When creating a fictional pantheon, it's important to keep in mind that your target audience only has so much mental room. While it might be interesting and historically accurate to have five or more different weather gods, they'll all just end up competing with each other in people's heads. I'd say 15 is a good target number of gods to shoot for; any less and the setting feels a little too sparse, and any more than that start taking up too much conceptual space.
There are some things that all pantheons seem to have in common across cultural boundaries. There's almost always at least one leader of all the gods, usually male. There's always at least one god of fertility, usually female. There's always a god of war, usually male and usually seen as morally ambiguous. There's always a god of death, who interestingly can be either male or female with equal frequency. For cultures that are anywhere near a coastline, there's a god of the sea, who is often also the god of weather, and who can be either male or female as well.
Most polytheistic cultures in the past existed in fairly precarious circumstances; life was often very hard and the risk of being wiped out by invaders, or natural disasters, or plague, or starvation weighed heavily on people. Protection and fertility are the most important themes here. Generally the more specific "niche" roles like god of music, or commerce, or education only appear in societies that have reached a certain point of organizational advancement, where there's at least a large enough class of noblemen or artisans that don't have to worry about dying horribly on a daily basis.
Now, the issue here is: how to relate this to D&D? The first rule of gaming is that the world needs to be customized to accomodate the player, but not to the extent that is seems like it stops existing when they aren't around. So, what do players need in a pantheon of gods?
- There needs to be a god of mischief, trickery, and cunning for rogues.
- There needs to be a god of truth, justice, and righteousness for paladins.
- There needs to be a god of invention, knowledge, and education for artificers and wizards.
- There needs to be a god of music, art, and beauty for bards.
- There needs to be a god of wilderness, nature, and hunting for rangers and druids.
- There needs to be a god of warfare, strategy, and tactics for fighters and warlords.
- There needs to be a god of warfare, violence, and strength for barbarians.
Of course, there's no reason why some of them can't overlap, or have other domains outside of these ones. Why not make the god of fertility also the god of knowledge? What is the god of art was also the god of strategy? As long as the combinations still make sense, this is a great way to give your deities their own personalities, which goes a long way towards making them attractive to players. Now let's take a look at the Greek pantheon, which inspired a lot of fantasy counterparts, to see how it compares to the needs of D&D.
Aphrodite - Love and fertility.
Apollo - Healing and art. Good for both bards and traditional healics.
Ares - War and slaughter. Good for barbarians and villains.
Artemis - Wilderness and stealth. Perfect for rangers.
Athena - War and education. Great for warlords and artificers.
Demeter - Nature and fertility. Great for druids and rangers.
Dionysos - Fertility and wine. Good for rogues and those who like playing drunks.
Hades - Death and wealth. An unusual combination that gives him a lot of personality.
Hephaistos - Creation and skill. Good for artificers.
Hera - Marriage and vengeance.
Hermes - Trickery and cunning. Perfect for rogues.
Hestia - Home and hearth.
Persephone - Death and rebirth. Perfect for shamans.
Poseidon - The sea and protection.
Zeus - Storms and strength.
As you can see, the Greek pantheon meets all of the needs of your average players, while at the same time offering a level of depth that many fantasy pantheons lack. Are your players going to be picking Hera or Hestia as their patron deities? Probably not. However, their presence in the game's background is important, since it makes the world feel that much more real and alive. Don't be afraid to insert deities aimed more at the needs of NPCs if you still have space; your players will thank you for adding that extra level of realism.
I went with something a little more barbaric. WAT mates with all his daughters in a loop of existance.
PANTHEON
WAT: THE MAD GOD, CHIEF OF ALL THE TRIBES
ASTU: GODDESS OF CRAFTS & TOWNS
STENE: GOD OF THUNDER
KRE: GODDESS OF AGRICULTURE
VANR: GOD OF FERTILITY
KEL: GODDESS OF THE UNDERWORLD
OS: GOD OF MEN & DEMONS
EOS: GODDESS OF DAWN
NER: GOD OF WATER
WEI: GODDESS OF RAINBOWS
TIG: GOD OF SKY & WAR
I went with something a little more barbaric. WAT mates with all his daughters in a loop of existance.
Which of WAT's daughters came first? Kre, for example, is both Astu's daughter and her great- great- grandmother, according to the chart.
Every cleric/paladin/whatnot worships God, as is understood. But each one takes on a patron saint, which is how the "pantheon" is divided. In this alternate world, God is more distant, and works through the saints as His method of communication and influence.
Here is the Assembly of Saints:
Saint George - The quintessential knight. George is the patron of knights, fighters, paladins, warlords, and any who use military might to fight against the forces of darkness.
Saint Genesius - An actor who mocked God until he recieved a vision. He then used his glib art to further God's plan, and was martyred for his cheek. The patron of bards, actors, rogues, and those who use subtelty and a silver tongue to do His work.
Saint Blaise - A healer of beasts and land. Blaise lived in a cave in the wilderness, healing the scores sick animals that would line up at his door. The patron of druids, rangers, and those who form a close association with animals or nature.
Saint Brigid - Established convents all over the land to aid and care for the sick. Retained her virginity until death in honor of God. The patron of healers, clerics, and others who represent youth and purity.
Saint Brendan - Travelled the world, spreading God's word and love. Once stopped on a small island to hold a private mass, only to discover the island was a whale. Patron of travellers, luck, and sailors, he is sometimes called Brendan the Navigator.
