@zebwilliams8945 That's only because CR was eventually able to make a legal partnership with wotc. Even then, in the animation all references to wotc IP were removed.

[@Fat_Panda_Gamer]

@@zebwilliams8945 "Exandria is another "planet" or continent or something like that of Forgotten Realms" is so wildly inaccurate as to be stupid.

[@zebwilliams8945]

@@Fat_Panda_Gamer Solid reply. Have a great day.

[@lyntoncollins2758]

@@zebwilliams8945 You forgot his surname?

[@MaggieWolf-7777]

The name Tiamat isn't a WOTC invention. There's a Babylonian myth about Marduk slaying "the dragon" Tiamat to create the stars and firmament. Tiamat was a primordial goddess who took the form of a dragon.

[@lyntoncollins2758]

She is the God of Chaos ...

[@Aokitadamitsu]

the earliest designers of TSR pick pocketed religious pantheons the world over.. I know I have read all the books since DND and AD&D 1e..

[@MaggieWolf-7777]

If one does a deep-dive into mythology and Divine Feminine folklore, there's so much here beyond "mother of monsters" and "big boss dragon." She was a primordial creator goddess, betrayed by her own children who stole her power (Tablet of Destinies) and slew her partner and great love. Her rage was born out of that betrayal. Some researchers think she is one of the oldest divine figures in human history -- a creator goddess, who predates the Sumerian/Babylonian myths by thousands of years, then they turned her into a foil for Marduk. In D&D, one could have a wonderful Divine Feminine mystery cult surrounding all of this, with a faction devoted to restoring the Tablet of Destinies to her. Shift out of the historical male perspective and Tiamat becomes far more interesting and nuanced as a primodial creator goddess wronged by the younger gods. Players could eventually unravel that the one they thought was a villain is actually the victim of a centuries-old smear campaign by other cults.

[@lilbaz8073]

Neither is bahamut.

[@sharondornhoff7563]

Asmodeus comes straight out of the Talmud and the Book of Tobit. Got shanghaied by Solomon into building the Temple, no less.

[@Treebohr]

The 4e lore revolved around the event known as "The Dawn War." If you read any of the lore stuff in 4e, you were familiar with the concept.

[@OccidentalAvian]

Similarly when Matt took these gods to be used in Exandria, he basically also kept bits and pieces of the Dawn War and turned it into the Schism and the Calamity.

[@RedPandaSquadron]

I'm a Pathfinder fanboy. I'm GLAD they kept Sarenrae, and later morphed into The Everlight. A fun note about Sarenrae in Golarion (the Pathfinder setting), she's essentially a a Middle East aesthetic goddess of the sun and war. Imagine Ottoman Empire goddess, that's her. Her edicts are to basically crush evil, but offer mercy. She's basically THE quintessential good paladin deity. She's also in a throuple with the goddess of art and beauty and the goddess of the moon and moths. They are perfect. And it makes sense that Pike would have Sarenrae as her goddess (given that they played in Pathfinder prior to 5e) since Pike was a war cleric first and foremost. Yeah, I love Sarenrae hahaha

[@TamTroll]

last time we had a Sarenrae cleric in my pathfinder game, there were a LOT of saran-wrap jokes as a result. to the point where her "hold person" spell was described as wrapping the person up in saran-wrap :P

[@4Thessia]

Sing song voice: “Nobody doesn’t like Sarenrae.”

[@typervoxilations2311]

was in a brief mini campaign with a group of friends. the hook was that our party was part of a group of hired mercenaries in a town that gets ambushed by a group of werewolves - by the end of the campaign, it turns out the people in town were vampires that had goaded the werewolves into attacking. important context: played a paladin of sarenrae so i had finessed the gm into allowing the daylight spell as TECHNICALLY sunlight.

[@readytobebolder]

Its really obvious how so many newcomers have joined TTRPG, especially D&D bc if you took a canon pantheon that already existed within D&D lore and set them as your pantheon for your homebrew campaign, most people would say, “yeah, that’s much easier than coming up with your own”. Not that you “stole” the idea or whatever. Theres even people in the comments giving praise to Matt for “making the Raven Queen an ascended mortal”. That’s…. That’s canon, guys. Next thing you’re gonna say is that Baldur’s Gate is a Larian invention. Free yourselves from thinking you need to be endlessly creative and make up everything from 0. You’re not being super special by homebrewing everything, you’re just making life harder for yourself.

[@AeridisArt]

I much prefer making my own gods, honestly. I may take inspiration from already created gods, but having my own pantheon means I can have my gods act how I want them to for my stories without having to worry if their actions, personality, and tenets match those of established canon.

