Sounds fun...how are you going to organize it?
Sounds interesting. Might I suggest using a wiki, maybe Obsidian Portal?
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Well, first we start with an Approach or World hook. Something that can get us started. Secondly, we've got to decide whether to go up or down. If we go top down, we start on what the world is like. If we go bottom up, we start with a town, city, or village and a few adventure sites and work our way out from there.
We will need a recorder to write down our notes in a virtual notebook or folder. We've got to decide where it's held -- like Weebly, or the Obsidian Portal, or another free website host. Secondly, we've got to elect someone who will handle getting the ideas down.
We will need a cartographer who can do the map up for us, using Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer, Fractal Mapper, or whatever is available.
If we go bottom up, we can divide the town, village, or city amongst everyone who is participating to design a town sector. Such as the Thief's Quarter, or the Banking Quarter, or a particular square.
If we can go top down, after we have the geography ironed out, we can cut or carve a continent into countries and have each one do a particular country or nation according to their tastes. this is all experimental you see, we aren't trying to steal Golarion's fire. Although if it does get published, there's Pathfinder United.
Honestly I don't have the kind of time needed to be involved beyond creatively. But I vote for top down. I think to form a cohesive whole it's important to establish the unifying concepts like tech, magic levels, environmental and geographical influences, races. If you go bottom up, you could find all the pieces you make don't really add up to a puzzle.
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The first thing we've got to do is decide on some hooks. If you were going to pitch this to TSR, Inc. back in the 90s, or to your fellow gamers now, throw in those hooks.
Hooks may range from overall climate or geography of the area, to a site of interest, to several cultures, to a situation -- which may include everything from high magical societies to psionic societies, to a Neolithic stone age culture; or it can have a historical hook.
When you throw your hook into the ring, designate it as geographical, a Site of Interest, a Particular Culture, a Situation, or if your hook is Historical based. For example, my homebrew of Phoencia is built around a waterfall (geography), is a Psionic Society (Situation), has barbarian and savage cultures around it (cultural).
And Lazurin's wish to do it Top Down is noted.
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I've always been interested in these ideas, but never really participated.
One thing that might be worth suggesting though is to start from the beginning, literally. As in, work out what happened at the beginning of time first, and then what happened in the next age, etc. No need to worry about the world the players would be playing in until much later. There's a system out there called Dawn of Worlds that's designed for this kind of approach, but I've never tried it and have no idea how appropriate it'd be for a community project.
Edit: If doing the history first doesn't sound like a good idea, I'd vote for top-down second. I know that's my preferred approach and it sounds like it'd work best for a community project, but I'm probably biased there.
While I'm thinking oof it, another suggestion would be to Wikify the whole thing from the beginning.
I don't know how big the final pantheon should be, but how about starting with overgods?
(BTW, since this seems to come up a lot in community projects, you'll need to find some way to keep things moving when things slow down. Either just pick a rough answer, or use a poll service would be my suggestion.)
There should be more than one pantheon, I think.
That's a possibility as well. Thing is in the real world we have thousands of deities that have been worshiped. It just doesn't feel right, maybe you could say hurts my suspension of disbelief to have a fictional world with only a couple dozen.
It has merit. After all the same archetypes tend to appear again and again in mythologies around the world. Not such a stretch to believe they might be the same entities, and indeed the ancients often did do so.
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I don't know how big the final pantheon should be, but how about starting with 3d2-2 overgods?
(BTW, since this seems to come up a lot in community projects, you'll need to find some way to keep things moving when things slow down. Either just pick a rough answer, or use a poll service would be my suggestion.)
I should have started this on Enworld, But hey, it's Enworld. :P Okay, got any suggestions for a poll service? I'm running a game right now.
Don't let me in on this or you'll have moral relativism up the wazoo. :P
I think basically Earthlike. It's easier to understand.
The earth has 7 major continents, one is like medeval europe. Several kingdoms. Among the other continents is one full of monsters and keeps sending raiding parties and or armies. Another is a haven for talking animals(some people want their ponyville). You have to have a lost continent full of dinosaurs and cavemen. The underdark is like a hidden 8th continent.
I liked 3rd edition's everything had a Panthion organization. One for humans, one for elves, ect.. Each animal type had one diety. Bast was queen of the cats, from house cats to big cats.
The first Google link for "free online poll" gives http://www.easypolls.net/. I have no idea if it's any good, but it doesn't seem to require a login.
So, one question about the pantheons/deities though: are there multiple layers/ages/levels/whatever of deities? The greek gods went through 3 generations before they got to the ones they actually worshiped (Chronos, Uranus, Zeus, IIRC).
So are the current gods the first ones? Did they really make the universe? Did anyone?
