What religious pantheon do you use?

[Lanefan]

I've spent a lot of time figuring out a universal pantheon for D+D; now I have it, I can dream up deities for any setting and slot 'em in with ease.

I have 21 prime powers, all of whom are known deities (I picked a few from each major pantheon including Dwarvish, Elvish, demonic, various Human, etc.) and each of whom has a sphere to call his/her own.

There are 5 major powers - one pure Neutral and 4 along the male-female/good-evil axes. Beneath these are 16 more, a male and female for each of the 8 non-pure-Neutral alignments (LG, NG, CG, etc.). Every other deity in the game is merely an aspect of one of these 21.

It's always fun whenever I run a campaign to watch as players eventually figure out who the real powers are. For example, the Female Good (one of the 5 major powers) is best known on the prime material as Mimosa, a relatively minor Hobbit agriculture goddess! Her sphere is Hobbits; she took them in when no-one else would have them, and fiercely defends them against all.

In case you're wondering, the Male Good is Moradin (Dwarvish pantheon; sphere is males); the Female Evil is Hel (Norse; sphere is the dead); and the Male Evil is Dispater (devil; sphere is the underworld). The true Neutral power has many names - "God" is but one - and prefers to generally stay in the background in any case.

That said, when I'm runnng a campaign I usually put together about half a dozen full pantheons: Elvish, Dwarvish, Hobbit, Gnome, and three or so Human ones depending what cultures will likely be represented (in my current campaign those are Greek, Norse, and Celtic). I try to make sure in any given pantheon there's at least one deity for each alignment, or close; and the main pantheons tend to stay similar enough from one campaign to the next I really only have to worry now about local deities or individual tweaks for setting.

Lanefan

 

[Wepwawet]

I love the ancient egyptian approach: there's basically one God. Or two, if you separate the male and female principles.
Then, all gods are manifestations of the One (or the Two) and all of them get completely mixed up. For example, you even see Ra talking with his Eye as a separate identity; Hathor (the cow goddess) and Sekhmet (the lioness goddess) are different, but sometimes they are the same goddess...

So, I have a very free-form approach to pantheons and I tend to be inspired by the egyptian pantheon.

For the bad guys I like to use radical monotheists who believe all other gods are false.

 

[DragonLancer]

Depends on the setting I am using. When running generic scenarios or campaigns with no fixed info, I use the Norse pantheon usually.

 

[fba827]

Depends.

-If I'm using a published campaign setting (which i rarely, rarely ever do) then I use its pantheon
-Occasionally, I've even said that there is only one deity (I reserve this for the campaign after one which was just heavily focused on religions so as to provide a change of pace in the next campaign)
-And sometimes I make up my own pantheon (because it keeps the players from assuming they know/understand all the details and allows more creative liberty if I had a particular plot in mind)

But, the majority of the time in the most recent campaigns I've done, i use the default generic pantheon in the PHB -- why?

because unless I have some special campaign hook in mind, the default generic pantheon is a) easier for the players to remember b) easier for me to remember c) is often more thematically-supported with prestige classes/paragon paths ... true, it's easy to reskin them for equivalent gods of another name, but sometimes it just has some combination of flavors that make it just better for the given default.

 

[Cor_Malek]

My preference is to have cleric come up with who their god is, and if he believes that there are others. I treat PHB table of deities as template, and list of gods as filled examples. Of course everyone is more than welcome to worship gods who's followers have major organizations in homebrews we're playing in

My reasoning being, that there's only oh so much you can think of when it comes to religion, no matter how special you think it is. Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, Donar. Poteyto, potatoh. So for me, RPG gods come with an area of expertise, alignment and domains. You can go wild with the fluff, and most other clerics of similar deity will recognize that the system is similar, even if name and some pictures are different (not always though, infighting can be fun =) ).
I prefer several monotheistic systems instead of polytheistic ones though, for which I use some basic, popular setups (fertile, matriarchal female goddess, a patriarchal lightning-happy LG god, a largely neutral god of roads/winds, etc). It forces the cleric to be more... you know, cleric-ish. You're travelling, do some damn job and help heathens! Recruit someone, fight for your God's good name. If your God wanted to get involved in goblincide, he'd he'd give dogs a poison gland.
I like to think of clerics in party as missionaries.

