Religion help - dualistic concepts


Homebrew and House Rules


So, I'm actually setting up a pantheon in a game world for once. For thematic reasons, I want 13 gods in the main pantheon, the head honcho 'One Above All', and six sets of thematic opposites.

So far, I have ...
Land and Sea - Sky and Stars
Creation - Destruction
Offensive War - Defensive War
The Fool - The Sage
Wilderness - Cities/Civilization

I need one more set. I am expressly and intentionally avoiding alignment-based concepts including good/evil or heaven/hell. I'm debating order vs chaos, but it doesn't feel right somehow (and seems to overlap with creation/destruction and wilderness/civilization), and treads dangerously close to alignment stuff.

Any ideas, anybody? Thanks in advance.


Entropy - stasis.


Day - Night / Sun - Moon
Change - Stagnation
Living - Unliving
Community - Individualism
Natural - Artifice (overlaps with Wild - Urban)
Tomorrow - Yesterday (looking to the future vs preserving the past, perhaps overlaps with Fool - Sage)


Zhayne wrote:
So, I'm actually setting up a pantheon in a game world for once.

And that may well be the last sign of the imminent apocalypse.

Love/Hate
Yin/Yang
Male/Female
Fire/Water
Animal/Plant
Reason/Emotion

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Have you ever played the game Bastion? The gods of the setting are dual-natured and might be worth looking up. For example, the god of chaos is also the god of order. The goddess of pain is also the goddess of pleasure. You can read a short description of them at the game's TVtropes page listed under "Fantasy Pantheon." Specifically, the dual-natures of the gods in the game are:

Oath/Abandon
Purpose/Folly
Pain/Pleasure
Health/Atrophy
Hope/Despair
Loss/Longing
Chance/Whim
Commotion/Order
Thirst/Plenty


Growth and Decay could be a good one, with potential. Note that neither is inherently evil or good, both are necessary for life to continue.

Grand Lodge

I'd go with Past - Future.


Individuality - community/family


How about one two-headed god, akin to, say, Janus, encompassing some sort of paradoxical principle? That might be intriguing.


Light and dark. Light isn't necessarily good, just bright, and dark isn't necesarily evil, just easy to hide in.

purity and impurity. Purity is conceptual, unattainable, perfect, unreal. Impurity is real, the mix of elements that make up the real world, the strength of an alloy over a pure metal, the weakness of corruption, the inability to rise above the tyranny of the real.


Zhayne wrote:

So, I'm actually setting up a pantheon in a game world for once. For thematic reasons, I want 13 gods in the main pantheon, the head honcho 'One Above All', and six sets of thematic opposites.

So far, I have ...
Land and Sea - Sky and Stars
Creation - Destruction
Offensive War - Defensive War
The Fool - The Sage
Wilderness - Cities/Civilization

I need one more set. I am expressly and intentionally avoiding alignment-based concepts including good/evil or heaven/hell. I'm debating order vs chaos, but it doesn't feel right somehow (and seems to overlap with creation/destruction and wilderness/civilization), and treads dangerously close to alignment stuff.

Any ideas, anybody? Thanks in advance.

Selfishness (and all that goes with it - hate, avarice, jealousy, insecurity, gluttony, deceit, etc.) vs. Selflessness (again, including self-sacrifice, service, love, patience, discipline, honesty, etc.).

Your pantheon seems a little light on the driving motivations of all mankind, and this might be a way to shoehorn in a lot of things into one pairing.

I was going to recommend Life/Death, (even if its just fertility vs. blight) but that might already be covered by Creation/Destruction, I don't know.


I recommend giving each god domain over several different themes. Try to avoid the obvious pairings, because the less obvious ones are more interesting. For example a god of chaos and creation opposed by a god of law and destruction. A god of altruism and trickery could be opposed by a god of ambition and honor. You can see how these blend together to make a wholly different, more nuanced character.


