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For a few years now I've struggled with this; I don't know why I'm just now coming to the Boards for help.
In my Homebrew Cosmology I've done a pretty good job of connecting the origin of the deities with angels and devils/demons and even monster and PC Race origins and how it all connects together.
All the deities I use are D&D created, from Mishakal to Pelor to Lathander to Saranrae, etc. This way a Player can join my group and whatever D&D campaign he knows best he can be a cleric of a deity there without any real problems -- he doesn't have to conform to non-published deities I created.
Here's my problem:
In addition to the D&D deities, I've always kinda liked some of the Norse Mythos and Egyptian Mythos deities.
And I can't think of a way to include them without screwing up the cosmology I cobbled together from D&D stuff.
The trick FR used -- having had some other Prime Material world, a long time ago, come to Toril with worship of Tyr and Horus and such -- doesn't work in my cosmology.
How do I include Tyr, Njord and Thor; how do I include Ptah, Horus and Geb into my cosmology?
I've settled it before by determining that at some point in history a human civilization created their own myths of these pantheons -- exactly how it was done in real life.
But that seems to cause two problems. First, it makes Pelor, Mishakal, et. all seem a bit incompetent if civilizations have invented false deities to worship and create stories of.
Second, it would imply that not only is Tyr and Ptah MUUUUUCH younger than, say, Moradin, but technically, Tyr and Ptah don't really exist. They're fake.
How do I get Tyr and Ptah in my game?
Introduce the new gods as different aspects of the old gods that are coming into prominence because of increased worship of said aspects. Essentially the new gods formed from the old gods. Kind of like what the Romans did with the Greek and Egyptian pantheons.
The majority of legends would stay the same but culturally they would differ.
I'm reminded of Terry Prachett's line about Blind Io who, by the use of a false beard and several different fake noses, is at least 40 different gods across the Discworld.
I'd suggest a rather Hindu sort of spin. There are different cultural manifestations of a singular god. Lathander, for instance, is Horus, just the worship of Horus in a different cultural setting. (Of course, a Horus worshiper would describe it the other way around.) Both tap into the same principle concept of a certain sort of divinity, namely the idea of light and the sun, but are different masks of god. Why not just one? Because different regions have a different need to express the idea of a sun god.