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I've played since 1st and DMd since 2nd and have DMd a few "pantheon-altering" endings. I believe players enjoy battling some dieties at the end of a campaign more than they would enjoy "saving the world." That's why we're doing the Khor campaign setting. 😉
There's a subtle brilliance in the costume choices and camera angle for these two characters that makes them look even more like they're played by two separate people than usual.
@@noblesseoblige319 I feel like there's a whole lot of "I have a LOT of comments but I respect Ginny too much to make them" going on right now. Or a mod's just been really keen on weeding out creepy comments.
Just last session we hit this topic hard. Group went into temple of Raven Queen with defiled statue… party WARLOCK used mending on statue for multiple minutes to fix it. When party later almost ended in TPK in tombes bellow… Raven Queen sent one raven with 1d6 healing every 3 rounds to help party… cementing their “destiny” saving ranger on his last deathsave… ranger that was extremely “nonbeliever” ended up praying and leaving the offering of healing potion the moment they got back to the surface. Somehow its tiny thing like 2d6 heals in fight where average damage on both sides went around 30 per round/being.
Other youtubers advertisement: Nah. *skip* Ginny's sponsorship: Thank you so much for this blessing, your highness. May I have some more? Seriously, you're killing it with the scripting. Thank you for your hard work for these moments of laughter and smiles.
As a dm I have also found it helpful when you want the gods to be part of your world to show npcs worshiping, and to bring up that there are temples and holidays to different gods.
Definitely!! It makes the world feel SO much richer and I also love finding ways to signal that time is passing. Plus, it's a great excuse for a silly session 😂😂
I'm in an all-halfling campaign where one of us is a cleric of Yondalla (the primary halfling god), but everyone else still worships Yondalla and we all see the cleric as our spiritual leader.
@@GinnyDi My first campaign was a Pathfinder one where 3/5 of the party were followers of Kord. My character was starting to understand and respect Kords power by the time the campaign suddenly ended.
Great video. I had a rogue who worshipped Leira goddess of deception back in 3.0 days. He held onto the idea "why tell the truth when a lie will do" his greatest feat for his Goddess was swapping out a tome with one full of incorrect historical facts in a great library.
Leira is SUCH a great goddess to bring into campaigns. Trickster or illusionist gods give you so much scope to mess with your players and generally breadcrumb mysteries 🥰
I have a pair of brother gods in my homebrew world that are at eternal odds with each other: Codis (god of knowledge) and Kybris (god of secrets and deceit). This would be a wonderful scenario for followers of those two.
Hi everybody! I'm Paolo by Echidna Design, the author of the Godly Grimoire, and I am... Beyond speechless 🥹 Ginny, you do us such an honor to feature the Godly Grimoire in your video. I've been following your content for a long time and I have the highest esteem for your work... I can't even begin to describe how it feels to find out that our book is now part of it. Especially considering that the Godly Grimoire is the humble work of two people only (me, and Franco, who illustrated the whole book), we are so grateful that you appreciated it. It really makes us feel... *Understood* (I don't even know if this is the right word 😅). Thank you from our hearts, -Paolo
In my current game, one of my players (an aberrant mind sorceress) has beef with a cleric in a rival party. For the last five sessions, she has (at least once a session) attempted to stealthily send the cleric telepathic messages impersonating the cleric’s god, telling the cleric she’s not good enough and should just give up and go home. There have been some truly wild moments of roleplay with that, and the deity she’s impersonating has DEFINITELY noticed!
Really love the creativity you put in to the sponsored spots. You're one of the few creators that get me to actually watch them, instead of just skipping over
Yes! Bring some classic jrpg tropes to life by going from the spunky group of outsiders protecting their home to formidable adventurers fighting god! Pulling a Fizban could be fun too by having a god (or aspect) pretend to need the help of the party and occasionally pop in to check on the progress of their "favorite show" so to speak.
You've made an excellent point (yet again). Definitely see players ignore divinity when a class doesn't require it. These ideas (and this book) definitely seem like an awesome way to inject some into my campaign. (Also your meta commentary on the TH-cam algorithm... Chef's kiss).
As always, I draw inspiration from the gaps in my own roleplay - my DM asked me about Penelope's religious beliefs a few weeks ago and I was like "uhh...... great question, I have literally never thought about that" 😂
I played in a game with a cleric of Tymora, Lady Luck. He used Divine Intervention 3 times during the course of our adventures when we got in really sticky spots, and in an absolutely perfectly thematic twist of fate managed to beat the odds and succeed every time. After the first time, we all decided to honor Tymora since she had come down to save our butts. We founded gambling houses in her honor wherever we went, made our boat (the Questionable Venture) into a floating casino, and eventually founded an entire Fantasy Las Vegas in the area of a friendly ancient brass dragon's lair. It really added a lot to the vibe of the game, and the DM was able to give us small rewards for the RP by handing out Inspiration.
One of my favorite Megatron quotes (I forget which series it's from) is when he's talking to Optimus Prime about the 13 Primes and he goes, "They aren't gods Optimus, they are just really powerful transformers."
This is a great way to play the 'I don't believe in the gods' angle! They're obviously _there_ but doubting whether they should be considered divine beings is an interesting theological question 😊
I played in a campaign with a wizard who claimed the gods were just powerful mortals. End of the campaign he ascended to godhood and his last words to the group was "Told you so."
It's something present in the Forgotten Realms setting - the ancient Netherese Wizard Karsus saw the gods as merely powerful extraplanar beings, and he attempted to cast a spell that would replace the Goddess of Magic with himself. He broke magic.
"Curse you merciful Poseidon!" Your mention of the divine office reminded me of the relationship between Ixion amd Nyx. On the clock, they oppose each other. Off the clock they get along quite well, both acknowledging the validity of each other's philosophy while also being clear that their office opposition is just an outgrowth of their amicable philosophal differences
One of my most memorable god interactions was when my 5th level sorcerer ended up playing chicken an aspect of a war god that was possessing a member of the party, by casting witch bolt using her highest possible spell slot while said party member was restrained and basically going "either my friend gets control of his body back or neither of you do." Somehow, miraculously, this honey-badger-like display of spite kind of worked (god was amused by her spite and gumption) and it became a really pivotal moment in both PCs arcs. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving the campaign not long after due to school, alas.
My rogue got to meet with Bahamut twice. He even gave a blessing to her and her love, and gave her comfort after escaping a war in a cathedral. I just multiclass as a cleric but she was devoted to Bahamut years before. It was her upbringing.
I am intrigued by the idea of a pantheon of generally amoral gods who preside over the world of mortals who have to figure out some purpose for their life even though the gods generally could care less whether they live or die. It's a concept I explore in pretty much all my campaigns.
I came up with a way to lend more significance to deities in the D&D games I run. When a player jokingly said he prayed to his chosen deity before bed, I responded by giving him a vision in his dream of what is to come the next day. (it was a hint on a piece of paper for his eyes only - he changed his spells without sharing it with the rest of his party) The whole party turned super observant from then on, praying each night, writing down what their deity was and what they stood for, as well as donating almost half of their loot. I dished out "feelings of a benevolent presence" - a healing spell placed inside their aura that triggers when the player's health goes below half full, +1 mofidiers on their chosen weapons, more dream visions concerning traps and puzzles, as well as the occasional quest. My players did not consider these side quests to be railroading, instead they eagerly lapped them up and asked (prayed) for more. 😉 Introducing deities into your games is a great way to influence your players. Ever since that joking bedside prayer, my players expect and enjoy divine meddling in every campaign.
I think the gods were very well integrated into BG3 campaign, as an example. They might not be central (outside of three specific ones), but two of them were still keeping tabs on the situation, three if you count Vlaakith and you can even get scolded by Lolth if you take the Seldarine artifact as a Lolth-Sworn in the Underdark. You even get to fight a god's avatar. Shar, Selûne, Mystra, Myrkul, Bhaal, Bane and Vlaakith are all relevant to the story, with multiple others being involved in characters' backstories.
My last D&D game involved the party flying into heaven to ask legally distinct Thor for some holy lightning so we could use it in our quest to kill the king of hell. By the end of the final session, I had become the god-queen of hell through the party’s combined efforts. Best campaign I’ve ever played.
YOOO that's so sick !! i love when player characters transcend into something so powerful and infinite that they could easily be NPCs in the next campaign (assuming it takes place in the same world)
Heck yeah! Our GM always includes a "GM amusement table" (d100 rolls & outcomes) for Gods' interventions, crits (1s and 20s tables) and various other things he's home-brewed. His random item cards are always fun too; cursed items with funny effects as well as nice treasure and random doodads that could be vital or a total red herring (but which is it?!) coz he's an OG player from the 80s. I'm blessed to have randomly met him at a historical reenactment event. (A historically accurate "renaissance fayre")
I used to play a halfling thief who would regularly pray to Brandobaris. One day he showed up and assigned a quest, a burglary, of course. Got a great adventure, a powerful magic item, and a wonderful source of role-playing banter with the paladin.
