Unusual pantheon ideas, I need some help.

[Ferret]

I'm developing a new pantheon which will end up being unusual, at least compared to my experiences, as it won't be a very large pantheon. 13 gods is my current descision. Also, I don't want them to be 'other beings', removed from the races on the planet, rather they should be 'ascended', this is where my problems occur.

My main idea hat I had is that all the ascended are from 'a forgotten race' ascended to god-like status. This could work well because it adds some mystery (I was thinking of them having something like a rosseta stone), and also, because their are so few ascended it stops cleric from race A being limited to only a few gods. But then, do they worship those as gods? Do they simply draw magic from them? Would (it make sense if) the people worship gods that 'don't exist' and draw power from them? Do the clerics think they are gaining their powers though the false god, or do they know more then the general populace? Or do the ascended also accept worship from the general population?

Could it work so that the real gods are followed in a way similiar to the ancient Roman gods where each god can be worshiped when it applies to the worshipper? A prayer to dionyseus (my ancient gods aren't up to scratch, the god of parties) before a feast, on to the god of fertility when a baby is on the way etc. ?


Ok, aside from straight opinions on the above questions, has anyone out there done anything like this before? What did you finally decide on?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'm not sure I can help you but I can babble inchoherently about any given D&D topic, so maybe you can find some gems in this dross to point you in a given direction.

My feelings on pantheon design

* Limited portfolios. I can't stand gods with five or six spheres. What's the point of that? What choice is the player making? Why not just open everything up and let the player pick whatever he wants?

* No evil gods. How exactly would these last? Zombies eat brains. Who wants a cleric around that makes zombies? Unless you're in a Midnight like setting where evil has won, why wouldn't the good and neutral folks gang up on evil and smack it around like a pinata? Unless, of course, the neutral gods are from Dragonlance and try to keep good and evil in perfect balance (because apparently endless crusades are cool). Also, how do all those chaotic evil clerics get along? I'd hate to be at one of thier pot-luck lunches!

* People don't trust unkown gods. Gods in D&D give tangable power to people that are otherwise big chumps. I don't care if your god is called "The Happy Space Unicorn of Rainbows", if I never heard of your diety I'm not going to be in a welcoming mood.

Exceptions to the above

* Destan is cool. Destan has a thing where all his gods have Good, Evil, and War as domains. This creates a nice arena for conflict. Also, clerics can say that they are the good cleric of the Happy Space Unicorn and not an evil one. That jibes with me. People would come to trust the diety, but not the individual messengers, much like they would with wizards.

* Small gods. Otherwise known as the players-get-what-they-want church. I always let PCs make up their own faith if they want to. Note, however, that I don't allow evil PCs in my game and I really discourage chatotic neutral ones. If you let evil PCs in your game, don't use this option or you'll be overrun with junior satanists.



Just my two cents.

 

[Macbeth]

Let me sceond the small gods bit: even if you have a very limited pantheon, you might consider allowing local deities, possibly with a cap on the number of clerics they can grant spells too. This keeps the feel of a few very unique dieties, but it also opens up the field to new gods as you need them. And, it allows players to have a character serve a diety that they feel comfortable with, and add to the setting as they do it.

 

[Shallown]

I liked the way my last pantheon worked.

Basically you worshiped the Gods by intent and deed. The reason there were evil Gods is people did evil things. Think about itthis way. Every Lie you told, Every time you did something for the wrong reason you fed the God of lies and trickery.

Also everytime you helped someone up who had fallen or thought about donating some time to the needy the God of the hearth grew strong.

It helps explain why evil Gods exist with out tons of Churches for them. It explains why the paladin and cleric codes of ethics are so important.

It gives alignment a little bit more weight allowing someone who is lawful good to still do and occasional bad thing but they would know they just gave some power to a dark God.

Of course actions carry much more weigh than thinking/intent. It also allows for a paladin to do something wrong but not know about it. Such as accidently releasing a demon would not neccessarily be evil since it was not his intent but a result of his actions. So he would feel bad about it and try to rectify the mistake but it wouldn't be percieved as an evil act despite the results.