[@Spark_Chaser]

Greyhawk was a setting since old AD&D. It's been around for a LONG time. Another fun bit of pitting Ioun and Vecna against each other is that the D&D magic system, as a whole, was a "Vancian" magic system, in which one memorized and prepared spells in advance and got one casting per memorization of the spell. This system was pulled from, you guessed it, Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" novel series, where Ioun comes from. I remember reading the Pantheon for Tal'Dorei and just laughing a bit at how much I could see the "file marks" from them scrubbing off the copyrighted information. The brazenness of their pull was amazing to me, and I figured WotC/Hasbro wasn't going after them because they weren't going to risk harming a golden goose laying eggs for them. They could have still used the names Bahamut and Tiamat, as those are actual gods from the Middle East, Bahamut appearing in pre-Islamic texts, and Tiamat being a goddess of Babylonian origin. What this does show is that you can steal from other sources with wild abandon, just be careful publishing it.

[@gabbypie64]

It's older I do believe it came before the advances basic spilit

[@havcola6983]

Problem with using names like Bahamut and Tiamat is that then _they_ couldn't copyright them. I'm sure it's been an ongoing frustration from later-era WOTC that early DnD functioned by just copying names and monsters from the public domain.

[@fallenj]

@@gabbypie64 Its the original campaign for d&d, its named after what Gygax and Kuntz's home campaign. Doing a quick google would tell you that.

[@cconnelly7010]

"His (Kord's) old imagery looked like a butthole." @supergeekmike - you got me, man. I genuinely laughed out loud at this. I'm an oldschool Greyhawk fan since 1e, and I've *never* thought that. Now I'll *never* unsee it! 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for the belly laugh and the video, Mike. Wishing you and your beautiful family lots of lolz together!

[@OccidentalAvian]

Fun bit of trivia by the way, it seems Matt switched to the Dawn War pantheon specifically when they switched to 5e! On Matt's old personal Vox Machina wiki, which is now archived on the Fandom and Miraheze wikis, he notes that the Cobalt Soul worship Delleb (from the Greyhawk pantheon) instead of Ioun!

[@SupergeekMike]

Fascinating! I’ve had that theory but never found proof. Hm I may have to check out that wiki and see what other secrets we can learn… Thank you so much for letting me know! 😁

[@ewabrzakaa6395]

@@SupergeekMike I mean, seeing what "raven queen" did to Vax was just live following what Pharasma does with her chosen

[@voland6846]

My google-fu is failing me right now, can you point a stranger in the right direction to find these archives please?

[@stephendragonspawn6944]

I find that the raven's head on cloak illustration for the Raven Queen looks more like the logo for a sports team.

[@SupergeekMike]

😂😂

[@TheLordofMetroids]

I mean, gods are basically sports teams right?

[@stephendragonspawn6944]

Go team Death Gods

[@armorclasshero2103]

Because the Bluejays.

[@tilen873]

Today I learned: diegetic adjective : of or relating to diegesis diegesis noun : the relaying of information in a fictional work (such as a film or novel) through a narrative

[@DiscoDachiff]

I'll throw in a new one for you: exegesis and exegetic

[@petalsinthebreeze]

2:11 So i think the reason is quite simple, no other name really works while also being snappy, if they called it the Nentir Vale/Nerath Pantheon, nobody outside of 4e lore junkies would know what that was, while the Dawn War is intimately tied into the lore of the pantheon, I think the name works well for what it conveys

[@tyranno-soros8521]

For me, the thing I like most about the dawn War pantheon how tight it is, and how distinct and memorable most of the gods are. I've been using it in my campaigns for about 8 years and because there are so few gods my players still know and remember the gods even if they aren't playing a cleric/paladin. For example in our first campaign one player was following pelor and another kord, but now if I bring up melora, the raven queen or asmodeus, they all immediately know what I'm talking about. Also raven queen = best god.

[@wozar7461]

I can relate to this very much. The Elder Scrolls have a similar sized pantheon (9 Divines + 16 Daedric Princes = 25 deities) which have become very memorable for me by playing the series. One of the large appeals for me to moving from the Forgotten Realms to Exandria for my main setting was the simplification (particularly the pantheon). I am curious. Have you further added lore to them? In what setting do you use the Dawn War deities in?

[@tyranno-soros8521]

@wozar7461 so we play in my homebrew setting, but i use the dawn War pantheon. Personally I tend to take the terry pratchett/neil gaiman approach of having the gods he shaped by thier belivers. So for example in my worded there is a totalitarian empire, who have banned worship of most non Lawfull gods, and thier worship of avandra is far more about order, discipline and control rather than the more positive aspects of her worship.

[@pheralanpathfinder4897]

Small pantheon is much easier to track and manage for players and DM. It's one of the biggest weaknesses of the Realms. But the vast variety of the Realms is also it's greatest strength.

