A simple 5e Pantheon

[Naanomi]

In my 'traditional' homebrew campaign, I have a very complex system of Gods that has evolved over the years... four or so intermeshed pantheons and lots of overlap in roles. In creating a simplified world for younger players, I decided to gut my pantheon down to eight Goddesses, one for each Cleric Domain. It worked surprisingly well as a cosmology; and although that campaign ended after a TPK (darn Marid/Shark encounter!), the idea of a bare-bones Pantheon appealed to me. Note that for me, any very small pantheon has to be set up in a way that any alignment character could worship any God; no 'religion of evil'; even the 'Evil' Gods have sects focused on their positive or necessary aspects.

A Monotheism:
Hard to pull off in fantasy settings in general, and even harder to mesh into standard DnD Planescape-y cosmology. Generally you have to have different Saints or Angels or 'Faces of God' or some-such and end up building a de-facto Pantheon out of those elements anyways. I'll skip this one.

A Dualism:
Here there is some possibility. The classic 'Good God VS Evil God/Devil' plays out acceptably here; with 'Good' having Light/Life/Nature/Knowledge and Evil having Death/War/Tempest/Trickery; perhaps representing at least to some degree different sects of worship (that may conflict with each-other to create setting conflict, which isn't bad). Alternatively, one could build a more cosmically cooperative 'sacred marriage' sun/moon dynamic (or something along those lines)... maybe splitting along masculine/feminine, law/chaos, or civilization/nature? Perhaps Light/Knowledge/War/Trickery VS Life/Death/Nature/Tempest?

A Trinity:
A bit harder to make 'cohesive' with eight Domains, but still possible in a 3/3/2 setup. Good/Neutral/Evil may be possible (neutral being Nature/Knowledge maybe?); or a more cooperative pantheon (The Legend of Zelda is built on a cooperative pantheon that could map roughly to Knowledge/Trickery; War/Light/Death; Life/Tempest)

A Quadrinity:
This is where I am interested personally in constructing a world around for personal use. Four Powers seems to create natural alliances and enemies that can seem interactive, whereas less Gods seems pretty cosmically static. The obvious choice is Good/Evil/Law/Chaos BUT I think I prefer doing combinations, which more naturally leads to interaction.
~LG God seems a good choice for Light Domain, but a second Domain would be less obvious. The classic 'good-guy' God might have Life; but Knowledge (for a more contemplative/mystic take on LG) or even War (a Crusader-God, crushing out evil) are also possible
~CG God is where I would put Nature. Tempest is possible for a totally nature-focused Deity; but Trickery (a friendly teacher/trickster coyote type) or Life (a mother-goddess) are also totally in line conceptually
~LE is the best place, for me, to put Death. Knowledge seems a pretty Lawful domain overall, so if LG doesn't get it, then I put it here. Trickery is also possible; for a Faustian deal-maker type.
~CE didn't have anything obvious jumping out at me; but War, Tempest, or Trickery seem the most basic starting points.

NOT reflective of real religions except in terms of rough aesthetics and rituals as well as 'overall feel' from a fantasy perspective, not a theological one

LG God of Light and Life, following a classic fantasy Catholic/Judaic model. Room for friendly Life types and more Crusader/Inquisition oriented Light clerics
CG Goddess of Nature and Trickery, an animistic/fey flavored deity with touches of Tribal/Folk Religion as well as the anti-intellectualism of Taoism
LE Goddess of Death and Knowledge; a bureaucratic soul-counter with a mix of the ritualism of Confucianism (and maybe touches of other ritualistic/orthodox religions) and a slightly fatalistic-contemplativeness of Buddhism
CG God of War and Tempest; representing the worst parts of civilization and nature; using vaguely Hindu trappings, but most divorced from source material.

An Octrinity:
Where I started, eight Gods for eight Domains. Mapped reasonably well to the eight Alignments (sorry Neutral, maybe next time!); though some I struggled with placing cleanly along alignment maps. I ended up with LG=Light; NG=Life, CG=Nature, CN=Trickery, CE=Tempest, NE=War, LE=Death, LN=Knowledge)

Beyond:
Past that the pantheon stops being less 'simple' for my purposes; however the idea of every two-domain combination (56 possibilities) building to a large pantheon does seem to be an interesting place to start world-building to me.

Thoughts/Opinions/Ideas?

