D&D 5E The Gods in your Pantheon, Where Do They Live?

[Werehamster]

So, after reading a few of the threads on here regarding Pantheons and how they can be integrated into our campaign worlds, I was motivated to flesh mine out a bit more. I hadn't really done that to any great detail, and with a Cleric in the party I thought I was doing them a disservice by not having that completed.

So I wanted to have my Pantheon live in places that the party could actually get to at various points in their journeys, so I'm using the planes as locations for deities that make sense for them. Basically demiplanes within the planes are their domains. So Floridon the Creator lives in the Elemental Plane of Earth and his forge is under The Furnaces on the border of that and the Elemental Plane of Fire. So he can actually be found (if he wants to be) if the party ever goes there.

But this made me curious as to where your deities live within your campaigns?

I'm doing my first homebrew after taking a break for 15 years, and so I'm really just curious about how people are doing things. It's inspiration really.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Voadam]

I run a mashup homebrew setting with the reality of gods and cosmology a bit of a mystery. I have divine magic as a power source and all clerics are mechanically godless while many believe their power comes from gods directly and proselytize that as dogma.

So there are multiple pantheons worshiped and multiple contradictory views of the Cosmology and planes.

Mostly I like the 4e World Axis Cosmology and like islands in the Astral Sea as homes for most gods, but I am also fine with having elemental lords on the elemental planes/chaos, and things like Demon Lords and Archfey and Old Ones as gods who might live in other places (Is the abyss in the bottom of the Elemental Chaos or the outer planes? Feywild. Are the Old Ones out among the stars or beyond this reality trying to crack their way in?) and beings on the world worshiped as gods.

So whether Zeus is an Olympian god on the plane/astral island of Mount Olympus is possible, but also there is the view that Zeus was actually a storm giant on an actual mountain in the world who ruled in ancient times and was euhemerized into a mortal view of him as a god from another plane.

Dragon cults are also a thing in my world and your cult dragon might show up in your land or run the cult organization from his lair.

Some believe that little gods are everywhere, so every river and household has its own god who is there.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Wherever they want.

 

[Shiroiken]

Demigods dwell on their material plane, leaving them more vulnerable. Lesser gods have a domain, generally somewhere on an outer plane. Greater gods have multiple such domains, across several planes, most of which are hidden from mortal comprehension.

 

[Stormonu]

For my homebrew, Amberos, the gods live in domains within the outer planes. For example, Belli, Lord of Nature, lives in a place called Stonehold in the Beastlands.

I've surprised myself that I've actually done a bit of work about these realms. I thought I hadn't. For example, for Stonehold:

Spoiler

Stonehold is a mountainous structure created from a tent of rocks that sits in a valley of green. Two rivers run through the valley - The River of Death (Styx) and the River of Life (Lethe). The two rivers intermix at a single point in the center of the valley, creating a moat around Stonehold. A garden fills most of the basin of the valley, where wild creatures and the ancient druids who have passed on - and their families - dwell. The garden is said to be home to progenitors of every plant upon Amberos; according to legend were the progenitor plant to be maimed or kill, all plants of it kind would likewise die on Amberos. Likewise, the first and greatest of each animal dwells within the valley, and its permanent death would mean the end to the species it fostered. Consequently, the druids who dwell here guard the plants and animals vigorously, protecting them against harm. Because of special ceremonies known to them, all that live here can live off the bounty plant and animal provide, without permanently destroying the progenitors. However, outsiders who were careless not to perform the proper rites after killing or consuming the bounty of the progenitors risk the very real hazard of destroying the progenitor forever

The interior of Stonehold is spartan, almost cave-like. The walls are covered with stick-figure murals created by unknown hands showing ancient hunts, the gathering of crops, and other deeds and ceremonies. Deep within Stonehold lies a bier of stone, atop which someone has stacked great, flat slabs of granite to create a throne. The throne is covered with the pelts of a hundred animals and the feathers of a thousand birds - all said to have been contributed one each by the animals of the world. Behind the throne grows a great oak tree - The Tree Of Law; the first green thing to have grown on Amberos and transplanted here after Dhorian cut a branch from the tree in an attempt to bend the entire universe to his will.

 

[Bitbrain]

So, after reading a few of the threads on here regarding Pantheons and how they can be integrated into our campaign worlds, I was motivated to flesh mine out a bit more. I hadn't really done that to any great detail, and with a Cleric in the party I thought I was doing them a disservice by not having that completed.

So I wanted to have my Pantheon live in places that the party could actually get to at various points in their journeys, so I'm using the planes as locations for deities that make sense for them. Basically demiplanes within the planes are their domains. So Floridon the Creator lives in the Elemental Plane of Earth and his forge is under The Furnaces on the border of that and the Elemental Plane of Fire. So he can actually be found (if he wants to be) if the party ever goes there.

