Baphomet, like Yeenoghu, is a tanar’ri power who has gained enough power to become a full-fledged deity, adopting minotaurs as his followers. As he believes he is the master of all beasts, he spends a great deal of time creating and modifying new monsters; similarly, many wizards with a desire to do the same are drawn to his service. Enjoy!
Undetailed Gods in Dungeon Magazine
April 6, 2013This is the grand list of all the gods I could find in Dungeon magazine (through issue #81, plus a couple other products) who are, essentially, undetailed. Gods of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, or the gods mentioned in Monster Mythology or Legends & Lore are not included. The first section lists the human gods, none of whom I plan to do write-ups for. The second category includes the non-human deities (as well as Abyssal lords and the like); many of these I am considering adding to my project. I may have missed some, to be honest; it was a lot easier reading every adventure when I was only getting one issue every two months!
Human Deities:
Major deities of the nation of Hurva, I13 Adventure Pack 1 (“To Kill a Kraken”)
Estereal (LN god of law, ceremony, truth)
Azkal (LN(E) god of war, fire, soldiers)
Jvelto (CN god of water, ocean, and sailing)
Wajen (N(G) goddess of fertility, druidism)
Torodin (N god of shadow, vision, dreams, theft)
Dungeon #62, “The Rat Trap”
Imbar the Watcher (god of Law and Justice)
Canetar (divine master of swords
Corenicor (patron of the arts and sciences)
Erathmor (the earth god)
Dungeon #72 “No Stone Unturned”
Telluri (LN god of trade, wealth, and fair dealing)
Onadar (Lord of the Dead, LE?)
Payanel (god of suffering and perseverence; mongrelman alias: K’ssan)
Aiburn Darkspawn (LE; I13 Adventure Pack 1, “The House of Long Knives”)
Neheod (dual-aspected god of all things, “A Paladin in Hell”)
Andromidus (Lesser Titan of Inspired Vision, Dungeon #2, “The Titan’s Dream”)
Taranis Firebrand (CN god of storms, Dungeon #2, “Caermor”)
Flora (nature/druidic goddess, Dungeon #5, “Lady of the Lake”)
Dreyneld (CE(?) god of foul deeds and disease, Dungeon #5, “THe Eyes of Evil”)
Siinkinara (CE goddess of bloodlust, marauding beasts, mayhem, Dungeon #8, “In Defense of the Law”)
Yen-Wang-Yeh (OA god of death, Dungeon #17, “The Waiting Room of Yen-Wang-Yeh”)
Bosatsu Jizo (LG OA god of children and education, Dungeon #18, “Crocodile Tears”)
Kazhak (very similar to Tezcatlipoca, possibly an alias, Dungeon #22, “The Leopard Men”)
Lady of the Woods (FR forest demigoddess, Dungeon #28, “Visitors from Above”)
Red Fox (CG GH/Rover god based on Coyote, Dungeon #32, “Ghost Dance”)
Yutow the Peacebringer (Ravenloft god, Dungeon #50, “Felkovic’s Cat”)
Turtur (old/forgotten human god with monastic order, Dungeon #50, “Back to the Beach”)
Charisis (goddess of healing and light, Dungeon #56, “Janx’s Jinx”)
The Warlord (African/Jungle Tribe deity, Dungeon #56, “The Land of Men with Tails”; adventure also mentions now-forgotten ape-like god)
Maalpherus (God of Disease, Dungeon #57, “To Cure a Kingdom”)
Oshalla (goddess of Magic, Dungeon #66, “Orange and Black”)
Doblos (sea god, Dungeon #70, “Maze of the Morkoth”)
Unnamed Volcano God (Dungeon #70, “Maze of the Morkoth”)
Splin’Deratha (dark forest god, Dungeon #79, “Bad Seeds”)
Aris and Selene (mother earth goddess/planet-as-a-goddess and her evil daughter-moon goddess, Dungeon #80, “The Scar”)
Ashtar (god of healing, Dungeon #81, “Ashtar’s Temple”)
Non-Human Deities:
Psionic “Mystic” (unknown ancient race) Pantheon, Dungeon #31, “Beyond the Glittering Veil”:
Rujsha (goddess of justice)
Gorn (LG god of knowledge)
Mintar (god of honor)
Cador (Evil (CE?) dwarven god of revenge, Dungeon #2, “Caermor”)
Shami-Amourae (CE demigoddess/Abyssal lady of debased eros, Dungeon #5, “Stolen Power”)
Ilsidahur (Abyssal lord/prince, Dungeon #10, “The Shrine of Ilsidahur”)
Anthraxus (Yugoloth/daemon lord of disease, Dungeon #11, “The Dark Conventicle”; included because this is the only discussion of his cult I know of)
Vilya (cloud giant god, Dungeon #16, “Palace in the Sky”; possibly alias of Memnor to keep up appearance as wise advisor)
Unguliustuk (evil earth archomental, Dungeon #28, “Sleepless”)
Siragle (Abyssal Lord of the 493rd layer, Dungeon #28, “Sleepless”)
Sheth (CE lesser power, Dungeon #28, “Sleepless”; possibly gnoll or human deity)
