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Lore of the Gods is a 318-page pdf or print book that includes 3.5 updates of the Greek Gods, Norse Gods, and the Egyptian Gods, formerly produced by Bastion Press as pdfs. While a large percentage of the book is spent on the updates (which include added information), the book also includes the Mesopotamian deities, which aren’t covered in any core third-edition D&D product. Of course with the other three pantheons present, this third-party product covers the same non-IP pantheons present in Deities & Demigods (a 3.0 product). Since the deities from that book are not open gaming content, you are getting a different viewpoint on them, and the authors do take a different approach on what’s important about each deity. For instance, DragonWing’s version does present level, hit point, or combat information for any of the deities as gods. It just includes that type of information for their avatars. This seems to be the company’s subtle way of saying that PCs should not be able to defeat the gods themselves, but only their representatives. I like that approach.
In place of numerous stats you’d find in Deities (and likely never use), you’ll find further details about the deity and his or her religion, details that can add value to religion’s worshippers in your game. For instance, the book includes at-a-glance information on a deity’s various forms, allies, foes, sacred items, sacred animals, sacred plants, sacred minerals, and divine artifacts associated with him or her. Then, instead of the one or two paragraphs Deities provides, you get a more thorough discussion of the mythology related to the deity, and you get a wealth of information on the faith’s tenets, location, and any related sects. Following that, you gain specific information on the deity’s clergy, specifically their responsibilities, restrictions, rituals, and vestments. This is much more useful information that what you get in the game’s core book offering. I mean, how many characters are really going to battle the gods themselves? They are more likely to be followers or clerics, and thus they need to know more about their god than how tough he or she is.
Another difference is that the deity entries provide information on an alternate path for devotees of the religion to become close to their deity—other than the normal route of serving the god as a cleric or paladin. This path is called the Path of the Devout, and it requires the worshipper (who must meet certain requirements) to take an oath to the deity that restricts some of his or her behavior. In return, the devout worshipper gains some benefit. For example: a devout follower of the Greek god Hermes must forswear maintaining more wealth than he can carry on his person, absent any magical storage devices. In return, the devout follower gains the Sleight of Hand skill as a class skill, and he gains one of the following abilities: while wearing light armor or less, he can use the Improved Grapple feat, even if he doesn’t normally meet the prerequisites; or, he can choose the ability to cast haste on himself once per week (I assume at a caster level equal to his level, but the text does not say).
Besides coverage of the four pantheons, the book details several heroes from each religion in their own chapter, something earlier versions of the D&D god book included, but were curiously absent in the third-edition version. GMs may or may not have a use for these heroes in their campaigns, but the added detail certainly cements a feeling of pantheon completion within the book—something which the Deities book lacks.
Adding to this feeling of completion, the book details many of the artifacts associated with the deities or their pantheon’s mythology. For instance, you get information on famous items from Greek mythology, like the shield Aegis (carried by Athena) and the golden fleece. Items from each mythology are present.
In terms of crunch, the book includes several prestige classes, new domains, new skills, new spells, and monster information. And there is information on creating avatars and having PC ascend to godhood, the last one requiring they be of 45th+ level or higher and have at least 20 levels in one class, whereupon they may take a special feat called Divine Potential that infuses them with a divine “spark.” Without this spark, the character can never ascend to the divine realms.
Overall, the book (pdf) will prove useful to any campaign using the historical mythologies, or GMs will find it a handy resource from which to mine godly ideas and campaign crunch. The book is large and thorough. And ultimately, it is a useful GM tool. In this regard, I highly recommend its purchase.
I only have a few issues with the book overall, and these are minor. Mostly, these are in terms of layout. While the color art in the pdf is gorgeous, it did not translate well in the POD version. These pieces show up dark gray pictures with little contrast and hazy or blurred details. The interior black and white pieces, however, translated very well and are truly nice.
The book also contains large gaps of white space within. It sometimes sees that the layout person spaced between deities, but then other deities follow immediately after ended text. The white space is just a little jarring in terms of layout approaches.
One other thing that struck me about the book is that the avatar section seems out of place in the book. It does not include a great deal of information on how the GM is supposed to use it. As most of the entries contain avatars, this section seems unnecessary—unless used as an appendix of salient divine abilities or as a means for you to tweak the avatars to your heart’s content with the provided rules. Another possibility is that it could be used to create avatars for PCs who ascend, but that seems less likely. That being said, the section is useful for GMs who want to create their own pantheons. However, this book does not come across as a deity-creating toolbox product—though, I’m sure it could be used as such (and I may use it for that myself).
And, finally, these are nit-picky, but I would have liked to have seen a chart in each section that gave information on the pantheon’s deities at a glance, like the charts in Deities & Demigods, which detail alignment, rank, favored weapon, and portfolio; and, I would have liked all material relevant to one pantheon to be in a separate section, meaning the Greek heroes and artifacts would have been in a section on the Greek pantheon. As I said, these are nit-picky items.
My overall impression is that Lore of Gods is worth the money. Even if you are leery about purchasing 3.5 products with the knowledge 4.0 is just around the corner, I feel the ideas and information gleaned within can be useful to your campaign, no matter the version.
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