Pantheon design

CRGreathouse

Community Supporter
How do you design your (sub-sidereal) pantheons?

I'm interested in general principles: how many gods, what power levels, what aspects.

  • Do you use racial gods? If so,how powerful are they -- greater gods, like in GH and FR?
  • If you allow mortals to ascend, what percentage of your gods are 'native' and what portion ascended? What is the highest rank an ascended god has reached? Can reach?
  • What's the power distribution like? How many greater gods are there compared to lesser and intermediate gods?
  • What's the power balance like? Are there any groups that hold significant (> 1/3) amounts of power without including all the gods?
  • How well represented are the alignments? Genders? Favored weapon types?
 

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Well, for a setting I have been working on for quite a while, I actually have very little (1.5 countries) So the end-distribution of deities is pretty foggy.

What I have so far: (and why)
[sblock]
1 Greater Deity (Human god; Humans in one area are the dominent race, and believe in monotheism, so their god is pretty potent.) - Lawful Good (Humans tend to prefer law over chaos, and believe their god embodies "perfection") - Domains: Protection, Healing, Good, Law (Average domain spread; Clerics of the god could really pick any domain they wanted, within justification. Had to give clerics something since human clerics get pretty shorted when it comes to picking a deity) - And don't ask me for a name. I don't know. I just have all the priests nebulously refer to him as "god." (I am lazy, and can't decide on a good name)

2 Intermediate Deities; The Elven God ('kept his name Correllon for ease of use) and the Dwarven God (Again, I am lazy; his name is Moradin) - They are the creators and central deities to their respective races. I put them at intermediate because there races arn't very expansive within the setting I have so far.

4 Lesser Deities; The halfling god - (Again, no name. Halflings mesh so well with humans despite their differences that I never gave it much thought) And the Gnomeish Pantheon - Garl Glittergold, Gnomish creater god; Zookmottin, deitiy of Illusions; and Ixilblix, Gnomish God of Heavy Artillery. (I use gnomes as comic relief, so they have pretty short, as in one scene, lifespans. I paint them generally as Insane. Good for quite a few laughs. Don't make for a very good player race since roleplaying them that way tends to get you killed, so I am currently seeking alternatives)

These are just the "goodly" deities. There is an alternate "pantheon" of evil deities. (Really just opposition to the current greater god, you know, the standard "forces to corrupt men to evil or to bring about total destruction" type of evil)
[/sblock]
As for the rest; I don't know. I have only thrown together one country and made reference to two others, and while the one is pretty big, I haven't set the rest of the world in stone just yet.
My desired distribution would be no more than 1-3 greater gods, and twice as many intermediate gods, and twice as many lesser gods than intermediate. (Whats the point if the "greater gods" arn't greater than their peers?) I also don't want to go the way of FR, where theres a god for every possible race/class/favorite color. Way too much to keep track of.

There are ascended gods within the pantheon, (9 or so just from adventures and campaine history) however most don't reach above Hero Deity level. Each of the Gods have their own agenda for who they sponsor.
It's a pretty low-magic setting, so trying to amass power points by slaying the divine isn't a smart idea. (Oh, sorry Billy, theres only one sword in all the world that could pierce this Pit-Fiend's flesh. We could roll this out, but he probably kills you with impunity...) But it has been done.
Gaining power through worship, such as a couple of ascended evil deities did, works nicely.
I have most Ascended deities stay on the material plane, since they don't usually have too much power they can exercise from other planes. Should they wish to grant a miracle, they pretty much have to use their own resources to do it. Most don't come out and say "Blarg I are a god.", they tend to work in secret to advance the goals of their higher-ups, or to keep themselves safe, in the event they arn't strong enough to handle their enemies.

It is alot of work designing a setting. My best bet is to maintain the status quo - Unless I need to give the answer, I don't work it out ahead of time. I just note the answer I give and make it cannon. (Only works as long as I don't give stupid/poor answers.) One advantage of having my own setting: If I misspeak and say 'blah' is the king, and I didn't intend to use that name, I can just have a war or an assassination or something! Unfortunately, this doesn't work so well for pantheons...
 