But this made me curious as to where your deities live within your campaigns?

I'm doing my first homebrew after taking a break for 15 years, and so I'm really just curious about how people are doing things. It's inspiration really.

Thanks in advance!

It depends on the setting, really.

For my Dark Sun campaign, there are no gods and clerics instead draw power from elemental spirits. So, basically, the Elemental Chaos.

For the upcoming Mystara campaign I’ve started working on, I wanted something very different, so I just streamlined and modified the module M3 Twilight Calling:

1. The Yellow Realm is the Plane of Law and Harmony. This is where all the sun gods live. It’s basically Mount Celestia mixed with Elysium.
2. The Purple Realm is the Plane of Imagination. This is where all the trickster gods live. It’s the Astral Sea in psychedelic colors.
3. The Green Realm is the Plane of Growth. This is where all the nature gods live. It’s the Feywild with less whimsy.
4. The Red Realm is the Plane of Strife. This is where all the war god live. It’s basically Avernus mixed with Valhalla.
5. The Black Realm is the Plane of Decay. This is where all the death gods live. It’s kinda-sorta the Shadowfell.

 

[Minigiant]

Well in the one setting that has gods that don't live on the Material Plane, they live in the Historically Fantastical Heaven and Underworlds

Olympus: The Ten Olympians (Demeter and Poseidon left)

Valhalla: The Aesir and Vanir minus Hel

Atlantis: Poseidon, Amphitrite, Abzu, Tiamat, Sobek, Bahamut,

Spiderverse: Ananzi and Lloth

The Endless Sands: Set, Garyx

North Underworld: Hel, Hlal

West Underworld: Mictlantecuhtli, Mictēcacihuātl, Xolotl

Southern Underworld: Hades, Persephone, Thanatos, Charon, Hecate, Demeter

The setting is basically the Greek setting but Zeus left the doors open and the Aesir, Ananzi, and Set invaded the lands the Olympians weren't watching (the cold north, the hot south, the warm west).

 

[Werehamster]

It depends on the setting, really.

For my Dark Sun campaign, there are no gods and clerics instead draw power from elemental spirits. So, basically, the Elemental Chaos.

For the upcoming Mystara campaign I’ve started working on, I wanted something very different, so I just streamlined and modified the module M3 Twilight Calling:

1. The Yellow Realm is the Plane of Law and Harmony. This is where all the sun gods live. It’s basically Mount Celestia mixed with Elysium.
2. The Purple Realm is the Plane of Imagination. This is where all the trickster gods live. It’s the Astral Sea in psychedelic colors.
3. The Green Realm is the Plane of Growth. This is where all the nature gods live. It’s the Feywild with less whimsy.
4. The Red Realm is the Plane of Strife. This is where all the war god live. It’s basically Avernus mixed with Valhalla.
5. The Black Realm is the Plane of Decay. This is where all the death gods live. It’s kinda-sorta the Shadowfell.

So how active in the day-to-day will the gods be? Do they ever visit the Prime Material Plane, or will they just be ruling from a distance?

 

[Werehamster]

Well in the one setting that has gods that don't live on the Material Plane, they live in the Historically Fantastical Heaven and Underworlds

Olympus: The Ten Olympians (Demeter and Poseidon left)

Valhalla: The Aesir and Vanir minus Hel

Atlantis: Poseidon, Amphitrite, Abzu, Tiamat, Sobek, Bahamut,

Spiderverse: Ananzi and Lloth

The Endless Sands: Set, Garyx

North Underworld: Hel, Hlal

West Underworld: Mictlantecuhtli, Mictēcacihuātl, Xolotl

Southern Underworld: Hades, Persephone, Thanatos, Charon, Hecate, Demeter

The setting is basically the Greek setting but Zeus left the doors open and the Aesir, Ananzi, and Set invaded the lands the Olympians weren't watching (the cold north, the hot south, the warm west).

This is a pretty cool idea actually...one pantheon encroaching on a completely separate one. Interesting how that would effect the populace on the Prime Material Plane. Massive wars on behalf of their gods could be a great backdrop for a campaign.

 

[S'mon]

Varies by campaign.

If it's Conanesque swords & sorcery, the gods aren't actually real (probably). That's my approach for Primeval Thule & Wilderlands. At any rate they certainly don't have 'homes'.

In Odyssey of the Dragonlords, the gods rule cities, walk around, accompany the PCs on their adventures.

In my Forgotten Realms, the gods probably have extra-planar residences akin to what's in the official FR lore.