Pantheon Ideas in Gothic Horror

[Warlock'sFriend]

I've been scouting around the internet but haven't been able to find anything relevant to this question.
What kind of deity archetypes/tropes work best for a gothic horror world? Obviously Curse of Strahd had the Morning Lord and Mother Night, but that's so limited compared to the amount of domains we have available now for clerics. Are there any current domains for 5e that just can't fit this genre?

[Dienekes]

It kinda depends on what you want out of the world and the religions. I could see an essentially pure good god/goddess of protection and light to be seen as the last bastion of safety against the monsters of the night. Could be pretty poignant if you play up how they are trying to protect all they can but the night is forever encroaching.

Or you could play up into the darker more horrific aspects of the gods. A god of wisdom and madness, for on this world both go hand in hand together. Gods of transformation, werewolves, and our darker impulses, a revelry of violence that all mankind tries to keep hidden. Gods of decadence and wealth and hedonism with vampires as their favored servants, prayed to by those who wish to become their chosen and live this life of pleasures, but in truth most of these minions become the blood their vampire lords feast upon. A god of death, a dark figure that tries to sing to the people to join it. For only in death can the pain of the world be relieved. Isn't it a mercy to end this miserable torment? And to help others end it as well?

That sort of thing.

[JackPhoenix]

Monotheism. Or dualism. Really, gods are kinda irrelevant to the gothic horror genre. And I think especially having evil gods to blame misses the point completely. For a similar reasons, I would stick to "good", civilised domains... Knowledge, Life, Light, Order.... and avoid the opposite... Death, Trickery, Tempest, War... after all, brightest light cast the darkest shadows.

[Martin Greywolf]

We can't properly discuss this, because it involves talking about real religions, which is verboten by forum rules.

For the bare minimum I can probably say, look at catholic saints, and if you have time, look at what Blasphemous (PC game) did with the idea.

[Maan]

You could just have some monotheistic religion with different views within.
So clerics/paladins would be members of different "orders", possibly with even some (or a lot) of friction and politics between the conflicting views.

"Evil" could just be single people or small covens making pacts with demons for personal gain, rather than some evil religion.

[Keltest]

I think uncertainty works best for gothic horror, so you may not want a dedicated pantheon at all. Are the gods even real, or are they just names that different people have attached to different sources of magic, or even the same source? Town A may worship the sun because it keeps the vampires away, but that doesnt have to mean the sun is a sapient entity doing things on purpose. Nor does it mean that the priests of the Sun dont get empowered by it either. And meanwhile Town B worships the moon because it provides illumination at night so people can see the monsters coming, and meanwhile the sun is just the sun. And they can both be right in their beliefs, up until they expect the sun or moon to come down and smite their enemies for them or something.

[Catullus64]

In many ways, it depends upon what you consider the key themes of Gothic fiction. For me, if I were to sum up the central theme of Gothic horror, it would be this: supernatural horrors are manifestations or consequences of transgressions against the natural, moral, or social order. Thus each piece of Gothic contains an implicit value set.

Furthermore, not all transgressions are equal; monsters might be sympathetic in their transgressiveness. Sometimes it is the social order itself which is unnatural or immoral, hence the popular Dracula-esque vampire as the predatory aristocrat.

With that in mind, I think that a 'conventional' D&D pantheon, with deities for all of the central domains, is not at all incongruous with a Gothic setting; in fact it might be helpful. These gods can be an easy means of outlining the social and natural order of which your monsters are a transgression, the values whose violation is deeply monstrous. Monsters and hauntings might have their origin in divine punishments.