Be able to worship Pantheons


Homebrew and House Rules

Silver Crusade

Currently there are no mechanics involving worshipping a group of Gods, though certain characters, such as Oracles are encouraged to do so, but there is little benefit to do so despite these Deities easily being grouped up by alignment, or by race or by plane.

In real life, there are religions that pray to a group of Gods. They pray to specific Gods in different situations but they venerate the pantheon as a whole. Why should polytheism be lesser than monotheism?

In Pathfinder, unless you worship a core god, it's very difficult to have much interaction between your deity and NPCs beyond surface level stuff. If someone worships Pazuzu or Dagon, and your character knows who those deities are, would you treat worshippers of either differently or just clump them together. Same goes for worshipping Kurgress or Immonhiel, do you get treated differently despite one just being an Empyreal Lord and the other being a Demigod? Point being with such a large amount of deities, unless you worship a core god, there's not much flavourful difference, unless you group up similar deities into pantheons.

Certain Pantheons would have a general alignment to them. Like Archdevils or the Hell Plane are all Lawful Evil. The Eldest are generally True Neutral. Goblin Hero-Gods are generally Neutral Evil. And the Elven Deities are generally Chaotic Good. So followers of a pantheon would still abide generally by the majority alignment of the deities. Deities can belong to more than one pantheon.

Just because there are evil gods in a pantheon does not mean you worship evil. You recognise the traits that the evil deity has and his relation to the other deities. You are loyal to the pantheon's alignment and worship it as a whole.

Crunch-wise, a pantheon could offer another way to have domains and subdomains without the need to create extra deities. This would add on to the existing deity system and flesh out the existing ones. New obediences and boons could be created for worshipping a pantheon. Instead of Deific Obedience, it would be Polytheic Obedience. They would otherwise be identical in function to Deities. They can have their own unique spell/summon rules, traits, archetypes.

Fluff-wise, groups of gods are already normally put together in Golarion. Would it be out of place for a farmer to pray to Erastil for a good harvest, and to Pharasma for his pregnant wife. Or a Paladin to dedicate himself to the forces of Heaven, representing the Lawful Good Empyreal Lords. Or an Elven Ranger to pledge himself to the Elven Gods.

You could assign traits/flavour to what kind of person worships the Gods of different Pantheons, like Nirvana or the Eldest. Single Deity worshippers could see Pantheon worshippers as undecided and uncommited, but regarded an ally compared to worshippers of other gods from other pantheons. Most NPCs would be unaware of obscure​ deities, but they could know about the pantheons they belong to. They may not know who Dagon is, but they will know what Demon or Fiend Worship is. It opens up more conversation, rather than "I have not heard of such a deity."

Silver Crusade

I am aware of the Pantheistic Blessing Feat. But its not exactly what I'm suggesting. Worshipping a deity doesn't require a feat.

Perhaps there could be some mechanical difference between worshipping a pantheon versus worshipping a single deity.

Maybe a pantheon doesn't grant a favored weapon, but maybe they count as worshipping the gods within those pantheons for feats and magic items.

A pantheon could offer its own domains, subdomains, obediences and boons. Maybe have its own thing.


The first problem is a matter of magic. With real deities that take a real interest in the world, there has to be some way of limiting their interventions. Particularly opposing groups of deities need to find some way of avoiding fights simply because the results would be pretty dire.

That said, while pantheons can be worshiped in a general way by anyone, as you mentioned people will go to a specific deity for whatever favor(s) they want to ask that deity for: a good harvest, a healthy child, protection against thieves, etc. There's always a group of main deities that would generally fall into the Greater Deity category. Under them would be more deities that would be Intermediate in power. Most likely if you were to have the average person talk about religion, they'd mention the Greater Deities first and the Intermediate Deities second. If they are aware of them, some Lesser Deities could then be mentioned - unless, of course, such deities were of relatively closer association (household deities, for instance).

Most generally, people will offer things first to the Greaters, then to the Intermediates, and then to all the others. In terms of game play, a farmer offering prayers to an agricultural deity isn't likely to get that deity's attention or blessing in a particular way. A cleric, however, would be able to do so and act as an emissary of sorts.

For Clerics, though, it is a similar issue. While Clerics might worship, to some degree, each of the deities in the pantheon, they tend to serve one deity particularly. It would take a rewrite of the Cleric in general to allow them access to all clerical spells, though it wouldn't be impossible.


If I'm remembering right, 3.5's Eberron had rules for worshiping pantheons.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Path of the Hellknight has rules for worshiping the Godclaw pantheon. You pick one of the five deities as your individual patron but take feats that let you claim benefits from the other four.

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1) You CAN worship multiple deities. You can even worship deities that oppose your alignment. Divine classes like the cleric just require a single faith because you're representing/serving a faith.

2) You CAN be a cleric of a pantheon or a non-deity-specific faith. The Green Faith is a good canon example.


In Tombs of Golarion Pantheistic Blessing got an upgrade via Polytheistic Blessing, basically resulting in two new options. But that's it when it comes to feats - as far as I can tell.