[@k1tkat-kate]

3:28 "Because if there's one thing nerds *love*, it's when you throw out all the lore they spent years learning..." The way I started cackling, oh my gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahd 🤣 (Am I laughing in humour or in pain? Even I'm not sure...) I started watching CR with campaign 3 and I've been trying to keep up with your Demystified series following campaign 1 - but I didn't know the lore in between. So I didn't realize right away that The Raven Queen and the Matron of Ravens were supposed to be the same entity. (Althought, I probably should have, because... they're practically the same title.) I really enjoyed Tuesday's video about creating a new pantheon, but this explanation has been a big help in understanding the lore! Thanks Mike!

[@Aurora_Lightbringer]

The difference can be a little difficult to learn as most regions have different names and cultures surrounding singular gods, along with the rights issue that dropped all the gods main names. The Raven Queen is both the Matron of Ravens and the Duskmaven. Took me a while to realise too.

[@madman_chris]

Great video Mike. I think it's immensely helpful for worldbuilders/homebrewers to be educated on the origin of Matt Mercer's pantheon. The history that you provide is also well researched and well presented.

[@lbpews9919]

Just a quick note: The god Fharlanghn's name is a play on "far longing," as he is a god of travelers and roads. When you take a deep look into Greyhawk's pantheon you'll find a lot of funny things like this. My favorite is Murlynd, who is literally a holy cowboy (his holy symbol is a sheriff's badge). He was a PC from Gygax's home games played by Don Kaye that was ascended to divinity after Kaye tragically passed away. Lots of fun stuff like that is strewn throughout the setting and its fluff.

[@tonysladky8925]

I genuinely forgot that Bane showed up in 4E's evil pantheon, and that he showed up without the rest of the Dead Three. Sure, sure. "Different Banes"... but still, Bane without Bhaal or Myrkul is super-weird. I love the whiplash of the names of deities in Critical Role and its sourcebooks: Stream using established names, then publish a third-party book using epithets, then switch to using those epithets in the stream, then publish a first-party book using those original names while still streaming using the epithets...

[@andyenglish4303]

They're so closely linked and as someone who really got into D&D lore only with 4E, the weirdness goes the other way. When I started working on adapting Descent into Avernus to my homebrew world I had to replace Bhaal and Myrkul with Torog and Vecna for the 'Dread Three' cult.

[@lukerabon7925]

Yeah, I don't care for the changes to Kord and Pelor, personally, and making Corellon and Moradin universal deities feels weird. Definitely feels like a case of "you included this to appease long time fans, but then changed enough that it doesn't really matter"

[@ConradDunkerson]

You described Sehanine as a Forgotten Realms god, excluded from the Greyhawk list. Actually, she first appeared in Greyhawk materials and (like Corellon and Lolth) was carried over to Faerun. All of the pre-existing evil gods were also originally introduced with the Greyhawk setting.

[@alphanaut14]

I'm an old D&D player from the 1980's and remember when TSR owned the game and Intellectual Property wasn't a term normal people knew. Every element of the game was taken from somewhere else... very few of their gods were original. They got their first lesson with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean Mythos included in some versions of Deities and Demigods (worth a dive if you haven't explored the topic). Even now, they still have historical figures instead of pure fiction. Asmodeus is a JudeoChristian king of demons. Tiamat was Mesopotamian- the Mother of Gods and Mother of Monsters.

[@LordOfDarkness8296]

And then there is St. Cuthbert who is an actual saint in real life!

[@Oddmanoutre]

@@LordOfDarkness8296 I'd be willing to endure all of the 'Thomas and Friends' jokes just to bring St. Conan of the Isle of Man and Sodor into the game.

[@earthsword2888]

Hey Mike amazing video as always. Also I seem to remember the Sehanine is the wife of Corellon after Loth betrayed her. Corellon also has a daughter who is a moon goddes called Eilistraee, who is one of the best gods ever written in my opinion but I digress. Because Sehanine and Eilistraee are both moon goddeses and both so closely related to corellon they often get mixes up, wich isn't helped by WotC constantly trying to get rid of Eilistraee because she is a drow goddes who is good aligned and wants to redeem the drow, making Drizzt less special in the process. So this ended up being a bit of a tangent. Anyway I really enjoyed the video and I can't wait to the next one. Keep being amazing :) .

[@Zeathian]

Over the lifespan of 4e there were a number of dragon/dungeon magazines that fleshed out some of the gods. I recommend checking them out. Dawn War Bane is more lawful military evil then his FR incarnation which can be more capricious. They introduced neutral aligned sects for PC that want to follow the Iron Centurion. The Raven Queen is tied in one of her backstories to the previous Death God Nerull (greyhawk), who was explicitly evil and promoted undeath. He took her as a concubine, she lured him into a false sense of security and usurped his place. Bahamut has hopped around between settings, before getting promoted to major deity status in 4e. To help support the new version of Dragonborn as a PC race. Zehir is just Sseth (the snake god from previous editions) with a fresh coat of paint. Well if you want to be technical yuan-ti House Se'Sehen that shifted its attention from Seeth (FR) to the Zehir. As according to Storm of Zehir expansion for NWN2.

