Designing a Pantheon


Campaign Journals


I'm designing a Pantheon for a potential new campaign when Pathfinder comes out. I'm trying to keep it small and with a natury/celticy "feel" without it being historic gods. i was wondering how this sounds as a group

The Lord of Change (CG) - a god of magic, change and life. his nature is to bring constant wonderment and mystery. Domains will include Magic, Luck, Chaos, Good

The Dark Lady (LE) - a goddess of secrets and the stability of unchanging oblivion. She will grant Law, Darkness, Evil and Destruction

They will have four daughters, who balance their parents "forces" of change and stasis into cycles of nature

The Spring Maiden (NG) - a goddess of family, growth and new beginnings. a healer goddess. Domains will be Community, Air, Healing and Plant

The Summer Maiden (LN) a warrior-goddess of rulership, leadership and fire. Domains of Sun, Fire, Glory and War

Thr Autumn Maiden (N) - the Huntress goddess of nature and death. Domains of Animal, Earth, Death and Travel

The Winter Maiden (LN) - Goddess of ice, cold, and rest. she marks the worlds sleep between the death of the autumn maiden, and the new growth of spring. Domeains of Water, Reposte, Protection and Knowledge


I'm trying to discern the alignment pattern of the daughters' "balancing". No evil or chaotic daughter? Is the balance theme only and not alignment?


Is there such a thing as "the Mairkurion bump"?

BTW, Loztastic, I think you are still pretty new, and don't remember ever welcoming you, so: Welcome!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Not really the right forum for this, I didn't even notice it until Mair posted about it in another thread.

Though i do kinda agree it just feels like it is missing a evil and chaotic balance to it. Not a CE just at least one being chaotic and one being evil which may or may not be the one in the same.


I like this for starters. Have you thought have having the dying/rising god? He could be a lover of one of the sisters, a demi-god or lesser god, who after death she raises, thus giving rise to a yearly cultus of rebirth. He could even be the lover of two sisters: Autumn, who kills him, and Spring, who resurrects him.

EDIT: Depending on how you meant the term "maiden"...

Liberty's Edge

I really like this idea. I have toyed with similar ideas in the past and I think you have a great foundation.

I agree that an element of CE would be good, perhaps the Maiden of Winter can be CE.

If you are interested in adding the Dying God motif, perhaps you should look into the Oak King and Holly King. The Oak King rules the "Light" half of the year while the Holly King rules the "Dark" half. They both die through combat and reflect the changing seasons. The maidens could be the lovers of either king, Winter and Fall is connected to the Holly King while Summer and Spring would be the consorts of the Oak King. As the seasons change, the partnerships shift. You could even state that the ruling king impregnates one of the maidens with the future king. In addition, the Holly King and Oak King can be aspects of the same deity.

If you want more info on the twin kings, go here.

As a side note, when I played with something similar, I also created four sub-types of elves. Each elf was the child race of one of the seasonal deities.


Hurrah! A goddess of winter and ice who, just for once, isn't evil. I like that...
As a comment I see no mention of which deities handle the sun or moon(s). Not sure if that is a deliberate omission or not?
I don't know if you could slot them into your scheme of things, but I would like to draw your attention to the elemental weirds of Monster Manual 2 (if you have it) as 'nature spirits' that might fit in.


More good comments.

Charles, I have to agree on how the Sun and Moon play into pantheon -- ditto for the Sky and the Earth. It looks like Sun is already associated with Summer. If that holds good, then the question would be whom to associate the Moon with and why. And maybe if Winter as Evil is too obvious, then Summer (depending on the region and its climate) or Autumn could fit the bill, but this would require some adjustments.

Alleynbard, I wonder if the the oak king/holly king end up playing a little different role if they are two distinct figures -- as powers ruling different times of the year or merely consorts of their respective ladies. To be a popular savior figure, dying and rebirth need to both belong to the same figure. This would work, however, if the two were simply aspects of the same figure. (They could also be roles. If merely human figures had played this role before, say the old outgoing king was the oak king, sacrificed, but then replaced by the new incoming holly king who would in turn later become the oak king, but these well-established roles were then concentrated in a figure who did not merely symbolize rebirth, but actually was raised rather than replaced.)


