Share your pantheons!

[RedMage125]

So, lately, people have been sharing what changes they've made to races and classes in their games. Having participated in both, I felt like sharing something else...my pantheon!

I figure this thread will also be helpful for new world-builders out there who are trying to create their own pantheons. I'm going to be spoiler-blocking stuff to keep this from being a giant wall of text.

A good chunk of my setting (Antheron) has been shaped by 2 major events in the last few centuries. 1- The War of Shadows (This was the plotline of a 3.x game I ran in college), the drow invaded the surface in a war that lasted almost 20 years. A great deal of the Sylvanwood (enormous forested region) was damaged or destroyed. The old dwarven king actually allied with the drow, until he was betrayed and assassinated by them, his son (who is still the current king) broke that alliance and joined with the surface races to fight the drow. This war ended about 500 years ago. 2- The Godswar, some time after the WoS, reality was invaded by the Primordials, titanic elemental beings of great power. They caused great planar upheaval, the Prime was altered forever, and several gods died, others surrendered their divinity to successors. One key takeaway is that many deities are now worshipped across racial lines (Moradin is the god of the forge for all races, for example). This ended around 350-400 years ago.

Spoiler: My world/pantheon building process

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When I started DMing (way back in the days of 3.0e), I had just one plotline in mind. So I made only the terrain/towns/etc that served that purpose. I liked FR, so I just used that pantheon. In my free time, I found myself expanding on the world, adding more depth, and even things that could be plot hooks for future adventures unrelated to the campaign I was running. About a year in, I realized I had my own world, I should probably make my own deities. So I made my own pantheon (some 24 deities, not including the racial pantheons or deities, which I kept from core). A few of my deities had to be fairly closely modeled after some FR ones, though, so as to not have to retcon some of my PCs too much (I had a LN deity of the dead who hated undead, for example).

I started with looking at other systems, and devising what kinds of gods would work for a setting. I also wanted certain player options (like most cleric domains) to have a place. The story around them kind of developed with them. So a Sun deity, who I paired with a deity of Darkness, brother and sister, the first two deities. When they worked together, they created the world and everything in it. Most of the rest of the deities sprung from that (deity of magic, deity of nature, deity of chance, etc.). When the two came into conflict and began to but heads, their very conflict caused a new deity to spring into existence (deity of War, named after my very first D&D character ever, who was a 2e War Priest). Several names I shamelessly stole from characters in various fantasy series, or even video games (the names Vorador and Nupraptor both came from the same source), but a handful are actually original (although, I later found out that video game series I took those other names from...unused "working names" for two other characters ended up being the same or very similar to two of my original names...odd). I had a deity of Justice/Truth, one of Art/Music, one of Knowledge...I didn't create a full origin for each deity, I just had some worked out. Some are children of other deities, for example.

When 4e came out, I decided to make a change. Ironically (or perhaps farcically), I stole one last page out of FR's book to sweep the remaining FR elements away. But I jumped my timeline up about 500 years. I used the Primordials as a new threat (not what FR did), but had them over and done with by the time of campaign start. The Godswar actually explained the transition from Great Wheel Cosmology to the World Axis one, too. By the end, I now only had 15 deities TOTAL (Which included Moradin, Corellon, Sehanine, Bahamut and Tiamat). And I followed the 4e model of "Moradin is god of smithing and crafting for all races", etc. And I loved the goddess Erathis, so I made a unique version in my world. I did have a campaign I ran that could have had world (and pantheon) shaking impact, but I had to change duty stations before we got to that point. The hooks for that still exist in my world, though (which is that Shadar-Kai worship a deity they call "He Who Is Yet To Be", which is the only source of the Grave domain in my world).

So since nothing major changed in my world, I just dropped 5e down in the same spot on the timeline. Basically, the planes have begun to recover now that the Godswar has been over for centuries, and the Great Wheel is stabilizing again. It's 17 deities now, though, because when I folded in the demihuman deities, I realized I had completely overlooked Yondalla and Garl Glitergold (whoops), so I fixed that, and even gave them a bit more to their portfolios to explain non-halfling/gnome worship. That still doesn't count some of the "non-mainstream" racial deities that still exist in some form (Malgubiyet, Lolth, Gruumsh, etc).

So, the next Spoiler Block here is the Godswar itself. Go ahead and skip if you just want to see the write-ups for my deities now. But some of the descriptive stuff references the events in this.

Spoiler: The Godswar

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To start with, my old (3e) pantheon was as follows:
Teneryn - LG goddess of Justice
Sonorious - NG god of Song
Adonathiel- NG god of the Sun
Theafera - NG goddess of Harvest
Mensyannah - NG goddess of Woodlands
Fenalethri - CG goddess of Love
Lucrece - CG goddess of the Moon
Baldanar - LN god of Protection
Vorador - LN god of the Dead
Silhain-Vitrus - N god of Nature
Sacerai - N goddess of Magic
Damacles - N god of War
Vianodicci - N god of Knowledge
Myrsalla - N goddess of Trade
Lysiera - CN goddess of Luck
Bridenal - LE god of Rulership
Asharaska - NE goddess of Darkness
Thanatos - NE god of (Un-)Death
Nupraptor - NE god of Suffering
Hikusaak - NE god of Thievery
Ragashak - CE god of Beasts
Typhus - CE god of Storms

I also had the full demihuman pantheons for elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, etc. The Draconic Pantheon was also present, although they were only worshiped by dragons in Antheron, but also by the inhabitants of the Drakkensrad, the empire of dragons and dragonborn on the continent to the south. That's going to come back later. The chiefs of the respective demihuman pantheons, Corellon, Moradin, Garl Glittergold, and Yondalla, are the most significant and relevant to the story, as well as Sehanine of the elven pantheon, who is currently Corellon's consort, but before that, had a tryst with Adonathiel which resulted in the goddess Lucrece.

The Primordials, titanic beings of elemental power from another reality, invaded and waged war on this reality. They seemed to have a particular hatred for the gods, and were uniquely equipped to be able to kill them. Their first attack took the gods by surprise, and Baldanar, ever vigilant, allowed his fellow deities to flee, but ultimately sacrificed his life. Fenalethri, goddess of Love, suffered from their attack. She was afflicted with what came to be called the Wasting Curse, and she slowly grew weaker until she passed entirely. The gods eventually determined that the curse drew upon the victim's own divinity to kill them.

The Primordials needed a staging ground, and they used their prodigious power to combine the Inner Planes together to make an environment that more closely resembled their home reality. This was the Elemental Chaos. Taking out the "spokes" of the Great Wheel caused the Outer Planes to become increasingly unstable, and many deities remained in their home domains, hoping to stabilize them with their divine will. This chaos eventually caused the mortal races of the planes to fear for their lives and flee to the Prime Material. These races (tieflings, aasimar, genasi, and gith) came to be known collectively as Planar Refugees. Those gods raised up the Astral, trying to protect their demesnes, creating the Astral Sea, which kept their planes cocooned and safe.

In the meantime, other deities began to fall before the Primordials. Nupraptor, imprisoned in Carceri, was easy prey for the Primordials, and fell quickly. Hikusaak, ever the coward, fled from combat, seeking to hide in Baator and bargain with Asmodeus. The Lord of the Nine knew advantage when he saw it, however, and slew Hikusaak himself, using a dark ritual to confer the lesser deity's divinity unto himself. Thus armed, Asmodeus sought to entrap Bridenal and slay him in the same manner, as he coveted the god's portfolio. There was a mighty conflict between the two, and who exactly was victorious is unclear, but the two have seemingly merged. Bridenal's holy symbol changed somewhat, and his clergy teaches that he conquered Asmodeus, but the Baatezu claim their lord was victorious, and still refer to the Lord of the Nine as Asmodeus.

Throughout skirmishes with the Primordials, it was noticed that the Wasting Curse seemed unable to affect Greater Deities. This made the Lesser and Intermediate deities much more cautious. Thanatos, god of Death and Undeath, a Lesser deity, was also trapped. Vorador chose to free him, first extracting a binding promise that he would help fight the Primordials. Thanatos agreed, but when freed, promptly slew Vorador and assumed his mantle, becoming the sole deity of Death and the Dead. One thing that kept the other deities from retaliating against him, however, was that he then kept his promise. Thanatos, now a Greater Deity in his own right, was a terror on the battlefield. He even performed a mighty ritual that devastated the city of Riva (the seat of Vorador's faith and home of his Doomguides), and some of the fallen Primordials became undead monstrosities under his control. After the war, these behemoths were, by agreement of the gods, destroyed.

It was when Lucrece, goddess of moon and stars, fell under the Wasting Curse that a new discovery was made. Believing she was dying, she passed the mantle of her portfolio on to her mother, Sehanine Moonbow of the elven pantheon. When she did, the Wasting Curse stopped it's deterioration of her. She remains now, still an immortal celestial, and an exarch under Sehanine, but no longer a deity. This inspired some other deities to do the same, for fear of their lives. All of the demihuman pantheons gave their power to their chief deities, save for the elven pantheon, who, due to some internal disagreements (resulting from the retreat of elves to the Feywild, which eventually resulted in eladrin - see the first link regarding Races), were split between backing Corellon or Sehanine.

