Aldarc
Legend
I agree with your summation, and I would also add with one of those points that "evil" deities are generally rare in real world religions or at least far rarer than D&D's typical pantheon offerings in its settings. Evil spirits and demons? Sure. But evil deities people actually worship? No. Instead the Law vs. Chaos motif (i.e., Chaoskampf) is far more prominent in real world religions.That's fair enough. My reason for posting the link was to attempt to further discussion, rather than any attempt at a last word - I find Angry to be generally useful, but certainly don't agree with everything he writes!
Where I think he has it right, though:
- Fewer well realised gods are probably better than many undefined ones.
- An odd, and indeed prime, number of gods is better than the alternative, to prevent balance and thus to generate conflict.
- It's probably better if deities are not simplistically aligned to Good and Evil - better if you can make a strong argument for both sides of a conflict.
- It's also not wise to be too systematic in the way things are laid out. Yes, there's a certain joy in symmetry and neatness... but it's more interesting to have oddities, gaps, and the like.
Also, since Angry DM mentioned Magic the Gathering, a part of me wants to tinker with 15 deity model, essentially an adapted idea from Ravinca's guilds. Have one major deity/titan for each color and then a lesser "child" deity that is a mix of two colors: 5 major and 10 lesser. You may still only focus on a handful of these, as society will not find them equally valuable, but you would still have them in your pocket.
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Most of my homebrew setting religions aren't really appropriate for D&D's assusmptions, particularly regarding deities and clerics, so I cannot really offer too many examples or suggestions. I'm a big fan of including a spirit world and/or a fey realm, which engenders more animist religions and syncretist faiths/philosophies that account for that reality.
But in my homebrews that do use deities, I often like having my archfey represent sort of "pagan" nature deities in the popular conception of mortals. So I have reused the idea of having 4 archfey representing the four seasons and other chthonic ideas, but also giving each a lesser consort. Occasionally there is a fifth archfey that represents the Other (e.g., seasonal chaos and balance, destructive weather seasons, etc.). So it is easy to remember eight to ten archfey when they correspond to seasons and grouped in greater and lesser pairs. The archfey can be your "pagan" nature gods: when reality becomes myth, and myth becomes religion. They are still beyond mortal comprehsion and are incredibly alien. But mortals associate the seasonal effects of their strange ways with various abstractions of nature and civilization.
Of course you could also play with this seasonal deity idea and then break the traditional 4 seasons calendar model in favor of the 6 season ecological model. (South Asia may also have a 6 season model.) Or have people think that there are 4 archfey (and their consorts), but really there are 6 archfey (and their consorts). Or play with this further and play with a waxing and waning in terms of influence in northern and southern hemispheres. Or tropical regions generally have two seasons (dry and rainy), so the faerie realm in these regions may have only two fey deities. Or Polar Day and Polar Night archfey.
