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How to make a believable pantheon for a homebrew world.
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6198204" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>The best fantasy starter kit for religions is Green Ronin's 'Book of the Righteous'. </p><p></p><p>A really simple but well realized (at least in its initial conception) panatheon can be found in Bujold's 'The Curse of Chalion'. Bujold later deconstructs are own creation at least partially, resulting in a situation where I find her heretics more sympathetic than her believes, but... more on that later. The initial set up is very tight.</p><p></p><p>As you your central question though, a world with real polytheism (many gods) who are really active and intervening regularly and openly in the world would be very different than this one. Modern western thought explains real world history in one of two ways: either the gods do not exist, or else there is a single god who for reasons of his own avoids intervening in people's lives openly (and most especially in the lives of non-believers). Which ever one you choose is irrelevant to the topic of fantasy, because in most fantasy worlds the cosmology makes it manifest that neither answer is true. As such, you would expect religion and religious controversies in this other world to be centered largely around different issues. These issues would most resemble not the current controversies between believers and non-believers, or the religious and irreligious (two different things), but those that flourish within communities where every already believes.</p><p></p><p>For example, the question of 'Do the gods exist?' might not have any currency in the religious arguments of a fantasy world. But the question of, 'Are the gods good?', 'Which gods are worthy of worship?', and 'Ought we worship the gods at all?' are still relevant. The equivalent to an atheist in a fantasy world isn't someone that believes the gods are real, but someone who believes that they have no relevancy to his life or are in fact tyrants and fiends greatly to be despised.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, just because you agree over the basic details, doesn't mean that different cultures don't have their own takes on what 'really happened'. There is no reason to assume that the gods are honest, or even that the honest ones are anxious to correct all the facts and misconceptions held by mortals. Different cultures may tell the same historical truth in different ways. In my campaign, all the other races believe that the goblins are evil schemers, but the way the goblins tell their own story the other races are foul traitors, thieves, and usurpers. </p><p></p><p>Very basic facts about pre-human history might remain open matters of investigation and controversy, either because the gods are keeping secrets or have promoted competing narratives. How did humanity come to be? Who made the world? Which deity came first? Who has the just claim to rule - the oldest, the wisest, the strongest, the noblest? What caused the gods to war? What is the ultimate purpose of humanities relationship with the gods? Are the gods really immortal? Are the gods really different in kind from humanity, or just different in scale? In my campaign world, one of the central heresies (Gantroism) is that mankind is really older than the gods, and the gods are mans invention rather than the other way around. Another central heresy (Kelternism) is that the gods are all really fiends (some in disguise) undeserving of worship and in fact deserving of destruction, and that the whole 'rot' about 'good and evil' is just a scheme for keeping mortal eternally enslaved. </p><p></p><p>And some gods are something of a mystery even to the other gods, and ultimately stand in place of my criticism of the entire pantheon. Take the god Pitarian. He's the god of fools, and he's a laughing stock even of the other gods. Nominally married to the goddess fire Tholumessa, Pitarian is the world's most infamous cuckold. Thulmessa plays the wanton with pretty much everyone but Pitarian, whom she openly despises. Yet he dotes on her, seemingly unaware of her many flaws or her abuse. Hardly anybody worships Pitarian, per se. He's reviled and offerings are given in mockery to him - like rotten fruit, dead rats, vinegar instead of wine, broken things, dry beans, and any jape or joke the giver can imagine. No one ever asks anything serious of Pitarian. By convention, you only make ridiculous petitions to him - like that your turnips won't bruise on the way home, that your shoelace will remain tied, that your eyelashes won't fall out, that you'll avoid a paper cut, or you won't put on your shirt inside out in the morning.</p><p></p><p>However, as a campaign level secret I've never previously revealed to anyone, I will say that Pitarian is IMO looking on the pantheon from the outside in one of the only truly decent deities in the pantheon. The rest of them, even the nominally good ones, are egotistical bastards most of the time. Pitarian is one of the only ones that seems to know what love really is, virtually the only deity not abusive of his power and freedom, and Pitarian's clerics are invariably the wisest, kindest, noblest NPCs I create in my campaign world. This is not intended to be obvious to my players in the least. My biases I try to keep hidden, but in many ways I sympathize with the heretics of my campaign world. If you say, "These guys aren't really worthy of worship.", when not wearing my DM hat, I'd have to agree. They afterall aren't really gods, they are just me. Pitarian is actually my highest image of myself, the most noble I could imagine me being - a really nice Fool but no more than that. I can't imagine worshiping me, so I am also a heretic of my own panatheon.