Ye Gods

[Ponderthought]

Ive racked my brain, come up with gods for every culture, every portfolio, and yet I think im missing something. And my little neurosis wont let me write more about them until every conceivable position is filled. So, what im asking basically is:Can anyone spot a portfolio im missing, or have any ideas I can use for deities?

Note: Everything is 3.5

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Gods

Lykke
Domains: Healing, Glory, Good, War



Rashne
Domains: Law, Pact, Retribution, Inquisition



Kvasir
Domains: Luck, Rune, Liberation, Trickery



Skoll
Domains: Weather, War, Courage, Animal



Hel
Domains: Death, Spite, Destruction, Evil


Ravanna
Domains: Greed, Trickery, Wealth, Planning


Nehalena
Domains: Water, Protection, Renewal, Healing



Ashur
Domains: Sand, Fate, Strength, Sun

Ostanes
Domains: Magic, Knowledge, Mentalism, Oracle

Kai'chul:
Domains: Dream, Force, Illusion, Mind

The Old Ones
Domains: Madness, Darkness, Domination, Mysticism



Doresain
Domain: Hunger, Gluttony, Chaos, Pestillence

Cas
Domains: Destruction, Pain, Spite, Evil



Kyriakos
Domains: Repose, Fate, Darkness, Balance

Ankythera
Domains: Artifice, Time, Metal, Law


Philosophic Religions

Ma'at
Domains: Law, Good , Knowledge, Nobility

The Cerulean Path
Domains: Balance, Celerity, Liberation, Oracle

[Urpriest]

Are you trying to cover all domains, or simply all reasonable domains? I'm not seeing Community, and I thought there was a 3.5 update of it.

[Ponderthought]

Nah, not all, just trying to cover some reasonable ones, balance them out. Its just that something keeps escaping me.

[sonofzeal]

I'd love to see a god with Earth Air Fire Water for domains. I don't believe any of those are covered yet.

[Coidzor]

Oh yeah, need some kind of elemental action going on.

<_< Daddy loves him some rebuked elemental slaves...

[Ponderthought]

Perhaps, but Ive always had abit of a caveat with elemental gods.. I tend to base my gods on historical models, I.E. Odin, Mithras, Athena. An you simply dont see many elementally focused gods in history, outside of Pele and maybe Shango.

Plus they seem overdone, but im pretty good at twisting old cliches into new awesomeness.

I dunno, any suggestions for elemental gods?

[Coidzor]

Perhaps, but Ive always had abit of a caveat with elemental gods.. I tend to base my gods on historical models, I.E. Odin, Mithras, Athena. An you simply dont see many elementally focused gods in history, outside of Pele and maybe Shango.

Plus they seem overdone, but im pretty good at twisting old cliches into new awesomeness.

I dunno, any suggestions for elemental gods?

Well, even just adding the elemental portfolios into those that they'd be appropriate with.

Fire goes well with Sun, after all. And destruction to a certain extent.

Earth goes with wealth and death, going back to even the ancient greeks if not further.

Air probably could go with storms, or water.

Water of course going well with any kind of aquatic type...

Currently blanking out on devoted elemental lords right now though. too tired.

[Ponderthought]

Earth goes with wealth and death, going back to even the ancient greeks if not further.

Actually thats brilliant, as i have a certain cthonic judge of the dead that could benefit from a more varied portfolio. Thanks.

[Kol Korran]

you could look to Obad Hai at the PHB for an elemental based god. i think he is supposed to represent another way to worship druidic gods other than straight druidism.

a few notes:
- your list doesn't have portfolios, just domains, some of them seem odd without explenations or the actual portfolio itself. sure ,we can try and arrive at our own conclusions, but it will be best if you described them.

- from your answers for a few questions, it seems you're trying to cover everything for a specific concept in mind/ how you view gods. not all settings use the same rules or guidelins for gods. in FR the gods are real and present, usually have a very well defined scope of influence, but can no longer act directly. in Eberron no one can be certain the gods even actually exist, and most beliefs try to deal with the entire living experience, rather than slim portfolios- one belief system covers it all, whether it's the soverign host, blood of vol or silver flame . In dark Sun, well... just read dark sun.

i've strayed a bit- can you tell us how you view your gods, their place in the world, and religion in general.

- necromancy and undeath is missing. as do more nature based religions (but this has been mentioned). i'm not sure from your domains, but does anyone worship the sea? this has been a big thing in many religions. gods of civilization?
also, what about beliefs in powerfull andgels/devils/demons? any race-based religions? panthon of dwarves, elves, dragons, goblinoids and the like?

