Pantheons-worldwide or local?

[driver8]

I ve been mulling over some Known World/Mystara stuff. Although they use Immortals, there seems to be quite alot of local or national gods.

Of course, versions of OD&D and AD&D didnt have to concern themselves with things like domains and such, so alot of this was for flavor.

What do you prefer in your campaigns? One uber pantheon like say in Eberron? Or a racially divided one? Or one divided along national lines?

 

[Nightfall]

I like Scarred Lands idea.

You get an uber panethon, some smaller gods that people trust more implicitally, and then you get rogues.

Mostly I like Scarred Lands.

 

[bolen]

Kalamar's various countries have different names for the same gods (like Greek and Roman)

 

[Nightfall]

Most of which is unprounounceable unless you take Dark Speech and Song of Creation.

 

[The Shaman]

I have a fixed number of deities some of whom are worshipped widely but often under different names in different region and some of whom are worshipped only in one or a few areas, as well as local quasi-deities whose power extends over a smaller area like a city, a forest, a lake, a river, and so on.

 

[S'mon]

I have national/cultural/racial pantheons (Egyptian, Norse, etc), though in cosmopolitan areas like ancient Rome these will tend to devolve into cults focussed on the more popular deities like Isis & Mithras.

 

[Staffan]

I like the Eberron method, with a small number of deities that are worshipped pretty much world-wide, but often under different names.

 

[S'mon]

I have "same deity/different names" or "two deities meet and merge" - what's actually happening is somewhat ambiguous, eg the Sky God Olorun is now identified with the Sky God Odin, but whether those were always aspects of the same Power, or distinct entities who merged over time, isn't clear. Also the perspective of PC deities (ascended mortals, like Thrin) will vary from the perspective of mortal PCs in the gameworld, and different cultures have different opinions - the elf PC didn't like being told that (according to humans) the elven gods were all created by the (human) forest god Daunaan-Silvanus, likewise the dwarf PC being told Moradin was created by the human earth-god Grun.

 

[Turanil]

What do you prefer in your campaigns? One uber pantheon like say in Eberron? Or a racially divided one? Or one divided along national lines?

In my own settings there are NO pantheons. I hate the idea of pantheistic religions as done in D&D. This mish-mash of medieval Church plus pantheon inspired from whatever and the kitchen sink don't appeal to me.

So, in my campaign, instead of a pantheon: one monotheistic faith (inspired by the Christian faith), and one nature religion (druidism) without deities to worship. As my campaign is C&C I don't have to bother aout domains. However, if I had to bother about domains for a d20 campaign, I would add a bunch of saints within the monotheistic faith to have a rationale for allowing a large choice of domains.

 

[Shades of Green]

I use local pantheons and faithes. The universe has many aspects that could be worshipped and many entities one could consider as Gods. The Humano-Dwarven three-god pantheon is quite different from Elven panthon or Renyan (Celiran and Human) quasi-monotheistic One Mother worship (though one could worship a specific aspect of her and some of her aspects are not good, a few are even evil).