My suggestion is to make the winter goddess CN. If it's focused on the cycles of nature, then none of the seasons need to be "evil." However, capricious, fickle, and fey are all fine things; and CN fits that bill well.

I would also associate the moon with the Autumn goddess, since she is also a huntress. Alternately, it could be placed with winter to balance the association of summer and sun.

The pantheon also lacks a LG deity. My suggestion here is to separate summer from sun, and then make a LG deity which represents the light of knowledge, giving him both sun and knowledge domains along with the alignment domains of law and good.

That still leaves holes at the NE and CE positions which need to be filled. I've got some ideas, but they're not quite ripe yet.

As one pantheon builder to another, I really like the direction you're taking this. Developing a close structure for the pantheon, family relations and ties to elemental forces of nature, makes for a much better group of gods and a more sensible campaign setting than most of "standard" D&D's random-@$$ hodgepodge of nonsense.

What about a god of time? What about a dragon god of time?


Doesn't Time kind of fold into Change?

Saern wrote:
Developing a close structure for the pantheon, family relations and ties to elemental forces of nature, makes for a much better group of gods and a more sensible campaign setting than most of "standard" D&D's random-@$$ hodgepodge of nonsense.

Preach it, Bro. Saern. Still, old time players have developed attachments to various figures from Greyhawk (& FR), so I went through them and eliminated and rearranged them into a Pantheon that made some sense, while retaining some of the flavor that people were attached to, for my homebrew.

Liberty's Edge

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

More good comments.

(They could also be roles. If merely human figures had played this role before, say the old outgoing king was the oak king, sacrificed, but then replaced by the new incoming holly king who would in turn later become the oak king, but these well-established roles were then concentrated in a figure who did not merely symbolize rebirth, but actually was raised rather than replaced.)

I really like the idea of a mortal taking those roles. It could integrate the concept of the king equals the land, more so since the holly/oak king actually derive from the mortal world. Since the holly/oak king process reflects fertility, it would be interesting if the land required mortal blood to maintain the prosperity. As odd as this sounds, human sacrifice doesn't have to be evil, especially if the mortals choose their fate for the good of the land.

To go in a direction that might be totally unhelpful, this is how I would do it. The Holly King and Oak King are mortal rulers who take the goddesses as lovers. They are literally married to the land. They rule for a period of time before they are sacrificed by the incoming king to help maintain the land's fertility. Those children born from the goddesses are left in the mortal world and are raised by a "royal family" of sorts. They are mortals in all ways, except their mixed blood is what is needed to maintain the health of the domain. If you don't want to change rulers every six months, you could always extend out the concept of "dark times" and "light times". Though once you get rolling you should have more than enough people to fill the role. If you don't think that is viable, the children can also maintain families. That should provide more than enough men to fill the role.

Or, if a secular ruler isn't appropriate, make the Holly/Oak King the head of the druidic faith. These druids are prepared their entire lives for this moment. Like the secular king concept, they rule for six months and then are sacrificed to maintain the land. In that time, they are the lovers of two of the four maidens, producing children that breed with other mortals and provide a whole "stable" of viable choices for the future.

Hmmm...I wonder if there is room in Golarion for such an idea?

In retrospect, I agree with some of other posters that the seasons likely should not be evil or good at all. I retract my earlier thought.

I wonder if a pantheon entirely based around nature needs CE or LG deities at all?

Dark Archive

Loztastic wrote:

The Lord of Change (CG) - a god of magic, change and life. his nature is to bring constant wonderment and mystery. Domains will include Magic, Luck, Chaos, Good

The Dark Lady (LE) - a goddess of secrets and the stability of unchanging oblivion. She will grant Law, Darkness, Evil and Destruction

They will have four daughters, who balance their parents "forces" of change and stasis into cycles of nature

The Spring Maiden (NG) - a goddess of family, growth and new beginnings. a healer goddess. Domains will be Community, Air, Healing and Plant

The Summer Maiden (LN) a warrior-goddess of rulership, leadership and fire. Domains of Sun, Fire, Glory and War

Thr Autumn Maiden (N) - the Huntress goddess of nature and death. Domains of Animal, Earth, Death and Travel

The Winter Maiden (LN) - Goddess of ice, cold, and rest. she marks the worlds sleep between the death of the autumn maiden, and the new growth of spring. Domeains of Water, Reposte, Protection and Knowledge

To mix things up, there are four 'extremes' of alignment, and to go with a kind of 'Druid-y' feel, I'd consider making each of them represent a particular extreme.