Conan the Barbarian is great for how another class other then cleric worships the gods. This and many other things is why this movie is one of the best D&D movies ever made. His prayer at the end is legendary. "Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad, Why we fought or why we died. No, all that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request - Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then the Hell with you!"
I have a feeling this episode is gonna pop off from the title & thumbnail alone. Ginny's cheerful expression next to "LET'S FIGHT GOD" is just too good.
Been thinking about a campaign where the players have daily wishes, because unbeknownst to them they are gods in human form, but they have been dethroned and cast out of the pantheon. More of a one shot of a few sessions than anything, but would be fun.
Last session had a character in my Pathfinder game who isn't a cleric making an offering to their god, tithing to their church, and getting some assistance in consecrating a space. Hell, as far as the central premise goes large swaths of D&D involve mortals fighting against the gods to replace them. Baldur's Gate 1-2's central plot basically revolves around the consequences of some mortals who replaced a god, followed by the war between gods who had been depowered somewhat. A lot more gods got killed and replaced by mortals, some of the killed gods used mortal plots to resurrect themselves or attempt to do so.
Pathfinder has so many fun divine gifts baked into the core rules! Follower background bonuses, exclusive rituals, a lot of info on most of the deities (not just the major ones), and even magic items. And the Paizo gods are all fun and fascinating and really bring another layer to the game.
In my Mines of Phandelver campaign, I created an encounter for our ranger where a unicorn of Mielikki guided her to a group of animal smugglers who had a captive panther which became her animal companion. After the fight, she caught a quick glimpse of Mielikki and Gwaeron Windstrom standing at the edge of a stand of trees. Since then, she has been carving the symbol of Mielikki, a unicorn head, into stumps and leaving offerings to the goddess. I look forward to using this in the future.
PSA: Every scholar of the old Irish stories or earnest Irish Pagan practitioner/reconstructionist I have ever heard, says Oghma with the pronunciation "Ohhh-muh". If you're rhyming him with George Takei's "Oh my!" you aren't far wrong. And if you want some reasons to think "oh my!" yourself when you think of Oghma (or an understanding of why he might be read into a bookworm god by a young Ed Greenwood) then listening to Jon O'Sullivan tell about Oghma, the Champion, is a fairly good place to start.
One of my characters is a priest who's an atheist. He met Gond and had a conversation like he was a regular person. They made a deal that he would promote membership to Gond's "Country Club" and in return Gond would grant him the abilities of a priest. He considers other priests as suckers because they actually believe that gods exist, and he gets priestly powers but doesn't even have to worship anybody. (Gond has chosen not to enlighten him regarding his mistaken point of view, because he does good work.)
I do not play DnD (yet), but i created a setting and a character of initially evil fallen goddess that lost most of her powers almost 10000 years ago, and lived among mortals for that time. Gradually, she changed her alignment from evil to good-leaning neutral, and then got her "divine" powers back. But she stopped to consider herself and her kind to be gods even after her repeated ascension. "Being the most powerful being in the multiverse does not actually make you a god." - her words. So yeah, i have a god that became atheist.
DMs Guild definitely got their money's worth with this sponsorship. These videos are just getting better and better. So, in addition to the Godly Grimiore, there are Piety rules available on the DMs Guild for almost every game setting. I run Eberron, which have incredibly impersonal gods. But someone published Piety rules even for them on DMs Guild, which I am grateful for. Definitely check them out if you are looking to make player interactions with gods more meaningful. I will be following the link to pick up the Godly Grimiore myself, to add to my collection ... if only to have a handy player smiting tool in my pocket.
One good thing I suggest for DnD settings and such is the idea that the “cultural default” when it comes to religion is pantheism - where a person worships whatever deity is relevant to the situation at the time. So, broadly, they worship all of the gods rather than just one or two. I believe this was a bit like how real-life pantheism worked - like in Ancient Greece - but don’t quote me on that. Also I do like that you just reinvented the ancient Chinese concept of the Celestial Bureaucracy with that “office workers” comparison. :P
I included guest appearances by several Good-aligned deities in a 3.5 campaign I ran once. My players were actively fighting against several Evil entities, including a couple of gods. As a reward for their devotion and valor, the Good gods visited the tavern that the PC's owned. They were in disguise at first, all showed up one at a time and brought random things to what eventually grew into a giant party (Kord brought a keg that never ran out of ale, Yondalla brought a basket that always had whatever kind of fruit you wanted in it, Heironeous brought plates and silverware because he figured everyone else would forget, etc). The players eventually figured out who their visitors were and at the end of the party the gods gave each of them special artifacts that were tailored to the PC's abilities and play styles. It was a heavy roleplaying session and one of the most memorable of that campaign.
One of my dms let a player fight his own god. (His God was a war god. He wanted to see how strong he was/it was "training". It was cool because they fought the god again at level 20.) Also, one of my favorite character choices is to treat all the gods with a healthy respect. like visiting a temple of the ocean if we're traveling on the sea, praying to a god of xyz location or kind based on where we are ....ext, (basically acting like they all deserve your respect because you fear their anger. )
Yes! I love pantheons that include a group of "gods that we must appease" deities that nobody in that culture worships but still everyone makes offerings to.
Our DnD party actually has beef with Talos. My character especially is a bard that tends to write disstracks dedicated to his ennemies. He improvised one while casting vicious mockery over and over at lightning speed in a rp moment, making sure Talos' avatar was dead DEAD. The performance check was so good Talos heard it lol. Ever since then, when we encounter Talos devotees, we know we're gonna get disadvantage or worsened effects because Talos hates my bard's guts and our team. So we doubled down and keep trying to defeat his followers with lightning or thunder damage only. Good times lol. (I almost got struck to death by lightning too hahaha)
I love incorporating the gods into most of my characters! Once I had this Warforged Barbarian who had a tiny treeshrew as animal companion. But the twist was that the treeshrew was actually the Feywild god Oberon who lost his powers and was reduced to a tiny rodent. And he used the last of his powers to awaken my Warforged character in order to protect him while he was in his vulnerable state. Because of that set up, my party would have random acts of divide power help us on our adventure but we had no idea where or who it was coming from 😆
I run a high fantasy campaign with my friends who are all theatre kids and nerds, naturally things get pretty silly on the occasion, and since they live for the chaos, I, as the DM, will be there to provide it. That being said I allowed one of my players to use her violin (that talks to her and has a soul attached to it, it’s a whole thing) to try to contact the god of time so the party could get a little help on a side quest. I allowed her to roll on a d100. 1 or 2 and she got it. She rolled a 2 and I had to face the consequences of my actions. It’s still talked about in the group and ever so often she makes an offering or prays to the him, despite not being religious before that point! It’s delightful
0:04 literally last session. I *love* the religious lore of the Realms; I can't remember the last time I played a character who didn't have a patron deity.
I mean, by the end of one of the campaigns I played in recently, we went all in by the end of focusing on our Wizard becoming a goddess and taking over the job of the god we were fighting as the BBEG. We were not only successful in helping her ascend, but we all survived and went on to live long happy lives afterwards. Something else interesting is my Paladin, Alistair. He comes from a world where various classical pantheons exist (e.g. Norse pantheon is what he grew up with, even pre-Paladin Alistair), sure, but in terms of the campaign he's suddenly been shunted from his world of the familiar to a world where his gods can't/won't/don't answer him, while intending to go on a journey to find out what it means to be a Paladin (since in my version of the setting where he's from, he's the first one of his kind and thusly doesn't know what he's doing) and he's been constantly wondering and fearing, "Why was I sent here? Who am I?" and even still, Paladins in the setting he's from don't need to follow a deity at all.
if dms are looking for ideas on how the gods might "assist" their players, i would suggest looking at different world mythologies! there are tons of fun concept in there. i am reading the odyssey at the moment and the gods have their finger on the scale *constantly* (not always in very hands-on ways though), all of which could easily be translated into dnd. athena appears to odysseus' son to guide him and gives him a godly makeover? advantage on the next performance or persuasion check (or maybe an npc shows up who gives *very* good advice before turning into a bird and flying off). zeus sends two eagles to deliver a bad omen to the suitors of penelope? have creatures sacred to a deity show up to demonstrate where divine favour lies. the gods cast a favourable wind to speed odysseus on his journey (rare)? maybe the party gets to their next destination faster than usual, or without encountering danger. and thats just one greek epic! there are so many myths the designers of dnd already draw from for the gods, id suggest to go back to the source to see what else you can find.
I can use gods to be disguised and living together in a town. The heads of the different pantheons are the ruling council. This allows interaction with higher ups. That can be revealed eventually when the characters are higher level. This allows the gods to send out the adventures to different game settings. And connects those that normally wouldn't. More variety. You can drop in some gods into any setting this way too by adding them to the game. Even if just to help guide them.
