Setting Reset: help with new Gods

[Naanomi]

Ok, so my high level PCs are likely going to cause another apocalypse in my campaign setting (on purpose), and I'll 90% be time jumping in the setting to a future era of rebuilding with a new party. One thing that will not survive the devastation is the setting's Gods (that's kind of the point actually) so I'd like to build a new pantheon for the new era.

Here are my thoughts:
-I want a triad of three Gods
-I want each to have three different domains, covering the nine listed Cleric domains in the 5e books (7 PHB + death + magic)
-I want them all to be 'neutral', or at the least be concepts that can have both good and evil sects of worshippers

My first thought was a Sun God 'the judge' (war, light, death); an Earth God 'the mother' (nature, tempest, life); and a Moon God 'the teacher' (magic, trickery, knowledge)

But I'm not totally satisfied with that arrangement... I kind of want life and death on the same power etc... anyone have any thoughts on good 'arrangements of powers'?

[Sigreid]

How about going a touch more traditional.

The God of Order
The Goddess of the Wild
And the Trickster

In many real world religions the trickster is the one responsible for stealing the secrets and gifts from the gods and giving them to mortals. Frequently being punished for doing so.

[Balyano]

Could put Life, Death, Nature as a god/goddess of the natural cycles, of cyclical change.

So the deity is associated with

birth, life, death, rebirth

dawn, day, dusk, night

spring, summer, autumn, winter

vegetation, herbivores, predators - and simba when we die our bodies become the grass

the movement of the heavenly bodies and phases of the moon and rising and falling of the tides

this is a deity of the natural order and of time

[Balyano]

Another deity is trickery, knowledge, and war

this deity is associated with civilization, crafts, territory, politics, commerce, and battle tactics



and another with tempest, light, and magic

this deity represents the raw power of nature, sometime untameable and destructive, sometimes a beacon of home, always powerful



or instead have multiple deities with overlapping domains

for instance you might arrange the domains in a circle, a deity has two (or maybe three instead) domains that are adjacent to eachother and another deity is one rotation to the side

i did that for one and had a deity of light/knowledge who is the patron of philosophy and truth, his mate is the goddess of knowledge/trickery, she is a trickster deity who shows people their own foolishness so they can grow, they get along well, she is a goddess of riddles, only she can challenge his ability to solve riddles, only he can solve her most difficult riddles, and the cycle goes around in a wheel till you get back where you started with there being nine deities in all.

light - knowledge
knowledge - trickery
trickery - death
death - war
war - tempest
tempest - nature
nature - life
life - magic
magic - light

[mephnick]

I like the idea though most cultures relate knowledge to light, so I might make the Light god light, magic and knowledge (teacher) and the Moon god "war, trickery, death", though that might make him a little too "evil".

[Balyano]

I like the idea though most cultures relate knowledge to light, so I might make the Light god light, magic and knowledge (teacher) and the Moon god "war, trickery, death", though that might make him a little too "evil".

a little too evil? or instead it makes him Sun Tzu.

[MrStabby]

Hmm, I wonder if for a change of habit you could make the Sun god evil (or more evil)?

In a desert culture where the sun was unpleasant, killed life as much as feeding it and was something to be sheltered from not embraced.

Sun then takes Light, Death and possibly tempest - it is the world before life and after life.

Then a god of the wild - representing freedom, nature and growth. Domain of Nature, Life and Trickery

Finally a god representing civilisation - human opposition to the world. This is in opposition to both the harsh uncaring sun and the wild. War, Trickery and knowledge.

[Occasional Sage]

Hmm, I wonder if for a change of habit you could make the Sun god evil (or more evil)?

In a desert culture where the sun was unpleasant, killed life as much as feeding it and was something to be sheltered from not embraced.

Sun then takes Light, Death and possibly tempest - it is the world before life and after life.

Then a god of the wild - representing freedom, nature and growth. Domain of Nature, Life and Trickery

Finally a god representing civilisation - human opposition to the world. This is in opposition to both the harsh uncaring sun and the wild. War, Trickery and knowledge.

Did you mean War, Magic and Knowledge? Because Magic's missing and Trickery is duplicated.

[MrStabby]

Did you mean War, Magic and Knowledge? Because Magic's missing and Trickery is duplicated.

Yes, sorry. You are correct. Magic indeed.

[Occasional Sage]

So in this setting, do all races worship the same three deities?

[Naanomi]

Yes the 'old gods' (the racial gods) were driven away a long time ago, and the Gods that replaced them (that were worshiped by all races, though often under different names) are unlikely to survive the PCs; this Triad will be more of a 'universal pantheon'; probably all three worshiped by everyone to a degree, though with different churches/sects that don't get along existing (some of which are racially bound ones)

[Renvir]

I know it breaks the rule of three gods with three domains but I'm partial to:

-God of Life and Death, representing the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. "God of the Cycle"

-God of Nature, Light, and Tempest, representing the natural balance between order and chaos in the world. "God of Balance"

-God of War, Knowledge, Magic, and Trickery, representing the way mortals change the world. "God of Change"

I don't know how active the gods will be in your setting but I could see the God of the Cycle being largely indifferent to most mortal affairs. Likely, that god would intervene only when the cycle of life and death is being threatened. The God of Balance would be a bit more active but still distant. This god would probably only step in when something threatens to upend the worlds balance entirely. Periods of relative order or chaos would be fine so long as they aren't permanent. Lastly, the God of Change would be the most active in the affairs of mortals. This god would have many different interpretations among the peoples of the world and a constant source of philosophical and religious discussion.

[Naanomi]

I had considered a 'five part' pantheon of opposites (life/death, nature/tempest, war/knowledge, light (as truth)/trickery, and magic alone) but I think I will stick with the triad this time...

Some setting background if it helps:
the world existed without Gods and only dragons lived there, then a God moved in and started stealing mortal races from other worlds to worship him in a planet-wide monotheistic theocracy. However the people kept worshiping their old Racial Gods and the one God got pissed and decided to wipe out everyone and start over; and he succeeded in cutting off all contact of outside pantheons with the plane.

However, circumstances occurred that some of his essence aplit from him and formed a new pantheon that (several times in history) defeated/sealed/drove away the one God; usually in a big apocalypse that happened every few thousand years.

The recent batch of PCs discovered that because the New Gods were part of the Old God, he couldn't really be defeated while they existed. They actually got a few members of the pantheon to agree to sacrifice themselves to kill him. They are in the process of draining his power now and if successful will trash the world but take all the Gods down with them

The new triad will be the division of the divine power that arose from the combined defeated essence, relatively distant from mortal concerns and dedicated in part to keeping each other in check to prevent anything like this happening again

[Occasional Sage]

What about:

Civilization
War, Magic, Knowledge

Nature
Trickery, Light, Nature

Change
Life, Tempest, Death