Minor Good Gods

roguerouge

First Post
I've posted asking for help brainstorming extremely quirky gods with hyper-specialized portfolios. That's lead to such notables as Tamumu (demigod of small insects), Naught (the god of vacuums and nothingness), and Halemaumau, demigod of volcanoes whose regular sacrifices keep population at steady levels rather than growing the faith. They've been a great help.

Now I'm looking for minor demi-gods that would clearly be aligned with Good. Can you help? I'm looking for hyper-specialized portfolios that heroes would say, by god we need a god for that!
 

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So, ScruBu, the hive mind of swarming intelligent bubbles that like to keep shiny things clean? Or Brut and Secret, the mystifyingly named male and female personas of unscenting? Maybe instead of those, Chanel the essence of good smells?

Moving away from my late night lame brained comical attempts, seems like you could take any general category of "good" (light, family, protection, etc.) and specialize it down in some way. So how about demigods of

-Light: candles, lamp light, warmth

-Family, friends and home: hearth (literally, as in the physical fireplace or stove only), houses, beds, laughter, comradery, wedding rings, fabric, needles and cloth, blankets, spinning wheel, covenants or agreements, names and naming ceremonies (or other coming-of-age rituals)

-Food and drink: feasts, tables, beer, salt, cups, pies and cakes, mills (water or wind)

-Specific domestic animals or crops or byproducts: goats, horses, turnips, cheese

-Protection: locks, strongboxes, doors, fences, inns, manacles (for law enforcement), shields

-Healing: midwives, bandages, surgeons

-Peace: calm, silence, fellowship, agreements, comfort, encouragement, satisfaction or satiety

-Learning: paper, ink, memory, lenses (as in magnifying glass or telescope)

-Travel: wheel, sails, gears and pulleys, tack (saddle, bridle, maybe spurs?), guideposts or maps

Huh, seems like several of these could be twisted or stretched by zealous followers in less-than-good ways. Which may make interesting backstories in themselves.
 
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Some from an old campaign of mine are the three children of Trenae, goddess of fountains

- Lepuum The rabbit headed God of Ornamental gardens
- Splish The god of downspouts and rainbarrels
- Gigla Goddess of outdoor play
 

Heck, who needs to make these gods up? Over the years, various first- and second-party D&D resources have had fairly ridiculous deities. Looking through the gods list turns up such gods as:

Shindra, from The Unknown Gods by Judges Guild, the deity of dancing girls! Although this particular god is Lawful Evil, but hey, your mother warned you about those girls for a reason.

Tsolorandril, from Living Greyhawk Journal no. 3, the god of wave motions! Only worshipped at those critical moments when a stadium of fans stands up in perfect succession.

Elelatar, from Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes, the deity of the south winds! All other winds belong to someone else, but if it blows south, then know that Elelatar is the one who's blowing.

...hm, that sure came out wrong.

Hlyyaak, from Dragon #54 "Down-to-earth divinity," is the Chaotic Good demigod of camels! Whether Bactrian or dromedary, fear the mighty camel-god, for when his children spit, they spit with his blessing.

Rissinis, from Imagine #26 "The Gods of Pelinore," is the Neutral deity of fishing! When you're angling back to try and catch some small-mouth bass, offer a prayer to Rissinis, and you'll manage to land that whopper that everyone in town's been trying to get for years now.

Rod, from Dragon #290 "Red Sails: Bright Sun, Mother Earth," is the Neutral god of fertility...and in all honesty, I'm mentioning him simply because of the number of jokes that you can make about his name and portfolio.

"So I met this girl at the tavern last night, and got her to accept the Great Rod's blessing for fertility."

"Oh yeah? I didn't know you were a cleric."

"I'm not."
 

Moving away from the comic options for a moment, why not take a bit of flavour from Shinto, but reskin it for your campaign.

You could have a God of beauty in nature - when a tree branch curls in upon itself like a twisting limb, or when a large stone has been wind-carved into a spiral - that is where this God awakens and drinks of the beauty. A very minor NG God, probably nameless and unknown amongst most men, but perhaps worshipped by some solitary druid/monks and/or the undying elves.

What about a Goddess of flowers and pollinating insects? Honey as the ritual food.

Father of the river, taking the form of the water dragon and cavorting along the rapids of a particularly large and vital river. He protects those who live off the river, as long as they take only a little and do not pollute his body.

And to finish off, a spooky one:

Whisper, the protective God of dead children. When a small child dies, before tasting adolescence, Whisper protects them in their long journey through the river styx, making sure that their fragile souls reach Heaven. Some say he is a once-fallen angel who has repented, but can never reenter Heaven. Others that he himself was a powerful God once who lost his only child. His misery destroyed him, and he shrank from the world, only to return as Whisper. Sometimes, when a child dies, whisper appears to the grieving parents in their dreams. A shrivelled, mute male of ancient years, stooped and gnarled, he stretches out his clenched hand and reveals to the parents one last, precious glimpse of their child as they enter the gates of Heaven.
 

-Light: candles, lamp light, warmth

-Family, friends and home: hearth (literally, as in the physical fireplace or stove only), houses, beds, laughter, comradery, wedding rings, fabric, needles and cloth, blankets, spinning wheel, covenants or agreements, names and naming ceremonies (or other coming-of-age rituals)

-Food and drink: feasts, tables, beer, salt, cups, pies and cakes, mills (water or wind)

-Specific domestic animals or crops or byproducts: goats, horses, turnips, cheese

-Protection: locks, strongboxes, doors, fences, inns, manacles (for law enforcement), shields

-Healing: midwives, bandages, surgeons

-Peace: calm, silence, fellowship, agreements, comfort, encouragement, satisfaction or satiety

-Learning: paper, ink, memory, lenses (as in magnifying glass or telescope)

-Travel: wheel, sails, gears and pulleys, tack (saddle, bridle, maybe spurs?), guideposts or maps

Some good ones here!

