If you ever play a Rogue or roguish character in a setting inspired by Greek mythology, Hermes (Mercury for the Romans) is your first choice of patron deity.
Are you a thief? He’s the god of thieves. A swindler? He’s the trickster god. A wanderer? He’s the god of travellers and crossings. A smartass? He’s the god of wit. Athletic? He’s the god of athletes. Do you buy and sell stuff, stolen, looted or otherwise? He’s the god of commerce. Are you an assassin? How appropriate, he’s the Psychopomp, leading the Shades of the dead to the Underworld – you’ll make a wonderful team.
In short, Hermes is the god of Rogues, and a Rogue in god form.
D&D rules make patron deities irrelevant unless you’re a cleric. But unlike the Greyhawk pantheon, Greek deities meddle. If you ever need a god on your side, let it be Hermes. Not only is he the god of Rogues, but he’s also charming enough to get along with the entire pantheon. Which means you won’t accidentally incur divine wrath simply because your patron deity happened to get into a fight with some other god. Which is, let me tell you, a very big deal in Greek mythology.
And of course, you get all the points for flavour.
Illustration by Yannis Stephanides / Sigma Editions
In 3rd Edition’s Deities and Demigods, Hermes is a Chaotic Good intermediary deity, known as The Master Thief and the Messenger of the Gods. His portfolio is travel, trade, theft, gambling, and running, and his domains are Chaos, Good, Luck, Travel, and Trickery. Consider a dip in Cleric: you’ll be a rogue devoted to your own archetype, you’ll get some nifty spells, and can trade your domain powers for some nifty domain feats (Complete Champion). Travel Devotion is the niftiest of all.
In this homebrew Greek Mythology Variant (self-plug alert), I gave granted powers to everyone with a patron deity, clerics and mundanes alike, and the favoured of Hermes get their choice of: Brains over Brawn (as Factotum), or a bunch of Item Creation Feats, or a bunch of trickery-related SLAs.
But all these are in the end secondary and optional. If you’re a Rogue, just pick Hermes as your patron deity. You get, I repeat, all the points for flavour.
[Further reading: wikipedia, theoi.com]
[originally posted by Rogue on tumblr]
Roguish 