Spring - a time of boistrous growth and exuberance. Chaos.
Summer - crops grow and people live and love. Good.
Autumn - decay and corruption, as all that is good rots away. Evil.
Winter - could represent inflexible order, stamping out the spread of decay and preserving the world for the next cycle. Law.

Each maiden would be neutral + their extreme. (And these are the first ones I thought of. Other options exist, such as Spring and Winter as Good and Evil, and Summer and Autumn as Law and Chaos.)

This would also create more of a Druidic connection, with LN, CN, NE and NG Druids being more likely to follow the tenets of one specific seaonal maiden, while true Neutral Druids follow all four as a mini-pantheon, or composite goddess.

And yeah, totally wrong forum. I also wouldn't have noticed it, because this forum is usually used for storytelling / IC diaries / 'after-action reports' / etc.


Hmm...some good potential directions to ponder there, Set.

What I'd encourage the OP to ponder is, what kind of religion is this pantheon a part of? If it's like most nature polytheisms, then it shouldn't follow the all-too-common assumption that persons would strictly worship one member of the pantheon--that's not what we see in history. All will be honored, generally by all. Priests being dedicated to a particular deity is another matter. The next question would be, is the evil opponent of creation/humanity a member of this pantheon, or outside of it, an enemy of the pantheon as well.

As it stands, it looks like the other alternative would be that this pantheon would lead to a very dualistic religion, split between the CG principle and the LE principle. However, unlike, say Taoism, which has a primoridal unity, unity is yet to be achieved, led by the four daughters and their human devotees. That could be a pretty interesting direction to go. The religion could then be, instead of a dualism with four patrons, a religion that is working against primordial dualism towards in this religion of balance. The pantheon would then more precisely be the four, and the original two would be something like the titans. Would there then still be followers of these primordial powers outside of the people in question and their religion of balance and progression?

Where should this thread go? General OGL gaming?

Dark Archive

While focusing on the daughters, I kind of missed the whole CG god and LE goddess thing.

Quite a ways back, I wrote up Correllon Larethian as a Lathander like figure, boistrous, fey and wild-maned, an elven god of masculinity, strength, life, spring and summer and physical exuberance and fire and passion all rolled into one, and then wrote up a wife, who was calm and dispassionate, a goddess of reason and magic and orderly progression in all things. He was CN, she was LN. Where he was tan of skin and light-haired and bursting with unrestrained excess, she was pale of skin and dark-haired, and precise, controlled and cooling. Together they were complete, she tamed his wild urges and kept him from making some foolish mistakes, or blowing things out of proportions with his prickly temper, he dragged her out of her ivory tower and showed her how to dance and love and laugh.

Then, all wrapped up in her webs of destiny, being the elven goddess of fate, she was ensnared in a self-fulfilling prophecy that ended up with her turning into Lolth. As his wife veered into evil, Correllon almost reactively lurched into good, the two of them, even in conflict, instinctively balancing each other out.

At the end of the conflict, tainted by the demon-queen growing inside of her, that she was fated to become, Correllon reached into the body of the thing that his wife had become and pulled forth the last remnants of the goddess he once loved, knowing that she couldn't survive as a bodiless fragment, and pulled her deep within his own body.

Lolth fell to the Abyss, nearly mortally wounded (and now utterly mad and chaotic, abandoning even her old name), while Correlon's skin paled and his hair faded from shining gold to a darker reddish hue, while his body became more slender and his eyes mismatched, one the original blue, the other dark, like those of his wife. He became the somewhat androgynous father *and* mother to the elven races, containing elements of both the warrior-god he once was, and the magic-goddess he once loved.

