#ive only seen enough of pathfinder to know if follows the same trend

[tales-from-the-aether-ttrpg]

Something thats always bugged me about dnd and pathfinder’s gods is that… they are basically monotheism in polytheism wrapping AND there is no actual religion present. The lore is so obsessed with these beings as people with their extensive histories and active presence in the setting that they completely forgot to actually create religions surrounding them.

What does casual worship look like for any of these gods? Could you tell me? What does prayer actually look like? Is there specific times of the day in which you must pray for certain gods? Is there certain attire you must wear to show your faith? Are there certain foods you cannot eat? Are there certain foods that are elevated above the rest for your faith? What kind of offerings are expected everyday? Do they expect offerings everyday or on a certain day of the week? Do they expect physical offerings at all? Do they ask for sacrifices of material goods, animals, people? Why? Why do you worship this deity? How does that actually affect ur daily life? How is worship different for a cleric, paladin, priest, or casual believer? What kinds of swears, curses, exclamations, etc are associated with this religion? Are there certain activities that are banned within your religion? How strictly does the religion police its worshiper’s actions? What kind of philosophies do they preach or disavow?

These and many more are the elements that form real world religions and are absent in most fantasy “religions” including popular ttrpgs. I cant even call these faiths religions because they really arent. One god in these settings should have 20 different religions built around them that all disagree on how the god’s domain, history, and personality should be interpreted. Maybe 2 or 4 of them would be main stream but there should be more than just one monolithic faith surrounding a god. And stop calling it polytheism. Please for the love of everything. Polytheism is a type of religion that worships multiple gods at once. Faith in dnd and pathfinder is largely monotheistic because the players choose one god they like and ignore all the rest.

I am not trying to put the responsibility of creating all these religions on gms - im pointing out that the creators of these ttrpgs did all of us a huge disservice. Religion is such an expansive and fascinating and diverse concept in the real world that it infuriates me to see it reduced to choosing a god you like and thats it. And im agnostic irl!

I was talking to my cowriter about this for the lore in my ttrpg and it got me really rilled up XD Religion can be beautiful or terrible or a mixture of both. It can save people from the world’s darkness or bring out their own inner darkness. It deserves more than a cliff-notes table of deities to choose from and half baked lore about the gods without examining the actual faith they inspire in others :/