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Hi CRGreathouse mate! :)

CRGreathouse said:
How do you design your (sub-sidereal) pantheons?

I'm interested in general principles: how many gods, what power levels, what aspects.

Generally I advocate the equivalent of 9 Greater Gods (one of each alignment).

Of course the typical Pantheon (if there is such a thing?) will not have 9 greater gods.

There are a number of ways to break this down.

Lets say a Demigod = 1, Lesser God = 2, Intermediate God = 4, Greater God = 8. That means 9 Greater Gods = 72.

But probably:

1 Greater God = 8
9 Intermediate Deities - one of each alignment = 36
9 Lesser Deities = 18
9 Demi-deities = 9

The number of Quasi-deities and Hero-deities depends on how many worlds the Pantheon are known on.

CRGreathouse said:
  • Do you use racial gods? If so,how powerful are they -- greater gods, like in GH and FR?


  • Dynasties are created in the same manner as Pantheons.

    CRGreathouse said:
    [*] If you allow mortals to ascend, what percentage of your gods are 'native' and what portion ascended?

    I don't think there is a definitive answer to this.

    CRGreathouse said:
    What is the highest rank an ascended god has reached? Can reach?

    Technically anything is possble.

    CRGreathouse said:
    [*] What's the power distribution like? How many greater gods are there compared to lesser and intermediate gods?

    See above.

    CRGreathouse said:
    [*] What's the power balance like? Are there any groups that hold significant (> 1/3) amounts of power without including all the gods?

    Can you be more specific?

    CRGreathouse said:
    [*] How well represented are the alignments? Genders? Favored weapon types?

See above.

Generally speaking the Pantheon Leader's alignment determines the Plane and the overall 'alignment' swerve of the Pantheon. Although most Pantheons will want one Intermediate Deity of each alignment just to cover as broad a spectrum of worshippers as possible.

Racial Dynasties are sort of the opposite in that they want the alignment of the race to be kept as narrow as possible.

e.g. If Corellon is Chaotic Good, there will be no Lawful Evil elf deity and probably no Lawful Neutral or Neutral Evil gods either.
 

CRGreathouse

Community Supporter
Upper_Krust,

Upper_Krust said:
Can you be more specific?

Sure. In the collection of all gods in a setting (what do you call this, since you use Pantheon to mean something else?), how much power do various divine groups hold? Dynasties, pantheons, councils, etc. Organizations that include all the gods aren't what I'm talking about -- for example if there are 60 gods overall and a third of them (powerwise) decided to work together, they'd have a significant amount of power by virtue of not expending energy against each other (whether they were advancing the cause of a particular race, alignment, or even if there was no strong cause to bind them together).
 

CRGreathouse

Community Supporter
Ltheb Silverfrond said:
My desired distribution would be no more than 1-3 greater gods, and twice as many intermediate gods, and twice as many lesser gods than intermediate. (Whats the point if the "greater gods" arn't greater than their peers?) I also don't want to go the way of FR, where theres a god for every possible race/class/favorite color. Way too much to keep track of.

I have similar feelings about the number of gods at each power level. I have three greater gods (was four, one passed 'beyond the veil'), about 7 intermediate gods, maybe 16 lesser gods, and then I'm still figuring out how many demideities I have.

Interestingly we're fairly far apart on what the actual gods are. While I have some racial gods, (1) they are all lesser gods and below, and (2) I have no racial god for humans. Of course since the coming of humans the sun-god has become rather powerful as he garners much of their attention, so perhaps it isn't that different after all.
 

CRGreathouse said:
I have similar feelings about the number of gods at each power level. I have three greater gods (was four, one passed 'beyond the veil'), about 7 intermediate gods, maybe 16 lesser gods, and then I'm still figuring out how many demideities I have.

