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Pantheon

Chamorus the Cat

Super-Earth
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
I'm creating a dark-fantasy setting homebrew campaign world type thing. Okay, actually, I'm writing my own RPG. I want some help with gods and goddesses and wanted to see what people could come up with. Aspects I like will be posted here and I'll get the ball rolling by posting one of my gods.

  • Vathas
    Avatar:
    During the waxing/waning cycles of the moon, Vathas appears as an athletic man with eight arms standing battle-ready with a dagger in each hand. A shapely woman has her legs wrapped around his waist, almost as if acting as the warrior's armor.

    During the full moon, Vathas appears as a woman, full with child; a male child rests in her belly. A red moon will often indicate harvest times are near and the birth of Vathas' child. Children born on these nights are often given to assassin temples.

    During an eclipse, however, Vathas is said to become a monster of both sexes; blood and bile drip from Vathas' slavering mouth as she goes about her bloody work collecting souls. Over the following eight nights, each temple will sacrifice an individual at high-moon, in order to appease the dark goddess.

    Purview:
    Vathas is the god and goddess of the dark side of human nature. Thus, his purview is the bodily fluids of humans: blood, sweat, tears, spit, cum and so on.

    Followers:
    assassins, bloodletters, doctors, athletes, spurned lovers, whores, and hermaphrodites.

The Lands of the Realm
The Broken Isles: Islands that dot the the ocean. The mainland kingdoms leave the isles alone, seeing as how it's hard to govern such peoples. These can be tribal colonies.
- Nive, slave city; think Egypt surrounded by water
- Castle in the Mist; once, a mainlander tried to civilize this island. No one goes into the main keep that was swallowed by the vegetation, but hard survivors still remain in the area.
- Falosi, tribal warground; where the various sea-faring tribes with gather for council and, in order to save their minimal supplies, where tiny wars are raged
- Hekame (undecided)
- Nkaluk (undecided)

Sandsea: The Western continent where sand is as common as water in the sea, hence Sandsea.
- Malvek, the ruling capitol of Sandsea; where the councils reside
- V'shlar, the Crown of Sandsea; where the nobility reside
- Urma, believe themselves to be the true rulers of Sandsea
- Orma, who also believe themselves to be the true rulers of Sandsea
- Mujagen, City of Thieves
- Qarm, City of Splendor

Steppes of Jogun: Located on the Eastern continent, this area is inhabited by some of the hardiest folk in the land. The barbarians here are well known for their battle prowess.
- Lasthold, fortress capital of Jogun; king and council reside here; beyond Lasthold are the Wastes, where little grows
- Tamehound, a way-point between Lasthold and Ulharand, where folk come to trade
- Ulharand, the land and holdings of the family that has taken an oath to repel the Jogunites who would break their own oaths and leave the Steppes
 
Mr Master said:
Oh, man, such things are easy. I did a whole pantheon on my RPG rules thread. Simple stuff. What divisions do you need? Are there hierarchies? Start at the top, the Mother and Father of the gods, and work your way down.

Start at the top: No. Down-top, not top-down. No real hierarchies and the gods themselves might not even involve one another. These gods might not even exist; they're more beliefs. A few healings and odd miracles might happen and be attributed to the gods, but I'm not sure...

I guess I want to make a "fun for everyone to make shit up" thread.
 
Mr Master said:
Problem is, pantheons work together. They share an origin and cosmology. There can be warring pantheons, adapted gods (look at the Romans and Greeks), but if you're looking to put together a dark fantasy campaign, you can't really let it be hodgepodge and have it feel real.
Hm. Perhaps pantheon is the wrong word, then. I'll take parts from what folks post and put it where I like it. I'm not just going to jam things in all willy-nilly.
--+Hahvoc Requiem+-- said:
I think this needs to be moved to ConCrit.
It's already there!
 
You're more looking for tribal gods/goddesses?

In which case there'd be a lot of repeats as each tribe will have their own version of things.

