Close
Close
Advanced Search

Faiths and Pantheons (3e)Click to magnify
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/28544-sample.pdf

Faiths and Pantheons (3e)

ADD TO WISHLIST >

RELIGION IN THE REALMS

Whether cleric or commoner, wizard or warrior, nearly everyone in Faerûn pays homage to at least one patron deity. Some of those divine powers inspire respect, while others elicit fear. Good or evil, all of them coexist within these pages. Complete information for key gods, along with the powers and abilities granted to their most dedicated followers, and descriptions of supporting deities combine to provide this look at all the gods of the FORGOTTEN REALMS® Campaign Setting.

To use this accessory, a Dungeon Master also needs the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting, the Player’s Handbook, the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide, and the Monster Manual.

  • Over 115 gods
  • 20 specialty priest prestige classes
  • Maps of four temples

Product History

Faiths and Pantheons (2002), by Eric L. Boyd and Erik Mona, is a book of deities for the 3e Forgotten Realms. It was published in May 2002.

Origins: Deities & Campaigns. Faiths and Pantheons is essentially an abridgement of three dense Forgotten Realms deity books produced during the AD&D 2e (1989-2000) era: Faiths & Avatars (1996), Powers & Pantheons (1997), and Demihuman Deities (1998). Though it's 223 pages long, that wasn't enough to hold all of the information found in the originals — particularly not with its use of a more readable font size!

However, Faiths and Pantheons isn't just a distillation of previous Realmslore. It's also an update: the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001) had included some minor changes to the setting to make it fit better with the D&D 3e (2000) ethos, while chronological updates were required for the Realms' newest events. Thus, tidbits of new Realmslore are also found throughout the book.

About the Book. In 2002, the 3e Forgotten Realms line was a year old. Books like Magic of Faerûn (2001) and Lords of Darkness (2001) showed that most of its books would be softcovers, but Faiths and Pantheons is a handsome hardcover that matches the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book.

By 2002, Wizards also knew that the Forgotten Realms line was doing quite well, based on the good sales of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book. This helped the Faiths and Pantheons designers to convince the "business guys" to expand the size of the book when they created too much content for the planned page count. (Some material was still cut, and would return as web enhancements, but the entire, extensive list of deities was included as originally intended.)

Expanding D&D. To a certain extent, Faiths and Pantheons does what you'd expect: it uses the new rules from the 3e Deities and Demigods (2002) to present the portfolios of the many gods of the Realms — and to stat up the avatars of the major deities. This new edition of D&D also demanded changes to some of the Realms' gods. Because 3e provided "a renewed focus on adventuring and actually playing D&D as opposed to sitting around a table and talking", deities such as the peace-loving Lliira and some members of the halfling pantheon were revamped because they weren't useful "in the dungeon or on the battlefield".

Faiths and Pantheons also includes twenty prestige classes related to the gods of the Realms. To a large extent, they were replacements for the specialty priests and priest kits that were popular during AD&D 2e. However, the 2e priests had always had balance problems — usually ending up too powerful. The prestige classes provided better balance because they could include arbitrary, high-level requirements and they were built using D&D 3e's rigorously balanced game system.

Exploring the Realms. Faiths and Pantheons contains a massive list of 115 Realms gods — though the new material is much more limited, since these were largely known gods. Slight updates made some deities more interesting and made others more suitable for 3e play. There is one notable addition to the list of gods: monstrous deities. Faith and Pantheons contains information on the orc pantheon and very brief stats on other monstrous gods, who had previously been relegated to non-Realms books like DMGR4: Monster Mythology (1992) and On Hallowed Ground (1996).

Finally, Faiths and Pantheons also contains brand-new descriptions of three temples: the Abbey of the Sword in Cormanthor, the Darkhouse of Saerloon near Sembia, and the Wyvernstones of Hullack in the Hullack Forest.

NPCs of Note. Orcus is briefly noted as one of the fiends who is worshiped in the Realms. This was one of the first signs that he had survived into the 3e era.

