TM SPECIAL REFERENCE WORK DEITIES Sample& DEMIQOD file S CYCLOPEDIA by James M. Ward with Robert J. Kuntz Edited by Lawrence Schick © 1980- TSR Games POB 756, Lake Geneva, Wl 53147 All rights reserved Illustrations by Jeff Dee ErolOtus Eymoth Darlene Pekul Pauljaquays JimRoslof David S. LaForce David C. Sutherland III Jeff Lanners D. A. Trampier Cover Painting by Erol Otus Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Random House, Inc. and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Ltd. Distributed to the hobby trade by regional distributors. Inquiries regarding this work should be accompanied by a stamped return envelope and addressed to: AD&D Questions, TSR Games, POB 756, Lake Ceneva, Wl 53147. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 0-935696-22-9 FOREWORD When work first commenced on ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS™ Fantasy Adventure Game, one particular aspect of fantasy role playing was foremost in my mind: there was either a general neglect of deities or else an even worse use by abuse. That is, game masters tended to ignore deities which were supposedly served and worshiped by characters in the campaign, or else they had gods popping up at the slightest whim of player characters in order to rescue them from perilous situations, grant wishes, and generally step-and-fetch. Obviously, there is a broad ground between these two extremes, and that is squarely where I desired AD&D to go. As the various manuscripts were being written, I informed both James Ward and Rob Kuntz of the direction which the overall work was to take and then followed up with draft copies of the manuscripts. Thus, both authors were well-appraised of the form and content of ADftD. Their work, the DEITIES ft DEMIGODS™ cyclopedia, re- flects the fact that they not only were kept abreast of the game as it developed, but that they also adhered to the concepts which were instrumental in making ADftD what it is. DEITIES ft DEMIGODS is an indispensable part of the whole of AD&D. Do not fall into the error of regarding it as a supplement. It is integral to Dungeon Mastering a true ADftD campaign. Experienced players will immediately concur with this evaluation, for they already know how important alignment is, how necessary the deity is to the cleric, and how interaction of the various alignments depends upon the entities which lead them. Those readers not well-grounded in ongoing campaigns must take my word for all this, although they will soon discover for themselves how crucial the deities of the campaign milieu are. In general, deities are presented in pantheons. You can select which ones, combinations, or parts of pantheons best suit your campaign. Players knowing which gods are "real" in the campaign world are able to intelligently choose to serve one (or more) suitable to the character's alignment, profession, and even goals. Included are major, minor, and almost-gods (demi- gods). There are also a few "divine" monsters and magic items herein. These are creatures and devices so connected to mythology that this work was the only place to properly present them. Not included are those minions of Evil found in MONSTER MANUAL and the attendant volumes forthcoming. Diabolical and demoniac deities are important to the campaign milieu. Without Evil, what does Good have to strive against? It is no great matter to extract these beings from the other works and include them amongst the other deities, however. The format used to present the beings in DEITIES ft DEMIGODS was actually developed through close consultation with my- self. It was chosen for clarity and completeness of information. The reader can extract basic information quickly, just by glancing at the statistics pertaining to the being in question. Greater detail is then presented in the explanatory paragraphs which follow the initial data. It is worth commenting that the strength and powers of the beings contained herein are ap- propriate to the overall work. Thus, addition of these deities and demigods does not imbalance the campaign. Furthermore, characters who become a match for them are obviously to be ranked amongst their number, no longer suitable for daily campaign interaction, but to be removed to another place and plane and treated accordingly. The authors have prepared exactly what ADftD needed to make it a complete work. They deserve praise for the excellence of their effort. It is also necessary to acknowledge the contributions made by the TSR staff, developmental^ and editorially alike. The writing of this work was a long and compleSamplex project whic hfile involved countless hours of research. Both authors were willing to step back from it and allow the team at TSR to emend and augment their creation to assure that the whole would meet each and every need of DM and player alike with respect to the deities and demigods of the campaign milieu. DEITIES ft DEMIGODS deserves to be a part of ADftD. It was designed to provide the much-needed information on how to in- clude these "divine" beings in the campaign milieu, how to have the participants interact with them, and offers a broad selection from which to choose. It is with sincere pleasure that I welcome James Ward and Rob Kuntz into the ADftD fold. I trust that you will find their efforts most rewarding to your gaming enjoyment. E. Gary Gygax 1 May 1980 Lake Geneva, Wisconsin CONTENTS Preface 4 Credits and Acknowledgments 4 Editor's Introduction 5 Explanatory Notes 5 Standard Divine Abilities 8 Dungeon Mastering Divine Beings 8 Clerics and Deities 9 Omens 10 Mortality and Immortality 10 Divine Ascension 11 American Indian Mythos 12 Arthurian Heroes 17 Babylonian Mythos 22 Celtic Mythos 26 Central American Mythos 32 Chinese Mythos 37 Egyptian Mythos 43 Finnish Mythos 52 Greek Mythos 58 Indian Mythos 70 Japanese Mythos 76 Nehwon Mythos 81 Nonhumans' Deities , .' 90 Norse Mythos 98 Sumerian Mythos 110 Appendix 1: The Known Planes of Existence 113 Appendix 2: Temple Trappings 119 Appendix 3: Clerical Quick Reference Chart 119 Appendix 4: Further References 127 Index to Proper Names 127 Sample file . PREFACE This work, as all ADftD works, is an attempt to clarify and produce material for those referees who expect and demand high quality information for their campaigns. Within its pages, you will find details and facts that will be highly useful to you as the DM and to your player clerics. It is not intended as a treatment of world religions and the Tightness or wrongness of their philosophies. It is a simple state- ment of the historical or literary details man has recorded for all to see. Do not look for a favoring of good versus evil or neutrality versus everything else. When historians or authors wrote about a deity in a way that made them powerful or feared, that is the way we made them. In the same light, when a being was made too all-powerful (in ADftD terms) we scaled them down to make them compatible in game terms. The creative processes of this book differ from the other ADftD works in that three-fourths of the information given within was drawn from knowledgeable sources rather than from the imagination of the authors. The names of the deities and heroes, the weapons and powers they used, and many of their personality traits are plain for everyone to discover for themselves. What had to be creatively done dealt with concepts that were purely ADftD in nature. All of the leaders of the pantheons were given 400 hit points and the rest were scaled down from there; the relative resistance of beings to blows and magic was derived from studies of their battles with natural and supernatural forces; while concepts like strength were easily assigned in the case of deities of strength or war, this concept is less easily applied to the more powerful deities who have no need for massive muscles. Alignments were perhaps the hardest ADftD concept to deal with, and the one that will have the most debate among the interested users of this work. Beings like Set, Loki and Arioch are easy to classify, but when working with the middle-of-the-road deities who were often chaotic but known for consistent kindness, or were rogues of the worst sort but very companionable, it became necessary to consider them as a whole to make a judgment. While it will be easy in any campaign to change the powers and alignments of those beings whom you differ with, remember that drastic changes can also influence the all-important game balance of any given campaign. While DEITIES ft DEMIGODS is ideally suited to the task of working deities into an AD&D campaign format, everything has not been covered in the book. In the 6,000-year plus span of this work mankind has spent a lot of that time adding to the myths dealt with herein. We did not try to encompass everything, and it is silly to assume that the five years or so of research that created DEITIES ft DEMIGODS could suffice. There are areas that were stressed because they were useful to DMs, whereas others were left out for the very same reason. The book should be used as a beginning framework for the DM. Sample it, take what is wanted, and start the gods as well as the players in a universe.