Deities help

[Roukon]

Apologies in advance for the possible lengthness of this post.

For the past few years, I have been mulling over my own homebrew world setting for future DMing. However, I have been stuck on how to set up the deities of the world. Specifically the main four, which are going to be the Four Winds, similar to the Anemoi of Greek mythology, only instead of being lesser deities, they are the main four. The reason for why they are the main gods is because the world itself has been asundered into many pieces of various sizes.

The concept I have come up with for the wind gods is to have them in a group called "The Four Travellers". Now, comes my problem. I want each of them to have control over different aspects of travelling. Since I have all ready decided on the number of deities (4) and the concept (travelling/winds) I am having trouble getting those two concepts to match up in a way that makes sense and doesn't have some people (and myself) go "Huh?"

At first, I was going to have them be seperated into physical, mental, arcane and divine travel, but a friend mentioned that mental and arcane might be better together. Then I considered having it be like the four main groups of D&D; martial, rogue, arcane and divine. My concern with that is that the two rogue classes (bard and rogue) can be put into the other categories easily, arcane and martial respectively. Next, I considered martial, arcane, divine and psionic. I decided not to go with this one for two reasons. First off, as psionics are regarded in D&D, it is generally the same thing as magic, so it becomes somewhat redundent. Secondly, I'm not sure how much of a part psionics will play in my campaigns, and if it's minimal, then I have wasted a spot of a major deity. I have also considered making their domains be land, water, air and arcane travel, but that also seems redundent when the four of them are all ready air deities. Also, I'm going to have other deities for earth, fire and water concepts. Right now, the concept I have involved the reason for travelling. The four I have for that is business, pleasure, education and adventure. My concern I have with this is whether or not adventure can stand on its own or if it would be better to spread out among the other three. So far, it has been my best concept.

I've considered these few options, but I'm still kind of at a loss. I'm hoping that others here will be able to help me in finding new ideas for different aspects of wind and/or travelling that would work for what I want in this campaign world.

Thanks for any help!!

[BlueWizard]

I like the element idea. The old classic elements of Air, fire, water, and earth, have many things you can build on from there. You can go many places.

Perhaps even combining some at times.
Earth could be martial.
Fire- the arcane
Air- the rogue
Water- the divine {it is that which gives life}

You can even build on this further. :smallcool:

What about looking up the Chinese 4 winds?

[Vadin]

Looking at this from a somewhat different perspective:

Seeking (Anything from questing to finding things)
Conquering (Covers all forms of large scale martial movement, total war to holy crusafes)
Wandering (The zen view of the journey, not the destination. The philosophical and contemplative wind)
Delivering (Whether news, medicine, punishment, or a priest's good word)

This gives each of the winds a much more distinct flavor than simply tying them into kinds of magic. Giving each of them a weather phenomenon might help too.

I love coming up with interesting deities and mythology for settings. Need any more help?

[Owrtho]

Just a thought, but maybe you could first divide them into two pairs and then split those. One could be physical travel, and the other metaphysical travel. The first would concern actually moving, the second more of traveling within your thoughts, paths of reasoning, finding yourself, possibly information flow, etc. Then after having done that you would divide the pairs to represent parts of those.

Owrtho

[Mando Knight]

Or perhaps, rather than means of movement, go with purpose for movement.

For example:

North Wind: a cold-hearted god, fierce and deadly, brings his ice-cold wrath to all equally. Has domains of cold and war, possibly justice. Lawful Neutral, covers war campaigns and marching into battle, etc.

[Roukon]

Thank you for such quick help. It has given me a few things to think about.

Now, in reply to your specific ideas:


I like the element idea. The old classic elements of Air, fire, water, and earth, have many things you can build on from there. You can go many places.

Perhaps even combining some at times.
Earth could be martial.
Fire- the arcane
Air- the rogue
Water- the divine {it is that which gives life}


Blue Wizard, I agree that elements are a nice way to go for a fantasy setting. But, I also think they tend to be overused, which is why I am still going to make sure all four of the elements are represented, but I want the winds to be the main focus for this pantheon. I have looked at the Chinese winds, and found them not to be what I was looking for. That was actually suggested by one of my former players.


Seeking (Anything from questing to finding things)
Conquering (Covers all forms of large scale martial movement, total war to holy crusafes)
Wandering (The zen view of the journey, not the destination. The philosophical and contemplative wind)
Delivering (Whether news, medicine, punishment, or a priest's good word)


Vadin, this is probably one of the best ideas I've heard for this. It is defineately in the running for how I use this. Wish I had thought of it, so I could take credit. :smallwink: I may take you up on your offer for more help. Thank you.


Just a thought, but maybe you could first divide them into two pairs and then split those. One could be physical travel, and the other metaphysical travel. The first would concern actually moving, the second more of traveling within your thoughts, paths of reasoning, finding yourself, possibly information flow, etc. Then after having done that you would divide the pairs to represent parts of those.


Owrtho, I like this concept, but I am concerned about how easily it would be to become redundent, but I will make sure to keep it in mind. I think it could work, but I'm not sure how hard or easy that would be.


Or perhaps, rather than means of movement, go with purpose for movement.


Mando Knight, that's kind of the direction I am starting to go. It was too hard to go by movement, so reason became more prevalent in my mind. It just became hard to think of four broad reasons for travelling.

I should have mentioned in my original post, that all the winds are going to be True Neutral (Neutral Neutral) alignment, as in this campaign setting, the winds can be lawful just as often as chaotic as well as evil as often as good.

[Vadin]

Vadin, this is probably one of the best ideas I've heard for this. It is defineately in the running for how I use this. Wish I had thought of it, so I could take credit. :smallwink: I may take you up on your offer for more help. Thank you.

