A New Set of Gods

[Marcelinari]

So, ever since D&D 5e came out I've been slowly working on a new campaign setting, to differentiate it from my Pathfinder games. Most of the nitty-gritty details, like races and countries, I'm fairly confident about, but I've always had problems working out a schema for what the gods of any particular setting should look like.

I finally decided that the gods should be based around the Cleric's domains (of which he gets one, FYI), and that each unique pair of domains describes its own god. With eight domains (Death, Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War), that makes... 28 gods.

So, without further ado, here are each of the domains, and the gods that share them. Note that you'll find more and more repeats as you go through; this is intentional.

Spoiler: Death Domain

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Death + Knowledge; The Deity of Magic, Chekh
Death + Life; The Deity of Thresholds and Rebirth, Denjir
Death + Light; The Deity of Dusk, Levvil
Death + Nature; The Deity of the Hunt, Noet
Death + Tempest; The Deity of Calamity, Eiris
Death + Trickery; The Deity of Opposition, Zipar
Death + War; The Deity of Warfare, Brand

Spoiler: Knowledge Domain

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Knowledge + Death; The Deity of Magic, Chekh
Knowledge + Life; The Deity of Medicine, Kein
Knowledge + Light; The Deity of Discovery and Inspiration, Gyers
Knowledge + Nature; The Deity of Earth, Cleff
Knowledge + Tempest; The Deity of the Sea and Sailors, Walibi
Knowledge + Trickery; The Deity of Thieves and Lies, Harrt
Knowledge + War; The Deity of Strategy, Tawar

Spoiler: Life Domain

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Life + Death; The Deity of Thresholds and Rebirth, Denjir
Life + Knowledge; The Deity of Medicine, Kein
Life + Light; The Deity of Dawn, Seram
Life + Nature; The Deity of Fertility, Tayzed
Life + Tempest; The Deity of Love and Emotion, Ankall
Life + Trickery; The Deity of Good Fortune, Skina
Life + War; The Deity of Soldiers, Dreyve

Spoiler: Light Domain

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Light + Death; The Deity of Dusk, Levvil
Light + Knowledge; The Deity of Discovery and Inspiration, Gyers
Light + Life; The Deity of Dawn, Seram
Light + Nature; The Deity of the Sun, Farruk
Light + Tempest; The Deity of Justice and Vengeance, Epok
Light + Trickery; The Deity of Fire + Shadow, Difram
Light + War; The Deity of Valour, Hawah

Spoiler: Nature Domain

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Nature + Death; The Deity of the Hunt, Noet
Nature + Knowledge; The Deity of Earth, Cleff
Nature + Life; The Deity of Fertility, Tayzed
Nature + Light; The Deity of the Sun, Farruk
Nature + Tempest; The Deity of Storms and Weather, Debutor
Nature + Trickery; The Deity of Ill Fortune, Dinnay
Nature + War; The Deity of Empire, Whint

Spoiler: Tempest Domain

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Tempest + Death; The Deity of Calamity, Eiris
Tempest + Knowledge; The Deity of the Sea and Sailors, Walibi
Tempest + Life; The Deity of Love and Emotion, Ankall
Tempest + Light; The Deity of Justice and Vengeance, Epok
Tempest + Nature; The Deity of Storms and Weather, Debutor
Tempest + Trickery; The Deity of Disorder and Chaos, Rethum
Tempest + War; The Deity of Fury and Might, Deshanar

Spoiler: Trickery Domain

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Trickery + Death; The Deity of Opposition, Zipar
Trickery + Knowledge; The Deity of Thieves and Lies, Harrt
Trickery + Life; The Deity of Good Fortune, Skina
Trickery + Light; The Deity of Fire and Shadow, Difram
Trickery + Nature; The Deity of Ill Fortune, Dinnay
Trickery + Tempest; The Deity of Disorder and Chaos, Rethum
Trickery + War; The Deity of Betrayal, Lakh

Spoiler: War Domain

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War + Death; The Deity of Warfare, Brand
War + Knowledge; The Deity of Strategy, Tawar
War + Life; The Deity of Soldiers, Dreyve
War + Light; The Deity of Valour, Hawah
War + Nature; The Deity of Empire, Whint
War + Tempest; The Deity of Fury and Might, Deshanar
War + Trickery; The Deity of Betrayal, Lakh

Theres not a lot of meat here, but I encourage everyone to come up with little stories or favourite behaviours. If you think a Deity inadequately describes its Domains, please let me know and help me figure out another epithet. Likewise, if you think there should probably be a deity who covers a certain aspect, and one doesn't exist, please suggest it and a pair of complementary domains.

[Yora]

That actually seems like a very workable approach. If you don't add more domains later, a total of 28 deities is a pretty good number; quite diverse but not excessive.

Making the deity of magic as the deity of knowledge and death obviously does give a very interesting feel to magic, which I would expect the setting to reflect. Like wizards frequently making contact with the spirits of the dead, especially archmages of previous ages, and perhaps liches not being outright evil but rather paragons of the wizard craft. The Aernal elves of Eberron have something like that. Making wizards ordinary while the deity of magic is a death good would be a wasted opportunity and also somewhat inconsistent. It should not just be knowledge and death, but knowledge from death.
Or go even more extreme and make all wizards necromancers.