Running a God of War and Percy Jackson inspired campaign so perfect timing on this one Ginny! It being God of War inspired though, my players are gonna, eventually, be fighting a few actual gods. Excited for that
My first campaign involved so many of us praying and finding help from gods that our current campaign is in the part of the world that has literally walled itself off from connection to the outer planes haha. The GM had it set with rolling a d100 on good religion checks that 99 or 100 gets you a spiritual meeting with the god or divine being related, and out of the about 15 times we wanted to do that roll to be in presence, 10 of them got that 99 or 100, it was insane. (and character note, one was a monk with 2 levels of cleric, and our wizard was a "school of erathis", flavoring to some holy connection. But otherwise, just fully utilizing connection to higher powers wanting to help fight evil, which made for some awesome moments when they were willing or able to give direct guidance or help. and especially helpful as a tool for the gm to give some little character pushes in different directions.)
As someone who loved playing the Paladin class; I'd LOVE to play a campaign where I'd get to save a Warlock in the party from a douchy patron. Bonus points if the DM allows us to strike down a fiend lord at the end of the campaign, and I'd darned well start bringing extra snacks if they'd allow me and the gang to take down a cult dedicated to said patron in the process. I mean, nobody said that a good-aligned god was supposed to die... 🤣
Loved this video! My current DND character's whole thing is desperately wanting to kill a God or two, including her warlock patron who tricked her into a warlock pact (multiclassing into it). It's created an incredibly fun dynamic bc she both kind of needs this God bc they've given her some convenient information but hates what she's getting out of it (having to rely on a divine being).
7:45 😂 I love the work department analogy,but why are they meeting up at lunch to make out? 😂 That took me by surprise while I was taking a drink and made me almost snort my soda.
My first ever character was a rogue who prayed to Tymora and made offerings. he had OCd and many manerisms as well like drawing a crircle with the lockpìcks around the lock before trying to pick it and more. I love those little details everything adds
I jive with the aspect idea. I’m slowly accumulating plans, storybeats, and maps for my Theros campaign so this is a welcome addition to my information. And I’ve already taken inspiration from Rick Riordan’s PJO series for ideas on how to give godly guidance and assistance. I’ve even been theorizing gods and entities I want to run in a more standard fantasy game based off the gods of 40k.
I played in a campaign where a war was brewing between the gods and the dragons. We were tasked with travelling to various planes to recruit gods to the side of the dragons. Once the war broke out, we never fought gods directly, but we did get to do things that influenced the outcomes of various battles. For a while, we did rolls at the end of sessions to determine if there were any casualties on either side, with the dm being very transparent about how our actions influenced dcs. It was a fantastic campaign with a perfect balance of preserving the gods and dragons as incredibly powerful beings, and keeping us players feeling successful and heroic as we played our role adjacent to the conflict.
Love it!! I think this applies well to homebrew worlds as well, and is nicely articulated. Definitely something ill need to think about moving forward!
Love the Cubicle aspect of the pantheon. Not only does this give Clerics something to do as their mouthpieces, but have have the other classes act like agents for their chosen diety in the Divine War for Department Funding!
One of the many reasons I enjoy Dragonlance as a setting. This attitude is flipped entirely on its head, especially when cleric characters are more likely seen as witches than holy people.
I'm part of a Pathfinder 1E campaign group. The world we're in is overseen by the deities of Greyhawk. My character is a Half-Orc Swashbuckler who was raised in a small town with a lot of Halflings. His main deity is Charmalaine, a Halfling Hero-Goddess of Keen Senses and Narrow Escapes. I recently watched a video where in a world where multiple deities are confirmed to exist, a character would acknowledge the power of other deities aside from the one they primarily worship. He has invoked Pelor before, as we have a War Priest devoted to Pelor in our group. Just this past week, we were fighting a Rug of Smothering. When our Psychic-Rogue got wrapped up in it, my Swashbuckler entered the room and shouted, "What by Sheela Peryroyl's Daisies is going on in here?" Sheela Peryrol being a Halfling Goddess of nature, song, dance, agriculture, and romantic love. Her holy symbol is a daisy, and in her lore it's common for Halflings to say "Begging Your Pardon, Sheela" if ever they were to step on one of her plants. All in all, I've taken the idea of characters in a campaign being polytheist and/or acknowledging the power of multiple Gods to some degree to heart.
I swear to the gods, Ginny is the only youtuber I can think of which sponsor ads I ENJOY. 💚 Also "I'd rather drink Mistra's glowing piss." is hilarious! 🤣 My non cleric\Paladin characters worship gods all the time! I am actually playing a bard as a priestess of Elistraee in my current campaign thing!
I love using gods in campaigns, my first ever campaign I finished running start to finish was a story about a banished god of war slowly claiming fragmented remains of divine power from godly artefacts left behind when the pantheon left the world after a divine war between them. The party started out looking for these artefacts when the warlocks patron brought up the legend of one, then rapidly fell into a battle between the vessel of this banished god who was after these artefacts and the party just happened to locate one first. My current campaign has a single god-like figure ruling each plane (planet in this universe), but there are also powerful immortal beings on the parties home plane, and a being known by the extra planar rulers as Lady Death who takes every soul to the afterlife. But the parties homelands have their on gods, that seem to grant magical cleric power to followings (none are a cleric so that aspect hasn’t been delved into much). I basically started with idea of “what is a God, but a being you do not know with power you cannot obtain.” And the more they know about these beings, the less godlike they seem. And my next campaign while I don’t want to spoil it for my players who might somehow see this, is going to be dealing with end of the world religious myths like judgment day or ragnarok just with in world religions. The only thing they really know if the campaign discord is called End Times. Having higher powers directly encounter the players always leads to amazing dynamics in my experience as a DM.
One of actual play games (oxventure in case you are wondering) the warlock is of the great old one and the DM offen has Cthulhu (mostly in the form of a single tentacle) show up to give a plot hook or help with a problem
The best part of any classic RPG (especially JRPGs) is going from god-fearing to the gods fearing you. Sometimes you just gotta let your players headbutt a supreme being in the nose, man!
I have to get this in, it’s my only chance. You have to be my favorite DND content creator of all time. I love incorporating certain elements of villains or characters you’ve made, because you make them so well. Not to mention that you might be one of my favorite music artists ever. I love every video and you’ve helped me as both a DM and a player, regardless of the fact that I haven’t played DND in a while, and I haven’t even run a game yet. You deserve so much more credit and I envy everyone you’ve been in a game with.
if being at sea is an important part of the adventure then having rolls for weather would make it a bit different than being on land, and if the god of the sea feels slighted they can give a malice to this roll. cursing the god might make it so that you end up more likely to have to furl the sails and batten the hatches while getting tossed about in the hull of the ship instead of having a bunch of sea people attack the ship.
Ooh very interesting video! Thank you for sharing! As always, your sponsor sections are just so creative and awesome. And relevant! Thanks for great advice and recommendations😁
Had a ranger that worshipped the same god our party cleric followed. He would often join the cleric in morning prayers, much to the annoyance of the rogue that wanted to sleep in. Didn't help that unlike the rogue both my ranger and the cleric were elves and didn't need as much rest time. Also played a chaotic neutral drow fighter mage (2nd ed) that pointedly did not follow any religions, for somewhat obvious reasons. Though she did have some asperations to becoming immortal so she wouldn't have turned godhood for herself down if offered.
Hey Ginny! I just wanted to say thank you! I started playing D&D in the late 80's and continued through the 90's, with a lot of homebrew sprinkled in. And then....decades of nothing. You're grasp, enthusiasm, and take on D&D has rekindled this "old timer's" spirit (btw, I don't really feel like an old timer - and I promise you, in 30 years, you won't either :) ). While my last real adventuring took place in ed 3.5 (although, I did do a short stint in 5e about a year ago). That being said, while I don't consider myself up-to-date, and am certainly not involved in a weekly or even monthly group, I have to say, you're insight has been very helpful in getting up to speed and excited with today's D&D. In short, you have reminded me why I loved this game...even though I'm sure I'll rot in Hell because of it ;) LOL!! Keep doing what you do, and keep doing what you love. You're good at it. Pax!
In the current game I'm running, the party has a Necropolitan Artificer who has said a prayer/thanks to Enki. It was a GREAT moment of character building for him, as at the start of the campaign he held no stock in any deity. I would love to go into more details about the endgame for my campaign, but I know several of my players watch this channel and I don't want them to get spoiled.
There are some really interesting gods in the Forgotten Realms. My personal favorites are Selune, because she represents femininity and constant change, Beshaba, because the concept of choosing to devote yourself specifically to bad luck is incredibly interesting to me, and Ilmater, because it seems benevolent and positive to try and shield others from suffering, but Ilmater is actually about taking all suffering into yourself rather than eliminating the sources of suffering, which is more complex and kind of self-destructive in a way.
