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What are your favorite deities from games or fiction?
For some reason I really like Issek of the Jug. While he was only featured in one story and mentioned in another, Issek's faith really captured my imagination. The imagery and self-sacrifice of the cult really grabbed me.
I also thought the Sword gods of Chaos were great. Mabelrode the King of Swords, Xiombarg the Queen of Swords and Arioch the Prince of Swords. Arioch really got around; he was probably a favored antagonist of the author. Xiombarg was seen a number of times, but I don't believe we ever saw Mabelrode.
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Ohgma has always held my interest the most. Plus I have always liked his pantheon the best, not in D&D terms, but in the real stories the pantheon has.
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I will second Arioch, Duke of Chaos. The most memorable fantasy deity that comes to mind (obviously if they didn't come to mind they wouldn't be memorable).
Uh... can people provide more information on their favorites? I know something about just one or two of the deities mentioned here.
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I really like Moorcock's gods too. Everything in RuneQuest to do with the gods is amazing. I particularly like the Red Goddess, Nysalor/Gbaji, Storm Bull, Thanatar and the Crimson Bat.
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I kind of like the penthion featured in Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion. The Father (winter), The Daughter (spring), The Mother (autumn) The Son (autumn), and The Bastard (half-demon, in charge of things that are out of sequence). One neat thing is that everyone, at their death, was given a ritual that would determine to which of the five gods their soul would go (well, barring unusual circumstances). There was another country that didn't recognize the 5th god. Needless to say, religious/military hilarity ensued.
Not sure how this would work in play as there seemed to be a deterministic element for religious types (if you gave yourself up to the service of the gods, you could be used, and used *hard*).
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Man, I'd almost forgotten about all the cool gods from RuneQuest.
Humakt was one of my favorites. He had the Death rune and so Death was a huge part of their rituals. Because you worshipped Death, you couldn't be Ressurected.
The Troll mother-goddess was good, and so was Zorak Zoran, their war god. Part of the rituals of Zorak Zoran was that you had to consume a quantity of vegetables every season. Elves counted. (Of course, in the RQ world, Elves were vegetables; their bones were made of wood, etc).
The Law/Chaos thing was amazing. In the beginning of the game literature, it was assumed that the Lightbearers, the bringers of Law, were the Good gods, which made the Chaos gods the Evil ones. Then you started seeing the cracks in that, which was eventually seen as propaganda from the barbarian tribes of Dragon Pass. The Red Goddess was no more evil or good than many other deities, but she was remaking the world into a very different place and the old gods had no place in it.
Love The Raven Queen: A Neutral God of Death is way cooler than an evil one
I like even better that her predecessor, Nerull, is/was an evil, selfish, greedy sort who overstepped . . .
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Stryphon! From H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalven of Otherwhen series (and a short story in his other works that formed the basis of it), later continued by Roland Green and John Carr.
Got to love a God with a monopoly on Gunpowder.
Kalven's version of the God's of his world was pretty amusing too.
Aphrael from D. Eddings' Elenium has to be my favorite fictional god.
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I really like Moorcock's gods too. Everything in RuneQuest to do with the gods is amazing. I particularly like the Red Goddess, Nysalor/Gbaji, Storm Bull, Thanatar and the Crimson Bat.
Why? What is it about those particular gods that strikes your fancy?
What does the RuneQuest system do that's amazing?
__________________ All role playing advice is given without knowledge of you and your group. Only you and your group knows what is fun for you. What you are doing is not badwrongfun. My advice is offered based on what I think might be fun for you to try.
"Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary." - Amedee Ozenfant, Foundations of Modern Art
"I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It's called work." - toberane.
I have never been much for gods who are... particularly human.
I'm currently in the third book in Greg Keyes' "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone" series, and his take on the gods (called different things in each of the world's languages, but "saints" is the most common word in the books) is shaping up to be interesting. Exactly what they are, and what the major church reall is, seem to be major mysteries of the books, that I hope will be understood by the end (and the final book is out, so there is an end).
I think it's the world of Glorantha rather than the system. Greg Stafford is just brilliant creatively, imo. His concepts are that bit more imaginative and weirder than those of the creators of other secondary worlds. He studied mythology and folkore extensively and he really knows his stuff. I think he has a good ear for names too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roguerouge
Why? What is it about those particular gods that strikes your fancy?
The Red Goddess is unlike most of the other gods, she appeared in history, the others all came into existence before there was such a thing as time. (See what I mean by weird?) She's the goddess of the Red Moon, which was created by ripping a huge mass of material out of the ground and setting it floating in the air. Because of this she's in conflict with Orlanth, the storm god, as he sees this as trespassing in his domain. The Red Goddess embraces Chaos, which is regarded as evil and alien by most Gloranthan cultures.
The Lunar Empire, which follows the Red Goddess is pragmatic, meritocratic, promotes equal rights for men and women and is hated by almost everyone partly because of its ties to Chaos.
Nysalor/Gbaji was created by a group of mortals to be the perfect being. His religion is Glorantha's equivalent of Buddhism but he is also Chaotic and seen as evil by many.
Thanatar is, I think, a combination of two earlier gods, the head of one on the body of another. His followers gain power by garrotting and beheading their victims, whose knowledge and skills they can then use by keeping the severed head.
I'm not doing those ideas justice and probably misremembering them quite badly, but you can see how bizarre and complex these gods are.
Storm Bull and the Crimson Bat are a lot simpler. The first hates chaos. His followers guard a great magical stone called the Block because the Devil is imprisoned beneath it. The stone is very valuable so that's something for PCs to do right there.
The Crimson Bat is a manifested god. It's a gigantic red bat covered in blood-spraying eyes that flies around the borders of the Lunar Empire eating people, who are procured by the worshippers and priests that travel alongside.
Mostly what I like about these gods is the richness and weirdness of the concepts. With Storm Bull I just like the adventure idea of the Block.
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Last edited by Doug McCrae; 27th June 2009 at 05:23 AM..
My favorite fantasy god is Hoar (aka Assuran of the Three Thunders) in the Forgotten Realms setting.
Hoar took dominion over poetic justice and vengence in the main pantheon. Hoar's soul was fought over by Shar and Tyr, each looking to twist Hoar's domains to their own use, while he sought to bring misery to those who deserved it.
I'm just not sure what happened in the 100 year gap to make Hoar choose Bane (besides the fact he resided in Bane's domain pre-4E). There's a story in there somewhere.
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