Making the light gods of death and life an opposing pair is an interesting idea, but dawn and dusk don't really have any symbolic meaning by themselves. And dusk makes you think more of darkness than light. My first association with light and death would be something like a benevolent guide of the dead to the afterlife in place of a grim reaper. Like Death from Sandman.
You should totally do Death from Sandman! She's by far the coolest primordial cosmic being ever written.

Life and Nature seems a very primordial combination to me, so I would put more emphasis on growth in general, even if most followers are farmers. Agriculture is a very modern and civilized concept, and I think that deity should feel particularly ancient.

War and Nature as combination of civilization is the only one that I think really doesn't fit. As divine domains, they seem to be very much opposed to civilization instead of supporting it. Unless you are thinking of a deity of sword and sickle, who creates civilization through military power and agriculture. If there is no other deity of agriculture, it would fit quite well here. It would be mastery over nature instead of wild plants and animals.
However, with civilization being a work of modern humans, it seems unlikely that such a god would have existed in the ancient past, where his realm of control did not exist. This seems like a good opportunity to add some backstory. Either the original deity of Nature and War changed with the rise of civilization and redefined his own role in the world, or he was replaced by another powerful spirit who like Prometheus gave the knowledge of craft to the people and got so popular the the divine position switched to him. The original god of nature and war could have been a god of predators, though that would get pretty close to the realm of the hunt god.
Or alternatively make the god of hunting the god of nature and war and asign another role to nature and death. That combination does not seem particularly fitting to me either. Nature and Death could be a god of disease and poison, or also snakes. The realm of civilization could then be added to the god of war and light or war and war and knowledge, where I think it would work quite well. Having a god of war, soldiers, strategy, and valor is already quite crowded, and putting one of the war gods as the god of predators would thin that out a bit.

I like the Sun god being named Farruk, as that was the real name of Freddie Mercury. And who could be a better Sun God than him?

[Mith]

For Dawn and Dusk, how about Birth and Psychopomp. One is a guide to Life, the other one a Guide to Death. Interestingly, both priests could work in a hospital, just in different wards. Perhaps the deities are siblings?

[Marcelinari]

You've definitely noticed the deities I had the most trouble defining.

The Deity of Magic was definitely meant to have darker tones (and was actually labelled 'Dark Deity of Magic' in my earlier notes), and the idea is that whilst not all wizards venerate it - practically any of the knowledge gods will do - the best way to advance in magic is usually the one toeing the line between immoral and evil. The natural extension of that is a large number of 'mad scientist' type wizards, necromancers in abundance, and magic being seen as a more dangerous force than the usual force of progress.

The idea for the Deity of Civilization and Empire was originally just Empire - very much a sword-and-sickle deity, expanding with war, and supporting with agriculture. I can see where this overlaps with Life+Nature, and I can definitely see War/Nature being a Deity of Predators, but I'm drawing a fair amount of inspiration from Roman Mars - originally an agriculture god, becomes a war god due to continued Roman expansion. I might cut Civilization from that description, but Civ does feel like a good 'portfolio' for which to have a god.

As for the ones I'm unhappy with, I've got to say Dusk, Dawn, and Hunt are all a little annoying. I also don't particularly like Soldiers, but don't know what else to do. Any ideas?

My problem with Dusk is that the domains of Light and Death are both martial in application. Light domain involves a lot of damaging evocation, Death the creation of Undead. That might present a solution in and of itself - the Dusk is the dying sun, so perhaps the Deity is one of the purest Death. His priests knock you down when you should go down, and prop you up if you should be up. Deity of Death and Dusk? Very alliterative.

Dawn, though, feels like it ought to oppose Dusk, or at least be a complement in the pair. Life and Light, healing and flame... with Dawn I hoped to get across renewal and cleansing flame, but it's trickier than I expected. I welcome more input.

I agree that Agriculture needs a change. Farming and Agriculture are too narrow to really encompass the scope... I think I'll change it to the Deity of Fertility. That encompasses it, I think, and also makes links to the Deity of Love.

Lastly, the Hunt... Disease is a good idea for it. I had hoped to waylay much more negative connotation for the Death deities... between Dark Magic, Death and Dusk, Calamity, and Opposition, there are already a majority of negative ideas embodied there. But I guess that's a pretty unavoidable leaning when you're associated with death.

[Yora]

Gods often had not only power over their main domain, but also the opposite. Apollo was a god of healing, but he could also punish people with plagues.
Maybe instead of focusing on the names of the domains, look more at the specific powers they grant a cleric. That might be more helpful to determine what the deity is like.

[sktarq]

How about War+Life as the Imperial god? With ideas of an Empires as a permanent war given life and such. War + Nature could just as easily be about Dominance or Defense of Home territory.

Also Dusk could take a spin on the idea endings or last chances - add curses perhaps?

[Mith]

For the Hunt, you could have it associated with the opposition of Disease, since predators go after the weakest in a herd first, so those that are sick die first.

As for Dawn and Dusk, as I stated before, I see Dusk as a Death God that works at guiding one to death/fate if they should go. So the spells granted/preferred should be ones that deliver damage with minimal discomfort (so no blinding, deafening, etc.). Dawn could be a "new life" in the sense of starting over and atonement.

[LudicSavant]

Maybe instead of focusing on the names of the domains, look more at the specific powers they grant a cleric.

This really does make things better. Looking at the functions of domains is much more important than looking at their names, if you ask me. This is why Portfolios and Domain lists should be kept separate.