Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 cassi_brazuca Jul 17, 2015 18:26:19	Hey people, I’m not really active here (actually, this has been my first visit in months). The reason is that I don’t quite like the new edition (various problems which may be more about politics than anything else), but hey, while I am here I try to be useful and contribute to the forums!   Enough with introductions. I have a question which simultaneously touches the 5th Edition DMG and 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods: Religious models. Both these works give out a fair freedom about the religion you may create in the D&D world; they use even real-world types of religions – polytheism, monotheism, dualism, animism, etc. – But these works make the clear difference between a “Loose Pantheon” and a “Tight Pantheon”. Now, since I read Deities and Demigods, I know the difference (and the meaning) of those two expressions, so this isn’t like “what’s that term”. But there is one thing that I’m curious: many real-world mythologies and religions use various models – or a mix of them – presented in those books. Now let’s focus on the two first examples: The Loose Pantheon and the Tight Pantheon. I think we have quite many examples of Tight Pantheons in real life. However, I don’t quite remember a real-world example of a Loose Pantheon. My question is, do you guys know real-world examples of cultures or religions or regional beliefs that (more or less) use the Loose Pantheon model? I’m asking here because I cannot find the answer to this question: even my Google-fu wasn’t enough. I would appreciate some real world examples of this model so I can look and research about their model. In order to help me make my own religious system to my setting – yes, I stopped DMing D&D but I’m still creating stuff.
#2 Gnarl Jul 18, 2015 9:43:14	I don't think you'll find any because the author made up a subgroup of polytheistic religion that only applies to D&D. Polytheistic religions don't have all that much in common to begin with.   I think you might want to ask yourself three questions: 1) Why do the gods want worshipers? Do the gods do it because it's their job? Do they do it to gain power and compete with the other gods? Do they do it to give mankind a chance at redemption for some kind of original sin? Do they need worshipers because the gods feed off of their prayers? 2) Why do people worship the gods? Do they do it because they're afraid of their god's wrath? Do they want salvation in the afterlife? Do they worship in exchange for favors in the mortal world? 3) How do people worship? By preaching? By praying? By making offerings and sacrifices (even human ones)? By following a strict moral code? Through rituals? By fighting their god's wars?   With these three questions, you should be able to make a D&D world that makes sense (for a change).
#3 Satyrn Jul 18, 2015 12:45:25	I'd guess that the Roman pantheon would go into the Loose category. It seems to me that it picked up random gods here and there, from the cultures that founded it (from around Italy and Greece), the cultures it conquered and integrated, and the citizens (well,  emporers) it raised to godhood.
#4 cassi_brazuca Jul 18, 2015 14:13:41	Gnarl wrote:
#5 Zardnaar Jul 18, 2015 14:43:57	cassi_brazuca wrote:
#6 cassi_brazuca Jul 18, 2015 15:18:35	Re-reading my research there seems to be a concept called “kathenotheism”, in which each of the gods revered is worshipped one at a time and treated as a supreme being at their time. Well, it’s better than nothing. Anyone knows if this information proceeds?   Zardnaar wrote:
#7 shintashi Jul 18, 2015 15:30:15	well here's a thought. there was this study on humans and animals and stuff, and apparently, people feel better when helping others than when they just help themselves. Some kind of way things are wired, i guess. Well, the gods in most mythologies are really emotional, moody even. So what if the "do stuff for other people" sensation is like a hundred or thousand times higher, like, helping mortals is a drug similar to power?   now there's this other thing, called boredom. gods have all this time and power and already created everything, but then mortals come along and either do exactly what the gods wanted them to do, or do something totally different. even if a mortal does what the gods want, that might be really boring for gods, so instead they get more interested in the escapades of mortals who don't follow their plans. It's probably even more interesting if the mortals go along with a theme similar to the portfolio of the god, but do it in a completely different way than proscribed.   in this version of deity, the mortals don't need the gods, and the gods don't need the mortals to exist, but they want to interact with the mortals. The trick is how much can they interfere without either pissing off other gods, or without doing so much that it becomes predictable again.
