Suggestions to fill out a Pantheon?

[jjordan]

Self-scrubbing for reasons

[Xuc Xac]

It looks like a random, mismatched collection of things. You've got a Greek god and goddess, some Swedish woman, some German women, etc. I think the best thing to do would be to just start over. Pantheons are worshiped by one culture, so they should sound like they're all from the same place. Notice how all the Greek gods have Greek names? It would be weird to have a setting based on classical Greece with a god of war named Ares and a god of the underworld named Hades, but a sun goddess named Amaterasu and a god of wine named Betrunkener Johan aka Drinky Joe.

[rferries]

I don't necessarily think all the deities have to have the same feel, but I would rename the gods that match real-world deities (just for originality's sake).

[Sam113097]

I think it’s about as full as you need - there are 21 of them! It is important to keep in mind that players will usually only recall a handful, even if they are fully invested in your world building. It is hard to keep that many names and domains straight.

To make doing so easier, I’d recommend altering some of the very-similar names to make them more distinct, like Lina/Lena (those will sound near-identical when said out loud) and Foraoise/Farraise/Feachtas.

[sandmote]

It looks like a random, mismatched collection of things. You've got a Greek god and goddess, some Swedish woman, some German women, etc. I think the best thing to do would be to just start over. Pantheons are worshiped by one culture, so they should sound like they're all from the same place. Notice how all the Greek gods have Greek names? It would be weird to have a setting based on classical Greece with a god of war named Ares and a god of the underworld named Hades, but a sun goddess named Amaterasu and a god of wine named Betrunkener Johan aka Drinky Joe.

This sounds like you're confusing the names of the gods with the deity the names are supposed to refer to.

The pantheon is just whichever gods get worshiped in a particular area, rather than being tied to a particular culture. Worship of Zeus spread to a bunch of cultures after the conquests of Alexander, and the Roman empire saw multiple gods spread into other cultures, with Isis spreading as far as Britain; This doesn't mean London adopted an Egyptian culture.

What should maybe happen is that some of the gods should have minor changes between different areas, as with the differences between roman and Greek gods, or the various Egyptian gods who become hybridized with Ra. But I think this goes into more detail than it's reasonable to push onto a single table.

What might be a more reasonable complaint (than one name per diety) is that several of the gods are just labeled the "god of X," instead of having a noticeable personality. Usually if a god is tied to something specific, it's either because that phenomenon has been manifested, invented, or controlled by that deity.

I'm looking to add the divine servants the listed gods might have as well as possible demi-gods and failed divinities that went bad.

I'd add an orcish demigod known for beating Al'Ha'Alara at something.

I'm also not seeing much in the way of deities tied to celebrations. You could maybe have spring and harvest festivals tied to Foraoise and Gaea and craftsmanship competitions tied to Vulkan and Weise Amelie.

Divine Servants:

• Whoever Collects materials for Vulkan: a god of mines is likely to have high status, given the rank of the god of the forge.
• The physical manifestation or rider of the sun (likely either as a forge tied to Vulcan or light tied to Strahlend Hanna)
• An equivalent to Echidna, or otherwise explain where Grausam's children come from
• Whoever handles music
• Whoever handles medicine
• Whoever handles alcohol
• the common name for local deities of various bodies of fresh water
• God of safe travel
• God of commerce

[sktarq]

A couple things pop out.
Agriculture. This was often a different domain than "nature" in many pantheons for good reason. Also to meta bit questions of nature vs civilization at the boundaries of the two....may be combined with resource collections as "shaper/user of nature" I guess.

if in DnD like setting questions of arcane magic come up. There doesn't have to be a "god of magic" but understanding the relationship between arcane and divine magics is important.

[Xuc Xac]

This sounds like you're confusing the names of the gods with the deity the names are supposed to refer to.

The pantheon is just whichever gods get worshiped in a particular area, rather than being tied to a particular culture. Worship of Zeus spread to a bunch of cultures after the conquests of Alexander, and the Roman empire saw multiple gods spread into other cultures, with Isis spreading as far as Britain; This doesn't mean London adopted an Egyptian culture.

Do you mean the Egyptian goddess, Eset? Funny how everything in the Roman empire was given a Latin name. That's my point. A pantheon is a group of gods worshiped together by the same worshipers. They should have names that sound like they go together and not a random mixture of languages (unless the worshipers all speak several languages).

[aimlessPolymath]

One thing you could do would be to take one of the gods' domains and split it into a variety of subattributes, each with their own demigod.

Ex. Kurt covers military tactics and strategy, but he has three captains: NAME1, covering intrigue, deception, and scouting, NAME2, covering terrain, fortification, and defense, and NAME3, covering morale and the proper use of adventurers.

Do you mean the Egyptian goddess, Eset? Funny how everything in the Roman empire was given a Latin name. That's my point. A pantheon is a group of gods worshiped together by the same worshipers. They should have names that sound like they go together and not a random mixture of languages (unless the worshipers all speak several languages).

