Mashing together deities from different books

[Psion]

Looking through The Pantheon & Pagan Faiths, Bluffside, Temple Quarter, and Temple & Shrines last night really made me think about this some more.

You know, if I knew a durn thing about databases and/or had a copy of access (maybe I do... have to check), what'd really be the thing to do is assemble a database of deities from a variety of publsihers, and then if I punch up the deities sharing (similar) alignments and a (good fraction of) domains, I could map them across, as if to say "Deity X in Bluffside is the same as Deity Y in The Pantheon & Pagan Faiths."

Sort of like the Kalamar approach, applied to publishers instead of cultures.

 

[Voadam]

Just look at the different gods and see if there are similar ones that you already use.

For instance dragonlance and greek, Hephaestus material fits pretty well with Reorx (forging and tinkering). For Greyhawk to FR Pelor turns into Lathander pretty easily.

In the campaign I run now the previous DM ran Banewarrens and Nightfang spire. He took the red dragon god Ashardalon and turned him black and gave him the pseudonym Father Claw and he has been a black dragon god of scaly folk since then.

It all partially depends on your cosmology, can false gods be worshipped? Demons? powerful mortals (pharoahs, cult leaders, dragons)?

For instance in Ravenloft one of the major religions is of a false god and clerics still get their spells. Introducing new gods there is not a problem. In a river of worlds having multiple pantheons does not seem problematic, but it should not be too hard to switch out analogues of your existing pantheon.

 

[Psion]

It all partially depends on your cosmology, can false gods be worshipped? Demons? powerful mortals (pharoahs, cult leaders, dragons)?

For instance in Ravenloft one of the major religions is of a false god and clerics still get their spells. Introducing new gods there is not a problem. In a river of worlds having multiple pantheons does not seem problematic, but it should not be too hard to switch out analogues of your existing pantheon.

Well, in my game, false gods have no power... but true gods can basically "sign for the package." If a mortal has the right spiritual mindset, the true god can set them on the right path.

It gets wigglier than that in my game, but not really directly pertinent to this thread. I let deities make "aspects" of themselves, modestly different, but similar, lesser vesions of themselves. That's not really what I was going after here, though. I was more coming at this from a "tweak things to fit" angle. For example, if a deity in Bluffside and a deity in Temples & Shrines have similar portfolios and share most domains and are only 1 or 2 steps off, I might come up with a consolodated version reflecting what the deity is really like rules-wise, though the material that is put out by the respective publishers might be used to represent sectarian differences that have a weak correlation to "in-game reality".

 

[JoeGKushner]

What deities are you using as your core?

What deities are in this book giving you a hard time?

 

[Psion]

What deities are you using as your core?

In my old campaign world: my own. Which is basically some homebrew deities plus the demihuman deities of D&D before they suffered a "hostile takeover" at the hands of FR.

But moving out to the River of Worlds, it could be anything, but in keeping with my prevailing theory that pantheos of different worlds with patch-like associations, I expand out from there. Today, I have assumed that River of Worlds deities use some mix of my homebrewed deities, Book of the Righteous (who are sort of "old gods" and much respected), and a variety of other resources.

What deities are in this book giving you a hard time?

What book? Temple quarter? The top of the list is the Lawful deity, Lod, who seems pretty central, but doesn't fit anything I currently have established (well, that's not entirely true... one just occurred to me that would fit pretty well from my homebrew, but my mind spun off into this question before I got there.)

It's not just a one or two deity issue, though. I would almost like to be able to assemble a big meta-pantheon that I could pull deities out of for any world I care to run, and bring with it the support they get from their respective products.

 

[TerraDave]

You seem to be on your way to a solution...

I am thinking, how many underlying dieites are needed. In Hinduism, they say just 3...(which become millions, not thousands, millions)...though many stories have the aspects of the same god together (though so does the New Testament, hmm, I better shift my tact, don't want to get in trouble)

In a Fantasy world, 7 and 12 seem like nice round numbers, but a little low. Kalamar has what, 56?

Figuring out your core number and core archtypes seems like the key.

 

[TerraDave]

An interesting case: the days of the week.

Each day of the week coresponds to a heavenly body and or god.

And this corespondance holds accross languages and pantheons.

From the days of the week in English and French (and other Romance Languages), here are the corespondences (lets see if I get this right)

Monday=Moon=Lundi
Tuesday=Tyre=Mars=Mardi
Wednessday=Wotan=Mercury=Mercredi
Thursday=Thor=Jupiter=Jeudi
Friday=Freya=Venus=Vendredi
Saturday=Saturn=Samedi
Sunday=Sun=/(Holy)=Dimanche

Sunday is a special case, being Sun based in some languages, and the "Lords day" in others...but I think you can work with that!

So here are 7 key ones, and I didn't even have to break out the Jung or Cambell.

 

[Psion]

In a Fantasy world, 7 and 12 seem like nice round numbers, but a little low. Kalamar has what, 56?

Figuring out your core number and core archtypes seems like the key.

Just FYI, my general theory of deities isn't the Kalamar "one deity per archetype." In fact, I have a somewhat shamanistic model where minor spirits can become deities.

But in the big picture deities for me are sort of like... utilities. You only need one major cable provider in an area, though in some areas there might be more. And one power provider, trash provider, and so on. Go one state over, someone there might have the same power utility, but a different trash pickup.

So, in a given world, perhaps even continent or culture, you might have your basic archtypes. But if you cross the ocean or go to a nearby world (almost the same thing in the River of Worlds ), you might have the same "Lawful good god of honor and war" but a different "goddess of the moon and magic", etc.

 

[TerraDave]

Ok, but how does this help you as a game master?

You want to mash up deities right? What are the guidelines? Is is just ad-hoc?

 

[TerraDave]

And just to restate your approach.

One approach is the one "true" pantheon, like Kalamar, or Dragon Star (or Junge or some RL religions). Where there is a core set of gods, they may have many names, or aspects (or incarnations, descendents, saints...) but everything goes back to them.

The other is many distinct pantheons, where each god stays in its respective pantheon, kinda like RL with real gods, or many "old school" worlds (or Terra V).

Yours is more mix and match, with the local equivelent of pantheons, but with gods serving in more than one pantheon, and many different combinations of gods as you go accross the cosmos (or your equivelent)?

Right?