D&D General Build the "Definitive Pantheon"

[SkidAce]

Dawn War needs a AGENT OF CHAOS!
Full on problem causing jerk-hole who promotes freedom by creating distracting chaos and random explosions!

This is true.

I created one by combining Loki, Fenris, and Fafnir into one chaotic semi-evil god/dess of luck, trickery, shapeshifting, and greed.

 

[SkidAce]

Babe to me is like having a white cat named Snowy or a Grey one named Smokey. I'm evil bwa ha ha. May as well have a Storm God named Stormy.

"Babe". I know what you meant, but that the funniest typo I've seen all day.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I really like the 4E pantheon as well and thought they did a really nice job with it. However, I did think there were some domains missing and some of the traditional demihuman deities that deserved to be included in the pantheon alongside the others that were. So when I prepped a new Nerath campaign I did some edits to it (added some, removed some, changed some around) and expanded the pantheon out to a full 18 gods (2 per alignment) with each of them a patron of a different species in the campaign setting.

BAHAMUT [Male, Lawful Good]: God of protection, courage and honor. Patron of metallic dragonborn.
MORADIN [Male, Lawful Good]: God of craft, earth, and community. Patron of dwarves.
PELOR [Male, Neutral Good]: God of the sun, love, time, and summer. Patron of aasimar.
YONDALLA [Female, Neutral Good]: Goddess of family, prosperity, and luck. Patron of halflings.
CORELLON [Pangender, Chaotic Good]: Deity of magic, art, beauty, and spring. Patron of high elves.
GARL [Male, Chaotic Good]: God of humor, revelry, and invention. Patron of gnomes.

ERATHIS [Female, Lawful Neutral]: Goddess of civilization, law, and commerce. Patron of humans.
IOUN [Female, Lawful Neutral]: Goddess of knowledge, study, and prophecy. Patron of warforged.
LLORA [Female, True Neutral]: Goddess of the wilderness and the sea. Patron of shifters.
RAVEN QUEEN [Female, True Neutral]: Goddess of death, fate, humility, and winter. Patron of shadar-kai.
SEHANINE [Female, Chaotic Neutral]: Goddess of the moon, the hunt, illusions and autumn. Patron of wood elves.
KORD [Male, Chaotic Neutral]: God of storms, strength, and competition. Patron of goliaths.

ASMODEUS [Male, Lawful Evil]: Archdevil god of pride, tyranny, and leadership. Patron of tieflings.
MAGLUBIYET [Male, Lawful Evil]: God of ambition, conquest, and strategy. Patron of goblinoids.
LOLTH [Female, Neutral Evil]: Goddess of lies, corruption and cunning. Patron of drow elves.
TIAMAT [Female, Neutral Evil]: Goddess of wealth, greed, and envy. Patron of chromatic dragonborn and kobolds.
GRUUMSH [Male, Chaotic Evil]: God of fury, slaughter, and instinct. Patron of orcs.
ZEHIR [Genderless, Chaotic Evil]: Deity of pestilence, murder, and endurance. Patron of yuan-ti.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I like the Greek idea that gods represented civilization (for good or for ill), leaving nature to god monsters, primordials, archfey, etc.

This may change tomorrow as my mood takes me, but today:

The Raven Queen (N): fatalism (some things are too big for mortals)
St. Cuthbert (LN): proceduralism (do things by the book or else)
Gruumish (LN): Emotional toughness (sometimes you got to put Ol' Yeller down)
Bane (LN with evil): Discipline (this is going to hurt you more than me)
Sekolah (Malar on land) (LE): Blood sports (let's get ready to rumble)
Morradin (LN): honest commerce (sellers beware)
Iomedae (LN with good): Codes of honor (chivalry isn't dead)
Bahamut (LG): Nobility (with great power comes great responsibility)
Laogzed (CN): Territoriality (no trespassing; this means you)
Besmara (CN with evil): Thrill Seeking (ride or die)
Lolth (CE): Strife (I am treating as psychological, sociological, or financial warfare) (don't trust anyone)
Kord (CN): Athleticism (pain is just weakness leaving the body)
Corellon (CN): Art (true art should challenge you)
Eilistraee (CN with good): Strife to prevent physical warfare (it is better than letting armies ravage the land)
Cayden Cailean (CG): Folk heroes (only a drunk or an idiot would try this? Sign me up)
Tiamat (CE with lots of LE servants): Greed and vanity (who is the prettiest, richest dragon?)
Asmodeus (NE with law): Tyranny (it is better to be thought to be virtuous than to actually be virtuous)
Deep Duerra (LE): Hegemony (do onto others as they did to you)
Desna (CG): Travel and Personal Transformation (why do druids limit themselves to wild shaping into animals?)
Sarenrae (NG with chaos): Redemption (Even the worst deserve the chance to see the light)
Garl Glittergold (NG): Subtle goodness (no one is easier to con than a conman)
Vaprak (CE): Cannibalism (waste not, want not)
Zehir (NE with chaos): Assassination (don't leave murder to amateurs)
Vecna (NE): Secrets (anyone who causes harm to keep a secret or to unearth a secret belongs to me)
Yolanda (NG with law): Agriculture (nothing is better than the feel of good soil under your fingernails)
Erastil (LG): Family (family cares for each other)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think 4e already kinda nailed this. I’d probably just go with that list.

