Any Open Settings?

[Yair]

That's a good idea. You could even use Death as the god of death. And when I say death, I mean the skeletal robed figure with the scythe . . . not Brad PittD

Brad Pitt as the god of death is neat, though.
"The first rule of the afterlife: you don't talk about the afterlife"

Murchad's Legacy.

Free. 100% OGL. Online. Nominated for an ENnie award in 2005 for best writing.
http://murchadslegacy.pbwiki.com/

Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten? Excellent setting, totaly open, and totally free. I highly recommend.

And it's forward thinking too - no gnomes!

 

[The Lost Muse]

The entire contents of Death in Freeport were licenced under the OGL - although I don't have the most recent city book or the sequels in front of me, so I can't verify how much Product Identity (if any beyond the names and a few places in the first module) has been released.

 

[Clavis]

A good open setting could be made by simply taking the imaginary lands of myth and legend, and placing them together on a map. Places like Hyperborea, Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, Lyonesse, Shamballa, Shangra-La, Agartha, etc. Make the lands exactly as they are depicted in the legends. Instead of named gods, make the gods personified abstracts like Love, Death, War, etc., as Sparafucile suggested. Or use the real-world pantheons appropriate to the locale. Only use monsters that actually come from legend, and make them as close as possible to their original depictions. The actual myths and legends of Earth are far richer and better known than any creation of any game designer. When it come down to it, all of the fluff for RPGs is really just re-sorted bits and pieces of real-world myths and legends anyway. Why not go right to the source?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Spirosblaak is another 100% OGC setting. It's put out by Green Ronin, and is very high quality.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Well, while it didn't go too far the Tempest Open Game Campaign Setting was basically a fan-based attempt to do what you're describing.
http://ogcs.wikispaces.com/

Ah yes, that one was fun... while it lasted.

Unfortunately, there are very few community world-building projects which survive beyond the first few months.

 

[Simplicity]

Looks like an interesting product, but I do not believe it's what the OP had in mind when he was asking about open content.

Perhaps I'm too stuck on the "open source" analogy - but if people don't own the $20 Lore of the Gods item you linked above, then what good does it do an author to reference an item therein?

I interpreted the original question to be more along the lines of the SRD, where it would be an readily accessible ("open") document of commonly used gods.

Yeah, not really what I had in mind. I'm not looking for gods alone. I just want the shared understanding that comes with a setting. Published material is, I think, important for this. But of course if I wanted to play on a earth setting, I could do that.

 

[Simplicity]

Ah yes, that one was fun... while it lasted.

Unfortunately, there are very few community world-building projects which survive beyond the first few months.

The visibility problem I was talking about. I've never even heard of SpirosBlaak until just now (and yeah, it's exactly what I was looking for), and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about this stuff. It used to be that the only people who could do this product would be Wizards. Now it's probably Wizard's and Paizo... :-/