Sch’theraqpasst (yuan-ti god, Dungeon #37, “Serpents of the Sands”; possibly alias of Merrshaulk)
Refnara (gnoll goddess of fear, Dungeon #48, “To Bite the Moon”)
Great Crab and Mother Ocean (Crabman deities/concepts, Dungeon #50, “Back to the Beach”)
Great Tree Frog (grippli deity, Dungeon #78, “Trial of the Frog”)
Dinosaurs!
February 12, 2013I’m taking a short break from gods to focus on something else for a bit: Dinosaurs! I’m working to revise the AD&D statistics for dinosaurs with modern facts and theories, as well as adding and interesting species. Stay tuned!
D&D Classics
February 1, 2013I’m sure all of you are by now aware of the new offering of PDFs of prior editions of Dungeons & Dragons over at dndclassics.com. However, I’m not sure how many of you had an opportunity to take advantage of WotC’s last offering that ended around 2007. Personally, while I was generally disappointed by the scan quality of those older releases, they were priced properly at $5 each. This new offering doubles the price of most AD&D and OD&D releases at $10 (baring those that were cheaper when released, which is mostly adventures and of lesser interest to me); even if the scans are perfect and incredibly high resolution, they’re not worth that, when hard copies of many of the books are often only slightly more than that. I’m not even willing to purchase one to compare quality; I would have if they were $5, and I would be willing to replace a number of the PDFs I do have if the quality was significantly improved. Finally, two stores offered the PDFs during the last offering: Paizo and Drive-Thru RPG (called RPGNow back then, I believe). This time, the PDFs are only offered through dndclassics.com, which is run by Drive-Thru RPG. I have heard repeatedly that if someone bought a PDF years ago that is amongst the current offering, they can download the new version for free. So on top of gouging for PDFs now, they are also screwing over a significant number of people who just happened to buy from the other store. There is very little that I can imagine to prevent a credit being given to people who bought from Paizo, as Paizo almost certainly had to make sales information available to WotC, which I would think would include the ability to verify order numbers and the like. If they did not, then they could easily have been able to lie to WotC over how many PDFs were sold, thus pocketing all the profits on the sales. Therefore, WotC should have access to what was ordered before, or have a way to verify what was ordered before, and issue credits. Not doing this means that either WotC doesn’t care about their customer base (a definite possibility) or Paizo is refusing to assist with the information to spite D&D, which is to a degree against their own interests, considering how many people might want to convert old D&D adventures and settings to Pathfinder for their own use.
Overall, I’m incredibly disappointed and not a little bit angry over how this has gone.
The Ferrous Dragons
January 31, 2013In issue #170 of Dragon magazine, a new subgroup of dragons was presented, the ferrous dragons. Unlike the metallic, chromatic, or gem dragons, they did not share an alignment axis. To be honest, there’s always been something I felt was lacking about them; they aren’t unified enough, and the name is rather a misnomer, as ferrous should apply only to iron and iron alloy metals. The dragons presented were the Chromium (Chrome) Dragon, the Cobalt Dragon, the Iron Dragon, the Nickel Dragon, and the Tungsten Dragon. Knowledge of most of these metals is fairly recent and can’t easily be accessed or identified without fairly modern scientific methods; of course, wizardry could easily identify different metals and could be used to replace modern smelting and chemical processes. It also seems like being metals should put them squarely in the Metallic Dragon category, or at least being *almost* Metallic (as Steel, Mercury, and Electrum Dragons are). All that said, I decided to use them as test candidates for creating my own versions of the Monstrous Compendium sheets. These sheets are formatted for double-sided printing with a gutter to allow for binding or placing in a three ring binder, although I haven’t really checked to see if there was enough space for any of that.
