Making Sense of the Forgotten Realms Cosmology

I’m starting to really involve religion and cosmology in my game, the Sellswords of Luskan.  A goodly part of that is because religion is an integral part of the Forgotten Realms (FR)—indeed, it’s impossible to tell a story with High-Renaissance thematic elements and a strong Divine power source without involving the gods and their various belief systems—and then, too, the things I want to do in the Paragon and Epic tiers of my game require a certain setting of the stage now.  If you guys are looking for novels to read to get an idea of what I have in mind and how this might unfold, I humbly suggest Paul S. Kemp’s various Ereviss Cale books.  Sellswords takes place geographically in decided R.A. Salvatore territory, but the plotlines and story elements owe more to Kemp’s work than to Salvatore’s.  As you read, just keep in mind that I change my plans for the game all the time according to the choices my players make and the various storytelling whims that catch my fancy.

With that said, if you’ve been following the game, then it probably seems like all of the gods are staring straight at the Party all the time right now.  That is not the case.  It would be a lot more accurate to say that some important divine agents on Toril have noticed you.  Not necessarily Chosen or Exarchs, but senior priests and important lay-people with significant divine powers—essentially Paragon Tier NPCs with substantial divine resources.  They are using those resources for information and occasionally for direct action. 

With that in mind, I have to occasionally remind myself that not everyone is an FR-junkie like I am, which means that you may not all be making the pantheon-based linkages which in my mind are fairly obvious.  So with that in mind, the following is a brief primer on the pieces of the various FR pantheons that the Sellswords have come into contact with.  The majority of this information comes out of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Chapter 5.  The rest is either from Kemp’s novels or homebrewed to support my game’s storyline.

There are 18 Greater Gods, each of whom controls a dominion in the Astral Sea.  Each dominion is essentially its own separate pantheon—a self-contained belief system that suffices for all aspects of a complete theological system.  In mythology, greater gods are the equivalent of Zeus, Hera, Jupiter, Odin, Isis, the Earth Mother, Shaitan, etc. 

Under the greater gods, there are Gods.  These “lesser” gods represent some aspect of their ruler’s pantheon.  For example, Loviatar, the goddess of pain, is the consort of Bane, the greater god of conquest and tyranny.  In classic mythology, these guys would be Apollo, Athena, Thor, Venus, Mercury, etc.

Under the gods, there are Exarchs.  These are the immortal champions of the gods, aka demi-gods.  When you take the Demi-God Epic Destiny, you are staking your claim to this level of divinity.  For example, although Maglubiyet was once a full god, since his conquest by Bane, he’s been demoted to Exarch status within the Black Lord’s overall dominion of Banehold.  Maglubiyet still functions as the “god” of goblins, but in reality he isn’t a full god anymore.  In mythology, exarchs are guys like Hercules, Perseus, Cerebus, etc.

Under the exarchs, you have the various denizens of the divine realms and the Astral Sea.  These include angels and arch-angels as well as gythyanki, gythzerai, marut, quom, bladelings, ravastaa, and others.  Mithral dragons are also native to the Astral Sea.  All of these guys either live in one of the divine realms or in some other unaligned but essentially divine place like Hevestar.  Some, like Mithral dragons, are powerful enough to carve out a piece of divine space for their own personal use.  Others have to go along to get along, living in the same kind of feudal arrangements in the Astral realms that are common on the Prime Material Plane.  There are divine kings, and there are divine serfs.

The Chosen of the gods are on the same level of divinity as the Exarchs, but Chosen are mortals whose primary home is in the Mortal World.  A Chosen is literally “the chosen mortal champion” of a specific god or goddess, though most are powerful enough to be immortal in their own right.  This is different from an exarch in that exarchs live on the same plane with their master gods.  So, for example, Maglubiyet resides in Banehold with Bane while Fzoul Chembryl, Chosen of Bane and founder of the Zhentarim, resides in Darkhold—about 250 miles northeast of the terrestrial city of Athkatla.  But in game terms, both Maglubiyet and Fzoul Chembryl are 28^th Level Elite monsters.  They merely have different roles in the cosmology.

As an aside, Chosen is its own Epic Destiny, but I believe that it’s basically identical to the Demi-God Epic Destiny.  The main difference, then, would be the intent of the Player rather than the powers of the Character.

