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Pathfinder 1E Mythological l Pantheon instead of the usual.
- Thread starter Madnick
- Start date
In my campaign worlds the known deities of a given material plane are always the first mortals who achieved ascension to immortality. My cosmology has thousands of such prime material planes, where all but the youngest ones are ruled by local deities. These deities rule the material plane they come from, and that is the extent of their authority. Many material planes have several pantheons. Any given pantheon is simply a long-term alliance or fellowship of deities who mostly get along with each other, are perhaps related or knew each other as mortals, or who originated from the same region of their home plane. Very few material planes will have only one pantheon, if one is young enough not to have seen many immortals ascend, or if all the immortals still get along with each other. But where multiple pantheons exist there is usually some kind of rivalry between two or more deities which caused a schism between the deific community at large. As with any human community there can be personality clashes, adversarial relationships, competition for divine mates, mortal lovers, devoted worshippers, etc. Deities as a rule are aware of one another's existence at all times, and newly-ascended gods and demigods cannot remain anonymous for long. Therefore any newly-ascended being is usually caught up fairly quickly in the entanglement of alliances and often compelled to "pick a side" in some long-standing, mostly irrelevant argument or feud that began millenia ago.
My feeling is that whatever you want to name your setting's deities, whatever portfolios you want them to have, it's all mostly irrelevant. All that matters is if your deities are semi-realistic, divine NPCs that your players can understand and possibly choose as objects of worship for their characters in-game. If you want to borrow some established pantheon from Deities & Demigods, or Golarion's own pantheon, or use some other homebrew pantheon, it doesn't really matter. Most players aren't going to care what the god of death is called and all of their history of divine existence; it is enough to know that there is one if they want to play a cleric with the death domain, what its alignment and domains are, its favored weapon, and the other in-game details that actually matter to a PC.
My feeling is that whatever you want to name your setting's deities, whatever portfolios you want them to have, it's all mostly irrelevant. All that matters is if your deities are semi-realistic, divine NPCs that your players can understand and possibly choose as objects of worship for their characters in-game. If you want to borrow some established pantheon from Deities & Demigods, or Golarion's own pantheon, or use some other homebrew pantheon, it doesn't really matter. Most players aren't going to care what the god of death is called and all of their history of divine existence; it is enough to know that there is one if they want to play a cleric with the death domain, what its alignment and domains are, its favored weapon, and the other in-game details that actually matter to a PC.
Last edited:
Izumi
First Post
It sometimes feels awkward to players when the pantheon too-closely resembles historical beliefs, or carries the names of historical gods but doesn't fit their notions of authenticity. It's a no-win unless you've got a group who's uniquely open-minded, disinterested in the fluff, or a combination of both. To satisfy all sides it's probably best to create your own set unique to your game world.
Custom is almost always better than off the shelf...but there's also no point in reinventing the wheel.
A pantheon or pantheons that are tied to your campaign world will always feel better than add-ons. However, if you feel that a particular RW or previously published god works perfectly as-is, use it. Just file the serial numbers off.
A pantheon or pantheons that are tied to your campaign world will always feel better than add-ons. However, if you feel that a particular RW or previously published god works perfectly as-is, use it. Just file the serial numbers off.
Jester David
Hero
So it's an aggregate pantheon?
That might be fun, but if I were doing so I'd go with lesser known gods. The underdogs of their pantheons.
It might be cheeky to have the world created by the gods exiled from our world after belief dropped.
That might be fun, but if I were doing so I'd go with lesser known gods. The underdogs of their pantheons.
It might be cheeky to have the world created by the gods exiled from our world after belief dropped.
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