Gods That Embody Opposing Forces

[Elricaltovilla]

I am working on a pantheon of deities for a world and I want each God to embody two opposed ideas. Some examples I have:

Senesta: Goddess of Love and War, Mother of Mankind
Vedruan: God of Nature and Civilization, Father of Elves
Tromot: God of Time- specifically the God of Past and Future, but not the present.
Unnamed God of Life and Death.

You get the idea. The two concepts don't have to be direct antonyms, but should be conceptually opposed. And while the idea comes from the Endless of Sandman (by Neil Gaiman), where the endless define their opposite force by their existence, instead of passively representing one aspect, each God should be actively representing both ideas.

Anyway, if you have any ideas or inspiration from this, please share.

[brian 333]

Hedonis, god of feast and famine.

Gluttony prepares the body for privation. Celebration prepares the spirit for toil. And the best spice is hunger.

[KatteLars]

Makuahine, Goddess of Ascension and Decline, Patroness of Empires

[GaelofDarkness]

Orandil, God of Within and Beyond (Near and Far?).
There is plenty to find over the horizon and within the depths of onself.

Korress, Goddess of Above and Below.
She tends both the celestial flames of the empyrean heavens and the infernal flames of the chthonic depths. Lightning and volcanoes are both her doing.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of love and war. I don't feel much like putting a bunch or random sounds together and calling it a god of some such. I'm kind of old school, I just pull deities out of Deities and Demigods, they have backgrounds and are time tested.

[KatteLars]

Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of love and war. I don't feel much like putting a bunch or random sounds together and calling it a god of some such. I'm kind of old school, I just pull deities out of Deities and Demigods, they have backgrounds and are time tested.

And that's perfectly valid and fine, but since this is the homebrew section, I think you'll find that a lot of us really do like to do just that :)

[Max_Killjoy]

The deities of one of the settings I'm working don't so much represent opposed forces, as they embody a certain thing with limited regard to the consequences.


The god who is at the core about freedom, cares about freedom. He would see all bonds broken, whether that's the bonds of slavery or the bonds of marriage.

The goddess of craft and hard work, cares about those things. If your work isn't done, isn't good enough, keep working, even if you have to neglect everything else.

The god of wealth cares about acquiring and displaying wealth, greed doesn't bother him, but neither does generosity as a display of wealth.

The goddess of family and fertility cares about those things, she wants large families and abundant crops.

The god of family and seasons expects you to be a good member of your family, and serve them well... and to sacrifice everything for your family if necessary, even your life, and does so himself every year.

The goddess of the wild defends and tries to expand wilderness, whether that helps or hurts mortals, and has disdain for logging, clearing land to farm, etc. Hunting is fine, it's part of the "wild way of things".

The god of laws expects everything to be ordered and follow set rules, and wants justice, but insists that the law IS justice and justice IS the law, and doesn't see how well-written law can be unjust or how thoughtful order could be oppressive or stiffing.

Etc.

Each of them represents the good and bad aspects of their "domain".

~~~~



Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of love and war. I don't feel much like putting a bunch or random sounds together and calling it a god of some such. I'm kind of old school, I just pull deities out of Deities and Demigods, they have backgrounds and are time tested.


The deities of the setting in question are all my own creations, but have names based on Sumerian and Akkadian words associated with their "domains", so that they have a consistent sound and ancient ambiance.

Some of us aren't interested in a mashup mythology of expy copies of existing deities.

[Tom Kalbfus]

The deities of one of the settings I'm working don't so much represent opposed forces, as they embody a certain thing with limited regard to the consequences.


The god who is at the core about freedom, cares about freedom. He would see all bonds broken, whether that's the bonds of slavery or the bonds of marriage.

The goddess of craft and hard work, cares about those things. If your work isn't done, isn't good enough, keep working, even if you have to neglect everything else.

The god of wealth cares about acquiring and displaying wealth, greed doesn't bother him, but neither does generosity as a display of wealth.

The goddess of family and fertility cares about those things, she wants large families and abundant crops.

The god of family and seasons expects you to be a good member of your family, and serve them well... and to sacrifice everything for your family if necessary, even your life, and does so himself every year.

The goddess of the wild defends and tries to expand wilderness, whether that helps or hurts mortals, and has disdain for logging, clearing land to farm, etc. Hunting is fine, it's part of the "wild way of things".

The god of laws expects everything to be ordered and follow set rules, and wants justice, but insists that the law IS justice and justice IS the law, and doesn't see how well-written law can be unjust or how thoughtful order could be oppressive or stiffing.

Etc.

Each of them represents the good and bad aspects of their "domain".