Traits offer a bit more here. There are the faith traits Empyreal Pantheon and Proxy of Many as well as the religion traits Elven Pantheist, Propitiation and Sovyrian Pantheist.


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I created several pantheons for my current home campaign, and where appropriate, outlined domains, alignments, favored weapons, etc., for clerics who serve the pantheon rather than a single patron.

A few examples:

The dominant "civilized" human pantheon has mostly LN gods, with a few outliers, so clerics of the pantheon must be within one step of LN, and gain domains that fit the pantheon as a whole (Community, Knowledge, Law, Protection). They have longsword as a favored weapon; it's not favored by any specific god, but is very common in the culture.

The four elemental gods are worshiped as a group by some races, but not by others. For those who do honor all four, pantheist clerics (and only they) gain access to all four elemental domains. Each of these gods is Neutral, but also has an evil aspect worshiped by corrupted elemental cults; there is no "pantheist" equivalent for these.

The faerie gods represent the four seasons, who share power in turn throughout the year. The Winter Queen is evil--Unseelie, in fact--but pantheists honor her as well, as part of the annual cycle. Being a nature cult, both pantheists and single-patron clerics have access to the Animal and Plant domains, plus 2-3 others.

The halflings' celestial pantheon consists of the Sun (NG), Moon (N), Shadow (N), and Void (NE). In its original form, this religion paid homage to all four, but ever since the halfling homeland was destroyed by Void-worshipers summoning an avatar of their god into the world, that god's worship in any form has been strictly forbidden. Pantheists gain domains drawn from the Sun and Moon gods' lists (and none from the Void's) and must be non-evil.

For religious traits, I've largely repurposed existing traits from the PRD to my own gods. Religions that allow clerics of the pantheon as a whole have one or two traits specific to those generalists; some also have traits that a cleric or any or all gods of the pantheon can take.

Liberty's Edge

Most divine spell casters can be played as worshiping a pantheon or even a nondeity specific religion without any changes in mechanics. Druids and Shamans can worship nature or nature spirits or they could worship a pantheon so long as most of deities aren't hostile to nature.

Rangers and hunters could easily worship pantheons that support tracking down and slaying monsters.

Paladins would tend to favor pantheons that were mostly lawful and/or good in alignment. If there are evil gods in the pantheon, a paladin might view them as "rogue" members or forces that need to be appeased in order to stay their wrath.

For oracles, mysteries could be associated with a pantheon as a whole.

The three classes that might need adjustment are those that depend on domains, inquisitions, and blessings: cleric, inquisitor, and warpriest. These are also the classes that are required to have an alignment within one step of their deity's. These were designed to be classes that are deity-specific.

Clerics could worship an entire pantheon. The only question would be how would they choose their domains? I wouldn't open up to letting a cleric choose any two domains associated with any deities in the pantheon. Instead, give each pantheon a short list of domains available to a pantheistic cleric based on what the overall culture or theme of the pantheon.

For example, if the pantheon is closely associated with a particular alignment, give them that alignment domain. If the pantheon is similar to the Norse pantheon, their worshipers might be seagoing warriors. Domains like war, water, and weather might be appropriate.

Warpriests and blessings could work exactly as domains do for clerics.

For inquisitors, either pick a domain from the list of pantheon domains or an inquisition that best fits the role or archetype the inquisitor is following. Perhaps not all inquisitors search for enemies of their religion the same way.


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I'm not sure that there need to be any specific mechanical advantages associated with worshipping a pantheon of gods. You can certainly roleplay such worship easily enough, and claim that a given god grants you such and such a spell, for flavor purposes.

I suppose it wouldn't be too far fetched to allow a cleric to take doamins from two different but associated gods... although that would favor even more the cherry-picking of domains for mechanical benefit rather than for the flavor of given gods.

In my current PF campaign, my players were used to the DD3.5/Forgotten Realms gods, so I prepared two player reference sheets with the "seven good gods of Golarion" and the "seven evil gods of Golarion". Sure, I know, there are a lot more than seven, but it went a long ways in getting the players invested in the setting. And serves as a good basis for polytheistic practices.


The core rulebook says that clerics that do not worship a god may pick any two domains to reflect their inclinations. I've always played such such clerics as venerating all of the gods that provide those domains.


Cyrad wrote:

1) You CAN worship multiple deities. You can even worship deities that oppose your alignment. Divine classes like the cleric just require a single faith because you're representing/serving a faith.

2) You CAN be a cleric of a pantheon or a non-deity-specific faith. The Green Faith is a good canon example.

1) No, you can venerate multiple deities and/or deities of alignments further than one step from your own. To worship a deity, you must be within one step of its alignment. Worship and venerate are very specific mechanical terms in Pathfinder. (Please note that I am not opposed to the idea of worshiping a pantheon. I have even created a small one for a homebrew setting.)

2) Except in PFS, where you must pick one patron to worship that will be the source of your divine magic.


Vutava has it, IMHO.

Just my two CP on the issue, mostly echoing what Greatbear said above; if you are looking for a class which draws power from a pantheon of deities, I would recommend the Oracle, and even more so the Shaman.