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6198204, member: 4937"] The best fantasy starter kit for religions is Green Ronin's 'Book of the Righteous'. A really simple but well realized (at least in its initial conception) panatheon can be found in Bujold's 'The Curse of Chalion'. Bujold later deconstructs are own creation at least partially, resulting in a situation where I find her heretics more sympathetic than her believes, but... more on that later. The initial set up is very tight. As you your central question though, a world with real polytheism (many gods) who are really active and intervening regularly and openly in the world would be very different than this one. Modern western thought explains real world history in one of two ways: either the gods do not exist, or else there is a single god who for reasons of his own avoids intervening in people's lives openly (and most especially in the lives of non-believers). Which ever one you choose is irrelevant to the topic of fantasy, because in most fantasy worlds the cosmology makes it manifest that neither answer is true. As such, you would expect religion and religious controversies in this other world to be centered largely around different issues. These issues would most resemble not the current controversies between believers and non-believers, or the religious and irreligious (two different things), but those that flourish within communities where every already believes. For example, the question of 'Do the gods exist?' might not have any currency in the religious arguments of a fantasy world. But the question of, 'Are the gods good?', 'Which gods are worthy of worship?', and 'Ought we worship the gods at all?' are still relevant. The equivalent to an atheist in a fantasy world isn't someone that believes the gods are real, but someone who believes that they have no relevancy to his life or are in fact tyrants and fiends greatly to be despised. Likewise, just because you agree over the basic details, doesn't mean that different cultures don't have their own takes on what 'really happened'. There is no reason to assume that the gods are honest, or even that the honest ones are anxious to correct all the facts and misconceptions held by mortals. Different cultures may tell the same historical truth in different ways. In my campaign, all the other races believe that the goblins are evil schemers, but the way the goblins tell their own story the other races are foul traitors, thieves, and usurpers. Very basic facts about pre-human history might remain open matters of investigation and controversy, either because the gods are keeping secrets or have promoted competing narratives. How did humanity come to be? Who made the world? Which deity came first? Who has the just claim to rule - the oldest, the wisest, the strongest, the noblest? What caused the gods to war? What is the ultimate purpose of humanities relationship with the gods? Are the gods really immortal? Are the gods really different in kind from humanity, or just different in scale? In my campaign world, one of the central heresies (Gantroism) is that mankind is really older than the gods, and the gods are mans invention rather than the other way around. Another central heresy (Kelternism) is that the gods are all really fiends (some in disguise) undeserving of worship and in fact deserving of destruction, and that the whole 'rot' about 'good and evil' is just a scheme for keeping mortal eternally enslaved. And some gods are something of a mystery even to the other gods, and ultimately stand in place of my criticism of the entire pantheon. Take the god Pitarian. He's the god of fools, and he's a laughing stock even of the other gods. Nominally married to the goddess fire Tholumessa, Pitarian is the world's most infamous cuckold. Thulmessa plays the wanton with pretty much everyone but Pitarian, whom she openly despises. Yet he dotes on her, seemingly unaware of her many flaws or her abuse. Hardly anybody worships Pitarian, per se. He's reviled and offerings are given in mockery to him - like rotten fruit, dead rats, vinegar instead of wine, broken things, dry beans, and any jape or joke the giver can imagine. No one ever asks anything serious of Pitarian. By convention, you only make ridiculous petitions to him - like that your turnips won't bruise on the way home, that your shoelace will remain tied, that your eyelashes won't fall out, that you'll avoid a paper cut, or you won't put on your shirt inside out in the morning. However, as a campaign level secret I've never previously revealed to anyone, I will say that Pitarian is IMO looking on the pantheon from the outside in one of the only truly decent deities in the pantheon. The rest of them, even the nominally good ones, are egotistical bastards most of the time. Pitarian is one of the only ones that seems to know what love really is, virtually the only deity not abusive of his power and freedom, and Pitarian's clerics are invariably the wisest, kindest, noblest NPCs I create in my campaign world. This is not intended to be obvious to my players in the least. My biases I try to keep hidden, but in many ways I sympathize with the heretics of my campaign world. If you say, "These guys aren't really worthy of worship.", when not wearing my DM hat, I'd have to agree. They afterall aren't really gods, they are just me. Pitarian is actually my highest image of myself, the most noble I could imagine me being - a really nice Fool but no more than that. I can't imagine worshiping me, so I am also a heretic of my own panatheon. [/QUOTE]
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