To give examples of on the fly adjustment (as I've never used Greek pantheon): Pelor-Apollo, Fharlanghn - Hermes (he'd also cover for Olidamarra, although this cult would have to be secret), Yondalla-Dionysus and Demeter, Gruumsh and Corellons would be catch-all's for barbarians, Ehlonna - Artemis, Kord - Ares, Moradin - Hephaistos, etc. Whatever's your game

I play around with using Gothic cRPG series deities as well - a pretty much classic, dualism setup: three brothers - Beliar, god of darkness, Innos, god of light, and Adanos, god of balance. There's plenty of art and text to use with them, without the need to dwell with real, complex system.

 

[DumbPaladin]

In our current game, we simply use the standard PHB pantheon, but I have to say I have most enjoyed using the Greek/Roman pantheon because it let me utilize my knowledge of mythology so effectively, and for flavor.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My last campaign world was monotheistic; Asura the many faceted one was the only god. However, there were many schisms within the church of Asura, and as a result there were Lawful Evil paladins of Asura duelling with Lawful Good paladins of Asura; there were priests of every alignment running temples of every alignment.

It made for an appealing set up.

edit: I forgot, you also had lovecraftian Great Old Ones in the mix too - worshipped by mad cultists, but there were no clerics of them; why would Cthulhu grant power to ants?

 

[Nagol]

I make the choice based upon the campaign world I expect.

Currently, the campaign world had a variety of pantheons. The players are aware of Greek (based in the crumbling empire to the east), Norse (based in the more vibrant smaller kingdoms to the west, Finnish (older, more barbaric religion practiced in the surrounding savage lands).

Others exist, but are generally small cults and the PCs haven't encountered them.

In the past, I've used Celtic, Indian, and Babylonian.

 

[KingSoft]

A quote from MadLordOfMilk asking me to give examples of some of my deities, so here comes the copy and pasted wall of txt.

If you could, I'd greatly appreciate it! I actually found your post pretty inspirational, and you seem to have a lot of the same feelings I do. Thanks in advance!

I don't clam to be very original but i think my gods are at least interesting. My work is also not finished, but good homebrew stuff never is . So if anybody has any good ideas to add on i am all ears. Also i am lazy and a lot of this is copy and paste from my notes.

Notice I used the phrase common cleric alignments, clerics can be any alignment as long you have true faith. Also the entries are not made with any particular rule system in mind (i use a wacky point build thing my players came up with)



The Phoenix
Titles: Fire Bird, The Sun God, the Sun
Portfolio: Sun (he is the sun), Light, Fire, Life, (beauty sort of)
Holy Symbols: A stylized red bird.
Dogma: To bring the light and life to all places.
Common Cleric Alignments: LG, NG, CG
Worshipers: Healers, undead haters, the common man (he’s the freaking sun)
Sacred: High flying birds, the dawn, beautiful places
Cleric Magic: Burning people, Healing, Flight

The Phoenix is the sun if people look up in the sky and squint real hard you see a gigantic flaming bird. The deity has been around as long as people can remember, and many consider it to be one of the primordial elemental entities. The phoenix is a kind deity, but somewhat fickle he doesn't show up every day (he has a social life in the outer planes too), and counties who displease him will not receive his light.

Worshipers of the phoenix try to emulate there god and benevolently bring light to the people of the world every day. Clerics disagree on exactly what this means do you heal the sick, hunt undead, or bringing light to the under-dark.



The Great Serpent
Titles: The Eternal Sentry, Ward of Mortals, Guardian of the World
Portfolio: Planer Axioms (Pact Primeval), Guardians, Protection, Divine Concords, Law
Holy Symbols: A snake in a circle (original I know)
Dogma: The axioms of the Multiverse must be obeyed. This land is for the Mortals.
Common Cleric Alignments: LN, LG, LE
Worshipers: Guardians, Planewalkers, Gatekeepers
Sacred: His trench is the most holy site. Also snakes.

(the Pact Primeval is an agreement between the outsiders of law, and governs the outer planes. For example the rule about outsiders needing to be invited into the prime)

The Serpent is a Gigantic snake about 1 mile wide. He uses his huge body to make a huge trench around the world, (in my world the mortal world is directly connected to the elemental planes) The trench is the physical marker where outsiders and powerful immortals will not cross. If you walk across the trench you can have a chat with a baatezu.

