Why are/were all of the gods based on European gods?

[halfeye]

There were the eastern gods (based on the greek), there are northern gods (based on the Norse/germanic), there are the southern gods (based on Mesopotamian tiamat among others) (or were those the western gods?).

Where are the gods based on the Egyptian gods, the Hindu gods, the native Australian gods, the East Asian gods, the native American gods?

I'm not saying gods aren't inherently rubbish, because they all are. I'm just interested why this particular subset was chosen.

[ORione]

The Southern Gods (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html) were based on the Chinese zodiac.

[Lvl45DM!]

The gods are Norse (Northern) Babylonian (Western) Chinese Zodiac (Southern) and Greek (Eastern)

Babylon is in the Middle East and wouldn't count as western. But the reason is im 95% sure that those are the first four pantheons that popped into Rich's head and so he rolled with it.

[The Pilgrim]

Mesopotamia is not in Europe. Plus, you forgot that the entire Southern pantheon is based on east asian mythology.

So only two of the four pantheons are european-based. And one of those two got wiped out. And something tells me that if Rich hadn't chosen an european-based pantheon as sacrifice to exemplify the horrors of the Snarl, he would have got a fair share of hate mail blaming him as an etnocentrist.

So you now have a northen european-based pantheon, a middle-eastern one, and an east-asian one. Pretty balanced.

[karkus]

I'd assume that most of his readers are more commonly familiar with those pantheons. The only Egyptian god I can remember the name of is Anubis, and I think that's actually a river or something. :smalltongue:

[MasterGhandalf]

Anubis was an Egpytian god; he presided over mummification, funerary rites, and in some cases the process of death, though he didn't actually rule over the souls of the dead (that was the job of Osiris, who was also a god of fertility- the Egyptians were pretty big on the whole cycle of life and death thing). Other important Egyptian gods included Ra (the sun god, usually the most powerful and the original creator, sometimes conflated with Amun to become Amun-Ra), Isis (wife of Osiris, goddess of motherhood and magic), Set (brother of Osiris, god of warfare and the desert, usually also portrayed as a god of evil in later mythology, though he wasn't originally), Horus (son of Osiris and Isis, patron of the Pharaohs), Bastet (goddess of cats and protector of homes), Sekhmet (lioness-headed goddess of war, sometimes presented as the more bloodthirsty aspect of Bastet) and Thoth (god of wisdom and scholarship, scribe of the gods). But that's just the tip of the iceberg- the Egyptian pantheon was huge and fairly fluid, with gods taking over each other's roles or being considered aspects of each other depending on the region and era.

[Firemeier]

I'd assume that most of his readers are more commonly familiar with those pantheons. The only Egyptian god I can remember the name of is Anubis, and I think that's actually a river or something. :smalltongue:

Well, clearly, you haven't watched enough Stargate, then. :smalltongue:

[Defiant]

Reader and author familiarity (in addition to what's been mentioned already in the thread). It would be neither effective nor appropriate for the author to attempt portraying deities he knows little of, especially if the audience likewise has a limited understanding.

Sure, he could potentially read up on all these other deities and potentially write them in, but there's no reason to do so. In addition to the reader familiarity concern noted above, the setting has already been populated with the requisite number and diversity of panteons.

[Xelbiuj]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html

Presumably there are pantheons and gods that haven't been introduced. Nergal for recent example.

[Connington]

Nergal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nergal) is an established part of Mesopotamian religion as Lord of the Underworld and at various times a god of war, pestilence, and the high-noon sun (ie, the bad one). OOTS only has use for the very first one though.

[Gift Jeraff]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0737.html

Presumably there are pantheons and gods that haven't been introduced. Nergal for recent example.

He's part of the Western/Mesopotamian pantheon.

However, we haven't seen the elven pantheon yet. All we know about it is there is a god of knowledge V worships. My personal guess is they're exactly the same as Eastern gods, just with pointy ears and Roman names. :smalltongue:

[F.Harr]

Because Rich is a Westerner.