#8 Zardnaar Jul 18, 2015 15:43:20	cassi_brazuca wrote:
#9 BRJN Jul 18, 2015 16:22:00	The Romans could not abide one god and totally destroyed its worshippers to drive the point home - Baal, god of Carthage. Interestingly, devout Israelites did not get along well with Baal worshippers, either.  Go check out Elijah atop Mt Carmel for an example.
#10 cbwjm Jul 18, 2015 17:28:53	I'm not 100% on this but I think that the Babylonian gods might fit the idea of a loose pantheon (or maybe the Assyrian gods, some empire in the Levant area at any rate). I'm fairly certain that each major city had a patron god as opposed to a family of gods for the whole culture like the Greek or Norse pantheons. I'd have to reread the lore to be sure though.
(Reply to #9) Satyrn	BRJN wrote:
#12 Gnarl Jul 18, 2015 21:50:31	cassi_brazuca wrote:
#13 Grazel Jul 20, 2015 4:09:53	Gnarl wrote:
#14 Gnarl Jul 20, 2015 7:23:32	Grazel wrote:
#15 cassi_brazuca Jul 20, 2015 7:50:04	Gnarl wrote:
#16 Marandahir Jul 20, 2015 8:10:00	Most real world polytheistic religions, at least when they were traditionally practiced, rather than neopagan revivals, were loose pantheons. These pantheons would become tighter for various reasons later on, mostly by attempts to unify the varied stories. Most started as animistic or "tribal ancestor" relligions, with a patron god of a particular social group, who then as they came in contact with other communities, developed a series of relationships that reflected on the similar relationship between those communities. For example, Athena was the patron of the arts and knowledge in her city of Athens, but also a patron of warriors – this aspect reflected her role in military conflict against Ares, the God of Warriors and patron of Sparta, whose entire society was based around the military. That's actually a late development, because these are Greek City-States, but at the time these "gods" are arising in that manner, the mythic history of Ares as the son of Zeus and Hera, or Athena as Zeus' daughter that jumped out of head, that hadn't arisen yet. Even the great attempts to compile the Greek myths by ancient scholars often contrasted with each other. Everyone had their own way of looking at it. "Artemis" was a series of similar virgin huntress deities known throughout the eastern Mediterranean as "Dianas" – while etymologically related, there's good reason to believe that these Dianas weren't actually religiously descended from a proto-typical Artemis/Diana, but rather were drawn from the same word for a similar concept of deity. Only later were they syncrenized into one divinity. Same thing happened with the Roman Gods – Saturn had very little of the negative connotations that Cronus carried, but because both carried a sickle, and because time, as it's role in being tied to the seasons and the harvest, linked Saturn with Chronos (a separate Greek hypostasis of time), Cronus started to be seen as the Greek equivalent of Saturn. Then the Romans decided that Saturn must thus be the father of Jupiter, because Jupiter was nigh identical to Zeus Pater (in this case, Jupiter/Zeus Pater/Dis Pater/Tiwaz (Tyr) Pater, this divinity is deeply ingrained in Indo-European religions, and can be seen as far away as India as Dyeus Pater, the Father God of the Sky). The Celtic religion was similar – almost every single divinity was a different tribe's patron. Brighid was the patron of the Brigantes. Caswallon of the Catevellaunis. Bolgios/Belenos/Beli Mawr/Bíle of the Belgae. Some were universal deities, of course – these tended to be descendents from antecendent Indo-European roots. Danu/Dôn/Tiana/Donwy for example, the Mother Earth/River Goddess associated with Cows, Milk, the Waters of Life, the Land, and the Stars – she's seen in the names of many rivers between Ireland and India – most prominantly to Europeans in the Danube and the Don Rivers, as well as the Donets, the Dneiper, the Duna, and the Dneistr. Danu is even a Cow Goddess in Hindu Mythology. Lleu Llaw Gyffes or Lugh Lamhfhada or Leuceiotus, the God of Light may even be connected to Norse Loki, especially with his Trickster aspects, though he's much more heroic in Celtic myth. Nodons/Nudd/Nuadha/Lludd appears as a key deity as well, representing the sea, leadership, and war, and having a hand made of silver for the hand he lost in conflict. But these few "recognizable" Gods are mostly on the sidelines, and only came to prominance as the "local" deities had to have their stories entwined. You'd have the God of this tribe's territory or that tribe's territory, and the victory of one tribe over another would mirror the battles between Gods. Eventually, as tribes coalesced into alliances, you'd have the deities start to be family members or allies to one another, and then those had to be filled out with the Indo-European "classic" deities people could agree on. So you'd get somewhat more tight