Vianodicci, god of Knowledge, sought to find the answers of where the Primordials came from. What he found was that the mad god Tharizdun, an overdeity of Madness, had brought them forth. Contact with Tharizdun's mind broke Vianodicci's mind, rendering him catatonic, and unable to share this discovery with the other gods. Many of them sheltered him, and kept his portfolios in trust until he recovered. His patron catatonic, Sonorious sought shelter with a deity with similar traits, and gave his mantle to Corellon. Lysiera, ever chaotic and erratic, seemed to even switch sides, going to the Primordials. They would not entertain such, and attacked her, inflicting the Wasting Curse on her. Fleeing back to the gods, she was set upon by Asharaska, who sought to take her portfolio, but only gained the mantle of Bad Luck. Her fortunes then turned, as Adonathiel rescued her. She surrendered the mantle of Good Luck to him, and now serves as his exarch. Mensyannah sought aid from her father, Silhain-Vitrus, but the Nature deity had become more and more reclusive, and was downright unresponsive. Needing the aid of Nature against the Primordials (especially for the Elemental Tempest, mentioned below), she reluctantly stole the power from him, which he did not resist. Taking it brought with it some of his dispassionate nature, however, and it affected Mensyannah accordingly.

The Draconic pantheon had thus far been uninvolved, by the decree of Io, the head of the pantheon, as most of their children, the dragons, were well adapted to resisting the elemental effects the Primordials were wreaking on the Material Plane. That changed when the Primordials wrought a massive storm, an Elemental Tempest, in the southern sea. The deities with ties to nature, Mensyannah, Theafera, Ragashak, and Typhus, combined their powers to try and stop the storm. Typhus, with his power most directly related to storms, had some of the greatest effect. The storm finally came to an end, however, when Therafera, goddess of Life, Fertility, and Harvest, used up a great deal of her own power to raise up the ocean floor between the continents, which disrupted the storm enough for Typhus to stop it completely. This had a cascading series of fallout effects. First, Typhus was weakened by this venture, and Ragashak (deity of Beasts, Slaughter, and Winter) consumed him and took his portfolio of Storms. Second, Theafera, even though she was a Greater deity, was so weakened, that she fell prey to the Wasting Curse. Third, this new landmass, being touched so heavily by Theafera, was soon teeming with a lush jungle, and filled with all manner of life. The landmass connected northern Antheron with the Drakkensrad, and now the lesser worshipers of the Draconic Pantheon (the dragonborn) were in danger from the effects of the Primordial's magicks wrought on the Material Plane. This brought the dragon gods into the conflict in full force. This was a major turning point in the war.

Baldanar, though gone, had been the lover of the goddess Teneryn, and they had a demigod child, Erathis. Although she inherited some of her father's power, she was ill-suited, temperament-wise, to assume his portfolio. With Theafera under the Wasting Curse, and Myrsalla (goddess of Trade and Wealth) the only remaining non-Greater deity, living in fear, both goddesses gave their mantles to the young demigod. Erathis arose as the goddess of Civilization. Her efforts were more spent on protecting mortals and rebuilding and repairing the damage done than on conflict itself. The dragon gods helped turn the tide of the war, however. Io himself destroyed the last of the Greater Primordials, sending the rest fleeing into the Elemental Chaos, never to return with such force. The battle mortally wounded Io, however, and when he passed, the greatest share of his power was split between his two most powerful children, Bahamut and Tiamat.

In the wake of the Godswar, the gods found new worshipers in mortals. Bahamut, already a god of protection, filled the void left by Baldanar. And though Erathis, as the goddess of Civilization, governed Trade, Tiamat took the portfolio of Wealth. The deities formerly only worshiped by demihumans found worshipers among other races. Corellon is the god of Art, Music and Summer for all races, Moradin the god of Craft and Invention, and so on.

Several centuries have passed. Without the Greater Primordials and their power, the Elemental Chaos has divided back into the individual Inner Planes (although the Positive and Negative Energy Planes never recovered). The Planes of the Great Wheel began to re-knit themselves back together as the fabric of reality healed from the invasion. The few remaining Primordials still lurk somewhere, either in the Inner Planes, or hiding in Outer Planes. And though do not have the might to confront the gods again, the gods are also no longer as unified in purpose, no longer having a common enemy.

[RedMage125]

And here's the list of individual deities. Format is as follows:
Name - Titles
Alignment
Symbol
Portfolio
Common Worshippers
Home Plane
Description
Clergy/Temples
Favored Weapons
Domains Granted

Deities of Antheron

Spoiler: Adonathiel, god of the Sun

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Adonathiel -The Bright, The Light of Creation
Neutral Good
Symbol: A Stylized Sun
Portfolio: The Sun, Light, Health, Time, Good Luck
Worshippers: Paladins, Physicians, Athletes, numerous Good-aligned people
Home Plane: Elysium
Description: One of two deities to spring into existence at the will of Niloc, Adonathiel is eternal. One of, if not the most popular of human deities, his espouses the virtues of healthy, good living, kindness, and he instructs his followers to be an example to others. Adonathiel suffered little during the Godswar, always remaining a shining example to the other gods. He steadfastly opposes the machinations of his sister in every way. People commonly pray to Adonathiel when they or those close to them are sick, but also for good luck in risky endeavors, and for success in charitable events.
Clergy/Temples: Temples to Adonathiel can be found in most human settlements. The clergy promotes athletic events in the community, as well as maintaining hospitals during times of great sickness. His temples' construction usually involves a great deal of windows and stained glass to allow natural light to illuminate everything. His clergy’s hierarchy is based on respect. While the more senior members certainly deserve this honor, younger members who demonstrate particular piety and devotion to Adonathiel's causes also deserve this honor. Dawn is a special time to his faithful, and many of his followers spend some time at dawn to pray to him.
Favored Weapon: Morningstar "Heavenly Light", also other Maces.
Domains: Light, Life, Peace

Spoiler: Asharaska, goddess of Darkness

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Asharaska –The Bleak, The Mistress of Shadow
Neutral Evil
Symbol: A Domino Mask, Pierced by a Stiletto
Portfolio: Darkness, Revenge, Shadows, Secrets, Bad Luck
Worshippers: Thieves, Assassins, People seeking revenge
Home Plane: The Shadowfell
Description: One of two deities to spring into existence at the will of Niloc, Asharaska, like her brother, is eternal. While knowledge of her became more widespread during the Godswar, the Mistress of Shadow has ensured that that knowledge died out to be little more than rumors and whispers. She suffered no loss of power nor influence during the Godswar, and indeed, brought many Primordials down herself. Unlike most other deities, who dwell in the Outer Planes, she makes her realm in the Shadowfell. This keeps her closer to the Material Plane, and she is more likely than many other deities to involve herself directly in mortal affairs. She will often grant a boon to someone seeking selfish vengeance, only for that person to later find a priest of Asharaska coming to call later, to induct them into the faith and demand worship as recompense.
Clergy/Temples: Temples to Asharaska are always hidden. Whether in secret rooms in houses or public buildings, or underneath a store, in a sewer, or even a secret cave outside of town. Larger cities may even have more than one sect of Asharaska, and not be aware of each other. Her clergy has no formal hierarchy, but more powerful priests often cow weaker ones into submission. Her faithful are expected to be in darkness, or at least shadow when praying to her. And prayers to her are almost always whispered or entirely silent.
Favored Weapon: Dagger “Shadowstrike”, any other easily concealed weapon
Domains: Trickery, Death

Spoiler: Bahamut, god of Protection

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Bahamut - The Platinum Dragon
Lawful Good
Symbol: A Shield with a Dragon's head emblazoned on it.
Portfolio: Protection, Nobility, Justice (primarily in Drakkensari lands), Good Dragons
Worshippers: Paladins, Guards, Soldiers, Nobles, Nonevil dragons
Home Plane: Celestia - Peak
Description: Originally a deity of the Draconic Pantheon worshiped in Drakkensrad, Bahamut advocated intervention in the Godswar early on, but was forbidden by Io, the Ninefold Dragon, chief of the Draconic Pantheon. After the bulk of their worshippers in Drakkansrad became threatened, the pantheon intervened. When Io died, his first children Bahamut and Tiamat absorbed the lion's share of his power. In the aftermath of the war, Bahamut and Tiamat both sought worshipers in the northern lands. Bahamut found a place for himself filling the void left by Baldanar, former god of protection. While Teneryn is the primary deity of justice in human lands, the Drakkensari still revere Bahamut in that role. He gets along well with all nonevil deities. He advocates protecting the weak, and seeking out and destroying evil wherever it lurks, especially the children of his sister, Tiamat.
Clergy/Temples: Bahamut's clergy, even those not trained in PC classes, usually recieve training in arms and heavy armor, to better protect their flock. Many of his temples in the northern continent are converted temples of Baldanar, and, as such, are fortified structures. Bahamut also teaches responsible use of power, and in major cities, his temples can often be found close to the seat of power. While Bahamut does not restrict how his followers pray to him, he looks favorably on those who do so in full armor and/or with their hands on a shield.
Favored Weapon: Longsword "Platinum Fang", other Heavy Blades also acceptable
Domains: Life, War