Would it be correct to say that your primary issue is with the names and disparate linguistics of the gods, rather than their other attributes?

[sandmote]

Do you mean the Egyptian goddess, Eset? Funny how everything in the Roman empire was given a Latin name. That's my point. A pantheon is a group of gods worshiped together by the same worshipers. They should have names that sound like they go together and not a random mixture of languages (unless the worshipers all speak several languages).

For the local names of the deities, sure. For their overall names in the pantheons I consider it drastically more important to be able to track which god you're talking about. When you've got Eset, Aset, Isis, Isidis, and sixty other names it's hard to keep clear where and how a particular deity is worshiped.

Sort of the same way e talk about "medieval France," when there was really only the crown lands of the ruling capet at a given time.

No one worships Al'Ha'Alara, even mentioning her name can bring bad luck. But the belief of the orcs that she has remained to torture them after her death has trapped her. Other names are used to refer to her: The Cursed Goddess, the Undying One, the Unwilling, but no one has given her a proper name.

I'm not sure how this would really play out based on your description. On one hand, someone unable to control their rage while trying to lose divinity is going to want to punish active worship. On the other hand, she'll likely help someone who requests her aid against orcs, so she'll likely still get worship from anyone requesting that.

Materials collector is another good one. That opens up some cool opportunities. I've already got time spent working the bellows as an act of devotion and/or penance in my lore and the smiths believe they're going to be the assistants.

I didn't put a sun god in and I'm still conflicted about that.

Grausam's children are the results of his mating with monsters and/or the creations of his followers. He's the corrupted/perverted mirror of Vulkan in this regard. Medicine, Alcohol, Music, and Commerce are good points. I'll have to slot them in.

I'm going to be more specific and suggest one minor deity of mining and quarrying, who is mostly worshiped in the same areas Vulkan is. If being sent to the mines is a common punishment, perhaps he is involved with Lena in some manner.

Based on your description smelting is solidly within Vulkan's domain though, so there goes my other idea.

If you have an origin story for the sun, no sun god is probably fine. If you don't already have one, perhaps Vulkan literally crafted the sun before Gaea infused it with her power? With a sort of construct-son sun-non-god, you can explain the sun doesn't involve itself in the world and isn't treated as a deity as a result.

Bauer feels more specific as a god of wheat. Gaea might include agriculture in general, with different materials being spread between the other deities.

• Weise Amelie: Beekeeping
• Foraoise: Herbalism, Wood
• Kurt: food storage (stemming from reserves used in case of a siege)
• Strahlend Hanna: Fruits, particularly ones considered to look or smell good

I think that leaves most animals, grains, lentils and vegetables. Which can probably be kept directly with Gaea.

[Xuc Xac]

For the local names of the deities, sure. For their overall names in the pantheons I consider it drastically more important to be able to track which god you're talking about. When you've got Eset, Aset, Isis, Isidis, and sixty other names it's hard to keep clear where and how a particular deity is worshiped.

I'm all in favor of picking one name for each god, but why shouldn't those names all come from one language? This is for a game, correct? Which language are the PCs expected to use? Give all the gods names in that language so it looks like a real pantheon that the PCs should care about and not a random bunch of gods whose names were pulled from a hat.

If it's the Roman empire and the PCs all speak vulgate Latin as their "Common tongue", then use the Latin names for all the gods, even the ones that originated outside of the empire. You don't have to use all the "local names" from all over the world, just use the one local name from the PCs' locality. Isis was known as Eset in Egypt, but if the PCs are Latin speakers in Britannia then just call her Isis and leave "Eset" in a footnote about the cult of "Isis in Aegyptus" just in case the PCs ever need to travel there.

[Sam113097]

I'm all in favor of picking one name for each god, but why shouldn't those names all come from one language? This is for a game, correct? Which language are the PCs expected to use? Give all the gods names in that language so it looks like a real pantheon that the PCs should care about and not a random bunch of gods whose names were pulled from a hat.

If it's the Roman empire and the PCs all speak vulgate Latin as their "Common tongue", then use the Latin names for all the gods, even the ones that originated outside of the empire. You don't have to use all the "local names" from all over the world, just use the one local name from the PCs' locality. Isis was known as Eset in Egypt, but if the PCs are Latin speakers in Britannia then just call her Isis and leave "Eset" in a footnote about the cult of "Isis in Aegyptus" just in case the PCs ever need to travel there.

I agree! I think that having alternate names for deities in different languages or cultures of a setting can be an interesting detail. However, what we've got here is a mix of Latin, Greek, Babylonian, vaguely fantastic-sounding, and especially germanic god names in the same pantheon. It stands to reason that a Germanic "common tongue" will give all of its gods German-sounding names. For example, perhaps Al'Ha'Alara is the god's true name, or name in another language, but it would make sense if it had a more common name that came from the germanic-sounding "common tongue" like the rest of the gods.