Yeah we previously had a healer who'd "lay on hands" and took on the wounds herself... It's not that weird in D&D land. Makes perfect sense for that class to worship Ilmater.
The advice on aspects is a great idea. That can be scaled by level, one could make a quest about increasing the aspect's power by fulfilling certain tasks when they are allies, and when they are enemies, there can be this "You're Fighting a Shadow" framework to keep the greatness of the god in tact but still make the fight winnable.
Currently I'm making a campaign about preventing a holy war from breaking out so this is perfect timing :) One of the deities I'm making is going to secretly take the form of a black cat that will act as the party's guide. The cat can die but respawn in a very "Oh my god, they killed Kenny! _(You bastards!)"_ way. Hopefully the party will be unaware of the cat's identity for the bulk of the adventure, and come to find they have better luck when they treat the cat nicely and worse if they don't.
What kind of blackguard would treat a cat badly? For me that would definitely be "You kicked the cat. Bastet curses your foot to powder into catnip. Saving throw - 20 only".
Before I watch this, I just wanna say I love the title and idea bc that's what all my campaign ideas lead too, fighting either godlike or actual gods. my favorite antagonist is a dead goddess of life that's half alive being fueled only by her rage due to being imprisoned and treated as nothing but a tool and power source, constantly being experimented on and having control taken away from her till she dies, which causes a cataclysm and then comes back to pull strings behind whats left of the monarchy so she can lure them into allowing herself into their kingdom with whats left of her old might to crush them in a blind fury, and to take advantage of them the way they did with her.
I love incorporating gods into my roleplay! Even, if not especially, for chars that are more casual about their gods of choice. Just line 'em up with whatever hobbies or interest your char has! Its great to sprinkle in at least reference to them in your speech, or add minor roleplay to giving thanks to that gods existence. It def helps lessen the number of "jesus christ" responses lmao, and just adds a bit of extra texture to a char and make 'em feel more unique. Maybe your gruff fighter makes an offering when passing the poetry gods temple revealing a soft side and appreciation for the arts, maybe your charlatan feels uncomfortable entering the temple of a god of truth fearing someone there could see through them, there's all sorts of little touches you can add to a char when just considering how they might feel about this or that god and who worships them.
As always, the ad is a bonus for the video. Never skip your ads. The costum was specially impressive for this one. It's always grest, today's was just specially great.
I went in to this fingers crossed that the Garages *Fight Gods* would somehow play over the outro, despite knowing how unlikely that was. It's ok, I forgive you. Anyway, although I am myself an atheist, I love playing characters with relationships to the divine and/or the culture of worship- partly because I *also* have an... interesting relationship with authority and structure. And it is always weird to me that, in a world where the gods *routinely intervene and are known by the public to exist* there isn't way more casual worship just built into everyday life. These are some solid tips that are easy to forget. Thanks! One of my favorite gaming stories is the time we reconsecrated the altar in Castle Ravenloft's desecrated chapel and it *blocked Strahd from coming in after us* which was extremely dope.
I've been trying to involve some shady gods and god-adjacent beings in a campaign I'm running; I had the players fight a god at the end of the intro arc to the campaign, revealing that the items they'd been collecting up to that point were for that very purpose, weakening it enough for their benefactor (the mysterious Voice in the Dark) to finish it off and absorb its power. I like the idea of having players involved in some grander conflict that feels beyond them early on, to emphasise how strong they themselves will become over the course of the campaign.
I once played a Battle Master Fighter leaning into the "tank" archetype (heavy armor, crowd controls...). He would makes offerings for Helm when passing by an altar.
My favorite interaction with gods in ttrpg comes from PF2E. There's an optional rule for DM called "Divine Intercession" and it's basically "Here how gods typically interact with mortals when said mortals satify or displease the gods" and it's in the form of minor, moderate and major boons and curses. One of the minor PF2e gods is Achaekek, and their thing is to punish those who seek divinity, break their oath or rebel against the powers in place, and they are represented in the shape of a giant red mantis. I think it's best I show you want Achaekek sees as anathema : "kill a rightful ruler, become fixated on petty matters such as others’ gender or ancestry, abandon an assassination contract you agreed to pursue" The minor curse is simply that insect hates you now. You'll receive bites, stings and the whole deal everywhere you go, especially from red mantis. The moderate curse is already a bit more fun rp wise, as Achaekek themselves send your GPS coordonates and IP adress to one of their follower (which are sort of cultist assassin, think of the dark brotherhood) And then the major curse. Achaekek opens a portal, kills you no save allowed, rip your soul appart so that you can't be resurrected and then leaves. Simple, efficient, I love my big red mantis god.
It feels random, but Ive watched you since picking up being a DM, roughly, and the cute upbringing music always seems to bring Joy. Ofc you have always helped the imposter syndrome and the harsh critic i am to myself. You are an Icon for D&D 5e Imho, always the first 'guide' i reccomend on new starter DMs or just players who are into this hobby as much as us ^-^
My barbarian was a recent convert to Hoar due to his family being killed (don't worry, they've since been resurrected). I played with it somewhat loosely and our cleric had somewhat frequent interactions with their goddess, so we talked about it in character. One thing led to another and they were helping my character learn how to pray to a god. My DM gave me advantage on a religion check and I rolled two nat 20s. Since then, Hoar has been more active in our campaign and given us boons and direction. It's been pretty cool to see that RP turn into something in the actual gameplay mechanics.
0:01 Last session, actually. 0:05 Same. He's a Sorcerer that happens to worship Melora. 6:25 And many casters can cast Sending to their god. Thanks. I think I know what I will do.
our dm does some great god-play. we've had multiple characters with divine arcs over our campaigns, which frequently tied into the overall story and the groups relation with our "main" god. this often lead to epic scenes and great powers for us to use (though sometimes at a price). you mentioned the gods being very alive in the in-universe culture and, before we started our first campaign, he told us: "everyone believes in the gods, atheists end up in the wall of the faithless", so the importance of the gods was immediately established.
Honestly, if there's any reason to pick a fight with the gods, it's that wall. Good gods shouldn't need the threat of such a fate to convince people to praise them.
Honestly that dadjoke in the ad segment just made me laugh so hard. Made my day was so not prepared for it 10/10. Not even botherd by the ad at this point gonna watch it all
Thanks to DMsGuild for sponsoring this video! ⭐
Get the GODLY GRIMOIRE: www.dmsguild.com/product/463142/Godly-Grimoire
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i'm dumb and forgot to use the code, Sorry GinnyDi!
I've played since 1st and DMd since 2nd and have DMd a few "pantheon-altering" endings.
I believe players enjoy battling some dieties at the end of a campaign more than they would enjoy "saving the world." That's why we're doing the Khor campaign setting. 😉
1
Nice end joke
Ginny, do you ever do dnd online through zoom, or some other medium? I'd like to play in a camping with you, DMing👏
The meta of "Viewership drops off in the outro" Chef's kiss
“Attack and dethrone god” is a classic setting for a JRPG
Reach Heaven through violence
@@ArkadiBolschekMurder the Gods and Topple their Thrones 🍜
It's about Japan, and America, and WWII emperor stuff.
The previous two quotes are a Kill Six Billion Demons reference
Look, one of my formative fantasy works was Final Fantasy 6...
There's a subtle brilliance in the costume choices and camera angle for these two characters that makes them look even more like they're played by two separate people than usual.
Definitely not where I thought this comment was going lmao
@@noblesseoblige319Yeah, I stumbled off the path of this comment too.
I love the way she framed her two charachters as well
@@noblesseoblige319 I feel like there's a whole lot of "I have a LOT of comments but I respect Ginny too much to make them" going on right now.
Or a mod's just been really keen on weeding out creepy comments.
@@ummacnai Ginny’s awesome. When I had a calendar issue she dealt with it herself, so I hope her fans are just respectful.
Just last session we hit this topic hard. Group went into temple of Raven Queen with defiled statue… party WARLOCK used mending on statue for multiple minutes to fix it. When party later almost ended in TPK in tombes bellow… Raven Queen sent one raven with 1d6 healing every 3 rounds to help party… cementing their “destiny” saving ranger on his last deathsave… ranger that was extremely “nonbeliever” ended up praying and leaving the offering of healing potion the moment they got back to the surface.
Somehow its tiny thing like 2d6 heals in fight where average damage on both sides went around 30 per round/being.
I LOVE the Raven Queen, and great way to introduce her power, too! -Paolo
Other youtubers advertisement: Nah. *skip*
Ginny's sponsorship: Thank you so much for this blessing, your highness. May I have some more?
Seriously, you're killing it with the scripting. Thank you for your hard work for these moments of laughter and smiles.
Ginny is literally the only TH-camr who I never skip their ad reads because they are just that good.
