Pantheon building help?

[RossN]

I'm building up a setting for a D&D game, exact edition undecided but likely an older edition. The outline is very vague at the moment but is basically in a roughly Hellenistic era timeframe with rival city states and a few outright empires and kingdoms around a vast inland sea. Humans are currently dominant but one to three thousand years ago during the equivalent of the Bronze Age Elves, Dwarves and Giants were the major players and have left some cultural mark on the humans.

So I've come to religion and I've decided two things:

1) The gods exist; this doesn't mean they are going to interact constantly or even frequently with mortals and mortal beliefs can be a little off when it comes to the facts but the deities are broadly as they are depicted.

2) Society is polytheistic.

Anyway I'm trying to decide on whether there are genuinely many, many gods or 'merely' a a dozen or so major deities who are known by different names in different lands. In particular what would happen if the human civilisations 'adopted' an Elven or Dwarven deity a few centuries ago? The model I'm thinking of is the Roman adoption of the Greek deities. How would a 'humanised' Elf Goddess of Beauty or Dwarf God of Trade (for instance) work, or are the differences between humans and demihumans too distinct to be bridged this way?

[the_david]

Tough question. Consider for a moment that while the Greek gods were a myth, your gods are real. (At least to the inhabitants of your campaign setting.) They don't exist in a vacuum either, they probably have some great origin story. In other words, what makes them gods? (Like the gods being the children of the titans and the heroes being children of the gods.)

So you might want to start asking yourself some questions about these gods.
- What are they?
- Where do they come from?
- Why do people revere them?
- What motivates them?
- What role do they play in the campaign?

As to how many gods there should be, at least enough to cover every (core) alignment, sphere, domain and portfolio.

So I didn't answer your question, but provide you with more. Job well done!

[Gritmonger]

I'm building up a setting for a D&D game, exact edition undecided but likely an older edition. The outline is very vague at the moment but is basically in a roughly Hellenistic era timeframe with rival city states and a few outright empires and kingdoms around a vast inland sea. Humans are currently dominant but one to three thousand years ago during the equivalent of the Bronze Age Elves, Dwarves and Giants were the major players and have left some cultural mark on the humans.

So I've come to religion and I've decided two things:

1) The gods exist; this doesn't mean they are going to interact constantly or even frequently with mortals and mortal beliefs can be a little off when it comes to the facts but the deities are broadly as they are depicted.

2) Society is polytheistic.

Anyway I'm trying to decide on whether there are genuinely many, many gods or 'merely' a a dozen or so major deities who are known by different names in different lands. In particular what would happen if the human civilisations 'adopted' an Elven or Dwarven deity a few centuries ago? The model I'm thinking of is the Roman adoption of the Greek deities. How would a 'humanised' Elf Goddess of Beauty or Dwarf God of Trade (for instance) work, or are the differences between humans and demihumans too distinct to be bridged this way?

The Romans adopted Egyptian and other deities as well - some of them they kept as-is, but Romanized them: reworked them from the original artwork into something that was more appealing to Roman aesthetics, or folded them in as an aspect of a Roman deity.

http://www.unrv.com/culture/adopted-roman-gods.php

A quick summary found on the web.

So, what I'd do in this case is figure out which deities are probably represented in 'ancient' pantheons (and therefore seen as more powerful due to their history) and which are more modern.
Deities of forest, hunting and the like - probably elves. Earth, wealth, forging, or even the dead, maybe the dwarves. Storm, eruptions or earthquakes, perhaps the giants. Trade, travel, cities, farming - probably modern.

[Mith]

Another way to work things together is to have the three Old Races (Elves, Dwarves, and Giants) all recognize the same pantheon, but with different patron deities, and different versions of the same stories. These gods are the more primal, with Gods of Forest, Earth , and Ocean as stated earlier. However the humans adopted this pantheon, and have labelled these gods with similar portfolios, but related to civilization: Agriculture, Metal craft, and Seafaring.

[RossN]

Thanks for the suggestions, you've given me a lot to consider. I'll work on some thoughts and get back to you.

One aspect I would clear up is that the old nonhuman civilisations were themselves civilised and somewhat urban - the Egypt and Babylon to the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians of the 'modern' humans.

[Mith]

OK. My idea would likely not work then, since it's based upon a more Nature vs. Civilization idea.

