Of Gods & Monsters

[mediapig]

I'm considering picking up this supplement, but I was curious what people thought of it: I'm a bit hesitant because:

1. I never use established pantheons, I always make my own. Is there useful material in here for creating your own gods and religions?

2. Is this book coming out in Hard Cover any time soon? I'd love to pick this up along with the CKG as hardcovers.

[serleran]

It does not cover the making of a religion, but provide several pre-defined pantheons, relicas/artifacts, spells and monsters for them, as well as a plethora of role-playing ideas for the worshipers of these deities. If you want a book for designing religion, I would suggest GURPS Religion. It does provide a working template on which one can produce their own gods... but that is not so much its intent.

It is unknown, but I doubt it will be out in hardcover soon. Maybe after the CKG is released. I, too, would like to have it in hardcover, but I'll make do with it in this format.
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Serl's Corner

[AnthonyRoberson]

With all respect, I think it is poorly written and little thought is given to balancing the abilities granted by the various deities. The book has plenty of creativity but is not well executed. YMMV.

[Treebore]

I agree the writing isn't up to the usual standard in some areas, but as to being unbalanced, I am personally happy with all the magic items, most of the spells, and only about 6 of the worshipper powers really bugged me. Still, all of it is easy to change to something I can be happy with, and assume it would be the same with anyone.

Some of the writing for a number of the religions really stands out, and this is the first time the American Indian religions have been inspiring to me.
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[Traveller]

To me, OG&M was little more than a rehash of what went before (Gods, Demigods & Heroes, Deities & Demigods/Legends & Lore). This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since the older books can be hard to get and can get pricey depending on edition. But it's not necessarily a good thing either because it has been done before.

2d Edition's Legends & Lore steered away from the "high-powered monster book" problem that plagued GD&H and the DDG and instead provided information about how to be a cleric of a particular deity in a particular pantheon. This is a good thing because now you know what you should do in order to appease your deity. It's also good because it expands on the concept of deity avatars.

I'd recommend the OP purchase a later edition 1st Edition AD&D DDG and a 2d Edition L&L, and use the two together. In fact, this combination I would use myself, because the two books together work better in my opinion than they do separately. The only thing I would be doing differently is implementing my tweaks to avatar abilities, because I'm of the school of thought that deities cannot be defeated in combat by mortals.
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[zarathustra]

AnthonyRoberson wrote:
With all respect, I think it is poorly written and little thought is given to balancing the abilities granted by the various deities. The book has plenty of creativity but is not well executed. YMMV.

I have to agree.

It seems more like a toybasket for new powerz you get for worshipping a deity and very little about running/being part of that particular religion. The edict or restriction given for each religion aren't really thoughtful or interesting either.

If you are someone who generally painstakingly crafts your own religions, I doubt you would use this for a campaign, maybe for a one shot game though.

Faiths and Avatars (whilst too powered up for my tastes) is probably the benchmark for setting out a pantheons dogma, festivals, vestments etc.

I ended up making my own again (semi- real world campaign, 800 AD with christian, islamic, norse and celtic faiths all still active) and can honestly say that despite owning Of G&M I did not end up taking a single deity, description or deity angle from it for use, where I did from other sources.

[Treebore]

zarathustra wrote:
Faiths and Avatars (whilst too powered up for my tastes) is probably the benchmark for setting out a pantheons dogma, festivals, vestments etc.

No, that would be Book of the Righteous published by Green Ronin for 3E. Other than that you have to look at stuff done for Harn.
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[Joe]

Did I hear the Book of the Righteous mentioned?

Only the greatest rpg book ever written on the subject!
It is game specific but pure gold! I suggest you buy Gods & Monsters and BofR (Which you canoften find on sale for 5 bucks!) and lift ideas from the two.

Your cosmology will never be the same!
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[GameOgre]

Loved the book for the great game aid that it is. I use it often when new characters are drawn up and even more often if a priest or someone else that really has faith.

90% of my pc's only pay lip service to the gods even with the nice bonus's ect..

So it is often more of a use for npc's or as world background.
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[Christina Stiles]

Lore of the Gods is a good book on the subject, too.
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[Lord Dynel]

Yeah, Book of the Righteous is a good book.

I agree with Traveller on the 2nd Edition Legends & Lore. That's probably my favorite incarnation of that book - good write-ups withough too much "junk," introduces the priesthoods of the gods, and the front few pages are good at talking about avatars, running a divine being (if need be) and divine abilities. Each deity's description is relatively small, but includes a lot of crunch and fluff to flesh out the god and their folowwers. I was not overly impressed with OG&M, as it did tend to be a bit overpowered for my tastes. But your milage may vary.
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[GreyLord]

I would join the chorus to say it doesn't sound like something that you are looking for. I'll disagree with the chorus and say that I absolutely loved it. I also loved D&DG though long ago and still do, as well as L&L, thought they were outstanding books. Maybe I'm in the minority that enjoys seeing such things stated out.

[Tadhg]

Just like the earlier books, I won't have a huge need for it, but I looked at the TLG book at TrollCON and was convinced that I will use stuff from it.

Dragons, deities and titans are very rare in my campaign world (for now, anyway) . . but I like to occasionally have "sightings" a la UFOs - you know, to freak out the locals and even the 3rd level adventurers!!
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