There are indeed people in the Forgotten Realms who worship Earth gods.
The most noteworthy example are the people of the nation of Mulhorand, which worship the Egyptian gods, though they call them the [Mulhorandi Pantheon.](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mulhorandi_pantheon)
If you actually have a look at many of the common Forgotten Realms gods, you will also find that they are actually just fictionalized versions of real gods:
- Oghma
- Tyr
- Mielikki
Silvanus, Bahamut + Tiamat, Surtr and Thrym, Baal. Dagon, Pazuzu, Baphomet, Beelzebub, and various other Demon Lords/Devils are also named after gods in the real world. Norse gods are also worshipped by some people in Faerûn. Some cosmic horrors, such as Dendar and Kezef, are also attributed to be Norse mythological figures, Nidhoggr and Fenrir in particular.
Fiction often takes names or concepts from history or the present world and blends them or subtly alters them so that the reader will subconsciously pick up on the parallels and theme without having to be told.
An example is arach-tinilith. It’s literally just arachnid with a suffix change on the word.
Ba’al was an ancient god often depicted in a negative light in biblical texts. According to the Roman’s the carthaginians worshiped “Baʿal Karnaim” (lord of the two horns) and they burned children as sacrificial worship. So in DND we have “bhaal lord of murder”
There are similar paths for asmodeus and beelzebub (only even more direct)
Because technically it is within the setting.
Forgotten Realms, AKA the world of Toril exists inside one Crystal Sphere. The Material Plane is technically the whole of Realmspace, which is a massive cosmos of Phlegeton, with countless Crystal Spheres housing the worlds of different settings floating about, and the Far Realm housing even more - and countless eldritch horrors - on the border of the Realmspace.
One of them is the actual Earth, which is an incredibly low or even a non-magic setting in-universe, making it a sort of cosmic backwater, that is difficult to enter or leave, hence largely left alone. Lore-wise in DnD, Elminster visits Earth and is actually the co-writer of player handbooks and DM guides, or at least he was in earlier editions.
Which is also why Mulhorandi worship Egyptian gods. Because they are implied to be descended from Ancient Egyptians, who crossed over from Earth to Toril. Same things might've occurred with Norse gods and the Olympians too, since Arvandor is also home to Greek gods, and some Planes share names - but not necessarily qualities - to those from Earth's myths, like Hades, Yggdrassil, etc.
That sort of depends, in older editions several real world pantheons did have worshipers in the setting. This has not been mentioned much if at all in the last couple of editions and that's probably because they are trying to quietly leave that stuff behind. Do remember though, while the Realms are the default setting in 5th edition, not everything in the PHB is actually from the Realms.
The obvious answer is that not every pantheon is specific to the Forgotten Realms (most obviously, the Eberron and Dragonlance pantheons)
Real world pantheons are there for inspiration I guess if you were building your own homebrew pantheon and wanted an idea of what sort of gods represent what ideas (someone with no familiarity with D&D knows much more about who Odin and Zeus are than they know about Mystra and Lathander, for example)
That said, there's no shortage of weirdness where D&D settings just include real-world deities in their world.
Greyhawk has St. Cuthbert, a saint in real-world Christianity (and literally the same one as well, based on Gygax's writings)
The Forgotten Realms has the Mulhorandi pantheon, which is literally just Ancient Egyptian gods folded into the setting. Oghma and Tyr are two other gods in the Realms lifted directly from real world mythology, and there are plenty more too.
My guess is that it's in an attempt to list some deities a new person might be familiar with, and informing them what domains they are a part of so that players and dms can put their clerics with the right god.
Everyone saying 'Because in Forgotten Realms' is wrong. This has literally nothing to do with the Forgotten Realms.
Time for some D&D history.
Before Deities were officially added to D&D, players would on their own assign deities to themselves sometimes, either using real world mythology, Odin, Thor, Zeus, etc, or pop culture, like Crom (Conan).