True, but I always felt that there should be either an actual answer (even if no one in the setting actually knows it, though commune makes that unlikely) or at least there should be a most common version. Either way, I don't think it's a question that can easily be left unanswered.
Maybe a simpler question though: are there beings beyond those that the mortals worship?
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Another sign of different cultures being different creation myths would be pretty cool. Of course in a setting where you can talk to the gods directly through magic (like plane shift), it needs to have certain limits. Like war killing off most people before gaining high levels. Assassinations and whatnot.
First time I've been first in a poll. Fun.
What's the difference between FR and Greek/Norse setups?
Commune is only a 5th level spell, so you'd have to have some serious death rates to prevent anyone from reaching 9th level. (There might even be lower level options. Summoning comes to mind.)
Whether or not the current gods are interventionists, the overgods or older gods or whatever almost never are. There's usually some justification for this (dead, imprisoned, stalemated with each other, gone).
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Over deities could be referenced in some of the cultures creation myths.
As far as what's truth or not, keeping the actual facts vague would work out why each culture has their own myths, or even have a War in the Heavens, War on Earth scenario.
A few gods are shared across multiple cultures, such as the God of Death. But other gods have different aspects in some cultures, or take different roles.
As an example, one war-like culture could revere a god of war and strength, who we'll call Bob in this culture. He plays a prominent role here, primary god in their religion, sets up a great deal of how their society is structured
Then take this other culture, more inclined towards the sciences. Bob is worshipped here as well, but called Diego instead. He still has the same portfolio, but here instead he's the patron of soldiers.
Now both the sciency culture and the war-like culture collide at times, maybe the science one to claim their land, or the war-like to raid for supplies. But the same god provides for both sides in this case.
Both sides may or may not have an idea it's the same god, but it doesn't matter as one side reveres one aspect of him for society as a whole, the other prays when battle is needed.
The gods themselves actually either don't correct this mistake, or maybe it's below them to do so. Or maybe it's just the unexplainable will of the gods.
Thoughts?
I've always had a thought for a nation/country of mixed races, who often will socialize with each other, with little to no racism (with regards to the local races). I also thought another race that is native to this area, Half-Dragon Half-Humanoid people in distant rural areas away from the regular societies.
They wouldn't be scaly, but rather look as their humanoid form (so there could be half-dragon half-humans, half-dragon half-elves, half-dragon half-half-orc, so on, so on.) and then also have dragon wings (possibly thinking of a spell-like ability to hide the wings).
Also, considering dragons are magical by nature, I was thinking they would also be inherent sorcerers, albeit with a undetermined penalty (such as: They are considered to be sorcerers of an equivalent level equal to their character level, but know a lesser amount of spells, and/or have an amount of spells per day equal to a sorcerer of an equivalent level-3. In other words, you cannot cast any 1st level spells at level 1 (was thinking charisma wouldn't grant bonus spells, so Sorcerers for half-dragons would hopefully still sound appealing) while at level 4, you have 3 spells per day.
This is just a thought, they could make for very interesting allies or enemies, but I don't really think there should be PCs of the kind.
Other than that lengthy thing, was thinking it would be situated in a plains/open field area with mountains surrounding it mostly.
My favorite theory is that there was nothing, and the god of genisis created itself. It was the opposite of nothing so it started to create things to place between itself and the "outer darkness". The early experiments are the far realm, the old ones, and horrendous original titans. The God of Genisis, sometimes known as the demiurge, manipulated the original titans, which were extensions of the demiurge made of ideas and passions capable of forming solid bodies, to create worlds. These worlds were soon organized into the multiverse. An infinite structure containing infinite planes. I think when lucifer messed up reality on the eighth day, G*d cast reality out of the multiverse making us all unable to reach any other plane within our lifetimes. In any case, original titans created worlds in which to live, and then created more titans to handle the detail work. These secondary titans, were immortal living creatures. For various reasons, infinitely powerful beings tend to turn on their parents. Part of this is the Demiurge wanting to be distracted. This is why Titans, Gods, and mortals all act like they are part of a soap opera playing for keeps.
I'm for it, and having it right here.
I have a (hopefully) rather interesting hook regarding a possible future development between gods and mortals.
Would it be ok to post it now even though we are still at the creation myth?
EDIT: In the meantime, I'll just throw in an idea. I'm not really good at writing flavour, so I'll be brief.
Two cosmological principles:
-Gods are not "ascended": they are raw cosmological forces such as death, chaos, nature and such. Godhood is forever beyond a mortal's grasp, even in legends.
-Such forces, though monolithyc, are shaped and gain different aspects depending on how they are worshiped (i.e. there is ONE god of death, but worshiping "her" as an aloof and uncaring force gives different domains than worshiping "him" as a sadistic, cruel reaper)
And their consequences:
-Such aspects never wage war directly against each other (being as "limbs" of the same deity), though their power waxes and wanes with those of their worshipers (so you could have a very weak sadistic and cruel aspect of a death good, and a very strong aloof and uncaring aspect).
