I've been musing more on the topic of Clerics and gods in D&D, and especially in my Terafa setting, and I've decided to move away from requiring (or even encouraging) Clerics, and Paladins, Druids, and anyone else, from selecting a patron deity. They of course retain the right to do so if they choose, but they will not be required.
Instead, Clerics will be members of mystery cults dedicated to one of five Philosophies (that I'm yet to define). Their powers will remain unchanged, with any Cleric being able to select any Domain. However, since they're steeped in philosophy, rather than being servants of a deity (or anyone else), there will be no implied behavioural restrictions - it is up to the player to determine their actions... and likewise it won't be immediately apparent how an NPC Cleric is likely to behave.
This has some knock-on effects to the place of organised religion within the setting, but that's probably a good thing - a lot of the trappings that D&D has adopted are borrowed from a monotheistic tradition and then adapted, generally poorly, to a polytheistic set of assumptions.
The key reason for this is that I'm now leaning towards casting the gods as being closer to the Norse Aesir than the Christian God - that it, they are extremely powerful but they're not all-knowing, all-powerful, or indeed ineffable.
There is one other knock-on effect of this change: the religion proficiency will be replaced with a philosophy proficiency. Mechanically, these will be functionally identical - it's just a matter of a name change.
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