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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voadam" data-source="post: 9308721" data-attributes="member: 2209">I do a homebrew mashup campaign with elements from a bunch of settings that I like.I go for a bit of a Conan feel in the world, lots of areas with multiple cultures and religions, some will involve overlap and local variations, so 4e warrior Bane in one place is different from FR tyrant Bane in another area and Greek Ares has similarities and differences from Roman Mars. I use a lot of Golarion mixed with <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/356842/a-player-s-guide-to-ptolus?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Ptolus</a> for geographic and cultural stuff plus others, with a bunch of settings mixed in as aspects from different time periods. So there is a lot of individual nations with some being adapted as provinces of the big Lothian Empire and covering a bunch of cultural areas with a Mediterranean and European focus with a bunch of fantasy Africa and middle east as well plus fantasy stuff like Orcish badlands and such.I use a lot of existing pantheons (both D&D and real world) for different areas but a big Henotheistic official state religion of an ascended paladin for a big part of the setting, the Holy Lothian Empire from Ptolus, covering about two thirds of my northern continent. This allows a fantasy medieval catholic church type of setup for all the typical medieval religious tropes to be used particularly for cleric and paladin types and a familiar western base to build off of with churches and church relationships and saints and such. This also allows a single point of easy to grasp relevant religious stuff to learn for the campaign if players don't want to dive into a lot of religious lore stuff.The henotheism aspect and stuff outside of the empire means the typical ancient world/Norse/fantasy polytheism can come in and players who want to be different can do so alongside the fantasy medieval church and make their fantasy polytheism and religions in whatever form is comfortable for them, mini themed fantasy churches or more polytheistic or other models.I use a lot of existing pantheons and do a lot of syncretism in my world building. Ptolus, Golarion, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Elric, Warhammer, Spiros Blaak, Airdhe, Scarred Lands, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Cthulhu Mythos, Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Babylonian, and others have been used. I have also run with stuff players have proposed or wanted to bring in.For non humans I like to have multiple cultures and multiple pantheons and religion similar to humanity.So for elves there are the typical D&D Seldarine pantheon of Correlon and such, a different pantheon from Troll Lords Games' <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/362927/castles-crusades-gods-legends?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Airdhe setting,</a> Lothianism for an elvish imperial province with some syncretism from the Airdhe Lothian elven demigod, and so on. For Dwarves there are different versions of Moradin and his pantheon, a homebrew pantheon one of my players found on the web in the early 2000s, ancestor hero worship, Norse pantheon like in Order of the Stick or <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/105276/midgard-campaign-setting?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Midgard</a>, some aspects of <a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3171/spirosblaak-3-5?affiliate_id=17596" target="_blank">Spiros Blaak</a> mixed into Lothianism, and so on. For orcs there are the Gruumsh stuff, Klingon mythology, Golarion stuff, Warhammer stuff, and for a while in one campaign I ran different groups of orcs the PCs encountered kept worshiping different one-eyed gods, Balor of the Evil Eye, Talos, Vecna, Odin. I have a cosmology where divine spellcasters tap divine power so while church dogma and a lot of people may believe the gods grant divine caster magic, divine casters are just different traditions of spellcasting that tap divine power. So there are divine spellcasting traditions of animists and shamans and philosophies and secret occult societies and cults in addition to theistic churches or temple priests.Druids for example can be worshipers of nature, worshipers of nature gods, a secret society, weather mages, Ars Magica bjornaer style order mages, animists, shamen, old one cultists, witches, and other framings.Gods might be divine beings, non-divine beings, or not real at all. Spellcasters get powers from practicing their divine magic tradition regardless.I even have some in game Lothian theology theories about possible euhemeristic origins of certain pantheons such as Zeus being a storm giant, Hephaestus a fire giant, etc.So I also have cults devoted to dragons and giants and outsiders. In my current group I DM two are members of a dragon cult and it is not clear whether the dragon Aasterinian is an actual divine being dragon god, or a specific copper dragon who lives someplace in the world.I have had direct interactions in my campaigns with beings who might or might not be gods, Garl Glittergold, Hel, Erastil/Stag, and an AI monster truck with a cult stand out and the ambiguity of their actual nature has been fun.</blockquote>

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