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gadren
2015-08-13, 06:09 PM
How many different gods and goddesses can you think of from any D&D setting or real world myth whose PRIMARY focus is war? (For example Ares would count, but Athena would not because she's promarily the godess of wisdom who also happens to be a godess of war)?

[I'm thinking of running a campaign where the deities of war from different worlds all wage war on each other (of course involving mortals in the process), so I'm first trying to make a list of all my options.]

Vitruviansquid
2015-08-13, 06:39 PM
In real life pagan mythologies, gods and goddesses don't tend to be neatly compartmentalized. Athena was really a goddess of war as well as other things, sort of how Poseidon is a god of the sea as well as horses. A lot of gods and goddesses start as tutelary deities of a clan or tribe, city or village, that then get incorporated into a pantheon later, so it's fairly messy. But to answer as best I could given the limitations and fuzziness...

Here is a good place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_deities#Roman_mythology

I would further add Sol Invictus, a late Roman patron of soldiers who is not mentioned in the list.

gadren
2015-08-13, 07:10 PM
I guess, to clarify, I mean deities who would put the most importance on war and fighting. Like there's nothing more important to Ares or Hextor, but would you say that Athena valued war more or as much as Wisdom?

Eisenheim
2015-08-13, 07:21 PM
From D&D: Bane (at least the 4e incarnation), Hextor, Heironeous

From the real world: Tyr, Odin (though its equal among many other things), Morrighan (however you want to spell that), Guan-yu.

Red Fel
2015-08-13, 07:25 PM
I guess, to clarify, I mean deities who would put the most importance on war and fighting. Like there's nothing more important to Ares or Hextor, but would you say that Athena valued war more or as much as Wisdom?

Yes. The two were the same to her.

There were many gods who dealt with different forms of wisdom. In fact, Athena's "mother" (in the sense that Zeus ate her before giving birth to a fully-formed Athena) was Metis, goddess of wisdom and skill. Zeus, not unlike Odin, inherited Metis' reputation for wisdom (if not her actual wisdom). Athena was born fully formed, and armed for battle. She was a goddess of wisdom in warfare; of tactics, glory, and heroism.

The key differences between Athena and Ares were: Athena was a goddess of wisdom in war, of tactics and heroes. She traditionally sided with wise generals, clever tacticians, and glorious and noble champions. Ares was a god of bloody battle, and tended to side with the biggest, strongest guy in the room. Athena was generally respected for her counsel, and frequently on the winning side. Ares was a coward, a bully, and a jerk, whom nobody except Aphrodite liked.
You really can't differentiate most deities' roles like that. Every part of the portfolio is an aspect of the whole, an indistinguishable piece. Compare Wee Jas and Nerull, for example. They're both gods of death. Death is death. But Wee Jas is a knowledge goddess, and her domain of death involves learning from the lessons of those who came before, while Nerull is an evil god, and his domain of death involves murdering every last son of a gun on the planet.

The same applies to war gods. If a god has war in their portfolio, it's generally a defining component of their makeup. Look at Gruumsh. Gruumsh is the god of war, Orcs, Evil and strength. That's because he epitomizes the classical Orc. He is a war god because Orcs are meant to be a warlike race. He is a war god because he wants to lead his Orcs to glory. Similarly, Thrym and Surtr, gods of the ice and fire giants, respectively, are war gods, because their races embody warlike tendencies. Even Corellon is a war god, because he is all about Elven warfare and Elven glory, and maybe just a bit of Elven racial supremacy.

In fact, almost all racial gods have war as a domain. I guess that's a bad thing, huh?

Jay R
2015-08-13, 07:30 PM
In Westeros (Game of Thrones), one of the Seven new gods is The Warrior.

This page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_deities) will give you more detail than you ever wanted

Vitruviansquid
2015-08-13, 07:40 PM
What do you mean by "put the most importance?"

Greek hoplites and generals certainly prayed to Athena to grant them success in battle and attributed successes in battle to Athena. Greek weavers and potters also certainly prayed to Athena as the goddess of crafts, and then also attributed successes in their business or artistry to Athena. How do you tell in what capacity she "put the most importance?" Are we supposed to judge whether the hoplites or the artisans are praying harder to her? Are we quantify by measuring number of prayers? Are we supposed to measure how important was the event that caused people to pray to her?

It is all much more complicated in real life.

Now, what I would do for your campaign is just pick one out of the many war gods in each pantheon that you think works the best, and arbitrary declare them the only or primary war god.

TheCountAlucard
2015-08-13, 08:27 PM
Yeah, OP, basically your criterion ignores how gods tended to actually be worshipped.

Consider also the Exalted setting - there are numerous war-gods and other figures, including the Bureau of Destiny's war division, the Crimson Panoply of Victory.

We have Ignis Divine, the King of Heaven, chief war-god of Yu-Shan, god of excellence, victory, the sun, the sky, day and night.

His peer is the Maiden of Battles, goddess of strategy and warfare, overseer of the destiny of all conflict.

Ahlat is the Southern God of War and Cattle; Siakal is the Western Goddess of War and Sharks; Taru-Han is the Central God of War and Exalted Combat; Hu Dai Ling is Shogun of the Crimson Banner; Tien Yu is Goddess of Lookshy and the Seventh Legion. And so on.

5ColouredWalker
2015-08-13, 09:03 PM
Guan is a Chinese Saint-equivalent, not a God. [I think.]

Adding Anhur [Egyption.] to the list I can think of.