Final note on this topic: Greater gods are like kings.  They want what they want, and they usually get it.  However, as a mortal lord will sometimes rebel against his earthly king, so too might an exarch or lesser god rebel against the master of his dominion.  These beings do not share a mind or will.  They have their own agendas and independent willpower.  As with the Greek gods of ancient times, the FR gods plot and scheme and seduce mortals and all of that other good stuff that makes Greek mythology so interesting and intriguing.

So far, my Players have come into at least some level of contact with the following greater gods:

Ao: The hidden one.  He is thought to have created the universe.  Now he watches as the judge of the gods.  No one knows where he lives or what he does.

Bane, the Black Lord: Bane is the greater god of conquest and tyranny.  He rules Banehold.

 - Bane’s consort is Loviatar, the goddess of pain

 - Tiamat is the goddess of chromatic dragons and greed

 - Abbathor is an exarch of Tiamat

 - Hoar is the exarch of revenge

 - Hruggek is the exarch of ambush

 - Maglubiyet is the exarch of goblins

Corellon Larethian: Greater god of magic, elves, and eladrin.  He rules Arvandor.  His pantheon is called the Seldarine.

 - Angharradh is the goddess of wisdom

 - Garl Glittergold is the god of protection

 - There are several exarchs, but I’ll spare you those.

Cyric: Greater god of lies, murder, and strife.  He rules the Supreme Throne.

Gruumsh: Greater god of orcs and slaughter and arch-enemy of Correllon Larethian.  He rules Nishrek.

 - Luthic is the goddess of caves.

 - Bahgtru is the exarch of brute strength

 - Obould is the exarch of warriors

 - Shargaas is the exarch of night

 - Vaprak is the exarch of frenz.

Lloth: Greater goddess of the drow and chaos.  She is the mistress of the Demonweb Pits.  The most interesting thing about that is that it’s in the Abyss, not in the Astral Sea.  So to get there, you’d have to climb down through the Hells of the Elemental Chaos.

Moradin: Greater god of dwarves and ruler of Dwarfhome.

 - Berronar Truesilver is the god of family.

 - As with Corellon Larethian, there are a bunch of dwarven exarchs.

Oghma: Greater god of knowledge and ideas.  He rules the House of Knowledge.

 - Gond is the god of craftsmen

 - Milil is the exarch of song

Selune: Greater goddess of the Moon and ruler of the Gates of the Moon.  She’s the sister and arch-enemy of Shar.

 - Sune is the greater goddess of love.  She apparently lives with Selune, which is a little freaky.  As a note, like the ancient Roman worshippers of Venus, Sune’s priestesses are often holy prostitutes.

 - Tymora is the goddess of luck.

 - Lliira is the exarch of joy.

 - Sharess is the exarch of cats.  I’ve no idea why cats need their own exarch.

Shar: Greater goddess of night and shadows.  She created the now defunct Shadow Weave and still rules over the Shadow power source.  Her dominion is called the Towers of Night.

 - Sseth is the god of serpents and yuan-ti.

 - Talona is the goddess of disease and plague.

 - Zehir is the god of poison.

Silvannus: Greater god of nature and druids.  He rules the Deep Wilds.

 - Mielikki is the goddess of forests.  She apparently got promoted as part of the transition to 4e.

 - Umberlee is the goddess of the sea.

 - Malar is the exarch of beasts, especially lycanthropes.  He used to be a god, so this is a demotion.

 - Shiallia is the exarch of fertility.

Torm: Torm is the greater god of law, truth, loyalty, and steadfast devotion.  He is the patron of lawful good holy warriors the world over.  He rules Celestia.

 - Bahamut is the god of justice.

 - Illmater is the god of righteous suffering.

Finally, we’ve not done much with Tempus—and I don’t plan to—but I’ll mention him.  Tempus is the greater god of warriors.  I don’t personally care for him because he doesn’t seem to care if you win or lose, only that you fight well—an idiotic idea if I’ve ever heard one.  He rules Warrior’s Rest. 

One last note, on levels:

 - Angels and other Astral servants appear anywhere from the upper Heroic Tier to the lower Epic tier.  Most are in the mid- to upper-Paragon tier.

 - Arch-angels are created by applying a template out of the Monster Manual 2 to an Epic angel base monster.

 - Chosen and Exarchs are in the mid- to upper-Epic tier, usually around Levels 28 to 30.

 - Gods are usually in the low 30s.

 - Greater gods are in the mid-30s.  For example, the Scales of War listed Tiamat as a Level 35 Solo Brute.