Questions About God Making

[Cardea]

When you make gods, what do you keep in mind when you make them? How do you align them properly against one another in your pantheon? What roles or archetypes do you feel absolutely essential in your pantheon?

[the_david]

This may not be what you asked for, but it is usually good advice.

If this is D&D/Pathfinder:

- At least one deity for each alignment
- Make use of all core domains.
- The unwritten rule, evil gods always get the evil domain, good gods always get the good domain, etc.
- In Pathfinder deities get 5 domains. Lesser deities get 4, but the core pantheon should have 5 each.
- Don't forget favored weapons, and try to pick martial weapons as much as possible.

Don't say that the gods exist and are mighty because people believe and have faith in them, because that's just stupid and lazy storytelling.
You can just use deities from other settings, or use the parts of their portfolios that you like. So if you want to use Cayden Cailean because he took on the test of the starstone while drunk, Vecna because you like the idea of a god who knows all secrets and Cardea, the goddess of doors, then just go ahead. (Changing names is always a good idea.) Ofcourse, you would never be able to publish it. Don't make a setting and then just dump in a pantheon from whatever PHB is on hand. It'll instantly turn into Greyhawk lite.
Another idea is to set up the evil deities, and then just let the players figure out who the good gods are. This was the original intention of Gary Gygax, and then players started begging for an official pantheon.
The gods don't care is another no-no. If the gods wouldn't care about their followers, all the clerics would be Ur-priests.

[Thrawn4]

When you make gods, what do you keep in mind when you make them? How do you align them properly against one another in your pantheon? What roles or archetypes do you feel absolutely essential in your pantheon?

If I homebrew something I usually have a central idea from where to start (atmoshpere, a specific god etc.) and than develop according to my needs. I don't think you need to worry about "proper" relations or stereotypes - it's your world, after all. For established expectations there are already established settings, so no need to adhere to these. For example I don't think you have to introduce a warrior god. People can fight for riches, familiy or the moon any time without a sword-wielding cosmic force.... oh yeah, you might want to consider the nature of gods: Cosmic force, killable and replaceable person, something in between....

[Yora]

When I make gods, pantheons are are groups of gods worshipped in a certain area. It does not in any way indicate actual relationships between specific gods.
I also try to make sure that there are no duplicate gods. When two gods are very similar in many ways, they are just the same deity.
Gods are also not ranked. Whatever systems there might be are inventions of the people who worship them in a given area, but they are too unknowable for people to really figure out the differences between them.
Unless gods are created through human worship, each god needs to be respnsible for something that still makes sense without people. I don't make gods of agriculture, but gods of plants or growth, which are worshipped by people who want their fields blessed.

[VoxRationis]

Unless gods are created through human worship, each god needs to be respnsible for something that still makes sense without people. I don't make gods of agriculture, but gods of plants or growth, which are worshipped by people who want their fields blessed.

Funny you should mention that. In my campaign settings, the gods are created through worship, and they take on characteristics appropriate to how they are expected to act. In a lot of the background lore that doesn't come up to the table, I discuss how they even change—often dramatically—if the culture that worships them changes (abandons nomadism for agriculture, for instance). The dwarven pantheon went from 2 gods (one of rock and one of open space) to nine once they re-discovered the surface and their worldview changed.

Be careful not to have the gods too active, or or interference will start getting kind of annoying to your players.

[Knaight]

There aren't any particular essentials. There might be no gods (which doesn't imply no religion), a monotheistic setting, polytheism centered around local city gods, a pantheon organized thematically in any of a whole bunch of ways, tons of minor gods in a semi-animistic system, a fully animistic system, or a number of other things. In general though, I don't focus on the gods, but rather the human religious institutions around them, as I tend to find those vastly more interesting.

[Aergoth]

It depends on what you want to do with your gods.
Is the goal to build the world and provide the deities that shaped it, then your starting point is going to be fluff.
Is the goal to provide deities with domains for your characters to use, then your starting point is going to be mechanical.

