I’ve been using the Greek and/or Norse gods in my own campaign settings, but I want to start making my own deities and pantheons going forward, if you have any advice, I’d love to hear it please. Same for anything you’re willing to say about your own gods and goddesses, or any art of gods or related entities like angels.
I like how shin megami tensei uses the old gods
>>96537281One way to make gods and pantheons feel organic and natural is giving them more than one domain, even if they may clash.To name a real life example: Ishtar is the goddess of war, and sex/love. Does this make sense? Maybe, maybe not. But it made sense to the people that worshiped her. Or they saw how much violence and lust are intertwined, and this formed their idea of this goddess.The characteristics and domains of a god should also always tell you something about the people that worship them.
>>9653728177 Thrones for Within the Ring of Fire is always great for inspiration.
>>96537281>been using the Greek and/or Norse godsI’ve done the same, my players don’t care enough about the gods for it to be worth it to me.
>>96537281Have any of you given your Gods elemental domains? My plan for my setting is that there are for sub-pantheons (or just one God for each element, still debating on that), each with a focus on one of the four elements of Flame, Wind, Earth, and Water, the Gods in each pantheon having a secondary domain or two that has a connection, be it thematic or symbolic, etc., with their respective element. Some of the domains I’m considering for each pantheon are obvious, like the Oceans and Sailors for Water, War and maybe Love for Flame, Trickery for Wind, and Stability for Earth, etc., but what would you suggest? Much appreciated in advance, a bit stuck on this.
>>96537281If you're going from settings, don't start from the gods. Most of the time, it's better to start at the day to day worshipping and beliefs.And diss everything DND does with religion.
>>96542492>Most of the time, it's better to start at the day to day worshipping and beliefs.Why is that, and why only MOST of the time? Also, as someone who tries to avoid DND with a five foot pole, what precisely do they mess up with religion specifically?
>>96542556I think you might end up with decent top-down gods, but my impression is that the average worldbuilder can't really grok religion enough to suggest that approach. He's not Robert Graves.>what precisely do they mess up with religion specifically?I can hardly think of something they do decently, to be frank.This is quite clear from the "realistic" aspects of religion in a pre-industrial setting to what I can only see as the absolute pedestrian "non-mystical" (non-mysterious) feel of its deities.
>>96542471silence bumpfag
>>96542662I swear, people here use that term like a boogeyman and use it to decry posts they don’t like. If he really exists, don’t react to their posts, especially if you might lump multiple anons in one thread together in the process. Just to stay on topic, and because I liked the concept, how about Water gets the unknown due to the hidden ocean depths? There’s a reason Lovecraft has so many tentacles in his books.
>>96537281why are you asking for advice when you haven't even written anything yethow do you expect people to give you reasonable advice apropos nothing? The only real advice you can get at this points is to just write and that the first version you come up with is never the best.
>>96542471Sky Father / Earth Mother is probably the most common divine pairing out there.You gonna copy that or ignore it?
>>96542635>He's not Robert Graves.Never heard of him, what makes his stuff so great?Also, I’d love to hear more about your feelings on this.
>>96537281Something to nail down is how powerful a god actually is. If a mortal or mortal+ can best them in -thing- of if they're untouchable.
If you're an atheist IRL, it won't work because you don't understand religious people.If you're a Christian, best you can do is follow JRRT and just not introduce an explicit religion to your games.If you're neither, you are probably not White, and should go to /v/ instead.
>>96537281What systems (not D&D, as >>96542492 has already stated) handle gods best mechanically? Particularly if you can actually play as gods, especially if creating a world is involved.
>>96546858Good question anon. I know Exalted has rules for playing spirits, but that’s all I can name off the top of my head. Hopefully someone else has something.
>>96546858>>96548364Scion 2e
>>96537281What are some settings that do gods well, especially if the gods actually exist, versus ones that botch things completely? Also, >>96542492 mentions that DND typically does a bad job, but is the approach to the divine in Eberron any better?
>>96546858>>96549125>>96548364There's Nobilis, Tiny Gods, Part-Time Gods, and New Gods of Mankind, if I missed any not already listed please let me know!
