Tell me about the pantheon of your setting

Church of the Rising Star
While technically monotheistic, followers of the Rising Star do not actually worship any god. They believe that the one true Creator fell to self-corruption and ruin after creating the world, becoming a scion of darkness responsible for all the monsters and demons of the land. But they are hopeful, for it is said that all angels are the spirits of those with light in their hearts, such strong virtue that they carry out a duty of charity and self-sacrifice even after death. When all of life unites as a single rising star, the Creator will then be cleansed of darkness and the world will become a true utopia. Their cultures are devised around hospitality and reinforcing simple morals, while their rituals give praise to the angels, respect for the Creator, and prayers for personal strength.

Side question:

What would deities of the Four Fundamental Forces of Nature (Strong Force, Weak Force, Gravity, Electromagnetism) be like?

Lovecraft
Ain't gotta explain shit

If the God of Gravity actually has a humanoid form, its' eyes are probably in orbits around her/his head.

That being said, this God is probably one heartless bitch.

Gravity would be a massive, overwhelming, monolithic beast, maybe a bit of a bully, but when you examine it closely, it's really not all that strong after all. It carries secrets that aren't evident on the surface.

Electromagnetism would be some sort of abstract network of energy or electricity, traveling lightning-quick and dangerously intelligent.

Strong force would be a god very concerned with the minutia of things, the day-to-day life. Maybe a people's god like Thor. It would probably be more oriented towards the Order side of the axis. Sort of holds things together at a small level, pray to him if you need courage to deal with your taxes on time, or to talk to a family member about some stress you've been having, or to just get through the little trials of the day.

Weak force would seem arcane and unknowable, but if the PCs ever met it, it'd probably be a total bro and easy to get along with.

God of Electromagnetism should be really predilected towards duality that is illusory - i.e. appears as two beings (man and woman) that are actually two emdodiments of the same entity. Rainbow-like emissions are possible.

Kin of the Frozen Flame (Agni and Aruna)
Agnians and Arunians hold 2 core beliefs. First is that there are 2 gods, of Fire and Water, warring against 2 devils, of Air and earth. Second, is that the 3rd god of Metal was sacrificed long ago to create the false world we now live upon. The gods are ever vigilant against evil, and thus will not spare even a glance at mere mortals unless they pay homage and support the war through worship or crusades. When the flesh of Metal finally fails and the world is rent asunder, only those favored by the gods will finally strike down the devils and make pilgrimage to the true world.

As might be expected, this is the common religion of those living in the volcanic archipelagos. Many of their practices surround the worship of volcanoes and typhoons, and some of the more barbaric ones involve the ritual sacrifice of enemies. Metal has a special significance to them and, though there is little, they are often artifacts of great celestial might. They have a general theme of comaraderie and selflessness for the greater good, but their former reputation for good public order has been steadily broken by the realization of just how many people living in the continents are neither fire nor water aligned.

I have a big ass text file with the names and descriptions and such, but essentially we have a "main" pantheon of nine for each alignment, as well as a few smaller pantheons (mainly 3-5 gods).

Ours is a bit different and is concerned with people's life forces. Everyone has one and the three gods - give it, make sure it stays where it should be, and remove it. The three common names are Life, Time and Death. The fun thing is that our gods don't have avatars, you can't communicate with them but they'll f*ck you over if you tamper with the life force, such as time travel, resurrection, etc. As the gods can't tamper directly, they do so indirectly, so think Final Destination, Sapphire and Steel and the like. If something goes bump in the night make sure you haven't done anything stupid.

Oh, and they hate mages because while mages might not know it, magic is powered by life force. And spirits and ghosts are life force not yet returned to the god Life. So there is only a limited amount of life force. You could kill someone to resurrect someone else and that person might then have elements of someone else's memories.

My players don't know all this yet though, but the mages are getting paranoid... ;-)

Humans mainly worship the Holy Dead, believed to be 1,000 mortal heroes who achieve semi-apotheosis to a Valhalla-like heaven, though not all are warriors. A new hero could hypothetically arise and bump one from their spot via cosmic duel to join the Holy Dead, but the widespread belief is that the present day is a dark age without heroes, and that apocalypse nears.

Different churches and sects vary on eschatology, but the return of the Holy Dead to the world is a common theme, usually to prevent the end and usher in a new golden age.

The Grand Chantry has temples that acknowledge all the Holy Dead, but their worship mainly takes the form of cults of devotees to individual saints, which maintain their totems/icons, speak prophesies on their behalf, and receive prayers relevant to each saint's purview. Farmers would worship at a shrine to an agricultural patron, more or less local, while soldiers would pray to a mythic conqueror or warrior.

>Gnostic Buddhist Zoroastrianism
>Lovecraft
>Shintoism

Vampires of the (mostly) subterranean courts, though not at all uniformly, keep their bloodlines as holy texts, detailing the "genealogy" of their lords and turned descendants, and recounting their deeds. They believe the deeds of blood ancestors pass power on to descendants, but dishonor can diminish a bloodline, so lords are particular about who they turn.

The core of all courts' claim to legitimacy is the Book of First Blood, a history/genealogy of the oldest vampires. These Firstborn are said to be godlike beings from the first, "lost" age, who conquered the heavens and slew the cruel, tyrannical creator god, taking its immortality through blood; in turn, they were cursed by vengeful angels (major angels are associated with stars, choirs with constellations, and the entire class of solars with the sun) to be vulnerable to sunlight.

