Dieties in a homebrew world

[DanielJ]

I have started creating my own homebrew world and was wondering if anyone can tell me how many gods i will need and what basic fields of influences i need over all to address as what can be considered (core) to any setting.

Note : i plan on making these deities myself.

thanks in advance.

 

[Crothian]

it depends on what you want. You can have a single god that covers everything, a pair of gods that are eith opposite or work together and erach covers half, or a panthion of a 1000 gods each highly specific. It all depends on what you want and what works best for the workd you are making.

As for the majot areas of influence, I look to the major cleric domains for ideas as well as seeing what the majot gods of ancient religios had to figure what basics I should cover. And then if I find an area later on that needs covered I either add it to a already made god, or create a new lesser known god for it.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

The most basic approach would be to have one for each of the 9 alignments and then assign each of them appropriate domains from the PHB.

But your concepts and your homebrew world should be the driving factors above and beyond that.

There are a lot of questions to consider when designing your deities

1) World creation myths
2) Pantheonic relationships - do the gods know/are related to each other
3) Seperate gods/pantheons for different regions in your homebrew world
4) Racial considerations - will all races worship the same gods, or will each have their own? If the latter, how many do you need?

Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous is a fantastic example and toolbox for helping a homebrewer design their own gods. Read the reviews here and consider purchasing it if you are going to spend some serious time/effort on this excercise.

 

[DanielJ]

well my world could be considered generic fantasy (aka Forgotten realms, Greyhawk) and i was thinking maybe and i dont know if this is as complete as i need it but i think i need:
these are very vague outlines off the top of my head:

God of dragons
God for each common playable race
God of agriculture
God of weather (good)
God of weather (bad)
god of death
god of war
god of magic
some majorly holy god lol
nature gods

eh if anyone can suggest anymore i'd be grateful, thanks alot for your help.

i looked for that book and couldnt find it at any of my stores catologues so until i can find it i'm gonna try to do this without it.

 

[S'mon]

I think it's right that the D&D Cleric system works fine w just one god, let's call him Om, worshipped by all alignments. Or you can have gods of Good, Evil, Law & Chaos - you don't need CE or LG or LE or CG.

 

[DanielJ]

i'ms orry for sounding stupid but could you explian that theory a little more and how that would work clerics and how you would sort out domains?

 

[Turjan]

Hmm... weather seems to be very important in your campaign ! j/k

Just go along with this. If you see that you have not covered something during your campaign, you can always fit in some small, regional god to fit your needs, or you could assign some new areas of influence for existing gods.

Just think of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Most people know her as the goddess of love, beauty and desire. But she was also a goddess of war, and she was the guardian of seafarers. This means, functions don't even have to be grouped together in a way they "make sense" .

 

[DanielJ]

on top of all this how should i go about naming these gods, should i use a certain technique based on what what they do or just make something up thats totally random. i admit i'm very fussy about names and i like them to sound good lol

 

[S'mon]

i'ms orry for sounding stupid but could you explian that theory a little more and how that would work clerics and how you would sort out domains?

Everyone worships Om. Om grants all Domains (some may be unavailable in your game). Some orders of Clerics are good, some are bad, yet they all claim to worship the same god. Some orders of Clerics may contain both good and bad men, and there can be lots of political infighting. Paladins claim to hear the voice of Om directly (and occasionally get burnt at the stake as heretics by the bad Clerics). There may be slightly different aspects of Om worshipped in different areas - maybe one lot of worshippers live in the damp fertile northern lands and fight the worshippers who live in the hot dry southern lands and use a different name for Om. Maybe a small ancient sect claim to be the first, original, and only true worshippers of Om.

Hm, maybe I should copyright this idea...

 

[Turjan]

Everyone worships Om. Om grants all Domains (some may be unavailable in your game). [snip]

Hm, maybe I should copyright this idea...

I hope you will build in some tortoises .