What deities am I missing?

[HellHound]

You can probably get away with less than that, if you're going with broad portfolios.

God of Destruction (Pain, Undeath)
Goddess of Nature (Death, Life, Time, Space)
Goddess of Revelry (Love, Rest)
Goddess of Society (Work, Mind, Justice)
Goddess of Magic

The goddess of Nature is your overarching creator deity, the god of Destruction your prime evil force; they represent Good and Evil though it might be more interesting to have the Goddess be Neutral. Revelry and Society could represent Chaos and Law respectively, expecially if you add Trickery or something like that to Revelry.

I would even go so far as to split up the Magic into the porfolios of the others. Destructive magic belongs to No1, Nature magic to No2, and so on.

 

[Roman]

Interesting ideas... I am now somewhat tempted to combine some of the deities, but on the other hand I want a world with a finite and pre-defined number of deities that cover all the bases, but still provide a reasonable degree of choice for clerics, so I will probably not diminish their number.

Any other ideas on missing portfolios or portfolios which should not be reasonably subsumed into the above list of deities?

 

[Jhaelen]

I have the following deities in my campaign world:

God of Destruction
God of Pain
Goddess of Death
God of Undeath
Goddess of Nature
God of Life
God of Work
Goddess of Revelry
Goddess of Love
God of Justice
Goddess of Society
God of Time
Goddess of Space
God of Rest
Goddess of Magic
God of Mind

Given the above list, do you think there are still some important areas that I have not covered? If so, what are they?

Well, some of the areas on that list are extremely odd and aren't well suited to a medieval (or earlier) mindset. Concepts like Space and Time are quite modern and too abstract - why should anyone worship one of these deitites?
What's the God of Rest supposed to cover?

The most glaring omission imho is a Trickster god, unless your goddess of revelry is supposed to cover that, as well.

Combining and/or negating some of those concepts is definitely something you should consider. A common combination is e.g. God of Life/Death - it's just two sides of the same coin.

But it's difficult to give you concrete advice since the kinds of deities that are worshipped, and the areas that are deemed most important are really a function of a given culture.

 

[GSHamster]

One idea is to think up different people and say "who would this person worship?" If none of your gods seems like a nice fit, then you have a hole in your pantheon. If too many people are worshipping the same god, you probably should break up that god's portfolios.

Who would a farmer worship?
Who would a soldier worship?
Who would a sailor worship?
Who would a blacksmith worship?
Who would a scribe worship?
Who would a housewife worship?
Who would a merchant worship?

etc.

 

[Jin_Kataki]

Steve God of Biscuits

 

[Tonguez]

Well, some of the areas on that list are extremely odd and aren't well suited to a medieval (or earlier) mindset. Concepts like Space and Time are quite modern and too abstract - why should anyone worship one of these deitites?

Not True

Kronos and Saturn are both gods of Time (probabaly arising from an association with Seasons and Harvests)
Nut is an Egyptian goddess of Space (The Starry Sky)
Waatea is the Polynesian god of Space-Time (which were consider to be the same 'place') - Waatea is considered to be the Sky-Father

 

[Tonguez]

btw I always liked TPratchetts

Oh My God! of Hangovers

 

[Roman]

Well, some of the areas on that list are extremely odd and aren't well suited to a medieval (or earlier) mindset. Concepts like Space and Time are quite modern and too abstract - why should anyone worship one of these deitites?

I simply thought these concepts so fundamental that they need to have their own gods. To my surprise, one of my players in the upcoming game has decided to play a cleric of space and for a while could not decide between gods of time and space.

Note: The game is played in the Slovak language. I did my best to do one-word translations of the deific 'portfolios' to English, but sometimes inaccuracies can ensue. For example, the word 'space' in English is ambiguous and can cover both the 'universe' and space as a 'set of dimensions' - the word in Slovak applies to the set of dimensions only. I have also given the goddess of space the portfolios of travel, though I am not sure how appropriate that is...

What's the God of Rest supposed to cover?

Rest, sleep, dreaming, recuperation, etc. I also conceived of him as the 'good good of death' with 'death as the final rest', as opposed to the goddess of death being the 'evil goddess of death'.

The most glaring omission imho is a Trickster god, unless your goddess of revelry is supposed to cover that, as well.

Well, the goddess of revelry was indeed supposed to cover that too, but two people have mentioned this now (you mentioned the trickster god and Starglim mentioned the god of thievery), so it probably does not fit as well under revelry as I initially thought.

 

[Roman]

One idea is to think up different people and say "who would this person worship?" If none of your gods seems like a nice fit, then you have a hole in your pantheon. If too many people are worshipping the same god, you probably should break up that god's portfolios.

Who would a farmer worship?
Who would a soldier worship?
Who would a sailor worship?
Who would a blacksmith worship?
Who would a scribe worship?
Who would a housewife worship?
Who would a merchant worship?

etc.

Good questions!

I guess here would be my attempted answers:

Farmers worship: god of work or goddess of nature
Soldiers worship: god of destruction or god of justice
Sailors worship: goddess of nature or goddess of space
Blacksmiths worship: god of work
Scribes worship: god of mind or god of time
Housewives worship: goddess of love or goddess of society
Merchants worship: god of work or goddess of revelry
Foragers worship: goddess of nature

Hmm, I guess the most worshiped seem to be the goddess of nature and the god of work. The broadest porfolio is probably that of the goddess of nature.

 

[Nifft]

IMC Death gets one god, and that god is LN. Good people worship a "good restful god" aspect, while evil people send expiation to an all-consuming destroyer. Who is right? Well, let's have a war and find out!

Cheers, -- N

EDIT: Thus, I have only six gods. This is enough IMHO for people to find a guy to identify with, but few enough that there can be lots of intra-church conflict.