Greetings…
Well, this all depends on a few things. Most importantly, how much work are you planning on putting into this? Are the religious components of your game/world that important that you need to completely flesh them out in your world? Are your players going to really care if you flesh out religions and gods in your world? Because you really don’t want to do extra work if you can help it.
Personally, I think the deities from Deities & Demigods okay if your going to use a world that is an alteration of our own world, with copies of the cultures and religions that make our world that much more interesting. The benefit of using existing deities is that you have a wealth of information to draw on. But you could always use the ‘transplanted god’ theory. Like the old Star Trek episode, or Stargate; you could have a completely foreign world where earth’s mythical deities are running around doing their own thing.
One of the things that I’ve always been remiss on is the fact that never is any ‘scripture’, text, stories accompany to these fictional deities. Now, it’s a lot of fluff and a tall order to expect anyone to write out such material for a campaign world. But at the very least, I would like to see some synopsizes about the various exploits of fictional gods.
If your creating your own gods, you could go all out and write out how the structure of their churches work. How their religions works. Detailing who worships these gods, and what the purpose of the religions are, as well as the motivations of its high-ranking officials/clergy as well as the motivations of the gods themselves. But of course, like I said, this is all dependant on how important religion is to the people of your world/game.
One interesting aspect I imagine is that in a world where the gods don’t take an active role in the world is how the various churches of that god become bastardized and alter themselves to serve their own wants and needs. Without having a rigid structure and controlling aspects of a deity to guide the religion, what happens?
”What? A sect of worshippers of Pelor, who are evil!? Sacrificing people?!?”
Or you can just wing it, and put down the bare minimum information. At the very least I would detail the domains. Especially if your players, or yourself, aren’t too concerned or interested with organized religions in your world. – I myself am running a world/campaign where religion is very important, and as such I am detailing everything, from the accepted canon of scripture that the church uses (and in what regions) as well as rejected and lost scripture. From what religious observances each geographical region, as well as local saints and monuments/shrines/churches to how the religion has changed over the centuries.
Also, I don’t bother to ‘stat-out’ gods. Like others, I think it’s a waste of time. Especially if we’re talking about a supposedly
omnipotent beings that aren’t going to make that much of an appearance or are particularly active. Now, the deity’s agents, that’s another story. But you can always use celestials and half-celestials.
As for the Pantheon of India. I assume you are talking about Hindus? Because Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism are all Indian-born religions. The lastest breakdown goes something like this: 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.4% Christian, 2% Sikh, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.5% Jains, 0.4% other
Hindu is often called the religion of 330 million gods. Now, this is an exaggeration, but it can get rather confusing. There is one god, and is called Isvara or Bhagavan. Where as Brahman is a concept of God; the unchanging, infiniate and transcendental reality of all things in the universe, so it’s more of a principle or concept rather than a deity.
When God is spoken of as the creator, God is called Brahma. When spoken of as preserver of the world, God is called Vishnu. When spoken of as destroyer of the world, God is called Shiva.
Then on top of that, each ‘persona’ might have various aspects to it. Such as Vishnu has 10 different aspects or avatars, (along with the 3 forms he has as:
Maha Vishnu, Garbhodakasayi Vishnu and Kshirodakasayi Vishnu. With each form having a different role in the maintenance of the Universe and it's inhabitants.
These aspects/avatars are, for a quick example:
- Matsya, the fish.
- Kurma, the tortoise.
- Varaha, the boar.
- Narasimha, the Man-Lion (Nara = man, simha = lion).
- Vamana, the Dwarf Brahmana (priest).
- Parashurama, Rama with the axe, appeared in the Treta Yuga.
- Rama, Sri Ramachandra, the prince and king of Ayodhya.
- Krishna (meaning 'dark coloured' or 'all attractive') appeared in the Dwapara Yuga along with his brother Balarama.
- Buddha (meaning 'the enlightened one') appeared in the Kali Yuga (specifically as Siddhartha Gautama).
- Kalki ("Eternity", or "time", or "The Destroyer of foulness"), who is expected to appear at the end of Kali Yuga, the time period in which we currently exist, which will end in the year 428899 CE.
So, are you confused yet?
If your serious about learning about Hindism, and Vedic Gods (that came before Hindism), then I suggest starting at Wikipedia.