[Bushidough]

There's no evil god with the war domain, which seems like an oversight imo.

[Ponderthought]

I can attempt to give some descriptions here, but, the missing gods have kind of stymied my efforts in that department, so its short descriptions for now.

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Miscellaneous Gods

Lykke: a crusading female goddess. very keen on purification, by the sword if necessary. Name comes from a dutch word for good
Alignment: Lawful Good
Domains: Healing, Glory, Good, War



Rashne: Female goddess of unbending law and fair judgment. Sister of Lykke. Names turkish.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Domains: Law, Pact, Retribution, Inquisition


Northern Gods (think norse culture)
Kvasir: A chaotic god of cleverness and trickery. Favors humans, and gave them written language. Lifted partially from viking gods.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Domains: Luck, Rune, Liberation, Trickery



Skoll: Wolf god of the weather said to chase the sun across the sky.Patron of warriors. Again, partially from norse culture
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Domains: Weather, War, Courage, Animal



Hel: Spitefull goddess of the disgraced dead, and revenge. lifted wholesale.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Death, Spite, Destruction, Evil

Southern Gods (some egyptian, some ancient semetic and hindu)
Ravanna: Six armed god of thieves and greed. Prone to machiavellian gambits. name lifted from hindu lore.
Alignment: Neutral Evil, (or perhaps lawful evil)
Domains: Greed, Trickery, Wealth, Planning


Nehalena: Goddess of the river, fierce protector of freshwater sources, and river folk. Name generated to sound egyptian.
Alignment: Neutral Good
Domains: Water, Protection, Renewal, Healing



Ashur: Merciless god of the sun and desert, constantly testing his worshipers. Original, may be slightly mad.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Sand, Fate, Strength, Sun

Ostanes: Indifferent god of magic and lore. Likes to see his worshipers excel in the magical arts, delights in puzzels. Lifted from ancient persia.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Magic, Knowledge, Mentalism, Oracle

Vahan (subterranean homebrew race) Gods (need more)

Kai'chul: Vahan progenitor deity. Crafted them from the dreamstuff of the gods. Very mysterious, seldom worshiped.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Dream, Force, Illusion, Mind

Monstrous gods
The Old Ones: Lifted from lovecraft, worshiped as a whole group. Horrible in every way imaginable.
Alignment: Neutral Evil(Simply Amoral)
Domains: Madness, Darkness, Domination, Mysticism


Doresain: King of ghouls. very unpleasant
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domain: Hunger, Gluttony, Chaos, Pestillence

Cas: Horrible orc moose god. Modified from heroes of horror.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domains: Destruction, Pain, Spite, Evil


Gods of aes asquor
Kyriakos: Impartial judge of the dead. Rarely interferes in mortal affairs.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Repose, Fate, Darkness, Balance Earth

Ankythera: Goddess of invention and complex devices, in addition to lesser crafts.
Lawful Neutral
Domains: Artifice, Time, Metal, Law


Philosophic Religions

Ma'at: Code of behavior favoring right action and proper thought.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Domains: Law, Good , Knowledge, Nobility

The Cerulean Path: Ascetic philosophy focusing on discerning truth from illusion, and detaching oneself from material concerns.
Alignment:True Neutral
Domains: Balance, Celerity, Liberation, Oracle

Hopefully this should make it easier to pick out what im missing.

[Kol Korran]

a few ideas:
- again i mention the god of the sea, and possibly also gods of storm. they were importent in many cultures
- goddess of fertility/ plenty/ family. not sure what the domains would be but community and protection come to mind
-god/dess of agriculture. plant domain, any other? perhaps sun and water?
- god of nobility/ aristocracy/ a better class and rulership. a god only some of the population may worship, but to which everyone sacrifices.
- gods of beauty, art, muse, music, creation.

look at the Pathfinder Gods. (scroll down till you see them on the right) some of them are quite interesting, and may give ideas.

[Ponderthought]

IVe been pondering a sea god for a while now, And I still cant settle on a concept, but I think Nodens, one of the more..benevolent god from lovecraft may work, as sort of a poseidon type figure keeping the Old Ones imprisoned in the depths.

Skoll is my current storm god, just cause I imagined the great wolfs breath stirring up fierce winds.

[Xuc Xac]

I think you can add a lot of depth by giving the gods more varied interests. Historically, many gods didn't have a really tight portfolio. Poseidon was the god of the sea and storms and... horses. Ares was the god of war... and farming. Athena was the goddess of war and wisdom and... good citizenship. Ishtar was the goddess of conquests, both military and romantic. Want the neighboring city-state to become a tributary state to yours? Pray to Ishtar then prepare your soldiers for action. Want your girlfriend to stop being such a "nice girl" and give you a little "somethin' somethin'"? Pray to Ishtar then prepare your little soldier for action.

