Campaign Workshop: Building a better pantheon

I'd like to start a thread series geared towards campaign creation aids and advice. One recurring theme I'm seeing is people having a problem coming up with a creative or convincing pantheon. So, the first "Campaign Workshop" is all about gods.

Campaign Workshop: Building a Better Pantheon
The basis of any significant historical pantheon begins with the personification of those elements of society that are most important. Each of these elements of society is embodied by one or more members of the pantheon, and these deities are favored by those people most impacted by their portfolio. For nomadic barbarians, it's war. For farmers, it's agriculture. For fishermen, it's the sea.

The first step of designing your pantheon is to make a list of those aspects of your campaign's culture (or cultures) that are most important, in order of importance. Some things that would be important to a pseudo-medieval society, for instance, are:
Agriculture
Birth
Commerce
Day
Death
Dreams
Fishing
Healing/medicine
Hunting
Law
Marriage
Mining
Music
Night
Romance
The elements (earth, air, fire, water, etc.)
The seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall)
War
Wealth
Wine

Now, because we are in a fantasy pseudo-medieval society, let's add a few more things that might be important to such a fantasy society:
Arcane magic
Books/knowledge/lore
Fey
Nature magic
Psionics
Quests
Racial identities (humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, dragons, etc.)

For a darker campaign setting, consider adding some less-desirable items to the list:
Aberrations
Chromatic dragons
Necromancy/undead
Secrets
Tyranny
Vengeance
Wrath

Feel free to add or subtract from the combined list as you see fit. These items form the basis of each deities portfolio. Each deity should have at least two or three items from this list. Remember that odd combinations are not only okay, they are preferred for historical verisimilitude. For instance, Mars was the Roman god of both war and agriculture; Apollo was god of sun and music, etc., etc.

If you want to cobble together a really unique pantheon, consider randomly determining each deity's portfolio. Take your list of portfolio items and assign them to a percentile range. For each deity, roll 1d3 times on this list. Make sure all or your “most important” items are covered by at least one deity.

But we're not done with those portfolios! Now make a list of virtues and vices:
Courage
Cowardice
Envy
Hate
Honor
Humility
Love
Patience
Rage
Self-sacrifice
Self-seeking
Slander
Valor
Vanity

If you want a good-aligned campaign world, consider limiting the number of vices, or limit virtues for a darker, grittier campaign world. Remember that historical pantheistic societies reflect the deities they worship. Have a list long enough to cover your whole pantheon (or, at least the main players) and assign a virtue or vice to each deity. For more fun with odd combinations, assign each virtue/vice to a percentile range and roll for each major deity (rerolling any duplicates, unless you want five gods of courage or somesuch).

From looking at each deities portfolio, you should be able to formulate a plausible alignment for each deity. In those cases where you cannot determine an alignment naturally from the portfolio, try filling in the gaps on the alignment grid, so that each of the nine alignments are represented in your pantheon (make sure to weight each axis to reflect your campaign world). Otherwise, you can randomly roll on each axis, dividing each axis in thirds for percentile ranges.

Assign each deity domains that reflect the items in their portfolio. Each deity should have at least two domains (preferably more). If you can't draw two domains out of a deity's portfolio, consider either creating a new domain, or adding to the deity's portfolio.

At this point, you need to develop the deities as NPC's. Though your players may never meet them, your campaign world needs to treat these deities as though they were near-omnipotent NPC's who can and do interfere with the day-to-day activities of your campaign world. Their personalities and dispositions matter to each and every individual in your campaign world, so don't skimp on this. I also include in this step writing the deities' respective histories. Knowing where they came from helps me understand where they're going.

At this point, you can start determining which deities are most likely rivals, by pitting virtues/vices against each other, or a pair of deities that differ on the law-chaos or good-evil axis but happen to share a virtue or alignment (a la Hieroneous and Hextor sharing law and courage). You can also start determining relationships between deities based on their portfolios, and any history you may have written for them. Who's married? Who's who's kid? These are things that will affect how the pantheon works internally, and therefore how their campaign-world churches relate.