He is sometimes seen reinforcing the trench, this is an holy event by his cult.



The Twelve
Titles: The dead gods, the divine counsel, mediator of the gods, the mourning lords.
Portfolio: Peace, Agreements, Diplomacy, Sorrow, Guilt, Undead who can’t move on.
Holy Symbols: 12 linked rings
Dogma: War will lead to an endless cycle of destruction; only by taking responsibility for ones sins can the cycle be stopped. Compromise and take on the suffering of others.
Common Cleric Alignments: LG, NG, CG
Worshipers: Diplomats, those who seek peace or compromise, people suffering under the weight of their sins, undead unable to find peace.
Sacred: Neutral ground, violating neutral ground (or a peace flag) blessed by the 12 will bring their wrath.
Notes: The 12 gods were all people from a prime destroyed by war.
Common Titles of Priests: Councilor
Cleric Magic: Summon undead, Crushing Despair, Sanctuary

(the 12 are an example of an ascended mortal(s). I picked the number 12 because it symbolizes cooperation, because it can be divided so many ways, this is why 13 is an unlucky number because the 13 person is always left out )

In my prime would there was a horrible war that started and was propagated by 12 warlords, the war keep escalating until the land they were fighting over and the warlords themselves were destroyed.

Out of the ashes they rose as gods and banded together and vowed to serve the cause of peace.

The 12 are gods of diplomacy because that is their purpose. They are gods of undead because they are undead themselves, and have a strong connection with undead that are not able to let go and pass on (gods of ghosts not hungry zombies). The sorrow that surrounds the 12 and their holy sites, and the priests is not something the 12 choose to do, but a byproduct of their guilt. Even people who the 12 are pleased with feel sadness in their temples, however clever priests have used this as a weapon.



Chimera
Titles: The wild one, the stalker, the render
Portfolio: Animals, Hunting, Fighting, Monsters, Bloodlust, Hunger
Holy Symbols: Varies by area, always a combination of local powerful beasts
Dogma: Fight or die. Kill or be killed.
Common Cleric Alignments: CE, CN, N
Worshipers: Hunters, People who live by the sword, Niska
Sacred: Powerful animals (especially monsters), and chimerical beasts
Notes: He is the baddest dude in the pantheon in combat.

DnD has an unnecessary amount of unusually horrible monsters, (just flip through the MM), and the Chimera is their god. Chimera is not evil just really hard and unforgiving (like nature).



Yggdrasil (Norse myth)
Titles: The world tree, the Green Man
Portfolio: Plants, trees, agriculture, creation, travel
Holy Symbols: A tree, or a face made out of plants.
Dogma: Life is possible because of plants, respect them and they will be good to you.
Common Cleric Alignments: NG, CG, N
Worshipers: Farmers, Woodsmen, nature lovers.
Sacred: All plants and nature, but old trees are the most important.

He is closest god I have to a creator, because legends say "he" grew the multiverse like a normal tree grows fruit. He has no real objectives other then grow, but people consider him kind because plants give so much.

He is the god of travel because like in Planescape his roots spread across the multiverse and you can walk/climb to reach different planes of existence. Also the Phoenix lives on top of him.


All the gods i have listed so far tolerate each other, but i do have some truly evil gods that serve no positive purpose and all the other gods dislike, but I have ranted long enough already.

If i want to talk about my pantheon any more i should start my own thread.

 

[Barastrondo]

Homebrew. Two pantheons, to be specific: one "astral," one "fundamental." The former is primarily associated with stars and the firmament, the second with the elements and the world. And both pantheons take on numerous masks by culture, so Goreador, Koread, Gjordr and Ashapon are all facets of the same guy, just as the dwarves' concept of Madramaugr the devouring fire-dragon god attaches to the same god as the drakhan idea of Hakasarre the Curved Flame, their patron deity of fire, battle, smithing and feasting.

Basically, I like cultural pantheons, but I also like having a fairly notable "truth" behind them. I'd never ask my players to try to remember all the names and all the masks the gods might have, or even all the "true gods"; mostly they're there so I can zoom in on a campaign area and customize the local religion as need be.