Help wanted: Panthenon of Celestial Bodies

[Mistah J]

Hey all,

I'm trying out a few different systems of gods for my homebrew and I came upon this idea:

Imagine a world in which there are nine gods. One for each of the standard D&D alignments. Now the people of this world attribute one celestial body, or aspect of the sky, to each god. For example:

Lawful Good - The Sun
Chaotic Evil - The Void between the stars.
etc.

If you were designing such a system, what would you pick to represent each alignment?

Thanks for your help!

 

[thejc]

Well you can always use different constellations. CN could be the hidden god a black/shadow planet(The did this in Dragonlance i believe) that only shows when it is on relief say on a bigger moon.

CG A comet that has been pulled into orbit. The Hero deity. Was once mortal.

Clouds....Rain....maybe even such Phenomena like the northern lights


Hope this helps.

 

[Rune]

Hey all,

I'm trying out a few different systems of gods for my homebrew and I came upon this idea:

Imagine a world in which there are nine gods. One for each of the standard D&D alignments. Now the people of this world attribute one celestial body, or aspect of the sky, to each god. For example:

Lawful Good - The Sun
Chaotic Evil - The Void between the stars.
etc.

If you were designing such a system, what would you pick to represent each alignment?

Thanks for your help!

Interesting idea. But, first, we have to have nine elements. Sun(s). Moon(s). Stars. Void. Comet(s). What else? In our own (pre)history, constellations were significant because, to our pattern-finding minds, there seemed to be no other reason for stars to be arranged the way they were.

That said, I'll give it a try:

Lawful Good=Sun, life-giver, light-giver, steady, predictible, dependable.
Lawful Neutral=Stars, story-teller, history-giver, steady, dependable.
Lawful Evil=Void, dark-bringer, cold-bringer, ever-present, dominating.
Neutral Good=Guiding Moon, night-ward, protector, predictable, but not ever-present.
Neutral=Guiding Star, distant, aloof, constant.
Neutral Evil=Twilight, fading, decay, encroaching dark.
Chaotic Good=Sunrise, herald of the sun, vanguard, champion.
Chaotic Neutral=Comet (perhaps a frequent one), trailblazer, unpredictable.
Chaotic Evil=Eclipse, conquering night, dark-during-day.

If you're interested, these entities are thematically linked.

Ethical axis
Lawful=constant and predictable/dependable.
Neutral=constant, but either aloof or not dependable.
Chaotic=sporadic, or rare, or brief.

Moral axis
Good=light-sources
Neutral=stars or similar (distant/minor light)
Evil=darkness

 

[SKyOdin]

Okay, lets look at the possibilities:

Sun:
The sun is warm and life-giving, and follows a regular schedule that gives order to the day and the seasons. LG material?

Moon: Follows a schedule, but is ever-changing in form and brightness. Associated with more chaotic, impulsive emotions. Can either brighten up the dark night or allow it to fall into shadow.

Stars: The stars are rigid and patterned, never changing and always remaining in their places for all eternity. Very lawful in nature. Stars come in two major sub-groups:
1)The Zodiac band along the horizon, which consists of stars that are visible only in certain seasons. These are often associated with symbolic creatures, such as the Western Zodiac or the Four Symbols in Eastern Astronomy.
2)The stars that are always visible no matter the time of year.
These two groups of stars could be grouped separately.

Planets: The stars that defy the rigid patterns of the heavens and blaze their own trail. More chaotic in nature. Individual planets could be their own entries.

More rare features like shooting stars or comets could also be used. I am still unsure how to organize these elements together into a more cohesive system.

 

[TwinBahamut]

It's kind of hard to think of nine good celestial bodies, but let's see...

With a set of five gods for the five major planets (the main five that are easily visible from Earth are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, which are all strongly associated with the deities they are named after) and a set of four zodiac gods (each associated with a season), that is nine deities right there... You could pretty much assign alignments however you wanted with that kind of set-up. If you look into classic astrological ideas of what planets and constellations have represented in the past, I bet you could get a lot of inspiration. It doesn't make a lot of sense from an astronomical perspective, but apparently Saturn was seen as something akin to Chaotic Evil in the past.

Otherwise...

The Sun: Neutral Good. Not Lawful, since it would be seen as a moving, unfixed object to any society that hasn't developed a heliocentric model of the universe.

The Moon: Hard to say. It is very much the sun's companion, changing more but with a very reliable pattern. True Neutral, ever fickle but never truly malevolent or benevolent, is probably best.

Neutral Evil could probably be represented by a regular, bright comet that is seen as a terrible omen.

The Lawful alignments are probably best represented by the stars, the celestial firmament. Lawful Neutral would be a pole star, an absolute constant within the observable universe. Lawful Evil and Lawful Good may be seen as powerful forces spinning the wheel of the zodiac, commanding a host of constellations as their servants as their influence slowly alternates across the stellar year. The idea that individual stars represent clear body parts of these deities may be important.

The Chaotic deities would be the planets who wander across the cosmos, bright and powerful, but unpredictable. Perhaps a Chaotic Neutral Morning/Evening Star and Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil patterned on the supposed benign influence of Jupiter (in his image as god of happiness) and malevolent influence of Saturn.