[Cyan Wisp]

I think variety is the spice of life with pantheons, though enforced monotheism could be an interesting, scary option. I don't see why One True God couldn't work in a fantasy setting. One church might well have been very proactive in stomping on competing religions - maybe a War god or something. Now the nations of the area are under the yoke of the holy armies of this violent regime. Sects of forbidden gods exist, but only so long as the Church is ignorant of them. I like this option better than the Dualist model as it seems believable, even... familiar. I think it has great possibilities for moral dilemmas. The church is good - it brings and sustains peace. But the church is also questionable: expansionist and intolerant of heathens. Which side do you choose?

I DM for school kids (in the Eberron setting). Initially, I avoided having "gods" as such as I wanted to avoid awkward situations with RL religious kids. Instead, I opted for Elemental Clerics who follow primordial forces of nature. It worked out nicely. I just named them after the various planes of existence in Eberron: They are all Neutral, through Irian and Mabar have spheres of influence that suggest good/evil.

Irian: positive energy, life, healing, purification
Lammania: earth, stone, nature, animals and plants
Fernia: fire, creation, metalwork, alchemy
Risia: water, ice, mariners, sea creatures
Syrania: air, storms, dreams, flight
Mabar: negative energy, darkness, corruption, undead

The idea (similar to yours) was that there are multiple aspects of elements and thus multiple sects with different foci and ethical bent. You foes may be shadowy Mabari cultists out to bring corruption and death to an area or they might be Fernian technologists building terrible war machines that spew unstoppable fire.

When 5e arrived, I converted the games I run to 5e and now just use the Eberron gods as written. Seems like the students can cope with it after all.

[Joe the Rat]

I think you've got solid ideas here. Were I building from the ground up, I would probably use a quartet or octet. The Octet is a natural fit for the system, though I would avoid fixing them to alignments - or be very clear that this is a "traits / themes of X", not "must be of X alignment to worship". I'd fiddle with the order on War and Death... War is a tricky one to lock in, but I'd make it more structured-commandy affair (LE), to put Death opposite Life (NG). This also lets you play with War and Tempest as philosophies of conflict. A sort of Athena/Ares contrast.

[Naanomi]

I'd fiddle with the order on War and Death... War is a tricky one to lock in, but I'd make it more structured-commandy affair (LE), to put Death opposite Life (NG). This also lets you play with War and Tempest as philosophies of conflict. A sort of Athena/Ares contrast.
I struggled there; but did the order I did for two reasons: one I wanted the Death Goddess to be a more public, acceptable religion; easier with a LE outlook than NE in most cultures. Also, from a planar perspective parking a War God on the central Battlefield of the Blood War was appealing.

I also struggled placing Trickery; wanting a lovable coyote figure (CG), fickle luck Goddess (CN), and scheming Faustian type CE or LE) at different points in my planning

[Laurefindel]

Thoughts/Opinions/Ideas?

How set are you about linking divinities to alignment?

Four divinity is a nice number since each divinity can represent two aspects. You could have both aspects relatively close to each others, or showing the divinity's duality.

Thus you could have a god/goddess of both Life & Death, Light & Trickery, War & Knowledge and Nature & Tempest.

Other interesting combinations include Light & Death, War & Life, Knowledge & Tempest and Trickery & Nature.

Both sets of permutations could flesh out a less typical (for D&D) pantheon with different regional cults, intricate religions and even inner war/conflicts.

[edit] actually, I kind of like that idea. I might invent a 'duality' pantheon just for the fun of it. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Naanomi]

[edit] actually, I kind of like that idea. I might invent a 'duality' pantheon just for the fun of it. Thanks for the inspiration.
Glad you like it. Knowledge/Trickery (representing 'truth and lies') is another duality to consider. Nature/Tempest (nature at it's best and worst); Death/Life; and Light/War (Light as 'Serenity' or 'Purity') round out a decent set of auto-oppositional powers.

An interesting idea from one of my players would be to combine some of these ideas into a hierarchy. One 'overpower' theoretically representing all Domains who is highly abstract and unapproachable.
Two greater, highly distant Powers forming a Duality of some sort.
Under each member of the Duality is two Intermediate Gods each with two of the Domains from the Greater Power above them; being traditional Pantheistic/Fantasy Gods.
Beneath them are eight Lesser Gods, one of each Domain; being more relatable beings worshiped by individuals and in shrines rather than in larger organized religions.