Deities & Demigods
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- For the article on gods see deity
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Deities & Demigods is a reference book for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, containing descriptions of pagan gods and legendary creatures from myth and fiction. The book is a reference for statistics and characteristics of deities and legendary figures from ancient real-world religions and cultures (as well as some popular fictional characters and deities), allowing game masters to include various religions as part of their fictional storytelling. The God worshipped by many modern religions was left untreated.
Deities & Demigods was originally printed by TSR, Inc., but is now printed by Wizards of the Coast which purchased the Dungeons & Dragons brand. It has been through several printings and multiple editions; the current edition bears little resemblance to the earliest printings.
Although a good reference for Dungeons & Dragons games, the various editions of the sourcebook are occasionally inconsistent with the myths and legends from which they draw inspiration and should not be considered a general reference work.
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Pantheons
The original edition of the book contained 17 pantheons:
- American Indian Mythos
- Arthurian Heroes
- Babylonian Mythos
- Celtic Mythos
- Central American Mythos (i.e. Aztec and Maya)
- Chinese Mythos
- Cthulhu Mythos (from H. P. Lovecraft and related fiction)
- Egyptian Mythos
- Melnibonéan Mythos (from Michael Moorcock's Elric novels)
- Finnish Mythos
- Greek Mythos and Heroes
- Indian Mythos
- Japanese Mythos
- Nehwon Mythos (from Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar novels)
- Nonhuman's Deities (original TSR creations)
- Norse Mythos
- Sumerian Mythos
The current edition contains only four pantheons:
- Greyhawk pantheon ("D&D Pantheon")
- Greek Mythos and Heroes ("Olympian Pantheon")
- Egyptian Mythos ("Pharaonic Pantheon")
- Norse Mythos ("Asgardian Pantheon")
Printings
TSR, Inc. obtained permission from Michael Moorcock for inclusion of the Melnibonéan material (from his Elric series of books), and the Cthulhu Mythos was included in the public domain, so TSR assumed they could legally use it without any special permission. However, Arkham House, who had the copyright on most Cthulhu books had already licensed the Cthulhu property to the game company Chaosium to create a Mythos-based game. Furthermore, Chaosium had also licensed the Melnibonéan copyright from Moorcock. Chaosium became upset that TSR was apparently violating its license. The first printing was halted and the two companies agreed on a compromise: TSR could use the Cthulhu material, but needed to include a special "thank you" note to Chaosium for both the Cthulhu mythos and Melnibonéan information. TSR added the special thank you note and the printing continued.
When the time came for a third printing of the book, TSR felt its material should not contain such an overt reference to one of its competitors in the "Special Thank You" note. So they removed the Cthulhu and Melnibonéan pantheons, thus negating the need for the "Thank you" note. For this reason, the first and second editions were (and are, among collectors) in greater demand than later printings.
Except for some color shifiting of the cover artwork and different TSR logos on the cover, subsequent printings through the fifth remained largely unchanged.
For the sixth printing in 1985, the name was changed to Legends & Lore to avoid potential conflicts with fundamentalist Christian groups. Despite the name change and new cover artwork (by Jeff Easley), the interior material was nearly identical to the fifth printing.
When the second edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game was released, a new Legends & Lore was written for it. This edition had pared-down content in comparison to the original; the sections on Babylonian, Finnish, Sumerian and nonhumanoid deities were wholly excised. However, a separate sourcebook, Monster Mythology, later covered the non-human deities in much greater detail than any previous source, introducing several new deities in the process.
For the current editions of the book, the name has been changed back to Deities & Demigods and the cover artwork has been changed again to bring it more in line with other modern D&D manuals. The interior material bears little resemblance to the previous printings of the book (first through sixth).
Artwork
The artwork for the first several printings of this "cyclopedia" are considered much better compared to other D&D volumes of the time. Talented artists Jeff Dee, Erol Otus, Eymoth, Darlene Pekul, Paul Jaquays, Jim Roslof, David S. LaForce, David C. Sutherland III, Jeff Lanners, and David A. Trampier contributed to this volume, each artist usually providing all the artwork for an entire pantheon. Though the artwork was done in black and white, it was a significant improvement over the artwork in the other D&D volumes (also black and white). Erol Otus also produced the striking cover artwork.
The current printings of the book contain contributions of numerous artists and are more inline with Wizards of the Coast treatment of Dungeons & Dragons. The current illustrations are in full color.
See also
External link
- Detailed information on Deities & Demigods and differences between printings, from The Acaeum (http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/Deities.html)