Interestingly we're fairly far apart on what the actual gods are. While I have some racial gods, (1) they are all lesser gods and below, and (2) I have no racial god for humans. Of course since the coming of humans the sun-god has become rather powerful as he garners much of their attention, so perhaps it isn't that different after all.

I run a setting with lower-than-standard magic, (Ex: Magic items are few but powerful; Wizards are around, but the higher level spells are not well known, so even a 20th level wizard might only have one 9th level spell... And may only have heard of one or two others) so likewise I wanted to keep the number of Gods to a minimum. (In the event I flesh out the rest of my setting, I can splash a new deity here and there without any kind of divine "overcrowding")
I basically built the setting to accomodate a single campaine idea, but the players enjoyed the NPCs and setting so much I had to reuse it. It is kindof cool when you run a setting so many times that the actions of the PCs build histories. (Why write a complex history for a setting?; let the PCs do it for you!)

In general I would say that the more basic and fundamental a deities' portfolios, the more powerful it will be. A god of Kobolds probably wont be as powerful as a god of Fire, and even the god of Fire can't match a god of Time. (Depending on ones perception of which is more primal)

Perhaps as I develop more I'll look in to expanding the pantheon to include other deities. Like adding Elemental gods, and the like; I don't plan on adding a god solely for each specific alignment, because it makes the choice of what deity the PC picks an easy one. If you want to play a cleric of a Fire god, there shouldn't be 3 differen't ones for Good, neutral, and evil; There should just be one, and if that means your alignment is different from the party's, well have fun roleplaying that.
 

paradox42

First Post
CRGreathouse said:
How do you design your (sub-sidereal) pantheons?

I'm interested in general principles: how many gods, what power levels, what aspects.
Well, if we're answering as individuals, and you're not specifically looking for U_K's reccomendations- my primary homebrew's been under some sort of development, on and off, for over 20 years now. So obviously I've put a lot of thought into the world and the various cultures, though there's still a lot left to do before it even approaches something I'd consider 'complete.' I suppose I'm a lot like Krusty that way, though I've been running campaigns in a 3.X version of the world since 2001 so most top-level things are fairly well ironed out.

The deities of this world are very structured, in the pantheon sense, though there are also a lot of them. The postulate I've followed in world design is that these deities, that is, those of the pantheon, are the only beings with divine power in this world- other worlds can and do have their own gods, but none of those gods has any followers on my world, nor would any followers of those gods who reached my world be able to use the powers of their gods. Among other things, this means that the Drow of my world aren't spider-obsessed, since Lolth is not one of the deities of my pantheon (though she does exist, out in the wide reaches of the multiverse).

The pantheon's main structural characteristic is the dividing line between Good, Neutral, and Evil alignments. There are thirty deities above demigod level, and precisely 10 of each of the three alignment factions. Each faction is ruled by one Greater God (though in the Neutral case, the deity sometimes switches genders, so 'God' isn't always the correct term to use), and the Greater Gods are all gods of Magic. Beneath them are several Intermediates and Lessers, with the defining difference being that Intermediate deities have three spheres of influence while Lessers have only two; each Greater God has four but one of the four is Magic so it can be sort of discounted. Underneath the 'Thirty' are numerous Demideities, which aren't particularly structured at all- there are nearly a hundred at last count, and although I went to some effort to balance out how many are in each faction I didn't make it a priority. Each Demideity has only one sphere of influence, and the world background says they're mainly worshipped on a local level (that is, not everybody on the world has heard of any particular demigod- not the case with the Thirty, which are all known worldwide).

The structure is no accident- the world is postulated to be very old, with over 200,000 years of known history, though not necessarily 'known' in the sense that PCs will learn of it before becoming deities themselves. The current pantheon is not, therefore, made up of beings which created the world; it's actually a group that was specifically brought together 5000 or so years ago to help the world recover from a catastrophe of epic proportions. A few of the current deities actually are former members of older pantheons which once watched this world, but most of the original pantheons and deities have long since moved on to other worlds and realms and are no longer known in this one.