[Porthos]

Mesopotamia is not in Europe.

This. Mesopotamian gods are no more European than Egyptians would be.

So we have:

One Eurporean set.
One Middle Eastern set.
One Asian set.

Given that there are only three currently, that's not bad.

[Jay R]

To be consistent with the medieval knights and-wizards theme they all agreed on (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0274.html).

I don't think it's an accident that the Eastern God Monkey is the one departing from the theme to create ninjas.

[Amphiox]

It would have been imprudent for the Giant to have chosen a pantheon he was not very familiar with himself, particularly if said pantheon still had significant numbers of real-world worshippers in the here and now. Not when you're doing a humor strip and want to have the gods be the butt of at least some of your jokes.

For example, all the various Thor jokes would NOT have worked well with some other god if that god still had significant numbers of devoted followers in real life, even if said god had a personality similar to Thor's.

Anything remotely related to the Hindu patheons, for example, would certainly be something that an astute writer would be alarm-belling himself over in the planning phases of a strip like this.

[KillianHawkeye]

However, we haven't seen the elven pantheon yet. All we know about it is there is a god of knowledge V worships. My personal guess is they're exactly the same as Eastern gods, just with pointy ears and Roman names. :smalltongue:

Why would they be the same as the eastern gods when the elven lands are on the western continent? :smallconfused:

[Math_Mage]

He's part of the Western/Mesopotamian pantheon.

However, we haven't seen the elven pantheon yet. All we know about it is there is a god of knowledge V worships. My personal guess is they're exactly the same as Eastern gods, just with pointy ears and Roman names. :smalltongue:

Per SoD, we also know that
the elven gods are ascended deities from OotSworld itself, meaning all bets are off...except the 'pointy ears and Roman names' bit. :smallwink:

EDIT: Apparently my knowledge of the main comic is less than my knowledge of SoD. Serves me right.

[137beth]

Why would they be the same as the eastern gods when the elven lands are on the western continent? :smallconfused:

Hmm, maybe the western pantheon is Babylonian, and the elven pantheon is Akkadien (sp?) :smalltongue:
Although, I seem to recall that the elven pantheon were originally mortals (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0275.html)...

[halfeye]

It would have been imprudent for the Giant to have chosen a pantheon he was not very familiar with himself, particularly if said pantheon still had significant numbers of real-world worshippers in the here and now. Not when you're doing a humor strip and want to have the gods be the butt of at least some of your jokes.

For example, all the various Thor jokes would NOT have worked well with some other god if that god still had significant numbers of devoted followers in real life, even if said god had a personality similar to Thor's.

Anything remotely related to the Hindu patheons, for example, would certainly be something that an astute writer would be alarm-belling himself over in the planning phases of a strip like this.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks.

[Bogardan_Mage]

However, we haven't seen the elven pantheon yet. All we know about it is there is a god of knowledge V worships. My personal guess is they're exactly the same as Eastern gods, just with pointy ears and Roman names. :smalltongue:
While I think that would be hilarious, I doubt we'll ever properly see the Elven gods. I suspect that they only exist because Vaarsuvius mentioned them before Rich had fully plotted out the cosmology of the OotSverse.

[CRtwenty]

While I think that would be hilarious, I doubt we'll ever properly see the Elven gods. I suspect that they only exist because Vaarsuvius mentioned them before Rich had fully plotted out the cosmology of the OotSverse.

I doubt that. While they're hardly integral to the plot, they do a good job of showing that there was precedent for the creation of the Dark One. And also allows us to compare how they were treated by the original Gods over how the Gods treated the Dark One when he ascended.

