Historical Retrospective | Deities and Demigods

d8s and demigods from TSR was released in 1980 the final core book of the ad and game it provided a resource for a variety of mythological pantheons so that players and dungeon Masters could integrate deities into their character backgrounds and campaigns and also as a major resource for cleric characters however the inclusion of some fantasy fiction the cthulu Mythos malonian Mythos and the newon Mythos had stirred a bit of controversy and propelled this supplement into a legendary status of its own this week I'll peel back the cover on this classic ad and book and attempt to dispel many of the rumors and find the truth of the matter as well as take a deep dive into this classic add and supplement coming right up on RPG retro [Music] reviews [Music] hello everyone I'm captain crous and I review old school modules and games and try to give them a fun and informative analysis this week I'm turning my way back machine to 1980 to discuss the release of the deities and demigod supplement from TSR considered by Gary gak to be the final core rule book in the ad and game this book added a major component to the rules and was meant to help dungeon Masters run these Divine beings and to classify their abilities written by TSR luminaries Jim Ward and Rob C the initial release covered 17 different mythological pantheons everything from the Greek Babylonian Egyptian and Celtic Mythos to works from fiction such as the aoran Heroes drawn from Sir Thomas mallerie's lamort deor in two HP lovecrafts cthulu Mythos there was also the Mel neonian Mythos from Michael moro's ELC series and the newon Mythos from Fitz liver's fa and the grey Mouser Stories the origin of the book stems back to the very beginning of the DND game with the original Dungeons and Dragons supplement Gods demigods and heroes the fourth and final supplement for the original D and D game which included Robert E Howard's hibor Miss which not only included stats for Howard's titular hero Conan the Barbarian but Conan's God crom and other gods of that Pantheon as well as a healthy list of hiban magic items the next section included the M Theon myths game stats for elich The Sword stormbringer and the deities in that Pantheon thus Gary G considered de and demig gon the final part of the ad and game and he stated so in his sorcerer scroll article in Dragon magazine number 14 when he wrote ad and D will consist of four books three main parts and a supplement the monster manual and gods demigods and heroes will fit into the original game system with a bit of Care on the part of the dungeon master if such is desired but all in all advanced Dungeons and Dragons is a new game upon its release this new supplement was of great interest to Dungeons and Dragons players at the time I remember quite finally enjoying looking at the ad andd game statistics for such Heroes as King Author sir Lancelot and the other Knights of the Round Table looking at what spells Morgan leay and Merlin knew what level magic user was Merlin anyway now you could look such things up but also of Interest was how a dungeon master was to adjudicate running these massively powerful Divine beings and how a cleric might integrate the worship of their deity more cleanly into their character background the book's authors Jim Ward and Rob Co do a great job with this first there are charts of ability scores above 18 which I believe was the first time ability scores that high had ever been officially released then some standard Divine abilities that all deities share such as the ability to gate and teleport to anywhere on any plane without error and other logical things such as true seeing comprehend languages and so on then in the next section they go into great pains to discuss how a dungeon master might adjudicate these Divine beings of power there's a bit of a bad rap this book has where many DMS simply ran the gods as additional monsters for their player characters to face but such use of these Divine beings is not encouraged here and I attribute such nonsense to poor dming or simply people just having a bit of fun at the game table but I'm sure we've all met that guy who would passionately insist that his character slew Zeus on Mount Olympus and retired as the new head of the Greek pantheon or other such nonsense in the clerics and deity section the various powers are further defined into different categories demigods lesser gods and greater Gods this has a gameplay effect as to what spells a deity can bestow upon their followers thus first and second level spells are actually gained through a cleric's direct knowledge and Faith third through fifth level spells are granted by the deity serpants or Supernatural minions a note of importance here is that demigods cannot Grant spells above fifth level sixth and seventh level spells are granted to a cleric by their God directly also discussed is what happens when a cleric Strays from the path so to speak and commits a transgression what spells are lost and how a cleric can repent after such what about Omens and Pensa or good luck what about the appearance of a rainbow or the bowling of mistletoe and combining it with spring water well the omen section discusss all of this there is the mortality and immortality section which discusses the spirit versus the soul this is important to know for such spells as Resurrection versus a raised dead spell after death what happens to said Spirit or Soul thus provided is a known Plains of existence section and based upon alignment and the character's Behavior a DM can determine the character's final outcome and final place of rest once they pass on to the afterlife another excellent supplement and