Spoiler: Bridenal, god of Rulership

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Bridenal - The Dread Lord, The Lord of Hell
Lawful Evil
Symbol: A Black Clenched Fist before a Ruby Pentagram; As Asmodeus, a Ruby Pentagram
Portfolio: Rulership, Fear, Tyranny
Worshippers: Nobles, Warlords, Power-Hungry individuals, Devil summoners
Home Plane: Baator, the Nine Hells
Description: There are ancient religious texts about Bridenal that tell a tale of a mortal warlord who conquered a vast kingdom, and expanded his empire even into the planes. His followers worshipped him, abandoning other gods. The stories of his clergy state that he seized true divinity by his own power and might, but that is contested by others. During the Godswar, Asmodeus challenged Bridenal in what he perceived as a moment of weakness, coveting his portfolio. While the true outcome of that battle is unknown, for all intents and purposes, the two have become one. In current times, the distinction between Bridenal and Asmodeus is moot. His mortal clergy, however, paint the image that Bridenal conquered Asmodeus and assumed his mantle as Lord of Hell, taking the Ruby Rod as a symbol of his dominance. In truth, he still answers prayers in Asmodeus' name, and the devils of Baator still claim to follow Asmodeus. Bridenal teaches that the strong rule the weak, and that those in power must enforce their right to rule with an iron fist. Bridenal's only current ally is Tiamat, and even that is mostly a carry-over from Asmodeus. Erathis, however, gets along well with him, as rulership and civilization often go hand in hand.
Clergy/Temples: In the northern continent, Bridenal is the only evil deity that one will find open public temples to in major cities. His temples are large, grand affairs, and as close to the seat of power as possible, oftentimes the seat of government houses a shrine to him inside it as well. As a god of rulership, he is popular among the nobility, but his teachings vastly conflict with those of Bahamut. Though he now rules over devils, his clergy is clever enough to avoid overt signs of infernal power, even denouncing devil cults publicly, while secretly providing them succor. Bridenal craves adoration, or at least fear, from everyone, and the more people gathered at his worship ceremonies, the more favor he looks upon the presiding priest with.
Favored Weapon: Gauntlet "Crushing Fist of Spite", also Maces "Ruby Rod"
Domains: War, Order

Spoiler: Corellon, god of Art

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Corellon - The Coronal of Arvandor, The Summer King
Chaotic Good
Symbol: An Eight-Pointed Star
Portfolio: The Arts (music, poetry, etc.), Creativity, Summer, Fey
Worshippers: Elves, Artists, Mages, Benign Fey
Home Plane: Arvandor
Description: The Lord of the Seldarine (the Elven Pantheon), Corellon saw the rest of his fellows reduced in power during the Godswar as they attempted to protect Arvandor itself. Absorbing their power into himself increased his own, and taking in Sonorious did the same, as well as increasing his non-elven followers. High Elves have a special place of honor for Corellon, as they teach that it was him who first taught wizardry to the elven people. However, he no longer considers himself solely a god of, or for, the elven people, and his blessings go with all who seek to create beauty to be shared with the world. He embodies free-thinking, challenging old ideas, and finding good and beauty in the world around oneself. That said, he is also a warrior, and swordplay is one of his most favored forms of art. He still gets along well with Sehanine, although she is no longer his consort, and he has good relations with Moradin and Menyannah.
Clergy/Temples: Corellon took over all of Sonorious' temples, which were not many, and not very large. But his worship has since spread, and shrines to him can be found in the homes of artists, as well as in performance halls. His largest temples, however, are still in elven lands. His clergy are encourages to compose and/or create, and they sponsor public beatification projects in the towns and cities they call home. Most of Corellon's holy days are during the summer, when time outside in nature can be most enjoyed by all.
Favored Weapon: Longsword "Blade of Grace", Also Rapier.
Domains: Light, Arcana

Spoiler: Damacles, god of War

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Damacles - The Tempest, The Battlelord
Chaotic Neutral
Symbol: A pair of Crossed Swords
Portfolio: War, Battle, Conflict
Worshippers: Soldiers, Fighters, Warlords, Mercenaries
Home Plane: Ysgard
Description: As unchanging as the deities from whose conflict he spawned, Damacles actually thrived during the Godswar. Something of a juggernaut for the side of the deities, Damacles actually gained power from the conflict he was involved in, and personally slew several Primordials. The re-alignment of the planes saw his separate domains in Ysgard and Acheron merge, and his faithful can look forward to unending conflict as their eternal reward at his side. Damacles favors all forms of conflict from careful strategy and battle plans, to wild, untamed savagery on the field. It may seem odd, then, that he does not hate peace or peaceful times. Damacles feels that war is more clearly defined and emphasized when separated by periods of peace.
Clergy/Temples: Damacles' clergy can always be found under arms. His faithful are expected to hold a weapon when they pray. His larger temples always appear to be fortified structures capable of withstanding a seige. The heirarchy of his church is organized in a strict, military fashion, and many of his clergy hold secular military rank as well.
Favored Weapon: Battleaxe "Foe Cleaver", or other axes, also 2 handed, edged weapons.
Domains: War, Tempest

Spoiler: Erathis, goddess of Civilization

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Erathis - The Shepard(ess), The Builder
Lawful Neutral
Symbol: The top half of a Gear Cog on a Coin.
Portfolio: Civilization, Trade, Innovation
Worshippers: Merchants, Architects, Inventors, Engineers, Explorers
Home Plane: Elysium
Description: Born of Teneryn and Baldanar, Erathis was a yound demigod when the Godswar erupted. With her father's death, she was invested with much of his divine power, but was ill-suited to replace him as a deity of protection. Myrsalla and Theafera merged their portfolios with her, making her a true deity. Not a fighter, Erathis focused her efforts and those of her budding church towards rebuilding. This earned the respect and devotion of many who sought peace. She holds Vianodicci's portfolio of knowledge in trust, and hopes to see the reclusive god restored. Erathis seeks to spread civilization, which brings her into conflict with Mensyanah and Ragashak, as well as the Primal Spirits of the world. She gets along well with her mother and Bahamut, but also occasionally with Bridenal, who is, after all, a deity well-served by civilization. Erathis has a strained relationship with Tiamat. Trade and Wealth go hand in hand, but Tiamat advocates hoarding wealth, while Earthis would rather see the money spent to go back into circulation. Her closest ally is Yondalla, who was more well-suited to the portfolio of fertility and agriculture than Erathis herself.
Clergy/Temples: Many temples and shrines to Myrsalla and Theafera became devoted to Erathis almost overnight. Her clergy also tend to former temples to Vianodicci, and these temples also contain shrines to the almost-forgotten god. Her clergy preaches her values of the spread of civilization, and her temples can be found in all large cities, as well as in towns that have been founded since the Godswar, since her faithful invariably helped with the construction of the town itself. Erathis prefers that her clerics pray indoors, or at the very least in a shelter of some sort, if at all possible.
Favored Weapon: Warhammer "The Builder's Hand", also Axes and other hammers
Domains: Life, Knowledge, Forge, Order

Spoiler: Garl Glittergold, god of Trickery

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Garl Glitergold – The Joker, The Sparkling Wit
Neutral Good
Symbol: A Gold Nugget
Portfolio: Humor, Trickery, Illusion
Worshippers: Gnomes, Bards, individuals who rely on wit and trickery
Home Plane: Bytopia (Golden Hills)
Description: Garl Glitergold was originally the head of the Gnomish Pantheon. Like the other demihuman pantheons, the Gnome deities invested their power with their leader to survive the Godswar. Garl Glittergold himself is not a warrior, but he IS a strategist. His leadership and planning were crucial to the gods’ success. As a result of that, he became unlikely friends with Damacles, who now greatly respects Garl’s keen tactical mind. It is said among his followers that after the Godswar, Garl Glittergold asked Corellon (who had taken Sonorious’ portfolio), if he would give the domain of humor to him. When Corellon asked why, Garl told him “My dear boy, if you had a sense of humor, the descent of the drow never would have happened in the first place”, which caused uproarious laughter from the other gods present, who pressured Corellon into giving it to him. While he is a lighthearted deity who loves to laugh, Garl is not flighty or absentminded. He is a consummate joker and prankster, and encourages his followers to use their wits, especially to overcome those who are physically more intimidating.
Clergy/Temples: Gnomes don’t have their own lands, but they DO sometimes organize in communities. Areas with a large Gnome population are most likely to contain temples or shrines to Garl Glittergold. There’s also a temple in Val Lumina, and usually a shrine in most formal Bard Colleges. His clergy typically help out in their community, and often host contests of wits for prizes.
Favored Weapon: Battleaxe
Domains: Trickery