The Chantry and the vampire courts come into conflict over their creation myths. The All-Mother (creative name, it's in the works) is the first of the Holy Dead, supposedly the first human shaman to tame a monstrous wolf, and therefore forerunner of dog (and all animal) breeding and training, and the ancestor of all the "civilized" races of man. The Book of First Blood identifies the All-Mother herself as one of the Firstborn, and claims that her primordial wolf was turned against her by the angels in vengeance. This is why wolves and werewolves, all descendants of it (in line with the vampiric obsession with lineage), are the enemy of vampires.

The Chantry hunts vampires not for their violence and parasitism (though it certainly doesn't help their case) but for their heresy, and will try to torture vampires and force them to renounce the legitimacy of their bloodlines.

1) Campaign on hold, coming back after our shadowrun season is done. None of the players have experience with Everquest but me (DM), so it is the EQ pantheon with occasional changes to fit the playstyle. Makes it so much easier for me to come up with fluff and loyalties on the fly.

2) Stole purgatory idea from here, any and all DnD setting deities (and a few classical history pantheons) exist but the Good gods have abandoned their plane(t). The second main twist is that across all realities the gods are still fighting the elemental chaos, and their monster creations fill roles in an army. Dragons are officers, Minotaur are common jail guards, giants are elite shock troops, etc. The concept got very muddled and fuzzy over the millenia of the worlds history as it became a backwater in the greater cosmic war. Until the players started and the plot picks up, anyway.

Pantheon? Who said anything about a Pantheon?

Pic related is the only deity I'll ever need!

>Tell me about the pantheon of your setting.

Does anyone here have a masked god in the pantheon? If so, then why do they wear the mask?

>They are BIG

Relative to whom?

>that papercraft figure in the top left corner
ded

'Gods' are just living manifestations of magic. That is, magic is a force that exists independent of the universe, gods are the result of the universe and magic mixing together. Gods don't really care about mortal races, neither immortal ones either. There's no 'God of Ultimate Justice' or one of Evil either. They just exist. Their existence is what allows for a diverse range of magics to exist as well, all magi draw from the gods.

Some cultures venerate these beings, all mages at least due to constant exposure. Imagine watching the big-bang every time you went to bed, from a million different perspectives. It's hard to not at least admire the artistry.

Otherwise though, most of the people don't care too much. The gods don't really do much in terms of miracles or messing with mortals/immortals etc. One race of immortals, however, live under a god that throws their souls into an endless cycle of rebirth. This is purely so it can feed on the power released.

The thing about this god that makes it so important to the race is that the amount of energy produced by reincarnation is proportionate to the lifespan of the creatures. The god actively allows it's creations to feast on it's essence which keeps them young for millions upon millions of years. It's a sweet deal for everyone involved though it often throws out random and strange mutations towards the genes. Due to the nature of the god and their immortal natures these beings, however, cannot easily organize into hierarchies. They typically operate in loose society-wide associations. Though, typically, they take one or two of the freshly born as companions for the rest of their life-spans. They're born the same way spiders are, kind of. There are millions of 'matrons' that hold a brood of 1 million fetuses that they release periodically with random-ish features. They feed these creatures with their psychic energy to expand their innate potentials and to keep them alive.

There is no single pantheon, most cultures have varied religions with different pantheons and concepts of divinity. that rarely, if ever, overlap. Humans are not-Christians with saints playing the role of Cleric deities while Orcs are Buddhists with a more warlike slant, and both have as much respect, belief and degree of care for each other's deities as african animists and hindus have for each other's.

Divine power, such as that wielded by clerics and prophets, is magic derived from mass belief and spiritual practices. It's unknown whether any gods exist in reality, even if they do technically grant spells and work miracles.

I certainly didn't start mashing in random shit from multiple different real world mythologies, because that would just be lazy!

Hang on, let me just PDF the document...okay, here we go.

Long story short is that I wanted to create a pantheon where nearly all the gods basically act like big people rather than wise and powerful entities in their own right.

Also worth noting that of the gods there, only seven of them - Lord Fate, The Lady, Ankara, Orthos, Nualla, and the twin goddesses Luna & Aura - have actually been deities for their whole existences (and Luna & Aura are newborns, whereas the other five date back to the dawn of creation or near to it). Every other deity is an ascended mortal. Arraska, Goddess of Beasts, was the first of these, while Anatea, Goddess of Woodlands, is the most recent.

I personally hate the idea of a comprehensible or understood cosmology. It ruins the fear of the unknown and finality of death.

Players tell me who they worship and that's that. If you die and are ever brought back you never experienced true death (which is irreversible) and simply remember a darkess or loss of self before being re-awoken.

Clerics are powered by faith, obviously, but there is no direct communion with anything. Some have deities which help them channel but it isn't necessary because a few clerics have learned to do it through the philosophical nature of faith itself; that is without a specific deity in mind (meaning the idea of the deity could simply be the focus and they are not actually receiving power directly, but there is no way to prove it either way).

Paladins function the same way but usually the faith is reflected in an oath or promise. Abandoning an oath means they have lost faith in their cause.

Devils, Angels and other extraplanar beings are simply that, residence of another plane. Souls don't flow one way or the other usually, unless you make a deal to sell it. Meaning the natural progression of death is unknown.

