Priests, Gods, and the World (CPrH)

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This chapter is for DMs who want to design the mythic history of their campaign world(s). It's not prohibited for the campaign's players to read this... but not all of them will find it useful. Players may wish to skip on to the third chapter, "Sample Priesthoods."
One of the first things the DM can do to add color and detail to his campaign world is to work up that world's mythic history. Such a history will help establish, in his mind and those of his players, the relationships between the gods, and between gods and men. It will help set the tone of the campaign and the attitude of the player-characters' culture. It will give the players some idea of what their characters expect from their gods and their future. And once it's done, the DM can then elaborate on it and decide how each individual god relates to other gods and to the sentient races of the world.
In this chapter, we'll discuss some of the common themes that run through myths; the DM can use these topics as a framework for his own mythic history.