fun section is that of divine Ascension how might a character become not just a legend and the campaign setting but actually Ascend to godhood themselves well Ward goes over that in great detail and it's important to note it does not include slaying a deity on their home plane of existence honestly I just love this stuff and it makes for great fodder for those discussions after a game or when you're just sitting around with some of your friends talking Dungeons and dragon stuff in my opinion it's this second level of immersion thinking and detail detail that elevates first edition advanced Dungeons and Dragons into a more esoteric place with these heady semi intellectual talking points that supersede just playing the game the nice thing about this section of the rules is that you could totally integrated into any future editions of the game if you are so inclined this is really topnotch fluff and it's for these reasons that I think a lot of players are very loyal to this addition combined with the dungeon Masters Guide there's a massive accumulation of lore just for the game itself so let's go into the alleged controversy surrounding the inclusion of the cthulu mandon and newon Mythos in this supplement the bottom line here isn't there isn't one other than the self-made controversy that came about due to tsr's management or should I say mismanagement of its own properties I like to put forth my own opin here if I may in that at this time role playing games were still in their gangly pre-adolescent stage publishing companies and authors didn't quite know what to make of the gaming hobby as a whole much less roleplaying games and how to deal with the licensing of their intellectual properties and what exactly it meant to describe them in game terms as DM David writes in his blog no one outside the hobby considered existential heart Tales from the 1920s a suitable topic for a game request to use cthulu for a game of all things probably puzzled the administrative staff at Arkham as this story keeps showing few outside of gaming saw game rights to fiction as anything of value I'd also like to mention that Seth gorowski did a fantastic job breaking all of this down in his own video on the DS and demigod supplement he even had K aulu Co author Sandy Peterson provide a very detailed recounting of what happened between chaosium and TSR so you might want to check it out and of course I've left links for that video in this video's description in addition there's DM David's blog which also lays out the events quite well further Jim W has also posted about this so I'll do my due diligence here and try to bring all of this together as best I can essentially Jim Ward contacted the various authors and Publishing companies directly and in turn received permission to use the cthulu M Deon and newon myths in deis and demigods the problem is that in each case chaosium had already received like permissions in the case of the melon myths Kassim had already acquired the rights for the 1977 elri battle to the End of Time board game the release of the K aulu game was slated for a 1981 release and cassium had planned to release a stormbringer RPG that same year thus after de and demigods release chaosium sent TSR a cease and deist letter Brian Bloom didn't want to go to court going to California getting a lawyer was an expense that TSR couldn't afford at that time as it turned out both companies had something to offer thus an accommodation was sought and the result was TSR could continue to publish dieses and demigods as is with a simple special thanks notice to kassum in its second printing which you can see here and in exchange kassum got to use the ad and and d and stats in their upcoming release of Robert aspin's very excellent Thieves World supplement which by the way I did a very extensive review a few years ago and you can check it out here anyway boom problem solved right everyone's happy move on what happened next in my opinion is just indicative of the state of poor management of TSR at the time for the third printing of the supplement Brian Bloom elected to remove the cthulu and mounton sections of the book and just run with fewer Pages author Shannon appin writer of the historical books on role playing games designers and Dragons suggests Bloom sought to soothe the satanic Panic crowd this would in turn lead to the rename naming of the book to Legends and lore a few years later a bowing to which that did not sit well with Gary gak in his sorcerer scroll article the future of the game in Dragon magazine 103 where he was talking about the ad and games new revisions he wrote now the deities and demigods encyclopedia recently retitled Legends and lore by others as a sop or bowing to pressure from those who don't buy our products anyway for those candid enthusiasts who do not read between the lines as they say I do not particularly approve of the retitling of the work more likely it seems Bloom did not want to mention the competition in a TSR book which might fuel interest in such and Lead customers to a competitor's games silly I know a rising tide lifts all boats the side effect of the removal of these pantheons was the beginning of rumors among players that chaosium TSR the Jim W plagiarized the cthulu and Manon myths and so on rumors that never would have happened had Bloom just left them in place now if you're trying to figure out what printing you have it's actually pretty easy the collector's site the AUM breaks it down pretty well the first printing has the cthulu and malabon Miss included but no chaosium thank you the second printing still has both myths and now there's the chaosium thank you on the inside cover page the third printing removes