New Gods

[Northman]

I know that when we finished the whacky (and fun!) Age of Gods we wanted a closed pantheon. But would anyone be opposed to me creating a new minor god or two?

My thought is that the evil gods are undermanned and a minor god need not be repersented in the Age of Gods. i.e. he wasn't active, whatever. But they could fill certain nitches and make for cool mysterious gods and mysterious cults for games.

What do yall think?

 

[Emiricol]

I'd give a resounding "maybe".

First, I don't really agree that the evil gods are undermanned. They would be if all the good gods and neutral gods united against them, but the various factions of the gods have kept any one group from winning outright. And the evil gods pretty much set the tone for most of the Age of Gods, which was why the Overgod gave them an extra bit of time to run amok at the end of the Age of Gods. The evil gods got to play while the rest had to go sit in the corner and think about what they did!

Second, I don't want to open the flood-gates to adding gods all willy-nilly. We have most every base covered, after all. Now, if there is a specific need that can't be met with the existing pantheon, and if the god can be worked into the existing framework without revising other gods or the timeline (except possibly to add a mention or two of the new god to the timeline where appropriate) then I'd probably add my vote to the "go ahead" column.

Sounds like you have something specific in mind?

 

[Northman]

Actually, not at the moment. But it's come up a few times where I'd like to have created a minor god of this or that. Without having him tied to a god that has a lot of other stuff in his portfolio.

By the way, who created the god, Syri, god of cats?

 

[Emiricol]

I have no idea anymore I barely remember the gods I created hehe. You know what I would like to see? Rules for totem and/or ancestor worship. Those could be very personalized, after all, and fill any gap there is. Just a thought. And not a well-thought-out one yet either.

 

[DMEntropy]

I am mostly against adding new deities at this time. The deities we have flow together well through their relationships established in the Age of Gods. Adding stuff MAY work well and probably will not.

Ancester/Totem worship is an area that is completely unexplored in our world. It also opens up a whole *new* type of divine caster. If we add this it should be a complete system at its addition, not just one or two suggestions and the rest undefined.

I would rather see our creative efforts go towards fleshing out the world as is right now. Design cities/towns and important NPC's in them. That is what I feel we need the most at this time.

 

[Memnus]

Northman, I think Syri was created by the same founder that created Mittendien. So effectively, she falls to me. What do you need?

 

[Emiricol]

Sweet, I just found this thread: Old Gods List With Creators. It is a bit out of date maybe, but I think ol' Kognus put a lot of work into getting it into workable shape.

 

[Northman]

Thanks.

You know what, Entropy, if I had my druthers, you know what I'd have us do? I'd have us all concentrate on three kingdoms near each other, or even just one kingdom. And then focus on fleshing out each city, major town, sites, NPCs, organizations, etc.

We're so spread out, some kingdoms don't have CMs, and none of us have the time to really flesh out our kingdoms like we should.

If I could do it all over again, I'd have us focus on a much smaller scope then expand out as needed. The Thirteen Counties. The thirteen towns... I almost feel like if we get more CMs we should just have them concentrate on the kingdoms that are active and help flesh them out.

I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't type this late at night...

 

[DMEntropy]

NM I think you have a good point. I feel pretty isolated way out here in Kinrisar. I am trying to do just that in my kingdom, but time is short. It would be GREAT if we had more DM's as well. I cannot figure out why our expansion is so very slow to be honest.

 

[Silverglass]

I've been having a long hard think about the deities in relation to the points raised about Naeron and Chromatic Dragons.

I think we've got a serious hole in our campaign when it comes to "other" monster races and the deities they worship. The simple fact is that we have too few deities to cover all the bases in a coherent manner that hangs together without contradictions. So I think that we do need to create some form of deity that the monster races can worship. I think that the easiest way to do this is to add to the way that deities are worshipped rather than try and tinker with the system too much and add potentially minor deities.

So far we have structured 13K to say that all people worship deities which is in line with the PHB but that divine casters cannot be godless (which I also like). What I would suggest is that we refine this to allow divine casters to worship a portfolio. This is in effect worshipping a single aspect of the deity that holds that portfolio and thus we can allow larger alignment differences and the use of different names as per the MM descriptions.

The downside of this for the worshipper would be limited domain access and a very local "religion" but this would be in line with the expectations of ancestor/totemic worship. It also solves any potential questions that could be asked about why 2 sets of creatures that worship the same N or G Deity are fighting each other (somethingh the deity would likely discourage). What we would have is 2 totemic religions that are completely different but draw their power from the same portfolio so the deity doesn't get involved.

As to what happens when they die I think that they just inhabit the Underworld.

I think that the only work we would need to do is decide which domains match with which portfolio. Also we should consider removing shared portfolio's where we have them (which doesn't affect domains).

So for Naeron's creatures LE Chrmatic Dragons would worship Naeron, CE Chromatics would worship the Evil Dragons Portfolio, Troglodytes (CE) would worship the Saurian Portfolio. Lots of different Hunters could worship the Hunting Portfolio that is held by Horun even if they are evil.