Find inspiration everywhere! Martin found it in History, I do in Philosophy.

[Baron Opal II]

I think religions are one of my favorite things to work on when it comes to a campaign setting. I definitely like to change it up and try new things. The aspects idea is a great one. I discussed a related idea one time with a friend where each civilization had their own gods but they were really just aspects and could be traced back to a core set of Gods. I consider "The Book of the Righteous" one of the best 3e era books written on the subject. I still have it and use it for a reference because much of it is usable even if rules change.

Me too! I also have a copy of Mitlanyal, the two books that detail the gods of Order and Change in the Tekumel milieu. Mixing those two have given me a lot of inspiration.

 

[Madnick]

If you like that god themed books, you might like the Rose of the Prophet series. The theory was that Gods grew stronger with more worshipers and weaker with fewer. The premise is the LN god tries to take over everything and ultimately the CN god's followers (the protagonists) have to stop him.

That's what hooked me on 2nd edition dnd, the Time of Troubles fight between Bane and Torm, where Torm pretty much asked from his followers to die voluntarily to absorb their souls and become stronger to deal with Bane in the end, epic scene that directly connects the faith of a god with its power. And obviously the most direct way to kill a God? Leave him with zero followers ! Good stuff!

 

[RangerWickett]

The ZEITGEIST adventure path is motivated by antagonists with strong philosophical views on what the nature of a perfect world is. You at several points get a chance to advance your view, and the various factions of the setting each have their own philosophies.

The most prominent one is eschatology, which frames life in relation to how things end, and encourages people to seek good endings in their affairs, ranging from how to end a job or book or relationship, to how to die and how when the world ought to end.

Naturally, some people take this too literally and start working to ensure the world has a good ending by trying to be the ones to end it. But they're not the main villains.