While this obviously doesn't jibe with your concept, I offer it up as a sort of jumping off point for inspiration as to how a CG lover of life and a LE lover of control could end up knocking booties. (Greyhawk does the same sort of thing with Wee Jas and Norebo, with the borderline evil control-freak Wee Jas falling for the kinder-hearted and troublemaking 'bad boy' Norebo.)

Liberty's Edge

Set wrote:

While focusing on the daughters, I kind of missed the whole CG god and LE goddess thing.

Quite a ways back, I wrote up Correllon Larethian as a Lathander like figure, boistrous, fey and wild-maned, an elven god of masculinity, strength, life, spring and summer and physical exuberance and fire and passion all rolled into one, and then wrote up a wife, who was calm and dispassionate, a goddess of reason and magic and orderly progression in all things. He was CN, she was LN. Where he was tan of skin and light-haired and bursting with unrestrained excess, she was pale of skin and dark-haired, and precise, controlled and cooling. Together they were complete, she tamed his wild urges and kept him from making some foolish mistakes, or blowing things out of proportions with his prickly temper, he dragged her out of her ivory tower and showed her how to dance and love and laugh.

Then, all wrapped up in her webs of destiny, being the elven goddess of fate, she was ensnared in a self-fulfilling prophecy that ended up with her turning into Lolth. As his wife veered into evil, Correllon almost reactively lurched into good, the two of them, even in conflict, instinctively balancing each other out.

At the end of the conflict, tainted by the demon-queen growing inside of her, that she was fated to become, Correllon reached into the body of the thing that his wife had become and pulled forth the last remnants of the goddess he once loved, knowing that she couldn't survive as a bodiless fragment, and pulled her deep within his own body.

Lolth fell to the Abyss, nearly mortally wounded (and now utterly mad and chaotic, abandoning even her old name), while Correlon's skin paled and his hair faded from shining gold to a darker reddish hue, while his body became more slender and his eyes mismatched, one the original blue, the other dark, like those of his wife. He became the somewhat androgynous father *and* mother to the elven races, containing elements of both the warrior-god he once was, and the magic-goddess he...

Very nice. I never get tired of reading your fluff/crunch creations Set. They are always quite good. I hope to read some of your stuff in Wayfinder soon. Have you made attempts to submit material during the Superstar competition or open calls? If not, I really think you should.


More thoughts spurred by Alleynbard:
Well, I really hope that I don't have to argue for human sacrifice always being evil. ;)

Now, it could well be that there was a yearly cultus or more likely, a once per monarch cultus in which the old oak king died, and the new monarch was crowned as the holly king. The monarch imitated the seasons, the land was renewed, and the people flourished upon it. This ritual could hark back to the days of primordial gods (per my dualistic interpretation of the OP). With the attempt to balance out the extremes of the past/their parents, the religion of the four maidens would have taken up this pre-existing cultus, and reinterpreted into something like brutal, in which a human was actually raised, and deified, leading to his becoming a savior figure, as the consort of a maiden, and the one who brings a future promise of rebirth that is latent in the seasonal cycle.

BTW--the cultus in the years in-between the passing of the royal baton could be the mating with the goddess ritual to make the earth fertile, which would have foreshadowed the hero's rise to divine status.

Liberty's Edge

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

More thoughts spurred by Alleynbard:

Well, I really hope that I don't have to argue for human sacrifice always being evil. ;)

Perhaps, more accurately, the sacrifice is not for evil intent and is not performed by humans, per se. I find human sacrifice repugnant, certainly.

The heart of Christianity depends on the human sacrifice of Christ. But, he is the Son of God and it was required of him, so that makes it okay. Dionysus was willingly torn apart once a year to maintain fertility. As you say, a deified being can do it and that turns it from an evil act into a good act. Which is what I was saying, certainly. The bloodline is a willing, Dying God figure, in line with Christ or Dionysus. And pretty much falls in line with what your ideas are centering around. These men are still mortal, but they have the blood of gods in their veins so that makes the act divine.

