List of Dungeons & Dragons deities


This is a list of deities of Dungeons & Dragons, including all of the 3.5 edition gods and powers of the "Core Setting" for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. Religion is a key element of the D&D game, since it is required to support both the cleric class and the behavioural aspects of the ethical alignment system – 'role playing', one of three fundamentals. The pantheons employed in D&D provide a useful framework for creating fantasy characters, as well as governments and even worlds. Dungeons and Dragons may be useful in teaching classical mythology. Because the Core Setting of 3rd Edition is based on the World of Greyhawk, the Greyhawk gods list contains many of the deities listed here, and many more.

Publication history

The first official publication to detail god-like beings for use in the Dungeons & Dragons game was Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes, published in 1976 as the fourth supplement for the original edition. This work was superseded by the Deities & Demigods source book, which was first published in 1980. The first printing included the Cthulhu Mythos, but both this and the Melnibonéan mythos were removed by the third printing because of potential copyright issues. In 1985, the book was renamed Legends & Lore due to concerns about bad publicity. The Babylonian, Finnish, nonhuman, and Sumerian content were removed to allow room for expansion of the remaining mythoi.
In 1992, Monster Mythology was published as a sourcebook for the second edition of Dungeons & Dragons. This work re-introduced detailed information on the deities of several non-human pantheons. The Faerûnian pantheon for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting was more fully detailed in 1996–1998 with the publication of Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons and Demihuman Deities.

Categories

The deities are grouped into three categories:
  1. Core powers – Deities presented in the Player's Handbook 3.5th edition or substantially introduced in the other two core books. Most of these deities are worshipped by humans. There is a subset within this category called Additional Deities which has deities not mentioned in the core rulebooks but instead in supplements and as such considered additions to the core category.
  2. Alternate human pantheons – This lists the pantheons and the deities within them that are presented in the supplement book Deities & Demigods. Most are based upon real-life mythology.
  3. Non-deity powers – These beings would fit into the previous category, but are not actually deities, plus most of them aren't the patron of a specific monstrous race. This includes the demon princes and archdevils as well as some other godlike beings.
Before third edition, there was no Core Setting, so the distinctions above are not as clear-cut. For the most part, materials which did not specify a setting were assumed to be at least compatible with the World of Greyhawk if not outright parts of the canon. As such, those prior materials are covered in the setting-specific lists of deities.
The book Monster Mythology, however, was considered to be canon for core materials for the gods of non-human races in second edition.

Characteristics

Like in e.g. Greek mythology, deities in Dungeons & Dragons have a great variety of moral outlooks and motives which have to be considered by cleric player characters. For gaming purposes, they are also differentiated by a number of standardized characteristics:

Ranks of divine power

Each deity has a divine rank, which determines how much power the entity has, from lowest to highest:
Every deity has certain aspects of existence over which it has dominion, power, and control. Collectively, these aspects represent a deity's portfolio.

Domains

Each deity that can grant spells has multiple domains that give clerics access to extra spells and abilities from that domain. Which domains are associated with a deity is largely a function of the deity's portfolio.

Divine hierarchy

Many deities are arranged in pantheons, which are often led by Greater deities which are their direct superiors. The individual deities in a pantheon may not be forced to obey their superiors, although they typically respect and fear the superior deity.

''Dungeons & Dragons''

Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes included the Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, Aztec, Mayan, Chinese, and Japanese mythologies, as well as Robert E. Howard's Hyborea and the Melnibonéan Mythos from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels.

''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''

The original edition of Deities & Demigods contained 17 pantheons of gods:
Legends & Lore was expanded, completely revised from the 1st Edition AD&D volume, and rewritten for the 2nd Edition rules. This edition had pared-down content in comparison to the original; the sections on Babylonian, Finnish, Sumerian and non-humanoid deities were wholly excised. The Central American mythos was renamed the Aztec mythos, while the Nehwon mythos was retained.
The book Monster Mythology included over 100 deities for nonhumans.
There are over 100 deities in the Greyhawk setting, and when creating Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Wizards of the Coast selected a subset to become iconic deities. They selected and altered deities to correspond to "iconic" aspects of core D&D. Most core deities are human deities; except for the chief gods of the demihuman races. Certain aspects of the deities were altered to make them more generic – for example: the "Core" Heironeous favors the longsword, as contrasted with the original "Greyhawk" Heironeous, who favors the battleaxe.
The designation of "greater" vs. "intermediate" comes from Legends & Lore. It is not used in any edition of the Player's Handbook, but it is used in Deities and Demigods and various v3.5 Edition materials.

