Closing the Pantheon

[Patlin]

It seems to me that there should be some limit to the number of divine powers rattling around the EN World heavens. I propose that as of 3/1/07 (or one week after this proposal passes, whichever is later) we stop taking proposals for new dieties.

Some dieties may be known by more than one name to different groups of people, and this proposal doesn't limit expanding enworld with data such as "The lizardfolk of xxxx know yyyy diety as zzzz and worship him differently, considering such-and-such to be a more important practice than most other worshipers of yyyy."

 

[LiquidBlue]

That makes much sense. Are there any major domains or portfolios still not represented?

 

[orsal]

I'm going to vote No. I like the idea of being able to develop more minor deities. I'd be OK with closing the list of greater and intermediate deities (after looking through carefully to decide that we had everything covered that should be), but I'd like the pantheon at the very least to have space for more low-level divine powers.

 

[Velmont]

I think we have a strange pantheon. We have 7 greater gods and only 3 intermediaire... I think some of teh greater god should have been intermediaire. Generally, greater gods have a portfolio that is more fundamental. Think of teh greek. There greater gods are Gaia and Ouranos, the earth (and all that live in it) and the sky (and all you can see up there). Under that, you have the Titans and finally, you have the gods, like Zeus, Appollo and Artemis. These gods had a pretty narrow portfolio. And there is more Gods than Titans, and there is more Titans than there is greater gods...

 

[Manzanita]

There aren't many dieties for humanoid races. I think more might be nice in some circumstances. My tendacy is to vote no.

 

[Erekose13]

I too have no problem leaving it open. There are plenty of creative ideas left out there and I'd hate to stifle them.

 

[Patlin]

I too have no problem leaving it open. There are plenty of creative ideas left out there and I'd hate to stifle them.

I thought people might feel that way, though in my opinion the creative idea we miss out on is that of a small, coherent pantheon. We're likely to eventually accumulate a mess on the level of the forgotten realms. IMO, that's a bad thing.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I thought people might feel that way, though in my opinion the creative idea we miss out on is that of a small, coherent pantheon. We're likely to eventually accumulate a mess on the level of the forgotten realms. IMO, that's a bad thing.

See, I like the Forgotten Realms pantheon--I think it is one of the cooler RPG pantheons because it almost feels organic and real.

On the other hand, I despise the out-of-the-PH Greyhawk pantheon for being boring and coherent "Oh, did we have a Lawful Good god?" "Yup, we've got one. He's Heironeous. The god of...umm...being Lawful and Good. He likes paladins and law and good. His brother is evil and stuff, he doesn't like that because he's Lawful Good." I'm a pretty big mythology fan, and the Greyhawk pantheon is pretty much the only mythos I've ever met that I've disliked, exactly because it has that uninspired metagaming "let's make it coherent" feel to it (I know the expanded Greyhawk pantheon is larger, but it still has that feel).

 

[Patlin]

I agree with you on Greyhawk, more or less. The only thing it really has going for it is accessability, due to being in the PHB. The pantheon I really like is that of Eberron. A small set of dieties, distant from their worshippers, with potentially corrupt unsupervised clergy.

The Sovereign Host seems to be well suited to a fan of classical mythology, unless you are into Homer's the-gods-mess-with-mortals constantly thing.

 

[Manzanita]

I like the greyhawk pantheon. They're made for DnD and for the world in which the inhabit, and are thus a better fit in many ways than an imported "earth" mythology pantheon. (I have a soft spot for them perhaps, becuase I still have the original dragon magazines in which they first appeared.) That said, I also like imported mythological pantheons. I do think both Greyhawk and FR pantheons are way to big, & I agree with Patlin that I'd like to avoid seeing that here.