>>96551624I am a fan of the way Eberron handles religion. The Eberron method is more "realistic," for lack of a better term: different competing models of the divine, some of which are compatible with one another, some of which boil down to faith in gods whose existence can never be truly verified.A religion is more akin to a real-world religion in that it presents its own "rules of the divine," which may or may not be compatible with other religions. There is no one universal pantheon in Eberron that all gods get filed into.Do you like it when a fantasy setting uses this method for distinguishing its religions?
>>96541942Same for me, but I use the Hindu gods to better fit the culture in my setting.
>>96559594Myself, I tend to prefer it when the gods concretely and definitively exist, but the way Eberron handles things does sound like an interesting change of pace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR-K2rUP86M
>>96579958The heck am I looking at?
>>96537281Gods grow and wither in power depending on how many worshippers they have in each unique Material Plane. Some element of any god is probably bumping around some ruin or forest but the most powerful in that realm are the ones worshipped the most. In my shitbrew, the Roman gods are the state religion but no one actually worships them except perfunctorally during official state events. This leads to problems like Jupiter being drunk in a salaryman bar.
>>96537281Given that TES has already been mentioned by >>96579958… technically, let’s talk more about what settings you personally look to when handling gods and religions in your own, or just like in general.
>>96583146>In my shitbrewCan you share more about it please?
>>96585150Sure, no problem.This particular Prime has really porous borders with neighboring primes and other planes. The Earth equivalent world was purged of most life by demonic forces until reconquered by elves and their human slave-soldiers. There is a small, fractured population of Native American peoples scattered in the arid (safer) parts of the world, with their very active gods already. In this new world, they find aspects of the old gods of their homeworld to worship. The homeworld is a low-magic, early imperial Rome so they bring Jupiter, Neptune, Hera and Hercules to the new world. Other humans migrate in over the millenia, bring Norse and Japanese beliefs that affect the composition of gods worshipped. So, gods and spirit beliefs derive from the power of these beliefs.In the century after the human revolt against their elven masters, the first new religion arises, that is the belief in One. One is not a god, One is. With the discovery of elemental magic, the Elemental Church also started. Neptune worship is rapidly supplanted into Njord worship. One nation has a goddess of their home islands that they created out of thin air, she appears as a shimmering light that heals and sometimes grants favors. Other spirit practices exist, such as summoning enormous animal spirits, again through the power of belief. This is also the root of clerical or divine magic. So, in this context (apologies for the length), the old world's gods are still officially worshipped by the major empire on the world. This is only done by state bureaucrats and the imperial family during festivals. It's just enough mana to keep the old gods visible as humanoid entities, except Njord who is worshipped by many merchants and sailors. This is how you end up finding Jupiter angry-drunk at a bar.
>>96537281Can we get some more good art of deities please? What about angels? Also, what more can you say about angels in your settings? Mine essentially have a hive mind that allows them to act as one, at least for angels serving the same god.
Never been a fan of how often gods are just basic humanoids most of the time.
>>96537281Gods are often used to explain certain questions that the monkey brains we have struggle to think of. For example where do we go when we die? Seeing as you said you used Greek Gods alot you are aware of Hades the ruler of the underworld who cares for the dead in the after life, you probably also know Thanatos the actual god of death. There's also the various psychopomps like Hermes who guide souls to Hades.Keeping on with the Greeks theres Gods like Nyx, goddess of Night and Erebus Primordial God of Darkness. Used to explain two things that are essential to the world but further delving into the concepts of their domains makes the brain hurt.Whilst the pantheon can be as you want you have to remember not everybody will worship a God. Your average pleb isnt committed to Hephestus for example because they arent a smith of any kind, famously Sparta worshipped Ares alot because of their war centric culture whilst other places rarely worshipped the guy mostly cause Ares was the unfun parts of War to many cultures.My pantheon is broken down mostly into stuff that explains why a piece of nature is there and stuff that comes about from mortals, example I have a God of Life called Life, he is the flow of life itself his followers depict him as an eternal wanderer as even when someone stands still life still walks on, an example of a God that comes from mortals is Morok the God of Philosophy and Enlightenment a very mortal centric God seeing as Philosophy and the search for Enlightenment are things we as people invented for various reasons and each have a want for in our own way.
>>96588982>With the discovery of elemental magic, the Elemental Church also started.I would love to hear more about the Elemental Church please.
