Haltherrion
First Post
A post in another thread suggesting a pantheon per continent got me wondering about folk’s methods in their homebrew campaigns and my own tendencies and biases in mine.
On the mechanics of the divine, how much effort do you put into how divine magic works, how much or little the gods can interfere in mortal affairs, where the gods come from, possibility and method of new gods arising, interaction among the gods and the like?
On the gods themselves, how do you select, create and arrange them? Do you draw on Earth gods directly or indirectly? Do you draw on fiction or published settings? Do you have multiple pantheons, factions, hierarchy? Are the gods tightly associated with a trade, art, race or other domain? Or are they divine beings first and domain associations are secondary? Something else? Do you have regional and racial gods? Other methods of interest?
Over the years I’ve tended towards ‘domain’ based gods where you have patrons of various endeavors or races, fairly classic for D&D. Sometimes I’ve created fairly detailed mechanics although I’ve found that that effort is usually of limited value in-game. Don’t think I’ve ever created a pantheon per continent or region, I like my gods more integrated into some sort of whole but it would be an interesting basis for a setting.
For theological convenience, I often have some prime mover ‘above’ the gods the PCs don’t see. Often this is just a placeholder but in one campaign, the prime mover was a named being who held an irregular conclave of gods during which gods could propose mortals for divinity, gods who meddled overly in the world could be ‘interdicted’, and other such matters were decided.
One recent world had only two gods, one of whom had broken the world to protect it from the demon followers of the other god. Both were interdicted and the campaign revolved around the end of the interdict and the coming back together of the world. (I like the concept of divine interdict: what happens when patronage is interrupted.)
The current campaign has only 12 gods created only 300 years ago from the 12 surviving firstborn who had battled for supremacy. In this one, the gods are lightly associated with domains and pursuits. They are known more by their philosophies and what regions they ruled as mortals.
Campaign before that, I didn’t put much effort into the divine aspects and it was PHB standard gods.
On the mechanics of the divine, how much effort do you put into how divine magic works, how much or little the gods can interfere in mortal affairs, where the gods come from, possibility and method of new gods arising, interaction among the gods and the like?
On the gods themselves, how do you select, create and arrange them? Do you draw on Earth gods directly or indirectly? Do you draw on fiction or published settings? Do you have multiple pantheons, factions, hierarchy? Are the gods tightly associated with a trade, art, race or other domain? Or are they divine beings first and domain associations are secondary? Something else? Do you have regional and racial gods? Other methods of interest?
Over the years I’ve tended towards ‘domain’ based gods where you have patrons of various endeavors or races, fairly classic for D&D. Sometimes I’ve created fairly detailed mechanics although I’ve found that that effort is usually of limited value in-game. Don’t think I’ve ever created a pantheon per continent or region, I like my gods more integrated into some sort of whole but it would be an interesting basis for a setting.
For theological convenience, I often have some prime mover ‘above’ the gods the PCs don’t see. Often this is just a placeholder but in one campaign, the prime mover was a named being who held an irregular conclave of gods during which gods could propose mortals for divinity, gods who meddled overly in the world could be ‘interdicted’, and other such matters were decided.
One recent world had only two gods, one of whom had broken the world to protect it from the demon followers of the other god. Both were interdicted and the campaign revolved around the end of the interdict and the coming back together of the world. (I like the concept of divine interdict: what happens when patronage is interrupted.)
The current campaign has only 12 gods created only 300 years ago from the 12 surviving firstborn who had battled for supremacy. In this one, the gods are lightly associated with domains and pursuits. They are known more by their philosophies and what regions they ruled as mortals.
Campaign before that, I didn’t put much effort into the divine aspects and it was PHB standard gods.
