Twenty plus one

[psionotic]

not really possible because most inspiration for gods comes from earlier non copyrighted sources like mythology.

Agreed. As in, the titan Prometheus who was chained by Zeus. This is a fairly common motif.

 

[Lanefan]

What's amusing to me about this 20 + 1 set-up for deities is that it reflects exactly what I dreamed up for my homebrew cosmology - (16 + 4 = ) 20 + 1 - only for different reasons.

Instead of each deity having its own specific spheres of influence, however, mine is built along 3 dualities - law-chaos, good-evil (so, 8 alignments ignoring true neutral), and male-female, giving 16 deities - a surprising number of whom are also in the projected 4e list given above. Then, there's 4 uber-deities; a male and female good and evil, who outrank the other 16. The remaining '1' represents true neutrality, and depending on one's outlook can be any "rank" in relation to the others.

All other deities are merely aspects and disguises of the 21; thus Tymora, for example, is simply an aspect of Luthien - the FemCN. 99.9999% of all Tymora followers/Clerics do not know this, however.

As presented, the 4e deities bear a striking systemic resemblance to the deity structure from Weis and Hickman's "Rose of the Prophet" series, to the point where I wonder if the 4e designers used this as a jumping-off point in design.

Lanefan

 

[The Little Raven]

The Abyss is the cancer that formed around his prison as his evil leaks from it.

At least this is how it will be in my world.

Well, if you didn't know, the core world assumes that Tharizdun searched the cosmos for a weapon for the gods to use against the primordials, and he found a "seed of pure evil." He launched that seed into the Elemental Chaos (the realm of the primordials), and instead of winning the war for him, it created the Abyss and demons.

And the gods chained him up for creating another mortal threat.

 

[Dragonblade]

Well, if you didn't know, the core world assumes that Tharizdun searched the cosmos for a weapon for the gods to use against the primordials, and he found a "seed of pure evil." He launched that seed into the Elemental Chaos (the realm of the primordials), and instead of winning the war for him, it created the Abyss and demons.

And the gods chained him up for creating another mortal threat.

I know. I just like the story of the mad god imprisoned beyond space and time.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Domains? No, but the areas of control were specifically rolled into adventurer-worthy gods.

So there *is* a god of Agriculture. Same with athletics, winter, snakes, etc. It's just that these gods are ALSO the gods of adventuring stuff. So the god of Agriculture is also the god of healing, the god of athletics is also the god of storms, the god of winter is also the god of death, the god of snakes is also the god of darkness, etc.

And this is a point that makes me very happy.

A good point. However, as revenge for proving me wrong, I am going to roll a wizard and have a glowing snake familiar. WHERE'S YOUR ZAHIR NOW?

(P.S.: "The Zahir" is an awesome short story.)

 

[Nahat Anoj]

IMC, during the war with the Primordials the Gods were desperate for a win. With or without their knowledge (I haven't decided yet), Tharizdun, a champion of the gods, hatched a plan to throw the seed of evil in the Elemental Chaos and corrupt it.

He did so, and he succeeded - the forces of the Primordials suffered immensely and lost the war. But as Tharizdun gazed on the vast abyss he created, it, too, gazed into him. He went insane, and his brethren chained him away (I'm not sure he'll be chained in the Abyss or not).

 

[HP Dreadnought]

hmmm a chained god imprisoned by the others, sounds alot like a certain god in a series of novels by the name of erikson to me, i hope they dont make that god abit to much like that one or i sense a lawsuit

I don't know what series you're referring to, but the definitive imprisoned mad god is Cthulhu. Everything else is just a pale imitation.

 

[pukunui]

I'm glad I found this thread. I was looking for a list of the 4e default deities. Hopefully we'll get a final list before June. I want to start building a new homebrew world to use with the new ruleset, but I imagine that if I start now, I'll have to make quite a few changes to it once I get the actual rulebooks in my hands. Even if they do give us more info on things like the deities before June, I probably still won't be ready to run a homebrew 4e campaign until August.

I'm not too fussed about the actual deities. I could always make up my own pantheon - or at least change their names. What I want to know is the relationship between the deities and their worshippers. Will clerics still be getting domains, for instance?

I've been wanting to make a world with an Eberron-like religion, where the existence of deities is a matter of belief and clerics can worship entire pantheons or churches rather than one specific deity. I'm not sure how that kind of system will look in 4e, either.

What I'm getting at is that I'm feeling like I won't really be able to do any serious work on a homebrew 4e campaign until after I get the rulebooks because there's simply too much unknown, both in terms of fluff and mechanics.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't know what series you're referring to, but the definitive imprisoned mad god is Cthulhu. Everything else is just a pale imitation.

Or you know Loki being chained up underground. He was pretty crazy too.

 

[pukunui]

Looks like Obad-Hai might be out ... the new Design & Development article on halflings is more or less the same fluff from R&C, but it now says they were created by Melora and Sehanine instead of Obad-Hai and Sehanine.