Deity Archetypes

[Anime Kidd]

Like most others I have tried whip up a homebrew setting. One of the things that I like but causes me no end of frustration are the deities. Because of this I have spent many times redoing the deities over and over. Then in a issue of Dragon I saw an article on deity achetypes along with appropriate domains and alignment. Nice article, made things easier but it didn't have enough. So I came up with my own and was wondering what are some other archetypes? What I got so far are (but haven't played around with the domains or alignments yet):

Artist
Beastmaster
Beauty
Creator
Creature (usually of a specific type)
Darkness-bringer
Demon Ruler
Destroyer
Divine/Enlightned Monk
Elemental (usually of a specific element)
Emperor
Evil Incarnate
Farmer
Fertility
Forger/Craftsman
Gambler
Green Man/Nature God
Guide to the Afterlife
Healer
Hunter
Jester/Trickster
Judge of the Dead
Justicar/Knight
Life
Light-bringer
Madman (wisdom through insanity)
Magician
Maiden/Mother/Grandmother trio
Merchant
Messenger
Moon
Musician
Necromancer/Undead
Plague-bearer
Poet
Oracle/Fate
Protector
Protector of Souls
Reaper of Death
Retribution/Revenge
Reveler
Sage (as in learned knowledge)
Seducer
Soldier
Storm God
Sun
Thief
Torturer
Traveler
Tyrant
Wiseman

 

[Fieari]

Well, you have Fertility, but I like having gods of actual LOVE, which seems to be lacking from your list. I personally have four... Agape (High love, love more than life, etc) Phileo (Brotherly love, Friendship, etc) Eros (Sex) and then I toss in one other non-greek one... Abigail... which is joyful, innocent, simple love.

How about a god of Freedom? Free will, choices, liberation... subject to consequences, and because no freedom would be complete without the freedom to do the wrong thing, subject to stupidity as well.

Some of your achetypes seem a little weak to me as well. You have a "Wiseman" and "Madman"... but I like to have an embodiment of pure wisdom. Not gods who seek wisdom, but someone who IS wisdom. That may be a little beyond the scope of your campaign world though, and it's a little philosophical and metaphysical... just the sort of things I love, but you might not.

How about a god of Mercy? I see you have a Judge of the Dead, but why not add a Judge of the Living? Perhaps the latter there could be summed up into the Maiden/Mother/Grandmother trio (the fates) but it could be seperate as well.

You have a Farmer deity listed, but how about a Home one? A Healer and a Destroyer, but how about one that seeks after simple peace?

You need a lord of Time as well.

Those are just off the top of my head.

 

[Jdvn1]

You can have a god of any noun. Family and homes come to mind.

Personally, though, I think an overly expansive pantheon can bog down a setting.

 

[reason]

...

In the Enclave, I've tried to make the Powers a little more interesting than the standard godly archetypes-by-job-description. I think there's something to be said for this approach. For example:

--------

The Fisher in Darkness

The Fisher in Darkness is the kindly old stranger who offers advice and points the way; only later do you realize him to have been a trusted keeper of your deepest secrets all along. He has mastered his own great hardships and is at peace in the quiet final seasons of a full life - a life you will never fully appreciate no how long you spend listening to his tales.

The Fisher in Darkness chooses to be alone and apart; he loves to fish in the expansive darkness of the Unending Sea, but hates to spoil the mood by catching anything. The farthest lamp from shore may just be this Power, rowing out of the Farthest Sea to enjoy a warm summer night and the sight of other fisherfolk living their lives.

King of All the Ammand

He was a rough man, skilled with a blade and the old Ammander spear; the best of warriors to have stood by your side in battle, a man who had seen the high cost of blood. He could be trusted with your wife, but not with your daughters; a lover of good wine in the best of times, sufferer of bad wine in the worst of times. He had a way about him, honest with a grim sort of smile at life's injustices, thrust into leadership time and again, a reluctant bearer of the trusts that others shirked. In time he came to be the King of all the Ammand lands, united the quarrelsome lords, brought peace, prosperity and an honest rule. Yet in his heart he was always a commoner, duty placed upon him like an ill-fitting robe - and therein lay his greatness.

The white-haired sages of the Black Tower claim there never was a King of all the Ammand lands, but the common Ammander folk of the Enclave know better. Any honest spearman might have taken up that crown, that duty, if the world were simply more just. There is a little of the King in all worthy commoners, a little of his decency, his rough honor, his sense of what was right and necessary.

There are no Kings in the Enclave lands, and certainly no King of all the Ammand in the present time, but the man who was King watches over his descendants from deep within the Farthest. If more men followed the King's Way, the world would be a better place.

-----

The Powers are archetypes of a sort, but like all people you don't personally know, are subject to interpretation and projection. This works well for ascended-from-mortal gods or gods that are largely imaginary. It also allows overlap and prevents cliched associations between mortals of a given profession and a given god.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[Fingol]

Invest in a copy of The Book of the Righteous. Not too many gods and religions, still covers most if not all angles. Comes with mythology that is interesting (too me and the group I play in/ DM for). Should fit into most game worlds like a glove.

The great thing is each church comes complete with its own orders, normally one for clerics, one for paladins/ holy warriors, and one for a new prestige class.

Each also give details on training requirements to climb the hierarchies and comes with titles for each step.

Has details on purpose of church and aims of the gods, their symbols, associations (with animals and the like), etc...

 

[Anime Kidd]

Guess I didn't explain myself pretty clear, I tend to do that. :\ What I mean is a list of god archetypes that are commonly seen in many real-world religions, like how many have a trickster deity (Loki in Norse myth, Coyote of Native American myth, etc); or a Keeper of the Dead archetype (Osiris [Egypt], Hel [Norse], and Hades [Greek]).

Oh and the article I believe is Realistic Religions in #283. That would show exactly what I talking about. It had suggested alignment, domans, and examples of real-world and D&D deities.

 

[nameless]

One of my favorite archetypes that you didn't cover is the Martyr. I personally find stories of heroes who make personal sacrifices for the greater good to be the most compelling. There's something very bittersweet about a victory so hard fought that the hero has to give up something he finds dear... it gets me all misty every time.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

I guess I still don't understand what you are asking for.

You have way too many archetypes as it is already. If I were designing a home brew pantheon, I'd take these archetypes and group similar ones together to come up with a much shorter list. A Deity with a portfolio covering Music, Poetry and Reveling might be a fun creation for example.

If it's real world history you are interested in, Joseph Campbell studied and wrote volumes on the common themes between the mythology stories of different cultures separated by geography and time ( Many have flood myths etc... ). His work highlighted their similarities, showing each culture that had multiple gods tended to separate them into the same 9 or 10 basic areas such as your gods of death example. Gods with smaller portfolio's were really minor gods that were sometimes just different aspects of the same diety ( Love - romance, beauty, lust, family etc... )

 

[Turjan]

I don't use these archetype deities. In real world religions, most gods in polytheistic belief systems had a broad spectrum of power areas, because most of them simply grew out of the main god of a city, province or village. Real specialists were numerous, weak and often regionally restricted. I don't use a pantheon in the idealized Greek literature sense, which in religious reality never existed. I have a few gods with many worhshippers who all believe that their own god is the most important, and I have many small ones; if I need the god of door frames for a village, then he enters the campaign on the fly .

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

... if I need the god of door frames for a village, then he enters the campaign on the fly .

I have never prayed to this one myself, but I believe my stubbed toes and I have cursed him once or twice in the past.