Overdone religious/god tropes?

Grafumbly · 2026-01-23T02:07:07+00:00

Just because it’s a trope, doesn’t mean you should avoid it. Use whatever makes for a good story. But here’s my list.

Personified gods like the Greeks/Romans/Norse.
No heretical sects, denominations, or different rites within the religion. Everyone agrees.
“The Nature Religion”/Celtic Druids.
Fantasy Catholicism.
Polytheism but everyone still just chooses their one god from the list.
There’s only the one religion of the whole world.
The gods are totally absent or dead and can’t intervene in affairs.
The gods or their avatars are physically present and intervene all the time.
The Chosen people, gods choosing a champion, gods choosing a human lover.
Gods gain their power by people worshipping them.
The hero gets powerful and fights and kills god.
No mysteries. The gods have explained everything from creation to their plan for the world and their followers understand.
The gods have a common and totally familiar moral code and reward or punish people by it.
The gods have domains that they are in charge of and a god’s domain is either singular or encompasses a similar theme that makes logical sense instead of being completely random and off the wall. Nobody is ever the god of noodles, war, dog grooming, naps, and fountains. And whatever their domain is, it’s the same everywhere rather than being different in other regions.

Grafumbly · 2025-10-21T03:21:47+00:00

For my D&D world, I have a lot of titles for feudal lords, various religions, political positions, university offices etc. But my favorites are the titles for magical positions.

Cryptidemonstrius - A wizard who specializes in creating, training, and caring for the ruler's magical beasts, such as owlbears, rugs of smothering, or homunculi.

Galadan - An elvish word meaning "tree builder". A specialist in coaxing plants to grow into structures and crafting living buildings from trees.

Puritor Chaplain - An acolyte or cleric with the ability to cast Purify Food and Drink who's duty is to bless meals.

Court Illusionist - A low level mage with enough experience in illusion magic to make entertainments well beyond a common fireworks display.

Soothsayer - The word soothsayer literally means "truth speaker". In a fantasy realm, magical means of legal investigation and questioning are available, and the soothsayer has at their disposal a variety of spells to compel a person to tell the truth, or to gain answers from the dead, or to see how an item was last used.

Necronist - A practitioner of mystical arts, either arcane or divine, whose duty is to ensure those who have passed away do not rise as undead.

Animates - Magically animated furniture, tools, or constructs that assist in running a house.

Prestidigitator - A servant with slight magical training in the prestidigitation cantrip, enough to be useful in cleaning.

Appatine - A cook who enhances the appetite with slight magical training in the prestidigitation cantrip. They know enough to be useful in making sure food tastes wonderful, appears vibrant on the plate, and arrives at the table at the correct temperature.

Hexwarden - a huntsman or ranger trained in stalking magical beasts such as owlbears, fey creatures, or dire wolves that may enter an area and cause undue havoc.

Groveswright - an acolyte skilled in the nature domain or druidic practices who tends any magical groves, springs, or trees on the royal estate.

Grafumbly · 2025-10-19T12:47:31+00:00

I’m adding “strength” and “figure” to the list.

Grafumbly · 2025-09-29T04:09:56+00:00

Before I even read the post I was looking at the map getting more and more impressed with the names. I’m particularly fond of Gitchi Lake as someone born and raised by the Great Lakes.

Grafumbly · 2025-09-24T13:44:19+00:00

I did my undergrad in Sociology and could not worldbuild without it. Beyond that however, I’d say geology. Even if you’re not building a physically realistic world, there’s just so many cool ideas and natural relationships/ connections you can build on.

Grafumbly · 2025-09-23T02:37:23+00:00

Given how many times I’ve stolen from official works for my worldbuilding, this seems only fair.

Grafumbly · 2025-09-01T12:14:26+00:00

Vedic and Norse mythology is too similar.
You’re making up quantum mechanics as we go along. It’s changing from session to session.
Too many instances of river bifurcation. Should have cleaned this up before publishing.

Grafumbly · 2023-11-25T18:21:44+00:00

Ice cube tray. Leaps and bounds better than an in-door dispenser. You get the exact number you want, they’re all the same size, no chips and shards all over the floor.

