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Alright, to make a long story short. I volunteered to run a Pathfinder game and somehow I said I would use a homebrew setting (which consists only of random stray thoughts in my head right now) for the game.
There was some character creation last night and the player who chose to make the divine caster asked what deity options they had. I'm horrible at explaining things, but what I told him (which really does match up with the stray thoughts in my head) is that there were only going to be five gods, each one based on a color of magic used in Magic the Gathering. Through the course of the night we figured that his Warpriest would have the White God (or Goddess) as their patron, with the Healing, and Good blessings.
So, that much I know is set. Now it comesto a matter of fleshing out the rest of the pantheon so that as the game advances there's internal consistancy. So far I've made a list of domains from the CRB and matched them up to the five colors as best I can and assigned alignments. I know it's not going to be exact because the five colors were not intended to be shoe-horned into Pathfinders alignment system, but it's something at least.
White (LG): Air, Community, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Liberation, Nobility, Protection, Sun (10 domains)
Blue (LN): Charm, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Protection, Travel, Trickery, Water, Weather (9 domains)
Red (CN): Artifice, Chaos, Destruction, Fire, Luck, Rune, Strength, War (8 domains)
Green (NG): Animal, Charm, Earth, Good, Healing, Plant, Weather (7 domains)
Black (NE): Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Repose (5 domains)
Considering how few gods there will be in the setting, I'm okay with the large selection of domains per god. But, I'd feel better if Black had a few more.
I know I'm not an expert on MtG, but I'm curious if anyone can give their opinion whether I'm on the right track, if I'm oblivious to something? Also, if anyone has suggestions on favored weapons or really any suggestions at all.
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If you just do "color" gods, weapons aren't that hard.
White: Longsword/other one-handed
Blue: "Knowledge" weapon (sounds weird), e.g. quarterstaff or dagger
Black: Knowlede or stealth weapon like Blue, maybe something bigger
Red: Big, two-handed weapon
Green: Natural attack or big weapon
Maybe just use powerful legendary creatures or Planeswalkers for colored gods, you can ask me for lots of options there.
I don't think Black should have Law, by the way. Just as much Chaos there as Law.
Black has overlap with blue on Knowledge and Trickery.
Protection and Travel seem weird for Blue. Travel should be Green (most likely to landwalk).
Charm is weird for Green.
Artifice is definitely Blue, maybe White. Red usually destroys artifice.
I guess I would do it differently, but you seem to be on the right track.
Edit: Consider the Theros gods maybe, at least for inspiration.
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If you just do "color" gods, weapons aren't that hard.
White: Longsword/other one-handed
Blue: "Knowledge" weapon (sounds weird), e.g. quarterstaff or dagger
Black: Knowlede or stealth weapon like Blue, maybe something bigger
Red: Big, two-handed weapon
Green: Natural attack or big weapon
Maybe just use powerful legendary creatures or Planeswalkers for colored gods, you can ask me for lots of options there.to add to this, i would say:
White: Longsword/Spear
Blue: Quarterstaff
Black: Dagger/Whip
Red: Greatsword/Earthbreaker
Green: LongbowI don't think Black should have Law, by the way. Just as much Chaos there as Law.Why not both? :D
Good favored weapon ideas for green/white/black.
I guess there isn't much reason why not to, though it's never been done. Could you get a cleric with chaos and law domains?
Didn't expect such a response so quickly. Thank you for that at the very least.
Looking over all the suggestions, I've revised my list:
White (LG): Air, Community, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Liberation, Nobility, Protection, Sun (10 domains), Longsword
Blue (LN): Charm, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Protection, Travel, Trickery, Water, Weather (9 domains), Quarterstaff
Red (CN): Artifice, Chaos, Destruction, Fire, Luck, Rune, Scalykind, Strength, War (9 domains), Greataxe
Green (TN): Animal, Charm, Earth, Good, Healing, Plant, Strength, Travel, Weather (9 domains), Bow
Black (NE): Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Knowledge, Madness, Repose, Trickery, Void (9 domains), Whip
I left Protection with Blue because when I played magic (granted this was back in the mid-90's) it seemed Blue's ability to counter, and dispel wasa good reflection of a protective defense by having a good offense.
I guess that might be a backwards way of looking at it, and maybe my reasoning for having artifice in Red might be from the same style of thinking.
I think that for the purposes of clerics within my homebrew, and the fact there's so far gods, opening the alignment restrictions to allow for two steps, not just one step from patron's alignment. [Example, a cleric of Black could be of any non-good alignment, Red of any non-lawful, Blue of any non-chaotic . . .]