Saint Catherine - Well educated, and a firm believer in the virtues of wisdom and teaching. Famous for her pride in science and truth. Patron of wizards, sages, scribes, and those who seek knowledge.
There are hundreds more, if the players wish to use one of their own favorite saints. These are just the main examples, and satisfy most of the requirements for player characters.
Evil characters worship devils or Lucifer. Or if you feel like being a bit over the top, evil (or at least, misguided) characters could worship "false" gods, a topic I won't even touch with a ten-foot-pole.
I went with something a little more barbaric. WAT mates with all his daughters in a loop of existance.
Which of WAT's daughters came first? Kre, for example, is both Astu's daughter and her great- great- grandmother, according to the chart.
It's a paradox, but that's okay because they're gods, they can get away with paradoxes.
This is the worst way to reason out which gods are 'necessary' because you're pigeonholing gods and classes together - worse still because someone's class doesn't automatically equate to their outlook. Additionally, many D&D classes focus their reverence elsewhere - especially primal classes, for whom gods are generally seen as beings whose influence in the world should be strictly limited.
While I don't find the 4E default pantheon to be all that creative (mainly because too many of them have been through the recycler so often), one of its stronger points is that there's no expectation of a class being linked to a specific god - it has a great deal more to do with the individual's personal outlook.
I went with something a little more barbaric. WAT mates with all his daughters in a loop of existance.
Which of WAT's daughters came first? Kre, for example, is both Astu's daughter and her great- great- grandmother, according to the chart.
Thats the paradox that drove WAT mad...
So, for example, there's the position of Ruler of the Seas or Aquacrat. Whoever holds the most belief as the God of Waters, would become the Aquacrat. Taking ancient mediterranian culture. Posideon was the Aquacrat until Neptune began masquerading as Posideon to the romans. He picked off Posideon's temples one by one, until suddenly, there was a greater cumulative belief that Neptune was the God of Waters. And by then, it was too late for Posideon to turn it around (all he had left was horses). I thought it add a fun new level of 'quest type', the Divine Politics.
The game I'm setting up to run is designed to take full advantage of 4e Power Source definitions. There are only 7 Gods, each of which deals only with the civilized world. They represent different walks of life, boiled down to the bare essentials. There is, therefor, no storm God because Gods are the constructs of civilized people (with civilization being used in the most technical of senses). The worship of storms (and other natural disasters) would be worship of the "Primordials of the Elemental Chaos" (heavily reworked) and the worship of nature would derive from the "Great Spirits of the Feywild".
I usually try to look for something that hasn't been quite done before (at least, not that I've seen). I was dreaming up one setting in which the Gods were something of a massive, overburdened divine government, filled to the brim with bureaucrats and administrators. Leaders were elected by prayer, essentially, whoever had the most total belief (so that strength of conviction counts just as much as numbers) would become the reigning Pantheocrat, with all the other positions appointed in a similar manner. And all those bureaucrats and administrators? Their jobs it to tally and account for belief.
So, for example, there's the position of Ruler of the Seas or Aquacrat. Whoever holds the most belief as the God of Waters, would become the Aquacrat. Taking ancient mediterranian culture. Posideon was the Aquacrat until Neptune began masquerading as Posideon to the romans. He picked off Posideon's temples one by one, until suddenly, there was a greater cumulative belief that Neptune was the God of Waters. And by then, it was too late for Posideon to turn it around (all he had left was horses). I thought it add a fun new level of 'quest type', the Divine Politics.
The game I'm setting up to run is designed to take full advantage of 4e Power Source definitions. There are only 7 Gods, each of which deals only with the civilized world. They represent different walks of life, boiled down to the bare essentials. There is, therefor, no storm God because Gods are the constructs of civilized people (with civilization being used in the most technical of senses). The worship of storms (and other natural disasters) would be worship of the "Primordials of the Elemental Chaos" (heavily reworked) and the worship of nature would derive from the "Great Spirits of the Feywild".
So if I wanted to be supreme Bureaucrat I would tell all the Rest an absolute truth that shakes their legitimacy...
"String Theory invalidates Religion and Evolution"
"Wait! What? Nooooo!" Rival ceases to exist.
In my campaign I decided to go with a church based ideal worship. There's no Gods, no incarnations, no deities at all. The people of my campaign simply worship ideals. Which I pretty much selected certain domains and gave them to a church and wrote a dogma along those lines.
Tapestry of Fate
Domains: Arcana, Change, Fate
Alignment: Unaligned
Holy Symbol: Eye in the palm of a hand
Dogma: The Tapestry of Fate teaches existence is a tapestry in which all mortal and immortal lives are but threads in the eternal weave that is the tapestry of fate. That all things are predestined and already laid out in the structure of the tapestry and magic is the energy released with the interactions of those strands. The message priests of this faith spread is that magic is a natural byproduct of life and that you cannot change things because everything is already in place and in motion regardless what you try to do. So accept the things that happen because they cannot happen any other way.
Alignment: Unaligned
Holy Symbol: Eye in the palm of a hand
Dogma: The Tapestry of Fate teaches existence is a tapestry in which all mortal and immortal lives are but threads in the eternal weave that is the tapestry of fate. That all things are predestined and already laid out in the structure of the tapestry and magic is the energy released with the interactions of those strands. The message priests of this faith spread is that magic is a natural byproduct of life and that you cannot change things because everything is already in place and in motion regardless what you try to do. So accept the things that happen because they cannot happen any other way.