-Since no amount of worship can "create" a god from nothing, a god's overall strength is split between all of its aspects; this is the reason why lawful churches are wary of cults and heresies (which end up creating different little aspects, weakening the "official" one).
I'd be willing to expand on this should it be deemed interesting.
Not to derail the current progress, but I didn't vote because I had an idea for an approach I would like to toss out there first. If the pantheons are going to be culture/ continent specific, couldn't we have all or some of the options presented in the poll? For example one society is monotheistic with an aloof, but compassionate god, another polytheist with a huge weaker pantheon that gets reall involved in both positive and negative ways. Another with a triumvirate of god kings who ascend to power and stay there until usurped....
You obviously have to keep it to a handful of major belief systems so it doesn't get out of hand....but it's a more varied and creatively fertile approach.
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Not to derail the current progress, but I didn't vote because I had an idea for an approach I would like to toss out there first. If the pantheons are going to be culture/ continent specific, couldn't we have all or some of the options presented in the poll? For example one society is monotheistic with an aloof, but compassionate god, another polytheist with a huge weaker pantheon that gets reall involved in both positive and negative ways. Another with a triumvirate of god kings who ascend to power and stay there until usurped....
You obviously have to keep it to a handful of major belief systems so it doesn't get out of hand....but it's a more varied and creatively fertile approach.
I didn't think of that when I did the poll. The reasons were this:
1. I thought planning would be quick.
2. I thought that if everyone wanted to get the mythology out of the way, we can start with the God(s).
But I like your idea. It sounds much more realistic.
I voted for meddlesome, but that's kind of vague. The Norse gods weren't really meddlesome in the same sense as the Greek gods. (I'm not really sure I'd call them meddlesome at all.) Anyway, I'm voting for a more Norse version.
That said, I don't think we should leave the true creation story vague. No one in the setting has to know the answer, but we should. If nothing else, it'll suggest ideas moving forward.
As far as overgods, there doesn't need to be too many details to have a good idea what really happened, but it depends on how many there are. Probably need another poll for this, but there shouldn't be more than 5, IMO. (So 0 through 5 being the possible choices.)
Just an example: with 3 overgods, they could be Creation, Destruction and Stasis. Just the names kind of give away what's going on there. (From Old World of Darkness BTW.)
rpg.net has a freely usable wiki for stuff like this. (I'm sure there are other similar places, but that's the only one I know off the top of my head.)
+1 on the three overgods being creation/dynamism, stasis and destruction/entropy.
Are those good, neutral and evil?
You could have more subjective overgods. For example, in a setting I'm working on, the original three gods (now deceased) were:
The Host: A hive-mind swarm of celestial beings dedicated to consolidation of power and unchanging will, with the ultimate goal of compressing the universe down into a 'big crunch'.
The Void: A nebula-like being that dwelled in the furthest reaches of space that represented change and opposition to stasis. It wanted either side to win and influenced the world to prevent stalemates.
The Dark: An invisible web of connections between worlds, the Dark was associated with chaos and opposed the Host, forwarding dissolution, entropy and seeking to end the universe in heat death.
They were all considered evil, but on the same concepts, you could build a subjectively neutral trinity: Order/Stasis, Change/Luck/Fate and Chaos/Dissolution/Entropy.
The important point being that chaos is not change. It results from change of a certain kind. It is not destruction. Destroying something might result in increased order. Blasting someone into ash reduces their influence on the world and thus reduces the overall tendency toward entropy.
Chaos is the removal or diminishment of connections and patterns. It is the placement of concepts and things such that their relations to each other are broken. In social terms, it encourages self-reliance, or negatively, selfishness. In physical terms, it wants things to be far apart and non-interacting. Followers of chaos would be powerful individualists, helping each other only by coincidence. They might be useful allies if you happen to be following the same path, but do not expect them to help you out except in self-serving ways.
Order, on the other hand, wants things to be connected and close but unchanging. Strict social order is important, where each person has their place and cannot rise or fall from it. Each piece of the pattern is utterly defined by its connection to the rest and is worthless on its own. Followers of order tend to be disciplined and prefer working in coordinated groups. However, each member of the group is considered expendable so long as the whole survives.
These powers war against each other in unknowable cosmic ways, shifting their pawns on the battlefield of time and space. Change ensures that no matter what, one of them will win. Change seeks the flow from balanced stalemate into a skewed state. Either end will do. Followers of Change would be untrustworthy, easily swayed by power and backstabbing the weak for a chance at greatness. Change desires inequality.
