Deities are the most powerful immortal creatures, residents of the countless dominions that swirl through the Astral Sea. They appear in dreams and visions to their followers and wear countless different faces, and artwork depicting them shows them in a variety of forms. Their true nature is beyond any physical form. Corellon is often depicted as an eladrin, but he is no more an eladrin than he is a fey panther—he is a god, and he transcends the physical laws that bind even angels to their concrete forms.
Some deities are good or lawful, some are evil or chaotic, some are neutral and some are combinations of them. Each deity has a vision of how the world should be, and the agents of the deities seek to bring that vision to life in the world. Except for the chaotic evil gods, all deities are enemies of the demons, which would rather destroy the world than govern it.
Dawn War Deities
Most people revere more than one deity, praying to different gods at different times. Commoners in a small town might visit a temple that has three altars, where they pray to Bahamut for protection, Pelor for fertile crops, and Moradin to aid their skill at crafting. Clerics and paladins more often serve a single deity, championing that god’s particular cause in the world. Other adventurers range across the spectrum, from paying lip service to the whole pantheon, to fervently serving a single god, to ignoring the gods entirely as they pursue their own divine ascension.
Many deities have contradictory versions of how the world should work. Even the agents and worshipers of deities who share an alignment can come into conflict.
This pantheon draws in several nonhuman deities and establishes them as universal gods. These gods include Bahamut, Corellon, Gruumsh, Lolth, Moradin, Sehanine, and Tiamat. Humans worship Moradin and Corell on as gods of their respective portfolios, rather than as racial deities. The pantheon also includes the archdevil Asmodeus as god of domination and tyranny.
Several of the gods are drawn from other pantheons, sometimes with new names for the gods. Bane comes from the Forgotten Realms. From Greyhawk come Kord, Pelor, Tharizdun, and Vecna. From the Greek pantheon come Athena (renamed Erathis) and Tyche (renamed Avandra), though both are altered. Set (renamed Zehir) comes from the Egyptian pantheon. The Raven Queen is akin to the Norse pantheon's Hel and Greyhawk's Weejas. That leaves three gods created from scratch: Ioun, Melora, and Torog.
The Malign Gods
The evil gods are not really part of the pantheon, so much as their nemeses. They exist because of the often more desperate faith of their followers.
Because of their astral nature, the gods can perform deeds that physical creatures can’t. They can appear in the minds of other creatures, speaking to them in dreams or visions, without being present in physical form. They can appear in multiple places at once. They can listen to the prayers of their followers (but they don't always). But they can also make physical forms for themselves with a moment’s effort, and they do when the need arises
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