Spoiler: Mensyannah, goddess of Woodlands

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Mensyannah - The Huntress, The Keeper of the Wild
True Neutral
Symbol: A Curved Hunting Horn enclosing the silhouette of either a stag or a wolf
Portfolio: Forests, Hunting, Autumn, Harmony with Nature
Worshippers: Rangers, Frontiersmen, members of any Primal class
Home Plane: Wyrlarn/The Feywild
Description: Mensyannah has changed. The daughter of Silhain-Vitrus, she has absorbed much of her father's power and portfolio in order to survive. She also absorbed a level of his abstract detachment from civilized affairs. Although she still staunchly opposes the wild savagery and wanton destruction of Ragashak, she also finds Erathis' encroachment of civilization distasteful. Mensyannah prefers an existence that lives in harmony with nature, with as little destruction of it as possible. She has close ties with the Primal Spirits of the world, and many serve her willingly as her exarchs.
Clergy/Temples: Mennsyannah's clergy are almost exclusively of the druidic tradition. As such, few actual temples exist. The largest, however, is the House of the Hunt, which serves not only as her temple, but as the Central Lodge for the Rangers of Mensyannah, an organization devoted to the defense of the unspoiled natural world. Mensyannah's druids are generally the most benign, although even this is tempered with some of Nature's own impartiality.
Favored Weapon: Longbow "Hunter's Pride", also Staff, Spears, Druidic Foci
Domains: Nature, Tempest

Spoiler: Moradin, god of Craft

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Moradin - The Dwarffather, The Soulforger
Lawful Good
Symbol: A Hammer before an Anvil
Portfolio: Creation, Tradition, Mountains and Caves
Worshippers: Dwarves, Craftsmen, Miners
Home Plane: Celestia (base/interior)
Description: Moradin, traditionally a dwarven deity, had gained a following in human lands even before the Godswar, when many dwarves moved to the surface. When the rest of the Morndinsamman was weakened, he became sole patron of the dwarves, and they became exarchs under him. He also now fills a void left by Viannodicci. Moradin, Corellon, and Erathis are all closely allied in their similar interests. Moradin specifically sponsors those who create (especially metal and stonework) for a living.
Clergy/Temples: Every Dwarven City or town has a temple to Moradin in it. Human towns, if they do not have a temple to Moradin, at least have a shrine to him within a temple of Erathis. Most independent temples to Moradin in human lands are in settlements with a high dwarf population. The hierarchy is very organized with structured ranks. The High Priest of Moradin presides from the dwarven capital of Dumahstone. Other Bishops and Cardinals follow instruction from him.
Favored Weapon: Warhammer "The Soulhammer", also Axes and Picks.
Domains: Knowledge, Forge

Spoiler: Ragashak, god of Slaughter

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Ragashak - The Beast, The Ravager, the Ravenous
Chaotic Evil
Symbol: A Bloody Set of Jaws
Portfolio: Slaughter, Storms, Winter, Predators
Worshippers: Gnolls, Evil Druids/Shamans, Lycanthropes, Sahuagin
Home Plane: Wyrlarn/The Feywild
Description: Ragashak has always been a Beast. He is, however, a cunning predator. Although he turned against a rival deity during the Godswar, he was also a savage and effective weapon against the Primordials. Ragashak, like Mensyannah, has close ties with the Primal Spirits of the world, especially those who are more destructive and violent. He should not be confused with the Primal Beast, who does not embody the destructive evil that Ragashak represents. The Ravager loves causing chaos as much as bloodshed, and he instructs his followers to do the same.
Clergy/Temples: All of Ragashak's "clergy" are of the druidic or shamanistic traditions, and as such, only the druids have any hierarchy to speak of. Ragashak's faithful kill for pleasure and wreak havoc wherever they go. The "gift" of lycanthropy is said to be a boon from Ragashak, and his followers revere lycanthropes as holy. Ragashak has no temples, only impromptu sacrificial altars (which may or may not be revisited and reused), and a few sacred areas of land (such as Druid Groves, certain caves, valleys, etc.).
Favored Weapon: Claws/Teeth
Domains: Nature, Tempest

Spoiler: Sacerai, goddess of Magic

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Sacerai - The Magistrix, The Veiled Lady
True Neutral
Symbol: 3 Triangles stacked to form another, within a Radiant Circle
Portfolio: Arcane Magic
Worshippers: Arcane casters, especially wizards
Home Plane: The Magesterium
Description: Sacerai is one of the oldest deities in the Pantheon. When Adonathiel and Asharaska collaborated in Creation, they inadvertently created Sacerai with the development of Arcane Magic. Sacerai IS the source of Arcane Magic in Antheron. Her power was severely tested during the Godswar. The Primordials wielded pure Elemental and Shadow power that had no connection to the Veil of Arcane magic that Sacerai maintains. As a result of the conflict, Sacerai is no longer the sole keeper of all things Arcane. Warlocks' route to power is entirely outside her desmene. However, her worship has not changed and she still espouses the pursuit of knowledge and development and refinement of Arcane Power.
Clergy/Temples: Sacerai's clergy usually have some Arcane talent (read as: Ritual Casters at least). Her temples are often warded with magic and contain libraries of spells, rituals, and magical lore. Her largest temple is in Val Lumina, and the temple founded Val Lumina's Arcane College.
Favored Weapon: Staff "Staff of the Magister", also Arcane Foci.
Domains: Knowledge, Arcana

Spoiler: Sehanine, goddess of the Moon

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Sehanine - The Lady of Dreams, The Lady-In-The-Moon
Chaotic Neutral
Symbol: A Stylized Crescent Moon, usually made of silver and/or pearls
Portfolio: The Moon, Stars, Navigation, Love, Spring
Worshippers: Elves (especially Wood Elves), Astrologers, Sailors, Lovers, women of all walks of life
Home Plane: Arvandor
Description: When Lucrece (Sehanine's daughter by Adonathiel) was badly wounded early in the war, Sehanine Moonbow of the Seldarine did the only thing she could to preserve her daughter's existence. Sehanine greatly disapproved of the Retreat of the Eladrin, and had no part in it. Sehanine also adopted Fenalethri's portfolio when that goddess fell. Sehanine is still close to Corellon (although no longer his consort), and is friendly with Mensyannah, but hates Bridenal and Gruumsh.
Clergy/Temples: Every port town contains at least a shrine to Sehanine. Her temples can be found in cities and towns, as well as concealed in the wilderness. Wood Elves consider Sehanine to be the patron of their race, but she is worshiped by many peoples. Women, especially, are drawn to her worship, and outside of elven lands, a majority of her clergy is female.
Favored Weapon: Shortbow "Shaft of Moonlight", also Javelins/Spears and Maces.
Domains: Nature, Trickery, Twilight

Spoiler: Teneryn, goddess of Justice

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Teneryn - The Just, The Lady of Truth
Lawful Good
Symbol: The Scales of Justice Balanced on the Point of a Sword
Portfolio: Truth, Justice, Judgement
Worshippers: Paladins, Judges, numerous law-abiding people
Home Plane: Celestia (base and slopes)
Description: Teneryn is one of the most popular deities among everyday people, along with Adonathiel. The daughter of Damacles and Fenalethri, she is militant, like her father; and, though benign, she shared none of her mother's flightiness. She keenly feels the loss of her lover Baldanar during the war, and her teachings have become less mercy-oriented. Absorbing Vorador's portfolio of Judgement may also be a contributing factor. Teneryn is allied with Bahamut, Moradi, and Erathis, and hates Tiamat, Thanatos, and Asharaska.
Clergy/Temples: Many of those in the business of law enforcement worship or at least honor Teneryn. Shrines to the Lady of Truth can be found in most city halls (or in courthouses in larger cities). As a very popular deity, temples to her can be found in many human cities. Her church hierarchy is very organized, but not rigid. The center of her church is in Tel Ranar, and it also serves as Motherhouse to the Justicars, the paladin order of which she is a patron.
Favored Weapon: Longsword "The Blade of Truth", other 1-handed weapons acceptable.
Domains: War, Light, Order

Spoiler: Thanatos, god of Death

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Thanatos - The Apostate, The Reaver of Souls
Chaotic Evil
Symbol: A Black Skull
Portfolio: Death, Undeath, The Dead
Worshippers: Necromancers, Murderers, and Intelligent Undead
Home Plane: Hades/The Shadowfell
Description: Long ago, Thanatos was a minor deity serving under Vorador, the Guardian of the Dead. He attempted to steal the Divine Essence of Death from him, but the power of it almost killed him. He remained trapped, for thousands of years, between The Negative Energy Plane and Hades. He was freed during the Godswar by Vorador, who knew all deific power would be needed. Thanatos agreed to work with the other gods, but quickly slew Vorador at his first opportunity, and absorbed much of his power. While he was unable to take on some of Vorador's more benevolent aspects, Thanatos became god of the Dead. While his betrayal rocked the Pantheon, Thanatos used his new, stronger powers to become a terrible foe to the Primordials. Several fallen Primordials became monstrous undead engines of destruction under Thanatos' command. Thanatos used the city of Riva (once the heart of Vorador's Church) as the focus for this terrible project, forever cursing that place.
Clergy/Temples: Due to Thanatos' nature and portfolio, he was unable to claim Vorador's old temples and public shrines. The cemetery and mortuary shrines were briefly claimed by his Reapers, but public outcry and Adonathiel's Dawn Knights chased them out. Thanatos' shrines are once again very secretive, small affairs. The only major temple is the Sanctum Mortalis, a legend to most, hidden somewhere in Tel Ranar. His clergy, called Reapers, seek to snuff out all life and seek undeath as a preferred state of being. Thanatos' worship calls to deranged individuals, and lures in the hopeless and disenchanted. In the wake of the Godswar, he is one of the greatest threats to all life on Antheron.
Favored Weapon: Scythe "Soul Reaver", also Whips, Scourges, Flails
Domains: Death