pantheons. But again, not a "Celtic" Pantheon, but a local coalition's pantheon. And their pantheon would be fighting against other pantheons. We see this play out in the wars of the Tuatha Dé Danann against the Fomorians – Giant Gods that were upended and driven to the coasts to become "pirates" – only on the edges of the territories of the coalition of worshippers for the Tuatha Dé could Fomorians be worshipped, if they were at all, after a certain point. Same thing in Wales – you had the Children of Dôn (fairy gods like the Tuatha Dé) worshipped heavily by the northwestern tribes from the "Kingdom" of Gwynedd, while the Children of Llyr (Fomorian-like Sea Giants) worshipped by the people of the "Kingdom" of Dyfed or the "Kingdom" of Powys, who often were allied with one another in wars against the Gwynedd, just like their gods were. Hinduism works the same way, at least before efforts to unify them under the Trimurti system, and Hinduism may be one of the few modern religions that has "reverted" back to loose polytheism, where everyone seems to worship different Gods and in different ways. But Hinduism has also developed philosophically into a semi-Monotheistic religion, where many sects will tell you that their God is the one God, and all other Gods are just aspects of that God, shown in a different way so as to teach you the correct path in various circumstances. This, of course, is a later development, and the earliest elements of Hinduism came from RigVedic deities, most closely aligned with Zoroastrian divinities and what we know of the Proto-Indo-European religion, fusing with local Dravidian "tribal" religions (i.e., gods of the locality). Later on, efforts by some Monarchs transformed Hinduism into a Trinity Religion, with Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu as the key deities, and all others as aspects of them, and today, that monotheistic element tends to come from Shivaite or Vishnaite sects, who see all of the gods as aspects of Shiva or Vishnu, respectively. Norse religion as well worked that way, though we tend to think of it as a "tighter" pantheon. But this is the work of Snorri and the Icelanders, who carried the Norse Sagas and myths to us in a more "codified" form. Odin was a Gothic tribal God, Wodenaz, who rose to prominance over a series of other tribal gods and inherited Indo-European Gods. The Vanir were likely gods of other tribes conquered by the Nordic/Germanic tribes, hence their asymmilarity to other Indo-European divinities. The Giants, whether Frost Giants or Fire Giants, though, likely are deeply ingrained Indo-European "monster-divinities", tied to other Giant "enemy" Gods like the Fomorians/Children of Llyr, the Gigantomachy of Greece, and the Rakshasas of India (and many of the Daevas of Persia). Of course, many of these Giant Gods are also worshipped by other tribes, so the idea that they're giants and evil and don't have worshippers is unfounded, and in fact, many hero-gods are also considered Giants or descended from Giants; Arthur from Celtic legend was often considered the son of a line of Giants (his father's line), just as much as his mother's ancestry was tied to the fairies of Avalon (making him descended from both warring factions in Welsh Myth). So it's a bit more complicated. Again, tribal lines are the key element here. In "Animistic" religion regions, like parts of Africa, the Asiatic Steppes, Australasia, China, and Japan, there almost seems to be a god of every valley or forest or hill or river or significant boulder. Over time, some of these rose to prominance to become more universally recognised, especially if their worshippers happened to write down the stories about them and/or happened to be tied to the tribe that conquered over the others. In Japan, the Izumo local was critical in the development of Shintoism, since it gave rise to the creation myth of Japan – Izanagi and Izanami (life and death, respectively), as well as their three most prominent children, Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi, and Susanooh (Sun, Moon, and Typhoons, respectively). Until 1945, the Japanese emperor claimed descent from Amaterasu and remains today ceremonially the highest religious authority of the Shinto faith, making a role similar to a Pope or Patriarch, especially since the Emperor is no longer a politically powerful figure since the establishment of democracy in the country. But the Emperor is descended from a long line of the Yamato Clan, who actually weren't tied to the people of Izumo. The legendary founder of the Yamato, Yamato Takeru, in myth recieved a divine sword from the Sun Goddess that was once wielded by the Typhoon God, as she told him that he was actually her descendant. This mythic tie, though obviously a later creation, was a way of grafting the ruling tribe's lineage and authority to the most well-recognised, most-beloved spirits in the