Gods originate from The Plane of Ideas. The Incorporeal/Aetheral plane in which souls and "Majick" come from.

A God is just an Idea. In the Aether, ideas are infinite and not bound by the laws of reality and thus anything is possible. Time and space do not restrict the Aether like it does the physical plane.

The Gods or "Ideas" are more powerful based on how long they have existed and how much influence they have. Things like death, light, life, and dark are Greater Gods (Primordial Ideas) that have tremendous power. Other things, things like greed and fear also are apart of the Greater Gods.

The younger the idea, the weaker it is. Humanity is not an Idea but more like a combination of many ideas. We are very young compared to most everything else in the world and thus we age and die fast, so we must reproduce to continue our survival. Elves came before Humans so they have a stronger connection to the plane of Ideas and also live longer.

All things native to the physical cannot create original ideas, instead they must combine two already existing and unalike things to create something new.

Greater Gods cannot be killed but usually dont interact with the physical world anyways. The most powerful evil in my setting is the Greater God Soth, the Idea of greed. It is the oldest being alive since it was the first Idea to have a sense of self preservation, the instinct of survival. Greed is all about selfishness and obsessive self love. Soth hates everything that isnt him and his desire is to destroy everything else and live alone in the universe.

None whatsoever.

>There were once hundreds of God.
>One group of Humans began to get too power hungry.
>Gods try to broker a peace
>Gods get impatient and fuck up causing their first "Angel" to betray them and join the Humans who are rebelling
>Though the Gods and their supporters win the war all the competent Gods die.
>All that's left are the idiots
>Fastforward 4000 years later their fuck up is coming back to haunt them

Really all they do is try to influence humanity so that they cannot rise up again but constantly make things worse.

The gods don't give a fuck. The Immaculates and Primordials bickered and haggled at Dawn over the form Creation would take, said "gud enuf", then fucked off back to to their respective metadivine realms. The Immaculates did manage to extract the promise that everything would have a True Name, though, so when matter started assuming higher forms and contrived to develop coarse sapience, magic soon came with it.

So what we have now is a handful of escoteric high cults obsessed with discerning the will and ideals of absent gods, mystery cults worshiping lower, but at least present supernatural beings, garden variety shamanism, and saint veneration and hero worship of powerful mortals.

>All competent Gods die
>To humans in a war

How?

The old gods are fizzling out as they drew power from the needs and deeds of mortals. Now, they're offspring, the progeny, are lesser gods in ability but greater in power, as the mortals started desiring more and more specific things from their deities. So the spirit of more favored blessings remain in power and have grown to god-status in their own right, while the lesser spirits of things that nobody really wants fall to the wayside and die. As such the Mother Gods are fragmented by mortal desire into The Progeny, and the unwanted byproducts of their gratification are left to stew in the void. However, few mortals outside of broad-minded philosophers are even aware of, let alone acknowledge any wider pantheon, as most cultures center around the graces of a handful of gods at most, raising those values as the ethically just pursuits in life.

Long story short

>Main antagonist convinces one of the main Gods to come to Earth to discuss a peace
>She comes but is captured and used to power what is essentially a giant Laser cannon that uses the power of "un-creation" to destroy other Gods.

Basically the whole setting is this Cannon goes down in lore as a God itself and the main quest is to find and destroy this "God"

The gods died and the world is rotting and everyone's going to shit.

It's a bit grimderp but it has its charm.

The Paravant?

Yes well.

There's one thing to have a cosmology. I think that a DM ought to know how his world works. It's another thing entirely what you tell the players.

There are two main pantheons: Haddaism and Yotsehrism.

Yotsehrism states that in the beginning there was only chaos and darkness. In the darkness terrible sins were committed by the grigori. But then the shadow itself came to life as Yotsehr, turned chaos into law, restricted divinity to only the most worthy and cast the grigori who resisted him (such as Hadda) out of Ein Sof and threw them into the Sea of Oblivion in Sheol. Now Yotsehr rules justly over all of creation from his throne in Daat, the castle of the gods.

The main Yotsehrist gods are Yotsehr, Qodesh (Yotsehr's grigori wife) and Tav. Tav is a terrible undead god found by Yotsehr at the edges of Netzach (eternity) where it meets Sheol and the Sea of Oblivion.

Haddaism states that in the beginning there was only a divine light that suffused all of creation. Then came the elohim who proceeded to rule justly over creation. But then came a catastrophe! The divine light fell away from creation along with many of the elohim. The elohim who stayed behind fell from grace and become the flawed grigori. Then the darkness in the absence of the divine light, Yotsehr came to life and enslaved the world in darkness, barred the rightful destiny of all living things, divinity, from free access and cast the grigori who resisted him (such as Hadda) out of Ein Sof and threw them into into the Sea of Oblivion in Sheol. Now Yotsehr rules injustly over all of creation from his throne in Daat, the castle of the gods.

The main Haddaist god are Hadda the stormbringer and Shub Niggurath who is not a grigori but sprang to life from Abel, the mortal world.

Werewolves have a god associated with each moon phase plus the eclipses

It's a fucking mess, there are 5 major civilizations, each with their own pantheon and there's no overlap between them, thanks to the AD&D World Builder's guide.