CRGreathouse said:
  • Do you use racial gods? If so,how powerful are they -- greater gods, like in GH and FR?
Not as such, no. The racial gods who are part of the core game, like Corellon, are postulated to exist 'somewhere out there' in the multiverse at large, and some of them might in fact be the creators of their associated races on my world- but none are worshipped on it in the modern age. Instead, what happens is more like Kalamar's deity setup- the Thirty take on racial aspects among each different race or culture, and are known by different names in different lands though the religions are recognizably the same if one known what to look for (i.e. has ranks in Knowledge (Religion)).

CRGreathouse said:
  • If you allow mortals to ascend, what percentage of your gods are 'native' and what portion ascended? What is the highest rank an ascended god has reached? Can reach?
Due to the history I put behind the world and pantheon, many of the existing deities are actually ascended mortals- including all three Greater Gods, though of those three only one is really known as an ascended mortal (the Good one). The other two have discarded the trappings of their long-lost mortal lives, and the details of those lives are really known only to them. Out-Of-Character, my players are aware that I've always considered the Evil one to be a version of ascended Raistlin, of Dragonlance fame, but since my world is not Krynn and doesn't even vaguely resemble Krynn there's no reason for any characters of the world to become aware of that idea. :) What percentage are ascended mortals? That I would have to take a long time counting and figuring to tell you, but I'm fairly sure the ratio is at least 50%. One interesting feature of this world is that, since its history includes a time of high-technology and science, several of the deities are actually ascended robots or computer AIs rather than standard 'mortals' such as humans. None of these ascended machines has gone beyond demideity stage as yet, but one never knows what the future might bring...

CRGreathouse said:
  • What's the power distribution like? How many greater gods are there compared to lesser and intermediate gods?
Well, as previously stated, each of the three factions has a single Greater God to lead it, with the rest being Intermediate and Lesser. I just counted again, and found that each faction has exactly 6 Intermediates and 3 Lessers, which matches my notion that behind-the-scenes the Triad (the three Greaters) control the ascension of lower deities through the ranks and make sure that the three factions stay in balance. The demideities aren't as well structured, though every demideity has an associated 'sponsor' among the Thirty whose church ostentibly provides the new demideity with a structure to build on and gain initial faith from.

The presumed methods involved here are that each new deity brought into the pantheon is sponsored by an existing member, and enters as a demideity of that sponsor; after some unspecified time or condition a deity becomes powerful enough to 'go independent' and rise to Lesser rank. I have 10 or so demideities who are postulated to be nearing that power mark in the current day, with three (one of each faction, naturally) who are close enough that they're actually starting to distance themselves from their sponsors- presumably in preparation for ascension to Lesser status. It is assumed that the Triad never allow ascensions to Lesser Deity status except in threes, one deity per faction, so if a hypothetical demigod were to get close to such ascension, he'd have to wait for similar individuals to arise from each of the other two factions before being allowed to actually reach the next level.

CRGreathouse said:
  • What's the power balance like? Are there any groups that hold significant (> 1/3) amounts of power without including all the gods?
Yes, clearly the Magic deities (and thus, Magic itself) are the most powerful force on this world. Also, though the structure of the pantheon is very carefully balanced along the lines of Good, Neutral, and Evil, the other alignment axis has no such balance- Chaos has a very clear advantage over Law. Two of the three Greater Gods are Chaotic- Good and Neutral (the Evil one is Neutral Evil specifically). And among the rest of the pantheon, Chaotic and Neutral members outnumber the Lawfuls by a margin of around 3 to 1 (instead of the 2 to 1 which would indicate balance among those three alignment types). Each faction of the Thirty has 2 Lawful members weighed against the other 7 non-Greater deities, with varying numbers of Chaotics and Neutrals in each of the three factions.

