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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackwind" data-source="post: 3754296" data-attributes="member: 1205">Well, I would never create a pantheon made up of Thor, Anubis, Quetzalcoatl, Coyote, etc.  I agree that would be stupid.  My approach would actually be to import some of the more important members from each of several pantheons and assign them to different cultures, with perhaps a little overlap and syncretism (just like in real life) and then throw in some D&D classics.  For example, in the snow-swept Kingdom of Hrythig, the main gods are Odin, Thor, Freya, Loki, Hela, etc.  Some of the more obscure ones I wouldn't bother to include, really.  But beneath yonder mountain there might be a secret cult of Asmodeus.  Dwarves would favor Thor as well.  The point is to have deities with name recognition.  Elves might worship Cernunnos or even Artemis/Diana instead of Corellon Larethian.  Far off to the south there might be a desert kingdom where the main deities are Isis, Osiris, Horus-Ra or Amon-Ra, Set, etc.  And then you get things like temples of Amon-Zeus, Hermes-Thoth... or Hermes-Nyarlathotep.This approach is really only appropriate for a certain kind of setting -- a sword and sorcery type game where everything is at least a vague analogue of the real ancient/mythical world... like REH's Hyborian Age.  Other settings strive for a purely created-world status with as little resemblance to our world as possible -- Eberron might be a good example of this.  Some people prefer a fictional world with little or no relationship to ours, others prefer a world with clear parallels to real-world history and mythology.  Me, I can go both ways but I am often times less than impressed with those settings that take a half-arsed approach to being wholly fictional (real-world deities in FR, I'm looking at you).These are really two different approaches to fantasy settings and I like both.  But there needs to be some consistency.  I don't think the 4E PH should really have a "core pantheon" per se, since deities are necessarily setting-specific.  But as long as they're going to include examples, I would rather they didn't use Greyhawk or FR and would much prefer (mostly) real-world examples.  Again, I find the Greyhawk pantheon incredibly boring.  I also don't mind if they use real-world deities in generic modules and that sort of thing.  It seems to work pretty well for Necromancer Games.</blockquote>

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