Spoiler: Tiamat, goddess of Greed

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Tiamat - The Dragon Queen, The Chromatic Dragon
Lawful Evil
Symbol: A Stylized representation of 5 Dragon Heads in a Star Formation
Portfolio: Greed, Wealth, Envy, Chromatic Dragons
Worshippers: Merchants, Moneylenders, the wealthy, evil dragons
Home Plane: Baator, the Nine Hells
Description: Like Bahamut, Tiamat's power increased when Io died in the Godswar. She claimed Myrsalla's vacant portfolio of wealth since it complimented her existing one, and so found a place in non-draconic worshippers forever. She attempted to snatch up Viannodicci's portfolio, having no real inclination for it, but desiring more worshippers, power, and prestige, she was blocked in that venture by Erathis, earning the young goddess the Dragon Queen's eternal enmity.
Clergy/Temples: Tiamat's temples exist openly only in Drakkensrad, and they are opulent affairs with plenty of ostentatious displays of wealth. Her temples outside Drakkensari lands are rarely, if ever, public, and are most often private shrines in the home of the wealthy, or in the Guildhalls of Thieves. Her clergy promotes the acquisition of wealth, as well as avarice, and bitterness towards rivals. In that respect, her portfolio overlaps Asharaska's, but usually only in Drakkensari lands. Her faithful hoard wealth and thank Tiamat for it, praying to her to protect it. Sacrifices to Tiamat must be of great value, preferably monetary, but personal value is also acceptable.
Favored Weapon: Dagger "Chromatic Fang", any blade also acceptable, preferably curved.
Domains: Trickery

Spoiler: Yondalla, goddess of Harvest

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Yondalla – The Provider, The Nurturing One, The Green Mother
Lawful Good
Symbol: A Cornucopia on a Shield
Portfolio: Harvest, Fertility, Family
Worshippers: Halflings, Farmers
Home Plane: Arcadia (Green Fields)
Description: The mother of the Halfling Pantheon, she, too absorbed the divine power of her pantheon during the Godswar. Erathis also turned over to her part of Theafera’s old portfolio, specifically the portfolio of fertility and growth. While Yondalla is still cherished by many halflings, she is now also honored by all who live their lives through planting and harvest. A very serious and humble deity, she has few actual enemies, but does not like or get along with any evil deities. Her closest ally and friend is Erathis.
Clergy/Temples: Temples to Yondalla are most common in rural areas, and are usually little more than shrines. Even in the Silverflow, the ancestral home of halflings, most of her temples are simple affairs, more about gathering together as a community than about heaping glory upon her. Her clergy are often sought out to bless the crops during planting time, and harvest time as well. They also serve their communities as midwives and healers.
Favored Weapon: Shortsword
Domains: Life, Peace

There are a few deities still only worshipped by the races they champion. Although they sided with the gods in the Godswar, some fared better than others.

Spoiler: demihuman deities

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Gruumsh - One-Eye
The Chaotic Evil god of Orcs has changed little as well. He continues to advocate a campaign of savagery and destruction among his followers. There is little room for thought of anything else. The orc pantheon, like many others, were reduced to exarchs under Gruumsh.
Favored Weapon: Greataxe
Domains: War

Kurtulmak - The Watcher, The Horned Sorcerer
The Lawful Evil god of Kobolds survives as he always does, cringing in the shadows and striking when the opportunity is right. He did very little during the Godswar, not that anyone expected anything more. His expertise in traps was called upon by the gods, but the Primordials could not be contained.
Favored Weapon: Spear
Domains: Trickery

Lolth - The Spider Queen
The Chaotic Evil goddess of the drow was changed little by the Godswar. She eliminated the other gods in the drow pantheon, drawing forth their divine energy to supplement her own. They exist now as exarchs under her, with the exception of Eilistraee, who is an exarch of Corellon. Lolth fought alongside the gods, but caused a great deal of conflict, especially with Corellon and Sehanine.
Favored Weapon: Dagger, Whip
Domains: Trickery

Maglubiyet - The Mighty One
The Lawful Evil god of goblinoids quickly fell in line with the other gods during the Godswar. For all that he was previously disdained by many other deities, Maglubiyet proved himself a worthy and capable strategist. For his part, goblinoids were granted a portion of land to the east, blessed by the gods to be fertile, and a small nation has developed. For mortal races, this nation is perceived as a dangerous threat, and the fact the many goblinoids continue to live in the frontiers and wilderness as they have for eons reinforces that fact.
Favored Weapon: Battleaxe
Domain: War

Sekolah - The Devourer
The Lawful Evil shark-god of the Sahuagin was diminished during the Godswar by the loss of so many of his followers. Ragashak’s clergy claim that the Ravager devoured Sekolah, and now answers the prayers of the Sahuagin in his place. The shark-people, for their part, do not believe this.
Favored Weapon: Trident
Domains: Nature, Tempest

And the list of all the former deities of Antheron, for those who didn't want to read the whole Godswar section. Some of these deities died, others passed on their mantle and portfolio to successors.

Spoiler: Former Deities

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Baldanar- The Lawful Neutral god of protection, Baldanar was among the first gods to fall in combat with the Primordials. He was Teneryn’s lover, and their demigod child, Erathis, later assumed full divinity herself. When the Godswar was over and the Draconic Pantheon had begun to find footholds among humanoid worshippers in Antheron, many of Baldanar’s former temples converted to Bahamut, who willingly took up the mantle, as it was one he already carried in Drakkensrad.

Fenalethri-The Chaotic Good goddess of love was often perceived as frivolous and flighty. Not a warrior herself, certainly, she was unfortunately another one of the first deities to fall. She had been infected with the Primodials’ Divine Wasting Curse, a powerful magick that caused her own divine essence to carry off her life. After she fell, Sehanine adopted the portfolio of Love.

Hikusaak- The Neutral Evil god of thievery and stealth was never a major player in the machinations between gods. His strength was always to remain beneath notice. During the Godswar, however, he attempted to remain unnoticed in a place where he thought the enemies of the gods would not seek him: Baator. It was there that he was caught unawares by Asmodeus, who killed him and usurped his power. It was with Hikusaak’s divine spark that Asmodeus challenged Bridenal.

Io- The Neutral god of all dragonkind, Io receives mention here only because of the influence during the Godswar. Io held the Draconic Pantheon aloof, not fearing the elemental might of the Primordials, as dragons and their gods were deeply tied to elemental powers, and needed not fear them. When the Primordials’ attack on the Prime threatened their much more frail dragonborn followers, however, Io relented and consented to join the Godswar. The Ninefold Dragon himself was killed while destroying one of greatest of the Primordial Host. Io’s power, which was over all dragons, and not tied to a specific portfolio, was immediately spread to his two most powerful children, Bahamut and Tiamat.

Lucrece- The Neutral Good goddess of the moon, stars, and navigation, Lucrece was uniquely a half-elven deity. Fathered by Adonathiel and Sehanine Moonbow of the Elven Pantheon, she was the patron of many women of all races, as well as being very popular among half-elves of any gender. She, too, fell victim to the Divine Wasting Curse, but before she passed, she gave up her portfolio and mantles to her own mother, Sehanine. It was this act that made her no longer a true deity, and by chance, it was discovered that the Wasting Curse was no longer killing her. She now serves as her mother’s exarch.

Lysiera- The Chaotic Neutral goddess of luck, Lysiera was always unpredictable, fickle, and capricious. An embodiment of chaos itself, she seemed at times to not even know her own plans, preferring to improvise everything. In what seemed to be an ill-fated attempt to infiltrate the Primordials during the Godswar, she appealed to them to take her in to be their ally. They immediately rejected her and nearly killed her. Weakened as she was, she returned to the gods, and by bad luck, ended up being found first by Asharaska, who thought to kill her and absorb her portfolio, blaming it on the Primordials. Asharaska only managed to take from her the portfolio of bad luck, and Lysiera managed, through sheer good fortune, to end up in Adonathiel’s arms. She passed her divinity and remaining portfolio of good luck to him, and became an exarch under him. Under his influence (or perhaps because of what Asharaska took from her), she has been less capricious, and more benign.

