Some Gods From My D&D World

Below are a handful of gods from my D&D setting (jn addition to any that players make up during play or character creation), and some stuff I've written about them. I'll have some stuff about my philosophy around gods in my setting under them. 

Azjura, The Rising Star

Hear me, oh Azjura,

And hear the voices of those whom I pray with.

May all those who seek you

Find your star, rising in the night.

Cleric: Peace

Warlock: Celestial

Signature Spells: Azjura’s Medium Dormitory

Ideals: Dignity for all, unconditional respect, unity, hope

Domain: The hearth, community, peace between people, optimism, lighthouses, home-cooked meals, nostalgia

Symbols: A rising star, lighthouses, a wolf

Holy Days: People’s Feast

Azjura is a goddess of the hearth and of community, her rising star a common symbol of safe havens for those not safe elsewhere. Azjura is often venerated in addition to other Gods of Makan, seen as a secondary figure. For those with roofs over their heads, often small, tabletop statues of curled up or condensed sitting figures called House Spirits are prayed to.

Those without roofs, however, often seek out not only the protection of Azjura, but of her followers as well. Houses of worship dedicated to Azjura are often quite literally houses, enclosed buildings with a large sitting room in which to pray, as well as beds for the unhoused, travelers, or those who simply need a home away from home.

Despite being venerated by nearly the vast majority of common people, Azjura has never been acknowledged formally by either The Empire of Grense, nor the Thri-Kreen Alliance. While most private institutions, including even some organizations dedicated to other Gods, take a day off for the People’s Feast, neither government does for their workers, such as soldiers.

Clerics to Azjura are often bastions of virtue, good-hearted souls who want only what is best for those around them. To these clerics, increasingly it seems as though the world does not want the same—that it is destined to eat itself alive, spread itself so thin that it freezes to death. Still, their love for its people trumps all rational thought, as love tends to do. These clerics do not need to change themselves—they need the world to change around them, into one that shares their love for it. These clerics often oppose those who seek to divide or take dignity away from whole groups of people, such as tyrannical rulers

Krai’zor, He Who Lies Ahead

Only two things ya can do before yer first time at sea to prepare: tell yer family ya love ‘em, and pray to God yuh’ll tell ‘em that again some time.

Cleric: Tempest

Warlock: Fathomless

Signature Spells: Qasir’s Static Shock

Ideals: Acceptance of fate, ductility

Domain: Turbulence, storms, earthquakes, luck both good and bad, wind, doomed voyages, smooth sailing, chaos

Symbols: Thunderclouds, wind, billowing sails

Holy Days: The day before a great voyage, or important decision

Krai’zor is the shipbreaker, the ultimate watery end to many a sea voyage. They are also the very wind that moves the sail of every ship. To call Krai’zor good or bad would be reductive—they simply exist, to many, as a force of sheer luck, incomprehensible not necessarily due to their complexity, but rather because they are totally random. 

To the worshippers of Krai’zor, however, their powers are exercised in a way that is anything but random. These people often rely on the wind or the weather to make a living or to survive, often being sailors, farmers, or living in regions prone to natural disasters, and they make semi-frequent offerings to Krai’zor in addition to fervent prayer. Sometimes these offerings and prayers are made in small, open houses of worship resembling something between a shrine and a gazebo at the center of a rural town, or in a quiet place below the deck of a merchant ship. These offerings may include parts of a harvest, such as parts of a fish or vegetables. More often, however, they are whatever the worshiper can muster up, including valuable tools necessary to prevent a shipwreck. These prayers and offerings usually become more frequent as the weather gets worse and voyages and harvests draw near.

Clerics of Krai’zor often are torn between using their powers to help those they care for and to destroy those they hate—the uncontrollable, untamable aspect of a God of storms is too much power for many. These clerics often oppose those who try to unnaturally change their fate or the fate of others for the worse, such as a necromancer.

The Vault Keeper, Their Name Long-Forgotten

‘Knowledge known

Is power kept.

Keep to your own!’

The widow wept.

Cleric: Knowledge, Arcana

Warlock: Great Old One

Signature Spell: [TBD]

Ideals: Knowledge is power, power corrupts

Domain: Secrets, darkness, intuition, blissful ignorance, mind-reading, lucky guesses, long-forgotten battles, long-lost ships

Symbols: A raised hand with curled fingers, a closed door

Holy Days: — 

The Vault Keeper’s true name has been long lost to time, only their title remaining—still, those who worship this nameless God believe in two ideals: first, that knowledge is power. Second, that power corrupts. Thus, they say, the world would be a far safer place if the people knew only what they must know to survive. 

The Vault Keeper is worshiped by petty thieves, the unjustly persecuted, academics, spies, generals, those with missing loved ones, and runaways. Both those who seek knowledge, and those who wish to remain hidden from others seek the aid of the Vault Keeper. No formal religious sect or houses of worship exist for the Keeper, as far as the world knows, and those who pray to them usually prefer to do so alone, and in secret. A select few, it is said, have received visions from them of divine knowledge. These people, or the people who know a person who knew them once, at least, say that the information was given out by a many-eyed thing shrouded in darkness.

Those that the Keeper deems worthy of their power are the only ones that can be trusted with more knowledge than is necessary for their survival. There exist only two caveats to this power—that it remains theirs, and theirs alone.

I have never enjoyed picking from a pre-exisitng list of gods, and I don't really want my players to feel obligated to do that. These are meant to be evocative and vague so that a player can make them their own. I also just want this to be a start. Multiple gods in my master list (including Azjura, and Theophillia, not featured here) were originated by one of my players and elaborated on by me. 

I also like to think about gods less from the perspective of them as cosmic beings, and more as being born out of what people believe. This is part of why their domains are so broad and yet not all-encompassing. 

Anyway, feel free to use them in your home games, if you want, but let me know since that would be cool. Take the cleric and paladin subclass suggestions as suggestions.