Favorite Fantasy Gods

[Treebore]

Oghma

Oghma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Draksila]

While they weren't very good as more than beer and pretzel books, the Avatar Trilogy of Forgotten Realms books did one thing; they sold me on Torm. After reading Tantras and seeing the God of Duty and Loyalty portrayed as a gentle, grandfatherly, and forgiving figure who would still give his life in battle to defend his cause, I could honestly see myself as a follower of his doctrines in that setting.

As a DM, two of my favorite gods are old-school Bane (Forgotten Realms) and Set from the Egyptian pantheon. Set in particular is amusing to use, as for a dark god brimming with nefarious plots he's actually rather considerate and protective of his actual worshippers. It has thrown off my players before to face evil clerics who love their god rather than fear him.

In regards to real world pantheons, I studied Norse and Greek heavily as a child and dabbled in Egyptian. Frankly, though, I don't have a favorite deity... I am partial to the Norse pantheon's myths, though.

 

[Wombat]

I am glad to see that Issek of the Jug got his props, but I have a deep love for Death from the same world -- I love the image of Death being something of a harried bureaucrat, slaving away under the Gods of Necessity and being given a laundry list of mortals to snuff out by X time ... only to be thwarted by heroes who refuse to be on the list! ;-)

And the RuneQuets gods are cool because, unlike so many rpg gods, they are mythological -- they do not have limited areas of expertise, but slop over each other, have confusing/contradictory stories, and are portrayed differently as they wash between cultures. Humakt is cool, but I have a deep love of Lhankor Mhy, the god of knowledge ... probably partially due to one PC in a Prax game having the battle cry of "Anthropology or Death!"

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I really enjoy the gods of Empire of the Petal Throne (Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne) especially Ksarul and Thumis since they are the gods of knowledge and give actually teeth to academic infighting (but that might be due to my leaving a PhD program).

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Cthulhu

 

[Knightfall]

For some reason I really like Issek of the Jug. While he was only featured in one story and mentioned in another, Issek's faith really captured my imagination. The imagery and self-sacrifice of the cult really grabbed me.

Issek is cool!

Issek

 

[Knightfall]

Crom!

I'm a big Conan fan so I must agree that Crom is a great deity. And while I wasn't willing to use Crom for my own setting I did create a barbarian god as an homage to Conan and Crom.

Cronn

 

[Clavis]

Nyarlathotep. Sure he's going to eventually help destroy the world, but for now, he's got real style.

I've also been reading a lot of Clark Ashton Smith lately, which naturally makes me somewhat partial to Tsathoggua.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

I have never been much for gods who are... particularly human.

I'm currently in the third book in Greg Keyes' "Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone" series, and his take on the gods (called different things in each of the world's languages, but "saints" is the most common word in the books) is shaping up to be interesting. Exactly what they are, and what the major church reall is, seem to be major mysteries of the books, that I hope will be understood by the end (and the final book is out, so there is an end).

Oh yes, agree completely, Keyes is so good at his cultures becuase his degree is in anthropology.

Have you ever read his Waterborn, and Blackgod books? Very fasinating look at gods in that setting.

 

[Shemeska]

Nyarlathotep - the Crawling Chaos is a classic

Pharasma (Pathfinder) - perhaps the best example of a goddess of birth and death that I've seen in a long time. Older than most of the current slate of Golarion's gods, mildly creepy, holds the portfolio of prophecy in a world where prophecy has gone mad, and has Groetus the so-called "God of the End Times" orbiting her domain like a leering, distant moon.

Set - real world and fantasy version alike, at least when presented as LE (I don't know what was going on in 3e Deities and Demigods with a CE Set allied with Apep... someone didn't do their homework). Best way to have a lawful deity of potentially chaotic things. Good stuff.

Tiamat (D&D version, not real world one) - the original, archetypal, vain, tyrannical dragon goddess. I <3 Tiamat.

Anubis (Planescape's Guardian of the Dead Gods version) - really original idea with placing Anubis as having voluntarily shed his divinity, ascending to become something else entirely in order to watch over the drifting corpses of the dead and forgotten gods of the multiverse.

Illsensine and (the late) Maanzicorian- some Cthulhu-vibe perhaps, but I always liked the illithid gods as antagonists.