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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Stew" data-source="post: 9786237" data-attributes="member: 23484">There's a lot here, and you've done some great work in trying to make sense of what is a remarkably complex religious landscape in Alexandria. My suggestion, though, is that you take a step back and be sure that this work (a) makes sense of your game world (not just "in" your game world) and (b) is going to be used (because if it's not used by your players, then really it doesn't matter). I'm framing this in terms of how you can take your knowledge of a specific historical situation (Hellenistic Alexandria) and make it gameable. I'll start with the latter (b): if you have a dozen gods (or more, or less), but a cleric only needs to interact with one, then for most of the campaign, it doesn't matter at all what the theological apparatus is. That's the approach in D&D generally, and it at direct odds with the values deeply ingrained in the polytheism of the Greeks. (Euripides has a tragedy, Hippolytus, about the dangers of over-dependence on a single divinity). WIthin the ancient Mediterranean polytheisms, there are many gods, because (in part) humans need different kids of divine aid at different times. This means (and I'm simplifying): 1. every community has a different pantheon, but that pantheon is sufficient for its theological needs. (There is always a god to pray for to improve your crops, or seek justice, but it may not be the same one in each community; each community's pantheon is unique). [This is how "pantheon" is meaningful in a religious setting, as opposed to a mythological one. Myths are different, and transcend communities.] When a new need arises, it either gets subsumed under a current god/cult title, or a new one gets added -- adding new ones is easy. Part of why Alexandria was so complex is that it was a large, cosmopolitan city, and multiple cultures with their own divine apparatus had come together. 2. The same god can be worshipped with different cult titles in a given community, but you need to pray to the right one to get what you want. Zeus of Oaths isn't going to help your crops, even if Zeus of Rainfall will. A given sanctuary is dedicated to a god in one particular aspect. No one (except Hippolytus) only uses one god, one cult title. A given polis might have five sanctuaries to different aspects of Poseidon, three to Apollo, one to Artemis, but none to Zeus. It's not that the ocmmunity doesn't believe in Zeus (of course they do), but the current system of sanctuaries is sufficient for their engagement with the unknown.Fortunately, once this is recognized the system you develop will be used by a cleric, because a cleric of a given divinity, might still pray to other gods for specific benefits, or recognize the multiplicity of their preferred god, and the prayers of the player can reflect the broader system you have developed (possibly in conjunction with them). Now to (a): how does this make sense of your game? Whatever the theological apparatus was before contact with the Mayans, it will have to have changed after that. I would encourage you to let that be reflected. Some of the Mayan gods will have been incorporated into the worship of existing divinities, some will no longer have been seen as needed (at least not by the Alexandrians), and some will have been imported wholesale because the existing system didn't cover that area, and suddenly there ws a need. There may be a new temple to Zeus-Chac to cover storms and the weather (perhaps at a temple that had been dedicated to Zeus Ombrios) but also maybe a new sanctuary wherever one of the portals were to Ek Chuah, recognizing the trade that has dried up since they have been closed, awith him becoming a god of interdimensional trade and coffee (something the Alexandrians hadn't needed previously). Someone needs to have been the god of the portals. Have the Alexandrians kept the Mayan tattoooing process? There may be acolytes of Acat who speicalize in tattoos, even if there is no formal (city-sanctioned) temple. But the whole thing should be messy, and (especially in the first generation of contact, and the first generation after the loss of contact) in flux. This can also develop pllots for adventures -- what cult titles were overshadowed with the coming of the Mayans, and who has been displaced? The Greeks in ALexandria had already made accommodations for the Egyptian gods, and now they have to do so again. Maybe there's a story of the crocodile gods of the Mayanas and the Egyptians (Sobek and Cipacti) making a play to displace the Greek gods. I don't know, but you have the freedom to create a world where the apparent equilibnrium of an Ennead has been severely disrupted. And again, tying it to adventures makes it relevant for the players who aren't themselves clerics. That's how I'd approach things gvien your initial premise. Hope it helps!</blockquote>

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