[@JustinWPruett]

This is one of your best videos yet, Mike. Really enjoyed learning about this! I’ve always loved how Matt took the opportunity to make Pike’s faith in Sarenrae the reason she was returning to prominence. Such a cool way to reward a player’s choices.

[@savnana3605]

I'm so here for the 4e chatter~!! Also, for gods 'sharing' a domain, I usually treat it as different interpretations / reflections of the same entity. Like Kord might be known as Thor elsewhere. Pelor might just be the regional name for Sarenrae for my players.

[@Shepsus]

This was interesting and I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for sharing! The 4th edition Gods were also my favorite. It seemed limited, but the perfect limitation to expand a god/dess on my own when necessary.

[@trixus4768]

6:11 Wee Jas might be the most uncool name for a deity I've heard in life...😂😂😂

[@Shadraen1]

Her Demi God cousin Hugh Jass was even less popular 😜

[@alemar1122]

it's a bastardization of Ouija they were struggling and were like "oh lets just use Hasbro's demon board thing"

[@TVMAN1997]

My cleric worships Wee Jas

[@imjumokay]

It reminds me of weesnaw

[@hortonhearsahunter]

I found with the gods there was so much overlap in their domains. How many gods of Death, Justice, Trickery were there? So I kept all the dawn war gods but added my own "Elder Gods". There was 6 of them who portrayed themselves as avatars to gain more followers. Pelor and Bahamut were the same being portraying themselves differently to gain faith from different followers.

[@SLorenzo-in-cyberspace]

Hi, they are called the “Dawn War” pantheon because they were the gods who joined forces to fight the primordials in the “Dawn War”. There is info about this in the 4th ed manuals DMG and Divine Power.

[@birdfurnace]

14:16 don't worry, I also pray to Matt Mercer

[@RottenRogerDM]

During 1E and 2E I used the 1E Deities and Demigods book for my gawds. Generally, it was Non-human, Roman, Cthulhu and maybe Celtic. All other pantheons were off limits so I could use them as foils etc. I do urge new DMs to Steal from older editions and other works. Whatever makes you conformable when you design your world.

[@mcinc.1003]

As far as creatures crossing settings, I’ve always thought of the material plane being a multiverse, but the other planes being only one.

[@clarkside4493]

The Dawn War was the war between the gods and Primordials. The Primordials actually made substance of the world, but the gods had scultped it into anything the world we know. The Primordials didn't like that, so they fought the deities.

[@Kadmos_of_Tyr]

The forgotten realms gods do have lot of lore of them interacting, ESPECIALLY during the Time of Troubles when they all were briefly made mortal

[@Mordaris]

If you can lay your hands on some 2nd edition material, there is a WEALTH of lore there. All of the D&D books from older editions have much richer lore to them. It seems that every edition of D&D had reduced the amount of ancillary information as they progressed.

[@billymiles6870]

Except one. I forget if it is Torm or Tyr. I think it is Torm.

[@Kadmos_of_Tyr]

@@billymiles6870 It was helm actually, god of protection, he got to guard the steps to mount celestia

[@briannenurse4640]

I've wondered for a long time what the actual distinctions were between Critical Role's pantheon and the D&D gods. Thanks for clearing all this up!

[@leahwilton785]

My favourite part of this panteon is the commandments of each god. It's such actionable information for roleplay

[@abcrasshadow9341]

Has Mike talked about Calamity? Have you Mike? Because if not I think you should as it is probably the best self contained story that critical role has ever produced.

[@Boundwithflame23]

Omg yes! And it brings in the idea of players knowing they’re not supposed to try and stop a thing that’s going to happen so they make their characters be a cause of that thing

[@keanelovah]

Seconding! Please make some videos on the Calamity, Mike! It is such a tight story and I would love to hear your takes on it.

[@Jathom]

I would guess he'll get to it as he continues his Demystified series. He's mentioned that he wants to go through all of the campaigns, not just C1 so I would assume that would include ExU.

[@SupergeekMike]

Oh trust me, we will definitely get to it 😎

[@sharondornhoff7563]

There's an old Dragon article ("Down To Earth Divinity" #54) from the 1e days, in which Ed Greenwood openly explains how 90% of the Forgotten Realms pantheon came from him re-skinning stuff from the original "Deities & Demigods" book. Which technically means that ol' Ed did to Fritz Leiber's IP (Ilmater = Issek of the Jug) what Matt Mercer did to Ed's (Strife Emperor = Bane).