Wiggz wrote:


Your pantheon seems a little light on the driving motivations of all mankind, and this might be a way to shoehorn in a lot of things into one pairing.

This is intentional. I want to keep them ... abstract isn't the right word. Vague, maybe? Either way, Selfish/selfless is pretty close to good/evil ... one side is obviously 'better' than the other. I'm already kind of flirting that with Creation/Destruction.

Individuality/Community flirts close to Chaos/Law, but I might just have to suck that one up. A lot of these are good, but don't lend themselves to the extant domains too well.


If you want 13 gods you need to avoid metaphysically heavy concepts like Creation and Destruction. Those and Preservation can make a trinity, but they'll just wash out a larger pantheon.

Past/Future is another bad choice.

If any of your dualisms cover all or most of reality they can be a "pantheon" of two or possibly two parts of a trinity or aspects of a single god(ess) but are just too big to fit in a pantheon the size you want.


Since I've gotten 13 as it sits (if I use individuality/community, which is looking likely), I must disagree with your assessment, Atarlost.


Zhayne wrote:
Since I've gotten 13 as it sits (if I use individuality/community, which is looking likely), I must disagree with your assessment, Atarlost.

Nothing stops you from coming up with a list. Nothing stops you from writing 2=3 either, but it won't make sense. Look at the way Hinduism has been evolving towards trinitarian monotheism because of the metaphysical weight of the Creation/Destruction/Preservation trio of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

And that's just with the idea of gods. If you have actual gods running around as you do in a RPG setting the ones with big, important portfolios would completely eclipse those with lesser portfolios by the time there were any civilizations around to worship them.


Zhayne wrote:
I need one more set.

Omphaloskepsis / Praṇayama

Coffee / Tea
Sexy Cads / Dependable Dads


Zhayne wrote:
Wiggz wrote:


Your pantheon seems a little light on the driving motivations of all mankind, and this might be a way to shoehorn in a lot of things into one pairing.

This is intentional. I want to keep them ... abstract isn't the right word. Vague, maybe? Either way, Selfish/selfless is pretty close to good/evil ... one side is obviously 'better' than the other. I'm already kind of flirting that with Creation/Destruction.

Individuality/Community flirts close to Chaos/Law, but I might just have to suck that one up. A lot of these are good, but don't lend themselves to the extant domains too well.

Selfish vs selfless can seem to be interchangeable with good and evil, but it doesn't have to be.

Jade empire did a good job with this with it's competing philosophies, the way of the open palm and the way of the closed fist. The open palm was about tradition, order, and altruism, while the closed fist is about strength, growth through conflict, and ambition. The open palm seems good, but it is rigid, with little room for social change, and little respect for the individual, which can make it a slippery slope to tyranny. The closed fist can be harsh, but the idea is that facing challenges strengthens all, so giving aid to others who could have made it on their own actually harms them. Though they are diametrically opposed, neither is inherently the good or bad one.

So, if you have a dichotomy that is too morally uneven, restate the negative one as the nearest virtue. Altruism and ambition, are both potentially good things which serve a necessary function, but which can go wrong as well.

Anyway, other dichotomies:

Discipline - Passion
Freedom - Order/law/duty
Desire - Contentment
Fate - Freewill
Summer - winter
Day - night
Fire - Ice
Brains - Brawn
Tradition - Revolution
Equality - Hierarchy
Peace - War


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Atarlost wrote:
If you have actual gods running around as you do in a RPG setting the ones with big, important portfolios would completely eclipse those with lesser portfolios by the time there were any civilizations around to worship them.

Says who?

My world, my rules. If I say that doesn't happen, then it doesn't happen.


Zhayne wrote:
Since I've gotten 13 as it sits (if I use individuality/community, which is looking likely), I must disagree with your assessment, Atarlost.

Individuality could contain Trickery, Travel, all sorts of things - even Chaos and Madness. Likewise Community could encompass Law, Nobility, Heroism and a whole host of others.

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