[Bogardan_Mage]

I doubt that. While they're hardly integral to the plot, they do a good job of showing that there was precedent for the creation of the Dark One. And also allows us to compare how they were treated by the original Gods over how the Gods treated the Dark One when he ascended.
I'm not saying they weren't expertly woven into the plot, I just think that if Rich hadn't already committed to the existence of a distinct Elven pantheon they would be worshipping the same gods as everyone else. The precedent of The Dark One could easily have gone the opposite way in the planning stage, and the point about how they were treated is a relatively minor addition to a point that had already been made.

[Tass]

It would have been imprudent for the Giant to have chosen a pantheon he was not very familiar with himself, particularly if said pantheon still had significant numbers of real-world worshippers in the here and now. Not when you're doing a humor strip and want to have the gods be the butt of at least some of your jokes.

For example, all the various Thor jokes would NOT have worked well with some other god if that god still had significant numbers of devoted followers in real life, even if said god had a personality similar to Thor's.

Take it from a Scandinavian: Thor (and the rest of the aesir) does actually have quite a few followers still (or at least, again). I always found it humorous that people are happily discussing away at norse mythology when there is a strict ban on discussing real world religion, but I tended to like those discussions so I abstained from pointing out the inconsistency.

[CRtwenty]

Take it from a Scandinavian: Thor (and the rest of the aesir) does actually have quite a few followers still (or at least, again). I always found it humorous that people are happily discussing away at norse mythology when there is a strict ban on discussing real world religion, but I tended to like those discussions so I abstained from pointing out the inconsistency.

Well Thor is a character in the comic, so discussions about him and his mythology are more or less "on-topic". It'd be no different if there was an Angel character named "Metatron" or something and we started discussing Abrahamic Angel Mythology.

Not trying to derail or anything, I just don't really see an inconsistency here.

[Klear]

Well Thor is a character in the comic, so discussions about him and his mythology are more or less "on-topic". It'd be no different if there was an Angel character named "Metatron" or something and we started discussing Abrahamic Angel Mythology.

Not trying to derail or anything, I just don't really see an inconsistency here.

Phew... for a while I thought that the fact that Thor appears in Marvel comics makes the religion irrelevant. I guess it's to ok discuss the pantheon appearing in the comic, not the actual nose mythology...

[Kaurne]

Another reason might be ease of drawing. Conveying the Aztec Gods (which would almost certainly include Quetzacoatl front and centre as he is the most well known of them) in Rich's art style might have been difficult.

Also, recognisability. The Norse Gods are very familiar to western readers (which the majority of the readers of OotS are) so we know their nature and quirks a bit more - which makes the jokes funnier. Rich could have the weird matching of a Cleric of Loki and a Cleric of Thor, and make a joke of the gods being disgusted by it, because we know who Loki and Thor are, and we know they feud a lot. Doing it with a pair of feuding Gods from a less well known pantheon wouldn't have worked as well.

At the same time, we're also very familiar with the Greek Pantheon. We know the characters a lot more, from video games, books, comics and films. So when we find out they've been killed, it gives us a greater sense of the horror of the Snarl and a greater sense of sadness, because we know the characters.

For most readers, seeing the Yoruba pantheon get killed wouldn't have the emotional impact that seeing the Greek pantheon get killed did. That's probably why Rich did it.

And, if you want to talk about why he included the other two, they fit this explaination as well. We're familiar in the west with the concept of the Chinese zodiac, even though they weren't dieties worshipped (insofar as any dieties were worshipped) historically in China.

The animals of the zodiac are familiar enough to us that we recognise and understand the culture they are reflecting, while also being different. That reflects how Azure City and the Southern continent is compared to traditional fantasy settings. They're different, but also familiar to us.

The Western Gods are perhaps the least known of the four pantheons depicted, which fits with the Western continent - an area even the characters don't know much about, with a very different mix of sentient races, a very unstable political system and a very hostile terrain, compared to what the characters are used to. The very terrain there - mostly desert - fits with the Babylonian pantheon as well.

The religious conversation where we see Durkon knows little about the Western Gods reinforces this. By using a pantheon that we (as in, the majority of readers) only barely know about or have never heard of, he reinforces the alienness of the area compared to what the Order is used to and how they're out of their element here - which helps explain why the Order's darkest hour (so far, at least) seems to have occurred here.

