Review: Book of the Righteous

This sourcebook published by Green Ronin is a great resource for someone who wants to have a rich religious flavor to their setting without designing your own or bogging down in useless details like the stats of the gods and goddesses. Released in 2002, it is the best sourcebook I own for use in D&D.

When I was working on a new setting of my own creation for D&D, I knew that I wanted to have a really developed religious side to the setting. The Forgotten Realms have a very interesting pantheon with tons of material available, but I didn't want to use something that was linked to another setting. While perusing the shelves at the local gaming store, I came across the treasure titled The Book of the Righteous from Green Ronin (PDF version available from DriveThruRPG).

The book is completely lacking in place names which means that all the stories of the pantheon with mythologies, doctrines, and dogmas can be dropped into any setting very easily. The first chapter discusses the history of the pantheon as well as the cosmology of the plains. Most of the other 200+ pages cover the various deities within the pantheon.

Each diety has several sections describing the diety, the practices of their religion, and much more. Rather than just listing Tinel as the god of magic, there are 12 pages of myths, church doctrine, purpose, holy days, religious factions, and holy orders.

Holy orders usually consist of descriptions of the clerics, a prestige class or two, and holy warriors. Holy warriors are a twist on paladins that I really like. Rather than just saying each good-aligned deity has paladins, each deity has their own group of holy warriors. Advancement is very much like paladins, but they get different special abilities than standard paladins. For example, a holy warrior of Maal, god of law and justice, can discern lies rather than remove disease at third level. Or Naryne, goddess of nobility, has holy warriors that can use helping hand to help them find the nobles they serve very quickly. Some holy warriors get different mounts rather than warhorses. For example, holy warriors of the god of the air can call a giant eagle mount.

So in the end, if you're looking for a very detailed pantheon with lots of myths, doctrines, and information to feed your DM imagination, this is your book.