Pantheon Help

[sammyp03]

In my homebrew campaign, The One created Time as a Weave. He then Created the Vethari, Angelic beings (gods in the D&D sense) who govern a single thread (or aspect of the universe) of the weave of time.

Im having trouble coming up with What threads could they govern? Elements? Creation? Ruin? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Id like to keep it decently small say 10 -12 threads that way its much easier to come up with information on them rather than like the 30+ deities in the standard D&D pantheon.

[WhatThePhysics]

In my homebrew campaign, The One created Time as a Weave. He then Created the Vethari, Angelic beings (gods in the D&D sense) who govern a single thread (or aspect of the universe) of the weave of time.

Im having trouble coming up with What threads could they govern? Elements? Creation? Ruin? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Id like to keep it decently small say 10 -12 threads that way its much easier to come up with information on them rather than like the 30+ deities in the standard D&D pantheon.

Not sure if D&D 3.5, but...

Spoiler: SRD Domain List

Show

1. Air
2. Animal
3. Artifice
4. Chaos
5. Charm
6. Community
7. Creation
8. Darkness
9. Death
10. Destruction
11. Earth
12. Evil
13. Fire
14. Glory
15. Good
16. Healing
17. Knowledge
18. Law
19. Liberation
20. Luck
21. Madness
22. Magic
23. Mind
24. Nobility
25. Plant
26. Protection
27. Repose
28. Rune
29. Scalykind
30. Strength
31. Sun
32. Travel
33. Trickery
34. War
35. Water
36. Weather

Put "36" in the first section of the bottom row, and roll 3 times to produce up to 42,840 entities with unique combinations of 3 different domains.

[the_david]

I'd suggest starting with the 22 domains in the Player's Handbook (33 for Pathfinder) and dividing them between the Vethari. Remember that deities are supposed to have the domains for their alignment. Pathfinder hands out 5 domains to each major deity.
You could limit yourself to one Vethari for each alignment.

This way you can make sure that there is something for every player.

[sammyp03]

I play 5e so much less domains

[Nifft]

When I hit a creative roadblock -- or when I don't much care either way about the results -- then I like to involve the players in setting creation.

I got this trick from the Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat.

Here's what you do:

- Lay out your expectations about the Divine. Do gods come down and yell at people who don't behave? Do they send avatars? Are the gods KNOWN to be real, or are the gods worshiped purely on FAITH? You need to decide this one yourself, up front.

- Lay out your pantheon as it stands. Some broad details, a vague idea of how many gods there should be, a note about whether gods overlap with each other (i.e. can 2 gods have the same domain?), stuff like that.

- Lay out your setting's attitudes towards magic. Do people regard magic as a miracle, or a curse, or a part of nature? If you haven't decided, then engage your players in this question as well, and maybe have different people regard it differently.

- Are there evil gods, or not? (In my own settings, I tend to use archfiends instead of evil gods.)

Now that you've asked that stuff, and maybe got a few vague answers, go around the table and ask each player to add a detail: either a new god, or something specific about one of the gods.

Build up the divine mythology together.

It's fun.

[Gwaednerth]

It's a weave, so it can have multiple dimensions. You can do alignments, elements, aristotelian virtues (moral and intellectual), or whatever else all thrown together. That then lets you build that into the scholarship of your world as theologians/planar scholars classify them.

[sammyp03]

When I hit a creative roadblock -- or when I don't much care either way about the results -- then I like to involve the players in setting creation.

I got this trick from the Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat.

Here's what you do:

- Lay out your expectations about the Divine. Do gods come down and yell at people who don't behave? Do they send avatars? Are the gods KNOWN to be real, or are the gods worshiped purely on FAITH? You need to decide this one yourself, up front.

- Lay out your pantheon as it stands. Some broad details, a vague idea of how many gods there should be, a note about whether gods overlap with each other (i.e. can 2 gods have the same domain?), stuff like that.

- Lay out your setting's attitudes towards magic. Do people regard magic as a miracle, or a curse, or a part of nature? If you haven't decided, then engage your players in this question as well, and maybe have different people regard it differently.

- Are there evil gods, or not? (In my own settings, I tend to use archfiends instead of evil gods.)

Now that you've asked that stuff, and maybe got a few vague answers, go around the table and ask each player to add a detail: either a new god, or something specific about one of the gods.

Build up the divine mythology together.

It's fun.

The divine once walked the mortal realms when they were all connected by great walkways. Then during the cataclysm, the walkways shattered and Mythaal (the highest Vethari in terms of rank) was lost to the void. They have since left the world and returned to their golden city.

I'm not sure about themy being evil or not. I was leaning towards them more being forces of nature that have direct opposites. ie maybe a Vethari for law and chaos or light and dark.

Magic comes from the source of creation that magic wielders tap into called the reservoir. I'm leaning towards people having a bad attitude towards magic. Maybe an outlaw type of situation.

[Vogie]

I play 5e so much less domains

Then make the other domains their own gods. IIRC, there are 9 domains in 5e.

Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War, Death, Arcana

Those can be their own gods, or you can key in Deities to pairs or other combinations of those domains.

For example, if you want to tie them to the Major deities from Game of Thrones, You'd end up with something like
Maiden - Trickery/Light
Mother - Nature/Life
Crone - Tempest/Knowledge
Smith - Knowledge/Arcana
Soldier - War/Trickery
Father - Arcana/Tempest
Stranger - Life/Death
Drowned God - Death/War
R'hllor - Light/Nature
(or something like that.)

You can refluff them to aspects of time, or Just give them different Vethari names.

[sammyp03]

what are your thoughts on this?

aspects of the universe.

Chaos and order
creation and ruin
space and nothingness.
destiny
the elements