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Just wanted to get an idea on how people handle the question of pantheons and gods.
In almost every game world, the humans are the only race ever to have more than one pantheon of gods. Each pantheon is usually based on the type culture you want for said humans. But has anyone every given humans one single pantheon?
Also, has anyone ever tried giving the elves or dwarves multiple pantheons? I know that technically they already have them if you count, for example, the Seldarine as one and the Drow pantheon as another. But I'm talking something along the lines of a completely different religion. Like maybe some elves who worship the four elements instead. Or some dwarves who follow a Hindu or Buddhist type religion.
And before I forget, what do you think is an appropriate number of gods to have in a pantheon? Does anyone think the number should be unlimited?
I ask all this because I just decided to do some "new world" work and started off by creating a few 'rough sketch' pantheons and writing out some mythology for them. That got me thinking about the all the above, and I figured I might hear something inspiring.
In my homebrew, I use an infinite pantheon. Divine energy exists in the Outer Planes (I call them Moral Planes), but there are no Gods, only manesfestations of conscious faith.
Based on that, the PC has absolutely no limitation on what kind of God or faith they want to worship, and there are no restrictions on their creativity.
As a guide, I give them this information on ten core philosophies, if you're interested in seeing examples:
http://albatrossmemory.blogspot.com/2006/03/religions-and-philosophies-of-w isteria.html
*Edit* remove the space in the word wisteria. . . don't know why it shows up.
Also, has anyone ever tried giving the elves or dwarves multiple pantheons? I know that technically they already have them if you count, for example, the Seldarine as one and the Drow pantheon as another. But I'm talking something along the lines of a completely different religion. Like maybe some elves who worship the four elements instead. Or some dwarves who follow a Hindu or Buddhist type religion.
I think that pantheons should go with geographic regions. Then if in your history the culture from that regons spreads so does faith in the pantheon. Within those regions each race (because in my worlds races don't have homogeneous cultures) would each have their own pantheon.
And before I forget, what do you think is an appropriate number of gods to have in a pantheon? Does anyone think the number should be unlimited?
In my opinion the number good be unlimited depending on how you define pantheon - but the big players would number between 6 and 20 - the rest though divine would be lesser functionaries.
I talked about this topic over on the WotC boards. The core books are set up so that humans always have more divine options than other races. That's why no core race has cleric as favored class and so few others as well; it makes humans the best and most numerous clerics. I'm not saying that this is good, just pointing out the structure that the D&D game is built on. In fact, I don't think that I like this structure. If humans are to be 'the best' at some class it should be something like bard, who are already described as jack-of-all trades. In the real world and fantasy, I think of humans as being on the low end of Wisdom in general; in fantasy writing there is always some smarter and wiser race...elves come to mind immediately!
End lecture/rant,
TS
I agree with Stephen Marks, I don't use racial gods. I usually use a pretty small pantheon (8 gods currently), and i give them more than two or three domains.
I also try and make the gods and their priests a little like real world polytheistic gods and thier priests, so I make clerics choose at least one "moral" domain, and not just two domains that don't necessarily have anything to do with how people live in the world. (moral domains include things like good, evil, protection, etc.)
Green Ronin's "The Book of the Righteous" has a really good take on dieties, and very well worked, and interesting, pantheon.
Cheers
Well, I've actually toyed with the idea (I'll never use it, but I still mull over it now and then) of a universal pantheon- no racial gods- based on the Seven Deadly Sins (a demon lord/god for each, with subordinates for each of the seven main entities) and a parallel for good in some fashion. The various races would be associated with the incarnations of the virtues and vices, such as dwarves with order or honest, orcs with wrath, and elves with creativity or something, but no racial gods per se.
Also, I particularly like the thought of loosely defined gods. I find a good example of this to be the Deadra/Aedra in Tamriel (Elder Scrolls games), particularly the Daedra. The Daedra Lords are often viewed as gods by mortals, but are really only very, very powerful demons. Although, to be fair, they weren't exactly demons- alignment is very relative in Tamriel. And, despite my vociferous defense of the alignment system in D&D, which, as many of you know, I am a very big proponent of, I do find that I enjoy delving into a world without objective alignments now and then.