For real. The way she seamlessly incorporates ads into her videos should be studied by other TH-camrs!
Haha, when the Viewer appeared, I just gave her a like :D
Thank you!! I work super hard to make them as interesting to watch as the rest of the video 🥰🥰
@@GinnyDiseriously, what he said.
As a dm I have also found it helpful when you want the gods to be part of your world to show npcs worshiping, and to bring up that there are temples and holidays to different gods.
Definitely!! It makes the world feel SO much richer and I also love finding ways to signal that time is passing.
Plus, it's a great excuse for a silly session 😂😂
I'm in an all-halfling campaign where one of us is a cleric of Yondalla (the primary halfling god), but everyone else still worships Yondalla and we all see the cleric as our spiritual leader.
I love that! Super fun rp wise
Love this idea!! I've not actually seen a party that's united in the worship of one god but it must be really interesting for rp 🙏🥰
Having a party chaplain sounds like it really ties the whole group together. Love it.
I have a paladin-esque cleric/fighter of Arvoreen "I may be 3' 9"on the outside but I'm actually 7' on the inside!!"
@@GinnyDi My first campaign was a Pathfinder one where 3/5 of the party were followers of Kord. My character was starting to understand and respect Kords power by the time the campaign suddenly ended.
Great video. I had a rogue who worshipped Leira goddess of deception back in 3.0 days. He held onto the idea "why tell the truth when a lie will do" his greatest feat for his Goddess was swapping out a tome with one full of incorrect historical facts in a great library.
Leira is SUCH a great goddess to bring into campaigns. Trickster or illusionist gods give you so much scope to mess with your players and generally breadcrumb mysteries 🥰
I have a pair of brother gods in my homebrew world that are at eternal odds with each other: Codis (god of knowledge) and Kybris (god of secrets and deceit). This would be a wonderful scenario for followers of those two.
dont think ive ever seen her mentioned - thought it was funny as my players destroyed her some years back in our campaign :)
So your character was spreading fake news? Brilliant.
@@StarFyreXXX thats just what she wants you to think. Her greatest deception of them all faking her own demise.
Hi everybody! I'm Paolo by Echidna Design, the author of the Godly Grimoire, and I am... Beyond speechless 🥹
Ginny, you do us such an honor to feature the Godly Grimoire in your video. I've been following your content for a long time and I have the highest esteem for your work... I can't even begin to describe how it feels to find out that our book is now part of it.
Especially considering that the Godly Grimoire is the humble work of two people only (me, and Franco, who illustrated the whole book), we are so grateful that you appreciated it. It really makes us feel... *Understood* (I don't even know if this is the right word 😅).
Thank you from our hearts,
-Paolo
I’m so happy to hear that you think I did your work justice! 🥰 It’s such an awesome book, you should both be so proud!
@@GinnyDi You're a blessing ☺ -Paolo
@@GinnyDi Thank you very much! I am very happy you liked it. -Franco
Great work Paolo!
@@theactorsdungeon3898 Thank you! ☺
In my current game, one of my players (an aberrant mind sorceress) has beef with a cleric in a rival party. For the last five sessions, she has (at least once a session) attempted to stealthily send the cleric telepathic messages impersonating the cleric’s god, telling the cleric she’s not good enough and should just give up and go home. There have been some truly wild moments of roleplay with that, and the deity she’s impersonating has DEFINITELY noticed!
'Perhaps you would be better served on the Alter'
Just, randomly whispered into the Warpock's ear.
Really love the creativity you put in to the sponsored spots. You're one of the few creators that get me to actually watch them, instead of just skipping over
Yes! Bring some classic jrpg tropes to life by going from the spunky group of outsiders protecting their home to formidable adventurers fighting god! Pulling a Fizban could be fun too by having a god (or aspect) pretend to need the help of the party and occasionally pop in to check on the progress of their "favorite show" so to speak.
You've made an excellent point (yet again). Definitely see players ignore divinity when a class doesn't require it. These ideas (and this book) definitely seem like an awesome way to inject some into my campaign. (Also your meta commentary on the TH-cam algorithm... Chef's kiss).
As always, I draw inspiration from the gaps in my own roleplay - my DM asked me about Penelope's religious beliefs a few weeks ago and I was like "uhh...... great question, I have literally never thought about that" 😂
I played in a game with a cleric of Tymora, Lady Luck. He used Divine Intervention 3 times during the course of our adventures when we got in really sticky spots, and in an absolutely perfectly thematic twist of fate managed to beat the odds and succeed every time. After the first time, we all decided to honor Tymora since she had come down to save our butts. We founded gambling houses in her honor wherever we went, made our boat (the Questionable Venture) into a floating casino, and eventually founded an entire Fantasy Las Vegas in the area of a friendly ancient brass dragon's lair. It really added a lot to the vibe of the game, and the DM was able to give us small rewards for the RP by handing out Inspiration.
Interesting...one of my characters is a Buddhist Monk who insists that there aren't any real gods...only really powerful bullies.
One of my favorite Megatron quotes (I forget which series it's from) is when he's talking to Optimus Prime about the 13 Primes and he goes, "They aren't gods Optimus, they are just really powerful transformers."
This is a great way to play the 'I don't believe in the gods' angle!
They're obviously _there_ but doubting whether they should be considered divine beings is an interesting theological question 😊
The Cleric Quintet is probably the seminal work on this type of concept.
I played in a campaign with a wizard who claimed the gods were just powerful mortals. End of the campaign he ascended to godhood and his last words to the group was "Told you so."
It's something present in the Forgotten Realms setting - the ancient Netherese Wizard Karsus saw the gods as merely powerful extraplanar beings, and he attempted to cast a spell that would replace the Goddess of Magic with himself.
He broke magic.
"1d6 short of a Fireball" is a good enough insult to deal a d4 or two of psychic damage.
"Curse you merciful Poseidon!"
Your mention of the divine office reminded me of the relationship between Ixion amd Nyx. On the clock, they oppose each other. Off the clock they get along quite well, both acknowledging the validity of each other's philosophy while also being clear that their office opposition is just an outgrowth of their amicable philosophal differences
One of my most memorable god interactions was when my 5th level sorcerer ended up playing chicken an aspect of a war god that was possessing a member of the party, by casting witch bolt using her highest possible spell slot while said party member was restrained and basically going "either my friend gets control of his body back or neither of you do." Somehow, miraculously, this honey-badger-like display of spite kind of worked (god was amused by her spite and gumption) and it became a really pivotal moment in both PCs arcs. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving the campaign not long after due to school, alas.
My rogue got to meet with Bahamut twice. He even gave a blessing to her and her love, and gave her comfort after escaping a war in a cathedral. I just multiclass as a cleric but she was devoted to Bahamut years before. It was her upbringing.
I am intrigued by the idea of a pantheon of generally amoral gods who preside over the world of mortals who have to figure out some purpose for their life even though the gods generally could care less whether they live or die. It's a concept I explore in pretty much all my campaigns.
D&D video when??
@@ScherFire 👀👀
Be sure to keep watching right until the end for epic ending snark!
Can confirm, I was not disappointed 😂
I came up with a way to lend more significance to deities in the D&D games I run. When a player jokingly said he prayed to his chosen deity before bed, I responded by giving him a vision in his dream of what is to come the next day. (it was a hint on a piece of paper for his eyes only - he changed his spells without sharing it with the rest of his party)
The whole party turned super observant from then on, praying each night, writing down what their deity was and what they stood for, as well as donating almost half of their loot.
I dished out "feelings of a benevolent presence" - a healing spell placed inside their aura that triggers when the player's health goes below half full, +1 mofidiers on their chosen weapons, more dream visions concerning traps and puzzles, as well as the occasional quest.
My players did not consider these side quests to be railroading, instead they eagerly lapped them up and asked (prayed) for more. 😉
Introducing deities into your games is a great way to influence your players. Ever since that joking bedside prayer, my players expect and enjoy divine meddling in every campaign.
Excellent!
I think the gods were very well integrated into BG3 campaign, as an example. They might not be central (outside of three specific ones), but two of them were still keeping tabs on the situation, three if you count Vlaakith and you can even get scolded by Lolth if you take the Seldarine artifact as a Lolth-Sworn in the Underdark. You even get to fight a god's avatar. Shar, Selûne, Mystra, Myrkul, Bhaal, Bane and Vlaakith are all relevant to the story, with multiple others being involved in characters' backstories.
My last D&D game involved the party flying into heaven to ask legally distinct Thor for some holy lightning so we could use it in our quest to kill the king of hell. By the end of the final session, I had become the god-queen of hell through the party’s combined efforts. Best campaign I’ve ever played.
YOOO that's so sick !! i love when player characters transcend into something so powerful and infinite that they could easily be NPCs in the next campaign (assuming it takes place in the same world)
Lol, "Viewership always drops off during the outro." 🤣The Aspect of The Viewer is for sure the best sponsor assist character yet.