Following this method of pantheon building, I came up with this pantheon for my campaign world, which has a lot of coverage over the average fantasy character's everyday life.:
Bacchus (CN) – Wine, fey (original, eh?)
Brishvar (LN) – Fire, metalwork, fire giants, dwarves
Crystara (NG) – Dreams, enchantment
Cyrena (NE) – Fire, jealousy
Dromos (CN) – War, courage, storms
Drusilla (CG) – War, strength, good giants
Gra'al (NE) – Evil, power
Halene (NG) – Good, healing, plants, earth
Halivar (N) – Knowledge, magic, the mind, psionics (self-aggrandizement, too )
Justicus (LN) – Law, wrath, vengeance
Krylos (CE) – Slaughter
Lucinda (CG) – Luck, commerce
Montor (LG) – Stone, dwarves
Pyros (CE) – Fire, chaos
Remyr (CN) – Romance, song, poetry
Selenne (N) – Magic, literature
Sivrin (NE) – Secrets, knowledge, banking
St. Brenton (LG) – Honor, quests, war, courage
Su-chan (LN) – Balance, health
Sylinda (CG) – Maidens, fey, compassion
Tyrean (LE) – Tyranny, courage, war
Varash (CN) – Water, storms
Veric (CG) – Hunters, wolves
Vorthos (LN) – Death, harvest, agriculture

Anyone got suggestions/additions/comments? Do you have a trick for building your pantheon? I'd like to hear it.

Just a comment: The post was well written and informative. It got me thinking that I should create/generate a pantheon as well. There seems to be a kind of universality among the different pantheons though. I fear it will be difficult for me to create a truly unique and inspiring one.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy around, but I find the best way to "make" godlings for the Cleric PCs is to force the players to do all the work! This way, they have made their own bed!

Spheres/Domains, Alignment, holidays, method of worship, Favored Weapon (if they have the War Domain), Symbol, Favored Armours/Shields, vestment colors, etc., all have to be listed. Once a Cleric's Player has filled out this form, they can become a follower of this deity.

It is funny, when the unreligious fill out this form, and then (later) forget what they said, and try to go adventuring during the one month-long worship ceremony that they listed for their godling!

In true RuneQuest fashion, the "Cult" description also has information on skills training granted to followers, services, special weapons and armor, new spells, etc. This is divided up into what is granted to Lay Members (anyone who joins), Clerics, and Paladins (or whatever replaces them, in Non-LG religions).

Worshippers of a Spider-godling, for instance, probably get Climb as a Class skill, poison training, and Clerics can cast Web and Poison, and are trained to use the Net, for example. They might even get special spells available to no one else, such as Calm Spiders, Befriend Spiders, earlier access to Repel Vermin or a lower-level Repel Spiders, etc. The "Paladins" (or Neutral "Spider Masters", in this case) might get much the same, and ride giant hunting spiders, instead of celestial mounts.

Anyway, making the players detail the godlings tends to make for far more interesting Clerics... It's certainly another way to develop a pantheon that's original!

Never thought of that. That's a good idea though, having the players "create" the gods they wish to follow.Interesting...I think I might try this If I ever get a homebrew campaign setting going.

There was a series of articles in the Dragon associated with the cleric class that came out within a year of 3.0 that addresses the idea of "building a better pantheon." One thing that it got right, and I was very pleased with, was that certain "god archetypes" can be found in most cultures' mythology, and so should probably be repeated.

Another point you made, which I actually typically disagree with, unless there's a strong reason to do otherwise, is the racial gods. I think the idea of "I'm the god of the Elves!", etc. is pretty hoaky and unrealistic. Unless, of course, your elves have a monotheistic culture that is at odds with the pantheist humans around them.

Another couple of things that help make the pantheon feel more natural is to not have the exact same pantheon across all cultures. And another is to not have "churches" associated with a single god; in most cultures, all the gods were worshipped, depending on the specific goal. So, if you wanted a good harvest, you'd pray to the goddess of agriculture. The idea that, "no, I belong to the Church of the Wargod, so I'll see if he can't help me out with my harvest" that seems implied by most D&D pantheons is pretty silly.

Another idea is that you can really play with some cultural assumptions here. If your Death God also has some other profile, and is Lawful Good, for example, that really says something about how that society views death.

Joshua Dyal said:

Another couple of things that help make the pantheon feel more natural is to not have the exact same pantheon across all cultures. And another is to not have "churches" associated with a single god; in most cultures, all the gods were worshipped, depending on the specific goal. So, if you wanted a good harvest, you'd pray to the goddess of agriculture. The idea that, "no, I belong to the Church of the Wargod, so I'll see if he can't help me out with my harvest" that seems implied by most D&D pantheons is pretty silly.

