Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Pantheon, Part II

Here's an incomplete list of the gods I'm thinking of using in my setting, along with their real world inspirations (if any):
  • Anesidora: Goddess of grain, fertility, marriage, and law. Based on Demeter.
  • Asana: Goddess of strategy, heroism, and science. Based on Athena.
  • Caint: God of medicine, poetry, and music. Based on Dian Cecht.
  • Donn: God of the dead. Slightly reworked Celtic god.
  • Mavors: God of warfare, blood lust, and slaughter. Based on Ares.
  • Ptah: God of travelers, craftsmen, and invention. Slightly reworked Egyptian god.
  • Sutek: God of darkness, serpents, and storms. Based on Set.
  • Turms "Thrice-Great": God of writing, magic, and diplomacy. Based on a combination of Thoth and Hermes.
  • Tyche "Lady Luck": Goddess of fortune, prosperity, and destiny. Slightly reworked Greek goddess.
Obviously, there are still a lot of gaps in the pantheon and even the gods I have chosen will probably be tweaked in various ways. My general rule is that I want the gods to have diverse tutelary interests, because this makes the gods much more interesting. Likewise, I want some of these interests to overlap, in order to provide excuses for rivalries between gods and their mortal followers. I'm also ditching the notion of racial deities. Instead, some races may only worship a subset of the overall pantheon, but that's as far as I'll go. I simply don't like the idea of "elf gods" or "orc gods" or whatever.

More later.

4 comments:

  1. I'm curious - will the gods (or the gods' avatars) be human-shaped? Or will each race have a different view/avatar onto the god? Or do they never have corporeal form?

    I'd find orcs worshipping a set of "human gods" a bit strange too.

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  2. The gods look like whatever they want to look like. Some of them them may generally adopt a human form -- or they are portrayed as having done so, at any rate -- but they all wear different guises, depending on the culture and (in some cases) race of their worshipers.

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  3. One thing I have noticed is that incomplete pantheons seem more realistic than pantheons that cover the entirity of human existance.

    I think it seems more real because the big gods show what a society sees as important. I think that is why Issek of the Jug comes off so well- Its the type of religion people would come up with.

    What you have is pretty evocative in a less is more sort of way. I would not mess with it much. In fact I would heed the advice from the comments in an earlier post that you only really need to deal with the gods of the cults that the players are going to deal with or be a part of, and these really only have to reflect the themes of the word you create.

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  4. I think it seems more real because the big gods show what a society sees as important. I think that is why Issek of the Jug comes off so well- Its the type of religion people would come up with.

    Yes, I agree. Issek of the Jug is a very compelling god for exactly the reasons you state. If I could come up with a deity half as believable as Issek I'd be most pleased with my efforts.

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