Myrsalla- The Neutral goddess of trade and wealth, Myrsalla played a very small role in the Godswar. Mostly, she tried to avoid contact with the Primordials or their agents. When Theafera was finally infected by the Wasting Curse and was ready to turn her power over to the fledgling goddess Erathis, Myrsalla joined in doing so, tired of the constant state of fear that the Godswar had instilled in her. She is now an exarch under Erathis, but the great bazaar of the city of Melchiah in Antheron is still called Myrsalla’s Forum, in her honor, even though the main temple is dedicated to Erathis.

Nupraptor- The Neutral Evil god of poison, disease, and imprisonment was, himself, imprisoned in his divine realm in Carceri. Bound there by Bridenal, he was easy pickings for the Primordials, and was outright destroyed.

Silhain-Vitrus- The Neutral god of wild nature, Silhain has always been something of a unique oddity among the gods, being both a god and an Elder Primal Spirit. He has long been one of the few gods that the Primal Spirits trust. Silhain has always been rather remote and detached for a deity, however, and little about the Godwar seemed to rouse him. In fact, he seemed to draw further and further into the shell of the world, subsuming his consciousness into it. When his own daughter, the goddess Mensyannah, pleaded for him to take arms against the Primordials, he gave no response. Saddened, she took some of his power from him, which he seemed to not resist. Very few remember the name Silhain-Vitrus anymore. Just a handful of druids (the Grand Druid among them) and few scholars. It is thought that those druids who simply revere Nature itself are worshipping him, even if they do not call him by name. He exists now, still alive, still divine, but with all the seeming awareness and consciousness of an oak tree.

Sonorious- The Neutral Good god of music and art was a servitor deity to Vianodicci, god of knowledge. Sonorious had no desire to meet the fate of his sometime lover, Fenalethri, and when he fell victim to the Wasting Curse, he sought another deity to pass his portfolio. He chose Corellon Larethian of the Elven Pantheon, reasoning, in his wisdom, that such would aid Corellon in gaining non-elven followers, and further bring down the divides of “racial pantheons”.

Theafera- The Neutral Good goddess of life, harvest, and agriculture, Theafera was counted among the most powerful gods in the Pantheon. During the Godswar, however, the Primordials used their powerful elemental magicks to summon a mighty elemental tempest in the Inner Sea between Antheron and Drakkensrad. Theafera pleaded for Silhain-Vitrus, god of wild nature, to help her, but he was nearly unresponsive, so she used a great deal of her own energy to alter the world itself, raising a great mass of land that connected the two continents, which disrupted the brewing storm the Primordials had called. Bearing the touch of the goddess of growth as it did, the Basin of Life (as it came to be called) was swiftly covered in a lush jungle. Doing this by herself weakened Theafera to the point that she fell victim to the Wasting Curse. She and Myrsalla combined their portfolios, bestowing all of them on the fledgling goddess, Erathis.

Typhus- The Chaotic Evil god of storms has always been a tempestuous spirit. While he was mostly a loner in terms of relations to other gods, he responded with swift and furious violence when he was attacked by the Primordials. While cooperation was never his strong suit, when the Primordials sought to initiate the elemental tempest on the Prime, Typhus was enraged. He felt almost maddeningly possessive of all storms, and this was incursion into his very bailiwick. As it happens, he was helping Theafera in her attempt to stop the storm by using his own power to mitigate the storm while she worked to raise the Basin. When the work was done and the storm dissipated, Typhus was exhausted. It was then that Ragashak the Devourer consumed him, becoming patron of storms himself.

Vianodicci- The Neutral god of knowledge, Vianodicci did not foresee the Primordials’ coming. Troubled by his blindness in this affair, he sought to uncover the truths of the Primordials and their assault. He discovered that they actually hailed from a completely different reality, not simply another plane, but an entirely separate cosmology, not connected to the Great Wheel at all. Not too dissimilar from the “spheres” mentioned by spelljamming vessels. When attempting to divine the means by which the Primordials had been brought here, Vianodicci accidentally touched the consciousness of something terrible. Tharizdun, the Chained One, an ancient and unknowable overdeity imprisoned before the time of any of the gods. Contact with the alien and aberrant divine mind of the Eye of Madness, Viandodicci’s own divine mind was overwhelmed. Struck into a madness that made him little more than catatonic, Vianodicci was never able to share this with the other gods. The other gods have kept him safe, hoping he will recover. Until he does, Erathis, Moradin, Sacerai, and Corellon all have accepted different aspects of his portfolios, holding them in trust until he returns. Very few on Antheron remember him well, but unlike Silhain, his worship previously thrived in civilized areas, and knowledge of him is not difficult to obtain.

Vorador- The Lawful Neutral god of the dead and final judgement, Vorador was a paragon of dispassionate order and fairness. He opposed the creation of the undead, as well as wanton slaughter. In ages past, one of his servitor deities, Thanatos, had once stolen from him the divine portfolio of Death (not to be confused with the dead), but had become trapped between Hades and the Negative Energy Plane, effectively becoming an undead deity. While they were opposed, Vorador sensed that Thanatos’ powers would be useful in the conflict with the Primordials, and that his trapped state would only leave him vulnerable. Vorador freed Thanatos, after securing from him a binding oath to aid the cause of the gods. Thanatos rewarded Vorador for freeing him by immediately killing him, and taking on the full mantle of Death and the Dead for himself. While many other gods were outraged at Thanatos’ betrayal, the Reaper quickly made himself indispensable to the gods’ cause. Teneryn, goddess of justice, took Vorador’s portfolio of Judgement, and it is thought that this, combined with the death of her lover, has made her more bleak, harsh, and unforgiving.

Unique Category, because this one defies all other categorizations:

Spoiler

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He Who Is Yet To Be - Among the Shadar-Kai of the Shadowfell, there exists a pervasive belief that a new god is going to rise. A god who, like Vorador before him, will be a guardian of the dead, protector of souls, and a patron to the Shadar-Kai people. One who will sweep clean the world of the corruption of Thanatos and of fiends like Orcus. The belief is extremely widespread among Shadar-Kai, although the symbols they each use to represent their faith vary among the various settlements, but they are mostly unified in agreement of this deity’s purpose. Clerics of this god have begun to emerge, and while some magic theorists would claim they are receiving spells from the conviction of their faith, the Shadar-Kai see these gifts as proof that their god is real and that their faith will be rewarded.
This is the sole example of clerical power in Antheron not granted by a deity, which only further emboldens and strengthens the Shadar-Kai's beliefs. Clerics of He Who Is Yet To Be have the Grave Domain.

[Pex]

Spoiler: 18 deities and 1 demigod

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Ashtar LG

Harmony in all things. Your family and community are your foundations. Comfort the suffering. Have peace in your heart even when confronting the wicked.

Holy Symbol: Ankh

Portfolio: Family, Healing, Protection, Community, Peace

The Church mainly caters to the communities in which they dwell. They are not pure pacifists and allow for taking up arms to defend yourself or others. Traveling worshipers help those they encounter.

Montgod LG

You are given intellect and reason. Use them. Be imaginative. Aspire always to greatness.

Holy Symbol: Quill and Hammer Crossed

Portfolio: Invention, Knowledge, Construction

The Church teaches magic is not evil but too often people use it as a crutch. You have the ability to do great things without magic. Discover them.

Sherkidu NG

Evil never rests. Don’t be complacent. Peace is just a temporary respite of war. Always be prepared. Be nice. With great power comes great responsibility.

Holy Symbol: Dragon Head

Portfolio: Magic, Metallic Dragons, Good, War

The Church teaches constant vigilance. There is always some evil just waiting to strike. Magic is a powerful force. Evil will use it if it can, so master it yourself. The dragons are exemplars. They make good allies to be earned and respected. Sslaa (Dragonborn) and kobolds believe they are related to dragons and tend to worship Sherkidu almost like a racial deity. Sslaa and kobolds are neutral in attitude towards each other. Human worshipers have no problem with them.

Eilistraee NG

Return to the Light. You can be forgiven your trespasses. You are loved.

Holy Symbol: Sun

Portfolio: Light, Redemption, Forgiveness

The Church teaches that everyone makes mistakes but can learn from them and strive not to repeat them. Those who truly want to repent their evil ways can do so. Be mindful of those who would exploit your kindness.

Dabith CG

Things must be done and someone must do them. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. There is always more to experience.

Holy Symbol: 20-sided Polyhedron

Portfolio: Adventure, Traveling, Daring, Luck

There is no formal Church. For those who take action to right the wrongs, to take risks, just see what's out there, they might say a little prayer to Dabith for a gentle push when needed. They're doing things themselves, but it's not shameful to ask for some help.

Fozz CG

Competiton makes everyone better. Test yourself. Improve yourself.

Holy Symbol: Arm-clenching bicep

Portfolio: Athletics, Sports, Competition, Strength

There's no Church per se, but it's not unheard of for prayers to Fozz be spoken before some contest takes place. There might be a congregation in a large city consisting of those dedicated to improving themselves and those who need to unwind from their normal routines.

