Tips on making a pantheon? Hoping for some advice.

[Templarkommando]

I've been looking into building up my campaign's pantheon recently. Thanks to another thread I was reading on the forum, I thought of a question.

Are there guidelines/rules for selecting what domains your deities have access to?

I'm hoping not to unbalance my campaign too badly while making my pantheon. If there aren't any rules, what do you take into consideration when building a campaign setting pantheon?

I'll post my pantheon cheat sheet so you get an idea of what I'm looking at:

Pantheon Cheat Sheet

Deity / Alignment / Portfolio/ Domains
Rondor/ Lawful Good/ Redemption/ Law, Good, Liberation, Renewal
Dorlen/ Lawful Neutral/ Commerce/ Law, Trade, Wealth, Protection
Delsaren/ True Neutral/ Secrets/ Trickery, Knowledge, Mind
Sorkain/ Neutral Good/ Martyrdom/ Good, Suffering, Healing, Retribution
The Stranger/ True Neutral/ The Unknown/ Travel, Illusion, Mentalism, Celerity
Shantal/ Neutral Good/ Life/ Balance, Animal, Good, Plant
Darsys/ Lawful Neutral/ Death/ Law, Death, Fate
Eildove/ True Neutral/ Nature/ Plant, Animal, Sun, Water
Zarjo/ Chaotic Neutral/ Mischief/ Chaos, Trickery, Madness
Ekron / Neutral Good/ Evocation/ Good, War, Spell, Magic
Mekrath/ Chaotic Evil/ Crime/ Chaos, Evil, Death, Greed
Qin/ Lawful Neutral/ Balance/ Balance, Sun, Moon
Vanth/ Lawful Good/ Justice/ Law, Good, War, Oracle
Lokeren/ Neutral Evil / Undead/ Evil, Death, Deathbound, Undeath
Kalroth/ Lawful Evil/ Tyrants/ Law, Evil, War, Tyranny
Verenoth/ Neutral Evil / Decay/ Plant, Animal, Evil, Pestilence
Torinol/ Lawful Good/ Glory/ Law, Good, Competition, Strength
Bondoril/ Chaotic Good/ Storytellers / Chaos, Good, Luck, Travel
Ysmir/ Chaotic Good/ Strength/ Chaos, Good, Strength, War
Xi-Dal/ Neutral Evil / Blackmail/ Evil, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery

[OmniArcanus]

Technically, your deities aren't limited to the amount of domains they grant and use, just as long as the said domains are within their portfolio. i mean, they are deities after all. you just have to be sure that your deities are all balanced, or have some that keep a balance, or else one deity could just kill/whatever all the others.

[Diefje]

It's pretty much up to you. If you want to create Fritz the god of firebreathing horses that ambush caravans, you can give him Animal, Fire, Evil, and Travel domains.

As long as the domain (and all spells in the domain) represents the god, you're golden. I'd personally add more gods with few domains if you're missing certain domains or combinations of domains. Or just add more anyway, options are good.

I wouldn't worry about unbalance when you make your own pantheon. Church influence with other organizations, church aid, your church having enemies, or even being outlawed in certain lands, or hunted down by opposing paladins. There's plenty of tweaking you could do on the fly I think.

[Amphetryon]

Worry less about balance within the pantheon, than about making the pantheon representative of those aspects the society that venerates said pantheon holds as important. If it's an ocean-going, tropical society of many small islands, it may not make any difference if there's no Cold domain, and a god that provides water could be good, evil, or simply capricious depending on whether it's salt or fresh water, for example.

[Kol Korran]

one the whole, your Pantheon looks fine. there were a few domains that made me think you have quite a specific look on the portfolios (god of balance: sun and moon) but that's cool- gives more flavor to the world. a few things i'd advise to consider though (a bit off topic):

most D&D deity systems give one deity quite a limited portfolio (at least with Grey hawk and Forgotten Realms), and this has sort of become the default... but few real world religions belive in such limited faiths- a god of JUST life? a god of JUST the sun? it becomes even more ridiculous with some aspects such as a god of strategy, a god of disease, a god of animals and so on.

not that there weren't gos of such specific aspects, but they were rarely worshiped exclusively. people who look for a higher source for their problems look for a more encompasing answer, which is why most cleric and favored souls look a bit restricted, somewhat one dimensional, and far lacking of real world priests in terms of offering spiritual supposrt. ("wait wait! you're talking about a funeral? i'm a priest of LIFE! that's not my thing!"... "wait, thisis peace time?! but i'm a cleric of war! what am i gonna do?"

this often leads to one of 3 major (there are more) solutions in the real world:

- worship an entire pantheon (greeks, hindu): the gos all have their specialties, and we give worship to them all, calling upon which is needed at a particular time. in Eberron the Sovereign host and Dark Six portray this spectacularly. this works well in D&D

- each region has it's own god, that handles Everything, though they may have some specialties. (biblical regional gods). this probably works not so good in D&D, but can be quite interesting

- monotheism- one obscure god, everywhere, deals with everything. might work with different ideas who this one god is. i've seen one campaign with such a singular deity, the clerics chose domains according to their role in the church.

a suggestion: if you have the time and the Faiths of Eberron book- read it. it's a master piece on how fantasy religions are built RIGHT. (even if you're not an Eberron fan).

hope this worked, and wasn't too long,
Kol.