>>96537281What are some of the major divine myths in your setting, how accurate are they to reality, and what would you advise about coming up with original myths? I was thinking of using a Ragnarok-like event to explain why the gods lost their physical forms and justify their lack of physical these days for instance.
>>96591405@Grok is this true?
>>96591405>this is all in background developmentThe Elemental Church began out of the discovery of a new school of magic that deals with the five classical elements. The school focuses on material control and summoning elementals, and the church follows by using elemental forces to heal, bless and modify the environment. This is all done as something of a nature-oriented religion, having been used by freed human colonists to help heal a ravaged world. There are clerics with standard cleric abilities that wield elemental or elementally-blessed weapons. There are no known rivalries inside the church between elements, most clerics will have a range of elemental spells. In practice, each season is represented by an element, so different elementals and themes will be encountered throughout the year, but occasionally with opposing or complimentary element days during feasts and celebrations.
>>96537281How do you prefer to handle domains with your setting’s gods? Especially if gods can have multiple domains. I like the idea that gods are assigned domains in a region by the celestial bureaucracy, and if they show promise they can gain more domains, usually related, like the goddess of winter also holding command over skiing.
>>96537281Make religions, not gods. Most TTRPGs take a totally wrong-headed approach to building out a pantheon. Start with the rituals, sayings, holidays, taxes, ceremonies, prayers and festival of the people. Build those out. Then put gods in where you feel like it makes sense.No one will ever read your 10 pages of lore on then relationships between your gods.Players will get interested in the festival in the town square where the naked ladies firedance.
>>96559594NTA but I do like the idea of competiting models of divinity. Then again, my interpretation is that everything is a rat race and being a transcended being doesn't change that so being part of a particular group is more like declaring allegiance to a political party and your party affiliation can change for any number of reasons
>>96588982This sounds incredibly based, what system does this use?
>>96596938>Start with the rituals, sayings, holidays, taxes, ceremonies, prayers and festival of the people>nake firedancing festivalThis is good advice. >>96598400Thanks, fren. First edition AD&D shitbrew. It's modified mechanically enough to be fairly unique but recognizable. The takeaway should be that, games-wise, gods are as real as the belief in them. This allows for an easy mechanic for ascension to sainthood or higher for humans, per Mystara and other D&D worlds. For example, in my campaign world, there are many humans that have ascended to some level divinity, usually a saint, but there is an albino buffalo that is the world's demigod of overwhelming odds from being the mount of a hero-king, purely on people's belief.
>>96601195>Thanks, fren. First edition AD&D shitbrew. It's modified mechanically enough to be fairly unique but recognizable.Post it please?
>>96537281You missed the worldbuilding general nogames kun
>>96605470When it's closer to publishable, thanks for the encouragement.I'm currently working on integrated movement mechanics and improved hand fighting, but will update the worldbook with notes from this amazingthread. I'm looking for playtesters, too.>if you see the white buffalo on a hill above your battle, a great victory is possible
>>96537281What spheres of influence go well with War besides things like Death?
>>96537281How do you design the temples and other trappings of the religions of your gods?
>>96617341The standard approach is to have some space that is sacred and that only the priesthood may enter, and then a larger space used to communicate with the faithful and generally persuade the rubes to worship the deity and respect the priesthood. There's lots of different ways of achieving this, but the separation of the sanctum from the rest of the holy space, and the impressive space, those seem to be very common features, so it's a really good idea to put them in your temples of invented religions too.
>>96537281My main advice for creating deities and pantheons is to strongly tie them to the things that the people worshipping them consider important, or are impactful to them in some way.In my own homebrew, I'm leaning heavily on Finnish pagan gods and folklore. It has been interesting to delve into it, and has required delving into actual books, since it is pretty obscure stuff even in Finland.At a deeper lore level, I'm leaning towards the idea of the deities of the world being known by many names across the world, the same divine entities being worshipped with various names, retaining their portfolio for the most part. In addition to major deities with relevance all around the world, there can also be lesser local deities born around more narrow, less universal ideas. To use the pagan Finnish pantheon for obscure deities examples, most staple crops had their own deities in addition to multiple other agriculture related ones, and there is a whole family of deities related to winter and cold, spanning four generations.Pic related is Väinämöinen, the legendary singer and poet from Kalevala. In my setting, he is a lesser deity, whose domain includes poetry, music (kantele), magic and shipwright, primarily.