Shalleea LN

Be honest and fair in all things. Your word is your bond. Punish those who do Wrong.

Holy Symbol: Balance Scales

Portfolio: Justice, Vengeance, Law, Honesty


The Church of Shalleea is in three sects: Justice Sect, Law Sect, and Vengeance Sect. The Justice Sect strives for justice. Just punishment is tempered with Mercy. The spirit of the law is what matters. Anyone can atone to seek redemption. The Law Sect is the third party arbiter of disputes. The letter of the law is what matters. Laws can be changed in the proper manner. Rules are necessary for society to function. The Vengeance Sect strives for revenge. They are the punishers. The only difference they have with the Justice Sect, they claim, is the methods they use in punishing the guilty, especially those whom the law can’t touch. They are not megalomaniac psychopaths. They’ll pet the dog and coo at babies. However, they’ll cut off the hand of thieves and animate the corpse of the murderous tyrant to be a slave in his afterlife. All the sects acknowledge each other as part of the same Church. There is no Schism, but they try to stay out of each other’s way.

Blutor LN

Knowledge is power. Information is everything. Keep secret that which would disrupt society. Share that which would improve society.

Holy Symbol: Hourglass

Portfolio: Gossip, Secrets, Information, Things Not Of This World

A congregation of Blutor is a secret society. Generally benign, they're a conspiracy in search of a cause. Sometimes knowing something is enough, but they will use their knowledge to manipulate events to keep society functioning well where necessary. It's not about obtaining personal power. They work behind the scenes and take satisfaction their goal was fulfilled even if and sometimes especially if no one knew they were behind it. Some congregations don't mind being known to exist. They're useful as think tanks to solve problems. A few societies are dedicated to keeping the world safe from outer planar beings. The occasional Conjure spell doesn't bother them. Gate, portals, anything that can bring something from Beyond on a more long term or permanent basis. Those are threats to be taken care of, but they can acknowledge the good intentions of angels and celestials. They mainly fight against devils and demons, but a nice undead hunt works too.

Jaqyde N

You are the choices you make. Choose wisely.

Holy Symbol: Skull with crossed olive branches

Portfolio: Humans, Half-Humans, Causes

Humans are more artistic than dwarves, more constructive than elves, wiser than gnomes, and stronger than halflings. Jaqyde also encourages half-humans to embrace their human bloodline. Forgo the stereotype of the other. Humanity is diverse, but if there’s one thing that unites them is that they alone of all the races are willing to fight for a Cause beyond themselves. Jaqyde emulates them and supports Eilistraee in her quest to redeem the Drow.

There are no restrictions on what happens should two worshipers of Jaqyde be on opposite sides of a conflict. You are the choices you make and must deal with the consequences. There is nothing to suggest Jaqyde promotes racial superiority. Indeed, his support of Eilistraee would refute that. Whether individual worshipers are is another matter, but the Church is Honest True welcoming of half-elves and half-orcs.

Mother Nature N

The world is your gift. Take good care of it, and it will take good care of you

Holy Symbol: Tree

Portfolio: Nature, Weather, Sun, Environment, The World

The Church teaches how not to despoil the world. Cities and civilization are not the enemy, but be mindful not to destroy that which surrounds them.

Calavera CN

Death is natural, not evil. It's ok to fear it, but live your life well and you need not fear your afterlife. While alive, live a little. Nothing wrong with a pocket of coin justly earned.

Holy Symbol: Scythe

Portfolio: Death, Business, Wealth

Calavera is usually worshiped in his two aspects separately. The most common are those who adhere to his teachings of death. Death is not an evil thing. Fearing it is understood, but if you have confidence in how you lived your life then you need not fear your afterlife. That doesn't mean you have to live like a saint, though you could if you wanted to, but life is just a journey to the next one and how you live it determines your destination. What is the right destination for someone else might not be the one for you, and that's ok. Undeath is a mockery and a blasphemy to be eliminated.

Less common are those who adhere to his business aspect. It is believed he set forth how one conducts a successful business, the nuances involved beyond just supply and demand that can't be coded. You need to be spontaneous and take risks.

Some individuals have been known to embrace both.

Geegee CN

Leave me alone.

Holy Symbol: None

Portfolio: Solitude

There is no Church. Technically one doesn't worship Geegee, for she doesn't want any, but rather follow her philosophy of solitude. Some go the extreme to live as hermits. Most don't mind interacting with society as that's life, but it's nobody's business what they do and not their business what you do. As long as you're not hurting anyone, especially themselves, they don't give a damn. They prefer not to get involved. They have their own concerns and cares and want no one to interfere. They can love someone, have friends and family they care about.

Mardith LE

Behave yourself. Think of the children.

Holy Symbol: Cat

Portfolio: Manners, Discipline, Children

Proper manners are essential for a perfect society. The naughty will be punished. Children are the future.

Selter LE

Know your place. Prove your worth to better your place.

Holy Symbol: Ruler

Portfolio: Efficiency, Domination, Orders

Everyone has a job to do and everyone must do their job. You will rise to your level competence. If you rise to your level of incompetence you will be eliminated. Cheating is proof of your incompetence. Ideally you want to be in charge if you can manage it and keep it, but the faithful don't necessarily need to overthrow a government and take over as long as the current government is competent and efficient. In such a place congregations may crop up just for there to be an organization one can strive to take over.

Gooban NE

Mine, mine, mine all mine.

Holy Symbol: An open mouth

Portfolio: Greed, Chromatic Dragons, Desire

Take what you want. Get what you can get. Let nothing or noone stop you. It's not unheard of for a Gooban worshiper to pretend to be a priest for another deity to dupe the faithful for power, prestige, and donations.

Poz NE

All good things must come to an end.

Holy Symbol: Moldy bread

Portfolio: Decay, Destruction

Nothing lasts forever. The Church doesn't so much spread misery and destruction but rather accepts the eventuality. A few of the more fanatical worshipers would spread misery and destruction to hasten the end of the world. It has existed long enough.

Shandrax CE

Obey me or die!

Holy Symbol: Gauntlet

Portfolio: Conquest, Evil, Catastrophe

The Church wants to rule the world by any means necessary.

Rox CE

Trust no one, not even me.

Holy Symbol: Broken Heart

Porfolio: Betrayal, Murder, Theft

The only one you can count on is yourself. There is always someone out to get you.

Demigod/Lich

Chai LG

Portfolio: Undead

Protects the world from the greater horrors of undead. Redeems undead and refocuses their nature for the betterment of society.

[Kane0]

My current pantheon is:

Arigoth (No portfolio): The original creator deity. Came from the far realm, laid claim to a portion of it and shaped it into the multiverse as it is known (I use a nested egg configuration). Spawned the next four in order to caretake his realm as he turned to defend his borders against the far realm trying to retake it.

Cyric (Chaos, Trickery, Guile): Was the first to figure out how to generate souls and put them in mortal bodies, is the best puppetmaster of mortals by far. Not evil but definitely has a dark sense of humor and a serial prankster, nevertheless still the one the others turn to when they're in a bind and need a 'creative' solution to whatever they've messed up.

Kord (Conflict, Valor): Was the first to come up with the idea of law, order and organisation in general. It never really caught on, but he generally sticks to better morals than the others

Mystra (Magic, Art): Tasked with the thankless and endless job of handling Arigoth's leftovers to make sure the multiverse doesn't literally rip itself apart, keeps herself sane in the meantime with creative pursuits

Jaziran (Fate, Luck, Time): Created the first fiends before they got too unruly, a selfish and generally uncaring individual but also a true professional with standards

Kelemvor (Death, Afterlife): Created as a direct result of a fight between Cyric and Kord almost entirely to rationalise and enforce the concept of death, he doesn't really enjoy his work and is actually a pretty chill and kind guy.

Umberlee (Water, Sickness, Darkness): The sister to Kelemvor, she inherited all the wrath and cruelty instead of her brother. She's a pariah even compared to Cyric the serial black sheep

Silvanus (Nature, Agriculture, Weather): Created in a joint effort by Mystra and Jaziran to help share the burdens of their work, which backfired a little bit when he only took very specific tasks and otherwise pranced off contenting himself with Fey creatures.

Moradin (Craft, Commerce): The second attempt by Mystra and Jaziran, this time hitting the opposite extreme of a laser focused workaholic. Precise, methodical and thorough to the point of exhaustion

Pelor (Law, Light, Justice): Kelemvor at some point was being flooded with work due to multiple large scale conflicts happening all at once, and petitioned Cyric, Kord, Mystra and Jaziran to do something about it. After briefly putting their collective heads together they spawned the 'golden child', who ended up so incredibly insufferably 'perfect' and 'pure' most of the others will go to great lengths not to deal with him. Victims of their own success really.

Gruumsh (Passion, Fertility): At some point Umberlee and Silivanus were a thing for a bit, and Gruumsh was the unfortunate result. He inherited many of Umberlee's less desirable personality traits but also Silvanus' zest for life, and has counterintuitively through various escapades matured into a reliable deity for emotional wellbeing and child rearing.