The DM decides what can and can't grant divine powers, but the category of "god" is merely a mortal perspective.
As far as number, the exact number shouldn't be fixed, and I believe in a variable pantheon, which is to say, that gods can die and be created. Some such deaths and births should by mythological (happening so long ago as to have no factual evidence to support it; as easily real as not, somewhat like a creation myth, and to a point where its validity is irrelevant), while others should be within recorded history to emphasize the relative mortality of the gods and the vagaries of the pantheon.
As stated before, the major players should be well known and fixed, but the lesser gods can come and go in your games as needed. They've always been there, but their following and presence is small enough that the characters might not have known of the entity (unless one has religious training, in which case use a Knowledge check; don't overload the player with info at the start of the campaign or any one point therein).
I really love cosmologies and deific hierarchies and such, and theoretically (sp?) playing around with them. I'd love to hear what other people may have come up with for their own games.
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Thanks to everyone who has added to this thread so far. You've all got some really interesting stuff.
One of the ideas that I have always toyed with is something along the lines of the Diablo games. I would basically have two major deities - one Neutral Good and One Neutral Evil - as the actual gods, but they would be kind of aloof and distant, only rarely getting involved. Otherwise there would be lots of cults dedicated to the various demon princes, archdevils and powerful celestials (all from the Book of Vile Darkness or Book of Exhalted Deeds).
With the world I just started developing, I was going to base it upon the Iron Heroes rules. These rules allow for only one type of magic, which is very dangerous to use. One way to lessen the dangers of spellcasting is to make deals with powerful outsiders. So I could set up some religions based on that, with the arcanist simply calling himself 'High Priest'. To me it would be very reminiscent of Robert E. Howards Conan stories - The gods were there in the background, but still had an impact on the story.
I use one pantheon of gods for everyone. I don't even use racial gods. The god of war is the same for humans, dwarves, or orcs.
So do I, they have a different name in the racial language but they are worshipped by all.
As Kyr wrote, Pantheons should go with geographic divisions. So, e.g. your dwarves from another continent could have a radically different faith from those on the main continent. (Unless you subscribe to the "Unified Creation Myths" of XD&D)
Pantheons should not be set in stone, they have to be able to be fitted to new situations, or the gods would not be worshipped anymore if the circumstances change. (e.g., from Greyhawk: When the Oerid people were forced to migrate after the Twin Cataclysms, their pantheon should reflect these changes from a rather sedentary people to one on the move, and change again when they settled down anew.)
One interesting question arises: Are the gods independent of their worshippers ? Can they even exist without worshippers ?
Did the gods create their worshippers, or is the faith of worshippers necessary to create a god ? The demihumans (see Monster Mythology) have creation myths, who generally state that the gods created their respective races. But that does not need to be true, the worshippers spiritual energy invested into an idea might have resonated with the multiverse in such a way as to create the gods. Not that the worshippers necessarily know that...
If you go for the "Unified Creation Myths", then the gods are the creators and can basically exist without worshippers. This would probably lead to one race venerating the same gods everywhere, as these gods are probably universal.
If you go for the "Worshippers Energies", then the gods are literally nothing without worshippers. With this model, regional differences are much more logical.
Stefan
I use one pantheon of gods for everyone. I don't even use racial gods. The god of war is the same for humans, dwarves, or orcs.
Same in mine except there are 3 pantheons. None of them, however, are specific to race.
The world I created is polytheistic where everyone agress on the existence of all the gods, while different races and cultures have different emphasis on different gods...
Gods are beings which played a role in creation and modification of the world and thus elves usually prefer their creator, god (or family of gods) of plants, forests and such over god (or family of gods) of rock and mountains but elven stonecarvers and such still give worship to the same god dwarves too.
Gods are independent from their worshippers and several philosophies and concepts also have religious following. Their activity in material world also varies a lot but they are far from being omnipotent...
For what its worth, while I do try to think through things like the relationships between pantheons and come up with good ones. What really interests me is the relationships between the religions and the various churches, cults, and worshippers with each other, their communities, and neighboring communities. The gods themselves are pretty detached, speaking through their priests, at least that what the priests claim - and many of them do have spells and powers.
Any game I was running would never need stats for encountering an all out god - minions maybe.