[@InvaderZed]

I reccomend any new DM to steal anything and everything. Earlier game editions, other games, inspiration of events and places and people from movies or books. Maps and doungeons made for other adventures that you mold to your own. Steal everything Make your own epic

[@jloost-gamer]

I created my own pantheons (Imperial gods, Elven gods, Dwarven gods, Gnomish gods) for my upcoming homebrew (Pathfinder 2e Remastered) campaign. I love some existing pantheons, but it's way easier for me to remember 10 to 20 gods when I have designed them myself and seen every step of the creation process (one of them was created by a player, but one is a manageable number haha). Still, these two videos about pantheons have given me some new ideas to integrate into the pantheons that will make them a lot better and more integrated into the game world. Thanks for these two great vids Mike! Loved to hear your insights and I absolutely agree that, especially when playing in an existing setting or wanting to create a setting more quickly or easily, stealing or adapting existing pantheons is a great idea!

[@frankrobinsjr.1719]

I always loved the fact that Gary Gygax made sure "use what your group finds fun" was always part of everything he did. (Even though he never liked wizards.)

[@DocEonChannel]

I think you're overstating the novelty of the DW pantheon. Of the 20 names on that list, at least 10 would have been familiar to someone playing in the 80s-90s.

[@Mrollllf]

Or anyone interested in historical myths and religions

[@pazz]

I usually run games in Exandria, I start by presenting players the 4e/CR Pantheon. But if they want, I let my players either come up with their own God to follow, or let them choose from any of the D&D and adjacent Pantheons, then I either replace a God or work it in as an additional one. The most important thing for me as a GM is to make sure my players feel connected to the aspects of the world they choose to engage with. Plus, it's just a fun home game, so sticking strictly to the campaign setting books isn't important to me. Luckily, in the groups I play with, I'm typically the most knowledgable about CR/Exandria, I'm unlikely to run into a "Well, actually" type player.

[@TimBaker]

I remember how appreciative I was of this pantheon when I revisited D&D after taking a break from TTRPGs for nearly two decades. The list was short enough and straightforward enough that I could easily memorize them. Their domains also encouraged action from the PCs. I often come back to this pantheon when running a game in a setting where there isn't a defined pantheon.

[@JoULove]

Oh I'm early! Yay another discussion video about gods 😊

[@Azurko]

My campaign currently has the party going towards Castle Ravenloft but when they get there *spoilers* they'll find the castle in ruins, the town populated by ghosts, and an arcane puppeteer in control. The story being that they'll arrive AFTER the events of Curse of Strad...

[@demetrinight5924]

I like how the setting of Exandria gives the pantheon their own names. It has become an official D&D setting. Grayhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance all use a variation of the same pantheon. With Exandria also using that pantheon it ties that world to all of those other worlds.

[@HENAZORK]

I did the same thing with The Sovereign Host pantheon. Most of them have a paragraph or fewer text so I got to basically rework everything and my players really like them.

[@Bullskunk]

This was my favorite video outside of the Demystified videos, I felt like it was informative both about how Mercer adapted the pantheon but also about the history of DnD lore and where it all comes from. Well Done. I would certainly watch more videos like this that explain ol' school DnD lore and how it fits into modern games.

[@Salsmachev]

It's worth noting that a number of the gods in CR are also found in Pathfinder. Erathis is a core deity, Bahamut and Tiamat aren't core, but they do exist in the world of Pathfinder. And then there are a number of differently named characters who are quite similar, like Nethys being the default knowledge god like Ioun and Phasmara being the neutral arbiter of death like the Raven Queen.

[@SupergeekMike]

Interesting! I am planning to check out the Pathfinder gods in an upcoming video, but I haven’t yet so I had no idea that so many of the same gods crossed over.

[@Salsmachev]

@@SupergeekMike A surprising amount of D&D's gods, archfiends, etc. have enough basis in mythology that Paizo could get away with it. Asmodeus is from the Book of Tobit (and is likely a distortion of Ahura Mazda), for example. I am a little surprised that Bahamut made it into Paizo materials, since Bahamut is a Crusader distortion of Muhammad with no traditional connection to dragons.

[@voland6846]

@@Salsmachev You're talking about Baphomet right? Because Bahamut has nothing to do with Mohammed. Bahamut is most likely connected with the Behemoth of the Torah, although all we know _for certain_ is that it's the name of a pre-Islamic Arabic mythical beast.

[@Salsmachev]

@@voland6846 You appear to be correct- weird, I was also aware of Baphomet but I thought I had read somewhere that Bahamut had the same origin. Good catch!

[@TheShepherdFilms]

Pelor is just a jacked/tanned/santa claus looking beach bro...its good times...shout out to the 2 crew!