Hmm, I think a look at the cultural history of your civilisations would yield quite a bit of understanding into what it is they would likely believe. It would tell you what's important to them. Geography is also important, is the area prone to flooding, is it mountainous, what are the weather patterns like, is it flat grass land from horizon to horizon. All of these features, and more, shape the psyche and what people find worthy of their devotion.
 
I would suggest looking at Ilmater from Forgotten Realms. It might provide a little inspiration
 
Lyra said:
I would suggest looking at Ilmater from Forgotten Realms. It might provide a little inspiration
I appreciate it. I've been looking at pantheons from both Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, and a lot of other campaign settings. The main post has been edited to include the lands of the realm, so that others have a better idea of the peoples and places.
 
Chamorus the Cat said:
Lyra said:
I would suggest looking at Ilmater from Forgotten Realms. It might provide a little inspiration
I appreciate it. I've been looking at pantheons from both Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, and a lot of other campaign settings. The main post has been edited to include the lands of the realm, so that others have a better idea of the peoples and places.

Awesome. I just suggested him because of the "dark" descriptor because even though he's a NG God, you can't get much darker than him.

He experiences the pain of every living thing.
 
Lyra said:
Chamorus the Cat said:
Lyra said:
I would suggest looking at Ilmater from Forgotten Realms. It might provide a little inspiration
I appreciate it. I've been looking at pantheons from both Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, and a lot of other campaign settings. The main post has been edited to include the lands of the realm, so that others have a better idea of the peoples and places.

Awesome. I just suggested him because of the "dark" descriptor because even though he's a NG God, you can't get much darker than him.

He experiences the pain of every living thing.
That one aspect is really cool. I'll try and work it into one of the deities.
 
Chamorus the Cat said:
I'm creating a dark-fantasy setting homebrew campaign world type thing. Okay, actually, I'm writing my own RPG. I want some help with gods and goddesses and wanted to see what people could come up with.

All good. If you're going to make this your own RPG, you want to alter any inspirations into legally distinct interpretations.

If you have magic in your world, you've got to decide how each culture sees it. Do the cultures see it as natural, arising from the environment, or is there a deity in charge of magic? Often something that powerful is the domain of the ruler of the pantheon, or it's attributed to the ruler of the Moon (or Moons, if you have more than one, or perhaps each moon has a separate God symbolically/practically attached). (when you start dealing with religion, symbology becomes intermixed with everything.)

The Broken Isles: Islands that dot the the ocean. The mainland kingdoms leave the isles alone, seeing as how it's hard to govern such peoples. These can be tribal colonies.
- Nive, slave city; think Egypt surrounded by water
- Castle in the Mist; once, a mainlander tried to civilize this island. No one goes into the main keep that was swallowed by the vegetation, but hard survivors still remain in the area.
- Falosi, tribal warground; where the various sea-faring tribes with gather for council and, in order to save their minimal supplies, where tiny wars are raged
- Hekame (undecided)
- Nkaluk (undecided)

Okay, for any island culture, the sea is paramount. It will provide most of the food, and also most of the natural dangers. Storms are devastating. Most of your gods are going to be dealing with aspects of the sea. Island cultures also tend to interrelate, to keep from getting too inbred, if nothing else. There is a fair amount of cultural cross-pollination, even between antagonists, so if there's interaction, the deities are going to look vaguely similar, even if they go by different names or have different fine details. This saves you time.

It also looks like you have a mix of technically advanced and technically primitive societies in the islands. Technically primitive societies, while capable of exactly as much complexity as technically advanced societies, tend to focus on the necessities more. They will have a few gods for things like music, maybe, or fertility, or shipbuilding, things like that that are important to the culture, but most of the gods will represent daily concerns like hunting/fishing and environment. The gods of a people reflect their concerns. In the more technically advanced societies, more people have more time to think about things, there's whole classes of people that can survive by knowledge (teachers, scribes, philosophers, historians, merchants, nobles, etc.), so they have time to consider gods to cover more abstract concerns. If the pantheons are still shared among the islands, perhaps there are some gods that are recognizably adapted, or perhaps the realm of responsibilities for certain gods might be widened to include new things that less technical societies don't bother to worry about.