In a world where there is a guaranteed rewarding afterlife for the willing sacrifice the act takes an even less darker tone. Bloody, yes. Malicious, not necessarily. Though, the need for a sacrifice could spawn from evil misdeeds of the past.

As a side note, there could be arguments centering around the evil disposition of the Romans that crucified Christ, but you get what I am saying.

Liberty's Edge

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:


BTW--the cultus in the years in-between the passing of the royal baton could be the mating with the goddess ritual to make the earth fertile, which would have foreshadowed the hero's rise to divine status.

I think drawing out the cycle is likely the best option. With the dark cycle representing age or disease with the light cycle representing youth and fertility. If the king and the land are one, the health of the land could be tied to the king. Though in a world with magical healing, the worry of the land suffering due to the king's sickness would be quite rare.

But in this case, the king could be the oak king and holly king. During his youth he is the oak king, as he grows old he takes the crown of the holly king, participating in a ritualized sacrifice that does not involve death to mark the transition. When the king's son (likely born through union with the goddess to maintain the demigod status) reaches the proper age, the king becomes the savior and the new king takes the oak crown. In the interim I agree with you and believe the ritual should be one of mating. Perhaps every goddess requires a different sacrifice/ritual during their season. Or, the season ideal can be conflated and the ritual can look different depending if the king is in the Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter of his life. All of which falls within what you are saying. In other words, I think we speak the same language.

I like the idea of this brutal ceremony having its origins in dualism but softening somewhat, or becoming more hopeful with the rise of the maidens.

I retract my earlier statement. In this situation scions of the bloodline should be powerful demigods. They should be able to heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, have extremely long lives, etc. In fact, they should likely be similar to Aragorn once he accepts his birthright.

Liberty's Edge

By the way, Mairkurion, what I said to Set applies to you as well. I really enjoy reading your ideas. They help spawn thoughts and concepts that I might not have reached entirely on my own.


Thanks, Alleybard! This is actually my favorite thread in a while.

It's been so long sense the last controversial "human sacrifice is not necessarily evil, per se" (cannibalism is another favorite) thread, that I couldn't remember who all had taken part in it. :S
Yeah, I definitely get you. In this case, it would have been the OP's maidens perhaps taking the original evil deed and turning it into something good, making good come out of evil. Lots of ideas running around here, I hope the OP comes back and enjoys them as much as we are.

PS MAJOR avatar switch disequilibrium going on over here!

Dark Archive

alleynbard wrote:
Very nice. I never get tired of reading your fluff/crunch creations Set. They are always quite good. I hope to read some of your stuff in Wayfinder soon. Have you made attempts to submit material during the Superstar competition or open calls? If not, I really think you should.

Thanks muchly! I did attempt this last Superstar, but my line of specialized diety-specific holy symbols failed to make a splash. I blame the trolls down in marketing. Smelly brutes won't live to let me down next year!

I've sort of attempted to get in contact with some of the people involved in Wayfinder, to no avail. I think they've got a crew already picked out or something, which is cool. Don't want to mess with their feng shui, since it is indeed mighty! :)

There's some Pathfinder stuff up on my website, but it's never polished enough to meet my standards. I read it and cringe, usually.

[That's totally not fishing for compliments! I really do freak out reading my own stuff, because I can go over something a dozen times, and then, six months after I posted it, I'm looking at it and I find a damn typo that's obviously been there the whole time. Chaps my butt something fierce!]


Set wrote:
I'm looking at it and I find a damn typo that's obviously been there the whole time. Chaps my butt something fierce!]

Yeah...like "sense" in my post above. ARGH!!!


Come back, Loztastic...

Sovereign Court

G'd evenin' M.,

Welcome to the boards, OP.

Building a pantheon is no small task. I worked on this through the winter of 2007-08. I wholly agree with Saern who said, "That still leaves holes at the NE and CE positions which need to be filled." The point is that the pantheon, at least from a classic frpg design method, needs to be accessible to the priests and churches of the worlds varied aligns. I think the collaborative effort seems on track.