[@calebchristensen900]

This actually makes me feel a it better honestly about my pet project. I’ve been taking all the lore and knowledges about the dragoon south of Neverwinter around Leilon and Phandalin and making it into a full length 1-20 campaign. Focused on settling and taming the region

[@JeddHampton]

This was a fun video. I didn't know what to expect going into this, but I was happily surprised. It's not anything that has me dreading modern youtube (no click bait, no overly expressive reactions, etc). I also think there is a great niche of this kind of meta commentary on main stream D&D/TTRPGs. Thank you sir. I will be checking out your other videos.

[@IkedaHakubi]

Tiamat shouldn't need a rename. She comes from Babylone, 3000 years ago!

[@Woodclaw]

@SupergeekMike, throughout AD&D 2e the non-human deities were essentially shared among all campaign settings (barred a few exceptions like Darksun) and some of the splatbooks went out of their way to explain how Corellon, Moradrin, Grumsh and other similar deities from Greyhawk were actually the same worshipped in Forgotten Realms or Birthright. I don't remember exactly why TSR decided to do this, but my guess is that it was easier and/or cheaper, plus it hinted at the idea that other species were aware of the multiplanar nature of the universe, while human (the new guys in the neighbourhood) were still thinking "monoplanar". Given that, I was not surprised to see Corellon and Moradrin in the Dawn War pantheon. In fact it was more surprising seeing them in a non-species specific role. Also, on the subject of the Greyhawk pantheon, the one presented in the 3e Player Handbook is between a third and a fourth of the complete list, which actually starts with a female deity, Beory the incarnation of the planet Oerth.

[@AlphaCanisMinor]

The eberron setting has some excellent demonstrations of this concept of borrowing (and adjusting), where gods like tiamat and lolth were re-adapted into "demon overlords", which allows you to pull any existing lore you like about those figures from other games, editions, and settings without forcing a gm to fit the god into the pantheon, which in eberron is also very streamlined in a neat way. Similarly, Eberron does a fantastic job portraying "evil" gods. Theyre still grouped as "the dark six", and they favor evil alignments, but in the diagesis of the world they are often worshipped or recognized as contrasts to their "good" counterparts, or even as necessary. A god of war has its shadow, because war always brings death.

[@coachphill5076]

Throwing shade at Disney throwing out 30+ years of world building with Star Wars...well played Mike, well played

[@turtle4llama]

The old gods are never gone, just forgotten.

[@tieflingwizard1]

I might do something similar to this for my homebrew setting. Take some gods, fuse some of them together, and rename some of them.

[@worldscoolestperson7672]

Another solid vid, Mike!

[@aaronbourque5494]

Heck, there was an explanation for how elements from one campaign setting could cross over since the Planes were introduced (in fact, it was EXPECTED in even the original DMG that PCs could move from one campaign, or as Gygax called it "milieu," to another, it just never had an explanation and there was no guarantee that other elements could). And after Spelljammer was introduced, there were TWO explanations!

[@Batini]

Fun thing about alternate realities, multiverse and whatever: At least since 3rd edition, they can be visited and accessible from each other. There's an obscure passage in the Manual of the Planes, referring to the Plane of Shadows, where it is said that if you travel towards the "Deep Shadow" or something other, you can literally cross over between different Material Planes. I do not believe that to have been negated afterwards, but I might be wrong. So yes. Steal gods and monsters and everything between settings and worlds. It is supported canonically by Shadowalking (not the Amber one, but close enough in this case). :D

[@MrJoeyWheeler]

Been a thing since AD&D's Spelljammer supplement. Other worlds exist in their own Celestial Spheres which float in the Phlogiston. Travelling between them is not easy, as the spheres are meant to be impervious to all damage (though certain spells do make it possible). The space between worlds is an extremely hostile place, and once in a new world, things like gods typically need to be shifted because your cleric's deity doesn't extend its reach into the new world.

[@dramatichacker3337]

Hey!! I just found your channel through Friday Night Quests!! Keep up the good work!!

[@GryphonDes]

This was very fun and nostalgic too! Good stuff Mike!

[@pharniel]

Hey! I played the hell out of RPGA's Living Greyhawk and even got to write a mod for it. It was a Massively Multi-player Asynchronous Offline Game that went through a whole host of challenges, but was fun if you could get the right group of people. It was also a legitimate revival of how Gary & Dave were running their campaigns Back In The Day, complete with rules about how often one of your characters could go adventuring & travel time - which encouraged having multiple characters at different levels. It **ALSO** used the complete list of Greyhawk dieties from most of the modules, one that mimicked actual continents in that there were multiple pantheons and the same god could be worshiped differently in different places or cultures. This meant there were something like 114 discrete deities in Living Greyhaw, and players could choose something like 90 of them.