The source of an Oracle’s power is left intentionally vague, so you have plenty of wiggle room there, while gaining powers from a variety of sources is the Shaman’s whole shtick in a nutshell.

In my mind, you could also make a fun case for a Reliquarian Occultist: each of your Implements could represent the blessings of your patrons, channeled through objects symbolic to them and their spheres of influence.

To me, the Cleric seems like it may be the most difficult class to make work with this concept. But with a permissive GM who's willing to work with you, it shouldn't be too hard to sort out via houserules.


As people say, this already happens in Golarion. I've played multiple PCs including Clerics who had broad affinities to multiple Gods. Honestly, if you are playing with the assumption that characters DON'T have such relations, you are radically constraining actual roleplaying in favor of mechanic-centric play.

OP says you shouldn't have to pay a Feat, but then seems concerned solely about mechanical repurcussions, and yeah: want mechanical benefits: pay a Feat, otherwise REVEL in the deep engagement of actual roleplaying.

I see Deities here similar to ethnicities/nationalities. Of course, one can identify groupings of ethnicities which have close relations, e.g. Inner Sea, akin to a "Pantheon" (in fact, many religious Pantheons may correspond to such ethnic meta-groupings), but that does not mean one can say "I am of no specific ethnicity, I want mechanical benefits from all groups of <ethnic pantheon> without even paying a Feat". Yeah... No. You're welcome to craft a character with nuanced, broad ethnicity and religion, it just happens that for general mechanical purposes there will be one ethnicity/deity which mechanics will revolve around.

Of course, if you want to change the rules for your game, you can do so.
It's very easy and plausible for a game to be designed from the beginning around Pantheon worship, and for that to be baked into it's balance. This isn't that game.

I just don't get the recurring complaints when Pathfinder/Golarion works a certain way that people don't like, when they can just as easily chose to play a game/setting that DOES work the way they like. Any person's preference can conflict with another's, so any one system cannot fulfill everybody's optimum preference, that's just the way the world works. I don't know why people constantly bring up these complaints with Pathfinder, y'know as opposed to raging at the injustice of Starwars D6 or Shadowrun not having X mechanic.

It just feels... OFF when people want to argue with the way rules are constructed, yet at the same time benefit from the rules by invoking their authority. The idea basic game architecture should be seriously altered for the benefit of... player entitlement pursuing "every mechanical benefit I want" just feels like not only very poor from game maintenance perspective, but losing the entire thread of what the game is about, to favor a shallow pursuit of "haha I have more powerful mechanic and the rules can't stop me!" (and if they do, complaints ensue).


Also, of course the Separatist Cleric allows combinations of powers outside the norm of a single god, and nothing stops you from choosing Domains of another God in the Pantheon. Like, if they called the archetype the "Pantheon Cleric" and restricted it to within same-Pantheon, it would be exactly fulfilling this role, right? Unless... that just isn't powerful enough for some reason?

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I wrote an omnist archetype for a cleric who worships all deities equally. With a few changes, it might work for what you have in mind.

When I introduced an omnist NPC into my campaign, I was surprised that the PCs (who thought of themselves as tolerant of other religions) wanted nothing to do with this 'heretic', and even considered banning the omnist from their kingdom. It made me realize that even in a polytheist setting, religious leaders are expected to adhere to monolatrism.

Silver Crusade

and yet here it is, the ability to worship pantheons:

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh2v


Amanuensis wrote:

I wrote an omnist archetype for a cleric who worships all deities equally. With a few changes, it might work for what you have in mind.

When I introduced an omnist NPC into my campaign, I was surprised that the PCs (who thought of themselves as tolerant of other religions) wanted nothing to do with this 'heretic', and even considered banning the omnist from their kingdom. It made me realize that even in a polytheist setting, religious leaders are expected to adhere to monolatrism.

Does all religions include the evil ones and the evil leaning neutral ones? In which case I'm on your player's side.

To each their own, but a cleric of "all deities" sounds more like an oracle or similiar.


Where does an NPC Adept get their magic from? They're suggested to be a Divine caster but they lob Burning Hands at level 1. This is fully an Arcane spell. I propose that the NPC Adept is an example of worshipping an entire pantheon without picking a single deity as a Patron.

Consider that the Adept gets no Domains, Blessings, channeling and so forth unless they dedicate feats (aka, specific training and rigor in their lives) to those specific abilities to the exclusion of others. They DO get a Familiar, arguably a small (but at high levels with the right build significant) benefit from their generalized worship, but these creatures show up on PC classes under some Arcane AND Divine casters, so not really indicative of a specific faith.

As they progress Adepts get weakened spellcasting compared to PC classes who are more niche in their adherence to a single faith, patron, or descend from a single supernatural entity as opposed to the Adept who is more of a generalist. I submit all of this as evidence that even though PCs may worship multiple deities, PC classes show us the mechanics for specialization (unless certain feats or archetypes are chosen) while the NPC Adept is the mechanic for remaining truly a generalist in all things regarding their worship.

I know I'm probably wrong, but I thought I'd just throw that out there anyway.

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