D&D General Build the "Definitive Pantheon"

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

See above. The 4e pantheon was, in fact, heavily inspired by actual, real-world pantheons. Nearly all of the deities on the list that you can't see the clear, intentional link to IRL mythology, or (in)famous fictional portrayals thereof, are those which arise specifically from D&D itself: Asmodeus, Bahamut, Corellon, Vecna, etc.

(And yes, I know "Asmodeus" is a name used in demonology and "Bahamut" is one of the ways of translating the word usually translated now as "behemoth," but those weren't gods in that context, and only had godhood or god-like-ness in D&D.)

In that way, it is in fact far less artificial than most D&D pantheons, which make deities that are far, far too clean, neat, tidy, organized, and non-overlapping. Mythology isn't pretty. It's sprawling.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

How would you differentiate him from Zehir?

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.

What would that be? By comparison to Moradin, I mean. Bahamut covers protection as "go forth and kick evil's butt." Moradin has protection as "stick around and protect the family." Do you have a third role in mind?

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.

Could be interesting, but I'd want something a bit more concrete, personally. But perhaps that's just because I don't know that much about the Traveller.

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.

Alternatively, perhaps the Lady of the White Well, the Red Witch, and the Raven Queen are a Hecate-style tripartite god. Maiden/mother/crone, Heir/Warrior/Monarch, Child/Hunter/Sage.

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

Isn't Sehanine already a Titania-style fey goddess? But I guess that works. If it weren't for the wrath, Pelor would already fit well for Highsun, perhaps tone "wrath" down to "revelry"? Could be Pelor's wilder, more untamed side, where he cuts loose a little. Perhaps call afternoon "Eventide," since "evening" technically precedes dusk.

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.

Never really thought of Sehanine as being terrifying. She's almost always presented as being beautiful and comforting.

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.

Personally, I'm fine with Tiamat specifically being a deity that has few to no truly "good" sides, because she was cloven out of Io, who was TN. If Bahamut and Tiamat are the two opposing sides of Io's balanced nature, then he got everything that was good and noble in their father, and she got everything that was wicked and depraved. That doesn't mean she has no effective qualities, because she surely does have some. Many, even. She's intelligent, patient, resourceful, charismatic, all the things you expect a dragon to be--but nothing in her is Good.

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

He's the Batman of the gods. Crazy prepared. Beneath his boisterous exterior he's got plans within plans within plans, and not all of them are ones the other gods would (ever) approve of.

 

[Minigiant]

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.


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?


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.)


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?


Because the giants weren't created by the gods.

They were created by the primordials.

The point I was making is that a pantheon made for a religion and one for adventuring gaming purposes are different.

The 4e Dawn War pantheon is great for what 4e's POL setting. A world of collapsed empires and kingdoms surrounded by death zones and hidden cults of imprisoned evil gods and primordials. Gods taking the domains of the fallen.

Perfect for the high action "we gotta do it because no one else can" future literal demigods of 4e


For a setting with active powers of all alignments in active conflict, it's no neat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

How would you differentiate him from Zehir?

Get rid of Zehir, probably, because I literally forget he exists to begin with.

What would that be? By comparison to Moradin, I mean. Bahamut covers protection as "go forth and kick evil's butt." Moradin has protection as "stick around and protect the family." Do you have a third role in mind?

Bahamut doesn’t need to cover protection to begin with, it’s just grid filling to even call “go out and kick evil’s butt” protection.

Could be interesting, but I'd want something a bit more concrete, personally. But perhaps that's just because I don't know that much about the Traveller.

I mean, if I was gonna write a whole detailed writeup about it I would have done that.

Alternatively, perhaps the Lady of the White Well, the Red Witch, and the Raven Queen are a Hecate-style tripartite god. Maiden/mother/crone, Heir/Warrior/Monarch, Child/Hunter/Sage.

Eh I’m only a fan of that dynamic when the three deities are still fully realized individual deities that share aspects of a role in addition to their other stuff. So, sure, add that onto what else they’re doing, but not as an “instead”.

Isn't Sehanine already a Titania-style fey goddess?

Not really? And I can’t imagine her being associated with the day in any way.

But I guess that works. If it weren't for the wrath, Pelor would already fit well for Highsun, perhaps tone "wrath" down to "revelry"? Could be Pelor's wilder, more untamed side, where he cuts loose a little. Perhaps call afternoon "Eventide," since "evening" technically precedes dusk.

I’m not interested in doing even more of the “in this context this primary god is called that and it’s just a different aspect of the same guy” with the gods than 4e already does. I prefer less of that.

Never really thought of Sehanine as being terrifying. She's almost always presented as being beautiful and comforting.

Okay.

Personally, I'm fine with Tiamat specifically being a deity that has few to no truly "good" sides, because she was cloven out of Io, who was TN. If Bahamut and Tiamat are the two opposing sides of Io's balanced nature, then he got everything that was good and noble in their father, and she got everything that was wicked and depraved. That doesn't mean she has no effective qualities, because she surely does have some. Many, even. She's intelligent, patient, resourceful, charismatic, all the things you expect a dragon to be--but nothing in her is Good.