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The gods themselves are pretty detached, speaking through their priests, at least that what the priests claim - and many of them do have spells and powers.
Any game I was running would never need stats for encountering an all out god - minions maybe.
That is the same kind of direction I think I'd like to go in. If you look at Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, they both have heavy involvement by deities themselves (too much if you ask me). I'm looking for something more subtle, which is why I like the Iron Heroes rule system and its single type of magic. With that, you can have a "High Priest" saying 'do this because my god says so', but you're really not sure if it's some god, or if its just him. I like to leave a little mystery about the gods and the real origin of the world.
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I had an interesting idea yesterday. I was thinking about a Amazon like culture and what kind of god(s) they would revere. Then I was doing some other myth research and I came across the answer. In two of the biggest mythologies ever (at least for me), Greek and Norse, the Norns/Fates held enormous influence. Even Odin and Zeus were not beyond their power.
So that is my idea: an Amazon type culture of warrior women (but more valkyrie-style image) that worship some aspect of the Fates/Norns. You could put them in a viking-style setting and have them in conflict with the male-dominated tribes over their respective religious beliefs.
Just thought I'd share.
Also, has anyone ever tried giving the elves or dwarves multiple pantheons? I know that technically they already have them if you count, for example, the Seldarine as one and the Drow pantheon as another. But I'm talking something along the lines of a completely different religion. Like maybe some elves who worship the four elements instead. Or some dwarves who follow a Hindu or Buddhist type religion.
I think your on to something in terms of grand scheme of things campaign design ... but Pantheons are pretty hard to make - the bottom line is you have six players who might concievably worship six different Gods and then you need some Gods for everyone else to worship - do you really want to design 15 different Gods of Emotion, 15 different Gods of War etc.?
Its not like your players are likely to wade through all of this and in fact to many Gods can just make it hard for them to recognize who the bad guys are and make it tough to choose who they will worship.
One way you might be able to get almost as many kilometres out of your idea and not have to design 15 Gods to inhabit a whole Pantheon is to have the 'foriegn' elves worship some kind of philosophy, possibly embodied in a single God - that way they are different and foriegn and you only have to worry about one new divine power.
I use one pantheon of gods for everyone. I don't even use racial gods. The god of war is the same for humans, dwarves, or orcs.
My campaign is pretty similar though some races do have racial Gods. I kind of mixed and matched for the pantheon so the Goddess of Home, Hearth and Marriage is a Halfling Goddess - but humans who consider their children and spouse the most important thing in their life worship her even so.
Lots of possibilities here--In my homebrew campaign I figure each major culture has its own set of deities, so I've gradually built up a list of them, based on what I see as the main features of each culture. I'm not that interested in divine statistics, since the gods are remote and prevented by an ancient bargain from manifesting on the campaign's equivalent of the material plane. So what I focus on are things that enrich the campaign world and define the cultures and religions of the peoples in it. These include iconography, portfolios, major holy days and festivals, centers of worship and forms of organization, and a few stories about the origin and doings of the deities. (This world features a remote Creator, "the gods" or "the saints" are lesser divine beings, some dating from shortly after creation, some elevated from mortal status.) I've found that thinking about how each culture's religion is laid out has helped me to define how each race and culture group works in the campaign--working from the basic D&D models, but with some subtle differences that make it interesting and different.
One thing my campaign features is a large number of local tutelary deities. Sometimes these are connected to a larger pantheon, but sometimes they represent some purely local force. When I develop a new town, city, or region, I often invent a new deity or two to add to my campaign in this fashion. Such deities typically have very narrow portfolios connected to the economic and political functions of the local society. For example, a town on the caravan route at the edge of a dangerous, sandy waste has a shrine to a deity that controls the sandstorms--the local ruler supports this temple, and travelers usually stop to make offerings and prayers for a safe passage across the Sea of Sand (or thanks, if they're headed the other way.) This adds local flavor to what might otherwise be a small, nondescript oasis town, and can also add spice to NPCs whose origins are from there.
In some cases, I have deities that migrate across pantheons, due to cultural influence of neighboring peoples, or due to migrant communities bringing their religion and settling down in a new place for generations. For example, many deities have been transplanted to new places along the Caravan Road, and one culture that has had long interaction with the elves of the Greatoake Forest has adopted some elven deities into its pantheon.
