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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4680826" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yes.  And quite a few Finnish transplants as well.  Random entries from the Deities & Demigods made to fit specific game roles.Artemis's role as patron of hunters was part of her veneration but she was much more than that.  Artemis was primarily venerated as the goddess of maidens and child birth.  She was also the moon goddess.  If she was just the goddess of 'hunting' she wouldn't be particularly interesting.Athena is the patron of heroes generally, but not necessarily Paladins except perhaps as the most prudish of the gods.  Many of her favorites are noted liars and tricksters.  She's also the goddess of wisdom and the patron of philosophers, students, and teachers.  She's also the goddess of war.  She's also, conversely, the goddess of modesty.  She's also the goddess of technology and invention.  In other words, she's got a rather robust portfolio.Demeter was an agricultural goddess, and not necessarily a goddess of nature generally (as Artemis would have held sway over the wild hills and forests).  But, she was also the goddess of the seasons and time, and therefore, also the goddess to which ritual was entrusted.  And this begins to touch into the fact that Demeter is the middle portion ('mother') of a triad goddess.Zeus wasn't the god of adventurers, but the god of Kings and rulers, and hense also hosts, hospitality, and therefore also guests.  Zues was also the God of Truth and Honesty, and hense in some ways perhaps a better Paladin god than Athena - unless of course you count the lack of faith he kept in his own oaths to his spouse Hera (go figure).  And Zeus is also the sky and as a rain god, also the god of male fertility.Anyway, the point of all this is that while we could work out which figure was the god of which D&D class, we'd do so by distilling down a pretty complex portfolio (and personality) and trying to make it fit to D&Disms.  I'm inclined to think that the reverse happened (to the extent it happened at all), with the Forgotten Realms deities, where you started out with some D&Dism and a stripped down deity - merely an entry in the Deities in Demigods - was made to serve this specific purpose and this purpose only.</blockquote>

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