How many deities is too many? [Archive] - Wizards Community

How many deities is too many? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
JohnOSpencer
07-05-07, 07:37 PM Hello All,
I have worked my races out to my satisfaction, next up deities. How many deities do you think are necessary? FR has waaaaaay to many, this I know. I'm thinking of using the ones from the PHB and just adding a couple(a god of storms and such). Do you think that is enough, or do you think you need more deities?

Thanks!
Millennium
07-05-07, 07:56 PM When you as the DM can't easily keep track of them all (by whatever means you see fit), then you've definitely got too many. Other than that, it's a matter of taste.
Alexeduardo
07-05-07, 08:08 PM Try to be greeky.
Create a big pantheon of many gods and demigods, each one associated with an aspect of life. make them really humanlike and give them feelings.
Real help when creating plots.
Who needs a mad necromancer when you've got a demigod that wants to take veangeance on a major god that stole his girl?
Rhineglade
07-05-07, 10:11 PM Maybe you could ask the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese or even the Hindu. All of these have 1000's of deities in their mythology.

This might imply that you can never have too many deities. Of course, even though you may have a lot of them, you may only use a small handful. This would correspond to the fact that in our history, many small regions, tribes and even individual family units had their own favorite deities depending on what factors of life they viewed most important. However, if you looked at the nation as the whole, only a smaller number were generally recognized by the majority.

Which gods and goddesses you choose would probably depend on what kind of campaign you want to run. A water-based campaign, for example, would probably have deities of the sea, travel, storms, drowning, fish, sunken treasures, etc. A war-based campaign would include gods of war, battle, protection, strength, chivalry, panic, etc.

Is all of this confusing? Yes. Mythology can get confusing. There really is no right or wrong answer to your question. I would recommend that you just pick a small handful of gods and give each a wide portfolio that covers many of lifes aspects. Therefore, the god of the sun would also be the god of the heavens, light, stars, time, order, seasons, etc. The goddess of nature would also be the goddess of plants, animals, birth, death, weather, etc.
turalisj
07-06-07, 01:52 AM Core pantheon (Pelor, Correllen, etc), then you have each races pantheon, and then the dragon pantheon.

Of course, that is my personal view...
Hochiu
07-06-07, 02:03 AM I have a fairly ambitious campaign world on the back burner now where there were three types of gods worshipped:

1. Political
2. Racial/Cultural
3. Regional/Local

In the political category there was only one pantheon worshipped - that of the old Roman style empire I had. It numbered 18 gods.

The Holy Church, my Christian analogue numbered 3 gods.

Each of the seven races had 7 to 12 gods a piece: Something like 64 gods, total.

Local deities were smaller gods that were worshipped in a small regional locations and generally restricted to a small handful of domains and portfolios; their worshippers never really strayed too far. They numbered somewhere around 20ish.

The grand total of deities I was working with was somewhere in the neighborhood of 105ish, not counting the secret deities that my player's were largely unfamiliar about, demi-gods, false gods, and the like..

My current campaign setting, on the other hand is largely a monotheistic setting with a singular god at the fore of a Latin Church. The total number of available deities to worship in the entire world will not number more than a dozen and a half or so, since the known world is either in serious trouble or under the sway of the Latin Church analogue.

The point: The number of deities you're comfortablewith in the world you're running is the number that is just enough. Any more than that and it's too many.
Alltat
07-06-07, 06:48 AM As long as each deity has actual flavor that makes it distinct, it's fine. I'd probably stick to ignoring deities for now, and just adding them as they become neccessary for the plot or the construction of the world. That way you'll know which domains actually need deities, and which deities will be the powerful ones. In a world that's mainly inland, the god of the sea might only be a minor deity worshipped only in a few coastal areas. If a deity won't have any significant impact on the world or the plot, then it should be pretty safe to remove it.
yellowdingo
07-06-07, 08:31 AM I think One God is one too many...Time to have a war of the Gods.

Have All the Gods duke it out until there is only one.

The followers of the loosing gods are the Godless and the Worshipers of the Winner are the One true Faith.

ANd the fallout from that conflict will lead your campaign down a new path.

"Our God is defeated?"
"Oh no! What shall we do?"
"Lets go worship a fiend."
"I'm not doing that!" Frill the Healer complained at the prospect.
"Whose asking?" Mishum-Once-Paladin Stabs his associate and sacrifices him to open gate.

