Atanatotatos

Pantheons have always been an issue to me when playing D&D. Be it the simple "core" Greyhawk setting, or the ENORMOUS Forgotten realms' one, I have always found them quite boring. They have little to do with Religion, actually. To me, those gods resemble the saints of catholicism. They are basically people with the spark of divinity, and are revered by people for whom their "portfolio" has some interest. There's little variety despite the varied natures of cultures and population in these settings.
With 4th Edition, they tried to keep it simple, and I find the "mixed" core pantheon and the "shorter" FR one better indeed than teir predecessors, but in the end it's all the same.
The setting that really addressed this problem in a more interesting and verisimile way is (as for many other aspects of a setting) Eberron.
There are many reasons why a young setting like Eberron gets so much love, and one of the reasons, I believe, is the Religion.
Things were handled very differently here. A pantheon is a religion in its own right. Those who revere a single member of the Sovereign Host actually is a believer of the whole Pantheon: he prays to the god that best "addresses" his current need. The gods are distant, and they're not "poeple": sure, they're portayed, but as completely different beings in each context or culture; they even have different names, or at least, different gods of different cultures have been identified with the ones of the Sovereign Host or the Dark Six. The latter are also interestig in that the don't have a "name"; seems a minor thing, but it actually goes along way to characterize them and adds a bit more of mystery and charm. The Thirteen lost god is also a nice add.
But where Eberron really shines is in the rest of the religions. There's a cult of ancestors (the undying court). The druidic sets are not a new idea, but here they're given true substance, variety and a history; they're tied to the world, like a reistic religion should be.
There's a philosophical belief (the path of light), an aggressive semi-platonicist monotheism (the silver flame), a bloody mysteric cult, actually a facade for a villain's machinations (the blood of Vol). Am I forgetting something? Anyway I made my point.
This is the way to make religion a meaningful, varied, interesting choice which can be related to from a real life's perspective. Another great approach is that of Sepulchrave in his own setting. Each one that reads storyhours here on Enworld knows what I'm talking about.
Why did i rant about this in this blog's first post? Well, I'd like to introduce a religion choice of this kind in a homebrew setting, and this looked like a good place to take comments and ideas. So, more on this later (hopefully).