Editing Greyhawk (section)

=====The first deities of Greyhawk=====
One facet of culture that Gygax did not address during the first few years of his home campaign was organized religion. Since his campaign was largely built around the needs of lower-level characters, he did not think specific deities were necessary, since direct interaction between a god and a low-level character was very unlikely. Some of his players took matters into their own hands, calling upon Norse or Greek gods such as [[Odin]] or [[Zeus]], or even [[Conan the Barbarian|Conan's]] [[Crom (fictional deity)|Crom]] in times of dire need.<ref>Kuntz: "Before [Gygax] codified the gods there [were] Norse Gods... Robilar really only mentioned Odin once or twice; Mornard's Gronan as well as Ratners's Ayelerach both swore by Crom". {{cite web | title = Robilar Remembers: Goddess of Luck? | publisher = Pied Piper Publishing | date = 2002-11-20 | url = http://piedpiperpublishing.yuku.com/topic/1994 | access-date = 2009-09-16 | archive-date = 2017-02-06 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170206093042/http://piedpiperpublishing.yuku.com/topic/1994 | url-status = dead }}</ref> However, some of the players wanted Gygax to create and customize a specific deity so that cleric characters could receive their powers from someone less ambiguous than ''the gods''. Gygax jokingly created two gods: [[Saint Cuthbert (Dungeons & Dragons)|Saint Cuthbert]]—who brought non-believers around to his point of view with whacks of his cudgel<ref>Gygax: "St. Cuthbert was more of a joke than otherwise. Consider the advocacy of pounding sense into someone's head by dint of blows from a club". {{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part XII, Page 4) | publisher = EN World | date = 2006-08-23 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/171753-gary-gygax-q-part-xii-4.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110615024030/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/171753-gary-gygax-q-part-xii-4.html | archive-date = 2011-06-15 | url-status = dead}}</ref> —and [[Pholtus]], whose fanatical followers refused to believe that any other gods existed. Because both of these deities represented aspects of Good, Gygax eventually created a few evil deities to provide some villainy.<ref>Gygax: "The development of anything akin to a logical pantheon of deities for the world setting took a considerable period of time to complete because we seldom dealt with such entities in play. St. Cuthbert and Pholtus were amusing to the players with cleric PCs so I spent time detailing them. The balance then followed as I brought into play evil deities to serve as villains and to frustrate the aims of the PCs". {{cite web | title = Gary Gygax: Q & A (Part VIII, Page 5) | publisher = EN World | date = 2005-02-24 | url = http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/121380-gary-gygax-q-part-viii-5.html | access-date = 2009-03-15 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110615025043/http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/121380-gary-gygax-q-part-viii-5.html | archive-date = 2011-06-15 | url-status = dead}}</ref>

In Chapter 2 of ''The Gnome Cache'', which appeared in the second issue of ''The Dragon'', a shrine to St. Cuthbert (spelled ''St. Cuthburt'') was mentioned, which was the first published reference to a Greyhawk deity.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Gygax | first = Gary | author-link = Gary Gygax | title = The Gnome Cache (Part II) | journal = The Dragon | issue = 2 | page = 6 | publisher = [[TSR, Inc.|TSR]] | location = Lake Geneva WI | date = August 1976}}</ref>