Nah. No gods allowed that aren’t in some way possessed of traits that real people might potentially worship or revere. I also refuse to have a pure good/pure evil dichotomy like that where the male figure associated with a particular set of species is pure good and the female figure associated with a different particular set of species is pure evil.
No. Complexity and nuance.

He's the Batman of the gods. Crazy prepared. Beneath his boisterous exterior he's got plans within plans within plans, and not all of them are ones the other gods would (ever) approve of.

Meeeehhhhhh

Tbh Batman isn’t that interesting, either.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

Yea, in terms of interconnectedness, I don't think you can beat Book of the Righteous. If you read all the lore, you really get each god, both in terms of scope and of personality.

The only reason I don't use it more is that the story of the gods underlies the entire cosmology, which a lot of people like, but I prefer gods/pantheons to be a little more local in scope.

 

[Mind of tempest]

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.
3. No formal Trickery God(dess).
4. No God of Men ('He died" is a copout)
5. No God of Giants for giants and goliaths

I kind of like the lack of a human god as it helps make it less earth like but the lack of gods for sea, trickery and giantkin is a problem.

Also a very intentional choice, as one of the main goals of the setting rework was to universalize the deities and get rid of species-specific gods. Correllon is the god of the arts rather than the god of elves, Moradin is the god of the forge rather than the god of dwarves, etc.

does not mean the giants should not have a preferred god available.

Sure, but it's to much of an overlap for D&D.

That's why in Oerth, he's more of a strong warrior god. Storms is thrown in there.

Honorable Warrior God and Chaotic Storm God doesn't mesh.

have them once be the same being but get split into brothers who argue endlessly but also go on adventures together.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.
3. No formal Trickery God(dess).
4. No God of Men ('He died" is a copout)
5. No God of Giants for giants and goliaths

4 and 5 I’m fine with, 3 is a non-starter 100%

Kord being Strength is even more boring than he already is. Strength and storms fits. Strength is a weird domain, though. Every warrior deity is a god of strength.

Melora being Nature and The Sea is very natural and fits together perfectly.

And the pantheon shouldn’t be neat. There should be oddities like a god of war and poetry, or of mysteries and sovereignty.

There should be overlap here two gods focus on different aspects of a domain, like Athena and Ares both being deities of War.

 

[Aldarc]

does not mean the giants should not have a preferred god available.

IMHO, there is a difference between having a preferred god and needing a god for a certain species. For example, I tend to play Gruumsh not as the "god of orcs," but, instead, as the god that more conquering barbarian orcs prefer. The preferred god of god-venerating giants will likely depend on what type: e.g., storm/cloud giant: Kord; stone/hill giant: Moradin; etc.

Kord being Strength is even more boring than he already is. Strength and storms fits. Strength is a weird domain, though. Every warrior deity is a god of strength.

If you look up Thor on Wikipedia, you will also see listed that he is a god of strength, and Kord is pretty much just off-brand Thor. Heracles is a god of strength. Kratos, the actual one in Greek mythology, is a deified personification of strength. As weird as it may seem, it's perfectly normal to have gods of strength. Not not every warrior deity is a god of strength. For example, the Norse god Tyr is a warrior god, but he is generally not considered a god of strength. Some deities are strong and may represent physical valor, but aren't generally considered gods of strength, like Ares.

 

[Minigiant]

4 and 5 I’m fine with, 3 is a non-starter 100%

Kord being Strength is even more boring than he already is. Strength and storms fits. Strength is a weird domain, though. Every warrior deity is a god of strength.

Melora being Nature and The Sea is very natural and fits together perfectly.

And the pantheon shouldn’t be neat. There should be oddities like a god of war and poetry, or of mysteries and sovereignty.

There should be overlap here two gods focus on different aspects of a domain, like Athena and Ares both being deities of War.

Gods for gaming with mysteries, oddities, and dualities work best when they are explored and offer interesting sides.

Like I said. Dawn War was great but it offered only every limited divine options for villainy. 4e was very very stereotypical.

 

[Aldarc]

Gods for gaming with mysteries, oddities, and dualities work best when they are explored and offer interesting sides.

Like I said. Dawn War was great but it offered only every limited divine options for villainy. 4e was very very stereotypical.

Gods of villainy are atypical in a lot of mythologies. One of my major criticisms for a lot of D&D pantheons are the evil gods that mostly exist for villainy.

The Dawn War is a bit more nuanced than your typical D&D pantheon in so far as warriors and generals would venerate Bane as a God of War but may also say a prayer for Gruumsh in battle. Even the "evil" gods had their place in society and the pantheon. They too were generally on the side of preserving creation against the primordial chaos. Matt Mercer's Exandria kind of removed this nuance by making the evil gods "betrayer gods" who didn't fight against the primordials! This IMHO is ridiculous since some of the evil gods, such as Bane, led the armies of the gods against the primordials in the Dawn War.