Deities Should Just be Vtubers
Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2026 4:49 pm
So I'm running the new game, and it started as a joke but I realised that the ideal system for how deities work is simply "a group of vtubers", and this makes a good template for the divine side of things in every game. Some of this is simply "how about the designers draw upon the societies that ostensibly worshipped pantheons and not just one dude" but some of it is more specific to this - even a lot of the pantheistic faiths had a King of the Gods after all, which we don't want, and they tended to care too much about what mortals were doing.
Note: you could probably just redesign the pantheons in a setting to be more like vtubers such that for instance "Kossuth is the god of fire, and he lives in a house of fire and calls his followers his little Embers or Sparks, and he will never turn away from an opportunity to piss off Istishia (god of water) but at the end of the day, the four big primordials work together. He likes it when his Embers promote his ideas and say his catch-phrases and give him money, but you could flood your house if you wanted to and he wouldn't really care because it's not his house." Just using these as more of a template for altering existing D&D gods, or making your own, will work fine if for whatever reason you don't think the world needs a Divine Rabbit of Destruction, Pekora, goddess of war crimes, who lives in a domain of glitched floating TNT.
So, here are the reasons for my thinking:
1. There's a whole bunch of them, and they're just there, you acknowledge they exist but probably won't ever meet them. (The pantheon thing, but with less "And then there's Thor/Zeus/Odin/Ra, the boss" and with less "You dared to be good at something? Hera is pissed off at you!")
2. They want your attention but they don't want it all the time. Just spend some time saying you love them and maybe give them some money. And then you can do whatever you like, including paying attention to another. (Only high priests of temples will have a true oshi, even a Cleric should be able to go "Yeah I like Subaru but by definition that means I get joy from Kanade, and unrelated I just think Ollie is awesome.")
3. Also they pay such little attention to you, you can actually do whatever you like short of stalking/defaming/threatening them and still be their "follower". (We don't need the story that is mostly only told in cultures of monotheism where someone doesn't worship god in the way he feels like so suddenly he strikes them down. We can instead have the stories told in other cultures where the way someone carries their faith is explicitly their own.)
4. Even when they're working together and cooperating, they're usually playing pranks on each other and sabotaging. By the same token, even when they're "at war" with one another, this is mostly not a big deal, maybe they kill each other a bit but what's casual murder between friends?
5. They're completely selfish incompetent idiots or energetic dingbats most of the time. There is no suggestion that they are moral guides or anything, they can totally do things that will be condemned as villainous rather than "Well a LG god did it so it must be okay" and no suggestion that you're a bad person if you don't follow them.
6. Also they come with in-built relationships and schemes and rivalries. If players want to get drawn into this sort of stuff, it's already there for them to start getting involved. For instance, the party have one of those Portable Pits of Kurtulmak Flare and have already almost filled it up with randomly rolled loot? Well, if they want another one, the easiest way is probably going to be finding a temple of Flare and doing something that makes them happy, and that will probably be related to making Ina happy on her behalf. Instant dumb sidequest!
7. Each has their own clear obvious portfolio and it usually isn't too broad unless you start taking individual instances, which individual players can do. So FuwaMoco are twins and devil dogs who escaped the cages of hell, and they're fluffy and fuzzy (respectively), and sweethearts who nonetheless like EXTREME VIOLENCE. That's probably enough for fleshing out their normal Domains offered (Family, Animal, Baator, Freedom, and whatever love/happiness Domains you feel are appropriate likewise pick one of Wrath/Destruction) and all that. However! You could be a Cleric of them and pick up the Healing and Travel domains because you specifically like their Bau Bau Ambulance driving from HoloGTA, and that's fine, you worship them your way. It's just that this isn't a core principle. (To bring this back to regular D&D, Lolth would have her usual Evil, Spider, Poison, Elf, Drow, Darkness domains, but there's going to be someone who specifically is fascinated with the spiderweb mummies and how she preserves things in cocoons of web, and chooses something like Protection and Repose.)
8. They can come and go and even change. You have new debuts. You have "Important Announcements" that happen with a white background. You have the reincarnations that often follow this. You have them talking about former co-workers who no longer are with the company, which I guess would be like Kelemvor saying "Oh yeah I was chatting with Myrkul, and he's still pissed off at this other group, but he had a new spire added to his bone palace and it looks like a hand giving Pelor the finger." Sometimes they even undergo transformations within the same life (Akai Haato becoming Haachama for instance).
I mentioned this elsewhere and someone helpfully added the following:
9. Their canon extends beyond their own actual actions. Their followers create a lot of fan fiction about them, which gets added to the myth and at some point is assumed to be true.