Some of the more powerful and imperialistic countries also try to force their pantheons on their colonies and tributary states--making clear distinctions between orthodox deities that have a place in the pantheon and pagan deities whose worship must be suppressed.
Some religions also don't have a regular priesthood--for example, one religion that is spreading across the Caravan Road focuses on monastic practices taught by its founders. This religion does not worship gods, but does have high-level monks who have achieved a higher state of consciousness, and can focus their ki to perform "magic" that duplicates some aspects of divine spellcasting. (Still working on a couple of prestige classes for this).
I'm still working on some very rough ideas I have about shamanical practices. I don't really like the adept class, and I also don't think that very many of the barbaric humanoids (or barbaric human tribes, for that matter) should have elaborate pantheons--they may revere a common racial ancestor and clan ancestors, or they may worship nature spirits in their home territory, communing with the local dryads, fossergrim, and whatnot and leaving them offerings for their blessings.
Finally, I'm developing ideas about druidic practices as the world's most ancient form of religion, a secret repository of wisdom passed on relatively unchanged from the most ancient mother of humankind. These practices have many adherents and a strong influence in elven and gnomish culture, and even have a few practitioners among the dwarves. Druids are important in some human cultures and almost non-existent in others. Truly primitive human cultures have few if any druids, while the most "civilized" and urbanized cultures also tend to be hostile. Druids are allowed to pay homage to deities from any pantheon whose teachings don't conflict with their reverence for Nature, the Creator's greatest gift.
Well, sorry for the long essay here--basically, I find it most interesting to include a variety of different ways for intelligent beings to relate to divine power in my campaign world, rather than having a fixed template with discreet pantheons or deities and their churches. For PCs, I have different handouts listing maybe 6-10 deities each, depending on PC's origins.
A few musings on gods and pantheons. I have personally never been as interested in gods who were the physical embodiments of *something*. They tend to be too flat and boring--to unmotivated. Why does a god of fire like fire so much? No reason, he just does. It also creates some issues as there are only really so many things a god can be the god of before you run out of good ideas.
Instead I like the idea of gods with a personality, whose portfolios are a summation of the various things the personality reflects. You see this in real mythology. What was Athena the goddess of? Well war at times, but also crafts, and wisdom, and sneakiness, and gutsiness, and was also thought to be a goddess of beauty. You know what she's like, and then choose the domains to fit her dogma.
So take the bland god of fire; say he's actually a god that approves of mortals meeting their ends as spectacularly as possible. He's the god of the 1 and the 20, so to speak, as both result in something exciting. He enjoys liquor as it always expedites something bold and unplanned that the sober mind would never go for. He enjoys flash and excitement and passion.
See that way you could have him and a half dozen other fire gods and they could all exist together because its not really ABOUT the fire thing. Fire's just a manifestation.
I will say I love the pantheons as laid out in the main settings. I like the role of religion in their societies and the diversity of good original religions the developers have come up with. It blows me away. Aside from the odd Time of Troubles style mass god rumble I don't think they get too involved in mortal affairs for my tastes, usually its the plans of various gods as acted out by mortals eager to earn favor for their initiative and inventiveness that result in much of the woes of the world--not the gods themselves.
As for size of pantheon and who gets what gods, I like the idea of multiple pantheons--all in conflict with one another. Entire lists of dead gods and whole pantheons that have gone out of style or whose civilizations have ended pass from all knowledge--a vague curiosity for bored historians. I like rich pantheons full of politics and backstabbing (even among the good guys). For me religion is one of the big attractions to D&D, particularly in settings where gods are not just "cleric juice", but where the majority of people are of one faith or another. It adds a nice extra layer of depth to characters.
in my (mostly undeveloped) campaign world, there are a few dozen gods and that's it. each non-human race forms its own pantheon (of varying size) from each of the gods available, and has their own name and mythology regarding their deities of choice.
Instead I like the idea of gods with a personality, whose portfolios are a summation of the various things the personality reflects. You see this in real mythology. What was Athena the goddess of? Well war at times, but also crafts, and wisdom, and sneakiness, and gutsiness, and was also thought to be a goddess of beauty. You know what she's like, and then choose the domains to fit her dogma...