cthulu and Manon MTH completely keeps the chaum thank you and most interestingly still states on the back cover that there are 17 pantheons included even though the page count had been reduced from 144 pages to 129 pages from the fourth printing one the chaosium thank you is removed and the back cover correctly states there are 15 pantheons covered despite rumors to the contrary the newon Mythos was never removed from the book and the story behind that in my opinion is truly an appalling look into the state of TSR management philosophy at the time Fritz Liber had actually stayed at Gary gx's house for a week in 1977 and GX considered him a friend thus Jim Ward was able to contact Liber and secure authorization to use his newon Mythos relatively easy Gary gave him liver's phone number however Liber had previously given such rights over to cassium years earlier Liber was a terminal Alcoholic by this time and cassium founder Greg Stafford had thought to help out someone whose work had brought him much joy when Stafford contacted TSR pointing out that they had the better claim Brian Bloom suggested that cassium could just Sue Liber to his credit this horrified Stafford Liber was one of his literary Heroes and given the state of the man's healthy had no desire to wreak further havoc on the man's life and simply just dropped it despite the fact that Kassim had planned to release a city of lanmore supplement in 1983 in 1985 TSR released her own lanmore supplement lanmore city of Adventure so while there was never any plagiarism on Jim W's part there was a certain level of needless nastiness and ineptness on the part of TSR Management in my opinion Brian Bloom's attitude towards Fritz Liber and the failure of TSR to correctly annotate the changes to the book for potential buyers is unprofessional it should also be noted that Jim Mor offered to replace the missing Mythos but was rebuffed by Bloom who apparently was more than happy to just sell the book at the same price at a reduced cost due to the fewer pages so with all of that said despite DSR management being complete jerks James Ward and Rob Co did a phenomenal job with this book and deities and demigods is still a good resource in my opinion especially if you are a fan of Dungeons and Dragons cosmology which I am and I guess I was an impressionable 14-year-old because DND D's known planes of existence have always fascinated me and the appendices for deities and demigods take the most detailed look at such since the release of the first edition player's handbook I've also found planer travel to be one of the more intriguing aspects of the game and here we get a more detailed look at how to travel between the various planes and what combat is like in the ethal and astral planes something that would later be given more detail in the manual of the plane supplement but that didn't come out till 1985 so very handy indeed is appendix 3 clerical quick reference charts here you can at a glance see what exactly a deity is in charge of their sphere of control what animals are associated or sacred to said deity are there limitations on who can serve the god such as a only males or only females or only non-human deities what do practitioners of the faith wear and what are their colors and what holy days do they observe very important questions for any cleric player or DM and it's nicely broken down into a quick reference chart form I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the very excellent and fascinating nonhuman de section what gods do bug Bears lizard men and Orcs worship what about elves dwarves and halflings well you'll find those answers here and more surely you know that Loth the Spider Queen is a Lesser God but did you know that so too is orcus demogorgon and jux here you'll find the first mention of the Elven deities and the greater gods and other deities included of those of the Giants Cobalts and ogres plus others mentioned in previous TSR Adventure module such is lo the Spider Queen and from Queen of the demon web pits and bli the pullup from Shrine of the kaawa there is so much classic Dungeons and Dragons lore compiled into a single volume and to me that makes it endlessly fascinating much of my own personal Love of the Game is rooted in what's presented Within These Pages fortunately you can purchase the PDFs for both first edition ad and fourth printing d and demigods and legends and lore if you're so inclined very inexpensively from drive-thru RPG I provide a link for both in the description they are both on sale for less than $4 right now unfortunately they are not yet available for print on demand I have both of these scans and they are excellently reconstituted annotated and searchable as a side note if you'd like to get a look at the historic first print of deities and demigods you still can at the internet archive where you can peruse the book online or yes download the PDF I'll provide a link for that too in the description thank you all so much for watching this video isn't so much a review as it is an historical look back so there's no D20 rating I've got quite a few requests in the comments lately for more Dungeons and crawl Classics content so next week I've got that for you with a look at a fantasy horror Adventure called it cons assumes I'd like to take a moment to thank my patreons for their support without them this channel is just not possible please help me out with a like comment and share subscribe and click the little bell so you get notifications when I 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Channel: captcorajus

Views: 7,957

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Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2024