D&D 5E Which Deities Should I Use?

[Herosmith14]

So, I am creating a campaign setting, and I'm in the midst of designing one of the more prominent cities, and, I won't lie, it's inspired pretty heavily by Vasselheim from "Critical Role." The main influencing is that it's an ancient city and religious focal point for followers of five or six different faiths.

The layout is inspired, somewhat, by the "City on the Hill." It's a tiered city built upon a, well, GINORMOUS hill. The idea is that there are 4 tiers and the top tier (or 5 tiers and the top tier, I haven't decided yet), and each tier would be devoted to a specific deity, and the mound has been hollowed out so that the cathedral/sacred shrine area for each tier is within the hill itself. The top tier would use an actual building, not a hollowed out section of the hill.

I'm having a little trouble choosing deities to be worshipped in the city, and am open to suggestions. So far I've chosen Tyr, who will probably inhabit the top tier, Solinari (second tier up), and a custom Death/Tempest domain deity called Barge, who, as is probably obvious, had a "Barge of the Dead" theming(base tier). I would like each tier to have a distinctly different feel, and, just so people know, I will probably ban deities of flat out war and combat, just so this city isn't too similar to Vasselheim (especially considering Tyr and Barge already kind of reflect Bahamut and The Raven Queen.)

One final note, I am not opposed to using deities from Pathfinder or other sources that aren't DnD.

 

[rgoodbb]

Critical Role = XP

Two tiers to choose for

Urban - Commerce, Trade, Money

Rural - Nature, Storm, Weather

Fortune - Luck, Misfortune

Fertility - Love, Families, Etc.

So many domains to choose from. Enjoy.

 

[Ath'kethin]

What about a diety of war that mixes it with a different spin? I'm specifically thinking of Athena, who was a goddess of both war and wisdom. I'd expect her worship to be radically different from that of, say, Tempus or Gruumsh.

You could also add Lovecraftian horrors into the mix; Azathoth was the god of pure unbridled destruction, Shub-Niggurath was the god(dess) of pure unstoppered creation, and Yog-Sothoth was the god of entropy and time. All were uncaring and paid no attention to their worshippers, but all were fundamental to existence and couldn't exist without the others.

 

[Ganymede81]

I've used the Greyhawk deities as default ever since 3rd edition. 5e is really Forgotten Realms heavy though, so that pantheon has more support in current supplements.

Add in a temple for every lawful, neutral, or good faith, and some out-of-the-way places or secret locations for the non-lawful evil faiths and the chaotic faiths.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I'm currently using both the greyhawk and FR deities. Pantheons have tons of overlap between portfolios anyway, so why not? This way I can run adventures set in either place.

The only thing I really need to do is write up a matrix of hostility/friendliness between all the faiths. I'll just generate it randomly: it doesn't need to be logical.

 

[Draegn]

In my world there are four groups of divine beings. The primordial beings of whom only the stars are worshiped by the light elves, the others being forgotten. The old gods who are raceless nature spirits such as The Green Man of the Wood, The Flower Maiden of the Field and so forth. Then the new gods who concern themselves with emotions and ideas. The Goddess of Love and Beauty, The God of War as examples. There are several pantheons based on Sumerian/Babylonian, Roman/Greek, Celtic/Finnish/Norse beliefs. The last group are ancient heroes or villains someone might call upon for help.

 

[Ancalagon]

One of the features of the campaign I'm running is that there are hundreds of deities.

It's... oddly liberating. None of them have to make sense, it's impossible to detail them all so no one expects me to, and I can create a cult on the spot with no concerns about any "why haven't we heard of them before?!?" questions from the PCs.