Editing Deities & Demigods (section)

==[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]]==
For the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the name was changed back to Deities & Demigods and the cover artwork was changed again to bring it more in line with other third edition D&D manuals. The interior material bears little resemblance to the previous printings of the book (first through sixth). Additionally, this edition presents only a few historical pantheons and in something of a vacuum, without any reference to or inclusion of their development in previous D&D sources, choosing instead to detail them as one-off campaign options.

The third edition volume was written by Rich Redman, Skip Williams, and James Wyatt. The cover illustration was by Sam Wood, with interior illustrations by Kyle Anderson, Glen Angus, Matt Cavotta, Dennis Cramer, Tony DiTerlizzi, Jeff Easley, Donato Giancola, Lars Grant-West, Rebecca Guay, Matt Mitchell, Eric Peterson, Wayne Reynolds, Darrell Riche, Richard Sardinha, and Brian Snoddy, with Justin Norman, Arnie Swekel, and Sam Wood.

The 3e version of Deities & Demigods opens with an extensive chapter examining what deities are, why people revere them, and basically providing an in-depth guide into creating your own gods and pantheons. This is then followed by the second chapter, which examines creating deities in the ''mechanical'' sense, with rules for building gods as monsters.

The next 4 chapters are the "[[Monster Manual]]" segment of the book. Each examines a specific pantheon, containing an easy-reference table of [[cleric]]-relevant details (name, alignment, domains, divine rank, favored weapon and portfolio), followed by an individual examination of each god. Each god's examination provides its titles, its place of residence in the [[multiverse]], its divine rank, its holy symbol (in both textual and visual format), alignment, portfolio, worshippers, [[cleric]] alignments, associated [[Cleric Domain]]s, favored weapons, a basic description of the god's personality and appearance, a summary of its religious dogma, details on its clergy and temples, and finally stats for the god in question.

The pantheons covered in these 4 chapters are the "D&D Pantheon" (the most famous gods of the [[Greyhawk]] setting), the Olympic Pantheon (Greco-Roman Gods), the Pharaonic Pantheon (Egyptian Gods), and the Asgardian Pantheon ([[Viking]] gods).

The sourcebook closes with a grab-bag chapter, containing three sample "homespun" faiths, each with clerical rules and an associated [[Prestige Class]]; the monotheistic sun-god [[Taiia]], the dualistic gods [[Elishar]] and [[Toldoth]], and the [[dwarf|dwarven]] mystery-cult goddess [[Dennari]]. This is then followed by appendixes containing new clerical domains and clerical spells, and mechanics for ascending to divinity oneself.