Homebrew world's cosmology - short version

Archimago · Jan 21, 2002

I was wondering if this cosmology seems okay or if are their any changes worth making (especially in the domain department, I am especially unsure about those).

COSMOLOGY OF ALTERRA

The Old Order (Natural Circle of Deities)

PORTFOLIO/ALIGNMENT
Fire/N
Water/N
Air/N
Earth/N

These are the elder gods that existed before intelligent races. These gods exist without name and all four work together in harmony to create and sustain the material universe. The priests of the gods are druids, who worship their harmony together.

The New Order (Civilised Circle of Deities)

NAME/PORTFOLIO/ALIGNMENT/DOMAINS

Tropalore/Justice/LG/Law, Good, Retribution, Strength
Dovilae/Peace/NG/Good, Proctection, Charm, Healing
Thalia/Joy/CG/Chaos, Good, Renewal, Family
Orothar/Wealth/LN/Law, Trade, Planning, Craft
Quarien/Knowledge/N/Knowledge, Magic, Spell, Time
Lokenda/Luck/CN/Chaos, Luck, Fate, Travel
Corbeus/War/LE/Law, Evil, War, Destruction
Asmodane/Death/NE/Evil, Death, Tyranny, Suffering
Mephista/Deceit/CE/Chaos, Evil, Trickery, Illusion

The nine seats of power these gods inhabit were created when the first intelligent species arose and some its member ascended to godhood. These deities and their portfolios are static. While the ancient species they originated from is gone, their language exists as the language of the churches of these gods, who are now worshipped by the remaining inteliigent societies.

These two orders of gods exist for the entire world, outside of any racial lines (making them a sort of unifying influence).

Maldur · Feb 8, 2002

Are these all gods? In comparison most other cosmologies have many more gods, and a great many portfolios.

Do you plan on adding demigods to fill gaps in the portfolios (like a Good wargod)?

How do demihumans fit in this pantheon, do dwarfs worship a particular god or are these gods "universal"?

Looks nice though, yet a bit underdeveloped.

Archimago · Feb 9, 2002

No more gods!

I wanted a very specific cosmology. 1 god per alignment representing the most core ideals of that alignment and thats all. In the two groups I ran in FR both were put off by the ridiculous amounts of deities. Secondly, with these deities being very real and representative of certain cosmic truisms, racial pantheons actually seem inappropriate, ie. why is there more than one deitu for art or nature, would they be threatened by the other one occupying the same relevant office? Why wouldn't a religion proselytize to members of other species? Etc.
Lastly I wanted to consolidate druids and nature gods, they seem to be the perfect priests of a nature based religion, and clerics of nature gods seemed out of place.
That's my logic, no one else has to like. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why I posted this up here, oh well, its done now.

Raduin_Nimblegrund · Feb 9, 2002

I think the cosmology works just fine. Tropalore makes a fine "good aligned wargod"; though I don't see a war god being anything other than neutral, or perhaps evil.

also the multiple racial diety pantheons get a little insane after a while... I can see the different races calling the same god different things (though perhaps not in this campaign) but the need for a brand new pantheon is a bit much.

I wonder if the good gods should be mixed however... "Family" and "chaos" dont seem to be a likely mix... Perhaps if tropalore (who seems to be a more combatitive god) should be the CG god, (chaos, good, Retribution, Strength) while Thalia would take Tropalore's place (Law, Good, Renewal, Family)... though this changes the personalities of the gods drastically.

I also get the feeling that Tropalore is the "paladin's god" which muddles things up a bit. Perhaps it is just as well that the gods are left as they are. =]

Maldur · Feb 11, 2002

fair enough. It just seemed a short list of dieties.
A friend of mine used a home-brewed diety list of 21 gods, and that list allready seemed like a very small list compared to most multi diety game pantheons. (Im used to runequest/glorantha with over 350 dieties)
It nice and compact though

I just gave my observations, hoping you could use them in forming a complete picture of this pantheon.

Majou · Feb 21, 2002

no more gods?

If you are looking for alternate cosmologies where there are no gods you might try "Oriental Adventures" settings. There are no gods only spirits and there may be up to five elements or more planes. Check my oriental adventures campaign

Another idea is to have two pantheons of competing gods or titans like they do in scared lands. This is based on historical mythology: Olympians vs. Titans, Aesir vs. Jotuns, Celts vs. Fomorians, Marduke vs. Tiamat, etc.

Or you might go even higher and not bother with gods, asume polytheism and create pantheons: orcish pantheon, human patheon etc. Each pantheon would have a buch of domains with gods associated to them; that way there could be two gods for art and three gods for war.

I prefer this options to the traditional DnD poly-monotheism where instead of having many gods they have many churches... Well that is my opinion anyway.

Archimago · Mar 6, 2002

Thanks Majou

I will use you idea of religious competition, however it will be between the (nearly extinct and persecuted) druids and the various churchs of the civilised pantheon. One of the PCs is going to be a druid so they will add an interesting dimension to the game.

sword-dancer · Mar 23, 2002

[

NAME/PORTFOLIO/ALIGNMENT/DOMAINS

Tropalore/Justice/LG/Law, Good, Retribution, Strength
Dovilae/Peace/NG/Good, Proctection, Charm, Healing
Thalia/Joy/CG/Chaos, Good, Renewal, Family
Orothar/Wealth/LN/Law, Trade, Planning, Craft
Quarien/Knowledge/N/Knowledge, Magic, Spell, Time
Lokenda/Luck/CN/Chaos, Luck, Fate, Travel
Corbeus/War/LE/Law, Evil, War, Destruction
Asmodane/Death/NE/Evil, Death, Tyranny, Suffering
Mephista/Deceit/CE/Chaos, Evil, Trickery, Illusion

Perhaps change charm to thalia and family to Dovilae, rename Lockenda to fate,

Archimago · Mar 24, 2002

A few changes...

I've gone in a new direction. I wanted an even simpler pantheon and I've created two opposed pantheons for some religious intrigue. IMC, druids will belong to a religion of very old gods, so old that their names are forgotten and druids just worship the whole set. Clerics belong to a new pantheon of deities that used to be mortals. They wish to destroy the druidic pantheon in order in seize total control of the cosmos. In campaign terms this translates to a world were druids live out in the wilderness to avoid destruction by clerics.

Druidic Pantheon: Unknown (even by the druids, their religion is almost entirely in shambles)

Clerical Pantheon: One god for each pure alignment (Law. chaos, etc) and two neutrals (knowledge and nature).

Apolyon/LN/Duty/Law, Protection, Retribution, Strength, War
Thalia/Peace/NG/Family, Good, Healing, Renewal, Sun
Lokaya/Luck/CN/Chaos, Charm, Luck, Trickery, Travel
Asmodane/Death/NE/Evil, Darkness, Death, Destruction, Hatred
Tropalore/Knowledge/N/Craft, Knowledge, Magic, Planning, Trade
Rovalis/Nature/N/Air, Animal, Earth, Fire, Plant, Water

This also facilitates some intra-church friction as, in the church of Apolyon for instance, clerics might be lawful good, neutral or evil.

Raduin_Nimblegrund · Mar 24, 2002

Interesting... That also puts Thalia in an odd position... Being a god of peace and the only good-aligned diety in the bunch. Does she want to be a part of this rebellion against the elder gods? or does she join them, for the sake of gaining power...

Perhaps her church is divided between those who desire peace, including peace with the druids, and those who believe the world would be a better place without the druidic heathens.