The Campaign I'm involved in developing has taken an ugly turn where the Gods of Good and Evil are in a Planar Bloodwar that has opened a rift into a valley into the campaign world.

The Neutral Gods have simply left the battlefield to wander the known world while the forces of good and evil continue to duke it out in the Valley of Blood and sorcerers of power enter the field to steal weapons of the godwar.
Howland Reed
07-06-07, 07:04 PM If you have enough that your characters don't even bother to remember them, you probably have too many. :)

Something to keep in mind when devising pantheons...you don't NEED a different god/goddess for each single aspect of humanity or whatever. Most gods in a polytheistic pantheon play double duty. Apollo was a sun god, but he also covered art, athletics, music, even healing to some extent. Thor was a war god and a thunder god (heck, most of the Norse gods were "war gods" of one sort or another).

One pantheon I was working on had only 4 gods...one for each basic element. All other aspects were folded in under one god or another (or, in some cases, they stepped on each others toes...for example, weather was the province of both Air and Water).

Just as important as a reasonable pantheon is reasonable religions to worship them. Faiths and Avatars from 2E FR was my favorite book...not for the gods or specialty priests (I knew about them already), but because of the details on vestments, holy days, particular ceremonies, crap like that. Things that make clerics more interesting than just "that guy who heals and buffs us".
yellowdingo
07-06-07, 09:43 PM One pantheon I was working on had only 4 gods...one for each basic element. All other aspects were folded in under one god or another (or, in some cases, they stepped on each others toes...for example, weather was the province of both Air and Water).

Eek! Its the Ancients! Warn the Village!
Alltat
07-07-07, 06:16 AM Thor was a war god and a thunder god... As I recall he was a warrior god, but never a god of war. Not that it matters much.

Just as important as a reasonable pantheon is reasonable religions to worship them. Faiths and Avatars from 2E FR was my favorite book...not for the gods or specialty priests (I knew about them already), but because of the details on vestments, holy days, particular ceremonies, crap like that. Things that make clerics more interesting than just "that guy who heals and buffs us". I'd say the cult/religion is possibly even more important than the deity, and the deity is really mainly interesting in how it has affected the cult/religion, unless it takes a very active role in everyday things. Knowing that X is the godess of nature and is worshipped by farmers is all well and good, but it's not really that interesting unless you know how they worship her, what the clergy is like, etc.
ragoftag
07-08-07, 12:39 AM Actually, all the Norse gods were handy with weapons. Oops, might be a heretical line there, Tyr (the real god of war) lost a hand to Fenris!
Hochiu
07-08-07, 01:52 AM Aye, there are only a few deities you didn't hear about in the Norse pantheon that had some direct connotation with a weapon of war or a military position. Frigg and Idunna are the two biggest examples in my mind right now. The majority of the gods knew how to fight, because the pre-Christian Scandinavians were a people with nearly constant conflict, so it would make sense to factor in such a big portion of their lives.

There are only a few actual deities you could classify as "war gods", I've heard it be considered that Odin is one of them. With Tyr being another. And Tyr is more of a combat oriented deity instead of all out battle. He's also very big on personal honor, more so than any other of the deities.
Zukhramm
07-08-07, 04:57 PM Personally, few. Something like five.
Manyfist
07-08-07, 05:35 PM If you must have gods I think Eberron, Seven "good gods", Six (Well 5) "evil gods" and the rest are mostly philosophies. The gods shouldn't be walking the world, since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better?
Swordbreaker
07-09-07, 01:32 PM The PHB mentiones a handful of the Greyhawk gods for a reason, to give you an idea of the deities of a campaign. Now, you can go monotheistic of agnostic in your campaign, but polytheism is the majority of campaigns.

I would suggest a handful for each race, and then a couple higher gods, like for the elements and aspects of life. More than the PHB, nowhere near the number of FR. I would guess somewhere between 20-50, but you go with whatever makes u feel comfortable.
ragoftag
07-09-07, 08:50 PM Manyfist ...since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better?perfect!
turalisj
07-09-07, 09:15 PM The gods shouldn't be walking the world, since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better?

So the hero can make a 12th level spell, kill a god, becoem a god, then get killed himself?
Manyfist
07-10-07, 09:19 AM So the hero can make a 12th level spell, kill a god, becoem a god, then get killed himself?

If another person makes a 12th level spell in which if you're playing with epics there is still someone always better than you.