Demons, devils solars, angels etc are all smaller more focused examples of the Gods. They draw their power from the same source and are therefore of the Appriopriate aligment subtype.

Didn't mean to babble but I liked how the idea fits into the D&D way of doing things.

Later

 

[WayneLigon]

My main idea hat I had is that all the ascended are from 'a forgotten race' ascended to god-like status. This could work well because it adds some mystery (I was thinking of them having something like a rosseta stone), and also, because their are so few ascended it stops cleric from race A being limited to only a few gods. But then, do they worship those as gods? Do they simply draw magic from them? Would (it make sense if) the people worship gods that 'don't exist' and draw power from them? Do the clerics think they are gaining their powers though the false god, or do they know more then the general populace? Or do the ascended also accept worship from the general population?

If the Ascended have power over nature and people's lives (this one controls the harvest, this one causes people to fall in love, etc), then sure they'll be worshipped as gods - they are gods, despite having once been mortal. People will always worship something more powerful than themselves. The question is: do the Ascended get anything out of the deal? Do they answer prayers and grant powers, or are they more Greek-like: sometimes good, sometimes bad, always capricious, etc? Do they even need or care about worshippers? Do they get extra power from having X amount of whorshippers? If not, they probably grant powers to people people who can either give them something they want and for some reason cannot get for themselves, or who flatter them, or lower themselves in recognition of the Ascended's power. Maybe the Ascended don't need worship so much as propitiation; ie "If we don't sacrifice to Ardon, he'll send a wind to flatten the crops and ruin them. He might do so anyway if it pleases him, but if we don't offer up this bull's heart to him, then he certainly will do it."

You could have a few different scenarios here. Clerics are granted powers by the Ascended in order to carry out their will on Earth (the default). The Ascended have a lot of 'spill over' power that clerics have, through rituals, learned to 'harvest'.

 

[Torm]

In a homebrew I was working on a while back, I had a pantheon that had an equal number of good and evil deities - 6 of each, I believe - and one neutral goddess. The neutral goddess was, of course, the creator deity, and she no longer strictly speaking existed because she had been reborn as her own granddaughter through one of the good gods as one of the good six, AND through a rape had become one of her OTHER granddaughters and an evil goddess through the evil six. All three aspects of her - the Universe Mother, the good maiden, and the evil harpy - granted separate powers to clerics and their own divine champions, just as the other deities did. The way I had the 6 on each side worked out was that the evil 6 were "shades" of the good 6, so balance was maintained.

Then I had a smattering of demipowers - Eris the Discordant One, whose Clerics were all Chaotic Neutral and had some... interesting....features. Postus the Frog God - the Neutral Demigod of the Postal Service (My campaign had a paladin-like class called The Postman, who was charged with package delivery and had special powers associated with it.), and Five Neutral Element Guardians. (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Spirit)

Grab anything you like - I haven't followed up on any of this in so long it isn't funny. No really, its not. Stop that.

 

[Ferret]

Small gods, If I kept the dogma suitably vague then different churches can focus on diferent parts, therefore fulfilling(hopefully) the small god idea.

Destan, I like the idea that some consider the god of war to be brutish and war-crazy and others confident and comanding. I don't want the gods to be evil or good, rather they might work best, ambiguous

People don't trust unkown gods, I'm not sure how this would apply but it does make me need to explain the situation, The setting has three (plus significant subrace) races (each began away from the other, two are intergrated with the other), every one knows the same gods. This is unlike D&D where I doubt an orc would know pelor, or a human knows Kiaransalee. This is another reason I might choose them all to be from a dead race, it means that I don't need a reason why Joe [elf] knows about god from Fred [gnome] pantheon; the god is neither [elf] or [gnome]. But then who do the [goblins] worship? It helps that I want them to be much less intelligent. I digress...

No evil gods, See above: Destan

Limited portfolios, I haven't much to work with, but as I'm not going to make the gods very specific there won't be a god of libraries, good, justice and age. But with maybe fertility, affection, health.

