D&D General My (altered) Dawn War Pantheon

[Aldarc]

Interesting ideas.

I dug up an old campaign world and revised it. One of the things I did was replace the Deities I'd created for it with the Dawn War Pantheon - but I felt it too slim. To augment it, I added in the (rest of the) Greyhawk Deities. That addition gave me enough Gods to fill all the major roles I wanted to fill.

Thanks. I agree that the Dawn War Pantheon feels slim - and Greyhawk is probably the best source for other deities, if only to give Greyhawk more love - but I think that there is a meta-textual and textual reason for the pantheon's slimness:

Text: The Dawn War Pantheon represent the survivors of the Dawn War. The gap in roles exist because those gods died in the Dawn War.

Metatext: The Dawn War Pantheon is meant to be a bare bones basic pantheon for general use rather than an all-encompassing one. Furthermore, in the context of 4e play, it's probably expected that PCs will possibly ascend as the deities who fill in the gaps via their Epic Destinies.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Metatext: The Dawn War Pantheon is meant to be a bare bones basic pantheon for general use rather than an all-encompassing one. Furthermore, in the context of 4e play, it's probably expected that PCs will possibly ascend as the deities who fill in the gaps via their Epic Destinies.

There's definitely a feel I've always gotten when using pantheons that are just so big (like FR) that the relationship between the cleric and the deity feels almost inconsequential in the grand scheme of the setting. Like it almost feels quaint-- "oh, look at Bobby over there worshipping that gnome lesser god that's sixth in line in importance! Isn't that cute!"

Now granted, this is definitely just due to my own inabilities as a DM to make that relationship feel like it has an import to the setting like a cleric of Mystara would (for example)... but if we are going to really play with the mortal-to-deity connection, having a much more important deity just feels like it has more weight.

That was one of the advantages of the small pantheon of the Dawn War-- every god had a weight to them because there were so few, and there weren't overlaps in their domains. So keeping the "active deity" list small is I think only a good thing. It's also why when I start up my Theros campaign I'm probably going to just focus on the Big Five greater deities, even though there are another 10 lesser deities too. Those five interfering in the lives of the mortals is more than enough to play with.

 

[Anthoux]

I plan on extending this by adding more children gods, especially with Corellon the many forms. While they say they are gender fluid, they are almost always the father with a female deity being the mother such as Sehanine. Well, if Loki can shape-shift into a female horse in myths I don't see why Corellon cant be a mother once in a while.

These children gods will probably be less influential with than their parents, and will probably have a few shrines scattered about/inside their parent's temples and be worshiped along side their parents unless something really special happened.

Many will probably be demi-gods elevated into a minor position and venerated in their region(s) they influenced in life.

 

[TwoSix]

There's definitely a feel I've always gotten when using pantheons that are just so big (like FR) that the relationship between the cleric and the deity feels almost inconsequential in the grand scheme of the setting. Like it almost feels quaint-- "oh, look at Bobby over there worshipping that gnome lesser god that's sixth in line in importance! Isn't that cute!"

Honestly, I think the big attraction for a large, diverse pantheon is simply to provide difference for difference's sake; someone who chooses to worship "Lesser Gnome Diety #8" is doing it purely for the sake of being distinctive. I know that's exactly what I did the few times I played in Forgotten Realms. (Shoutouts to Sheela Peryroyl and Naralis Analor!)

Ever since reading Curse of Chalion, though, I've been much more interested in settings with small, powerful, and tightly-knit pantheons.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Ever since reading Curse of Chalion, though, I've been much more interested in settings with small, powerful, and tightly-knit pantheons.

Ah, a couple of threads on gods recently here on EnWorld; and I was hoping someone would at some point bring up the world of 5 gods. Boiling down the family dynamic into Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, and the Bastard. It's such a strong pantheon and despite its small size, does so much.

 

[TwoSix]

Ah, a couple of threads on gods recently here on EnWorld; and I was hoping someone would at some point bring up the world of 5 gods. Boiling down the family dynamic into Father, Mother, Son, Daughter, and the Bastard. It's such a strong pantheon and despite its small size, does so much.

The Bastard isn't really a god, heretic!

 

[dave2008]

I haven't seen this mentioned, but in 4e some former "gods" became "exarchs" or demigods. Such as Maglubyiet (exarch of Bane, mentioned that he was a god), Sekola (exarch of Melora) and Blibdoolpoolp (demigod I think). These lesser gods fill out the pantheon if needed.

 

[Anthoux]

It seems that Zehir had a wife named Khala who was the goddess of winter...maybe Khala got winter after lendor died but Lloth really wanted it so she killed her and took it. Could be a source of tension between the two deities and their followers.

Zehir also had a daughter named Nusemnee who was her father's assassin but got humbled by a priest of Pelor and redeemed herself towards goodness but was later killed by her father's poison.

 

[Aldarc]

You are welcome to adjust this pantheon to bring that drama into the fold. I'm not trying to use every god or goddess of the Dawn War Pantheon, because the more you read through the 4e sources, the more gods pop up. I really just wanted a reformulated set that I could present players in my Nentir Vale game, and the more deities that you add, the more unwieldy and intimidating the set becomes.

 

[Aldarc]

To expand on the above: For the beginning of my mini-campaign, I actually presented the PCs with less deities than even the "starter set" of the pantheon.

Since the game started in Fallcrest, I presented the PCs with the deities that have temples or a presence in town: i.e., Pelor, Erathis, Sehanine, Ioun, and maybe Corellon (for the bard). And more or less said that these were probably the deities they were most familiar with as inhabitants of Fallcrest.

If they were dwarves or half-orcs, who likely came from Hammerfall, then they would have the major regional temples to Moradin and Gruumsh (or even the Haramathian gods) there. Also, I seeded the ruined state of the major temple of Bahamut that was at Gardmore Abbey with a few dragonborn paladins who were the last of the Order of Bahamut in the region. So the gods were mostly contextualized in terms of the vicinity of their local cults and history.

When the group found the Sunless Citadel - which I placed where the Kobold Hall is located on the map - I told the PCs that Torog, the Crawling God, is known per legend to bring things from the surface down to the Realm Below. So a little bit at a time.