[RPG] What are the implications of running a game with only 2 Major Deities: God and the Devil

alignmentdnd-5ehomebrewreligions-and-deities

I've been wanting to simplify the general pantheon of 5th Edition down to 2 major moral forces, mirroring the horizontal spectrum of the alignment system:

(Good [Neutral] Evil)

It seems simple enough, right?

The only major implications that I've come up with right off the bat are, ultimately:

All Warlocks are Evil (Satan must be their patron).

All non-Oathbreaker Paladins and non-Death Clerics are Good (God must be their God).

Is there anything else that I may have overlooked that would have a large effect on the game should these effects go in place? I enjoy the implications of this dichotomy and would love to see if there are even more curious effects on the D&D universe.

Best Answer

This is not homebrew.

Quite the opposite, the Dungeon Master's Guide mentions dualism as a valid religious system, see page 11, "Other Religious Systems", emphasis mine:

In your campaign, you can create pantheons of gods who are closely linked in a single religion, monotheistic religions (worship of a single deity), dualistic systems (centered on two opposing deities or forces), mystery cults (involving personal devotion to a single deity, usually as part of a pantheon system), animistic religions (revering the spirits inherent in nature), or even forces and philosophies that don't center on deities.

See DMG page 12, "Dualism" for more details. Alignment isn't tied to gods in this case, but serves as kind of a moral compass for a character. It might still be the standard nine alignments.

Also, regardless of the fact that there is one single God, Clerics still have to choose a domain:

A single god appears in different aspects as the Creator and the Destroyer, and the clerics of that god focus on one aspect or the other, determining their domain access and possibly even their alignment on that basis.