Nomog-Geaya the General
December 25, 2012The last member of the goblin pantheon is the patron of the hobgoblins, Nomog-Geaya. A merciless combatant and commander, he is the perfect epitome of the ideal hobgoblin warrior. His priests are brutal and belligerent fighters, leading forces into battle at any opportunity. They are so well known for their rigid discipline that Nomog-Geaya has been known to punish those who show excessive emotion, even if it is from such spells as Tasha’s Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter. Enjoy!
Yet More Gods
December 23, 2012It’s funny how I keep stumbling across deities to add to my project. Just recently, I discovered a single line in Dungeon #2 (in Nigel Findley’s adventure Caermor) referring to an evil dwarven god of revenge (even to undeath) called Cador, so into my project he goes! Also, Dungeon #5 has an adventure surrounding followers of the ascended tanar’ri Shami-Amourae, the goddess of debased eros and so-called Queen of Succubi. Seems fitting considering the other demon princes in the project already.
I seem to have this incessant need to find MOAR GODS to add to the project. I’ve already added Grond Peaksmasher, a giantish demigod of firbolgs from the Moonshaes in the Forgotten Realms, Refnara the gnollish god of fear from Dungeon #48, Krocaa, an aarakocra god from one issue of Dragon (can’t recall which offhand), and of course the large expansion of draconic and centaur gods. Now I’m also considering a number of others. Anguileusis, the Anguillian god from Sea Devils Monstrous Arcana book, is one I’ll probably take on, even though I do not particularly like the god or the monsters who worship him; however, they are canonically in FR’s underdark. Then you’ve got the deities worshipped by grippli and grung; adding them could form the basis of a remnant amphibian/batrachian pantheon along with Ramenos. Of course, I’d have to come up with names for them, histories, relationships, etc. Then there is the deity worshipped by the squirrel-like kercpa, which is another god I’d need to name, and even Orcus himself. My fear with that last one is treading on toes or canon, since he has long been one of the popular great evils (and is mentioned in many products) in D&D history. There are a few others I’m considering, such as the Wise Queen of the K’r’r’r, an arachnid race from Spelljammer, the thri-kreen Mantis God of the Eternal Lotus, and the Vedic god of Rakshasas, Ravanna. Some pantheons have been mentioned but undetailed, which I am considering working on as well, such as the Neogi pantheon, the Dracon pantheon, and the Grommam pantheon. One problem with the latter two pantheons is that we know they exist, but that’s it; no individual gods are specified. Finally, there are a small number of 3rd edition gods I might add to the project, such as the drow god Keptolo and some of the new Elven gods from Races of the Wild; I’ve pretty much ruled out the gnomish gods, the halfling gods, and most of the dwarvish gods for various reasons such as unnecessary similarity to existing gods and unimaginative and/or apocryphal nature.
I’m interested in what others think of these gods, and if there’s been any other work done to expand some of these deities (the few I’ve searched for don’t seem to have had much published).
Meriadar the Patient One
December 10, 2012Like Stalker, Meriadar is an outlier amongst the goblinoid deities. However, unlike that spiteful power, Meriadar has a race to call his own: the oft-enslaved mongrelmen. Through patience, tolerance, and understanding, he hopes to bring all the goblinoid races out from the shadow of evil. Enjoy!
Gaknulak the Trapmaker
November 25, 2012Gaknulak is one of the few goblinkin deities with a primarily constructive aspect, being the kobold god of invention, traps, and protective construction. He is reluctantly subservient to Kurtulmak, and is frequently dragged into Steelscales’ ill-fated plots against the Gnomish gods. Enjoy!
Stalker, the Hateful Shadow
November 10, 2012Stalker is not fully a part of any goblinoid pantheon, but is propitiated in many local pantheons as a god of death, particularly amongst the bugbears. It seeks nothing but death and revenge, hunting after all the goblinoid races and anything else that lives in the dark places. Its rare followers operate in secret, plotting revenge and murder upon their personal enemies. Enjoy!