>>96612198The Romans saw war as an honorable and virtuous thing, a test of excellence and skill. Also, anything pertaining to anything involved in war, eg, weapons-making crafts.
>>96542771Bumpfag exists, and sucks, but your post is not their style, because it actually has content. Everything they say is empty endless questions never giving any actual ideas.To >>96542471, consider approaching the same concept from different angles across the pantheons. So the Unknown is the broad concept, and you get something like Water being deep darkness that hides secrets forever, Fire is divination (revealing the unknown through esoteric means), Earth is about uncovering the truth through steady careful work for great reward (mining), etc. Each concept doesn't need to hit all 4 subpantheons every time, but it gives you a chance for different perspectives, and if a player gets into a specific god/archetype you have a model for some NPCs with different belief systems to bounce off of. Pic semirelated about how interlocking ideas make for better stories.
>>96537281After Fertility, Harvest, and perhaps War, what domains go well with a goddess of Love? I found this art and got inspired. I'd love to hear your takes on love deities as well.
>>96639283Well, there's beauty of course. And craftsmanship perhaps. Drawing a blank on other ideas, I'll come back to you later.
>>96639283The arts
>>96537281I've been looking over Greek mythology for ideas again, and the tale of Medusa, among others, got me thinking; just how many monsters in your settings only exist because the gods cursed someone or made a mistake? For instance, I was thinking that vampires in my world might be the result of a demigod child of the son god being turned down by a woman.
>>96639283Madness could work.
>>96537281Honestly, if you're just going to make the Greek/Roman Pantheon with the serial numbers filed off, then just use the Greek/Roman pantheon. Peoples familiarity with it will go further.If you're going to make your own Pantheon, go nuts. Make gods dedicated to things you wouldn't normally see in a Pantheon.Only real gods i designed for a setting were the Twin Gods of the Sea's, One of Storms, one of Mercy, because the Sea is kinda a dick and depending on who you run into is how your voyage will go. (I called the Eugen and Carpathia respectively.)
>>96551624It features a Loli Pope who doesn't waer shoes. Take from that what you will.
>>96639283Birds and other animals associated with love and/or beauty like butterflies.
>>96537281>greek/norseJust say "European" as they are (with a multitude of name variations) the same gods for all of Europe.
>>96542635>"non-mystical" (non-mysterious) feel of its deities.When your gods are so unquestionably real that they occasionally walk around to meet & greet the worshipers, it takes away a lot of the ineffable mystery.
>>96639283Maybe they could be the queen of the gods like Hera, with marriage as a domain? It makes sense, right?
>>96656959I agree there. How would you advise handling such gods then? Or at least adding some mystery back into them besides making it so that said appearances among mortals are just avatars and some aspect of the true nature of said gods is still unclear?
>>96537281I went with the highlander model of divinity. Any god can seize a heavenly throne from another. But to do so requires having both magical power, and a following that believes in you large enough to overpower an already enthroned rival.Not an easy feat.Two major enthroned are El, a deity born from a myth that was created by rebels against a dragon empire to keep their slave rebellion going.It worked, but the belief began manifesting a deity, and the eastern kingdoms and citystates are now advised by his priests. With him as their primary god of protection and life.There's a great deal of tension between his genuine beliefs, and those of more self serving High-Abbots.The other major enthroned I'll post later.
>>96662993I think I remember seeing you before. Any new setting developments since the last time you posted a thread?
>>96666712Mostly borrowed him from a friend, and now running my own. As that group moved on to World of Darkness for a while.My group is trying to figure out how to heist relics from the holy city of Annd. Knowing if the Abbot-Magi or their followers catch the group, they're toast.But if they can get enough shit back to the rising Olmish republic. They'll be able to retire.
>>96668928Fingers crossed. Is what their plan is a spoiler?
>>96673794Depends on the rolls.The one I'm running has Olm as a group of citystates on the rise. Dark age Italy on it's way to become democratic industrial germany.If they get caught, they'll most likely be fried by the abbots of their monks. If El himself finds them, he'll just teleport them into the middle of nowhere and we get to play "survive the jungles"
>>96675477I'd love to hear more on that and what has happened in the group so far.
