Local Pantheons on a Pseudo-Earth Setting

[Torrin]

I'm building an anachronistic setting using the pantheons of many ancient cultures from our earth. How would you handle multiple pantheons of deities who make regular appearances among their peoples' localities?

I'm currently focusing on an area I'm calling the Golden Sands. Its Egypt-based now, but I would also like to incorporate deities borrowed from other nearby pantheons.

The setting is in its infancy, so any potential feedback could have a great effect on the final product.

[Yora]

The most practical approach is to have them be powerful immportals who are symbolized by certain things in the environment and their culture and who have powers related to these things, but they are not actually controlling them. There can be many gods symbolized by the sun, but none of them actually are the sun.

[Torrin]

The most practical approach is to have them be powerful immportals who are symbolized by certain things in the environment and their culture and who have powers related to these things, but they are not actually controlling them.

This reminds me of how Dark Souls handles the gods, in that they are a race of nigh-immortal superpowered beings, with related powers. Is there room here for them to be extra-planar beings?

[Mechalich]

This reminds me of how Dark Souls handles the gods, in that they are a race of nigh-immortal superpowered beings, with related powers. Is there room here for them to be extra-planar beings?

Functionally the difference between 'God' and 'CR 30 monstrosity with a bunch of magic' is small. Both 3.X D&D and Pathfinder allow you to worship and get spells from things that technically are not gods - like archdevils.

So you can have each pantheon simply represent the ascended leadership of various groups of outsiders in the same fashion.

[Vogie]

You can certainly borrow some of the actual mythologies from Greece/Rome or jump into this thread about African Igbo pantheon. If you are borrowing the head god from Egyptian mythos being a sun god, you could have him or her being in a duality conflict with Baal, the Canaanite Weather god.

Alternatively, you could have it where all of the gods' pantheons are not only coexistant, and are still around - the "American Gods" approach, off the book of the same name.

Perhaps you could tie them to geological areas, so certain devotees can't leave their areas - older clerics could know the various gods of their domains, or have slightly different powers in different zones. For example, a wizened weather cleric may have great power in the Roman area (As Jupiter is both king of the gods and the weather god), but slightly less in the Egyptian area (as they have 2 different weather gods, Horus & Set), and even less in the greek area (unless they're devoted to Aeolus, Notos, Boreas, Zephryos, Euros, Skeiron, Livos, Kaikaias, AND Apeliotus... Oh, and Poseidon if they're going overseas).

I think it'd be interesting if you used the Stargate approach as well, where in at least 1 country, they've found that their gods were actually just aliens/extraplanar beings (in the show, it was most of the pantheons, specifically Egypt and Norse Mythology), and having a series of story hooks about how that changes the culture knowing that has changed.

You could also have an area that only has a single deity, or a really small pantheon, as in 5 or less deities.

[Shark Uppercut]

I have a campaign using Greek and Norse mythology. It seems to work out well, with a few guidelines:

• Assuming people communicate as well as they did in Classical history, there is no single "Greek country" anymore than that there was a "Jewish country" in 100AD. Not even government laws can enforce this beyond a certain point.
• What I just said, but for races, both dwarf-and-elf and black and white humans. There is no "Greek pantheon worshipping" or "Specific god worshipping" race.
• Try not to kitchen sink everything in, with monster pantheons, or less publicized real world mythologies like Tibetan spirits, Caribbean Loa and Irish mythology. Keep a definite list of What Gods Exist.

For example, in my world there was a world-sweeping magical catastrophe hundreds of years ago when the Greek Pantheon entered the world that the Norse gods lived in. Everything worked out ok, as the Olympians, Aesir and Vanir all have the same collective goals.
I assume the Norse creation myth has higher priority than Greek, although Gaia and the Titans absolutely exist.
Likewise, the cosmology is pure Norse with Yggdrasil and 9 worlds, although the Olympians built an Olympus next to Asgard and Hades made his own underworld next to Helheim.

Also as a Meta thing, other universes that use other pantheons do hypothetically exist. They avoid crashing into this world, because they don't want to be stuck here when Ragnarok rolls around for the Norse. The only reason the Olympians arrived in the first place, and haven't left, is Zeus's arrogance and stupidity.

Edit:
Stick to your These Gods Exist list for most Clerics, naturally occurring miracles and other big stuff.
For minor things, feel free to have peasants worshipping 500 different guardian spirits, gods, ancestors, whatever. They aren't real, but superstitions can and should be varied. And of course, a small minority of Clerics can explicitly worship a vague idea with zero loss of power or flexibility. What the rest of the world thinks of that, who can say.
And then you have cool misunderstandings, like peasants asking the party to hunt down the Curse-beast of Set or Father Legba's Holy Snake... when those gods don't exist in the world, and the monster was actually bred by a cultist of Loki.

[Torrin]

I am now considering the gods making appearances regularly, like the FR before the time of troubles. It is likely several may pass pantheon lines if enough believers spread.

Keep these ideas coming guys, they're great!

[Torrin]

I have a campaign using Greek and Norse mythology. It seems to work out well, with a few guidelines:

• Try not to kitchen sink everything in, with monster pantheons, or less publicized real world mythologies like Tibetan spirits, Caribbean Loa and Irish mythology. Keep a definite list of What Gods Exist.

That seems to be the kind of trap I might fall into. Thanks for the Tip!