Inspire me! - Creating Pantheons

[Gold Roger]

I've had this idea for some time now to use the archdevils and demonlords of the D&D canon as pantheons of true gods. With a homebrew I'm currently working on, I'm putting that plan into effect and I have mostly worked out how to do the two archfiend pantheons.

However, when taking a multi-pantheon approach, two is a somewhat lonely number and to add insult to injury, both of these aren't exactly good guys.

So I need to create some other divine families to round things out and I'm somewhat stuck on these.

So I'm asking you, my fellow ENworlders, what other existing groups can I turn into pantheons and how would you execute these conversions?

Some basic rules, so you know what I'm goimg for:

-These don't need to be gods, godlike beings or even sentient beings in a traditional sense

-There should be some kind of unified theme, as well some established relationships and/or history

-These should make for actual gods that could conceivably be served by and grant powers to 4e divine classes. This means true nature faiths (which would be served by primal classes) and abstract religions are out.

So, what would you do in my place?

 

[fba827]

Lots and lots of random noncoherent thoughts, but maybe something i ramble here might spark a better idea.

Dualities are common in religion, but sometimes triads can be fun too..

The Three Sisters - make one sister for each season Winter Summer Spring (who cares about Fall ). And then associate characteristics with each...
(as an example)
Winter is cold, unforgiving, death
Summer is about fire, hot-tempers/wars
Spring is about life/growth
and so on.

Or maybe it's three brothers, each to represent a time of day (morning, afternoon, night) and personalities associated with each of those..

or both of the above sibling sets could overlap.

---
or you could borrow heavily from greek/roman gods. At the very least, start with a concept of needing/wanting 12-ish gods. Make space on paper for each one, then just start assigning one slot as a king, his 4 queens, and the rest children. You don't need to stick with the personalities of the greek/roman pantheon, but maybe take charactertistics of them and mix them around.
------
Else, start with your god-history and develop the gods out of that. Maybe they all started as one God. But the war with the primordials (or devils or what have you) split the god into different personalities as each was focused on different ways to deal with it. Then you just need to start thinking of how different personalities woudl deal with such an uprising and it gives you the background connection that you're looking for.


i don't know.. like i said, random thoughts here, but maybe some better idea can be sparked from it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

How about the Princes of Elemental Evil? Or maybe look into some of the powerful mythic fey of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts?

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I was running a totally homebrew campaign once and got to the part where we had to create the pantheon because someone wanted a cleric. Usually in homebrews I just import the FR pantheon because its got a lot of variety (at least it did) and I already had books for it.

This time however, I decided to throw down a pencil and paper in front of the players and told them...."You guys make the pantheon". In the end we had 12-14 gods/goddesses all of whom were original, fleshed out, and that the players instantly remembered and had a connection to.

DS

 

[CleverNickName]

I've had this idea for some time now to use the archdevils and demonlords of the D&D canon as pantheons of true gods. With a homebrew I'm currently working on, I'm putting that plan into effect and I have mostly worked out how to do the two archfiend pantheons.

However, when taking a multi-pantheon approach, two is a somewhat lonely number and to add insult to injury, both of these aren't exactly good guys.

So I need to create some other divine families to round things out and I'm somewhat stuck on these.

So I'm asking you, my fellow ENworlders, what other existing groups can I turn into pantheons and how would you execute these conversions?

Some basic rules, so you know what I'm goimg for:

-These don't need to be gods, godlike beings or even sentient beings in a traditional sense

-There should be some kind of unified theme, as well some established relationships and/or history

-These should make for actual gods that could conceivably be served by and grant powers to 4e divine classes. This means true nature faiths (which would be served by primal classes) and abstract religions are out.

So, what would you do in my place?

I'm not sure I follow. A pantheon refers to all of the gods in the cosmos as a whole...which means there can never be more than one.

It sounds like you are trying to develop a church or religion instead...a group of people who serve one, some, or all of the gods within the pantheon. Is this what you are gunning for?