>>96542471>Some of the domains I’m considering for each pantheon are obvious, like the Oceans and Sailors for WaterThat might seem like an obvious connection, but it really isn't. From the perspective of sailors, the ocean is a hungry, greedy, and irrepressible beast. What sinks does not return except as fish-bitten remnants of what was before, if it ever returns at all. Being immersed within is death, and every wave seems a claw. One can never overthrow the ocean, only apply protections (and are those protections a negotiation, or a shield?). Think about why the people of your setting consider the connection between oceans and sailors as "logical". You seem to have taken the concept of fire in the register of "intense and often chaotic emotion", but for a chef, or a blacksmith, fire brings lesser things higher, and I think a bird would disagree with the connection between wind and trickery. Stability for earth does make sense... assuming you don't live on a fault line.
>>96639283FateFestivalsBirth (or children)Blood (in the sense of "bloodline")Nature (not quite the same as fertility)Wine (or any/all type of alcohol)Persuasion (or all speech, or poetry)
>>96537281steal from everywhere. Find a basis and build off of it. Don't be afraid to just copy and paste or mix and match, you can make a god out of anything.
>>96579958Best concept for a god ever conceived in fantasy.
>>96537281Who are the king and/or queen of your divine pantheon? And besides things like the Earth and Sky, Sun and Moon, and monarchy, what kind of spheres of influence work well for such figures?
>>96679494Not much, mostly based the group out of Olm and it's attempted rebuilding. Some citystates better than others, and the group is running around being sneaky thief boys.
>>96537281Who is the god of Knowledge and/or Magic in your setting? My setting is basically fantasy Egypt, so I use him.Also, besides the aforementioned two domains, and War, Love, Death, the Sun, the Moon, Justice, Creation, Destruction, Chaos, Order/Law, the Earth, the Sky, the Forge, Disease, Time/the Seasons, Harvest, and Fertility, what domains are important to include in a pantheon, or are just things that you wish were more represented in general? Not to mention combinations of domains. For example, not many pantheons seem to have separate gods of Death and judges who determine the actual afterlife of a person like the Egyptians do. And the god of War also holding dominion over Disease and Death is an idea I haven’t really seen despite its thematic sense either.
>>96688119Beauty is a good one.
>>96688119Art and/or Madness.
>>96537281Do your gods produce demigods? If so, how much divine power do they inherit? My gods make demigods for specific tasks, and they’re all Hercules level.
>>96537281I was basing my pantheon extremely loosely on the Warhammer Chaos gods (though I plan on having more than four deities) with an opposing pantheon of Law/Order gods, though each side will be much more morally neutral than Warhammer’s take. What does the /tg/ chef recommend, and besides some of the more common options like Thieves and Justice respectively, what spheres of influence go well with either the Chaos side or Law side?
>>96639283Death perhaps?
>>96626711Wow, sorry I didn't reply sooner, I'd almost given up on someone replying to this, and hadn't been checking for a while, thanks! Okay, this is a cool idea, thanks again! You still here? I'd love to talk to you more on this.
>>96704467>I'd almost given up on someone replying to thisthe bumpfag lies as easily as he breathes
>>96537281There are multiple entities claiming to be the creator, or at least one of them, and there’s evidence both for and against each one.
>>96593059I like a very popular heartland religion that worships a mortal that underwent apotheosis, with well-recorded miracles for them to reference. Make the faith just old enough to be well established and have cities with architecture devoted to it, but still something of an upstart compared to the really old faiths of the lands that surround it, beliefs that are geographically being pushed out to the boonies.
>>96694198If you want to make it at all morally neutral you need to give the chaos guys some strongly good-coded domains like freedom, and make the good gods be the dicks-that-maintain-civilization with a few real asshole domains like tyranny spread in. That's asusming you want it to be a two-sided conflict of pantheons and not something a little more complicated.
My goddess is a cat who randomly received the power of the old god.
>>96698851>Death perhaps Why death? Not really seeing it.
>>96717181nta you can pair the love domain with any other domain to give the culture that worships that god a semi-interesting take on that second domain.