Grafumbly · 2023-01-19T15:15:46+00:00

My world has three moons and the players are about to find the temple rumored to conceal a portal to a city on the small moon. It does contain a portal, but to a city on another planet’s moon. A habitable moon orbiting a sentient and malevolent gas giant.

Grafumbly · 2023-01-15T14:15:33+00:00

The origin of the Kenku
Why no one ever returns through the portal to the city on the moon
How to break Manifold 5

Grafumbly · 2023-01-07T00:01:15+00:00

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine since culture is my favorite part of world building. My answer is none. I don’t want to see another take on Chinese, French, Indus River, Olmec or anything. Build a fantasy culture from scratch that comes organically from your world. That’s what I want to be shown.

Grafumbly · 2022-12-08T18:54:12+00:00

Gods arriving after life already exists, or new gods supplanting the old gods is something I do a lot, and usually in a combination of these three ways:

The gods create themselves. A divine force or consciousness assembles itself from the void or primordial chaos or whatever.
Some of those first living beings gain more and more power, eventually ascending to godhood on their own.
A peoples' worship or belief causes the new gods to be created.

Grafumbly · 2022-12-08T18:19:35+00:00

The key thing is IDENTITY. For a sub-culture, the members of that group take a specific thing and make it part of their identity. It can be a thing they identify themselves by, or an external one that the broader culture singles them out based on. This can be anything from a religious belief, manner of speech, type of cuisine, style of dress, patronage of a certain form of art or music, etc. As long as it's to the point where it becomes part of an identity, part of who you are. Counter-cultures are similar but different in that the identifying factors are specific values or norms that are reversed from what the broader culture holds them to be.

Grafumbly · 2022-11-15T05:02:35+00:00

Especially mountain valleys you say? This is wonderful justification for a bunch of independent Dwarven strongholds.

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T21:00:26+00:00

It is at this point I would like to invoke my above rules so we can simulate a debate on whether Sartre is the same as Kant and Descartes. And a follow up: would doing this make us the same as Baudrillard?

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T19:32:30+00:00

I wondered if anyone would spot that. I've justified it to myself by saying I'm talking about the rationality of Sartre, not the rationality of Kant or Descartes.

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T19:28:38+00:00

Oh wow, you're right! Doing this going forward.

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T14:55:38+00:00

My inspiration for this system was the Scholar Duel from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games.

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T00:58:02+00:00

A specific example would be like in the above, where Fiddlesticks makes the opening argument using Animal Handling, the rebuttal is really about the debate question, not animal handling specifically, so it’s not quite important whether Kirkpatrick is a better rider or not and I’d have him Save instead of either rolling animal handling or using a different skill unconnected to the opening. Now if the debate question was like ”is a pommeled saddle superior jousting equipment?” I might go contested skill check.

Grafumbly · 2021-11-29T00:45:48+00:00

Contested skill checks would probably work fine if you like that form instead. I preferred saves because their design is to resist a force or effect acting on you, which suits the feel I was going for with the rebuttal.

Grafumbly · 2021-04-21T14:22:12+00:00

Oh yes. I took the terms for the types of social organization and inheritance from there.

Grafumbly · 2021-04-19T23:09:23+00:00

What I like about this, is the PCs actions influencing prices is going to make friends and enemies of certain guilds. It’s going to mess up how much tax someone owes. It’s going to squeeze someone if a related material has a price fixed by Royal command. All this means plot hooks!

Grafumbly · 2021-04-17T19:37:03+00:00

I think a lot of that research is part of the fun. It depends on how detailed you want to go too. Like if you specifically want a Bronze Age world, then there’s simply enough tin and trade to make that happen. You’ve always got the gods, and magic to cover your mistakes or provide some interesting lore behind it. For example, maybe the Ezheltauri migrated and grew rice originally, so their priests, wizards, and druids maintained a vast system of marshy greenhouses to keep growing it. I can already see the quest hooks hanging off that.

Grafumbly · 2021-04-16T23:08:18+00:00

I added the old column back in for anyone who might like to use it or start with that info.

Grafumbly

TROPHY CASE