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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 8020528" data-attributes="member: 6683613">I've got a similar reaction to the notion of racial or cultural pantheons. Domain overlap in real-world pantheons occurs because different groups of people told different myths to explain the same natural phenomena. The Greeks came up with Apollo, the Egyptians came up with Ra. If I see the same pattern in a fantasy setting, my first instinct is that the same thing is happening. I feel like if there was a real sun god who was active in the world the way fantasy gods are supposed to be, he'd sort out the truth of the matter pretty quickly.And if there really are multiple sun gods -- how? And why? That seems seriously to dilute the magnificence of the title. If you piss off Apollo in Greek myth, you are basically screwed: there's nowhere to hide from the freakin' Sun. But if you piss off Fantasy-Apollo in Fantasy-Greece, can you just go to Fantasy-Egypt and hang out under Fantasy-Ra instead? Are there different suns?You could do some postmodern "all myths are true, belief makes it real" thing where the different realities sort of overlap, and if you can execute that well (see the works of Neil Gaiman) the result can be powerful. But it can also very easily result in a cosmos where nothing matters because it's all just, like, your opinion, man.</blockquote>