...

I should have mentioned in my original post, that all the winds are going to be True Neutral (Neutral Neutral) alignment, as in this campaign setting, the winds can be lawful just as often as chaotic as well as evil as often as good.

Creating fictional deities and campaign settings is one of my favorite hobbies.


Almost any time your divinities are representative of natural forces and they don't cover other aspects of life that can be broken into good/evil law/chaos dichotomies, there must be some allowance made for the full spectrum of alignment. Fire can burn homes down and prepare nutritious meals. Flooding revitalizes the land and takes away lives. You get the idea, of course. I've never been a fan of "The fire god is evil because he is bad," if the fire god doesn't also cover demons or slaughter or something similarly malicious.

[Pronounceable]

I was gonna suggest direction of travel, but purpose is actually better.

[Amiel]

If you wanted to deviate from the norm, you could design these gods as deities of emotions rather than the conventional portfolios or perhaps with overlap.

For example, one might be the deity of siroccos, dust storms, rash temper, and so on. While the other one may be emotionally distant, is the deity of winter chill and steals the breath of others. Another might be the happy-go-lucky, rakish, spring-in-his/her-step of warm breezes, inspiration, luck et al. Etc.

So to continue, we have summer opposing winter, while temper is the opposite of unemotionality. This way, them being brothers'd probably make more sense.

[Roukon]

Amiel, that is another great idea. I may have a hard time choosing between the two of them that have been offered, so I might have to do the overlap you mentioned. It also goes along with my major of psychology, and I can do more research on emotions and see if I can get a nice grouping of categories for the four of them. And, I had originally thought of making them all be brothers, but changed my mind and now its going to be two brothers and two sisters, but still related.

Thanks for the great idea.

[Set]

You might be able to pillage some inspiration from the cardinal directions of traditional Chinese philosophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_elements_(Chinese_philosophy)), each associated with different seasons, different animals, different movements, etc.

For instance, based on the system used there, west and north are contractive or conserving directions, while east and south are expansive or generative directions.

The diety of the 'generative' direction could be one of spring, childbirth, fertility, etc. The one of the 'expansive' direction could be one of excess, indulgence, wealth (and greed) and conquest. The one of the 'contractive' direction could be one of submission, defeat, withdrawal or reduction, perhaps of age, or autumn, or death and decay. The one of the 'conserving' direction could be associated with stability, law, civilization, etc.

To go sideways into Hindu trimurti beliefs, the 'generative' god (or goddess) could be a creator of life, and the universe, while the 'contractive' god (or goddess) would be a destroyer of things (and, like Shiva, not necessarily evil, perhaps representing a balancing factor that weeds out the things that should not have been created, or must be cleared away to make room for new growth). Trimurti has only three primary stages, with Vishnu, a preserver and architect, standing between creation and destruction, bringing order to the time a given being or thing is mandated to exist, but a system with four dieties would need to break that role up to have a diety of growth (separate from the diety of birth) and a diety of decline (again, separate from the diety of death). Perhaps the traditional D&D alignments could be shoehorned in here as well. The Creator is Good, the Hungerer is Chaotic, the Wise is Lawul and the Destroyer is Evil. (Alternately, for a world full of monsters and aberrations, it wouldn't be out of line for the Creator to be Evil, the Mother of Monsters and Source of All Horror, while the Destroyer is Good, a Crusading Champion who beats back the hordes of monsters birthed by the blind piping madness at the center of creation).

Or the alignment thing could be skipped entirely, with the creator and destroyer (and growth / decline) dieties being all important cogs in a balanced wheel of existence, no one more 'right' or 'wrong' than any other.

One way to separate growth and decline from creation and destruction is to leave it fuzzy exactly where their duties part ways. Perhaps the creator doesn't create life, but merely creates substance, and the 'expansive' diety is the one who breathes life into some aspects of creation, while the 'conserver' diety takes life away, leaving only lifeless matter, which it falls upon the destroyer to transform to dust and ash.

Perhaps the creator does create life, and it is the expansionist god that then fills the souls of select living things with a desire to learn and grow and change the world in new and exciting ways, bold and colorful and experimentative. The conserver diety is more traditional, and attempts to bring order to the chaos of his sibling, guiding the many races of man into the formation of cities and societies and stable family units. Without the wild chaotic urgings of the expansionist, no race would grow and change and become more than it was before. Without the somber grown-up discipline of the conserver, no race would survive this impetuous youth, and become a stable culture able to endure the ages. This takes life and death out of the hand of the 'middle gods' and puts them back on the creator and destroyer, leaving the two middle gods as the ones most involved in the mortal races, one being a god of passion and exuberance, the other a god of reason and stability, each vital to the functioning of a society, in balance.

The creator and destroyer might be seen as more distant figures in this particular instance, with the 'middle gods' being so much more personally involved in mortal arts and philosophies. Or not, all four could be equally respected, and this is just tapping into the Chinese philosophy. Dozens of other systems existed, and one could assign the four directions to the four humours, or to different parts of the body, or to different stages of mortal existence (maiden, mother, crone, spirit), or whatever.

Tons of options present themselves.

[Roukon]

Set, thank you for such a long and in-depth post.

I'm not sure how much of it I will be able to use, but it has given me many good ideas to go from. I have looked at basic Chinese philosophy, and any pantheon I develop will have some influences from Asian philosophy and religion, as I have an interest in that.

The creator/destroyer aspects of deities, I haven't developed yet, and I'm not sure if I will except for history of how the world was torn asunder. It was an aspect that I had not considered, and might be one that I will find use for, just possibly not the main setting.