Faiths and Pantheons

by Erik Mona, Eric L. Boyd, Marco Filippo Vadalà

Religion in the Realms Whether cleric or commoner, wizard or warrior, nearly everyone in Faer?n pays homage to at least one patron deity. Some of those divine powers inspire respect, while others... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786927593
• ISBN13: 9780786927593
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Length: 223 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.6" x 11.2"

Customer Reviews

I am in AWE!!!!

Wizards of the Coast have brought the gods of the realms to life in this versitile suppliment. This book not only lets DMs and players a like find out more about there god to play there characters better, but is even more highly important for the cleric PC who will find the dogmas and so forth invaluble to no end. For DMs this is the meat and potatoes of churches and gods ifor your campaigns and so forth...the price means nothing when it comes to this book...its a must for any Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting

this is an excellent book.

First off, this book lists all of the major dieties of the Forgotton realms, it gives stats and powers, and explains how the gods work. Anyone who actually reads this book instead of looking at the stats for the gods will find it to be incredibly useful. It explains how everything about the gods and their power should be used, it gives history of their church, and it's central dogma, and in many cases their ascension. The Prestige classes are faith specific for a reason, so if you're bitching about that, shut up. The race specific pantheons are in less detail because they are used less, and the book would have easily cost $ if the writers had gone into full detail about EVERY god in the FR, let's face it, there are a lot of them.

Ignore zagyg review

Ignore zagyg review, he is still hurt by the fact of the success of the Forgotten Realms setting. Greyhawk has it's bright spots also, so I don't want to start a Greyhawk vs FR argument. There was no reason for the 1 star rating. This book has been an excellent source on how to use and not use the FR gods in your campaign. In order to fit in the FR setting, the gods had to be assigned HP and such. For the history of the gods in FR is very war like. This book is far better than Deities and Demigods. I would give this book four stars, but to counter act the obvious bad review of 1 star by zagyg, I gave it five. zagyg shouldn't be writing a review if he doesn't own the book.

Has its uses for Fans

The Fr line has put out another top notch book, hardback even. Instead of saying first what DID work, i want to point out some shortcoming to prospective buyers. This book assumes that you really need stats for the dieties, all the way down to their SKILLS and FEATS. I personally thought that was going too far, and was a major waste of space. But, the way the folks at Wizards have set things up, you could easily run a campaign with the PC's playing dieties, and you could have Helm clash with Umberlee and actually know exactly what they could or could not do in combat. Beyond that, the roleplaying aspects of controlling a diety take the game to new realms.Anyway, a lot of the info is stuff old FR players have seen before. The 2nd edition Faiths and Avatars actually had tons of info that this book does not (and consequently print small enough to make your eyes bleed). If you have the old Faiths and Avatars, i suggest using it along with the Faiths and Pantheons to get the maximum impact (the older book had incredible detail about the clergy; the newer is scimpier in that regard). The prestige classes are interesting, and the art in the book is overall very good, as other reviewers have noted. I like the Realms, but in my personal opinion there are too many dieties, and most of the information in these books i will never use, sad to say. Overall, there isn't much bad about the book, assuming that you like the Realms in the first place. It is all the dieties you could ever want, or need, or use, but at least DM's and players have a lot of room to work with.

The dynasty continues...

It's gotten to the point that now when I see a new product for Forgotten Realms, my reaction is summed up in one word:Gimme.The Forgotten Realms products are the most consistently well-done supplements third edition D & D has to offer. Gorgeous artwork and ever-expanding detail have made a believer out of me.That said, this product is a product with a very narrow focus - and if Faiths and Pantheon's focus falls outside of your gaming style, you should save your money for other supplements. The real core of this product is the full descriptions and stats for the major deities of the Forgotten Realms setting. The descriptions are in the standard format outlined in the Deities and Demigods supplement. The artwork is inspired (with the possible exception of the non-human pantheon artwork), and the overall feel of the Realms is maintained throughout. The pantheons are described in detail and the stat blocks for any of the divine powers will make 20th level characters look downright milquetoasty. It's worth stressing one thing about the deities: These folks are dangerous. This is why this book is not for every campaign. One harsh encounter with the divine can destroy all your players and/or their respect for the Dungeon Master. Many DMs will find their Forgotten Realms pantheon to be little more than trophy-NPCs that are kept on the bookshelf. That being the case, I'd make sure you want to use these NPCs before you buy this book.The extras in this book are nice as well: Twenty prestige classes that are tied to the various religions. Some of these classes have additional minions that are described complete with stat blocks.Three sample temples are mapped out and described with NPCs, and there are numerous sidebars placed in the book offering extra detail on the surrounding material. To be fair, many of the sidebars are material found in other books, but the FR crew can be forgiven for duplicating them in the name of easy reference.My biggest quibble with this product is that while the thirty main deities of the realms are given full stat blocks and avatar descriptions (and stats, where necessary) - the lesser deities of Faerûn are not.Sure, full stats for all the many deities of Faerûn would take up a lot of space, but so does reprinting summaries of deities already described in Deities and Demigods (Like Tiamat or Loth, for example: Each gets a "Realms-specific" write up in Faiths and Pantheons - but the stats for each are only in Deities and Demigods). DMs looking for stats for Realms-only deities like Lovitar will NOT find them in this book (Lovitar's entry, like all the entries under "Other Deities," contains her Bio, History/Relationships, and Dogma.)All in all, however - this book provides what it sets out to: provide a detailed and working pantheon to add to a Realms campaign. The descriptions are rich, the artwork is inspiring and the continuity of the setting is maintained while being enhanced. This is not a book for you if you don't use divine