Sandsea: The Western continent where sand is as common as water in the sea, hence Sandsea.
- Malvek, the ruling capitol of Sandsea; where the councils reside
- V'shlar, the Crown of Sandsea; where the nobility reside
- Urma, believe themselves to be the true rulers of Sandsea
- Orma, who also believe themselves to be the true rulers of Sandsea
- Mujagen, City of Thieves
- Qarm, City of Splendor

So, by this, do you mean it's all a desert kingdom? Pretty rough environment, and a culture's outlook and gods are influenced by what it finds itself in. Perhaps there is a god entirely concerned with the desert, or perhaps sandstorms are the work of a different god, or perhaps underlings of the main desert god. It's likely the desert god rates pretty high, or there might be a number of different gods, all equal and all at something of odds with each other. Perhaps sandstorms and such arise out of their conflicts in the Great Oasis, or wherever hey reside. Since this culture is pretty sociologically advanced, you'll likely have gods concerning themselves with abstract concepts, like pleasure or love or justice. But still, the environment is ever-present in the desert, and thus everything will be influenced by it.

Steppes of Jogun: Located on the Eastern continent, this area is inhabited by some of the hardiest folk in the land. The barbarians here are well known for their battle prowess.
- Lasthold, fortress capital of Jogun; king and council reside here; beyond Lasthold are the Wastes, where little grows
- Tamehound, a way-point between Lasthold and Ulharand, where folk come to trade
- Ulharand, the land and holdings of the family that has taken an oath to repel the Jogunites who would break their own oaths and leave the Steppes
So, wait, are the residents of the Jogun nomads, like the Mongolians, or hardy hardscrabble settlers in small hamlets and villages, like, oh, say, the Siberians? Because if they're nomads, they don't even need fortresses or capitals, but if they're settlers, then the above makes sense.

In a martial culture, all deities are likely to have aspects of battle gods, or the ruler of the pantheon is the straight-up war god. Apparently there are oaths and breakers of such are forever banned, so the gods should all be pretty strict. You won't need a sea god, and water sources will probably be ruled by a god of the land. Since they build cities, the culture seems reasonably advanced beyond mere survival level, so they likely have gods handling abstract concepts, as before. The Steppes are basically just cold grasslandy desert, with tough ground cover and just about no shrubs or trees. Resource-poor, but enough for animals to thrive, particularly with a little help. That's why most steppes-dwellers are mobile, to either hunt or tend animal herds as they follow natural patterns. There's bound to be a god of cycles, or all the gods will be influenced by cycles, if herds and animals are important to the culture.
 
MrMaster: Beautiful post, as always. I appreciate the scrutiny you've put into the setting.

I still want gods, though. This has gotten very analytical, though I was hoping folks would posit their own creations as it were. Like a game, rather. I have a very sound knowledge base to which I could create my own, but I want varied and unknown; to achieve that, I'm reaching out for ideas.

Your guidance, however, has been much appreciated.
 
Yeah, but... there's already sources all over the world, and in pretty much any high fantasy book. I've got a pantheon here to look over, if you've a mind to: http://bluemoonroleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=9430&pid=191402#pid191402 . If you can adapt any, you're welcome to, but just make them legally distinct.

I think some folks would wonder why we should give our ideas to you. I mean, it's your RPG, and if it sells, where's our cut?
 
Mr Master said:
I think some folks would wonder why we should give our ideas to you. I mean, it's your RPG, and if it sells, where's our cut?
>implying I have friends to playtest this

This is true. What if I donated a percentage of proceedings to keeping BMR up and therefore, keep everyone here from having to find a new place should the coffers run dry?
 
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