 

[Scribble]

I'm not sure I follow. A pantheon refers to all of the gods in the cosmos as a whole...which means there can never be more than one.

Maybe he means it in the traditional Non-D&D sense... Like the Greek Pantheon vrs The Norse Pantheon?

 

[Gold Roger]

I was running a totally homebrew campaign once and got to the part where we had to create the pantheon because someone wanted a cleric. Usually in homebrews I just import the FR pantheon because its got a lot of variety (at least it did) and I already had books for it.

This time however, I decided to throw down a pencil and paper in front of the players and told them...."You guys make the pantheon". In the end we had 12-14 gods/goddesses all of whom were original, fleshed out, and that the players instantly remembered and had a connection to.

DS

I did something like that in the current campaign. I'm aiming for something else this time around^^

I'm not sure I follow. A pantheon refers to all of the gods in the cosmos as a whole...which means there can never be more than one.

The point of the idea is that, in this setting, that's not how the term is defined. Instead there are multiple "families" of gods that, though they have some relations to each other, mostly work like a selfcontained pantheon.

For example, our two established choices might be linked through a planescape-like Bloodwar, but mostly they are their own, with an independend history and hierarchy, each their own seat of divinity (the Abyss and the 9 Hells), each their own kind of divine servants (demons and devils, obviously) and godfather (the highly contested Demogorgon and the unquestionable Asmodeus).

It's kind of how there where the Aesir, Olympian and Eqypt pantheon each present in the old Great Weel ccosmology.

 

[Rechan]

I got one for you: The Triad.

A trio of gods. The Creator, the Sustainer, and the Destroyer. To use a metaphor to explain their importance, imagine a campfire. Lighting the fire, keeping the fire burning, and putting the fire out are all separate actions, requiring wholly different approaches, and require different forms of energy. Apply that philosophy to everything.

Using these philosophies, you can easily explain some things (Undeath: Too much influence of the Sustainer drowning out the Destroyer's influence). Magic: one part Creator, one part Destroyer.

Each deity has its own spouses, children, and avatars. Each of these can function as lesser powers/demi-gods over whatever you need.

The rub is this: The worshipers of this pantheon are divided into sects. While each sect pays respect to all three, the sect places one of the gods above the others, as the most powerful "Chief" God. Some even claim that the other two are merely manifestations or avatars of their chief god! Some sects even worship one of their Chief God's avatar as the "True manifestation" of their Chief god.

So even though you have a small relative pantheon, you have a lot of variation by mixing and matching.

 

[Desdichado]

Oooh, I've done that. Except I don't really make a distinction between my archfiends, so archdevil and demon lords are all fair game. As are slaad lords (or even just black slaads), powerful oni, elemental princes, efreet, etc. Any kind of fiend is a fiend, and any kind of fiendish ruler is a de facto god.

In my setting, there wer only bad guy gods, but if you wanted some quick and dirty good guy gods too, you could always take the arch celestials from Book of Exalted Deeds and work them up as good-aligned gods.

Some typical Seelie/Unseelie Sidhe type stuff would be fun; Titania, Oberon, Queen Mab, etc. as another "family" of gods too.

Azathoth, Cthulhu, Hastur, etc. could be another.


That way all your families have a kind of unified theme.

 

[Loonook]

Personally, I always thought of the 'D&D' version of fey should not have stable personalities so much as a title bestowed... a chaotic godhead, born of the forces of nature and passed down through combat or treason or what-have-you.

The Indian Triad concept as presented would be... ehh, it may work but it creates a lot of issues. Really, you could go a bit different than most of those who post ideas:

Make your setting monotheistic with deist tendencies and servitors. Each servitor could easily hold a portfolio, but there don't have to be an enormous amount of furious divine combats. Perhaps instead of normal aspects they possess followers... the Gods Among Us thing seems... a bit played. It would make your pantheon stand out, allow for all sorts of differences (good, evil, neutral aspects/servitors), and give plenty of oddities to work with.

Slainte,

-Loonook.