Finally logging in after rebooting a few times. I won't be playing here since I can't be an atheist. Sorry, dislike having religion forced upon me. I invested a lot of time getting this to work too.
While not an atheist in RL, I'm little better than agnostic (though the distinction between the two is slight and technically ... one can be both at times), deities in the Forgotten Realms don't fit the same theistic definitions many assume they do. In the Forgotten Realms, deities while -powerful-, are not -all powerful-, and many even have recorded histories as mortals that have ascended after defeating a god themselves. This is however a "Forgotten Realms" server, and I'll cover more details below.
Kalbaern, could you clarify this? Browsed through the rules section of your forum and the only stuff I saw in this regard was requiring one of the two cleric domains to be a specific domain and that divine spellcasters (and monks) needed to set a deity. I'm assuming this is something in-game, then? Is the situation...
1, you don't have to follow a particular deity but you have to acknowledge deities exist in the FR (this scenario seems to be seen often enough in lore)
2, you have to follow a particular deity, period
3, something else entirely
As a PW whose founding base are a group of PnP enthusiasts, we simply follow the rules and guidelines set forth in what most refer to as "sources" whenever we can, within the mechanical limits of NWN, and with the caveat that things still need to be both fun and fluid in a computer game. To answer in the shortest possible way the three questions above, I'll say "Yes" to them all. 
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First I'll cover how deities in the Forgotten Realms (and all DnD Realms such as Greyhawk, Planescape, Eberron, etc...) can affect game mechanics. While -true- atheism is allowed in any DnD campaign per se, only those "characters" under the covenant of a diety can ever be raised or resurrected should they ever die. True atheists become classified as either "False" or "Faithless" upon death with different outcomes. Even the "Faithless" have a chance to claim a god after death in their first -tenday- upon the Fugue Plane. I'm going to however avoid a thirty page detailed dissertation on death and deities in the Forgotten Realms and just move on as best I can.
Our core founders on the Savage Frontiers and Surrounds, cover of wide range of atheistic, agnostic and theistic backgrounds. Religion, religions and "non-belief" is something we actually debated several times. In the end, we all agreed upon the following policy; Its just a game, we are "role playing" characters in a game, and the game itself does not dictate or represent our own morals or beliefs in real life ... and to keep things simple, we'll just follow the lore of our chosen campaign in regards to such things.
When we first launched our Closed Beta testing module in late '08. There were around a dozen of us, and two were insistent on having an "atheist" option. We actually enabled it, with the mechanical limitation that any death was permanent and irrevocable whether from PvE or PvP. After two months, I double checked the character bic files for these two folks and found that despite all of their previous vociferous prostrations, not one of their characters had chosen the "atheist" option. They wanted the "choice" as some sort of moral victory, but weren't willing to pay the piper with the in game ramifications of such a choice. So, we reconvened our staff and ended up just removing the option after hours of discussions and adopting the policy I stated in the previous paragraph. After all, this is a game, games have rules, but games by definition are also supposed to be fun or entertaining and anything causing undue drama would be avoided or shunned. In the end, we lost these two folks from our staff, not for their atheistic stances, but for the fact that they persisted in pushing several other political and moral stances on our forums. Neither were these a matter of agree or disagree, I and my Co-Admins simply felt that both our forums and server should embrace all, exclude none and not push or pressure one way or another any religious, political or other real life morality choices in a gaming campaign based upon fantasy. Anyhow, rather than ramble on for a dozen more paragraphs I'll summarize my own personal stance as believing; "It's just a game, nothing religious is forced upon folks, we're just following an existing fantasy campaigns guidelines"*.
*Disclaimer: Any reports that I may have personally threatened a certain nephew to be sacrificed to Bhael if he didn't quit pestering me, are unsubstantiated rumors or hearsay and should be disregarded accordingly.
To get back to the recent topic at hand, I'll post selections found in the source book, "3.5 Edition, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting" page 39. Previous and newer versions (AD&D, 2E, 3E, 4E and 5E) also differ in their exact wording, but agree with the following in its general context.
Religion
- The deities of Faerun are deeply enmeshed in the functioning of the world's magical ecology and the lives of mortals. Faerunian characters nearly always have a patron deity. Everyone in Faerun knows that those who die without having a patron deity to escort them to their proper judgement in the land of the dead spend eternity writhing in the Walls of the Faithless, or disappear into the hells of the devils or the infernos of the demons.
On this same page is explained how Faerun is mostly a polytheistic culture and that while a goddess like Umberlee is evil, even a good aligned sailor might be inclined to acknowledge or even make an offering to her before he sets sail.
In the Forgotten Realms Novels in which "Drizzt" is featured, he denounces worshipping the gods of his kin (drow) and claims no deity, knowingly, for himself. Still, because of his morals, political stances and actions in life, the goddess Mielikki is his patron, whether he even knows of her or acknowledges her openly.
On our PW, we represent deities in the following manner.
- Characters that cast divine spells are required to chose a deity that supports their classes and alignments. Clerics also have specific Domains they are allowed, based upon their chosen deity. Domains are not script enforced, but are reviewed by DMs if/when a player is making a request to take a PrC, join a guild/cult/order, or before certain RP rewards are offered them.
- Characters that are not divine casters, or do not plan to multi class as one later should merely chose a deity based on the alignment and morals which best suit themselves.
- Characters need not act as evangelists of their faiths or even acknowledge who their patron may be if not part of an actual religious cult/group/guild that expects them too.
One of my own main characters is an elf and chose, of course, Corellon, as his patron. In game, he acknowledges and pays homage to a wide variety of deities. I also have a few characters that espouse no formal alliance or preference, yet still have chosen a patron that suits their general demeanor.
Anyhow, my intent is not to have insulted any with this post, but to instead merely inform them of the "mechanics" of our fantasy based game world.