[@pharniel]

Also Fun Fact - Celestian is the Neutral Good god of Space & The Far Realms/Realms of Madness. He's described as being Tall & Obsidian Human with a peculiar sense of humor who hangs out with Zagyg (Internet Troll, but A God) and the "Cowboy God of Magical Technology", and who's primary way of dealing with incursions from the Far Realm is to save the day and maybe wipe some memories. That means that in Greyhawk, the god of the Far Realms is Will Smith from Men In Black.

[@Jabberwokee]

Dawn War was in 4e And that’s part of why I loved it

[@weylins]

The Whispered One is directly and admittedly lifted Pathfinder, which has The Whispering Way cult of undeath.

[@manueltorresart2345]

Currently I'm using the Dawn War pantheon because, as you said, it's a short list and they're easy to grasp for the players. I stated in the previous vid that I was creating a pantheon for my comic but for the time being these are just promts to work on (and to avoid legal issues with WotC hahaha) and if I plan to add them in a campaign I'll do it when I can give them more depth. But I'm in no hurry to do that because I can use 4E pantheon and it's perfect.

[@stephendragonspawn6944]

I wasn’t aware of this Dawn War pantheon. I did recognize many of the names from previous settings and editions, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, etc or AD&D, 3.5e, 4e, etc.

[@kelseylogas1580]

I would like to point out that originally, the core four members of Acquisitions Incorporated were from the Nentir Vale. Omin Dran originally worshipped Avandra, and then shifted his worship to Tymora when they arrived in Toril. Aeofel Elrhomane originally worshipped (and still does?) Melora. The priests of Moradin were the ones who performed a resurrection ritual after they left the Ambershard manor. If you know you know.

[@EchoMirage72]

Clickbait title. They did nothing that other players and DM's haven't done and used the material in the books provided to play their game. It's like saying that anyone who uses the Forgotten Realms setting stole and has Drizzt or Jarlaxle or any of those characters in there "stole" from R.A Salvatore. As for why there's so many Gods in the Forgotten Realms setting, it's because it runs much like real world pantheons such as the Greek or Egyptian or Mesapotatmiums/Babylonians. There are major and minor Gods. Each God looking over a specific part of society, and there are even regional Gods within that set.

[@shawnkarter8867]

The Dawn War was the war between the Gods and the Primordials that had AO split Abeir-Toril into two

[@annaglover2470]

A lot of this comes from Fearun, too. Back in the 90s, Forgotten Realms/Grayhawk and Faerun were the top competitors for the two worlds campaigns were played in. Many of the groups I played with were so tired by then of FR that we played in Fearun for the most part, so these deities were familiar.

[@jacobblackmon5525]

They are called the "Dawn War Pantheons" because in the 4th edition cosmology, they are the deities that survived the Dawn War: the war against the Primordials at the Dawn of Time.

[@GeekMasterGames]

Even in my own campaign world, with its own unique pantheon and divine story -- Lloth (Lolth) shows up. Because I used to play AD&D and it is canon that she is constantly traveling between dimensions and visiting worlds and spreading her influence. And the Lloth of my world is distinctly unique to my setting.

[@TheLordofMetroids]

Between Lolth and Warhammer's Slaanesh, I can't imagine a word with dark elves that aren't corrupted and influenced by a female presenting god of deceit, cruelty and excess.

[@palikia3233]

Matt: Hey can I copy your homework? WoTC: Yeah, just don't make it obvious

[@zacharynaragon7313]

I tend to make a main 6-8 deities for new campaign settings that can fill the niche’s the clerics need and then if someone in the group needs something different then we’ll work together to add one or two

[@sherbert1321]

I’ve never been a fan of the idea of “good” and “evil” gods. Gives the good gods too much credit imo

[@RottenRogerDM]

It is one of the ways of design. Question how much do the gawds affect the DM world? Once you answer that question, it opens some thought trains and closes others.

[@gamercore5216]

If you want to use alignment but don't like good or evil gods, I'd suggest looking into dragonlance or other pantheons like it where it's a chaos vs law split, absolute law and order can be oppressive, chaos can represent freedom and creativity, so it's more grey

[@cyriltournier]

I prefer to thinkit is the way they present themselves to their believers.

[@Aurora_Lightbringer]

Absolute Law = Oppression. Law = Safety Chaos = Freedom Absolute Chaos = Danger ​@@gamercore5216

[@SedBuildsThings]

Can't sharpen a knife on soft edge like this

[@alexsolomon8127]

don't forget he stole form Paizo as well. the "Dawnflower" is one of the nicknames for Sarenrae.

[@DaBe3rz]

Ah the Raven Queen. The usurper. I played a lot of 3.5e campaigns where we used the Greyhawk pantheon. My friends and I would always pepper in the Cult of the Raven Queen fighting worshippers of Nerul in our campaigns and a player would often play a side in a given campaign and get the party to help them defeat the side they opposed.