A god or goddess of candles or lanterns could double as a psychopomp / guide for the dead, who holds the darkness at bay. At their shrines, people would light candles in remembrance of loved ones on the anniversary of their deaths (or there could just be one big festival of the dead once a year, and everyone comes out with lit candles and does a big procession out to the graveyard, and leaves burning candles on all of the gravestones while they mill around and 'remember' the dead (generally by drinking and partying, after some swapping of stories of famous ancestors and the like, while placing the candles) and the usual after-party sex...

A god of 'shields' could double and triple time as a god of fortifications and the patron god of abjuration magic. Green Ronin's Plot & Poison has a drow demigod of abjuration magic who could serve as inspiration. The 'favored weapon' of this god is a spiked shield. The god's own features are indistinct, as he is clouded by many abjuration spells, and even under the spells, he's fully armored, with a heavy shield in one hand and a free hand for warding incantations (or to snatch arrows or exercise other defensive abilities) and his (or her?) true features remain a mystery. His clergy would be the 'Freemasons' of the society, keeping secrets of building fortifications, as much as possible, to maintain their monopoly on keep construction. They might even have a few unique spells that they never cast in the sight of the uninitiated, long-lasting alarm and arcane lock type spells, for instance (or perhaps they simply pretend to do so, and use their training to get a 5% or 10% cost reduction on making those sorts of spells permanant, and then sell them at a cheaper cost, to make it seem that they are using magic unavailable to wizards who can't afford to provide these services at their cheap, cheap rates, undercutting rivals). The Drow version was totally paranoid, and even a good version of such a diety could be a tad over-prepared...

A hearth and home goddess, similar to the Greek / Roman Hestia, could have both Protection and Fire as her domains (perhaps Community and Healing as well), and while her 'altar' is the family hearth in every home, she's also associated with the protection of the walls of a home (and her clergy claim that it is her special blessing that makes it hard for vampires to enter a home uninvited!), and the power of flame to not only warm the family and cook the meals, but also to hold back the night terrors.

One of the Central/South American peoples had a specific goddess of corn (Centeotl, IIRC), although I don't remember if she was Mayan, Incan, Aztec, Toltec or some other group. A god of milk, butter, dairy in general, perhaps one with a cows head, could be an option. She might also be a goddess of leatherworking, and the clergy would practice animal husbandry and provide butchery services (not something you'd expect at a non-evil temple!) as well as counseling the use of the entire animal, with the inedible parts used dog or chicken feed, the bones carved into tools, or crafted into scrimshaw and used as temple decorations, etc.

A god of goats could be a fey / satyr god as well, and have (non-malicious) trickery as a domain.

A god of beer seems like a must for a medieval community, as, in some cases, the local beer and ale was a heck of a lot safer to drink than the local water! The god would have an association with the various crops grown to make beer, such as wheat or hops or barley.

A region that makes a living off of grapes grown for a winery (and jams and such made from the grapes that aren't deemed 'good enough' for wine-making) might have a harvest-god who is associated with wine, the local lands, grapevines, etc. and be thought to exist in part in every bit of vine that grows in the region, explaining the high quality of the local vintages. His clergy might have their own 'secret techniques' for wine-making, such as plant growth spells (from the Plant domain) that allow them to force an extra crop every season, or a variation on purify/putrefy food & drink that fast-ferments their vintages, allowing them to put '10 year aged wine' to market that they bottled only this season...

Similarly, a bee goddess might be revered by a northern community reknowned for it's honey-mead, and for 15-20 gp over the usual holy water price, a local can purchase consecrated honey, that 'sticks' like alchemical fire and does additional damage on a second round to anything that would have been affected by holy water.

The god of reflections, associated with vanity by some, also loathes the undead and is said to refuse to show the reflections of vampires, and his clergy know spells to cause a silvered mirror or mirrored glass to reflect only the truth, showing shapeshifters in their true (or monstrous) forms, to protect against deceivers. A different spell would allow one to gaze deeply upon oneself with a mirror, and receive a sort of Omen / Augury effect, seeing one's own flaws and faults exposed visually, in the hopes that one will then correct these faults, once they are seen. As such, he is not just a god of shallow surface beauty, but one of inner beauty and self-perfection. At the temple of the god of reflections, either in the reflecting pool in the contemplation garden, or in the many silvered looking glasses tucked away in alcoves in the main temple, one sees idealized or more youthful or unscarred reflections of oneself, which leaves many followers who are no longer quite so youthful or unscarred feeling heartened and un-self-conscious for a time. (Beer goggles for the soul!)
 

How about a God/dess of Symmetry?

Wikipedia said:
Symmetry (from Greek: "συμμετρεω" = to measure together), generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance;[1][2] such that it reflects beauty or perfection. The second meaning is a precise and well-defined concept of balance or "patterned self-similarity" that can be demonstrated or proved according to the rules of a formal system: by geometry, through physics or otherwise.
The God rules over the "formal" system, while the Goddess rules over the aesthetic one. Naturally, they are both androgynous and perfectly alike.
 

Barker: God of the Circus

Flora: Goddess of Wild Flowers

Kissiah: Goddess of Summer Romance

Eureka: God of Epiphanies

Serendipity: Goddess of Pleasant Surprises

Alm: God of Small Acts of Kindness and Charity

Steep: God of Warm Drinks

Grammi: Goddess of Comfort Food
 



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