Share your pantheons!

[jjordan]

Worship is also a term fraught with meaning. Rather than being intimately connected with their worshippers, deities may be alien powers which must be placated in matters over which they have control. And their power may be in a spectrum that can include the god of a minor grove all the way up to the god of the seas. Applying a modern model based largely on monotheistic and omnipotent templates to a fantasy construct based more closely on multi-theistic and portfolio templates is sort of a waste of story-telling potential. But since the modern model is the expectation that most players bring to the table, and many of them play classes typified by devotion to a single power, it's hard not to cater to it.

"Wait, this town has a temple to Baphomet? People worship him openly?"

"There's a small shrine, stained with the blood of bulls that have been sacrificed, the head of the latest on a spike above the alcove. The prayers of those seeking vengeance or guidance through difficult times have been inscribed in thin copper sheets which are folded like tiny letters and thrust into spaces between the stones. His veneration isn't a daily thing, it's the occasional offerings brought by those who feel they have no where else to turn or that they have been wronged by other gods. Think of it as the spiritual equivalent of getting money from a loan shark because the banks have all rejected you."

"We should go destroy that!"

"Uhm, okay."