Heck yeah! Our GM always includes a "GM amusement table" (d100 rolls & outcomes) for Gods' interventions, crits (1s and 20s tables) and various other things he's home-brewed. His random item cards are always fun too; cursed items with funny effects as well as nice treasure and random doodads that could be vital or a total red herring (but which is it?!) coz he's an OG player from the 80s. I'm blessed to have randomly met him at a historical reenactment event. (A historically accurate "renaissance fayre")
I used to play a halfling thief who would regularly pray to Brandobaris. One day he showed up and assigned a quest, a burglary, of course. Got a great adventure, a powerful magic item, and a wonderful source of role-playing banter with the paladin.
Conan the Barbarian is great for how another class other then cleric worships the gods. This and many other things is why this movie is one of the best D&D movies ever made. His prayer at the end is legendary.
"Crom, I have never prayed to you before.
I have no tongue for it.
No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad,
Why we fought or why we died.
No, all that matters is that two stood against many.
That's what's important.
Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request -
Grant me revenge!
And if you do not listen, then the Hell with you!"
I have a feeling this episode is gonna pop off from the title & thumbnail alone. Ginny's cheerful expression next to "LET'S FIGHT GOD" is just too good.
Been thinking about a campaign where the players have daily wishes, because unbeknownst to them they are gods in human form, but they have been dethroned and cast out of the pantheon. More of a one shot of a few sessions than anything, but would be fun.
Last session had a character in my Pathfinder game who isn't a cleric making an offering to their god, tithing to their church, and getting some assistance in consecrating a space. Hell, as far as the central premise goes large swaths of D&D involve mortals fighting against the gods to replace them. Baldur's Gate 1-2's central plot basically revolves around the consequences of some mortals who replaced a god, followed by the war between gods who had been depowered somewhat. A lot more gods got killed and replaced by mortals, some of the killed gods used mortal plots to resurrect themselves or attempt to do so.
Pathfinder has so many fun divine gifts baked into the core rules! Follower background bonuses, exclusive rituals, a lot of info on most of the deities (not just the major ones), and even magic items. And the Paizo gods are all fun and fascinating and really bring another layer to the game.
In my Mines of Phandelver campaign, I created an encounter for our ranger where a unicorn of Mielikki guided her to a group of animal smugglers who had a captive panther which became her animal companion. After the fight, she caught a quick glimpse of Mielikki and Gwaeron Windstrom standing at the edge of a stand of trees. Since then, she has been carving the symbol of Mielikki, a unicorn head, into stumps and leaving offerings to the goddess. I look forward to using this in the future.
PSA:
Every scholar of the old Irish stories or earnest Irish Pagan practitioner/reconstructionist I have ever heard, says Oghma with the pronunciation "Ohhh-muh".
If you're rhyming him with George Takei's "Oh my!" you aren't far wrong.
And if you want some reasons to think "oh my!" yourself when you think of Oghma (or an understanding of why he might be read into a bookworm god by a young Ed Greenwood) then listening to Jon O'Sullivan tell about Oghma, the Champion, is a fairly good place to start.
A classy meta NPC that I can appreciate with years of worldly DM experience 10/10 needs to become a recurring guest😄
One of my characters is a priest who's an atheist. He met Gond and had a conversation like he was a regular person. They made a deal that he would promote membership to Gond's "Country Club" and in return Gond would grant him the abilities of a priest. He considers other priests as suckers because they actually believe that gods exist, and he gets priestly powers but doesn't even have to worship anybody. (Gond has chosen not to enlighten him regarding his mistaken point of view, because he does good work.)
I do not play DnD (yet), but i created a setting and a character of initially evil fallen goddess that lost most of her powers almost 10000 years ago, and lived among mortals for that time. Gradually, she changed her alignment from evil to good-leaning neutral, and then got her "divine" powers back. But she stopped to consider herself and her kind to be gods even after her repeated ascension. "Being the most powerful being in the multiverse does not actually make you a god." - her words. So yeah, i have a god that became atheist.
A god realizing they have limits doesn't make them an atheist.
DMs Guild definitely got their money's worth with this sponsorship. These videos are just getting better and better.
So, in addition to the Godly Grimiore, there are Piety rules available on the DMs Guild for almost every game setting. I run Eberron, which have incredibly impersonal gods. But someone published Piety rules even for them on DMs Guild, which I am grateful for. Definitely check them out if you are looking to make player interactions with gods more meaningful.
I will be following the link to pick up the Godly Grimiore myself, to add to my collection ... if only to have a handy player smiting tool in my pocket.
One good thing I suggest for DnD settings and such is the idea that the “cultural default” when it comes to religion is pantheism - where a person worships whatever deity is relevant to the situation at the time. So, broadly, they worship all of the gods rather than just one or two. I believe this was a bit like how real-life pantheism worked - like in Ancient Greece - but don’t quote me on that.
Also I do like that you just reinvented the ancient Chinese concept of the Celestial Bureaucracy with that “office workers” comparison. :P
I included guest appearances by several Good-aligned deities in a 3.5 campaign I ran once. My players were actively fighting against several Evil entities, including a couple of gods. As a reward for their devotion and valor, the Good gods visited the tavern that the PC's owned. They were in disguise at first, all showed up one at a time and brought random things to what eventually grew into a giant party (Kord brought a keg that never ran out of ale, Yondalla brought a basket that always had whatever kind of fruit you wanted in it, Heironeous brought plates and silverware because he figured everyone else would forget, etc). The players eventually figured out who their visitors were and at the end of the party the gods gave each of them special artifacts that were tailored to the PC's abilities and play styles. It was a heavy roleplaying session and one of the most memorable of that campaign.
One of my dms let a player fight his own god. (His God was a war god. He wanted to see how strong he was/it was "training". It was cool because they fought the god again at level 20.)
Also, one of my favorite character choices is to treat all the gods with a healthy respect. like visiting a temple of the ocean if we're traveling on the sea, praying to a god of xyz location or kind based on where we are ....ext, (basically acting like they all deserve your respect because you fear their anger. )
Yes! I love pantheons that include a group of "gods that we must appease" deities that nobody in that culture worships but still everyone makes offerings to.
Our DnD party actually has beef with Talos. My character especially is a bard that tends to write disstracks dedicated to his ennemies. He improvised one while casting vicious mockery over and over at lightning speed in a rp moment, making sure Talos' avatar was dead DEAD.
The performance check was so good Talos heard it lol.
Ever since then, when we encounter Talos devotees, we know we're gonna get disadvantage or worsened effects because Talos hates my bard's guts and our team.
So we doubled down and keep trying to defeat his followers with lightning or thunder damage only. Good times lol. (I almost got struck to death by lightning too hahaha)
I love incorporating the gods into most of my characters! Once I had this Warforged Barbarian who had a tiny treeshrew as animal companion. But the twist was that the treeshrew was actually the Feywild god Oberon who lost his powers and was reduced to a tiny rodent. And he used the last of his powers to awaken my Warforged character in order to protect him while he was in his vulnerable state. Because of that set up, my party would have random acts of divide power help us on our adventure but we had no idea where or who it was coming from 😆
I run a high fantasy campaign with my friends who are all theatre kids and nerds, naturally things get pretty silly on the occasion, and since they live for the chaos, I, as the DM, will be there to provide it. That being said I allowed one of my players to use her violin (that talks to her and has a soul attached to it, it’s a whole thing) to try to contact the god of time so the party could get a little help on a side quest. I allowed her to roll on a d100. 1 or 2 and she got it. She rolled a 2 and I had to face the consequences of my actions. It’s still talked about in the group and ever so often she makes an offering or prays to the him, despite not being religious before that point! It’s delightful
0:04 literally last session. I *love* the religious lore of the Realms; I can't remember the last time I played a character who didn't have a patron deity.
I've always... really disliked it. That might just be because of that damn wall, though.
I mean, by the end of one of the campaigns I played in recently, we went all in by the end of focusing on our Wizard becoming a goddess and taking over the job of the god we were fighting as the BBEG. We were not only successful in helping her ascend, but we all survived and went on to live long happy lives afterwards.
Something else interesting is my Paladin, Alistair. He comes from a world where various classical pantheons exist (e.g. Norse pantheon is what he grew up with, even pre-Paladin Alistair), sure, but in terms of the campaign he's suddenly been shunted from his world of the familiar to a world where his gods can't/won't/don't answer him, while intending to go on a journey to find out what it means to be a Paladin (since in my version of the setting where he's from, he's the first one of his kind and thusly doesn't know what he's doing) and he's been constantly wondering and fearing, "Why was I sent here? Who am I?" and even still, Paladins in the setting he's from don't need to follow a deity at all.
Great video, as always!