The only exception of being killed is Pun-Pun. Since he's of infinite power.
khyron1144
07-15-07, 10:48 PM I believe that as long as they don't create issues for the DM and the players, there is no such thing as too many deities. In my own world, I assigned a pantheon to each significant cultural group and race using the old 1e Deities and Demigods cyclopedia. That probably means over a hundred deities. Since I know the mythology, kinda, I can keep track of things as well as I need to.
turalisj
07-16-07, 12:19 AM So if the game uses the entire greek pantheon, that's not too many? What about combining greek, roman, norse, and egyptian?
Alltat
07-16-07, 06:49 AM Instead of asking "Will adding this deity be bad for the setting?", aks yourself "Will adding this deity add something to the setting that couldn't be achieved by modifying an existing one?".

In reality, there isn't really any limit to how many deities are 'too many'. You can put your "deity intensity" anywhere between one god of everything and a separate deity for every kind of plant, every type of object, and every home. The only real catch is that the more you add, the less character each will have.
Manyfist
07-16-07, 06:59 AM So if the game uses the entire greek pantheon, that's not too many? What about combining greek, roman, norse, and egyptian?

Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and the Norse had TONs of deities. Combining the three pantheons would be like having a diety for each living being, sometime two & three.
uglykitten
07-16-07, 11:46 AM My Roseword setting is based entirely on the fact that there all four of the major pantheons coexist (not exactly peacefully...). The Norse pantheon is the most difficult to contend with, because that particular religion ruled that there is a family god for each family, similar to the guardian ancestors in ancient China. How many gods there are doesn't really matter--its how you deal with the gods and how they interact with mortals that matters most. For instance, the four top gods in Roseword are only concerned with the governing of the gods. Even though they have worshippers who receive divine aid from them, it is often more from the lower gods with the same Portfolios and Domains than from they themselves.