>>96717181I admit that I was kind of stretching things, but I think my logic at the time was that the god of death loves all and welcomes them when the time comes.>>96717239Okay, how have you done this/would do this?
>>96720209>Love and WarA nation that has been or at one point had been consistently fighting aggressors for centuries came to see the making of love, the creation of life, and the giving of one's children to the effort as the ultimate act of love. A man's highest act of love is to love his nation so much that he fearlessly marches off to the same war that, for centuries, has only cost lives. A woman's highest act of love is to create life only that it be given to the defense of her people.>Love and DeathAn ancient and incredibly powerful sorcerer cursed the nation that conquered his homeland - the firstborn of every union is stillborn. The nation, which had always had treated morbid matters with the utmost sanctity, rationalized this in order to avoid being totally mindbroken. Their goddess so loves them that the first child of every union is added to her family, and in propagating their nation, they also propagate the celestial heavens with their kin. Prophecies are made that one day a host of the earth and a host of the heavens will encircle and destroy the armies of evil.>madnessThis society developed an incredibly rigid code of honor regarding personal relationships. While it was not uncommon around the world to respond to adultery and the like with honor killings, duels often abounded when a man simple gazed for too long at another man's wife. Men often started brawls to declare their love for the women they pursued. Men driven to go on a rampage through town, tear down market stalls, shout in strange tongues, and prade nude, are seen as imbued with madness by the goddess of love herself, for these people have come to know: in the face of mortality and evil in this world, is giving yourself entirely to love not the greatest act of madness? How can love and madness ever be separated, how can we not venerate them both?For a few, off the top of my head.
>>96537281Bumping a bumpfag thread
>>96691406That's really cool anon, what kinds of tasks are common for your demigods? Expanse of power for the divinity, welfare of the followers, kindling faith?Because of how godhood works in my world, offspring of gods are always slightly more powerful than mortals, but nowhere near gods, even if both of their parents were gods. Divinity is achieved through a sort of limit break of the soul, usually a moment of intense emotion or spiritual enlightenment. Demigods are one step ahead of normal mortals in that regard, as they have extremely extended lifespans (though they can still be killed through force).
>>96714349That's cool, what other powers of old gods can (we) use in our games?
I read a story recently where the real Gods appoints beings from mortal world as a sort of minor gods. These new gods then run the day to day affair of the world, they are the ones who answer to prays, bestow blessings and do all sort of things you'd consider too mundane of hands-on for a God. Meanwhile, the Gods never really shows up in the story.I liked the idea. It keep the mystery of the Gods while not making the divine presence tangible and significant.In hindsight it's not too far from stories like Gabriel (or was it Michael?) showing up to Jeanne d'Arc.
What an incredibly boring thread, and why is there two threads about gods up at the same time?
>>96724848
>>96537281Relating to >>96694198's question, how does the Pantheon of Discord from Doctor Who rate, both as a whole and individually? From Sutekh the God of Death to Lux Imperator, the God of Light, they're not all things that one would associate with Chaos, like Music or Games.
>>96694198Are you familiar with Sigmar specifically?
>>96537281I would suggest checking out other gods and making an idea of what you want to do with gods and all. I made a few custom pantheons for settings and all. One I like using for bare bones custom world is the 9 or 25 of the alignments. So you can have your lawful gods your chaotic and your basic good evil and neutral gods. (Also have a set of Rebel and Social as well as Moral and Vile in the table and a set of gods for them.)
>>96736334>I made a few custom pantheons for settings and allBased, can you please share them with us here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxScTbIUvoALove Lovecraft stuff
If you went on a chain with the order set for a bunch of jumps determined beforehand, would the you from four to twelve jumps in be annoyed with the you from before the chain started for a sudden shift into horny degeneracy after decades of becoming an extremely capable non-gooner?
>>96741578Thanks for the link, got any other Lovecraft stuff worth sharing please?
>>96537281I’ve been getting into Cultivation lately, the idea of a mortal human transcending the flaws of their being and ascending to a higher state of existence, even a divine one. How do you feel about mortals become gods, and what non-Cultivation settings do the concept justice?
>>96743665Why do so many deities and horrors in Lovecraft stories have tentacles? Surely there should be a bit more variety there.
