Dieties in a homebrew world

[SWBaxter]

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.

Need? One, so you can have clerics - or even zero, if your clerics get their power from abstract philosophies. How many you actually want is driven more by setting and gameplay issues. If you're not that worried about exploring particular religious concepts, then you might as well just grab a set that are already detailed, and change the names if you want local flavour. The default pseudo-Greyhawk pantheon from the PH should work fine, or the FR gods, or the various Deities and Demigods treatments (that book has pantheons of the Greek, Egyption, and Norse gods appropriately D&Dized).

 

[Templetroll]

I was once working on a new campaign and got my gaming group together and asked them to use the Runequest Runes to symbolize themselves. I thought two runes or maybe three would suffice to convey something about the player. After they were done I asked them to write up a god based on those rune combinations.

It made for a very interesting pantheon - there were two gods of the night; one was related to the moon and hunting and the the other was related to sleep and dreams. Things like that. Give that a try.

 

[Tortoise]

I hope you will build in some tortoises .

Yes, worship me.

 

[Tortoise]

I was once working on a new campaign and got my gaming group together and asked them to use the Runequest Runes to symbolize themselves. I thought two runes or maybe three would suffice to convey something about the player. After they were done I asked them to write up a god based on those rune combinations.

It made for a very interesting pantheon - there were two gods of the night; one was related to the moon and hunting and the the other was related to sleep and dreams. Things like that. Give that a try.

That's a very good idea. I think I might have to use that next time I start from scratch for a homebrew campaign. Thanks for the idea.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Why not let your players help you out? They're the ones who are going to be playing the clerics after all. You may as well ask them what kind of god they'd be interested in following.

 

[DanielJ]

DanielJ,

I might be able to help out but first I need to know this: what about the world has already been decided/sorted-out? Gods should be logical entailments of the world they are in, not something imposed on top of it. So, what things about the world have you already decided?

i'll get back to you on that probably via YIM i added you to my yahoo i'm alatariel43