Of course, I'm probably reading too much into it - but if I am, it's impressive that Rich chose four pantheons that fit the perfect roles in the story for them.

[JennTora]

Well Thor is a character in the comic, so discussions about him and his mythology are more or less "on-topic". It'd be no different if there was an Angel character named "Metatron" or something and we started discussing Abrahamic Angel Mythology.

Not trying to derail or anything, I just don't really see an inconsistency here.

This thread sort of skirts the boundary, and the OP expressed a very strong atheist viewpoint. Unless he was saying that all the oots gods are jackasses, and they are, but that wasn't what it seemed like to me.

[allenw]

Why the Greek and Norse pantheons? Because those were very popular pantheons among DMs back in 1st-edition days (and they were prominently featured in "Deities and Demigods").
Why the Mesopotamian pantheon? Gotta have Tiamat, might as well bring her family. Also featured in "Deities and Demigods".
Why the Chinese Zodiac? Ninjas!!! And more familar to most readers (at least those that go to Chinese restaurants) than is the Celestial Bureaucracy (which was *also* in "Deities and Demigods," but doesn't seem to have been used by many DMs back then).

[JennTora]

Why the Greek and Norse pantheons? Because those were very popular pantheons among DMs back in 1st-edition days (and they were prominently featured in "Deities and Demigods").
Why the Mesopotamian pantheon? Gotta have Tiamat, might as well bring her family. Also featured in "Deities and Demigods".
Why the Chinese Zodiac? Ninjas!!! And more familar to most readers (at least those that go to Chinese restaurants) than is the Celestial Bureaucracy (which was *also* in "Deities and Demigods," but doesn't seem to have been used by many DMs back then).

I don't remember the celestial bureaucracybeing in deities and demigods,(Maybe it was written for multiple editions.) but other than that I think we have a winner. This is a d&d parody after all, and i'm not sure but using Vecna and the others might have invited some legal problems. I honestly know little about copyright laws. The d&d pantheon may not have been written at the start of oots either, I don't know exactly when either of them started as I hadn't started playing D&D at the time.

[Jay R]

The decisions were really made before Rich came up with the plot of several pantheons arguing over how to create the world. I suspect that he just chose the ones already implicitly or explicitly included.

Ninjas (and therefore the need for Eastern gods) were introduced in #3.

Thor was introduced in #7.

Tiamat is implicitly in any D&D game with colored dragons.

And to be complete, I should mention that Banjo was introduced in #80.

Once the Giant was putting the plot together, the only one he needs to figure out was which pantheon to kill off. Easy choice - the two most well-known pantheons are the Greek and the Norse ones, and one of them is clearly still around. Also, the fertility goddess that Thor had trouble with once was wearing a Greek-looking outfit.

[On a side note, I am often bemused by the change in the meaning of "pantheon" caused by D&D and other modern fantasy. It originally meant "all the gods". Used correctly, the word "pantheon" in this world would mean all four sets, plus the Dark One, the elven gods, Banjo, etc.]

[hamishspence]

Also, the fertility goddess that Thor had trouble with once was wearing a Greek-looking outfit.

The deities of a pantheon seem to consistently have the same aura (green for Eastern, in flashback, red for Western, blue for Southern, yellow for Northern, and I think purple for The Dark One).

The fertility goddess had a yellow aura- same as Thor & Loki.

[JennTora]

[On a side note, I am often bemused by the change in the meaning of "pantheon" caused by D&D and other modern fantasy. It originally meant "all the gods". Used correctly, the word "pantheon" in this world would mean all four sets, plus the Dark One, the elven gods, etc.]

Now that we have a multicultural global society it means "all the gods worshipped by a given culture". It's a natural consequence of the way the world has developed moreso than the result of fantasy games.