EDIT: Oh, and one other interesting facet of power-balance I should mention is that my campaign multiverse features two Sidereal beings that are known to be 'awake' in the Krustian sense, and roaming the cosmos; though mortals almost never hear of them, they are known to deities quite well. One of the two Sidereals secretly has an 'avatar' Intermediate Goddess, who is a member of the Good faction of my pantheon. The PCs in my Epic campaign are actually aware of this entity's true identity and have had contact with her 'Goddess form' in person, though they have wisely steered clear of much interaction with her aside from donating lots and lots of gold and items to her church. The other Sidereal has no avatars among the pantheon of my world specifically, though some of its avatars are known in the rest of the cosmos (one of them is Io the Ninefold Dragon).

CRGreathouse said:
  • How well represented are the alignments? Genders? Favored weapon types?
Genders, I'd estimate, are split about even, though obviously the three rulers are male (except, sometimes, the Chaotic Neutral one, who as a deity of Change occasionally switches genders just for the heck of it). Alignments, obviously, are carefully balanced among teh THirty with respect to the Good-Evil axis, though as discussed above the Law-Chaos axis is far, far out of balance. Among the demideities, no great effort was put forth to balance the alignments, though I did follow the rule that each demidiety's alignment has to be within one step of its sponsor's alignment. Favored weapons, I didn't go to any effort to balance out, though I believe pretty much every weapon of the core rules is favored by some deity, somewhere in the list. Crossbows may be an exception. :)
 
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CRGreathouse

Community Supporter
Wow, what an answer! That sounds like quite a setup. And yes, I'm loking to see how everyone does it in their own campaign.

paradox42 said:
The pantheon's main structural characteristic is the dividing line between Good, Neutral, and Evil alignments. There are thirty deities above demigod level, and precisely 10 of each of the three alignment factions. Each faction is ruled by one Greater God (though in the Neutral case, the deity sometimes switches genders, so 'God' isn't always the correct term to use), and the Greater Gods are all gods of Magic. Beneath them are several Intermediates and Lessers, with the defining difference being that Intermediate deities have three spheres of influence while Lessers have only two; each Greater God has four but one of the four is Magic so it can be sort of discounted. Underneath the 'Thirty' are numerous Demideities, which aren't particularly structured at all- there are nearly a hundred at last count, and although I went to some effort to balance out how many are in each faction I didn't make it a priority. Each Demideity has only one sphere of influence, and the world background says they're mainly worshipped on a local level (that is, not everybody on the world has heard of any particular demigod- not the case with the Thirty, which are all known worldwide).

You have a very regimented pantheon. What would happen if something occurred to shake it up -- say, the good Greater God died?

Why does your Triad work together (and not vie for supremacy)?

paradox42 said:
The structure is no accident- the world is postulated to be very old, with over 200,000 years of known history, though not necessarily 'known' in the sense that PCs will learn of it before becoming deities themselves. The current pantheon is not, therefore, made up of beings which created the world; it's actually a group that was specifically brought together 5000 or so years ago to help the world recover from a catastrophe of epic proportions. A few of the current deities actually are former members of older pantheons which once watched this world, but most of the original pantheons and deities have long since moved on to other worlds and realms and are no longer known in this one.

That's interesting. My world is both older and younger than yours, in different senses. My history is perhaps a tenth yours, with the creation of the world dating back only (\me checks notes) about 22,500 years. On the other hand, the current pantheon (with minor changes) has ruled for four times as long as yours. Yet again on the other side, the most recent off the major races was 'just' created, with humanity weighing in at just over 3200 years old.

Out of curiosity, which of your gods are original -- or have you not decided yet? Any of the 18 intermediate ones?

paradox42 said:
One interesting feature of this world is that, since its history includes a time of high-technology and science, several of the deities are actually ascended robots or computer AIs rather than standard 'mortals' such as humans. None of these ascended machines has gone beyond demideity stage as yet, but one never knows what the future might bring...

Is this anything like Vance's Dying Earth?

paradox42 said:
I have 10 or so demideities who are postulated to be nearing that power mark in the current day, with three (one of each faction, naturally) who are close enough that they're actually starting to distance themselves from their sponsors- presumably in preparation for ascension to Lesser status.

