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.--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. 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. 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."--Robbastard 17:05, 29 November 2007 (EST)