[Landis963]

OK. My idea would likely not work then, since it's based upon a more Nature vs. Civilization idea.

It could still probably work. If the ancient civilizations were more magic-focused, forcing order upon the primal forces of the world, then with their decline, the gods were better able to flex their divine muscles, as it were, becoming entities one appeases, as opposed to entities that one deals with.

[johnbragg]

I'm building up a setting for a D&D game, exact edition undecided but likely an older edition. The outline is very vague at the moment but is basically in a roughly Hellenistic era timeframe with rival city states and a few outright empires and kingdoms around a vast inland sea. Humans are currently dominant but one to three thousand years ago during the equivalent of the Bronze Age Elves, Dwarves and Giants were the major players and have left some cultural mark on the humans.

So I've come to religion and I've decided two things:

1) The gods exist; this doesn't mean they are going to interact constantly or even frequently with mortals and mortal beliefs can be a little off when it comes to the facts but the deities are broadly as they are depicted.

2) Society is polytheistic.

Anyway I'm trying to decide on whether there are genuinely many, many gods or 'merely' a a dozen or so major deities who are known by different names in different lands. In particular what would happen if the human civilisations 'adopted' an Elven or Dwarven deity a few centuries ago? The model I'm thinking of is the Roman adoption of the Greek deities. How would a 'humanised' Elf Goddess of Beauty or Dwarf God of Trade (for instance) work, or are the differences between humans and demihumans too distinct to be bridged this way?

An idea to throw around:

Not only are the gods dependent on human(oid) worship for power.

The gods are what they are believed to be, because they are created and sustained by belief. So if the idea becomes widespread that Odin and Mercury and Hermes and Thoth are simply local names for the same god, that becomes true.

That lets you have the humans copy and "humanize" elven deities, while perhaps at the same time, elves preserve a "purer" version of the same deity. Aristotelian logic does not have to apply.

[Mith]

It could still probably work. If the ancient civilizations were more magic-focused, forcing order upon the primal forces of the world, then with their decline, the gods were better able to flex their divine muscles, as it were, becoming entities one appeases, as opposed to entities that one deals with.

I kind of scared myself with the train of thought of drawing a comparison of the Natural Gods versus the Civilized Gods and came up with the comparison of Blood -> Wine (and other forms of alcohol). Basically my vision of Dionysus is much more terrifying than the Greeks.

I kind of have my own idea for a Pantheon/Worldbuilding. Maybe I will turn that into a thread at some point.

[Yora]

Unless the gods are created by their worshipers, it really makes no sense that deities would be limited to only a specific group of people while doing effectively the same thing. The moon deity is the deity of the moon. There is only one moon, so there should be only one moon deity. Having an elven moon deity, a human moon deity, and a dwarven moon deity does not make much sense.
On a smaller scale, you might have a deity of this river instead of a deity for all rivers in the world, and that deity would be only worshiped by one group of people. But it would be the people who currently live near that river and when they move away and someone else moves in, the new people would take over worshipping that deity.

[B!shop]

There is only one moon, so there should be only one moon deity. Having an elven moon deity, a human moon deity, and a dwarven moon deity does not make much sense.

I agree with Yora.
The same Entity with different local names seems more appropriate than more entities with the same portfolio.

You could even split two (or more) aspects of the same entity for different groups
ie. MySeaGod, worshipped by coastal civilizations as the god of travel and trade, by dwarves as the evil god of drowning and by the island men as god of fishing (sorry for the bad examples, I hope you understand).

[BurgerBeast]

Unless the gods are created by their worshipers, it really makes no sense that deities would be limited to only a specific group of people while doing effectively the same thing. The moon deity is the deity of the moon. There is only one moon, so there should be only one moon deity. Having an elven moon deity, a human moon deity, and a dwarven moon deity does not make much sense.
On a smaller scale, you might have a deity of this river instead of a deity for all rivers in the world, and that deity would be only worshiped by one group of people. But it would be the people who currently live near that river and when they move away and someone else moves in, the new people would take over worshipping that deity.

And, at the risk of overcomplicating things, just because there are real gods, that doesn't mean there can't be a long list of false gods and or false myths. So while the elves worship a particular moon god, the dwarves have a traditional story to describe the moon that is actually false, and the humans associate the goddess of magic (mistakenly) with the moon. Perhaps there is a whole civilization devoted to rituals and practices that are done in worship of a false god.