[Klear]

Also, the fertility goddess that Thor had trouble with once was wearing a Greek-looking outfit.

Doesn't seem too Greek to me. I always assumed it's Freyja.

[Anatares]

I think the pantheons he chose are simply the most recognizable and established. Dwarves worshipping Thor just makes a lot of sense, Tiamat and Bahamut are already in D&D so why not introduce the rest, and the southern gods went with the asian theme of Azure City.

If he went with Aztec or Egyptian or native American pantheons, most people would have to look them up anytime they were mentioned. It would feel like homework if an unfamiliar god like Quetzalcotl was brought up in the comic and you had to go research him and how the hell to pronounce his name. With Egyptian gods only a handful are introduced (in school) because there's frankly so damn many - I think in the neighbourhood of 300? So that gets complicated. The Greek, Norse, and for the most part Mesopotamian gods are already included in school curriculums (At least where I am, it was 9th grade English class where they were introduced). The southern gods are just the zodiac animals from eastern beliefs and their names are their animal type. We are familiar with the animals and likely have an impression of their personality from the animal's known behaviors. It makes it easier on the reader to use gods they likely already know, their characters and values are already established so they need no introduction.

Insofar the only god that I didn't recognize immediately was Nergal, and his character and beliefs were established in the same comic where he was introduced.

[137beth]

Tiamat and Bahamut are already in D&D so why not introduce the rest
Bahamut was not a Babylonian god, and has not been seen in the comic.

[Roderick_BR]

What is this... "Europe" you speak of?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Bahamut was not a Babylonian god, and has not been seen in the comic.

One of his paladins was posting on Macebook.

And you need to add at least another zero in that total for Egyptian gods, Antares. Actually, they're kind of fun because if you ignore a dozen or so names, you have a fully developed pantheon for your game that people probably aren't familiar with.

[hamishspence]

One of his paladins was posting on Macebook.

You mean in this strip? I see a Paladin of Marduk, but not of Bahamut:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0739.html

[JennTora]

Doesn't seem too Greek to me. I always assumed it's Freyja.

Could be sif, though the comic goddess' hair was brown. But then Marvel's version of Sif has brown hair sometimes(for some reason.)

[Zmeoaice]

The Southern Gods (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html) were based on the Chinese zodiac.

Yeah, but that's not really based off an asian Pantheon, like they have in shinto or ancient chinese mythology. Although it's probably because the animals were easier to use and more familiar.

[F.Harr]

It would have been imprudent for the Giant to have chosen a pantheon he was not very familiar with himself, particularly if said pantheon still had significant numbers of real-world worshippers in the here and now. Not when you're doing a humor strip and want to have the gods be the butt of at least some of your jokes.

For example, all the various Thor jokes would NOT have worked well with some other god if that god still had significant numbers of devoted followers in real life, even if said god had a personality similar to Thor's.

Anything remotely related to the Hindu patheons, for example, would certainly be something that an astute writer would be alarm-belling himself over in the planning phases of a strip like this.


Another reason might be ease of drawing. Conveying the Aztec Gods (which would almost certainly include Quetzacoatl front and centre as he is the most well known of them) in Rich's art style might have been difficult.

Also, recognisability. The Norse Gods are very familiar to western readers (which the majority of the readers of OotS are) so we know their nature and quirks a bit more - which makes the jokes funnier. Rich could have the weird matching of a Cleric of Loki and a Cleric of Thor, and make a joke of the gods being disgusted by it, because we know who Loki and Thor are, and we know they feud a lot. Doing it with a pair of feuding Gods from a less well known pantheon wouldn't have worked as well.

At the same time, we're also very familiar with the Greek Pantheon. We know the characters a lot more, from video games, books, comics and films. So when we find out they've been killed, it gives us a greater sense of the horror of the Snarl and a greater sense of sadness, because we know the characters.

For most readers, seeing the Yoruba pantheon get killed wouldn't have the emotional impact that seeing the Greek pantheon get killed did. That's probably why Rich did it.