This is not so much 'real' mythology as Greek Mythology. This trait of scheming Gods with humanistic personalties and lots and lots of very human weaknesses is far more prevalent in Greek Mythology then pretty much anyone else's mythology. Most Pantheons dealt with mostly all knowing Gods who knew what the right and correct course of action was and delivered that message to the head priest of the religion who in turn told everyone else what the will of the Gods was.
The Greeks, for some reason, believed in Gods that had every vice that they had but, being Gods, had absolutely no constraints and indulged their vices at almost every opportunity. Often with rather tragic results, though the tragedy rarely impacted them personally – since they were Gods after all.
In any case I'll easily concede that Greek style Gods make for good fantasy gaming.
This is not so much 'real' mythology as Greek Mythology. This trait of scheming Gods with humanistic personalties and lots and lots of very human weaknesses is far more prevalent in Greek Mythology then pretty much anyone else's mythology.
Well I was thinking Greek, but its' also just as true for the Egyptian, Norse, Mesopotamian, Hindu, Celtic, and Aztec religions. The big idea isn't so much the flaws though, as the complexity of personality going beyond the simplistic "I like war" or "I like summer" to get at a real fleshy ideology and divine personality that a character can champion without feeling silly. That's the hope, really--good stories and good story hooks for characters.
The big idea isn't so much the flaws though, as the complexity of personality going beyond the simplistic "I like war" or "I like summer" to get at a real fleshy ideology and divine personality that a character can champion without feeling silly. That's the hope, really--good stories and good story hooks for characters.
You can actually get a pretty good, interesting Cleric or Paladin even with a deity whose outlook is just "I like this thing." The trick I've found is to have the cleric expand on the statement, or to have another statement alongside it. If Pelor's personality is "I like light" then a Cleric of Pelor could say "I like Light because light is anathema to the undead" or "I like Light, and whacking things with my hammer sure is fun."
Of course, you still need to expand on it a bit, and whatnot, but personally I prefer a deity whose personality and agenda can be summed up in one to two sentences. It makes it possible to have a character represent that deities interests without being a lower level version of that deity.
...personally I prefer a deity whose personality and agenda can be summed up in one to two sentences. It makes it possible to have a character represent that deities interests without being a lower level version of that deity.
Oh I totally agree with that. I don't think a gods portfolio should ever be a rubber stamp for a character's personality. Half the fun is using the dogma of the religion as a jumping off point and then running with it in some personal direction. Characters who just sign off on whatever the gods want are not very interesting.
No reason that means the character's god can't have a more nuanced set of beliefs though--as long as the character takes those beliefs and makes them their own, y'know.
By the way White Toymaker, can I just say I've been really impressed with your comments while I've been posting here? You'd definitely make my "Pick 6" list, but the board was so packed with replies I didn't post one.
Oh I totally agree with that. I don't think a gods portfolio should ever be a rubber stamp for a character's personality. Half the fun is using the dogma of the religion as a jumping off point and then running with it in some personal direction. Characters who just sign off on whatever the gods want are not very interesting.
And indeed having some kinds of schism what it actually means to like light between worshippers of Pelor can add interesting story options...does it mean that they should take light to dark places or that they should shield pure light from heathen eyes or what...
Except for relatively complex Odin, most Norse gods were rather simple and straightforward gods. Tor, god of thunder, liked to bash giants with his hammer. Loki, god of trickery, tried to cause chaos as well as possible. It is not readily known if Loki had difficult childhood or what to cause his destructive ways, it was just what he was.
This didn't stop these gods to appear in multitude of stories where they might do something unusual (like Tor dressing up to women's clothing to get back his hammer and bash some giant head...) but nevertheless they remained what they were. Same thing applies to most world mythologies.
I like to keep it simple so I have nine gods, each one representing one of the nine alignments. They all have different names and appearances depending on were they are being worshipped and by whom but they are all the divine beings that exist.
They owe their divine powers to a distant creator and their existance is shaped by their mortal worshippers desires and views. IE the lawful good diety is LG because his worshippers are LG.
They all have their holy warriors ALA the alternate paladins presented in Dragon magazines 310 and 312.