[@Pootisbird01]

Absolutely shameful behavior from Matthew and the Critical Role crew, I heard they even based all 3 of their campaigns around the “dice roll” mechanic in 5e…disgusting.

[@jaredreyes5056]

love the video, and completely agree the dawn war pantneon effecient and easy to work with. When I decided to dm my own custom campaign I chose this pantheon and thought "wait why are they refered to as the dawn war" and boom made up an entire mythos just to explain that and made it central element to my campaign.

[@whitepaws60]

I can't believe Matt Mercer has done this! I haven't watched video yet so I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. I will edit this comment later (I will not edit this comment later)

[@MidnightMagpie73]

As a dm I love changing the "established rules" of creatures gods and workings of dnd. Keeps my players on thier toes and makes sure they will fight things they uave no idea how to meta.

[@billtaylor9437]

Using titles instead of names also allows you to make different cultures and races call the same gods by different names, adding some flavor and realism to your world building.

[@Mrollllf]

At a glance I can recognise almost half of that pantehon being from things that existed before from other fantasy settings or actual real world old myths and religions

[@MrLunarCamel]

Deities and Demigods in the '80s had Michael Moorecock's Elric of Melnibone and Lovecraft's Call of Cthulu in their pantheon with out permission. They had to reissue the entire book without those pantheons after they got sued.

[@roguejoe]

I've been running games in the same world, sometimes directly sometimes loosely, for over 20 years. (oh no) Once or twice my players asked if i would make a source book and just throw it up on DriveThru. I sat down ONCE to do so. And I realized I'd basically stolen 80% of it and the other 20% was just real world history. Its a unique world, but not IP unique. And you don't have to be IP unique in your games.

[@jacobwillis7596]

I’d love a video about how Matt changed the gods. Also idk why but I kinda hate the titles used for the gods at least with how they’re only called those titles in game now, it just feels off. Like part of how I miss when really iconic dnd creatures would show up.

[@lukerabon7925]

Yeah, I'm not big on the use of just titles either. Like, I get *why*, but it feels weird

[@SupergeekMike]

I do think the titles are a bit hit and miss. Dawnfather? Great title. Archeart? Doesn’t really flow off the tongue. I also feel like it’s a little contrived that every god winds up with basically the same format of title. It feels a bit strange and ahistorical that almost all of the gods happened to wind up with such similar compound-noun or adjective-noun titles.

[@jacobwillis7596]

@@SupergeekMike like maybe if it was a Hades situation where you can’t say the name of the god but why wouldn’t you say Pelor but sometimes call him the Dawnfather for like poetic speech. Idk it also instantly reminds me “oh yeah this is a game with copyright” when I’m trying to get immersed

[@ShyyGaladriel]

I look forward to seeing what else Matt comes up with. He’s so fun.

[@o.k.productions5202]

I just added the under dark and the spider cult to my original setting because one of my players tied it to his character’s backstory.

[@TakeWalker]

"Kord's old imagery looked like a butthole"? XD I can't even! the neat thing about this is that I thought the Raven Queen was an entirely original creation of Matt Mercer's :O she's so cool and so central to a lot of their stories, WotC did a great job with her!

[@kennyshack2006]

Super fun video. I had not known that the original one shot was 4e for the CR group. I never played 4e so the gods connection was lost on me. more videos like this would be neat. love your take on the DnD topics.

[@maxwell9211]

Asmodeus, bahamut, and Tiamat are, at least in name, real world mythological figures

[@ehoog7]

I really like thinking about pantheons and both of these pantheon videos have indulged my interest quite effectively.

[@this_epic_name]

It's wonderful to discover how legal copyright stuff confounds and confuses folks newer to the game, like me.

[@gameraven13]

The Dawn War pantheon has definitely influenced my current pantheon greatly. My sun deity is basically Pelor, I have a Raven Queen parallel, My moon deity is basically Sehanine, the ruler of my world's hells is an Asmodeus parallel, there's an Ioun parallel, etc. I didn't include all of them and not all my gods are Dawn War parallels, but you can definitely feel the inspiration as you look at the primary greater deities of the pantheon. There's 15 total greater deities, I'd wager that it's roughly a 5/5/5 split of Dawn War inspired, Faerun inspired, mostly original idea. I also 100% copped the title idea. ALL my deities have Name, title. Pazdis, the Lightbearer is the sun god, Erelune the Gladewatcher is the moon goddess, so on and so forth. I still kept the vibe of The Raven Queen by not giving her a name so she's just The Mistress of Fate in my world, her parallel The Fey Lord (Shadowfell vs Feywild vibes there), following the same suit.

[@Pompo5]

I was waiting for you to elaborate on your comment ablut the cover 😭😭 my curiosity peaked