In ancient times all of the Gods lived on the world, but thanks to a fuck up by the Elven Goddess, three of the pantheons have all retreated into their own pocket dimensions. Each pantheon is made up of a mixture of God's from each species in a civilization, with the exception of Elven & Goblin society, of which there are several in each But that's a whole not her fucking story.

>Humans, Dragons & Friends
Gods tend towards NG, live in a pocket dimension with low involvement in the lives of worshippers. This is a bureaucracy, each God has a major and minor domain.

>Dwarves, Orcs & Co
Tend towards CN, in a pocket dimension, medium involvement. Elemental Pantheon, with The gods of Fire, Honor and Craftsmanship are the most powerful.

>Elves, Arakocra & Famalam
Tends toward LG, lives atop an active volcano, direct involvement. Pantheon is a family, with the Elven Goddess as the first and most powerful diety in the pantheon. Fucked everything up by accidently breaking an agreement to not mess with the other gods followers, in an attempt to have children with her then mortal husband.

>Goblins, Giants & Slaves
All CE, lives inside of a mountain, no involvement. These "Gods" are actually extra dimensional beings that are servants to another, more powerful being. They are attempting to make the world more suitable for their master, and are the creators of The Broken Ones.

>Merfolk, Hobgoblins, and Misc
Tends toward CG, live in a pocket dimension, low involvement. This pantheon is made up of of two gods from each race, sans Ogres who only have 1 God.

The gods died a really long time ago. Some of their servants are still alive though and struggling to keep things together. The players are visited in a dream by these servants and given a vision about venturing on an journey to help resurrect the long dead gods.

It's actually a trap. The "servants" are the ones responsible for killing the gods and have now set their eyes on the mortal world. They are too weak to do anything now though and are trying to use the party to regain their power.

it's 3.5 forgetten realms

Architect created all and has real power. Demons and angels form from souls and emotions in "warp" and do supernatural shit if they get in materium. Gods worshipped by nations either don't exist, are angels/demons or too abstract

The gods are fickle assholes who get butthurt when anybody who is not them does something better, going as far as wipe an entire civilization because they managed to circumvent laws of nature or stretch a man's dick until it could reach around a mountain for having the gull to have sex more people in one night than the god of sex and marriage.

>stretch a man's dick until it could reach around a mountain for having the gull to have sex more people in one night than the god of sex and marriage

Getting drunk while writing up history generates interesting results.

Pretty much catholicism, just replace "Saints" with "lesser gods".

Fairly simple, there's a creator and then there's the sub gods, all based on the zodiac.

The God's power is dictated by their popularity. Some gods are trying to take on the creator whilst others are in mortal form they're so weak.

Most of the gods have champions or religious organisations dedicated to them

So basically the Greek pantheon.

I can dig it.

gamemasterspgh.com/GMBlogs/billv/?p=19

I've been considering this question for the last couple weeks actually. I always like making Gods for my worlds, but my players never really get into it. For all the cool backstory I can make for my Gods, it never really gets into the game itself. They /could/ read whatever lore I hand them, but even when they do read it, they don't really /care/, you know?

So I've been thinking, why not do the reverse. Session 0 time comes around, and I just tell them, "All right, I need x, y, and z things on one page about your character. Also, tell me about the God they worship." And now they're invested in their God, and it automatically meshes with their character. At least, that's the theory, I haven't actually seen the results yet.

This is why piety systems exist, rewards and punish players based on tenets of their chosen god. Character murders somebody in cold blood with a stab in the back despite worshipping a god of chivalry? -30 piety.

For the fantasy campaign I'm about to be running with my group there are three major religions in the kingdom it is set in: The Ministry of Truth, The Old Witch Cults, and The Divine Sepherat (yes the names aren't original at all, my group is pretty chill about it).

In this setting religion is still very much a matter of faith, as there is no 100% solid proof that gods exist. Magic is fairly pervasive, as every mortal is born with an affinity to some variety of magic, including animals and monsters. Purely supernatural beings like nature spirits and demons are known as Aeons, but whether or not they are divine in nature isn't concrete.

The Ministry of Truth is the state religion. It is a monotheistic faith roughly analogous to Christianity in that it has a single god above all gods. The Ministry's god, El, is portrayed as the being responsible for the world's creation. The Aeons are other supernatural beings that emerged from El's act of creation, but they are not gods, and any other god is just a powerful Aeon trying to impersonate El. The religion is fairly benevolent, and teaches its adherents to do good deeds, as the world is the proving ground created by El for mortals to join him in eternity. The word of the church's vestals is law.

El allows magic to flow through the world. What makes the religion seem legit is that the vestals of the Ministry seem to genuinely be capable of miracles. For example, were a wizard to try and heal a wound, they might transmute the flesh or accelerate the metabolism of the body in that one spot. A vestal can just pray and the wound goes away. Since the setting has some Gnostic influences, El is actually the demiurge to the actual godhead of the world. It plans on using the Ministry to take over the kingdom in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, using the deaths as a ritual to take physical form so that it can lead the physical world in ending time so that the Aeons can rejoin the godhead

The Old Witch Cult is the colloquial term for the various druidic faiths that existed in the kingdom before the arrival of the first foreign settlers. The druids and shamans revered nexuses of natural energy, believing that the Aeons of the world are made manifest there. The Aeons worshipped by the Witch Cult were many: Athirat, Walker of the Sea; Attar, The Blazing Star; Moloch, The Burning Hate; Resheph, The Healing Breath; Kothar Khasis, The Wheel of Time; and many others. Each of these Aeons represented various manifestations of the mortal spirits, and while they worked in the interests of man, most did not possess beyond animal intelligence. For the most part, The Old Witch Cult is a dead religion.

