So simple question, what pantheon do you like the most?
I know some people like Golarian's pantheons, some like using traditional greek.
Me? I have come to love the Pantheon from the Forgotten Realms setting (this is still my default setting for my home games!). I mean, the dieties for the Forgotten Realms have been so flushed out it is actually quite beautiful! The history between Cyric, Mystra, and Kelemvor; the Time of Troubles, the rise and fall of many dieties and how the "life" of a Diety is tied to their worship thanks to IO. Oh! And we cannot forget the awesomeness of Dieties like Vecna, the Keeper of Secrets, or Orcus, the Fallen Demon Price.
So what is your favorite pantheon?
What I would really like is Pantheon that wasnt a bunch of humanoids. I would like Gods to be more like forces of nature or incomprehensible beings. Just dont care for the typical Gods are like everybody else only super powered trope.
If I remember right, in 3.5 there were the Elder Elementals that were like Demi-Gods...
There were also the Vestiges that are kinda more like ephermerial half-dead gods...
Of course Pathfinder does support you worshipping ideals or forces over any real diety (be the closest thing to worshipping a "non-diety" diety if you will)
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If we get to count the Pact Magic Vestiges, then I believe that that is my answer. I was especially jazzed when I discovered most of them were references to Ars Goetia demonology - it's like D&D stopped to take a good look at itself in the mid-'000s, looked back at the 1980s, and proceeded to wave a big, gleeful middle finger in Jack Chick's face.
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I'm really liking the Osirion/Egyptian pantheon. It has a nice selection of gods with a mix-up of domains not usually seen together (non-evil necromancer anyone?). It really makes me want to run The Mummy's Mask AP or a homebrew desert campaign, but I'm running my new players through a more traditional campaign first.
I prefer not to use historical pantheons unless the game is supposed to happen on Earth (or a Earth-inspired fantasy). So I don't like using the Greek Pantheon unless its some kind of Greek fantasy game (no matter how historically accurate or not); same goes for Norse or Gealic or Egyptian...
This thread makes me realize that I don't know many fantasy Pantheon other than Forgotten Realms' and the generic D&D Elven/Dwarven/Gnomish Pantheons. I can't say I *like* it, but that's the one I know. Forgotten Realms gods are colorful enough to inspire something, and there enough of them that two or three are likely to interest you of fit the needs of your campaign.
Other than that one, I like simple Pantheons, like the divine trinity that comes up in many game worlds (something like chaos, order and a third god that allows the two first to work together). Typically, that third "keeper of balance" entity end-up disappearing, going mad, turning evil etc and s*~@ start to happen.
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I am a big fan of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting Pantheon. Lots of details on aphorisms and worshiper philosophies are mixed in with it.
I also really liked the mixed bag of religions found in Eberron, that had everything from Monotheism, Ancestor Worship (with Undying Ancestors), demon worship, and philosophies based on indecipherable prophecies.
I guess, I like pantheons when they actually affect the flavor of the day to day life of worshippers.
Although it probably will never be used in play, I like the Warhammer 40K Eldar pantheon where the only gods who survived is the Trickster god, and the maimed war god that can only be summoned through great personal sacrifice (the goddess of healing survived too, but she's kept prisoner by the Chaos god of disease...)
I like the idea that the heritage and the future of a whole race rest on the shoulders of the trickster, and were warriors either rest on their own prowess and nobility or yield to bloody carnage for a victory at great cost.
Usually based on setting, I love the Golarion pantheon but even more I really do like Eberron. I am a guy who likes adding a religious flair to all his characters because it's fun for me. That being said the best setting I've ever played in had maybe 3 gods with no names. It was an old second edition game, the gods had gone silent centuries ago. Unfortunately the multiverse was starting to collapse so we had a Krynn Minotaur, I was a half-orc from Greyhawk, we had a forgotten realms Drow, and a few people from the custom setting (we were all handed pregens). Over the course of the campaign the fighter became a paladin of the Sun God. No name just the Sun God. For a while a few of us were champions of The War God. There were a few others like it but for a religion heavy game there were very few actual deities.
I'm a big fan of lots of pantheons in D&D, both real world ones like Norse and Greek, but also the various setting ones that have shown up like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, 4e, Golarion, Scarred Lands, Nehwon, Elric Young Kingdoms, Cthulhu, and Warhammer.
I generally find the bad guys interesting and the fantasy good guys fairly boring. So Warhammer I really like the four Lords of Chaos and find them full of flavor but not so much their nature or sea or healing god. Similarly the Dragonlance bad guy gods such as the vengeance condor patron of minotaurs, are really cool and I like to read about him while the neutral merchant or the good healing goddess or even the neutral fire and alchemy one just seem fairly bland. For the Young Kingdoms the neutral elemental and animal lords are interesting (probably because they are so alien, partly becuase they showed up in cool contexts in the books), along with the Lords of Chaos but the gods of law not so much and I'm not sure who normal humans or even mainstream human good guy PCs would really follow in the setting.