Who actually has the power to permit demigods to ascend? Is it possible that two of the Triad could conspire against the third, bringing in just two new lesser gods? I don't think they want to shake things up, but could they?

paradox42 said:
Yes, clearly the Magic deities (and thus, Magic itself) are the most powerful force on this world. Also, though the structure of the pantheon is very carefully balanced along the lines of Good, Neutral, and Evil, the other alignment axis has no such balance- Chaos has a very clear advantage over Law. Two of the three Greater Gods are Chaotic- Good and Neutral (the Evil one is Neutral Evil specifically). And among the rest of the pantheon, Chaotic and Neutral members outnumber the Lawfuls by a margin of around 3 to 1 (instead of the 2 to 1 which would indicate balance among those three alignment types). Each faction of the Thirty has 2 Lawful members weighed against the other 7 non-Greater deities, with varying numbers of Chaotics and Neutrals in each of the three factions.

Very interesting. I presume there's no real commonality between gods of the same ethical (Law-Chaos) alignment, then, since Chaos is favored and Law does not wish to start a conflict that would end it.

paradox42 said:
Oh, and one other interesting facet of power-balance I should mention is that my campaign multiverse features two Sidereal beings that are known to be 'awake' in the Krustian sense, and roaming the cosmos; though mortals almost never hear of them, they are known to deities quite well. One of the two Sidereals secretly has an 'avatar' Intermediate Goddess, who is a member of the Good faction of my pantheon. The PCs in my Epic campaign are actually aware of this entity's true identity and have had contact with her 'Goddess form' in person, though they have wisely steered clear of much interaction with her aside from donating lots and lots of gold and items to her church. The other Sidereal has no avatars among the pantheon of my world specifically, though some of its avatars are known in the rest of the cosmos (one of them is Io the Ninefold Dragon).

How did the PCs come to know of the sidereal?

Do avatars develop their own personality and so forth, or are they purely an extension of their creator? That is, does the Goddess exist (to some degree) apart from the sidereal, like a split mind or a personality shard?

paradox42 said:
Favored weapons, I didn't go to any effort to balance out, though I believe pretty much every weapon of the core rules is favored by some deity, somewhere in the list. Crossbows may be an exception. :)

What about... the punching dagger? Lance? Sai?

I'm just kidding. That's pretty cool. As for me, I don't really give out ranged weapons as favored weapons, but I'm otherwise fairly well distributed. I have one question about your favored weapons, though: What do you give to your gods of magic? Quarterstaff is very common, but it gets old quickly.
 

WarDragon

First Post
The other Sidereal has no avatars among the pantheon of my world specifically, though some of its avatars are known in the rest of the cosmos (one of them is Io the Ninefold Dragon).
Slightly off-topic, but this is interesting. Personally, given the Dragon Theory of the Planes, I'd peg Io as a Time Lord... which, coincidentally, means he'd have Sidereal Avatar and Aspects. :cool:
 

paradox42

First Post
WarDragon said:
Slightly off-topic, but this is interesting. Personally, given the Dragon Theory of the Planes, I'd peg Io as a Time Lord... which, coincidentally, means he'd have Sidereal Avatar and Aspects. :cool:
Well, as I once said in another thread, regarding Sidereals, I long ago developed my own ideas of what they were like- and among other things my own HD requirements for Sidereals are at least an order of magnitude higher than Krusty's. :) So in that sense, 'Lord Io' would in fact be like a Time Lord in my cosmos. Exactly how the former 'Destroyer,' now deceased, was killed (an event which took place roughly 25,000 years ago in game time, from the perspective of the modern age of my world) is anybody's guess really. I know who did the deed and what the primary weapon used was, but I have yet to stat up a 3E-compliant version of that weapon (or even the killer for that matter). Running the battle in even a solitaire-game sense would probably take longer than I'm willing to spend. :)
 

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