The gods are dead in the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook, so let's homebrew a pantheon ourselves

We didn’t mention this in our review of the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player’s Handbook, but the gods are missing. Or at the very least, their roles are diminished.

Back in the 2014 5e Player’s Handbook, creating a cleric made it clear: “The most important question to consider is which deity to serve...” The book sends you straight to Appendix B: Gods of the Multiverse, where you’re given several pantheons from Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Eberron. You also get historical pantheons from Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, and Norse cultures.

From Mystra to Vecna, from Cults of the Dragon Below to kuo-toa Blipdoolpoolp, there’s no shortage of beings receiving prayers in the D&D Multiverse. There’s even some overlap with historical pantheons. For instance, Forgotten Realms’ Silvanus, god of wild nature, is clearly the Celts’ Silvanus, god of nature and forests. Regardless of these redundancies, I counted 205 deities in the 5e Player’s Handbook.

Guess how many I counted in the new Player’s Handbook: zero. The multiverse is mapped out, but not a single god is mentioned—unless you count the enigmatic Lady of Pain, who rules the city of Sigil at the center of it all. I expect all god talk is shifted entirely to the upcoming D&D 2024 Dungeon Masters Guide. But that's only speculation on my part.

After 10 years of 5th Edition D&D, the focus has shifted from deities to domains. This has always been true on a mechanical level. The cleric is still blessed by a deity, pantheon, or other immortal entity. But now, there’s an emphasis on clerics drawing power from the realms of the gods, rather than from any specific named god. There’s a difference between your prayers being answered by Home Depot as a whole or by Carol at cash register three. You're great, Carol, but no one cashier should have all that power.

The 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide says, “Your world can associate domains with deities in any way you choose.” Meaning, don’t let named deities limit your worldbuilding. Don’t let one pantheon dictate how your pantheon works. Margaret Weis, co-creator of Dragonlance, can say Takhisis is the Dark Queen and never was Tiamat the Queen of Evil Dragons, while the 5e PHB can say, “Yeah, but they’re the same though, right?”

The choice is yours—even if your choice is: both or neither.

But here we are, combing through the 5e DMG, chapter by chapter, aiming to create (at least the start of) a homebrewed campaign world. This part can get confusing, but let’s cook up some gods.

Or on second thought, let’s not. I’m a lazy DM. It doesn’t excite me to add more names to that list of 205 deities in the 5e DMG. Let’s try something different while still using what’s already available.

Skip the middlemen—or middle gods, I suppose. If 2024 D&D emphasizes power drawn from the planes themselves, let’s make the planes the “gods” of our world.

Divine spellcasters (clerics, paladins) draw their power from the 17 Outer Planes: Abyss, Acheron, Arborea, Arcadia, Beastlands, Bytopia, Carceri, Elysium, Gehenna, Hades, Limbo, Mechanus, Mount Celestia, Nine Hells, Outlands, Pandemonium, and Ysgard.

Arcane spellcasters (sorcerers, warlocks, wizards) draw their power from the Inner Planes: the Elemental Planes of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, along with the para-elemental planes bordering them: Ooze, Magma, Ash, and Ice. Let’s also include the Elemental Chaos on the fringes, where elemental forces clash wildly.

Primal spellcasters (druids, rangers) draw their power from the Material Plane, along with its mirrored realms: the Feywild and Shadowfell.

All of the Inner Planes are touched by the ghostly Ethereal Plane, and the Astral Plane is used for travel between the Material Plane and the Outer Planes. Got it? Good.

Pantheon done. I have no idea if this will create major problems down the road, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it—or burn it when we get there. Either way, bridges will be involved.

[This is part 2 of the Let’s Make a World From Scratch Before the New D&D 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide Comes Out series. Part 1 covers the core assumptions about this new world.]