The Divine Sepherat is a foreign religion that believes true divinity lies within the realm of thought and philosophy. Through the Sephirot, followers attempt to divine the 10 attributes of creation in order to gain a glimpse of the Infinite Truth. The Infinite Truth is, according to the Sephirot, the means to bypassing the mortal world and joining existence with the Aeons Beyond the Stars.

It’s viewed by most learned men and women to be no coincidence that many aspects of the Divine Sephirot faith intersect with Therund’s faiths. As a result, adherents often come into conflict with The Ministry of Truth, who view their idea of bypassing El entirely in reaching Beyond the Stars heretical. Adherents see themselves as kins to remaining druids and shamans, as both believe in the Aeons and respect them, even if the Sephirot does not worship them. The Sephirot is gaining speed in several circles in the kingdom, much to the chagrin of the Ministry of Truth.

I made my religions intentionally simple because a lot of this information just isn't relevant to the game. They're there to give some potential character backstories and add to the political landscape, not be serious world building exercises.

The only god who truly cares about mortals is the god who also wishes to bring about the end of the world. No edgy "all life is suffering, thus life must end for suffering to end" bullshit though.

They all like shota dick, even the shota deities

Especially the Shota deities

post more hot animangels please

All gods are killed by the mad god from the outside of the universe. There is a religion around the destroyed pantheon. People just haven't noticed gods' destruction, because they weren't bound to the setting's energy/creation sources, but were just really powerful individuals with over-the-top reality-warping powers.

And I didn't want to deal with the pantheon and their reasoning not to interfere with the mortals' growing problems in my go-to setting, so I decided to just kill them off with Deus Ex Machina (aka that mad god who fucked off after he killed the pantheon), but I still wanted to have a religion implimented in the world's culture.

Worldbuilding from the bottom up rather than top down is much more organic. Cosmology is very high concept and doesn't need to be defined.

>Adrastea
>Cult worshiping ancient creatures that slumber beneath the earth
I see that you've played Dragon Age.

Nigga knows whats up

1. Being a god is their secret identity - they don't want to be recognized in mundane life.
2. Masked god is really just another god playing double game for giggles or actually fight for power
2.1 It's a vigilante god, who punish bad gods for being bad while pretending to be some minor god of cookies or something
3. It's a god of thieves.

Not a bad idea at all.

I think I once had a setting where Gruumsh was just a front for Vecna to get expendable berserker hordes.

In my setting religion and the gods are very separate things, because most people in the setting just don't know what's up with the supernatural and those that do don't care enough to change everyone's minds about it.

>Religion
Most of the word follows a monotheistic ICan'tBelieveIt'sNotCatholicism religion based around "The Goddess". Whether The Goddess really exists isn't something I've explored or have any plans to but her church doesn't have any special powers beyond the normal sorts of magic in the setting. The church of the goddess doesn't approve of other "heretical" religions and works to undermine or convert them constantly. Other minor and localized religions exist. Many towns have older shrines to various spirits, protectors, gods and goddesses, and what not.

>Gods
There are gods, but they don't control things, they are the living embodiment of those aspects. The god of winter doesn't bring snow and ice, he is a living breathing season and if you were to somehow off him the year would just be messily split into three seasons instead of four. All the gods take the form of dragons who sometimes keep a small cult with them but rarely interact with the rest of the world. Right now the PCs are mainly dealing with three dragons of time: The god of the future (who can see everything that will happen, but can't remember anything and comes across as just a bit senile), the god of the past (a paranoid conspiracy theorist who can see everything that has happened but has difficulty reasoning), and the god of the present (an utter goofball who knows all and sees all as it currently is but refuses or has no ability to remember anything or think ahead).

Wow, that's a great tweest on gods.

I like how those dragons be.

I'm working on one, it's based on the Norse gods but it's set after Ragnarok with the gods being reborn.

Some of them have been changed profoundly by this process.

The new Æsir are ruled jointly by Baldr and Hodr, I'm thinking of maybe letting Thor in on it mostly for pandering reasons.

Also things numbering three are popular in mythology.

The main theme of the setting is lot and lots of minor gods and spirits in competition with each other so i just come up with one as the campaign mandates.

>ex fire elemental blessing a mortal with fire power for shenanigans.

However i do like the idea of, you know, some static forces so i came up with an oligarchy of 3

>Mundusael, God of the physical universe (ex demiurge)
>Somnael,God of the sleeping mind (Ex dreams)
>Vitael,God of the waking mind (ex Emotion)

>The first gods somnael, and mundusael have no interest in humanity, it's gods, or struggles. Vitael however loves to toy with
morals and helps or hinders all whom Vitael meets. Vitael must be discrete or its works will be undone if discovered by it's
Sisters/brothers Mundusael and somnael.

gif unrelated

>someone using one of my filenames

It's so pathetic that I feel a warm glow of pride at that.