9a. A lot of that is porn
That isn't necessary for how D&D gods should be, but it probably can't hurt. Just point 9, not 9a, certainly is relevant.
So this is a really good baseline for deities in D&D, even if for whatever reason you don't want the pantheon of FLOW GLOW, the pantheon of JUSTICE and so on.
Note: you could probably just redesign the pantheons in a setting to be more like vtubers such that for instance "Kossuth is the god of fire, and he lives in a house of fire and calls his followers his little Embers or Sparks, and he will never turn away from an opportunity to piss off Istishia (god of water) but at the end of the day, the four big primordials work together. He likes it when his Embers promote his ideas and say his catch-phrases and give him money, but you could flood your house if you wanted to and he wouldn't really care because it's not his house." Just using these as more of a template for altering existing D&D gods, or making your own, will work fine if for whatever reason you don't think the world needs a Divine Rabbit of Destruction, Pekora, goddess of war crimes, who lives in a domain of glitched floating TNT.
So, here are the reasons for my thinking:
1. There's a whole bunch of them, and they're just there, you acknowledge they exist but probably won't ever meet them. (The pantheon thing, but with less "And then there's Thor/Zeus/Odin/Ra, the boss" and with less "You dared to be good at something? Hera is pissed off at you!")
2. They want your attention but they don't want it all the time. Just spend some time saying you love them and maybe give them some money. And then you can do whatever you like, including paying attention to another. (Only high priests of temples will have a true oshi, even a Cleric should be able to go "Yeah I like Subaru but by definition that means I get joy from Kanade, and unrelated I just think Ollie is awesome.")
3. Also they pay such little attention to you, you can actually do whatever you like short of stalking/defaming/threatening them and still be their "follower". (We don't need the story that is mostly only told in cultures of monotheism where someone doesn't worship god in the way he feels like so suddenly he strikes them down. We can instead have the stories told in other cultures where the way someone carries their faith is explicitly their own.)
4. Even when they're working together and cooperating, they're usually playing pranks on each other and sabotaging. By the same token, even when they're "at war" with one another, this is mostly not a big deal, maybe they kill each other a bit but what's casual murder between friends?
5. They're completely selfish incompetent idiots or energetic dingbats most of the time. There is no suggestion that they are moral guides or anything, they can totally do things that will be condemned as villainous rather than "Well a LG god did it so it must be okay" and no suggestion that you're a bad person if you don't follow them.
6. Also they come with in-built relationships and schemes and rivalries. If players want to get drawn into this sort of stuff, it's already there for them to start getting involved. For instance, the party have one of those Portable Pits of Kurtulmak Flare and have already almost filled it up with randomly rolled loot? Well, if they want another one, the easiest way is probably going to be finding a temple of Flare and doing something that makes them happy, and that will probably be related to making Ina happy on her behalf. Instant dumb sidequest!
7. Each has their own clear obvious portfolio and it usually isn't too broad unless you start taking individual instances, which individual players can do. So FuwaMoco are twins and devil dogs who escaped the cages of hell, and they're fluffy and fuzzy (respectively), and sweethearts who nonetheless like EXTREME VIOLENCE. That's probably enough for fleshing out their normal Domains offered (Family, Animal, Baator, Freedom, and whatever love/happiness Domains you feel are appropriate likewise pick one of Wrath/Destruction) and all that. However! You could be a Cleric of them and pick up the Healing and Travel domains because you specifically like their Bau Bau Ambulance driving from HoloGTA, and that's fine, you worship them your way. It's just that this isn't a core principle. (To bring this back to regular D&D, Lolth would have her usual Evil, Spider, Poison, Elf, Drow, Darkness domains, but there's going to be someone who specifically is fascinated with the spiderweb mummies and how she preserves things in cocoons of web, and chooses something like Protection and Repose.)
8. They can come and go and even change. You have new debuts. You have "Important Announcements" that happen with a white background. You have the reincarnations that often follow this. You have them talking about former co-workers who no longer are with the company, which I guess would be like Kelemvor saying "Oh yeah I was chatting with Myrkul, and he's still pissed off at this other group, but he had a new spire added to his bone palace and it looks like a hand giving Pelor the finger." Sometimes they even undergo transformations within the same life (Akai Haato becoming Haachama for instance).
I mentioned this elsewhere and someone helpfully added the following:
9. Their canon extends beyond their own actual actions. Their followers create a lot of fan fiction about them, which gets added to the myth and at some point is assumed to be true.
9a. A lot of that is porn
That isn't necessary for how D&D gods should be, but it probably can't hurt. Just point 9, not 9a, certainly is relevant.
So this is a really good baseline for deities in D&D, even if for whatever reason you don't want the pantheon of FLOW GLOW, the pantheon of JUSTICE and so on.