| INTRODUCTION
The gods of Theeurth are a single family of deities, opposed by
a single, powerful evil god and his minions. These gods are known
by different names in different cultures, but there is only one
set of gods over Theeurth. Though the individual gods vary
widely in temperament, the pantheon as a whole may be said to be
Neutral Good.
The myths and individual gods are discussed on separate pages,
accessed through the links at left. Below are some important
topics related to the subject of religion itself.
The Churches
Each individual god has a mortal organization
dedicated to him or her. These churches range from the
extremely organized (such as the Church of Agaleus) to the wildly
informal (such as that of Ilion) to the nearly non-existent (the
Church of Thelassia). However, the largest church is
dedicated to no one deity at all, but the pantheon as a
whole. This is known as The Great Church.
While the works and ministries of the Great
Church are important, most player character clerics and paladins
will find the churches of individual gods to be more interesting,
as the gods rarely make their presence known through the Great
Church, but instead favor champions of their own churches.
Clerics
In Theeurth, each church receives a different
set of spells from its patron or patrons. This means that
unlike the standard clerics of the Player's Handbook,
clerics in Theeurth may not simply choose any clerical spell at
will.
Holy Warriors
Holy Warriors are a new Core Class. Each
good deity has a cadre of holy warriors utterly dedicated to their
patron's philosophy and cause. In the Great Church, these
Holy Warriors are identical to the Paladins of the Player's
Handbook. In the other churches, they have different
powers. The Holy Warrior Class is detailed here. The
specifics of each church's Holy Warrior is detailed on that's
god's page.
Racial Gods?
There are no gods of specific races in
Theeurth. All the races of Theeurth were born either of the
dead goddess Shorral or of the unholy union of Malbor and Evaless.
While the tendencies of each race may make it more partial to one
god or another, most good members of any race worship the pantheon
as a whole.
A Question of Evil
The Great Church teaches that all the savage
races (orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, etc), being the progeny of
Malbor and Evaless, are irredeemably evil. Only those
mortals with the divine spark of Shorral are capable of
redemption.
Morality
Before the Ban of the Gods, the deities walked among the mortal
races. In that time, Agaleus handed down the Thirty-Three
laws on which to base a moral life. But since the Ban and
the Wrath of the Gods, those writings have been lost to Theeurth,
and each culture has had to make its own way, its own judgments.
However, all the churches of the Pantheon teach that the
following acts are sinful:
- Desecration of a temple of one of the gods of the Pantheon.
- Denying the existence of one or more of the gods of the
Pantheon
- Consorting with demons
- Creating the undead
- Attacking a member of the clergy of the Pantheon unprovoked
- Destroying or imprisoning a soul
- Slavery
Many other crimes (murder, incest, theft, kidnapping, etc.) are
abhorrent to most of the Pantheon, but conditionally acceptable to
others.
Credit Where Credit is Due
The information here and on all the pages
related to the religion of Theeurth is drawn from many sources in
the fiction, mythology and tales of the real world. These
deities have been part of Theeurth since its inception in
1977. However, much of the structure herein, particularly
the details of the Great Church and the Holy Warrior class and the
questions considered on this page, are owed to the excellent d20
supplement The Book of the Righteous by Aaron Loeb (printed
by Green Ronin Publishing).
Thank you, Aaron. You did a superb job.
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