But, remember that clerics don't have to worship a single god. In my setting I've got variously, ancestor worship, shamanism (animistic but related to the nomadic practices of the tribe), animism (based on ships), shamanism (focused around the sacrifice of sentients and slavery), hero worship of famous military figures, cults devoted to outsiders of all stripes (good outsiders are just as bad in the long run as evil outsiders here) and actual worship of gods. Sometimes these are coexisting in the same region with the same culture. Dwarves have a pantheon of gods that they worship, but they also venerate their ancestors (to the point where a holy symbol is also a reliquary containing a fragment of the deceased). And also druids.

If your have an animistic religion that you're working with, mechanically attempting to justify each and every possible spirit to worship is a waste of time. Providing a handful of domains that such a character could use, and work with the character based on their beliefs.

[Frozen_Feet]

The first thing I keep in mind is that what mortals think of gods and what they actually are, are two different things with only occasional overlap between each other. Hence, modeling Gods and their relationships in ways human religions do is ass-backwards. Pantheons? Alignment? Archetypes? What are those, something to eat? Come up with invidual characters first and then decide what sort of relationships they have based on their nature, or what humans can observe of them.

[jqavins]

The first thing I keep in mind is that what mortals think of gods and what they actually are, are two different things with only occasional overlap between each other. Hence, modeling Gods and their relationships in ways human religions do is ass-backwards. Pantheons? Alignment? Archetypes? What are those, something to eat? Come up with invidual characters first and then decide what sort of relationships they have based on their nature, or what humans can observe of them.
I like that notion. It fits nicely with the ideas I'm taking from this web site (http://norse-mythology.org/). Not that it's the same, but it fits. The site is about the Norse, but it manages to convey more. Ignore the author's (apparently strongly biased) comparisons of the animistic, polytheistic worldview to his straw-man notions of monotheism and rationalism; just read the for the main subject and I think you'll find food for thought when making your own gods.

It was food for me to think of what I plan to do in the near future. I'm going to start by listing a bunch of domains - most or all of the "standard" ones and some new ones - then doll out a few to each god almost randomly. They will overlap, and there will be some combinations that don't seem to make sense. But since this is the starting point, I'll be able to make up their personalities and relationships so as to make them make sense out of the odd-seeming domain combinations. And this will help me in making up the individual characters, and in avoiding clichés while doing so.


Unless gods are created through human worship, each god needs to be responsible for something that still makes sense without people. I don't make gods of agriculture, but gods of plants or growth, which are worshipped by people who want their fields blessed.
So, combining Frozen Feet's and Yora's suggestions, a given deity may be, by its nature, a god of plants and fertility, but worshipped as a god of agriculture.

(As I was scrolling back through the thread multi-quoting, I was thinking "Who had that comment about gods making sense even without people to worship them; that was really good." Yora, you've done it again.)

[Frozen_Feet]

Unless gods are created through human worship, each god needs to be respnsible for something that still makes sense without people.

Depends slightly on whether gods themselves can be counted as 'people'.

You could have, say, a God of Agriculture by the virtue of that god having invented agriculture, by growing food for itself.

[LudicSavant]

When you make gods, what do you keep in mind when you make them? How do you align them properly against one another in your pantheon? What roles or archetypes do you feel absolutely essential in your pantheon?

- All too often I see people constructing a pantheon independently of considerations of cultures and the like, and it tends to result in dull pantheons that feel like they were just punching out a card for each domain.

Except for the occasional game where the deities themselves are main characters, the deity isn't the most important thing to think about, the worshipers are. You want to create a compelling philosophy that players might actually want to follow and engaging organizations that have a role to play in your stories. Your gods should be built around interesting philosophy and organizations. Think about why a cleric of X deity is interesting.

- When assigning domains, it's important to look at what the domains *do* rather than their names. The Portfolio entry is separate from the Domains list for a good reason. Also, the more domains a deity has, the more ways a player can put their own spin on building a cleric or sect of that faith.

- No roles or archetypes are absolutely essential. Thinking in boxes like that will limit the diversity and creativity of settings you produce. The only essential thing is that your gods add something to the world that engages your players.