You could pull a ravnica and make all of the 'gods' the 10 two color combinations. Much easier to assign alignments and domains that way.
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I remember at some point, the MTG website listed D&D alignments typically of each of the ten guilds. The way they broke it down, White was Good, Blue was Law, Red was Chaos, Black was Evil, and Green was Neutral.
If you broke it down that way, no matter what alignment a person is, they'd be within one step of at least two deities.
I think Artifice in Red and Protection in Blue is fine. Blue occasionally gets Protection from X, even. Remember that Drake from Zendikar with Protection from Lands? Though Blue could also have Artifice, what with Illusions.
I would also give Black the Nobility domain. Black tends to be self-indulgent, greedy, ambitious, corrupt, and scheming-- all the negative traits we associate with nobles.
If you care about the colors having an equal number of domains, you could give Green Air as well. Windstorm anyone?
Well, mind what powers the domains grant.
Blue is about mastery over magic. All colors cast spells, but blue interacts with those spells most often, usually by countering them. The Magic Domain captures that well with domain spells such as: dispel magic, spell resistance, antimagic field, spell turning, protection from spells, mage's disjunction.
The Protection domain has some overlap, but also tends towards White's style of protection more than Blue's.
The Nobility domain is themed with the positive traits of nobility.
Repose is probable more appropriate in White than Black.
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White (LG): Air, Community, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Liberation, Nobility, Protection, Sun (10 domains)
Blue (LN): Charm, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Protection, Travel, Trickery, Water, Weather (9 domains)
Red (CN): Artifice, Chaos, Destruction, Fire, Luck, Rune, Strength, War (8 domains)
Green (NG): Animal, Charm, Earth, Good, Healing, Plant, Weather (7 domains)
Black (NE): Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Repose (5 domains)
Quite respectable, but if I may kibbitz a bit:
- I'd say Blue Magic is just as Chaotic as Red, just in a different way.
- Blue and Red have always been the official "elemental" magics of record (Blue is Air and Water, Red is Earth and Fire).
If I were to shuffle things around a bit, I'd go with the following:
White (LG): Community, Glory, Good, Healing, Law, Nobility, Protection, Sun (9 domains)
Blue (CN): Air, Artifice, Chaos, Charm, Knowledge, Madness, Magic, Trickery, Water (9 domains)
Red (CN): Chaos, Destruction, Earth, Fire, Liberation, Luck, Magic, Rune, War (9 domains)
Green (NG): Animal, Charm, Good, Healing, Liberation, Plant, Strength, Travel, Weather (9 domains)
Black (NE): Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Knowledge, Madness, Repose, Strength, Void, War (9 domains)
Green should be TN like most nature gods in most settings.
White should be NG.
Add Artifice and Law to Blue and remove Protection, trade Law for War on White, add Liberation to Red, trade Good for Community and add Repose on Green, add Rune to Black.
That would give 10 domains to each and correct the alignments.
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Blue would not be chaos, that is a domain of control and order if by using magic or artifice to do such. Giving them the domain of Chaos is just wrong thinking, as it is because of their order and control that red largely opposes them. Think Vulcan from Star Trek, they are blue where thinking and reason push aside emotion and irrationality.
I would actually order alignment when it comes to Law and Chaos like this. White is in general anywhere from Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good, Red is in general anywhere from Chaotic Good to Chaotic Neutral perhaps sometimes Chaotic Evil (mostly when combined with Black), Green is in general From Chaotic Neutral to Neutral Good, Blue is in generall anywhere from Lawful Neutral to True Neutral to perhaps Lawful Evil (mostly paired with Black), While Black can be anywhere from Neutral Evil to Lawful Evil perhaps True Neutral and Chaotic Evil (If paired with Red).
So as follows: White - Law and Good, Red - Chaos, Green - Chaos, Blue - Lawful, Black - Evil and Law. Something like this away, Alignment is a hard thing to match up with MtG colors.
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Also on deities... why not consider Theros? I admit, what MtG does with Heliod, God of the Sun annoys me a bit but all in all it is a great place to start. It is so like the game to show that Light is not always good or nice and Dark is not always evil.
Yet despite not fully agreeing with the canon storyline fully in some regards, I do feel Theros has all the needed elements to be right at home in a Pathfinder game. Given it has a variety of deities and even a built in conflict of a hedonistic, murderous, and psychopathic satyr who wished to steal divinity from the gods and manages to do so. It then would require the 'heroes' to travel through the realm of the gods to find and defeat this new god.
Heh, there is enough DMs could plunder to have a campaign from 1st to 20th level, probably with some Mythic thrown in for go measure.
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Information involving the Theros Pantheon can be found here and here.