There are some I’d probably add, but yeah 4e knocked this out of the park.

I really like Mask from FR as a god of thieves and assassins and those who work in shadows, and I think a 4e style work up of him would be rad.

I like FR’s Helm a lot and I think they (bc imo a reworked Helm should be NB or femme, not a dude) would fill a niche not served fully by Bahamut.

Eberron’s The Traveller is excellent and could work as a twin of Mask, and have both be neutral with a complex relation to thievery, deceit, change, and maybe both assassins and “avengers” and revolutionaries.

I’d upgrade The Red Witch from 4e to a lesser god, as well as the Lady of The White Well, and make them sisters of The Raven Queen.

Finally I’d restructure the fey gods to more strongly reflect fey “courts” using times of day and aspects of the wild, with

The Three Courts of The Sun
Dawn; Melora, or introduce a Titania style fey goddess
Highsun: A lesser deity of light and summer vibes, all wrath and passion and light
Afternoon: I’ve had a better name for this but I can’t recall, Corellon rules here

The Three Moonlit Courts
Dusk: Oberon, Dusk is a court associated with early autumn and with the transition from day into night, and is very “let’s recline and watch the sunset and drink wine and be horny but in a lazy way”
Twilight: Also called the Vesper Court, ruled by The Raven Queen, the place in the Fey where the worlds of spirits are closest
Deep Night: Sehanine’s domain, a mysterious and scary place, but also the place where the night is a shield and a comfort as much as a source of terror.

The Three Wild Courts
The Hunter’s Court: A roaming and half-feral court ruled by The Red Witch, and by whoever she has chosen or who has earned the right to lead The Wild Hunt. Hyrsam often resides here but is not bound to any court.
The Court of The Sea: another court I have had a better name for that I forget, ruled by either Melora or a Mananan Mac Lyr type figure
Court of Mysteries: Ruled by The Lady of The White Well, is a court of oracles, fatespinners, witches, and the like.

And but somewhere in there maybe Llolth should be made the deity of a Great Faerie Court, maybe Deep Night with RQ taking Twilight, and Sehanine taking The Hunter’s Court. I could be convinced to leave RQ out of the Seldarine but I don’t wanna.

Anyway, the Seldarine would be opposed by the Fomorian deities and other dark deities that are related to the Fey but aren’t truly Fey.

I’d also possibly replace or rework Avandra, bringing a more Halfling-esque deity in that spot.

I’d also make most actually fully unsveagebly evil deities into soemthing else. Asmodeus can be the King of Hell without being a god. Meanwhile Bane works as a god, being a sort of Ares meets brutally mercilessly efficient massacre deity of war. Llolth becomes a god with godlike domain and such, and is sort of the darkest face of The Fey. No more “trapped in hell” weirdness.

Tiamat can also stay a deity but with aspects that people who aren’t psychotic would give reverence to, like righteous wrath, and ecstatic freedom, and unalloyed passion, and ambition/joy in exercising power given free riegn. All of which have very dangerous dark sides.

I’d look for something more interesting than Kord, also.

 

[cbwjm]

I get that a lot of people like the 4e pantheon, but I think it still suffer's from a lot of issues that DnD pantheons have had over multiple editions, not just in 4e and that is that it doesn't really feel like a pantheon, just a collection of gods thrown together and called a pantheon. Maybe I just need to read more myths of these gods that make them seem more like a real world pantheon (there is some lore there). At least it got a divine conflict in there with the dawn war, gods are often shown as overthrowing or combating beings as powerful as themselves.

 

[Staffan]

Almost.

1. Kord is doing too much. Having the Storm God being the Strength God creates an unneccesary overlap.
2. Melora is doing too much. You can;t be the Wildnerness Goddess and the Sea goddess.

Gozreh has entered the chat.

1. No formal Trickery God(dess).

Sehanine is the "patron of trickery and illusion." For a more malicious version, there's Lolth who's god of "shadow, lies, and spiders" and commands "scheming and treachery."

1. No God of Men ('He died" is a copout)
2. No God of Giants for giants and goliaths

There's no god of giants because giants are aligned with the primordials. Also, the Dawn War pantheon moves away from having "the god of race X". For example, Corellon is the god of "spring, beauty, and the arts", and the patron of "arcane magic and the fey". They are not the god of the eladrin, but they are the god of many things that eladrin find important so you'll find a lot of elves worshipping them. As for goliaths of a religious bent, I figure Kord would be the one that appeals the most to them, with Avandra, Melora, and Gruumsh also being popular.

 

[Staffan]

I get that a lot of people like the 4e pantheon, but I think it still suffer's from a lot of issues that DnD pantheons have had over multiple editions, not just in 4e and that is that it doesn't really feel like a pantheon, just a collection of gods thrown together and called a pantheon. Maybe I just need to read more myths of these gods that make them seem more like a real world pantheon (there is some lore there). At least it got a divine conflict in there with the dawn war, gods are often shown as overthrowing or combating beings as powerful as themselves.