Technically, Creation, Stasis and Entropy are true neutral. Being spirits, they do not and cannot have a different agenda than being what they are.
But the Old World of Darkness has an interesting take on this: Stasis, perhaps influenced by humans, starts to adopt their worldview and to see itself as the weakest of the three concepts -who are supposed to work in balanced cycle.
It goes mad: angry at Destruction for being what it is and ending all form and function, Stasis traps it -preventing it from performing it's metaphysical duty.
Creation becomes a one-way production line of Creation/Stasis, in which anything is never destroyed, recycled or changed. Destruction feels the imbalance from its prison but cannot act directly, and as a result it goes mad too, like a wild beast in a cage: in pain, it cannot focus its powers and lashes out blindly, destroying and corrupting anything it can.
Mortals may see both Destruction and Stasis' actions as "evil", when the truth is that a fundamental, cosmological balance has been broken.
Oho. New idea.
Perhaps, divide the gods into the Elders and the Worldly Gods.
The Elders are the fundamental powers of the universe, working to ends alien to mortal life. What they want and work for rarely correlates to mortal concerns, although the side-effects of their actions and their use of minions may have influence on events. These are Order, Change and Chaos (or something else), and while their motives may be considered evil, they are simply too inhuman to comprehend.
The Worldly Gods are far more knowable and relateable, for each of them was once mortal. They gained godly power by some means (insert historical plot device) so they could guide and shape the world in ways civilisation could comprehend, against the alien whims of the Elders. However, the gods have far less power individually and perhaps even altogether, each possessing a small portfolio and empowering a few of their followers to do their work.
Servants of the Elders may be mad cultists or zealous orders, for their goals do not serve any needs of mortal lives. There is no peace to be found in service to a being that wants something most cannot even understand. They do have power, however, and some nations may be host to great churches dedicated to one of the Elders.
The Elders generally regard the gods as merely more pawns, seeking to influence them against each other. Some of the gods may be aspected toward one of the traits of the Elders as a result of long service. This means that the mortal pantheons are often struggling against each other for power in the world, to claim it for themselves, fight for an ideal, or to try to excise some influence they believe an Elder has over another god.
From the point of view of the player characters, it gives another layer to the complexities of plots. While villains play their little games, they in turn may be in service of dark powers, those dark powers furthering the domains of their gods, and those gods being tugged and pulled one way and the other by the Elders.
The adventures could go well into epic levels, where the players fight the gods themselves and then attempt to sever the hold the Elders have on the fate of the universe... or become them. After all, they are the laws of existence. How can you destroy them without doing exactly as they desire?
The universe hangs in a balance, not between good and evil, but between evil and evil. Good rests in the middle, struggling to hold its place and not fall either way.
I would argue that any overgods should be either true neutral or just completely alien. Also, I think they shouldn't be insane unless you want a dark setting (like world of darkness).
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Technically, Creation, Stasis and Entropy are true neutral. Being spirits, they do not and cannot have a different agenda than being what they are.
But the Old World of Darkness has an interesting take on this: Stasis, perhaps influenced by humans, starts to adopt their worldview and to see itself as the weakest of the three concepts -who are supposed to work in balanced cycle.
It goes mad: angry at Destruction for being what it is and ending all form and function, Stasis traps it -preventing it from performing it's metaphysical duty.
Creation becomes a one-way production line of Creation/Stasis, in which anything is never destroyed, recycled or changed. Destruction feels the imbalance from its prison but cannot act directly, and as a result it goes mad too, like a wild beast in a cage: in pain, it cannot focus its powers and lashes out blindly, destroying and corrupting anything it can.Mortals may see both Destruction and Stasis' actions as "evil", when the truth is that a fundamental, cosmological balance has been broken.
Shub-niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and Azathoth?
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Anyway, I'd like to see Energy itself be represented as a God. Why is this? In order to describe how magic works. Light works in waves and particles, especially on the Quantum Level. They found out about spooky action at a distance, that we can affect things at a distance. (it's been documented).
Since we are vibrational beings, we can affect the energy vibrations around us. We have a profound affect on the vibrations around us, I should say, so we can cause things to happen. Energy as a God would be the Overall God. Because it's purpose would be to make sure that the races on our planet are pleased individually. Nothing is held back from them. As the individuals get what they desire, they feel joy and happiness, so Energy finds out more about itself.
Makes sense?
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As for a Racial Backstory, I came across this on the Internet. While watching it a couple of times I think its a bit scary, but we can use it for inspiration. It can be used to explain the rule of kings.
Illuminati Race Theory part 1
Illuminati Race Theory part 2
Note, the people who believe in the above theory believe in power over love.
What about the Positive and Negative energy planes being overgods? Immortal, eternal and ultimately uncaring