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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 5307280" data-attributes="member: 5142">The type of "pantheon" that I use for a setting depends on what I want to accomplish in that setting. In other words, What sort of aesthetic do I want to impart on the world? Despite this, I have noticed some reoccurring and recycled motifs through my scrapbook of homebrew settings. Sometimes these ideas exist alone, and sometimes they exist all meshed together. The Gods I tend to develop ontological ambiguity towards gods. The gods may not be "true gods" at all, just powerful forces and cosmic beings or entities that are worshiped as such. For example, in one setting, the ancient gods of polytheism are linked to the ancient titans that wandered the primeval earth. Early humanoids worshiped them as gods long after the titans died or disappeared from the world. Many humanoid cultures developed stories, mythologies, and expanded pantheons that evolved from their memory of the ancient titans. Yet many commonalities link the pantheons of different humanoid cultures. (Think Proto-Indo-European comparative religion.) These gods usually have certain parallels with Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, and/or Ancient Near Eastern pantheons. Worship of these old gods may either still be commonplace or replaced by newer religions in a given campaign setting. In one setting, the titan gods died against the primordials, but mortals believe that their spirits still rest in the earth, sustaining life, providing guidance and overseeing the natural world. Then later one religion may claim that all of these titans are facets of a singular god. Animism The veneration of ancestral and natural spirits (i.e., animism) is frequently prevalent in most campaign religions. This is influenced by real world folk religions, commonly featured in major ancient religions apart from the state-sponsored cultic religions of the gods. People venerate the spirits for real metaphysical consequences, namely the Reincarnation or Cosmic Cycle. That is, you pray and offer sacrifices to the spirits of nature to gain their blessing or appease their wrath. You pray and offer sacrifices to ancestral spirits to ease their passing in the spirit world (i.e., the Shadowfall), where they will rejoin the Well of Souls and await reincarnation. You do not want fallen spirits, whether ancestral or natural, to come back as haunting malicious spirits, possess the corpses of the dead, or worse - to become completely corrupted and transform into a demon. Demons are corrupted spirits that seek the destruction of Cosmic Cycle. Angels and Devils and Manichaean CosmologiesIn many of my homebrew mythologies, angels and devils were born out of an infinite abyssal chaos (the astral sea) as one singular celestial race of beings. These celestials viewed the (non-theistic, non-anthropomorphic) Entity of Chaos as a divine principle or god, if you will. (Yet is questionable whether or not the Universe can be called 'god' at all.) Two camps emerged from this celestial race based upon how they perceived their relation to the Entity. One camp believed that the divine plan/formula they perceived in the fabric of the Entity was to be maintained and preserved. They became subjected to the created order. The other camp believed that the divine plan/formula they perceived in the fabric of the Entity gave them the power to rule over the created order as they saw fit. What's more is that they believed they could change the formula to their leisure. They subjected the created order. And in the Astral Sea/Abyss, consciousness shapes form; that is, form follows function. The first camp became more uniform and disembodied in their appearance, and this first camp became angels. The second camp became more individualistic and embodied in their appearance, and this second camp became devils. Both angels and devils believe that they follow the dictates of the Divine Principle. So to most mortals who are unaware of the origins of the cosmic divide, essentially everyone, the object venerated by angels and devils appear as two separate warring entities or gods. Humanoid races are frequently brought into this cosmic struggle. Prophets may have apocalyptic visions of angelic courts or visits from angels, then prophesying a religion of order, light, and truth that stands apart from evil, darkness, and falsehoods. Or devils may empower and encourage mortals who equally lust for power and dominion. Multiple religions may exist surrounding these different approaches or theological interpretations of this cosmic struggle.</blockquote>

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