I think the only pantheon in D&D that feels like an actual pantheon is the one in Eberron, or rather the two in Eberron. Eberron has a set of 15 gods, and the prevailing culture on the "main" continent organizes these into two groups: the Sovereign Host and the Dark Six. The Sovereign Host are basically the gods of civilization, and the Dark Six are the gods of dangerous and bad things and are referred to by titles rather than names. The mainstream usually worships the Sovereign Host as a whole, and pray to whatever god seems reasonable at the time – so a hunter will pray to Arawai for good fortune when hunting, and Kol Korran when bringing furs and meat to sell, and Boldrei for a peaceful home. The Dark Six are generally not worshipped as a group, but by people and groups to whom a particular god appeals – there's generally not many people who like both the Devourer (the destructive aspects of nature), the Mockery (treachery, cruelty, particularly in war), and the Shadow (unrestricted magic and power).

However, you will find some cults worshipping different subsets of these gods. For example, it's not uncommon for military folks to worship "The Three Faces of War": Dol Arrah (the sun, protection), Dol Dorn (strength, battle, competition) and the Mockery (treachery in war) as three aspects that are all part of a whole. And there are also some cultures that worship other subsets of the fifteen gods – I recall that the giants near Stormreach had a mini-pantheon of four of these gods that they found particularly relevant, and worshipped under somewhat different names.

 

[Aldarc]

I think 4e already kinda nailed this. I’d probably just go with that list.

Exactly what I was going to say.

I'd third that, especially since some of my favorite interpretation of a couple of those gods are from their 4e versions, like Bane.

This. The 4e Dawn War Pantheon nailed it.

I get that a lot of people like the 4e pantheon, but I think it still suffer's from a lot of issues that DnD pantheons have had over multiple editions, not just in 4e and that is that it doesn't really feel like a pantheon, just a collection of gods thrown together and called a pantheon. Maybe I just need to read more myths of these gods that make them seem more like a real world pantheon (there is some lore there). At least it got a divine conflict in there with the dawn war, gods are often shown as overthrowing or combating beings as powerful as themselves.

That's because the Dawn War Pantheon represent the surviving deities of Dawn War. A lot of prior family relations in the pantheon were lost in the war, some to fellow gods and some to the primordials. That said, I did post a modified version of the Dawn War Pantheon that leans a bit harder in family relations, expanding and reworking the pantheon a bit.

If not the Dawn War Pantheon, then I would say either Eberron's Sovereign Host or Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous pantheon.

I would say it's definitely this last one, @cbwjm that would probably fit your criteria. The entry for each deity also begins with a myth about them, such as how the God of Thieves, Shepherds, and Messengers became the Champion of the Gods or how the God of War begrudgingly fulfilled his demigod son's wish for a real combative challenge, which led to his death by an army of ants.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Almost.
Kord is doing too much. Having the Storm God being the Strength God creates an unneccesary overlap.

Not at all. What do you think Thor was? Who do you think inspired Kord?

Remember that Zeus was the god of rulership, the sky in general, storms specifically, strangers/the guest-rite, honest traders (as opposed to dishonest ones, which was more Hermes' thing), wolves (at least in Arcadia, where he was known as Zeus Lykaios, "Wolf-Zeus"), and many more things.

Gods are almost always having purview over a LOT of stuff in myth, which is what the 4e pantheon derives from.* It's quite rare for them to have a narrow, clean, unambiguous focus. That is, in fact, almost always the result of active religious propaganda, suppression of prior worship, or directly inventing a brand-new god with a nice, clean, and most importantly universal origin-myth. Actual, living deities are much more likely to have diverse interests.

*Bane is Ares, Kord is Thor, Erathis is Athena, Melora is Poseidon with a hint of Demeter, Moradin is Hephaistos with a hint of Hestia, Ioun is Thoth, Pelor is Ra, Zehir is Sutekh/Set via the Conan interpretation, etc. Most of the deities that weren't inspired by actual mythology are D&D staples or cover fantastical things, like Corellon and Bahamut.

Melora is doing too much. You can;t be the Wildnerness Goddess and the Sea goddess.

Howso? Dionysus could turn people into dolphins, and was deity of all sorts of things: wine, madness, death, nature, (political) power, conquest, fertility, theater. Per what we can translate of Mycenaean text, Poseidon wasn't even a sea deity originally, he was a deity of the "deep," mostly meaning the dark depths of the earth originally (as Mycenaean religion was cthonic), per his "Earthshaker" epithet. If Poseidon can be the god of both earthquakes and the sea, why can't Melora be the god of the sea and the forest?

No formal Trickery God(dess).

There are two. Sehanine and Lolth. Also, it's just "god." 4e does not use the term "goddess." (The authors considered it to be sexist to need to gender gods this way, since gender is an elective choice for deities. It's a policy I've chosen to adopt myself.)

No God of Men ('He died" is a copout)

Howso? He-Who-Was is given quite a bit of attention--and the fact that his usurper is Asmodeus of all deities makes for a very interesting plot hook, don't you think?

No God of Giants for giants and goliaths

Because the giants weren't created by the gods.

They were created by the primordials.