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If we get to count the Pact Magic Vestiges, then I believe that that is my answer. I was especially jazzed when I discovered most of them were references to Ars Goetia demonology - it's like D&D stopped to take a good look at itself in the mid-'000s, looked back at the 1980s, and proceeded to wave a big, gleeful middle finger in Jack Chick's face.Another Ars Goetia fan here. Mad, bad and just plain strange. The Lesser Seal has a demon for you. And that Sier guy. Didn't so much fall as went with the crowd.
Well, it was more like sauntering vaguely downward, really.
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I like Golarion's pantheons... I've enjoyed the Forgotten Realms pantheons too... Post 4e's strangeness. My biggest enjoyment came from the Dragonlance pantheon, however. There's nothing more awesome than the ultimate dragon god of good wandering around on the planet as a doddering old wizard, using FIREBALLS to get out of cage-carriages. Years later and I STILL crack up at Fizban, despite having read the original trilogy at least 50 times now.
Me, though... I homebrew my worlds, typically. I've created some pantheons to go in them, as well. I avoid real-world pantheons like the plague (due to differing interpretations of lore, and some zealous ex-players).
Which reminds me... I need to finish building the world I've been working on for almost 10 years now (and the various literary entertainments I've started to scribble set within it). But first, I need to get more graph paper... And to do that, I must first obtain extra spending money!... CRAP! xD
Nothing like a bunch of gods to utterly destroy a planet and re-build it in their image to rule with a deific-iron fist!
I likewise have pretty much completely turned my back on published settings and pantheons and have homebrewed my own. I went the opposite route from Pan though - almost ALL of our deities are ascended mortals, except the very oldest, the ancient elemental creatures and primeval spirits from the dawn of creation.
My homebrew pantheon is my fav. :)
But if I'm going with an existing pantheon I really like the Aztec Mesoamerican religion take on the gods for several reasons.
1. Strong relation with the cosmos
2. Variety! Cultural, war, healing, underworld, creation, animal lords, and lesser deities.
3. Propecy
4. Drama. Lots of quarreling gods, sacrifice, bloodletting
5. Quetzalcoatl - one of the coolest gods in any pantheon
I mean, I've run in some published campaign settings on occasion. I'll do it if my players really, really want it. I'll do it sometimes in 1-on-1s with my fiance, to satisfy her attraction to Nethys (I blame the pic on his archives) with some "you are my chosen champion, oh, and you interest me" kind of thing. To be fair, the art I've seen of him, Nethys is very cute. But I digress.
I've been dying to run a PF game in Krynn. I just... It was my first campaign setting I was introduced too. I have many fond memories of skipping homework, and staying up way past my bed time with a flash light under the covers, just unable to put any of the DL novels down (my parents had so many D&D novels, I could fill a small library with them. Pisses me off my old man took them with him when he moved, he doesn't even read 'em!)
As for what my deities are, depends on the world. In one, deities kind of coalesce out of primal essence. In another, the gods of that world are exiles from their own. I've toyed with one world where, quite literally, the Sun, Moon, and Planet were the actual deities... With creatures living on each. It was fun when the other planets in the solar system decided they were jealous of their big brother and started a system-war by launching their inhabitants at one another (I think I was half-asleep when I came up with that one).
edit: fixed link.
With Iron Gods in progress, I wonder about how much we will ultimately get to see of the Geek Pantheon.
Greyhawk pantheons are my favorite. How many other pantheons have a female sun goddess who favors feminism? And they seem just as rich as many Forgotten Realm dieties and maybe a bit more varied. And lets not forget Vecna and Orcus came from the Greyhawk setting!
Alternately I like the Eberron Pantheons nearly as much.
Greyhawk pantheons are my favorite. How many other pantheons have a female sun goddess who favors feminism?
Is that Mayaheine demigod servant of the Sun God Pelor? Or Nola the Tuov goddess of the sun? Where does the feminism come in?
Female Sun goddesses seem all over the place. Scarred Lands has Madriel, the Angel of Mercy, Japanese has Amateratsu, Golarion has Sarenrae.
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My favorite pantheon is from Midnight.
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Greyhawk pantheons are my favorite. How many other pantheons have a female sun goddess who favors feminism?
Is that Mayaheine demigod servant of the Sun God Pelor? Or Nola the Tuov goddess of the sun? Where does the feminism come in?
Female Sun goddesses seem all over the place. Scarred Lands has Madriel, the Angel of Mercy, Japanese has Amateratsu, Golarion has Sarenrae.
No no it's Lydia. I figured that would be obvious when I mentioned feminism. Her clerics champion women's education and aid women in traveling. She hates secrets. 80% of her clergy are women. And she loves music especially, her clerics use music to teach. And one of the duties of a Lydian cleric is to convert historical records to ballads. They are constantly driven to learn and discover, and many travel in the company of clerics of Fharlanghn. Their white vestments are trimmed in silver and gold. They use education to uplift women from lesser stations in life. This tends to make her church unpopular with patriarchies.
I generally stick to fantasy faiths or Christianity (in the right group) in game. It would seem weird to even pretend to be Shinto...
To be honest I don't own Scarred Lands or Golarion. Although I may pick up Golarion this holiday season.
Greyhawk pantheons are my favorite. How many other pantheons have a female sun goddess who favors feminism?