However, there are also gods that choose to live on the Material Plane, and they affect the lives of mortals the highest. Relic even lived among her people, becoming the mother of the first queen. (Thereby giving each queen thereafter a Divine Rank 0.) You don't have to always know who all the gods are--only the ones that affect the specific mortals you have in your campaign. Unfortunately, expanding to allow a million choices is what I like to do. ^^; If you don't, then follow this advice: Only create gods that you need, not that you want to need.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JohnOSpencer 07-05-07, 07:37 PM	Hello All, I have worked my races out to my satisfaction, next up deities. How many deities do you think are necessary? FR has waaaaaay to many, this I know. I'm thinking of using the ones from the PHB and just adding a couple(a god of storms and such). Do you think that is enough, or do you think you need more deities? Thanks!
Millennium 07-05-07, 07:56 PM	When you as the DM can't easily keep track of them all (by whatever means you see fit), then you've definitely got too many. Other than that, it's a matter of taste.
Alexeduardo 07-05-07, 08:08 PM	Try to be greeky. Create a big pantheon of many gods and demigods, each one associated with an aspect of life. make them really humanlike and give them feelings. Real help when creating plots. Who needs a mad necromancer when you've got a demigod that wants to take veangeance on a major god that stole his girl?
Rhineglade 07-05-07, 10:11 PM	Maybe you could ask the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese or even the Hindu. All of these have 1000's of deities in their mythology. This might imply that you can never have too many deities. Of course, even though you may have a lot of them, you may only use a small handful. This would correspond to the fact that in our history, many small regions, tribes and even individual family units had their own favorite deities depending on what factors of life they viewed most important. However, if you looked at the nation as the whole, only a smaller number were generally recognized by the majority. Which gods and goddesses you choose would probably depend on what kind of campaign you want to run. A water-based campaign, for example, would probably have deities of the sea, travel, storms, drowning, fish, sunken treasures, etc. A war-based campaign would include gods of war, battle, protection, strength, chivalry, panic, etc. Is all of this confusing? Yes. Mythology can get confusing. There really is no right or wrong answer to your question. I would recommend that you just pick a small handful of gods and give each a wide portfolio that covers many of lifes aspects. Therefore, the god of the sun would also be the god of the heavens, light, stars, time, order, seasons, etc. The goddess of nature would also be the goddess of plants, animals, birth, death, weather, etc.
turalisj 07-06-07, 01:52 AM	Core pantheon (Pelor, Correllen, etc), then you have each races pantheon, and then the dragon pantheon. Of course, that is my personal view...
Hochiu 07-06-07, 02:03 AM	I have a fairly ambitious campaign world on the back burner now where there were three types of gods worshipped: 1. Political 2. Racial/Cultural 3. Regional/Local In the political category there was only one pantheon worshipped - that of the old Roman style empire I had. It numbered 18 gods. The Holy Church, my Christian analogue numbered 3 gods. Each of the seven races had 7 to 12 gods a piece: Something like 64 gods, total. Local deities were smaller gods that were worshipped in a small regional locations and generally restricted to a small handful of domains and portfolios; their worshippers never really strayed too far. They numbered somewhere around 20ish. The grand total of deities I was working with was somewhere in the neighborhood of 105ish, not counting the secret deities that my player's were largely unfamiliar about, demi-gods, false gods, and the like.. My current campaign setting, on the other hand is largely a monotheistic setting with a singular god at the fore of a Latin Church. The total number of available deities to worship in the entire world will not number more than a dozen and a half or so, since the known world is either in serious trouble or under the sway of the Latin Church analogue. The point: The number of deities you're comfortablewith in the world you're running is the number that is just enough. Any more than that and it's too many.
Alltat 07-06-07, 06:48 AM	As long as each deity has actual flavor that makes it distinct, it's fine. I'd probably stick to ignoring deities for now, and just adding them as they become neccessary for the plot or the construction of the world. That way you'll know which domains actually need deities, and which deities will be the powerful ones. In a world that's mainly inland, the god of the sea might only be a minor deity worshipped only in a few coastal areas. If a deity won't have any significant impact on the world or the plot, then it should be pretty safe to remove it.
yellowdingo 07-06-07, 08:31 AM	I think One God is one too many...Time to have a war of the Gods. Have All the Gods duke it out until there is only one. The followers of the loosing gods are the Godless and the Worshipers of the Winner are the One true Faith. ANd the fallout from that conflict will lead your campaign down a new path. "Our God is defeated?" "Oh no! What shall we do?" "Lets go worship a fiend." "I'm not doing that!" Frill the Healer complained at the prospect. "Whose asking?" Mishum-Once-Paladin Stabs his associate and sacrifices him to open gate. The Campaign I'm involved in developing has taken an ugly turn where the Gods of Good and Evil are in a Planar Bloodwar that has opened a rift into a valley into the campaign world. The Neutral Gods have simply left the battlefield to wander the known world while the forces of good and evil continue to duke it out in the Valley of Blood and sorcerers of power enter the field to steal weapons of the godwar.
Howland Reed 07-06-07, 07:04 PM	If you have enough that your characters don't even bother to remember them, you probably have too many. :) Something to keep in mind when devising pantheons...you don't NEED a different god/goddess for each single aspect of humanity or whatever. Most gods in a polytheistic pantheon play double duty. Apollo was a sun god, but he also covered art, athletics, music, even healing to some extent. Thor was a war god and a thunder god (heck, most of the Norse gods were "war gods" of one sort or another). One pantheon I was working on had only 4 gods...one for each basic element. All other aspects were folded in under one god or another (or, in some cases, they stepped on each others toes...for example, weather was the province of both Air and Water). Just as important as a reasonable pantheon is reasonable religions to worship them. Faiths and Avatars from 2E FR was my favorite book...not for the gods or specialty priests (I knew about them already), but because of the details on vestments, holy days, particular ceremonies, crap like that. Things that make clerics more interesting than just "that guy who heals and buffs us".