Islands. Another aspect we should look into are the role of mystery cults. These are most prominently known from Greco-myth studies, specifically with that of the story of Persephone and Hades, or the story of Dionysus and the City of Thebes. These mystery cults were often secretive with their stories, which is why it's odd that they're some of the most popular stories today. One could say that Euripedes' "The Bacchae" was a bit of an exposé of mysteries that had happened in the city of Thebes; but one could also say a good deal of it was made up to fill in the gaps (utilising what other people had come to understand about Bacchus/Dionysus). Similarly, while most people who know Greek myths can recited the story of the kidnapping and Pomegranate seeds, that's actually not that well established and was quite a bit of later "reconstruction." We do know that the practicitioners of the cult threw pigs instead of humans into pits to emulate the sacrifice of Persephone in the earth, in hopes that these sacrifices would "replenish" the world and return Spring in 3 month's time. Mystery Cults as depicted in the DMG are actually pretty well described, and are probably the most on-point of any section of it. The key though, to take away from this with that section is that you probably shouldn't make the Persephone myth well known. Make it a secretive organization that does ritual sacrifices for the sake of replenishing the earth, but make it a quest or a story element for the heroes to try to figure out, are these people good? Who do they actually worship – Hades or Demeter? Persephone/Kôre herself wasn't much of a goddess, but was almost a stand-in for her mother. Today, we love the relationship they have, it's very "human" in the sorrow and anger Demeter possesses – especially given Zeus, the father (and uncle)'s willing participation of Kôre's kidnapping by his brother. But it's very important to preserve the mystery; otherwise it's not a mystery cult. The 5e DMG refers to Animism, Loose Pantheons, Tight Pantheons, Monotheism, Dualism, Mystery Cults, and Forces and Philosophies. I didn't touch much on Forces and Philosophies, but they tend to arise within religions, or be related to religions, or if separate, to be syncretised with religions, to the point that philosophical figures become divinities in later iterations (like Lao Tzu or the Buddha). That section is pretty well written though. Monotheisms and Dualisms tend to arise out of pantheons as they become tighter; alternatively, one tribe's divinity rises to prominance and casts all other divinities in loose pools of angels and demons (or lesser gods of good or evil). Zoroastrianism has wobbled through it's many millenia between Monotheism and Dualism, and some could even argue returning to Polytheism in the same way that some people claim that Roman Catholics have returned to Polytheism with their intense venerations of various saints; in Zoroastrianism, same thing happened from time to time with veneration of the angelic aspects of Ahura Mazda or his various lesser angels, the Yazatas. No disparagement meant on my part to Catholics – my wife is Catholic, after all – just that it's something people do say sometimes. The Abrahamic God was (mythologically speaking) a result of various tribal chief gods being syncretized into one, though according to all three religions (actually, there are more than just 3, but we'll call it 3 for simplicity), there was just one chief God of a chosen people who showed that all other Gods were decievers or fakes or not worthy of worship. This of course is the tribal god conflict story all over again like in the above paragraphs, and you have to hand it to the Hebrews to holding fast to their faith in face of requirements to venerate Babylonian Gods, Egyptian Gods, Babylonian Gods again, Persian Gods, and Roman Gods, along with the God-Kings of each of those empires they became a part of. But the Old Testament was extremely likely to have been combined by later redactors from various sources who had very different ideas of who "God" or "The LORD" is; even those words I just used are evidence of different writers who would have compared their god to the chief gods of nearby religions; the Babylonian El, for example, whose name meant "Lord", would have had a big influence on the writers who use "Eloi" or "Elei" or "Elohim" – "the LORD" while other writers used "YHWH" which may have been tied to a quite different storm deity. Possibly. Again, this is from a scholarly study sense, and obviously to devout members of a religion, when the book in its current form is the key text, rather than trying to reconstruct the history of it, this can start to push buttons. So I'll drop it in a moment. But the important thing here is that the Persian Empire, when they saved the Hebrews from their bondage in Babylon, made a requirement for the history of the 12 Tribes