Maybe gamblers pray to the god of death because the lord of the underworld really loves dice and chess. There might be stories about the occasional lucky hero getting to come back from the dead because he gambled for his own soul and won.

[Devils_Advocate]

You don't list their alignments. As a general rule, all 3.5 deities grant the domains associated with their alignments, but you don't seem to be doing that. No favored weapons, either. You might consider using weapon groups and requiring each Cleric to be proficient with his deity's favored weapon group.

The Sun domain basically was not designed to work with negative energy channeling Clerics, and doesn't really make thematic sense for them either, so bear that in mind. It's simplest to only give it to Good deities.

I don't see a god or goddess of love, either in the romantic sense of the word or the more D&D-related sense of kindness (what with Good alignment and all). Your one purportedly Good-oriented goddess sounds more fascist than benevolent. So... that seems like a possible oversight, unless e.g. you want the deities all to be morally dubious at best. (Ah, classical mythology.)

Pages 30 and 31 of Deities & Demigods lists a whole bunch of potential portfolio elements. There are sort of a select few formally associated with the salient divine abilities, so that gives an idea of which ones the game designers thought were important.

I have a .rtf file in which I've organized some of my own thoughts on designing a pantheon... but, um, only in a fairly loose sense of "organized". I can give you the part where I kinda sort out, a bit, how various portfolio elements and related concepts relate to each other, though you may find it tl;dr. I'm not even gonna try to properly format the whole thing, so copy & paste it into WordPad or whatever if you wanna see how it's supposed to look:

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Types of portfolio elements: substance, quality, entity, activity
Types of relationships between portfolio elements: is the opposite of, involves, is a type of

encouraging	terrorizing
courage		fear
------------------------------------
pleasure	pain
joy		suffering
affection	anger/wrath	orcs
love		hatred
Good		Evil
positive energy	negative energy
healing		necromancy
medicine	poison+disease
living things	undead		non-living (non-undead) things	Constitution	constructs
nature		magic		magical beasts
fey
----------------------------------
Dragons
reptilian humanoids
------------------------------------
writing		speech
language
communication
knowledge/information
reason/logic	emotion		passion		lust
intellect/manipulation	Intelligence	thought		dreams		sleep
intuition			Wisdom	sanity
instinct
impulse
------------------------------------
madness
Far Realm
abberations
unnatural/otherworldly
-------------------------------------
weather		(air, water)
elements			elementals
matter		mind/soul	psionics/mental powers
objects		creatures
-------------------------------------
Enchantment
Charisma
leadership
aristocracy/nobility	supremacy	perfection
power/authority		powerlessness		tyranny
control
civilization
humanoids
monstrous humanoids
--------------------------------------
hunting		agriculture	food	hunger
animals		plants		vermin	serpents
active		inactive		sloth	contentment
endurance	rest		tiredness
mobility		immobility	Dexterity	Travel	speed	time	transitive planes		portals
flight
air		earth		metal
sky		underground	underdark	caverns
-------------------------------------
energy
force
Evocation
(Creation, Healing)
Conjuration
Teleportation/Summoning/Calling
--------------------------------------
trade
greed	wealth	ambition	fortune	fate	Balance		boundaries (land, sea, shore)
theft
-------------------------------------
war
retribution	mercy
traps	kobolds
imprisonment	freedom
justice
---------------------------------------
investigation/divination
discovery
invention/innovation	tradition		tools	judgment	humans
open-mindedness	prejudice
---------------------------------------
				dwarves		elves
armor		weapons	smithing/craft	art
protection	destruction	creation		artifacts
cautious	aggressive
preservation	change		Abjuration
organization	disorganization
government	anarchy	
obedience	disobedience	rebellion
Law		Chaos		spontaneous/unpredictable	chance		luck	halflings
honor		independence
following rules	cheating	games	sports	athletics	agility
honesty		trickery
revelation	secrecy		inquisition	perception	Divination	stealth	goblinoids
light/sun	darkness	moon		drow
heat		cold
fire		ice/water	aquatic life	oceans, rivers, lakes, seas
-------------------------------------
sound
Illusion			gnomes
shadow
-------------------------------------
Transmutation
shapeshifting
formlessness
oozes
--------------------------------------
buildings
home
family
community
teams/organizations		swarms
cooperation	competition
interdependence
-----------------------------------------
natural laws
rules
formal systems (logic, math)
laws, game rules	commandments		pacts, promises, oaths		quests
unspoken rules
-----------------------------------------
						beauty
work		recreation	entertainment	art	music	harmony
-------------------------------------
killing		resurrection
death		birth/fertility
afterlife
outer planes
outsiders
deities
religion
------------------------------------
strength		weakness	Strength	giants
toughness	vulnerability
-------------------------------------
archery		melee