And, if you want to talk about why he included the other two, they fit this explaination as well. We're familiar in the west with the concept of the Chinese zodiac, even though they weren't dieties worshipped (insofar as any dieties were worshipped) historically in China.

The animals of the zodiac are familiar enough to us that we recognise and understand the culture they are reflecting, while also being different. That reflects how Azure City and the Southern continent is compared to traditional fantasy settings. They're different, but also familiar to us.

The Western Gods are perhaps the least known of the four pantheons depicted, which fits with the Western continent - an area even the characters don't know much about, with a very different mix of sentient races, a very unstable political system and a very hostile terrain, compared to what the characters are used to. The very terrain there - mostly desert - fits with the Babylonian pantheon as well.

The religious conversation where we see Durkon knows little about the Western Gods reinforces this. By using a pantheon that we (as in, the majority of readers) only barely know about or have never heard of, he reinforces the alienness of the area compared to what the Order is used to and how they're out of their element here - which helps explain why the Order's darkest hour (so far, at least) seems to have occurred here.

Of course, I'm probably reading too much into it - but if I am, it's impressive that Rich chose four pantheons that fit the perfect roles in the story for them.


The decisions were really made before Rich came up with the plot of several pantheons arguing over how to create the world. I suspect that he just chose the ones already implicitly or explicitly included.

Ninjas (and therefore the need for Eastern gods) were introduced in #3.

Thor was introduced in #7.

Tiamat is implicitly in any D&D game with colored dragons.

And to be complete, I should mention that Banjo was introduced in #80.

Once the Giant was putting the plot together, the only one he needs to figure out was which pantheon to kill off. Easy choice - the two most well-known pantheons are the Greek and the Norse ones, and one of them is clearly still around. Also, the fertility goddess that Thor had trouble with once was wearing a Greek-looking outfit.

[On a side note, I am often bemused by the change in the meaning of "pantheon" caused by D&D and other modern fantasy. It originally meant "all the gods". Used correctly, the word "pantheon" in this world would mean all four sets, plus the Dark One, the elven gods, Banjo, etc.]

Yup, I'm with that. But I would add, that the Messopotamian god had recognisable jobs and thing like the Indo-European ones did/do.

But I think that the change in meaning has less to do with D&D and more to do with a practical aspect of polytheistic religions. A group of gods function together and as a system. There is no role for Thor in Hinduism because there's alread a guy there doing his job. So Hindus have a pantheon consisting of all the gods in their religion. The Romans were unique in trying to encorporate all gods everywhere into their own belief system. Excpet for the one god in monotheism, of course.


Take it from a Scandinavian: Thor (and the rest of the aesir) does actually have quite a few followers still (or at least, again). I always found it humorous that people are happily discussing away at norse mythology when there is a strict ban on discussing real world religion, but I tended to like those discussions so I abstained from pointing out the inconsistency.

Yeah, but unless I'm very wrong, modern neo-pagans are a lot-less liable to cry "blasphamy" and let slip the lawyers of annoyance suits than practically anyone else.

"You mean in this strip? I see a Paladin of Marduk, but not of Bahamut:

"http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0739.html"

I really likethe sign about the Dew Decimal system. There's actual a version without so many Christianity-based catagories that is often used in Europe.

[Chronos]

I was actually at a wedding a couple of weeks ago where the presiding clergyman was a Thor-worshiper.

[F.Harr]

Oh! Was it nice? Congrats to the participants! That's wonderful!

[Dire Lemming]

I'm not saying gods aren't inherently rubbish, because they all are.
That's not offensive at all, and particularly not to polytheists.

[The Giant]

Real-world religion, including sentiments opposing religion, are not permitted here. Please read the Rules of Posting.

Thread locked.

And it's ridiculous to make a thread asking why "all" of the gods are European when only one-third of them are. That's like asking why Neapolitan ice cream is all strawberry.