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The Greeks were very afraid of leaving out gods from their prayers, even the unsavory ones. There was definitely some singular dedication, though, such as the Roman Vestal virgins and somesuch.

Joshua Dyal said:

Another idea is that you can really play with some cultural assumptions here. If your Death God also has some other profile, and is Lawful Good, for example, that really says something about how that society views death.

Click to expand...

What a great point. Wasn't the Egyption god of death considered good? Something as intrinsic to a pseudo-medieval society as death is going to be important. I would imagine such clerics would preside over all burials, etc., and therefore the populace would esteem them to some extent.

On the other hand, real medieval society thought death was a product of the evil spirits or the supernatural. A god of death in a medieval society like the real-world's would be vilified and spoken of in hushed whispers.

Something I did that is related to Joshua's post is created divine or deity aspects, things that a particular deity is god(dess) of, so it would be easier to create deities instead of relying on the ones handed out in the PHB. Here's what I have thus far:

Death (N): Death, Destruction, Law/Chaos, Travel. Favored weapon: scythe
Fate (N): Knowledge, Luck, Protection, Trickery. Favored weapon: not sure.
Justice (LN): Destruction, Knowledge, Law, Protection. Favored weapon: longsword
Life (NG): Animal, Healing, Plant, Sun, Water. Favored weapon: none.
Love (CG): Good, Knowledge, Luck, Protection. Favored weapon: (composite) shortbow.
Moon (N): Healing, Magic, Trickery, Water. Favored weapon: sickle.
Mountain (LG): Earth, Law, Protection, Strength. Favored weaopn- war hammer.
Nature (N): Air, Animal/Plant (choose one), Fire/Sun (choose one), Water, Healing/Death/Destruction (choose one). Favored weapon: quarterstaff.
Peace (NG): Good, Healing, Luck, Protection. Favored weapon: none.
River/Sea (CN): Air, Luck, Travel, Water. Favored weapon: trident or spear.
Storm (CN): Air, Chaos, Destructuion, Fire, Strength. Favored weapon: flail.
Sun (LG): Fire, Healing, Sun. Favored weapon: mace or morningstar
Trickery (CN): Chaos, Luck, Travel, Trickery. Favored weapon: rapier.
Valor (LG): Law, Protection, Strength, War. Favored weapon: any sword, battleaxe, or polearm (choose one weapon)
War (CE): Chaos, Death, Destruction, Strength, War. Favored weapon: same as valor.
Wisdom (LG): Knowledge, Law, Magic, Trickery. Favored weapon: none.

Also, when thinking up deities and pantheons, consider little flavorful things like sacred animals, perhaps even allowing a familiar or animal companion based upon the deity's favored creatures. Taking the above further, I'd have things like: Death (carrion-eaters like ravens, vultures, and jackals), Peace (doves, obviously), Wisdom (owls, obviously), Trickery (clever, "thieving" animals like magpies, monkeys, and raccoons), Moon (moths), Valor (lions), Mountain (rams or goats), War (boars and other aggressive creatures).

I've various directions in pantheon building in the past. One thing I like to emphasize (as another poster mentioned) is that "everybody worships most gods".

Two campaign pantheons I wanted to vastly reduce the number of gods and get away from the idea that they were tied to alignment or planes. In one case I "stole" the Endless from DC comics The Sandman, and making opposites of them as well, so we had

Dream
Destiny
Delerium
Death
Despair

and

Lucidity
Liberty
Law
Life
Laughter

I filed off the serial numbers by giving them names from William Blake (Urizen, Los, Rintrah, Theotorma, etc)

In my current campaign, I set up a couple of "good gods" that formed the three major churches: The Trithea (3 female dieties), The Living Founder (a male diety who lives on the prime material), and Bahamut. Then I threw in a few minor foreign cults, since adapting modules usually means you need a God of the Sun or a God of healing, etc. This gives options for players beyond "I'm a cleric in the church", which allows a) player choice b) possibility for minor cleric conflict (but not of the sort where clerics with antithetical profiles adventure together), c) increasing the odds that non-cleric PCs would worship a God the cleric served.

I've also toyed with the idea of gods that are really "wierd", for the sake of emphasizing the fanatsy of the world, rather than "aggriculture/sun/death/hearth, etc". I had a cool list of these I was goign to include but it must be on my harddrive at home