So I'm starting a new campaign pretty soon, and I'm writing my own setting because I have more time than money. I'm starting small and just fleshing a single geographic region. The religion of the regions dominant culture is a civilized form of dualistic nature worship. The two main gods of the pantheon respectively symbolize nature's nurturing aspect and its savage aspect. I've got the nurturing goddess more or less worked out. She's your typical earth mother, fertility goddess: Neutral Good alignment, Animal, Community, Good, Plant, and Protection domains. What I'm having trouble with is the savage nature god. I had planned for him to be chaotic neutral, and for him to have the Chaos and Destruction domains, but I don't know what other domains to give him. I'm reluctant to give him the weather domain because I don't want him to seem to much like Zeus, and the god of the after life rides across the world atop a thunder head, hunting for the souls of the dead.
To sum things up: What domains would you give a god of nature's savagery?
P.S. The pantheon's other gods include a god of civilization, a god of storms and the afterlife, a sun god, and a goddess of the moon and the seas.
Strength would be an excellent fit for this god, as well as Luck, since it can show how fickle the world is. The remaining domain should be something for flavor, like Fire, Darkness, Water, War, or as stated in the prior post Death or Trickery, etc.
I tend to flesh out a religion before I assign it Domains, but hey other way around can't hurt. You should pick whatever sounds best to ya! You're clearly familiar with mythology so don't be afraid of coming up with something weird.
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Strength is a good one. If there was a choice between Death or Repose, I would go with Repose. Though, I could see a dark nature god that considers undead as apart of the savage side of nature.
All of the elemental domains have those nice "bolt" abilities that can represent the destructive side of nature.
This is going to sound odd, but how about Madness? It doesn't quite sound right to me, but there might be a way to tie that in.
As suggested above, Trickery might be a good choice as well.
If I were choosing domains for a savage nature god, I would go with Chaos, Destruction, Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
Weather is a tempting choice, but I think you are right about the association to Zeus. He doesn't appear to be a sky deity only and the Weather domain fits a sky god like Thor or Zeus. So, I would avoid it.
[...]and the god of the after life rides across the world atop a thunder head, hunting for the souls of the dead.
I like the cut of your jib, sir! Nice mythological image there.
I'd give both gods the Plant and Animal domains. It ties them together mechanically as well as thematically (the rabid bear is just as "natural" as the doe lazing about in a sunbeam). And, if the domains are separated too much, you lose the cool dualism aspect and they just become two more gods in a pantheon of names your players won't remember...
Since the culture that worships this pantheon views nature holistically rather than as separate elements, I'm probably going to avoid the elemental domains. I would also want to give him all the elemental domains, which wouldn't leave much room on his list of domains without it getting bloated. I like bigkilla's idea that both nature deities can have the animal and plant domains, so I'll probably go with those. Strength also seems like a good choice.
So far his domains are Animal, Chaos, Destruction, Plant, and Strength. It's tempting to add Weather (it's a very wrathful domain), but I worry that six domains may be to many. I also want to keep his number of domains equal to the nurturing nature deity, so I would have to choose a sixth one for her.
What about a deity that's some kind of Devourer Worm. It represents Nature as a force for both Hunger, Predation and Decay. The god of savage predators as well as termites and rust. Everything about nature that makes survival difficult because there is so much in nature that seems to be about survival at the expense of other things.
Any of the following Domains might be appropriate:
Animal
Chaos
Darkness
Death
Destruction
Madness
Plant
Strength
War
Other domains could be added with a little explanation.
I had considered a devouring worm type deity, but as I currently have the mythology written the two nature gods created the world together, they just have different ideas of what the world should be like.
For additional inspiration, have a look at the beast god from Forgotten Realms, Malar. He's Neutral Evil normally, but there's no way in nature (heehee) you can't play around with that a little.
Otherwise, the suggestions are fine. Strength was what had popped immediately into my mind as well.
All in all, sounds hell cool.
There are ideas forming inside my head of a tribe of Orves (descendants of orcs and elves) who worship these gods...
Since the culture that worships this pantheon views nature holistically rather than as separate elements, I'm probably going to avoid the elemental domains.
Then why two, separate deities with separate domains? Unless there are going to be specific churches dedicated to each (which would contradict the holistic bit), just give them the same domains and treat them mechanically as one god.
Since the culture that worships this pantheon views nature holistically rather than as separate elements, I'm probably going to avoid the elemental domains.Then why two, separate deities with separate domains? Unless there are going to be specific churches dedicated to each (which would contradict the holistic bit), just give them the same domains and treat them mechanically as one god.
You misunderstand. What I meant was that they don't classify matter based on what it's made of, but rather by what it is. To them, nature isn't a combination of elements, nature is nature. A storm isn't a fusion of the elements air and water, it's a force of nature all its own.
From a mechanical point of view, I don't want clerics of this pantheon having single element domains because, if they do, then they aren't nature clerics, they're fire clerics or they're ice clerics and that's not what I want. I probably wouldn't have such a problem with it if the elemental domains weren't so boring and cookie cutter. There are also four of them, which doesn't leave much room for anything else on a deities list of domains.
Well, umm. yeah. I should have mentioned that I wasn't specifically talking about the elemental domains. I'm more curious about whether each god would have a separate church or separate worshipers? If they're generally worshiped as if they were a composite being (or two sides of the same coin), there's no reason to give them separate domains.
IMC, the various nature domains are "owned" by a collective "god" generally worshiped as "The Wooded Council." Are there separate deities packed in there? Yeah. Do I know their names? Only a few. However, since clerics in the campaign world who follow Nature (or nature gods) worship all of them collectively.
In a real-life example that will probably just help to obscure my point, Catholics worship the Holy Trinity (yes, I know there are exceptions, I just don't feel like dealing with them right now), but you wouldn't find a priest dedicated specifically to the Holy Ghost...
Well, umm. yeah. I should have mentioned that I wasn't specifically talking about the elemental domains. I'm more curious about whether each god would have a separate church or separate worshipers? If they're generally worshiped as if they were a composite being (or two sides of the same coin), there's no reason to give them separate domains.
IMC, the various nature domains are "owned" by a collective "god" generally worshiped as "The Wooded Council." Are there separate deities packed in there? Yeah. Do I know their names? Only a few. However, since clerics in the campaign world who follow Nature (or nature gods) worship all of them collectively.
In a real-life example that will probably just help to obscure my point, Catholics worship the Holy Trinity (yes, I know there are exceptions, I just don't feel like dealing with them right now), but you wouldn't find a priest dedicated specifically to the Holy Ghost...
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood. They are two distinct deities with opposing viewpoints on man's relationship with nature. One represents man cooperating with nature, the other represents man and nature in opposition.