fire strength  vengeance  wealth?
												 	     poison+disease  evil  undead                 darkness
																		          |
					+----------------------------------------------------------------------  light truth ------------------------------------------------------------+	          |
					|												     |	          |
				         sun      positive energy                     good			           					     |	          |
				           |				               |    |					          			     |	          |
theft agility archery hunting animals nature plants agriculture medicine healing protection justice law war destruction death necromancy magic knowledge secrets trickery
    |     	 |	  		       |   |						 |		    |       |        |			       |				|
    |     	 |	  	+--weather --+   |					 |		    |       |        |			       |				|
    |     	 |	  	|	           | 					 |		    |       |        |			       |				|
    |       travel     air+water                  elements          earth        smithing          armor                    weapons        |			       |				|
    |	    |							        |					         |			       |				|
greed     trade 							     craft 				         |		               artifacts			|
													         |	   +--------------------------+				|
													      creation                                      art                    chaos

Horizontal lines separate stuff into sections. A... meme, I suppose... may be related to another meme in another section, with this relationship unshown due to the limitations of quickly laying this all out in two dimensions (light & sound, war & weapons, etc). Within sections, nearness is used to indicate relatedness.

At the bottom is an attempt to arrange some important concepts into a little chart. (This bit is pretty much unreadable without copying and pasting.) There, each word is meant to be associated with the words to its left or right (if any) regardless of the space between them, except for a single line of words at the upper left which are just stuff I didn't quite fit in.

I should probably try to find some sort of flowchart-making software someday.

[Ponderthought]

I think perhaps the reason i used the good and evil domains so sparingly is simply because I dislike moral absolutes, and therefor hand it out with extreme care, so that when i do it means something. For instance, Lykke without the good aspect would be a rather harsh and humorless goddess that few people would worship. With the good domain and aspects, she becomes stern but compassionate, always willing to bestow mercy, unlike her rigid and unbending sister Rashne. Same goes for Hel and Cas, without their dedicated focus on evil, they simply become sulky bitter hacks, irritating but not threatening. As for the others, alignment is less a part of their being than other domains. their very primal. I suppose adding in some alignments will help me spot the missing pieces and balance things out, alignment-wise. I shall preform an edit to the descriptions to that effect.

Also, i may use your little portfolio tool, it seems useful.

Edit: Alright, after some editing and labeling, ive discovered some issues. Weve got lots of neutrals running around, and very little lawful evils. Also ive noted that the northern gods need more members to beef up their pantheon in comparison to the southern gods. The same goes for Aes Aesquor. The Vahan posses only one actual deity, and I think they need at least three.I think im going to need some entirely new deific powers to fill out their respective pantheons. Thus, I invite anyone to help me brainstorm new gods.

[Coidzor]

A bit more... description, even just little blurbs attached to them would help organize it for anyone trying to add fluffwise to it.

And aid in seeing the delineations you make between 'em.

Probably separate them into separate spoilers by pantheon for greater visual ease as well.

[devinkowalczyk]

I would like to see some sort of...continuity between the gods.
You have norse, egyptian, and others. It just is confusing.

Try something like the OOTS with different groups worshipping different sets of gods instead of this unwieldy one.

[Ponderthought]

I would like to see some sort of...continuity between the gods.
You have norse, egyptian, and others. It just is confusing.

Try something like the OOTS with different groups worshipping different sets of gods instead of this unwieldy one.

Thats actually what im going for. The peoples of the north, the isle of Aes Aesqour and the southern coast have vastly different religious beliefs, each with its own set of gods, and including a few outlier gods that attract worship in all parts of the world. For instance, youd be unlikely to find a priest of Ostanes or Ashur in the north, but you could find adherents of Rashne or Lyyke in most places.

For ease of use, here are the gods separated into their local pantheons.


Miscellaneous Gods
These deities have many worshipers, and can be found in some variation almost anywhere.

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Lykke: a crusading female goddess. very keen on purification, by the sword if necessary. Name comes from a dutch word for good
Alignment: Lawful Good
Domains: Healing, Glory, Good, War
Quote:"Protection for the weak, mercy for the deserving, punishment for the wicked."