Dienekes
2015-08-13, 09:50 PM
Yes. The two were the same to her.

There were many gods who dealt with different forms of wisdom. In fact, Athena's "mother" (in the sense that Zeus ate her before giving birth to a fully-formed Athena) was Metis, goddess of wisdom and skill. Zeus, not unlike Odin, inherited Metis' reputation for wisdom (if not her actual wisdom). Athena was born fully formed, and armed for battle. She was a goddess of wisdom in warfare; of tactics, glory, and heroism.

The key differences between Athena and Ares were: Athena was a goddess of wisdom in war, of tactics and heroes. She traditionally sided with wise generals, clever tacticians, and glorious and noble champions. Ares was a god of bloody battle, and tended to side with the biggest, strongest guy in the room. Athena was generally respected for her counsel, and frequently on the winning side. Ares was a coward, a bully, and a jerk, whom nobody except Aphrodite liked.
You really can't differentiate most deities' roles like that. Every part of the portfolio is an aspect of the whole, an indistinguishable piece. Compare Wee Jas and Nerull, for example. They're both gods of death. Death is death. But Wee Jas is a knowledge goddess, and her domain of death involves learning from the lessons of those who came before, while Nerull is an evil god, and his domain of death involves murdering every last son of a gun on the planet.


Interestingly, the Spartans who were known for their worship of Ares really didn't. From what we have on them (all from non-Spartans, unfortunately, the guys apparently thought that the important things of life should be memorized by children so all we have about them are a few grave markers and notes, not anything substantial about their culture) it appears that their prayer to Ares was essentially "Lord, please make our enemies do something stupid." While it was Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt who they prayed and sacrificed to more for their valor.

This is completely changed with the Romans who viewed Mars as a paragon of virtue and warfare who they prayed to directly. Though Mars had other parts, that differentiated him from Ares, for one, he also had an agricultural aspect to his deityhood.

gadren
2015-08-13, 10:06 PM
This is completely changed with the Romans who viewed Mars as a paragon of virtue and warfare who they prayed to directly. Though Mars had other parts, that differentiated him from Ares, for one, he also had an agricultural aspect to his deityhood.

Yeah, I found it interesting how different Mars is from Areswhile reading about all these different war gods. Mars is the patron of Rome. While Ares is decidedly CE, Mars is probably LN.

treecko
2015-08-13, 10:45 PM
Personally Kali from Hindi culture is my go to war goddess for a pantheon.

Eisenheim
2015-08-13, 10:50 PM
Guan is a Chinese Saint-equivalent, not a God. [I think.]



yeah, it's a little weird. He's worshipped in a few different traditions as different things, but to my knowledge, none of them have him at a lesser rank than the other deity type figures they venerate. I think it's more a question of bad mapping between indo-european style deities and the kinds of divine beings worshiped in China.

Brother Oni
2015-08-14, 10:45 AM
...their prayer to Ares was essentially "Lord, please make our enemies do something stupid."

An excellent example of the famed Laconic wit. :smallbiggrin:


yeah, it's a little weird. He's worshipped in a few different traditions as different things, but to my knowledge, none of them have him at a lesser rank than the other deity type figures they venerate. I think it's more a question of bad mapping between indo-european style deities and the kinds of divine beings worshiped in China.

One of the odd things that he's worshipped for that doesn't really map to anything else, is that he's the epitome of brotherhood (essentially looking after your mates), hence why you can find shrines to him in both police stations and triad headquarters.

I believe the Monkey King was promoted up to the bodhisattva of fighting, thus technically making him a god of war, although he's better known as a trickster/troublemaker type of deity.

Hazzardevil
2015-08-14, 11:30 AM
This is completely changed with the Romans who viewed Mars as a paragon of virtue and warfare who they prayed to directly. Though Mars had other parts, that differentiated him from Ares, for one, he also had an agricultural aspect to his deityhood.

I think that's because to the Roman Republic a Soldier was also a farmer. Before it became a full time profession and we think of Caesar's Legions the soldiers would fight for a few months in the summer and would be farming for the rest of the year. It makes sense that the god of soldiers was also a farmer like his followers.

You could make a variety of war gods. One for the leaders in the army, one for the common man who just wants to live to go home to his family and another for the man who goes into the war for riches and glory.

People go to war for different reasons and that can be represented by different gods of war. I remember reading in a book how there was one of Achille's men who represented the man who fought just so he could go home. While Achilles moped in a tent after a friend was killed he took 12 average men and held the line to save others.

illyahr
2015-08-14, 02:41 PM
The Japanese god Susano'o was the god of battle and chaos. He reveled, not in the actual killing and bloodshed, but instead in thinking on your feet as you battle your foes. Of skill in the moment, that one instant where your foe makes a mistake and you can claim victory.

SoC175
2015-08-14, 05:02 PM
Faerunian: Tempus, Red Knight, Garagos
Old Empires: Anhur
Dwarves: Clangeddin Silverbeard, Haela Brightaxe
Gnomes: Gaerdal Ironhand
Halflings: Arvoreen
Orcs: Gruumsh, Ilneval
Drow: Selvetarm

gadren
2015-08-14, 05:22 PM
I think Hachiman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiman), Japanese deity of archery and war, favored deity of the samurai and protector of the warrior class is also a good one.

NRSASD
2015-08-14, 05:38 PM
Sekhmet, Egyptian Goddess of War and Protector of Egypt. She's really an embodiment of battle madness to be honest. The Egyptians threw festivals at the end of battles to appease her and get the killing to stop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sekhmet