Rethinking Monster Mythology
I remember when TSR's Monster Mythology for AD&D 2nd Edition came out. I was excited. I felt that the support for religion in AD&D was pretty bad. Sure, I could create my own deities, and I did, but I was reaching a point in my life where I'd rather run things than create things. At the time, I was working full time and going to school full time. It was a lot. So I was always happy for more material for my table that would let me just play rather than create. I bought it as soon as I could, got it home, and read it. I was so disappointed. It's not terrible. It is a solidy useful bit of lore. But to my eyes, it was just so damned by the numbers. Religion, if you've never noticed, is incredibly weird, and the TSR pantheons weren't. Gods in Pantheons belonged in neat little categories. They had a particular sphere of influence, and that was the sum total of their existence. This is eminently gameable of course. Gods belong to a pantheon, and they have part...