The gods are said to have shaped the world, leaving behind vaguely defined Paths To Sainthood, and fucked off. They aren't worshipped so much as remembered and passed down from generation to generation as part of a creation myth - sort of. The world is considered to have always existed, gods being a part of it. They just started life and set up some fundamental rules.

Saints are the actual beings of power, humans who supposedly followed the Paths and ascended. They now pursue their own agendas, but are unable to interact with the human world directly. They can, however, grant powers and send visions to certain people. Avatars are the ones invested with the most power of a certain Saint, and the ones with the most direct contact. Prophets are the ones with the most reliable visions, but not much powers to speak of. Finally, most extraordinary people (read: PCs) are considered to be favoured by a Saint.

Thing is, Saints don't communicate much and seem to be unable to give direct answers. That leads to weirdness where the same one can be revered by many different sects, conflicts on what exactly a given Saint demands, or a Saint usurping or succeeding another's place, sometimes without the worshippers knowing. Of course, some people try to gain a Saint's favour (fruitlessly), while some favoured don't have an idea whose favouring them.

It's basically left very vague so players can fill in their own details.

you're welcome dickbag

There's two pantheons, and one monotheistic religion. Surprisingly it hasn't directly led to war.

One I'd like to show as an example is the Saint of Sanctuaries. One of the older ones and worshipped almost universally, in life he was a petty criminal. Escaping his pursuers, he snuck into a farmer's house. The owner, however, showed him hospitality and even refused to surrender him. There is no universally agreed upon version of what exactly happened next - but he was eventually caught. Since then, people were incapable of any hostilities within the house he stayed at. The farmer, one of his family, or one of the pursuers - depending on the version - became the first Prophet.

Hospitality is said to bring peace to your dwelling and keep it from intrusions. Larger places of worship are sanctuaries - anyone can stay there for a while to avoid or escape conflict. Attempting any intrusion on these places is a great taboo, said to attract misfortune. However, no-one can stay in one longer than a few days - abusing hospitality is never welcome.

Something like that. Not too cheesy, is it?

It's player made and too complicated. Basically though the Yahweh-type omnigod created everything, and then its own body rebelled against it and tore itself apart as the constituent parts had their own plans and vision for creation and couldn't agree;

>Life goddess, representing the heart and circulatory system, resembles a human woman.
>Stellar deity, representing the brain and nervous system, resembles differing constellations.
>Nature god, representing the lungs and respiratory system, resembles an insect composed of whatever plants are nearby.
>Time and entropy goddess, representing the stomach and digestive system, her original form/identity was perverted such that now she resembles a nightmarish shape shifting fleshy-toothy mass that occasionally tends towards animal form depending on whatever sort of animal she may be interacting with.
>Climate and weather god, representing the endocrine system, resembles water in an appropriate state depending on the season.
>Earth interior goddess, representing the skeletal system, resembles some vague figure rendered indistinct by the sheer heat and brilliance emitted by it.
>Earth surface god, representing the muscle system, resembles an amalgam of various natural disasters.
>Ocean deity, representing the skin, resembles a kraken pirate.

Then there's lesser gods which are smaller parts of the body, or subsets of one of the major parts, and then lesser still are emergent gods which are unrelated to the omnigod and are manifestations or direct representation of beliefs, like the goddess of crossings and bridges for example.

...

>Tell me about the pantheon of your setting.
You have no idea how much I've wanted to hear someone ask me that question.

My pantheon is pretty simple- there's only one, but mortals think there are many.

They respond to many names and wear many masks. They began as truly primordial beings, little more than forces of nature as the cosmos coalesced and gained shape in accordance with merely their presence and puerile beginnings of sentience. As eons passed and life began to grow to meet them in thought and capability, they grew with the universe- becoming less mercurial and more established in their roles. As they became more ordered, so did the universe itself, separating itself more distinctly from the Spirit Realm.

Example: There is one God of Fire, but to mortals, there are many. To dwarves, he is Khadoran- the Forger, the Shaper Beneath the World. To elves, they are Ilarieth- the Dancer of Flame and Mother of the Sun (or father depending on which elves you ask). These distinctions are trivial to the nameless gods that shaped the universe, and their interaction is limited. It is not active deception- they become and embody these gods over time, wearing all the masks at once.

None know of this truth but the gods, angels, and demons.

Polytheism still takes precedence over monotheism, and has gained popularity over animism in most regions. Elven tribes in particular tend to blend polytheism and a more tribal spirituality, taking lessons and gods from ancient days and combining their worship of these distant creators with the much more active spirits of their lands.

Though not true gods, many worship powerful spirits or other immortal creatures. In these spirits' own minds, they may be completely unaware of true deities existing and consider themselves to be actual gods- or they're keeping up the charade for more worship and power.

Gods cannot be killed.

You cannot slay a god any more than you can kill the forces they represent. To kill the aforementioned God of Fire would be akin to making fire no longer exist across all of reality. No matter one's mastery of magic, no matter how expansive their mind, soul, and no matter what ancient artifacts they've adorned themselves with, they cannot best these cosmic entities if they ever interact with them at all. If they they do reveal themselves to a mortal soul, it is because they have been selected to become an angel in their service.