Especially enjoyed the hilarious "Viewer" puns 😂
if dms are looking for ideas on how the gods might "assist" their players, i would suggest looking at different world mythologies! there are tons of fun concept in there. i am reading the odyssey at the moment and the gods have their finger on the scale *constantly* (not always in very hands-on ways though), all of which could easily be translated into dnd. athena appears to odysseus' son to guide him and gives him a godly makeover? advantage on the next performance or persuasion check (or maybe an npc shows up who gives *very* good advice before turning into a bird and flying off). zeus sends two eagles to deliver a bad omen to the suitors of penelope? have creatures sacred to a deity show up to demonstrate where divine favour lies. the gods cast a favourable wind to speed odysseus on his journey (rare)? maybe the party gets to their next destination faster than usual, or without encountering danger. and thats just one greek epic! there are so many myths the designers of dnd already draw from for the gods, id suggest to go back to the source to see what else you can find.
Best thumbnail ever
Nice cutie goddess to worship.
I can use gods to be disguised and living together in a town. The heads of the different pantheons are the ruling council. This allows interaction with higher ups. That can be revealed eventually when the characters are higher level. This allows the gods to send out the adventures to different game settings. And connects those that normally wouldn't. More variety. You can drop in some gods into any setting this way too by adding them to the game. Even if just to help guide them.
Running a God of War and Percy Jackson inspired campaign so perfect timing on this one Ginny! It being God of War inspired though, my players are gonna, eventually, be fighting a few actual gods. Excited for that
My first campaign involved so many of us praying and finding help from gods that our current campaign is in the part of the world that has literally walled itself off from connection to the outer planes haha. The GM had it set with rolling a d100 on good religion checks that 99 or 100 gets you a spiritual meeting with the god or divine being related, and out of the about 15 times we wanted to do that roll to be in presence, 10 of them got that 99 or 100, it was insane.
(and character note, one was a monk with 2 levels of cleric, and our wizard was a "school of erathis", flavoring to some holy connection. But otherwise, just fully utilizing connection to higher powers wanting to help fight evil, which made for some awesome moments when they were willing or able to give direct guidance or help. and especially helpful as a tool for the gm to give some little character pushes in different directions.)
As someone who loved playing the Paladin class; I'd LOVE to play a campaign where I'd get to save a Warlock in the party from a douchy patron. Bonus points if the DM allows us to strike down a fiend lord at the end of the campaign, and I'd darned well start bringing extra snacks if they'd allow me and the gang to take down a cult dedicated to said patron in the process. I mean, nobody said that a good-aligned god was supposed to die... 🤣
Loved this video! My current DND character's whole thing is desperately wanting to kill a God or two, including her warlock patron who tricked her into a warlock pact (multiclassing into it). It's created an incredibly fun dynamic bc she both kind of needs this God bc they've given her some convenient information but hates what she's getting out of it (having to rely on a divine being).
7:45 😂 I love the work department analogy,but why are they meeting up at lunch to make out? 😂 That took me by surprise while I was taking a drink and made me almost snort my soda.
Because they are both Life deities… of course they would be getting it on.
My first ever character was a rogue who prayed to Tymora and made offerings. he had OCd and many manerisms as well like drawing a crircle with the lockpìcks around the lock before trying to pick it and more. I love those little details everything adds
I jive with the aspect idea. I’m slowly accumulating plans, storybeats, and maps for my Theros campaign so this is a welcome addition to my information. And I’ve already taken inspiration from Rick Riordan’s PJO series for ideas on how to give godly guidance and assistance.
I’ve even been theorizing gods and entities I want to run in a more standard fantasy game based off the gods of 40k.
I played in a campaign where a war was brewing between the gods and the dragons. We were tasked with travelling to various planes to recruit gods to the side of the dragons. Once the war broke out, we never fought gods directly, but we did get to do things that influenced the outcomes of various battles. For a while, we did rolls at the end of sessions to determine if there were any casualties on either side, with the dm being very transparent about how our actions influenced dcs. It was a fantastic campaign with a perfect balance of preserving the gods and dragons as incredibly powerful beings, and keeping us players feeling successful and heroic as we played our role adjacent to the conflict.
Love it!! I think this applies well to homebrew worlds as well, and is nicely articulated. Definitely something ill need to think about moving forward!
Love the Cubicle aspect of the pantheon. Not only does this give Clerics something to do as their mouthpieces, but have have the other classes act like agents for their chosen diety in the Divine War for Department Funding!
Aspect of Ginny sharing her divine wisdom 😄
One of the many reasons I enjoy Dragonlance as a setting. This attitude is flipped entirely on its head, especially when cleric characters are more likely seen as witches than holy people.
Ginny’s latest hair color is awesome. Loving the faintly metallic green.
I'm part of a Pathfinder 1E campaign group. The world we're in is overseen by the deities of Greyhawk. My character is a Half-Orc Swashbuckler who was raised in a small town with a lot of Halflings. His main deity is Charmalaine, a Halfling Hero-Goddess of Keen Senses and Narrow Escapes. I recently watched a video where in a world where multiple deities are confirmed to exist, a character would acknowledge the power of other deities aside from the one they primarily worship. He has invoked Pelor before, as we have a War Priest devoted to Pelor in our group. Just this past week, we were fighting a Rug of Smothering. When our Psychic-Rogue got wrapped up in it, my Swashbuckler entered the room and shouted, "What by Sheela Peryroyl's Daisies is going on in here?" Sheela Peryrol being a Halfling Goddess of nature, song, dance, agriculture, and romantic love. Her holy symbol is a daisy, and in her lore it's common for Halflings to say "Begging Your Pardon, Sheela" if ever they were to step on one of her plants. All in all, I've taken the idea of characters in a campaign being polytheist and/or acknowledging the power of multiple Gods to some degree to heart.
I swear to the gods, Ginny is the only youtuber I can think of which sponsor ads I ENJOY. 💚
Also "I'd rather drink Mistra's glowing piss." is hilarious! 🤣
My non cleric\Paladin characters worship gods all the time! I am actually playing a bard as a priestess of Elistraee in my current campaign thing!
I love using gods in campaigns, my first ever campaign I finished running start to finish was a story about a banished god of war slowly claiming fragmented remains of divine power from godly artefacts left behind when the pantheon left the world after a divine war between them. The party started out looking for these artefacts when the warlocks patron brought up the legend of one, then rapidly fell into a battle between the vessel of this banished god who was after these artefacts and the party just happened to locate one first. My current campaign has a single god-like figure ruling each plane (planet in this universe), but there are also powerful immortal beings on the parties home plane, and a being known by the extra planar rulers as Lady Death who takes every soul to the afterlife. But the parties homelands have their on gods, that seem to grant magical cleric power to followings (none are a cleric so that aspect hasn’t been delved into much). I basically started with idea of “what is a God, but a being you do not know with power you cannot obtain.” And the more they know about these beings, the less godlike they seem. And my next campaign while I don’t want to spoil it for my players who might somehow see this, is going to be dealing with end of the world religious myths like judgment day or ragnarok just with in world religions. The only thing they really know if the campaign discord is called End Times. Having higher powers directly encounter the players always leads to amazing dynamics in my experience as a DM.
This video had me googling Survivor to see if it even still existed and also finding out that the joke wasn't even exaggerated.
One of actual play games (oxventure in case you are wondering) the warlock is of the great old one and the DM offen has Cthulhu (mostly in the form of a single tentacle) show up to give a plot hook or help with a problem
The best part of any classic RPG (especially JRPGs) is going from god-fearing to the gods fearing you. Sometimes you just gotta let your players headbutt a supreme being in the nose, man!
I have to get this in, it’s my only chance. You have to be my favorite DND content creator of all time. I love incorporating certain elements of villains or characters you’ve made, because you make them so well. Not to mention that you might be one of my favorite music artists ever. I love every video and you’ve helped me as both a DM and a player, regardless of the fact that I haven’t played DND in a while, and I haven’t even run a game yet. You deserve so much more credit and I envy everyone you’ve been in a game with.
3:33 Don't threaten Gale with a good time....
if being at sea is an important part of the adventure then having rolls for weather would make it a bit different than being on land, and if the god of the sea feels slighted they can give a malice to this roll. cursing the god might make it so that you end up more likely to have to furl the sails and batten the hatches while getting tossed about in the hull of the ship instead of having a bunch of sea people attack the ship.
Ooh very interesting video! Thank you for sharing! As always, your sponsor sections are just so creative and awesome. And relevant! Thanks for great advice and recommendations😁
Had a ranger that worshipped the same god our party cleric followed. He would often join the cleric in morning prayers, much to the annoyance of the rogue that wanted to sleep in. Didn't help that unlike the rogue both my ranger and the cleric were elves and didn't need as much rest time.
Also played a chaotic neutral drow fighter mage (2nd ed) that pointedly did not follow any religions, for somewhat obvious reasons. Though she did have some asperations to becoming immortal so she wouldn't have turned godhood for herself down if offered.