Have fun.

Also - I'm with... I think Set, who suggested CN for the goddess of ice/winter/etc. But, its your world, and the usual tropes need not affect your design, but together, everything should work like wondrous deific gears in the great design, leaving no aspect of existance behind, being itself a pantheon of a people that is full and complete.

Best of luck.

I'll stop back.

—Pax


Evenin', Pax. This is really one of my favorite areas of mythopoesis.

A quibble: depending on what one means by 'Pantheon'. I don't feel a need for every alignment combo to show up in my pantheon, because I define it strictly in terms of its relationship to the ultimate being, and there are some alignments incompatible with it, and therefore those beings are defined as being outside of the pantheon. If you take the Greek example, say, the Titans are outside of the pantheon, even though they are the source of the Olympians, and then there's the problem of where to fit in Dionysious. The demigods, such as Hercules are outside, etc.

Dark Archive

Just my two cents. You have six dieties, I would add three more. That way you hve a diety for every alignment. This becomes important because some divine classes require that a character be the ame alignmet as their patron deity. I notice that there is a lot of neutrality and law, but not much good, chaos, or evil. Perhaps you might want to consider designing your setting to expain that.

Liberty's Edge

Set wrote:


There's some Pathfinder stuff up on my website, but it's never polished enough to meet my standards. I read it and cringe, usually.

[That's totally not fishing for compliments! I really do freak out reading my own stuff, because I can go over something a dozen times, and then, six months after I posted it, I'm looking at it and I find a damn typo that's obviously been there the whole time. Chaps my butt something fierce!]

Looks pretty good. I really appreciate the Pathfinder versions of the Arcana Unearthed races. I like the idea of turning "levels" into racial feats. That will come in handy for my upcoming campaign.

I understand what you are saying. I feel like my brain often moves much faster than my fingers, leading to all sorts of nasty typos. And, for some reason, I tend to miss these kinds of typos in a proofreading. I'll write up pages and pages of material for my campaigns, proof it many times, and still have players pointing out typos to me. I respect the job of a good editor. They deserve their own day of recognition.


Okay, I'm through being nice.

I demand the OP come back to his/her thread!

Sovereign Court

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

Evenin', Pax. This is really one of my favorite areas of mythopoesis.

A quibble: depending on what one means by 'Pantheon'. I don't feel a need for every alignment combo to show up in my pantheon, because I define it strictly in terms of its relationship to the ultimate being, and there are some alignments incompatible with it, and therefore those beings are defined as being outside of the pantheon. If you take the Greek example, say, the Titans are outside of the pantheon, even though they are the source of the Olympians, and then there's the problem of where to fit in Dionysious. The demigods, such as Hercules are outside, etc.

Thy mythopoeic quibble is noted, M.

And, I would in earnest say that it is not essential that every align be represented, especially since the requirement of "steps away from" base alignment does not carry any mandate for at least 1 god for each align. I tend to follow the form listed in the v.3.5 DMG on creating a pantheon, and the table worksheet therein is a fine starting point for one seeking to complete a "classic" dnd pantheon. And, to your quibble-I agree, there does not need to be a set number, as we have monotheism (1), henotheism (such as a forgotten realms with a god for every button on the shirt), or any of the mythologies where human aspects were distributed to not only gods but to demi gods and champions. So, I would take back what I said, if not for the "classic" dnd qualifier, that, I would suggested but not mandate, be a good goal for one creating their first pantheon.

I think its fine to being with just a few, because anything short of publication will not ever use all of its contents, however, in true classic form, I would still suggest trying to think "complete" if one is going for a pantheon to serve their gaming table for the next 20 years.

Just my thoughts. Take what you can and leave the rest. And, as always M., I so enjoy our talks. On the point of religious academics, I can only give you a run for your coppers on select areas, so on the whole would defer to you in most areas.

-Pax


Well, if Loztastic ever finishes his Pantheon, I'd be interested to hear out it turned out.

Dark Archive

It seems as though he is too busy with the health care debate to work on it.

Sovereign Court

lol


Wow. It's all about priorities, people. I mean, here's a problem we can fix fo' sho'!