On to my thoughts​

I should probably explain some more as well, I can see where people are filling in my gaps with expectations of D&D.

I want the settings equivalent of gods to have been users of magic that ascended portraying their most obvious traits (for lack of a better phrase). But they are set in stone, those are the gods, the gods are those. I wouldn't feel comfortable letting dieties being created here and there (Same as if I DMed a normal game). Not quite sure why but it doesn't feel right. I shouldn't have used god and ascended interchangably.

I might like if one actual god (like the gods from most settings, they are, and have always been.) Who set the others up as god-like beings.

Also I used square brackets to indicate a relative idea, as none of the core races exist in the setting I'm building. So when I said elf and gnome I just wanted to show the differences.

Things posted after I started writing and missed​

@WayneLigon: Thats my missing link, "the Ascended have power over nature and people's lives" I didn't think of that. But thinking now.... I don't want a direct influence from worsphiper to ascended, eg when you pray your son does well, he doesn't suddenly get top marks. More like subtle nudges, it should look like what is given could come anyway, from the above example, the child might develop into a strong fighter, or get knack for making pots.

In this respect they should be greek-like (yes?), your example seems like what I want. I don't want them to need to be worshiped though, the ascended would give the power to like minded people, so their ideals would be spread.

I'll need to think on the above though.

@Torm, that setup looks very greek, sex here, zeus doing it there etc. And quite complicated....

 

[Nightfall]

I'm not sure I can help you but I can babble inchoherently about any given D&D topic, so maybe you can find some gems in this dross to point you in a given direction.

My feelings on pantheon design

* Limited portfolios. I can't stand gods with five or six spheres. What's the point of that? What choice is the player making? Why not just open everything up and let the player pick whatever he wants?

* No evil gods. How exactly would these last? Zombies eat brains. Who wants a cleric around that makes zombies? Unless you're in a Midnight like setting where evil has won, why wouldn't the good and neutral folks gang up on evil and smack it around like a pinata? Unless, of course, the neutral gods are from Dragonlance and try to keep good and evil in perfect balance (because apparently endless crusades are cool). Also, how do all those chaotic evil clerics get along? I'd hate to be at one of thier pot-luck lunches!

* People don't trust unkown gods. Gods in D&D give tangable power to people that are otherwise big chumps. I don't care if your god is called "The Happy Space Unicorn of Rainbows", if I never heard of your diety I'm not going to be in a welcoming mood.

Exceptions to the above

* Destan is cool. Destan has a thing where all his gods have Good, Evil, and War as domains. This creates a nice arena for conflict. Also, clerics can say that they are the good cleric of the Happy Space Unicorn and not an evil one. That jibes with me. People would come to trust the diety, but not the individual messengers, much like they would with wizards.

* Small gods. Otherwise known as the players-get-what-they-want church. I always let PCs make up their own faith if they want to. Note, however, that I don't allow evil PCs in my game and I really discourage chatotic neutral ones. If you let evil PCs in your game, don't use this option or you'll be overrun with junior satanists.



Just my two cents.

Or you could just follow the ideas of the Divine and the Defeated. We have 8 major gods and 10 minor ones. Works out fine for me.

 

[VirgilCaine]

* No evil gods. How exactly would these last? Zombies eat brains. Who wants a cleric around that makes zombies? Unless you're in a Midnight like setting where evil has won, why wouldn't the good and neutral folks gang up on evil and smack it around like a pinata? Unless, of course, the neutral gods are from Dragonlance and try to keep good and evil in perfect balance (because apparently endless crusades are cool). Also, how do all those chaotic evil clerics get along? I'd hate to be at one of thier pot-luck lunches!.

Because uhh....Gods can't be killed, just taken down a few notches? There's always more demons and devils?

 

[Ferret]

I think he was saying anyone who followed an evil cleric would get kicked around like a football in the playground. Zombies or no he has a point.

Nightfall are you refering to the Small gods part? Then the small gods are the deafeated minor ones? Sound like a nice idea but i'm quite sure how I want the ascended to be, but not how that would, could and possible should effect things.