~~~~



The deities of the setting in question are all my own creations, but have names based on Sumerian and Akkadian words associated with their "domains", so that they have a consistent sound and ancient ambiance.

Some of us aren't interested in a mashup mythology of expy copies of existing deities.
I view classical and ancient dieties, as similar to some of the monsters in the monster manual like the pegasus and Medusa, they come from the same sources, so why not use them instead of making something wholly new and original? Be that as it may.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm pretty sure Ishtar isn't real, the Babylonians made her up.


*sigh*

Not the point, and I'm pretty sure you know that.

1) Various ancient and "classical period" real peoples in the real world, believed that Ishtar (and variations, and by various names) was a real goddess, and worshiped that deity as part of their real religion. Whether you or I or anyone else thinks such deities are "made up" is beside the point, they're part of our world's history, and have a host of associated conceptual baggage.

1a) Because of that historical belief by real people, we're approaching the red line on one of the forum rules, the one about discussing real religion, so this is the last time I'm going to mention that deity by name.

1b) No real person ancient or current has ever believed in Kagal-eunir, the Lawbringer, patron of order, law, cities.

2) There are a lot of gamers who don't want to use someone else's setting for their game, or piece their setting together from a bunch of real-world names and places, and that includes extant deities regardless of whether their origins are from historical beliefs or fictional works. They're no more or less interested in using the above-mentioned deity than they are in using Faerun or Greyhawk or Middle Earth entities in their setting's religions.

3) The OP of this thread is clearly interested in creating his own pantheon of deities, some of us are trying to help in that regard -- so saying "just use real/published deities, making them up with dumb names is pointless" is unhelpful almost to the point of threadcrapping... and our little side exchange is just a derail, so personally I'm done with it.

[Max_Killjoy]

I am working on a pantheon of deities for a world and I want each God to embody two opposed ideas. Some examples I have:

Senesta: Goddess of Love and War, Mother of Mankind
Vedruan: God of Nature and Civilization, Father of Elves
Tromot: God of Time- specifically the God of Past and Future, but not the present.
Unnamed God of Life and Death.

You get the idea. The two concepts don't have to be direct antonyms, but should be conceptually opposed. And while the idea comes from the Endless of Sandman (by Neil Gaiman), where the endless define their opposite force by their existence, instead of passively representing one aspect, each God should be actively representing both ideas.

Anyway, if you have any ideas or inspiration from this, please share.

One of my other settings has the goddess of darkness and fire, because she's the deity of the underworld.

[Tom Kalbfus]

*sigh*

Not the point, and I'm pretty sure you know that.

1) Various ancient and "classical period" real peoples in the real world, believed that Ishtar (and variations, and by various names) was a real goddess, and worshiped that deity as part of their real religion. Whether you or I or anyone else thinks such deities are "made up" is beside the point, they're part of our world's history, and have a host of associated conceptual baggage.

1a) Because of that historical belief by real people, we're approaching the red line on one of the forum rules, the one about discussing real religion, so this is the last time I'm going to mention that deity by name.

1b) No real person ancient or current has ever believed in Kagal-eunir, the Lawbringer, patron of order, law, cities.

2) There are a lot of gamers who don't want to use someone else's setting for their game, or piece their setting together from a bunch of real-world names and places, and that includes extant deities regardless of whether their origins are from historical beliefs or fictional works. They're no more or less interested in using the above-mentioned deity than they are in using Faerun or Greyhawk or Middle Earth entities in their setting's religions.

3) The OP of this thread is clearly interested in creating his own pantheon of deities, some of us are trying to help in that regard -- so saying "just use real/published deities, making them up with dumb names is pointless" is unhelpful almost to the point of threadcrapping... and our little side exchange is just a derail, so personally I'm done with it.

Aren't you over reacting just a tad? I have been playing D&D all the way back to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, we used the gods of Deities and Demigods. I hope i haven't offended any ancient Babylonians, and really, you should try to develop a sense of humor. My last comment was tongue in cheek. Why so serious?

[Xuc Xac]

Ishtar is the Babylonian goddess of love and war.

She's the goddess of conquest, but "conquest" covers a lot of ground.

[Tom Kalbfus]

She's the goddess of conquest, but "conquest" covers a lot of ground.

I liked her. The Ancients had a lot of imagination when they wrote those stories.

[brian 333]

If I may derail this thread and make a post on the OP's topic:

Mahku-Ukham, goddess of fertility and volcanoes. When in her Mahku phase she is the burning stone that falls from the sky destroying everything and covering the land in a sterile grey blanket of choking dust. When in her Ukham phase she causes life to spring from the dust and jungles to grow.