Is that Mayaheine demigod servant of the Sun God Pelor? Or Nola the Tuov goddess of the sun? Where does the feminism come in?
Female Sun goddesses seem all over the place. Scarred Lands has Madriel, the Angel of Mercy, Japanese has Amateratsu, Golarion has Sarenrae.
No no it's Lydia. I figured that would be obvious when I mentioned feminism. Her clerics champion women's education and aid women in traveling. She hates secrets. 80% of her clergy are women. And she loves music especially, her clerics use music to teach. And one of the duties of a Lydian cleric is to convert historical records to ballads. They are constantly driven to learn and discover, and many travel in the company of clerics of Fharlanghn. Their white vestments are trimmed in silver and gold. They use education to uplift women from lesser stations in life. This tends to make her church unpopular with patriarchies.
I generally stick to fantasy faiths or Christianity (in the right group) in game. It would seem weird to even pretend to be Shinto...
To be honest I don't own Scarred Lands or Golarion. Although I may pick up Golarion this holiday season.
Ah, I was not familiar with her at all. The majority of my greyhawk deity knowledge is from the ones detailed out in the 80s boxed set and Greyhawk Adventures. I believe Lydia only appeared in the chart in the boxed set without the expanded information of gods like Xan Yae or Heironeous.
Yeah when they made Greyhawk the default setting for 3e I picked up the Grewhawk Gazetteer for 3e which had tons of interesting deities detailed therein. Very vibrant and interesting set of gods and goddesses. Also many of them were given more information in the old dragon magazines. Data which is on my complete Dragon collection DVDs.
When I first began to play in 1985, my DM used the Egyptian pantheon. Though I've largely abandoned deities in my homebrew setting I still have a special place for the Egyptian gods and goddesses. And the Lovecraftian mythos, created by him and through collaborations with his contemporaries.
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I like the Empyreal Lords and Various Demon Princes and Lords of the Hells (WotC or Pathfinder Variety, both are good), and I like Cayden Cailean (he's the only god from Golarion I've yet to have any real interest in). I've also enjoyed some homebrew things, and the Norse Pantheon.
Mostly I lean towards the forgotten realms gods, the generic ones are alright, but I'm partial to the Elven Pantheon. I like how the Elves of Faerun are a conventionally "good" race, but their atrocities are all over the place, and any time you hear about the things Corellon Larethian or his priests did in the past they sound like sociopaths (*oh man, how many innocent people he made suffer to spite the actions of a select few who were too focused on worshipping his wife), but the modern church of Corellon Larethian is largely about actually fighting for good. I also like that it's pantheistic worship. You may identify with one elven deity more, but when you die, you're all going to the same place, and all the other elven gods answer to Corellon anyways.
I also like that they spell out how all of the deity's realms are planes you could go to if you want to, and how petitioners work and whatnot.
But I would definitely want to take my realmsian cosmology and combine it with planescape.
In Forgotten Realms, you become a petitioner after dying, which means that your type changes to outsider. The only instance of realms fiction I can think of where it's come up indicates that if you were to magically leave your afterlife you would cease being a petitioner and become a huecuva, but that's not stated anywhere in the gaming books as a method to become a huecuva. So *I* (Wizard) can/have used Planar Binding (whichever one matches the party level) to bind our fallen Party Cleric, and make him resurrect other fallen party members, and then himself. It was one of my favorite gaming moments; and the GM was quite surprised when my solution to avoiding a near TPK was to drag the bodies of our comrades together and barricade us in I believe I had the rogue use several pitons nailed into the floor to hold closed a heavy steel door, locking us into a dead end, to buy us time, and I used planar binding to solve the problem. "Is the cleric actually a valid target for that?" "He should be, he's now native to his god's realm, and should have the petitioner template, which would make him an outsider, and I know his name."
Good times.
But yeah.
Favorite Cosmology: Realms+Planescape+Spelljammer.
Favorite Campaign Setting Pantheon: Realms.
Favorite Pantheon Pantheon: Seldarine.
Favorite God: Cayden Cailean.
I like Golarion's gods but after having played Age of Worms for a bit now, I have to say Greyhawk's probably my favorite of the ones I have experience with.
I mean, they have an ACTUAL DICE GOD you can pray to!
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I've not played in a greyhawk campaign with much detail. The closest we ever got to greyhawk was various homebrew with the greyhawk pantheon out of the 3.X PHBs.
Had there been much in the way of actual campaign setting info we may have gotten into it more, but I got into D&D when 3e came out, and nobody had any of the 2e books. My experience with 2e is entirely in the form of videogames. (I was eventually given a bunch of 2e books, so I do own them, but I've had no desire to *Play* 2e since I read through it).
That said, I actively collect 2e Forgotten Realms products, and I think they got one thing right: I think Clerics are rather stupid, and everything should be specialty priests with very wide ranging class features, a small core list and large domain lists, and the bulk of spells coming from domains. Because why does my Cleric of the god of thieves get all that stock cleric stuff and cleric proficiencies when it would make much more sense for me to have roguelike proficiencies and spells that helped me be roguelike (that is of course to say: procedurally generated. :P) such as invisibility and silence.