The closest that ever came to killing the gods was containing them- trapping them in isolated pockets of the Spirit Realm.
At the time, the flow of power from the Spirit Realm (i.e. aether, the dream, the dream- source of magic and spirits) was largely unrestrained, and mortals used this power to alter the home of the gods to turn it into a prison. Unaware of the incredible powers they were meddling with, these mortals considered themselves triumphant. They built a vast empire with their seemingly inexhaustible power. The gods were incensed, save one. The god of life bid that they wait and let the mortals be without them for a time. It was this god that made these first sapient creatures, after all.

They waited. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years passed, and the world began to degrade without the power of the gods to keep reality in check. Every moment longer that power was drawn from the Spirit Realm, reality was being torn apart. Lesser mortals, not empowered by the great fonts of energy their leaders had built, were feeling it- wracking pain as the Spirit Realm tried to reclaim their souls a piece at a time.

Finally, a group of these beings built a device with which to contact the gods they had spurned, and their creator answered and told them what they must do to set things right.

Knowledge of what was planned found it way to many ears. Conflict arose in the empire between those who wished to turn their achievements to ash and risk the wrath of the gods by setting them free again, and those who believed that more power was the key to solving their woes. Unlocking more secrets of magic and creation itself to undo the damage that was being done to the Material Realm and the souls of their subjects.

It escalated swiftly, and it became clear that it would not end without a colossal loss of life. Civil war unlike that which the world has ever seen or will see again erupted across the planet- first in secret, skirmishes and sabotage, but armies were soon marching against one another. Endless legions of golems, conscripts, and even the undead fought endlessly while one faction worked swiftly to break the locks that kept the gods away.

The Spirit Realm was ordered once again, and all at once, time froze to a halt. The gods, in their true forms, loomed over the world, and brought the accused mortals before them. It was the God of Life that once spoke for mercy, rather than committing all unto the God of Death. A choice was given: Serve, or exist in exile from the Material Realm.

Many of those who broke those cosmic "locks" chose to serve alongside the gods as penance for tampering with reality. Many who fought against them chose exile. Some chose to pass into whatever afterlife the God of Death had in store for them.

These became the first angels and demons; the servants and exiles, respectively. Both were sent away from the Material Plane- the exiles to distant corners of the Spirit Realm, and the servants into the domains of their new masters.

the gods were born of worship, living incarnations of humanoid ideals, a la American Gods. At a certain point, the humans rose to such to power that one of their gods, Yahweh, was able to overthrow the others, and thus the Church was born.

Panteons are groups of God's that there common themes and ideals that Roam the universe seeking prayers to make themselves more powerful to and become ultimate and omnipitant beings.

Aperence wise they can vairy from beautiful humans, to something that looks like it came out of a slipknot concert, to abstract and alirn geometric shapes.

Also there was one group of dragons that became a Pantheon because a shit ton of stupid primortal humans and Orcs worshiped it so much.

10/10 bretty nead idea.

The era I intend to begin my tales from will likely have no pantheon. With this, people's thinking doesn't span much further from the need for basic necessities of life - which are believed to be given through the effective faith in what each tribe prioritizes as a community - such as family or strength.

If any sign of magic is shown from a character, he or she them-self would be regarded, by definition, as a god and remembered for what series of events play out by what actions are made. We are introduced to greater levels of magic (the 'Gods' and their influences) through what travelers find left behind, if undamaged, by those who came before.

Thus, these 'pantheons' are inevitable. So according to what areas your players will find themselves in, so to will be the changes in common practices. And how you are perceived by a community and what knowledge you have will relate to the dangers you might face.

The mainline elven religions tend to have a bunch of superficially similar cults that are mostly focused on the complicated cycle of romance between two gods and three goddesses representing the cycles of the seasons, life and the sun. Some of the more nomadic elven nations are still downright animistic. The Orcas (basically dark elves/orcs as one) have a generally more sinister take on it where the gods spend their free time hunting down human settlers in revenge, and so they should too to honor the gods and their ancestors with their sacrifices, or so their neighbors say (other elven kingdoms just kind of nod along and either tacitly support or merely ignore it).

Dwarves largely follow a materialistic religion that's essentially reverse gnosticism; the spiritual is evil chaos and the material is all that can be improved.

Humans vary from animinism and ancestor worship to three major variants of a prophetic cult that uses a lot of metaphors based on the five elements (varying by region), filling the spot christianity, islam and buddhism have irl.

The goblins are either animistic or follow religions centered around the god-kings of their city states, with sacral kingship being a major survivance of their old tribal practices.

Irrespective of religion the world has a lot of weird superstititions, and beliefs in genius loci are common largely because on a metaphysical level they're actually a thing. Some people's lives are tied closely to the area they inhabit, to a point where they sometimes literally can't go, and while it's unclear whether worshipping them does anything, at the very least the cults around these sacred places seem to be as potent as normal religions. The people this falls on are usually treated as oracles and mystics, although some are incredibly bitter about being trapped by fate. The one thread they all have is that they usually died and were revived at the point where the former oracle died, usually almost simultaneously.

Actually no, I haven't. I did base the name Adrastea on a character from Demon Souls, as one guy pointed out.

There are three main religions in my setting

>The Builder
they believe in a single god who created everything, but left everything, instead leaving six angels to watch over the world. Mostly the church is just a really big and powerful organization with a lot of influence over three large nations.

>Sun and Moons worship.
They believe in three divine beings embodied within the sun and the two moons. Two of them are a little abstract, but the "the far moon" is a single genderless deity represents all of humanity.

