View source for Talk:Obad-Hai

==Dwarves?==
Where does the info on Obad-Hai having dwarven followers come from? Not that I doubt it, it just seems rather odd for a god normally associated with forests & hunting to have a significant following among a mining, stone-working, underground-dwelling race.--[[User:Robbastard|Robbastard]] 18:58, 27 November 2007 (EST)

:I suppose that's why the dwarves don't have their own god of the forests, and have to borrow a human one. In contrast, dwarves have much more reason to have a god of war, and therefore have grown their own, [[Clangeddin Silverbeard]], and have no need to appropriate [[Heironeous]]. I don't think there are a lot of actual dwarven priests of Obad-Hai, or dwarves worshiping Obad-Hai to the exclusion of traditionally dwarven deities—it's just that when a dwarf needs to propitiate the god of the woods, Obad-Hai is the god of choice.

:As for the source, see ''A Guide to the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting'', page 72: "At other times he will appear as a dwarf, gnome, or halfling." I suppose the fact that he sometimes becomes a dwarf doesn't mean that they worship him—I admit I simply took for granted that a deity wouldn't bother to take dwarven form unless the dwarves revered him. On the other hand, I would leave the matter of Jascar's pegasus worshipers or Beltar's beholder worshipers up for the reader to decide, so perhaps I was wrong to do so. If there were a "beholder deities" category, should Beltar belong to it? I'm inclined to say yes, if only because she takes the form of that race on occasion, but I'm not certain. [[User:Rip|Rip]] 20:02, 27 November 2007 (EST)

On the other hand, I'm very much inclined ''not'' to list [[Lendor]] among the elven gods, despite his elven form. Lendor's elf maid shape is an oddity that's hard to explain in any case. I note that the ''Living Greyhawk Gazetteer'' says of Obad-Hai, "...nonhuman communities show him as one of their own race," so evidently Obad-Hai manifests in dwarf form because the dwarves depict him that way. I think this indicates that they desire to adopt him as one of their own in some sense, at least, and that Obad-Hai is sufficiently impressed that he responds to it. The whole matter's a bit of a puzzle, I guess. [[User:Rip|Rip]] 21:59, 28 November 2007 (EST)
::It would probably be best to put deities into non-human categories only if there is source material stating that the deity has a significant following among a specific race. We should restrict speculation to the talk page. When unsure, something could be placed in the "Worshippers" section, such as "Though _______ sometimes manifests as a _______, the source material is unclear if he has a significant following among that race."--[[User:Robbastard|Robbastard]] 17:05, 29 November 2007 (EST)