of Israel to be unified into a single story. Much of that early history between Noah and the establishment of the 12 Tribes as one nation; that's a result of compromises and organization made to fit it all together. Each of these tribes may have been united in their worship of a single God, but they certainly didn't see that God in the same light. And Christians and Muslims (and Samaritans, and Yazidis, and all the other Abrahamic religions) see their One God in quite different perspectives as well. That's because our tribal histories are quite different, and our history of coming into worship of these figures, even if we've settled on them being the same One God, are quite different. I mean, while the Muslims did see Jews and Christians as worshippers of the same God during the Crusades, Christians rarely did, considering the Allah of the Muslims as a cloak of their Devil, pretending to be God. These things are tricky. And over in Persia, Zoroastrianism arose as a Monotheism as Zarathustra/Zoroaster decided to spread the faith of his tribe's chief God, Ahura Mazda. In doing so, any divinity who represented elements or concepts that were not "in-line" with Mazdaic religious laws were turned into demons, or else "purified" of those issues and altered to be almost unrecognisable. Due to this, for the most part, the Zoroastrians seemed to worship the same deities the Hindus disparaged and vice versa (though there were some common villains and common heroes amongst their two pantheons, like Mithra and Agni/Atar as venerable beings). The point I'm trying to get at here is that Dualism and Monotheism rises out of the same tribal mechanics that Loose Polytheisms arise out of Animistic/Tribal deities, and in all of these cases, the tightening comes as people try to "organize" religion. So the question in your D&D game really becomes, how organized do you want religion to be? And I think the 5e DMG actually portrays that key question quite well, even as it gives false examples of a tight versus loose real world pantheon. All pantheons, given enough time, become tigher than they start. That's the nature of organized religion. But they can become looser again as well, depending on the philosophical trajectories. But attempts to "explain" relations and ties between various gods; that's what a tight pantheon is. It's probably easier, and more realistic, to just make a loose pantheon, and then let the relations between the Gods evolve and tighten organically as conflicts between their worshipers develop in your game.
#17 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 20, 2015 10:17:12	For a given definition of divinity, even monotheistic religions can share aspects of a loose pantheon. Catholicism is possibly an example of this - very often prayers are offered to and idols constructed of the Virgin Mary rather than the trinitarian God, and several saints are likely assimilated forms of older local deities. (Note: this is uncertain.) If you look at these as a different flavor of divinity (in the D&D sense, not the Catholic sense, of that word), Catholicism looks an awful lot like a loose pantheon despite being, technically, monotheistic - it just has a definite overdeity while still accepting others. (Incidentally, the term for this is "henotheism", if you want to compare it to the terms listed above.).   This is a controversial position, naturally, but I think it squares enough: "divinity" just means different things when talking about "loose pantheons" in the D&D sense and when talking within Catholic theology.
#18 Brock_Landers Jul 20, 2015 10:32:05	I figure, in D&D worlds, clerics are the ones that focus on one god.  Others may venerate them all, or just a few, and maybe prefer one, and some think they are high-up charlatans!
#19 cassi_brazuca Jul 20, 2015 11:14:42	Well, thank you guys, this thread actually helped. I must hunt down the DMG so I can see if there are any differences. Honestly 5e has very interesting fluff; it’s the rules that bother me.   Well, about the Catholic saints, I always thought about them somewhat more closely with the “heavenly host” that Deities & Demigods mentions than actual deities, or, in 4e terms, more like Exarchs. However, even if they would be considered deities, they won’t form a loose pantheon: the respect they receive is way too connected with the others saints and with God itself,: it’s all part of Catholicism, with its set of dogmas and teachings. I would oppose classifying as a tight pantheon, however: catholic teachings are pretty clear on "only one true God."
#20 Brock_Landers Jul 20, 2015 11:25:44	cassi_brazuca wrote:
#21 cassi_brazuca Jul 20, 2015 11:37:05	Brock_Landers wrote:
#22 Brock_Landers Jul 20, 2015 11:41:41	cassi_brazuca wrote:
#23 cassi_brazuca Jul 20, 2015 12:38:54	Brock_Landers wrote:
(Reply to #19) Marandahir	cassi_brazuca wrote:
(Reply to #19) mrpopstar	cassi_brazuca wrote: