| Game background | |
|---|---|
| Title(s) | Lord of All Glyphs and Images The Scribe of Oghma |
| Home plane | House of Knowledge |
| Power level | Lesser |
| Alignment | Neutral Good |
| Portfolio | Literature, Art, Knowledge, Glyphs, Images, Cartography, Scholars |
| Superior | Oghma |
| Design details | |
Deneir (Deh-NEER)[1] is a fictional minor deity on Faerûn, a fictional sub-continent in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
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Ed Greenwood created Deneir for his home Dungeons & Dragons game, set in the Forgotten Realms.[2]
Deneir first appeared within Dungeons & Dragons as one of the deities featured in Ed Greenwood's article "Down-to-earth Divinity" in Dragon #54 (October 1981). Deneir is introduced as Lord of All Glyphs and Images, god of literature and art, a neutral good demigod from the plane of the Happy Hunting Grounds. He is described as being connected to Oghma, and depicted as an old, balding sage with a flaming white beard, said to have manufactured the artifact Kuroth's Quill, and ascribed by his priests to have written most magical books and tomes. Deneir's alliances among the gods are also described: "Oghma is served by Gond on one hand, and by Milil and Deneir on the other." Deneir is commonly worshipped by magic-users, illusionists, thieves, clerics, as well as characters employed as poets, artists, scribes, and sages.[2]
Deneir later officially appeared as one of the major deities for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set's "Cyclopedia of the Realms" booklet (1987).[1]
Deneir was described in the hardback Forgotten Realms Adventures (1990),[3] the revised Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (1993) in the "Running the Realms" booklet,[4] and Faiths & Avatars (1996).[5]
His role in the cosmology of the Planescape campaign setting was described in On Hallowed Ground (1996).[6]
Deneir is described as one of the good deities that celestials can serve in the supplement Warriors of Heaven (1999).[7]
Deneir appears as one of the major deities of the Forgotten Realms setting again, in Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001),[8] and is further detailed in Faiths and Pantheons (2002).[9]
Milil, Gond, Oghma, and Deneir are known as the Gods of Knowledge and Invention.[5]
Deneir answers the prayers of his organized priests, but he has also been known to choose a person who truly follows Deneir's ideals—to invent, to create, to learn. He himself seems to have a problem with some of his strictly-organized orders, whose devotion to a hierarchy and their duties impedes with his followers learning and inventing, to the point of there being little joy in their work. The two Chosen (Pertelope and Cadderly) shown so far were both more relaxed about rules and hierarchy, capable of teasing or joking with their more staid brethren. These two Chosen were granted direct access to divine spells, rather than having to study and pray for them and their god-given power exceeded that of older Deneiran priests.
Despite their generally laid back attitude, the teachings of Deneir also dictate that his followers create with a conscience and refrain from casually designing weapons of war or death.
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