Oghma

Oghma
Aliases	Curna, The Binder, Binder of What is Known, Lord of Knowledge, Patron of Bards, the Wise God
Alignment	True Neutral
Divine Rank	Greater God
Pantheon	Faerûn, Celtic
Portfolio	Music, Language, Inspiration, Invention
Domains	3E: Balance, Charm, Knowledge, Luck, Travel, Trickery 5E: Knowledge
Home Plane	Great Wheel: House of Knowledge (Outlands, Tir Na Nog) World Tree/World Axis: House of Knowledge
Worshippers	Bards, Wizards, Sages, Cartographers, Artists, Inventors, Scholars, Scribes
Favoured Weapon	Mortal Strike (Longsword)

Dragon Magazine #65

Oghma is the god of inspiration and knowledge in the Celtic pantheon and in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

His portfolio is rather large, covering pretty much anything to do with coming up with new intellectual pursuits: whether it be poems, symphonies, prose, art, clothing lines, mathematical, architecture, crafts etc etc.

Despite his wide range of nerdy hobbies, Oghma is actually quite the ladies man, and is portrayed as a handsome and charismatic individual who has sired many bastard children across the world.

Forgotten Realms

The smiling god of eloquence

Oghma is an interloper deity who migrated to Toril along with Silvanus from the Celtic Pantheon, this means he has no direct tie to the origin and early history of the Forgotten Realms, but has embedded himself as a primary deity nonetheless.

One of his titles is "The Binder", which in Faerun is often ascribed to his nature as the patron of books and knowledge. But in actuality he achieved the nickname due to the fact that he was originally his pantheons greatest wrestler, but also because he has the ability to see a creature's true name; and with the name he can force fiends into prisons of his own choosing. This makes the lords of the Nine Hells particularly pissed at him, but with an ability like his he's not that bothered.

Despite his wide ranging portfolio and his position as the god of Knowledge, his cosmic duties tend to be ill defined. Though he is credited as the god of inspiration it is his servant Deneir who gets the job of writing everything down; His servant Milil does all the singing and composing; while Gond does all the designing and artifice. Leaving Oghma little to do other than be the muse with a very high divine rank. He continuously travels and only spends about six months of every year in his divine realm, with the rest of that time wandering the material plane. Though that probably explains where he found the time to sire so many children.

The number of bastard offspring he has fathered (or mothered, since his feminine aspect is called Curna) has not actually been recorded possibly because they may not be particularly notable, though twenty-two of them were captured by Cyric and transformed into magical paintings capable of speech called the Whispering Children.

He is also portrayed as not being particularly active amongst the gods, even though he is naturally close to the goddess of magic Mystra, when she was put on trial for Incompetence through humanity Oghma's position was basically to sit back and go "whatever".

Most of his influence in the realms comes from disagreements within his church, over whether knowledge should be shared by all, or whether it should be vetted and carefully guarded.

Worshippers

Priests of Oghma refer to themselves as "Loremasters", though it has no explicit connection to the Prestige Class of the same name, those Loremasters would make very good priests of Oghma anyway.

As mentioned, the church of Oghma is split into several factions: the first is the Orthodox Church of Oghma, who believe that their Pope Grand Patriarch went missing during the Time of Troubles. They still believe that he either serves Oghma directly on the outer planes or has ascended to a semi-divine statues, so they have refused to elect a new one until his fate has been determined. This faction believes that knowledge should be shared freely, no matter its content.

The second faction are the Church of Oghma in Sembia who have elected a new Patriarch, who has far more conservative views on dissemination of knowledge, feeling that it should be tested and proven worthy before general release.

A third faction called the Pursuers of Pure Knowledge acknowledge the new patriarch, but do not accept his stance on vetting knowledge.

This creates somewhat of an impasse between the three churches, to the point that priests of some factions were not welcome in the regions of others and vice versa. However while this religious schism seem to follow real-world examples of faiths splintering, one forgets that in Faerun the deities answer prayers through magic, so strictly speaking none of the factions are wrong because Oghma grants spells to all of his followers.

Another separate faction from the Shining South revere Oghma under the feminine guise of Curna, who they consider to be an aspect of the unifying world spirit they refer to as Adama. This sect is barely involved with the politics of the others and has a more common sense approach to knowledge, dealing primarily with knowledge of day-to-day current events.

Servants & Exarchs

Oghma is served by several other deities, including Deneir, Milil and Gond who are collectively known as The Deities of Knowledge and Invention.

Realm

Oghma (along with his servant deities) inhabits the House of Knowledge, which despite its name is not actually a house at all, but a campus of buildings located in a forest. In the Great Wheel cosmology this is in the Outlands, but in the World Tree this is its own realm entirely.

Much like a university campus, the variety of buildings are dedicated to the preservation and transmission of all knowledge and hold records of practically every spell, fact, recipe, blueprint, novel or conceivable concept known to creation. Probably making it a more useful repository of magical lore than Mystras realm of Dweomerheart. Despite the fact that the gods each have their own spheres of influence, no region of the House belongs to any god in particular, although they all have their favourite locations within it.

Oghma maintains three springs in the forest, of Knowledge, Music and Poetry, and anyone who drinks from these pools gains a particular benefit, on top of being healed of all injuries. Those who drink "Knowledge" have a single question answered. "Music" grants a critical success on their next performance, while "Poetry" allows the imbiber to speak all languages for the following two days. To prevent abuse, Oghma has the ability to change the location of each spring at will.

Trivia

As mentioned above, Oghma, along with Silvanus are interlopers from another pantheon, most assuredly the Celtic mythology of Scotland and Ireland. Although the original Oghma was nothing like his Forgotten Realms interpretation. Oghma served as the champion of king Nuada after his replacement and subsequent return to the throne as "Nuada Silverhand". Instead of being a god of knowledge, the Celtic version Oghma is considered to have been the most athletic of the gods, and was the only one who could prove his martial prowess to the interim king Bres.

Oghma was eventually replaced as Nuada's champion when a newcomer: Lugh arrived at court. Oghma picked up a stone that required eighty oxen to lift and threw it out of the court. Lugh responded by throwing it back in.

It's more likely that he was more based on Ogmios who was the Gallic god of eloquence, who used his powers to bind men to his service, and both gods are sometimes described as smiling deities of eloquence. Also Oghma was credited for having created the ogham alphabet.