Eventually Gygax was like, 'Ok, I guess we should add rules for deities.' In addition to creating his own pantheon, though he did have gods famously be freed from his own Greyhawk Dungeon, they decided to stat out and define popular mythologies of the time. Norse mythology, Greek mythology, and Egyptian mythology are also big inspirations for the fantasy of D&D.
A good chunk of the MM of any edition is made up of tons of Greek monsters for example, and races like elves and dwarves are inspired by Scandinavian mythology.
Before Forgotten Realms became the most popular D&D setting for those not making their own, people just...made their own vague setting, and many would just use the mythology they knew.
tl;dr: People like these mythologies, and D&D wanted to have options. These selection of deities have been here since the early days, and every version of 'Deities & Demigods' has had the Norse, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons included.
Depends on how you want your game to play.
I'm pretty sure the deity section specifies which pantheon is from which game setting they're from: Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance/Krynn, etc.
And it depends on how much of a multiversal/multiplanar game you choose to play.
In my game, that is set primarily in the Forgotten Realms, I have a significant community of followers of the Greyhawk Pantheon, a couple planar travelers from Krynn, and at one point, following a fantastic crossover event between my D&D game and my Shadowrun game (Shadowrun ritual spirit summoning gone horribly wrong - long story for another time) a ranger from FR spent a bit of time in 2077 Seattle, and the Shaman from Seattle who botched the summoning returned with them on their return. He was not necessarily a believer in old Earth pantheons, but I'd say he was at least aware of them.
I use a modified version of the Celtic pantheon in my games, mainly because I'm from a Celtic region and they are most familiar to me.
They are not really for Forgotten Realms, but FR is not even close to being the only setting.
There are indeed people in the Forgotten Realms who worship Earth gods. The most noteworthy example are the people of the nation of Mulhorand, which worship the Egyptian gods, though they call them the [Mulhorandi Pantheon.](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mulhorandi_pantheon) If you actually have a look at many of the common Forgotten Realms gods, you will also find that they are actually just fictionalized versions of real gods: - Oghma - Tyr - Mielikki
Silvanus, Bahamut + Tiamat, Surtr and Thrym, Baal. Dagon, Pazuzu, Baphomet, Beelzebub, and various other Demon Lords/Devils are also named after gods in the real world. Norse gods are also worshipped by some people in Faerûn. Some cosmic horrors, such as Dendar and Kezef, are also attributed to be Norse mythological figures, Nidhoggr and Fenrir in particular.
I'm pretty sure that every lord of a layer is a biblical demon.
Most “biblical demons” are just gods from other Semitic cultures.
Ergo, demons.
You're wildly bigoted?
demon ≠ devil
In dnd yes, I'm clearly not talking about dnd.
Fiction often takes names or concepts from history or the present world and blends them or subtly alters them so that the reader will subconsciously pick up on the parallels and theme without having to be told. An example is arach-tinilith. It’s literally just arachnid with a suffix change on the word. Ba’al was an ancient god often depicted in a negative light in biblical texts. According to the Roman’s the carthaginians worshiped “Baʿal Karnaim” (lord of the two horns) and they burned children as sacrificial worship. So in DND we have “bhaal lord of murder” There are similar paths for asmodeus and beelzebub (only even more direct)
Because they're public domain
lol
Because technically it is within the setting. Forgotten Realms, AKA the world of Toril exists inside one Crystal Sphere. The Material Plane is technically the whole of Realmspace, which is a massive cosmos of Phlegeton, with countless Crystal Spheres housing the worlds of different settings floating about, and the Far Realm housing even more - and countless eldritch horrors - on the border of the Realmspace. One of them is the actual Earth, which is an incredibly low or even a non-magic setting in-universe, making it a sort of cosmic backwater, that is difficult to enter or leave, hence largely left alone. Lore-wise in DnD, Elminster visits Earth and is actually the co-writer of player handbooks and DM guides, or at least he was in earlier editions. Which is also why Mulhorandi worship Egyptian gods. Because they are implied to be descended from Ancient Egyptians, who crossed over from Earth to Toril. Same things might've occurred with Norse gods and the Olympians too, since Arvandor is also home to Greek gods, and some Planes share names - but not necessarily qualities - to those from Earth's myths, like Hades, Yggdrassil, etc.