Dark Archive

We can rebuild him, we have the technology, blah blah blah.


Lord Gygax demands that this receive more attention.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Hierarch of Gygaxian Naturalism wrote:
Lord Gygax demands that this receive more attention.

How do the two "parent" gods feel about eachother? :)

Why four "daughters"? Or, why are none of the second generation gods "sons"?

How active are your god's in mortal affairs? Which leads to, do you have demi-gods wandering around the world?

*** *** ***

Another idea would be to have rival pantheons for different ethnic/national/racial groups (but have them all be real beings). This leads to over-lapping spheres of control, divine alliances, and god wars.

This makes things much more complex which can either make things better (and more plausible) or worse (and harder to follow).


Maybe now the Pathfinder Core Rulebook has come out, he's put things on hold with regard to the possible campaign for now?

Dark Archive

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

Okay, I'm through being nice.

I demand the OP come back to his/her thread!

We should just totally hijack this thread and use it for our own sinister purposes. Or silly purposes, which is also pretty sinister.

I'm torn on pantheon creation.

On the one hand, I very much want a small, tight pantheon, with different dieties covering different bases.

On the other hand, alignments sharply limit potential for Clerics. (What? The only god with the Fire Domain is evil?)

What I'd really like to do, for a homebrew pantheon, is utterly abandon the idea of gods having alignments. Followers can have alignments, and they can project their alignments onto their dieties, focusing on the nicer parts of their god's scriptures, while other followers of the exact same god can go all 'old testament' and worship a much less forgiving aspect of the same diety.

Doing this allows me to create a god with the Fire domain (for example) who can be worshipped by lawful good blacksmith to Good Princess Daphne Rainbow Buttercup, and the pyromaniac assassin Wicked Black SkullDeath McNasty. As a god of fire, he's god of fire in all it's aspects, from tool and provider of equipment and cooker of food and warmer of hearths to ravager of cities, scorcher of flesh and burner of heretics. 'Ooh, it's a bit nippy. Throw another Protestant on the fire!'

If the dieties don't feel the need to restrict their actions based on mortal concepts of 'alignment,' I won't feel the need to have multiple dieties of Fire, or Magic, or Travel, or Animal, to make sure that every Cleric, good, neutral, evil, lawful or chaotic, has a patron god that gives them said Domain, nor the need to make some dieties 'generic' neutral, such as the increasingly common Neutral nature (Obad-hai, Silvanus, Gozreh) and magic (Boccob, Mystra, Nethys) gods.

My biggest pet peeve is different gods for different races and regions. Every time a new race comes out, it's got it's own pantheon of five or so earth-shatteringly powerful cosmic entities, until worlds like Toril or Greyhawk seem to be *crawling* with dieties, and that's without using other WotC races, such as the Raptorans or Goliaths or Illumians or whatever.

I loved Roger Moore's demihuman dieties, when they first came out, and dieties like Arvoreen (little halfling Paladin!) and pretty much the entier Gnomish pantheon (SOO much cooler than that boring twit, Garl Glittergold!) and Aerdrie Faenya, etc. will always have a special place in my heart, but I don't care to see that sort of thing showing up so much anymore. The Dragonlance / Kingdoms of Kalamar / Al-Qadim system, where every race had different names for the same prime dieties, suits my much more these days.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

The thing is, nothing says more about a world setting (at least in a Fantasy World) then the nature and interaction of the Gods.

So there is no right answer - just look at how many different ways the peoples our Real Historical Earth has answered these questions.

Dark Archive

Lord Fyre wrote:
So there is no right answer - just look at how many different ways the peoples our Real Historical Earth has answered these questions.

True, and going the exact opposite direction, maybe don't even bother coming up with huge global scale churches (or perhaps only a few of them) and let *everyone* pick a diety and just make it up. I want to make a Cleric of a LG goddess who has Magic and War among her Domains? Cool. Go for it.

This sort of thing might be especially suited for a setting based off of India, where the land has 10,000 gods, and some of them aren't even known outside of this particular village, or away from that particular river.

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