Future History. Wizards released two web enhancements that included material cut from Faiths and Pantheons: a list of "Deity Do's and Don'ts" and a full description of a temple to Oghma, the god of knowledge.

A few years later, Wizards produced a complete list of clerical prestige classes for D&D, which helped to identify the (few) classes from Faiths and Pantheons that were updated for D&D 3.5e. It was found in Power of Faerûn (2006).

About the Creators. Boyd started writing for the Forgotten Realms in the late '90s, and was the author of the three classic 2e Forgotten Realms deity books. This was his first book since the advent of 3e, but he'd work on one or two Realms books a year from here on out. Mona was a relative newcomer at Wizards, having come from the Greyhawk fan community. This was his first (and only) Forgotten Realms book.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (3)
Discussions (5)
Customer avatar
Stanley B June 11, 2023 2:34 am UTC
I bought this but half the book is just a fuzzy scan. DriveThruRPG were kind enough to give me a refund. However, buyer beware: this truly is a horrible copy. Steer clear until an original (OEF) version is released.
Customer avatar
Jeremy H April 01, 2022 4:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I put in a ticket about this earlier this week. The team got back to me yesterday and the pdf is searchable past page 11 now. The quality is still kinda crappy past page 11, but at least the OCR is complete :)
Customer avatar
Mark J Reese R August 31, 2019 8:58 pm UTC
Has this been updated to an actual PDF yet?
Reply
Customer avatar
Jose D May 16, 2020 8:18 pm UTC
The last update is reported as March 28, 2016... I doubt it... too bad.
Reply
Customer avatar
Stanley B December 09, 2023 8:15 am UTC
No. Wizards said that they lost the original file. We will not be getting am (OEF) version, I'm afraid.
Customer avatar
Ross C March 26, 2017 10:24 pm UTC
PURCHASER
In March 2017 most of the book is still just poorly scanned images. p1-10 are good, and so are p152-223, but the chapters on the actual deities are poor scans that can't be searched, which is unfortunate.
Reply
Customer avatar
Stirling N May 25, 2017 9:31 pm UTC
So they're selling what amounts to a pirated scanlation of the book? Even the pirates would OCR. This is ridiculous.
Reply
Customer avatar
Bradley M August 01, 2017 3:10 am UTC
PURCHASER
Ugh, I wish I'd checked this first. It's still crap in July. There are better pirated copies of this.
Customer avatar
Paul M April 16, 2016 2:40 am UTC
PURCHASER
Just FYI, I've sent a note to Dungeon Masters Guild through the "Contact us" form asking them to check the quality of the Faiths and Pantheons download. As other reviewers have pointed out, only half of this book is actually a real pdf. The rest is just scanned images. The front and back covers are also extremely poor quality. It almost seems like maybe a work in progress version was made available instead of the real thing. I can plan to post here again if DMs Guild gets back to me.
Reply
Customer avatar
Icculus P October 26, 2017 11:38 am UTC
PURCHASER
please do. this is extremely discouraging and I hesitate to make further purchases here even at sale prices.
Reply
Customer avatar
RODRIGO R October 29, 2018 8:00 pm UTC
Any reply thus far?
Reply
Customer avatar
Paul M November 24, 2018 12:07 am UTC
PURCHASER
I did receive a reply offering a refund if I wasn't happy with the purchase, but nothing about digitizing the full book. Perhaps they have simply lost some of the original electronic files and can't upgrade this any further. It's a shame because it really is a great book.
Browse Categories
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!
 Recent History















Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
Artist(s)
Pages
226
ISBN
0-7869-2759-3
File Size:
82.65 MB
Format
Scanned image Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Information
Watermarked PDF Click for more information
Watermarked PDF

These PDF files are digitally watermarked to signify that you are the owner. A small message is added to the bottom of each page of the PDF containing your name and the order number of your purchase.

Warning: If any files bearing your information are found being distributed illegally, then your account will be suspended and legal action may be taken against you.

Here is a sample of a page from a watermarked title:

File Last Updated:
March 31, 2022
This title was added to our catalog on March 29, 2016.