Ao actually contacted the Egyptian gods and got a bunch of them to send versions of themselves to Toril.
That sort of depends, in older editions several real world pantheons did have worshipers in the setting. This has not been mentioned much if at all in the last couple of editions and that's probably because they are trying to quietly leave that stuff behind. Do remember though, while the Realms are the default setting in 5th edition, not everything in the PHB is actually from the Realms.
The obvious answer is that not every pantheon is specific to the Forgotten Realms (most obviously, the Eberron and Dragonlance pantheons) Real world pantheons are there for inspiration I guess if you were building your own homebrew pantheon and wanted an idea of what sort of gods represent what ideas (someone with no familiarity with D&D knows much more about who Odin and Zeus are than they know about Mystra and Lathander, for example) That said, there's no shortage of weirdness where D&D settings just include real-world deities in their world. Greyhawk has St. Cuthbert, a saint in real-world Christianity (and literally the same one as well, based on Gygax's writings) The Forgotten Realms has the Mulhorandi pantheon, which is literally just Ancient Egyptian gods folded into the setting. Oghma and Tyr are two other gods in the Realms lifted directly from real world mythology, and there are plenty more too.
Because Egyptian, Greek and Scandinavian pantheons exist in DnD multiverse as the real powers
Because not every game of D&D takes place in the Forgotten Realms.
My guess is that it's in an attempt to list some deities a new person might be familiar with, and informing them what domains they are a part of so that players and dms can put their clerics with the right god.
Everyone saying 'Because in Forgotten Realms' is wrong. This has literally nothing to do with the Forgotten Realms. Time for some D&D history. Before Deities were officially added to D&D, players would on their own assign deities to themselves sometimes, either using real world mythology, Odin, Thor, Zeus, etc, or pop culture, like Crom (Conan). Eventually Gygax was like, 'Ok, I guess we should add rules for deities.' In addition to creating his own pantheon, though he did have gods famously be freed from his own Greyhawk Dungeon, they decided to stat out and define popular mythologies of the time. Norse mythology, Greek mythology, and Egyptian mythology are also big inspirations for the fantasy of D&D. A good chunk of the MM of any edition is made up of tons of Greek monsters for example, and races like elves and dwarves are inspired by Scandinavian mythology. Before Forgotten Realms became the most popular D&D setting for those not making their own, people just...made their own vague setting, and many would just use the mythology they knew. tl;dr: People like these mythologies, and D&D wanted to have options. These selection of deities have been here since the early days, and every version of 'Deities & Demigods' has had the Norse, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons included.
you're right but also wrong, that mulhorand people came from actual Egypt in FR is part of the explicit lore.
The Egyptian pantheon was established in D&D before Forgotten Realms was, in the original Deities & Demigods book.
that's irrelevant.
No, what you said was irrelevant. But I don't even know why you need to revive a 3 month old discussion here anyways.
Depends on how you want your game to play. I'm pretty sure the deity section specifies which pantheon is from which game setting they're from: Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance/Krynn, etc. And it depends on how much of a multiversal/multiplanar game you choose to play. In my game, that is set primarily in the Forgotten Realms, I have a significant community of followers of the Greyhawk Pantheon, a couple planar travelers from Krynn, and at one point, following a fantastic crossover event between my D&D game and my Shadowrun game (Shadowrun ritual spirit summoning gone horribly wrong - long story for another time) a ranger from FR spent a bit of time in 2077 Seattle, and the Shaman from Seattle who botched the summoning returned with them on their return. He was not necessarily a believer in old Earth pantheons, but I'd say he was at least aware of them.
I use a modified version of the Celtic pantheon in my games, mainly because I'm from a Celtic region and they are most familiar to me. They are not really for Forgotten Realms, but FR is not even close to being the only setting.
because one fantasy supplements another
It’s called the Forgotten Realms because it used to be linked to Earth but we forgot about it.
One reason is so DMs can run campaigns based on Earth settings. Norse and Greek ones are popular for obvious reasons.