Rashne: Female goddess of unbending law and fair judgment. Sister of Lykke. Names turkish.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Domains: Law, Pact, Retribution, Inquisition
Quote: "Justice must be served"

Northern Gods
The people of the north favor fierce, warlike gods.

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Kvasir: A chaotic god of cleverness and trickery. Favors humans, and gave them written language. Lifted partially from viking gods.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Domains: Luck, Rune, Liberation, Trickery
Quote:"9 days he watched from the tree, and on the 9th, spied the runes, and seizing them, fell"


Skoll: Wolf god of the weather said to chase the sun across the sky.Patron of warriors. Again, partially from norse culture
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Domains: Weather, War, Courage, Animal
Quote: " *long, mournful howl* "


Hel: Spitefull goddess of the disgraced dead, and revenge. lifted wholesale.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Death, Spite, Destruction, Evil
Quote:"Let no slight go unavenged"

Southern Gods
The gods of the southern desert are many and varied. The people pray to some to avert their wrath, and others for their blessings in areas they influence.

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Ravanna: Six armed god of thieves and greed. Prone to machiavellian gambits. name lifted from hindu lore.
Alignment: Neutral Evil, (or perhaps lawful evil)
Domains: Greed, Trickery, Wealth, Planning
Quote: "Those who cannot hold their wealth, do not deserve it"

Nehalena: Goddess of the river, fierce protector of freshwater sources, and river folk. Name generated to sound egyptian.
Alignment: Neutral Good
Domains: Water, Protection, Renewal, Healing
Quote: "The river is our lifeblood. To neglect it is to poison oneself"


Ashur: Merciless god of the sun and desert, constantly testing his worshipers. Original, may be slightly mad.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Sand, Fate, Strength, Sun
Quote: "The sand, the wind, the merciless sun, are all tools Ashur uses to strengthen his people"

Ostanes: Indifferent god of magic and lore. Likes to see his worshipers excel in the magical arts, delights in puzzels. Lifted from ancient persia.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Magic, Knowledge, Mentalism, Oracle
Quote: "Knowledge is the only true power"

Vahan
The gods of the subterranean Vahan are strange, and seldom worshiped by the mostly agnostic populace.

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Kai'chul: Vahan progenitor deity. Crafted them from the dreamstuff of the gods. Very mysterious, seldom worshiped.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Dream, Force, Illusion, Mind
Quote: "Nothing is true"

Monstrous gods
The gods of the monstrous races are rarely worshiped by civilized folk, bu occasionally gain converts from the sick and deranged.

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The Old Ones: Lifted from lovecraft, worshiped as a whole group. Horrible in every way imaginable.
Alignment: Neutral Evil(Simply Amoral)
Domains: Madness, Darkness, Domination, Mysticism
Quote: *unintelligible shrieks*

Doresain: King of ghouls. very unpleasant
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domain: Hunger, Gluttony, Chaos, Pestillence
Quote:" The King Hungers"

Cas: Horrible orc moose god. Modified from heroes of horror.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domains: Destruction, Pain, Spite, Evil
Quote: *howls of rage in Orcish"

Gods of Aes Aesquor
The gods venerated by the people of the isle are strange, and rarely worshiped by anyone outside the necropolis city of Aes Aesquor. That being said, many citizens are fanatical in their veneration.

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Kyriakos: Impartial judge of the dead. Rarely interferes in mortal affairs.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Repose, Fate, Darkness, Balance Earth
Quote: "All will stand before Kyriakos in the end"

Ankythera: Goddess of invention and complex devices, in addition to lesser crafts.
Lawful Neutral
Domains: Artifice, Time, Metal, Law
Quote: "Ankythera is our muse. Through us, she produces wonders"

Philosophic Religions
In several different regions, religions related not to gods but to philosophic codes have arisen. The most powerful are the Laws of Ma'at, followed in the south, and the Cerulean Path, followed by many Vahan.

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Ma'at: Code of behavior favoring right action and proper thought.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Domains: Law, Good , Knowledge, Nobility
Quote: "Righteousness is an imperative"

The Cerulean Path: Ascetic philosophy focusing on discerning truth from illusion, and detaching oneself from material concerns.
Alignment:True Neutral
Domains: Balance, Celerity, Liberation, Oracle
Quote:" Time is an illusion, and so is death"

[Coidzor]

Hmm. Clean up and organize it a bit more, perhaps devoting single posts to the subject of fleshing out each pantheon. Introducing the individual gods as well in as much detail as you have already got down and take it to the Homebrew forum then, probably.

[Kaun]

I didnt see a god for Travel in there but i have only had one coffee today so i could have just missed it.