>The Great Pantheon
They believe that gods are not necessarily immortal, and can be slain by other gods. They also don't believe their gods created the world, but rather just watch over it. Their gods bicker and quarrel a lot. Most followers of the great pantheon are not particularly devout, though they are familiar with all the myths and superstitions. They also believe there was a prophet who helped unit their nation.

They have 13 total books - 7 about their gods (of which there are dozens... I haven't fleshed out the details sorry) and 6 written by the prophet. The ones about the gods are considered interesting reads for the drama, even by the non-believers.

Other groups:
>The Blade Church (Cult)
the 4th book written by the prophet, "The Binding Blade" has a lot of metaphors about life's struggles. These weirdos take it literally and practice with swords every day, at least when they are not going door to door trying to tell people about their favorite book. They are pretty harmless, but plot important.

>Dragon Cults
Some people worship the dragons as gods. The dragons couldn't care less.

>Witchcraft Cults
Worshipers of the great darkness tend not to live too long. Somehow there is always another group of fools mad for power though.

God is dead.

No but for real, some asshole killed him and scattered his fragments who are now a pantheon of squabbling dickbags who can't settle on how the universe should be run and are basically making a mess of the place.

The campaign has nothing to do with that though it's all background information in case the players start to wonder why their lives are so shit.

That is so brilliantly simple, I'm kicking myself for never considering it.

Bunch of gods inspired mainly by Slavic and secondly by Norse ones. There is no main one, each is embodiment of some idea, element or force, often with two sides (as in power over life implies power over death, too). Their form is whatever they feel like, from animals and people to abstract shapes seen in a forest between leaves.
There is Ślepun, the blind god who watches over randomness and chaos, but also fairness, but not law.
Wiedź is god of madness and genius, mental abilities and secrets, but also casting away emotions and mercy.
Dmyj, who lords over wind, is capricious god of things lost and way with words, thus keeping an eye on both scoundrels and artists.
Grydal is god-mountain of balance, stagnancy and distrust, who watches over riches of deep earth.
Darun, god of stillness, darkness and silence, fond of cats.
Wodym, who have power over water, moist, impermamency, but periodicity, liked with both life and death.
Odytyk is lord of light, sun and scorching temperatures.
Tszuj is a jolly god of happiness and peace, feasts, mead and ale and emotions and giving to them.
Bura is goddess of change, seasons and weather. She has four children with four other gods, each child bringing one sun to the land, thus creating four seasons, since different seasons are thought to be caused by different suns in the sky.
First child is Kwietna, daughter of Tszuj, who patrons over rebirth and brings spring,
second child is Tmiel, son of Odytyk, who patrons over warmth and brings summer,
third child is Jaryma, redhead daughter of Wodym, who watches over chilliness and beauty and brings autumn,
and fourth is Czaryt, son of Darun, with whom comes death and brings winter.
cont.

Branyw is a mad god of terrible destruction, war and battles, bloodspill and raw, animalistic fury. Worship of Branyw is forbidden, people who are found to do so are exiled and considered less than human.
Auron on the other hand patrons over honor and bravery, healthy competition, leaders and martial champions, law of the strongest and hard leadership.
Marun and Piuna are god of space and goddess of time. They are keeping the world intact virutally imprisoned as god-couple, but as only ones of gods do not materialise and do not get involved in any of mortal or immortal fuss.
Gods are the only source of magic in otherwise magicless world, allowing people who follow their ways to ask them for help in given god's matter by drawing a magic symbol called a fir. Fir attracts attention of a god, who gives or takes something from the world depending on fir's structure. It can be light, warmth or order, or couple of other elements. But ask gods for too much and they become angried, and they anger can rip apart both your body and your mind.
Fuck, i have too much worldbuilding done for absolutely no games i DM and my untested homebrew

Everyone believes they are divine heavenly beings. The truth is, however, that they are actually ancient laser wielding robots stored in space as orbital weapons by a long dead race of humans, of which, one was accidentally brought down to earth after a collision with an asteroid and promptly obliterated a few countries

In my universe, "gods" are merely very powerful beings who have been invested with Titles by the Story Maker, the ultimate being of this universe.
Titles are magical, and they bring extreme power to the person who wields them, which is why adventurers with loads of titles are often immensely strong.
Meanwhile, the Story Maker sits in his fortress while his aides craft artifacts, prophecies and other related stuff. If you come see him, he will allow you to take a boon (magical power, rare artifact, anything really) in exchange for telling him a good story. Otherwise he doesn't really interfere with the world seeing as anybody can raise to the power of a god if given enough titles.

The deified founding rulers of the major nations, bound together and kept alive by a sort of cosmic color wheel. Every member of the pantheon lives in their own realm and only has power over that land, but the sitting Emperor has some level of control over all Realms. This was, until recently, the Red Emperor.

In recent years, disaster has struck the Wheel. The major gods living in the central continent have all gone mad or died, leaving only the Green King to the southeast, the Gold Prince to the west, and the Black Queen on an even more western continent. The Gold Prince is going fast, though, and there's presently a race to make it to the throne of the Red Emperor and claim his crown for the Black Queen so that reality can stop crumbling to dust.

There's also the myriad of gods who rule over the smaller, uncivilized lands. Some of them have pretentions of joining the Circle, and some hate it above all else. The Yellow God, ruler of the largest tribal federation to the south, feels both ways.