Gods, Pantheons, and Divinities

[Aaron L]

With Dieties and Demigods coming out, I was wondering how you others deal with gods in your worlds. Large pantheons, small pantheons, families of gods, several pantheons, godly wars?

I have several different groups of gods. The first is a group of seven solars that form the basis of a monothiestic religion in my world. One of the solars is actually fallen and now Lawful Evil, the satan of the world, and king of the devils. The solars called the elves to the world to fight in their wars against Abomination.

The second group is a singular entity, Abomination, that is for all intents and purposes a Great Old One that owns the world and had his body bound in adamantine chains on the dark side of the moon and his soul buried in the ocean by one of the solars (actually the fallen solar before he fell.) Abomination is the ruler of many demons who came to the prime material plane.

The third group is a powerful race of planar warlords trying to reunite a shattered plane by amassing worshippers and warriors to fight in thier divine Wars of Ascension.

The last group is the elemental spirits of the world, the basis of a Shinto like religion that produces shugenja and shamans and druids. These elemantal spirits created the dwarves, halflings, and gnomes to protect the planet and its spirits from destruction in the wars of the other powers.

Sorry I rambled so much I like having the various groups that are sometimes contradictory, that fight each other, and that interact in interesting ways. What do the rest of you like?

 

[Desdichado]

I kinda like that too: I've been keeping in my back pocket a world in which orcs are the native inhabitants, and all other races are planar ex-patriots that have since become stranded. The orcs have a basic elemental religion (6 gods, one for each element/energy group), the humans have their own pantheon and the other creatures all have their own as well.

However, the campaign I'm working up currently has a number of pantheons that aren't so much in conflict, but in mutual sharing-type relationships, much as real world polytheism worked. Religion will be underplayed in this campaign, at least in terms of direct contact of any sort with any divinity.