I really enjoyed this one! I love adding epic flair to my games!
Hey Ginny!
I just wanted to say thank you!
I started playing D&D in the late 80's and continued through the 90's, with a lot of homebrew sprinkled in. And then....decades of nothing.
You're grasp, enthusiasm, and take on D&D has rekindled this "old timer's" spirit (btw, I don't really feel like an old timer - and I promise you, in 30 years, you won't either :) ).
While my last real adventuring took place in ed 3.5 (although, I did do a short stint in 5e about a year ago). That being said, while I don't consider myself up-to-date, and am certainly not involved in a weekly or even monthly group, I have to say, you're insight has been very helpful in getting up to speed and excited with today's D&D. In short, you have reminded me why I loved this game...even though I'm sure I'll rot in Hell because of it ;) LOL!!
Keep doing what you do, and keep doing what you love. You're good at it.
Pax!
Fight the Gods!
DO IT, you cowards!! 😤
Please don't. The 21st Century is challenging enough thanks.
@@karmadyllicHey, if they exist, they've got some things to answer for 😒😔
In the current game I'm running, the party has a Necropolitan Artificer who has said a prayer/thanks to Enki. It was a GREAT moment of character building for him, as at the start of the campaign he held no stock in any deity.
I would love to go into more details about the endgame for my campaign, but I know several of my players watch this channel and I don't want them to get spoiled.
There are some really interesting gods in the Forgotten Realms. My personal favorites are Selune, because she represents femininity and constant change, Beshaba, because the concept of choosing to devote yourself specifically to bad luck is incredibly interesting to me, and Ilmater, because it seems benevolent and positive to try and shield others from suffering, but Ilmater is actually about taking all suffering into yourself rather than eliminating the sources of suffering, which is more complex and kind of self-destructive in a way.
Yeah we previously had a healer who'd "lay on hands" and took on the wounds herself... It's not that weird in D&D land. Makes perfect sense for that class to worship Ilmater.
@@HannahRainbow88that's a cool idea, I might give that ability to my paladin of Ilmater I have in the game I'm running right now
Oh no, Ginny's viewership numbers and the boundless energy of her positive attitude have combined to summon a Primal of the TH-cam Views!
The comment you're looking for is most certainly in these comments...
I'm looking
The advice on aspects is a great idea. That can be scaled by level, one could make a quest about increasing the aspect's power by fulfilling certain tasks when they are allies, and when they are enemies, there can be this "You're Fighting a Shadow" framework to keep the greatness of the god in tact but still make the fight winnable.
Currently I'm making a campaign about preventing a holy war from breaking out so this is perfect timing :)
One of the deities I'm making is going to secretly take the form of a black cat that will act as the party's guide. The cat can die but respawn in a very "Oh my god, they killed Kenny! _(You bastards!)"_ way. Hopefully the party will be unaware of the cat's identity for the bulk of the adventure, and come to find they have better luck when they treat the cat nicely and worse if they don't.
What kind of blackguard would treat a cat badly? For me that would definitely be "You kicked the cat. Bastet curses your foot to powder into catnip. Saving throw - 20 only".
Before I watch this, I just wanna say I love the title and idea bc that's what all my campaign ideas lead too, fighting either godlike or actual gods. my favorite antagonist is a dead goddess of life that's half alive being fueled only by her rage due to being imprisoned and treated as nothing but a tool and power source, constantly being experimented on and having control taken away from her till she dies, which causes a cataclysm and then comes back to pull strings behind whats left of the monarchy so she can lure them into allowing herself into their kingdom with whats left of her old might to crush them in a blind fury, and to take advantage of them the way they did with her.
Is her holy text indecipherable, aka the Algorhythm?
It is held by secretive paladins in the Halls of The Googleplex 😂😂
XD
I love incorporating gods into my roleplay! Even, if not especially, for chars that are more casual about their gods of choice. Just line 'em up with whatever hobbies or interest your char has! Its great to sprinkle in at least reference to them in your speech, or add minor roleplay to giving thanks to that gods existence. It def helps lessen the number of "jesus christ" responses lmao, and just adds a bit of extra texture to a char and make 'em feel more unique.
Maybe your gruff fighter makes an offering when passing the poetry gods temple revealing a soft side and appreciation for the arts, maybe your charlatan feels uncomfortable entering the temple of a god of truth fearing someone there could see through them, there's all sorts of little touches you can add to a char when just considering how they might feel about this or that god and who worships them.
As always, the ad is a bonus for the video. Never skip your ads. The costum was specially impressive for this one. It's always grest, today's was just specially great.
Ginny Di smuggling them watermelons and I ain’t complaining
She is such a great person and has such good content that it isn't necessary though.
My fav video by far
I went in to this fingers crossed that the Garages *Fight Gods* would somehow play over the outro, despite knowing how unlikely that was. It's ok, I forgive you.
Anyway, although I am myself an atheist, I love playing characters with relationships to the divine and/or the culture of worship- partly because I *also* have an... interesting relationship with authority and structure. And it is always weird to me that, in a world where the gods *routinely intervene and are known by the public to exist* there isn't way more casual worship just built into everyday life. These are some solid tips that are easy to forget. Thanks!
One of my favorite gaming stories is the time we reconsecrated the altar in Castle Ravenloft's desecrated chapel and it *blocked Strahd from coming in after us* which was extremely dope.
Good lord she knew exactly what she was doing here.
I've been trying to involve some shady gods and god-adjacent beings in a campaign I'm running; I had the players fight a god at the end of the intro arc to the campaign, revealing that the items they'd been collecting up to that point were for that very purpose, weakening it enough for their benefactor (the mysterious Voice in the Dark) to finish it off and absorb its power.
I like the idea of having players involved in some grander conflict that feels beyond them early on, to emphasise how strong they themselves will become over the course of the campaign.
We all see it. We're all thinking it. But we have to pretend like we don't.
I once played a Battle Master Fighter leaning into the "tank" archetype (heavy armor, crowd controls...). He would makes offerings for Helm when passing by an altar.
Got to say hypnizing thumbnail has great effect on me
My favorite interaction with gods in ttrpg comes from PF2E. There's an optional rule for DM called "Divine Intercession" and it's basically "Here how gods typically interact with mortals when said mortals satify or displease the gods" and it's in the form of minor, moderate and major boons and curses. One of the minor PF2e gods is Achaekek, and their thing is to punish those who seek divinity, break their oath or rebel against the powers in place, and they are represented in the shape of a giant red mantis. I think it's best I show you want Achaekek sees as anathema : "kill a rightful ruler, become fixated on petty matters such as others’ gender or ancestry, abandon an assassination contract you agreed to pursue"
The minor curse is simply that insect hates you now. You'll receive bites, stings and the whole deal everywhere you go, especially from red mantis.
The moderate curse is already a bit more fun rp wise, as Achaekek themselves send your GPS coordonates and IP adress to one of their follower (which are sort of cultist assassin, think of the dark brotherhood)
And then the major curse. Achaekek opens a portal, kills you no save allowed, rip your soul appart so that you can't be resurrected and then leaves. Simple, efficient, I love my big red mantis god.
It feels random, but Ive watched you since picking up being a DM, roughly, and the cute upbringing music always seems to bring Joy. Ofc you have always helped the imposter syndrome and the harsh critic i am to myself.
You are an Icon for D&D 5e Imho, always the first 'guide' i reccomend on new starter DMs or just players who are into this hobby as much as us ^-^
The Viewer costume ... outstanding work! The three eyes are perfect.
My barbarian was a recent convert to Hoar due to his family being killed (don't worry, they've since been resurrected). I played with it somewhat loosely and our cleric had somewhat frequent interactions with their goddess, so we talked about it in character. One thing led to another and they were helping my character learn how to pray to a god. My DM gave me advantage on a religion check and I rolled two nat 20s. Since then, Hoar has been more active in our campaign and given us boons and direction. It's been pretty cool to see that RP turn into something in the actual gameplay mechanics.
0:01 Last session, actually.
0:05 Same. He's a Sorcerer that happens to worship Melora.
6:25 And many casters can cast Sending to their god.
Thanks. I think I know what I will do.
our dm does some great god-play. we've had multiple characters with divine arcs over our campaigns, which frequently tied into the overall story and the groups relation with our "main" god. this often lead to epic scenes and great powers for us to use (though sometimes at a price). you mentioned the gods being very alive in the in-universe culture and, before we started our first campaign, he told us: "everyone believes in the gods, atheists end up in the wall of the faithless", so the importance of the gods was immediately established.
Honestly, if there's any reason to pick a fight with the gods, it's that wall. Good gods shouldn't need the threat of such a fate to convince people to praise them.
Honestly that dadjoke in the ad segment just made me laugh so hard. Made my day was so not prepared for it 10/10. Not even botherd by the ad at this point gonna watch it all