Core ''D&D''-pantheons

Greater deities

Although not listed in the Players Handbook, these deities are listed as part of the default D&D pantheon in new works and as such are regarded as additions to the default pantheon. Although some of these originally come from the Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, or Eberron campaign settings, each one is mentioned at some point in a non-setting-specific source. The name in brackets next to each one specifies the source they are mentioned in.
Greater deities
Intermediate deities
Lesser deities
Demigods
The third edition version of Deities & Demigods contains only four pantheons:
The third edition version of the book also discusses in detail how one would go about the creation of their own pantheon, as well as individual gods, for use in Dungeons & Dragons.
These three alternative faiths were described in the third edition Deities and Demigods book.

The Faith of the Sun

The Faith of the Sun is a fictional, monotheistic religion presented in and constructed according to the guidelines given for monotheistic religions in 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods. Being monotheistic, it of course consists of only one deity :
Following the Light is a fictional dualistic religion presented in and constructed according to the guidelines given for dualistic religions in 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods. Being dualistic, it consists of two, polar-opposite deities:
The faith of Dennari is a fictional mystery cult, presented in and constructed according to the guidelines given for mystery cults in 3rd Edition Deities & Demigods. It worships a single deity of the same name:
Similar to monster powers, these are not true deities but very powerful extraplanar beings. These however do not even profess to be gods.

Fiendish entities

Demon lords of the Abyss
The single unifying feature of all demon lords is the inherent control over part of the infinite layers of The Abyss. Only the first 666 layers of The Abyss are generally known, and of those only a small fraction of the princes of those layers are a part of the D&D cosmology.
The celestial paragons are powerful unique outsiders of the Upper Planes. They are to the celestials as the archdevils are to the devils and the demon lords are to demons.
Archon paragons
The celestial paragons of the archons are known collectively as the Celestial Hebdomad. They rule the layers of the Plane of Mount Celestia.
;Barachiel
;Domiel
;Erathaol
;Pistis Sophia
;Raziel
;Sealtiel
;Zaphkiel
Eladrin paragons
The celestial paragons of the eladrins are collectively known as The Court of Stars. They hail from the Plane of Arborea.
;Faerinaal
;Gwynharwyf
;Morwel
Guardinal paragons
The celestial paragons of the guardinals are collectively known as Talisid and the Five Companions. They hail from the plane of Elysium.
;Bharrai
;Kharash
;Manath
;Sathia
;Talisid
;Vhara

Archomentals

s are powerful exemplary beings of the Elemental Planes and the rulers of the elementals. Although they are not truly rulers of their planes, archomentals like to consider themselves as much and often grant themselves regal titles like Prince or Princess. They are compared in the source material to the archfiends or celestial paragons, and are considered to be the elemental equivalent of such beings.
Evil Archomentals
The evil archomentals are collectively known as the Princes of Elemental Evil. The five most famous are:
The good archomentals are collectively known as the Elemental Princes of Good. The four most famous are:
Three other archomentals are first mentioned in Manual of the Planes.
The Slaad Lords are the de facto rules of the Slaadi race and the plane of Limbo. Though true to their chaotic nature they often do not appear anything like other Slaadi.
"Titans are closer to the well spring of life and thus experience more pronounced emotion including Deity-like fits of rage. In ages past some rebelled against the deities themselves..."

The Lady of Pain

The Lady of Pain is an enigmatic being who oversees the city of Sigil in the plane of the Outlands. Almost nothing is known about her; her origin, her race, her motives and her level of power are all obscure, although she is sometimes shown to have absolutely immense power. The Lady of Pain refuses to tolerate anyone who worships her, killing those who do so. Again; virtually nothing is known about her, apart from the fact that she has the power to slay gods who displease her.

Vestiges

These entities are outside the boundary of life, death, and undeath. They are untouchable by even the most powerful deities although they can be summoned and used by the weakest mortal through pact magic and binding. Binders are often feared and hunted down by "Witch Slayers." The list of vestiges that can be bonded with include:
Vestiges were introduced in D&D: Tome of Magic supplement
by Matthew Sernett, Ari Marmell, David Noonan, Robert J. Schwalb. Wizards of the Coast March 2006.
The supplement Dragon Magic, by Rodney Thompson and Owen Stephens published in September 2006, introduces this vestige:
Wizards of the Coast created these vestiges online:
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These are the deities for the non-Greyhawk default campaign setting of 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons. The list includes long-time D&D establishments from Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, as well as several original gods. Although some gods are patrons of specific races, they are worshipped by all, and racial pantheons do not exist in this edition. Many lesser gods from previous editions now have the status of Exarch, a demipower in service to a greater god.

Good and Lawful Good deities

These are the deities for the 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. These include the deities from the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Eberron, and the deities derived from historical pantheons such as the Celtic deities and Norse deities. The historical deities have been removed from their historical aspect as to better serve the needs of the game.

Deities of the Forgotten Realms

Good aligned gods

The Sovereign Host