yellowdingo 07-06-07, 09:43 PM	One pantheon I was working on had only 4 gods...one for each basic element. All other aspects were folded in under one god or another (or, in some cases, they stepped on each others toes...for example, weather was the province of both Air and Water). Eek! Its the Ancients! Warn the Village!
Alltat 07-07-07, 06:16 AM	Thor was a war god and a thunder god... As I recall he was a warrior god, but never a god of war. Not that it matters much. Just as important as a reasonable pantheon is reasonable religions to worship them. Faiths and Avatars from 2E FR was my favorite book...not for the gods or specialty priests (I knew about them already), but because of the details on vestments, holy days, particular ceremonies, crap like that. Things that make clerics more interesting than just "that guy who heals and buffs us". I'd say the cult/religion is possibly even more important than the deity, and the deity is really mainly interesting in how it has affected the cult/religion, unless it takes a very active role in everyday things. Knowing that X is the godess of nature and is worshipped by farmers is all well and good, but it's not really that interesting unless you know how they worship her, what the clergy is like, etc.
ragoftag 07-08-07, 12:39 AM	Actually, all the Norse gods were handy with weapons. Oops, might be a heretical line there, Tyr (the real god of war) lost a hand to Fenris!
Hochiu 07-08-07, 01:52 AM	Aye, there are only a few deities you didn't hear about in the Norse pantheon that had some direct connotation with a weapon of war or a military position. Frigg and Idunna are the two biggest examples in my mind right now. The majority of the gods knew how to fight, because the pre-Christian Scandinavians were a people with nearly constant conflict, so it would make sense to factor in such a big portion of their lives. There are only a few actual deities you could classify as "war gods", I've heard it be considered that Odin is one of them. With Tyr being another. And Tyr is more of a combat oriented deity instead of all out battle. He's also very big on personal honor, more so than any other of the deities.
Zukhramm 07-08-07, 04:57 PM	Personally, few. Something like five.
Manyfist 07-08-07, 05:35 PM	If you must have gods I think Eberron, Seven "good gods", Six (Well 5) "evil gods" and the rest are mostly philosophies. The gods shouldn't be walking the world, since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better?
Swordbreaker 07-09-07, 01:32 PM	The PHB mentiones a handful of the Greyhawk gods for a reason, to give you an idea of the deities of a campaign. Now, you can go monotheistic of agnostic in your campaign, but polytheism is the majority of campaigns. I would suggest a handful for each race, and then a couple higher gods, like for the elements and aspects of life. More than the PHB, nowhere near the number of FR. I would guess somewhere between 20-50, but you go with whatever makes u feel comfortable.
ragoftag 07-09-07, 08:50 PM	Manyfist ...since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better?perfect!
turalisj 07-09-07, 09:15 PM	The gods shouldn't be walking the world, since if theirs gods walking around then whats the point of being a hero when a god can do it better? So the hero can make a 12th level spell, kill a god, becoem a god, then get killed himself?
Manyfist 07-10-07, 09:19 AM	So the hero can make a 12th level spell, kill a god, becoem a god, then get killed himself? If another person makes a 12th level spell in which if you're playing with epics there is still someone always better than you. The only exception of being killed is Pun-Pun. Since he's of infinite power.
khyron1144 07-15-07, 10:48 PM	I believe that as long as they don't create issues for the DM and the players, there is no such thing as too many deities. In my own world, I assigned a pantheon to each significant cultural group and race using the old 1e Deities and Demigods cyclopedia. That probably means over a hundred deities. Since I know the mythology, kinda, I can keep track of things as well as I need to.
turalisj 07-16-07, 12:19 AM	So if the game uses the entire greek pantheon, that's not too many? What about combining greek, roman, norse, and egyptian?
Alltat 07-16-07, 06:49 AM	Instead of asking "Will adding this deity be bad for the setting?", aks yourself "Will adding this deity add something to the setting that couldn't be achieved by modifying an existing one?". In reality, there isn't really any limit to how many deities are 'too many'. You can put your "deity intensity" anywhere between one god of everything and a separate deity for every kind of plant, every type of object, and every home. The only real catch is that the more you add, the less character each will have.
Manyfist 07-16-07, 06:59 AM	So if the game uses the entire greek pantheon, that's not too many? What about combining greek, roman, norse, and egyptian? Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and the Norse had TONs of deities. Combining the three pantheons would be like having a diety for each living being, sometime two & three.
uglykitten 07-16-07, 11:46 AM	My Roseword setting is based entirely on the fact that there all four of the major pantheons coexist (not exactly peacefully...). The Norse pantheon is the most difficult to contend with, because that particular religion ruled that there is a family god for each family, similar to the guardian ancestors in ancient China. How many gods there are doesn't really matter--its how you deal with the gods and how they interact with mortals that matters most. For instance, the four top gods in Roseword are only concerned with the governing of the gods. Even though they have worshippers who receive divine aid from them, it is often more from the lower gods with the same Portfolios and Domains than from they themselves. However, there are also gods that choose to live on the Material Plane, and they affect the lives of mortals the highest. Relic even lived among her people, becoming the mother of the first queen. (Thereby giving each queen thereafter a Divine Rank 0.) You don't have to always know who all the gods are--only the ones that affect the specific mortals you have in your campaign. Unfortunately, expanding to allow a million choices is what I like to do. ^^; If you don't, then follow this advice: Only create gods that you need, not that you want to need.