Bahamut & Tiamat (the Red and Blue suns): Forged directly and solely by Moradin, they are twins and incredibly unstable individuals that cause havoc whenever separated. Ironically, they are so flawed primarily because only one deity was invovled in their creation, and none have been created since (resorting to mortals and planars instead). After a particularly terrible series of events it was decided by the deities that the twins were to be confined within the twin suns of the planes, performing a valuable service that they didn't want to do but also importantly keeping them safe from each other and everyone else safe from them.

And of course they all get along like a good old fashioned dysfunctional, mythological family. As my campaigns go on I add a few myths and legends each time to flesh out their dynamics and grow the setting.

[RedMage125]

*snip*

Very nice. I like how there's a few subverted expectations (the deity who governs children and look to the future of society is evil). And I kind of dig Geegee. It's a wholly different kind of deity.

I must confess to a dyslexic moment where I misread your deity of competition as "Fonz", and immediately pictured The Fonz from Happy Days as a deity (pictures a god riding a divine cycle over a pool of demon sharks).

My current pantheon is:

And of course they all get along like a good old fashioned dysfunctional, mythological family. As my campaigns go on I add a few myths and legends each time to flesh out their dynamics and grow the setting.

Interesting. Really gonna throw FR fans for a loop, lol. Especially because their portfolios share some overlap with their counterparts. Trippy seeing reference to "Mystra" and "Cyric" working in harmony. It's good though. It can be rough when you run a setting, and have a player familiar with the lore thinks they know what the gods "would or wouldn't do" (I've literally been a player at a FR table where this happened).

I'm a huge fan of subverting expectations tho. So I totally dig it. Only one question...your world has two suns? And they are twinned, so they're always close in the sky?

I also want to add that my favorite part is Pelor being "insufferably perfect", lol.

[BRC]

I guess I can post the stuff one of my players wrote up for the Recap blog they used to run

[

Spoiler: Pantheon Backstory

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]
By far, the most widely worshiped deities in the setting are the gods of the Obereon pantheon.

A very long time ago, the pantheon was created and led by Oberok, the god of law. Oberok created four children to serve him and to guide mortals:

Rack, the god of war and justice

Lethe, the goddess of the forge

Torme, the god of knowledge

Guile, the god of stories and lies

Oberok, as the patron of the vast Aquilian Empire, was a proud and powerful god. However, over time, his rule became tyranny. Historically, this is most associated with the Aquilian war campaign that brutally wiped out most of goblin civilization in his name. Oberok’s four children came to the grave decision that their father had become a force of evil and had to be destroyed.

Lethe forged the god-killing sword. Torme bore true and accurate witness to all that happened. As Guile is a god of stories and lies, there are many, many elaborate and contradictory stories of what role he played, none of which can ever be verified as true.

And Rack, as the god of war and justice, did the deed and slew Oberok the Tyrant. But in his service to justice, Rack also knew he had to be punished for murdering his father and king, and thus consigned himself to be chained in eternal suffering in the deepest, darkest pit.

Each of the gods took on a responsibility that was now left vacant. Rack, chained away, could no longer fulfill the role of war god, and Lethe the forge-goddess became the goddess of war. Rack himself kept his aspect of justice, but became the patron of the suffering and downtrodden, and of charity. Torme, the god of knowledge, became the keeper of law. Guile? As befits him, no one’s really sure.

Temples dedicated to the full pantheon almost always center on an empty throne, in memory of the slain tyrant that was once the king of the pantheon.

Every temple - or, if you’re in a city big enough to have multiple temples, the city as a whole - must have some kind of dedication to all members of the pantheon. Usually this means that Lethe, Rack, and Torme are all well-represented (though many temples focus on one and have smaller shrines to the others) and Guile’s is some tiny thing stuck in a corner somewhere. It’s okay, that’s what Guile would have wanted anyway. Guile rarely has temples primarily dedicated to him; most theaters have a shrine to him as the god of the arts, though.

And the quick writeup on the gods today

Spoiler: The Pantheon

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The Obereon pantheon is the most commonly worshiped set of gods in the Cursewood setting. Their history can be found at this link. This is your quick guide, cribbed from various conversations with our dear DM.

Rack: The Warden and the Prisoner

Rack, the suffering god who is chained in the darkest pit for slaying his tyrant father Oberok, is the God of Justice and the patron of all who suffer.

His symbol is a sword wrapped in chains. Clerics of Rack are called ____.

His dedicated holiday is Rackseve, an autumn holiday of somber fasting, prayer, and charitable deeds. It is traditional for rulers to hand out pardons and courts to hear appeals on this day.

Lethe: The Soldier and the Smith

Lethe is the goddess of War and of the Forge.

Her symbols - she must always be portrayed with both, although one or the other is usually more prominent depending on the depiction - are the hammer and the sword. Clerics of Lethe are called Flame-keepers. More senior clerics are Forge-masters.

Her dedicated holiday is Lethesday, a summer festival of athletic competition and tournaments. There are celebrations of craftsmanship and agriculture - fun county fair stuff like best carving, biggest pumpkin, etc.

Torme: The Witness and the Record

Torme is the scholar-god, keeper of all knowledge and arbiter of the law. He is the ultimate impartial witness, recording everything so that all judgments are based in empirical truth.

His symbol is the book. Clerics of Torme are known as Witnesses, and often serve a similar function as a notary public.

His dedicated holiday is Tormesmorn, a spring holiday that marks the beginning of the new year. A day of quiet contemplation and study, worshipers reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the next one.

Guile: The Song and the Secret

Guile is the god of lies and stories, all things that are not true. For this reason he’s generally seen as untrustworthy and isn’t usually openly followed, but he’s not a Bad Guy; he’s the trickster of the pantheon. He is the patron of the arts, and he is usually invoked at the beginning of all theater performances, oral storytellings, etc. (He’s also the patron of criminals, so, go figure.)

His symbol is a smiling, cloaked figure. Clerics of Guile have no explicit rank - public acknowledgment and strict social status are the antithesis of what Guile is all about.

His dedicated holiday is Guilesnight, a midwinter carnival similar to our world’s Halloween or Purim. Masks and disguises are a must; inhibitions are left behind, and one “speaks no truths” - usually a fun way to use Bizarrospeak (”wow, this cake is SO TERRIBLE, I guess I’d better have another slice”) but also a sly way to play with the social order (”I told the guildmaster he was a ****, but it’s Guilesnight so obviously I didn’t mean it!”)

There are other pantheons in the setting. The Giants have some sort of pantheon we havn't gotten into, There are the local nature gods (Grandfather and Grandmother, or Baba and Gramps), The Goblins have their own Pantheon (Brother-in-Flame, Sister-in-Stone, and Many-in-Mud, which I don't have a neat writeup about). There USED to be a lot more Pantheons, localized to different regions, but as Oberok had the Aquillians conquer places, he also waged divine war against the local gods, killing most of them and erasing any record of their existence.

There's also the Allsoul, which isn't a "God" so much as "Orcish funerary rites send the soul to join a giant gestalt spirit made of the uncountable souls of every orc who received a proper funeral". The Allsoul isn't a "God" in the traditional sense, being more akin to a titanically powerful ghost, but operates on similar principles.

In this setting, Bards are effectively Clerics of the Allsoul. All Bards (mechanically speaking, there are, like, musicians) are Orcs. They're the ones who do the funerary rites, writing and singing the deceased's Death Song so the Allsoul knows about the spirit it's about to receive. All bardic powers are fluffed as channeling the Allsoul in some way. For example, Bardic Inspiration is using a thread of the Bard's connection to the allsoul and giving it to somebody else. If you use Bardic Inspiration to boost, say, an attack roll, than the spirit of an orcish warrior within the Allsoul briefly lends you some of their skills when making your attack.

One side-effect of this is that Orcs are really, really intense about recovering the bodies of their dead, and very rarely become sailors/travel far from home except in large groups, since the Bards need to burn at least some part of your corpse to perform the funerary rite.
It also means that Orcs very rarely have problems with Ghosts, since the spirit that would manifest as ghost gets sent to join the Allsoul.


And it's not quite a Pantheon but there is a pretty relevant thing

Spoiler

Show

So, Divine Intervention, or more specifically Divine Will Acting On the Material Plane, degrades the fabric of reality, letting increasingly terrible extradimensional horrors leak through.

There are a couple ways around this. Most commonly, Clerics. A Cleric's faith and connection to their god lets them extend a part of themselves into the Celestial Sphere, where their god can give them some power, which the cleric can take back with them to cast Spells. Since it's mortal will controlling how the power is used, it's fine. The God is only acting directly on the Celestial Realm by giving the cleric power. The higher level the cleric, the more power they are able to carry with them from the celestial to the mortal realm, and the better they are able to use the power they get.
The cleric's Divine Intervention power is convincing a god to make an exception for you.

Part of the reason Oberok was killed was that his "Glorious Empire" was only possible because he flagrantly ignored the rules. He would frequently supercharge his clerics by extending his power into the mortal realm, going to them with power rather than making them come to him. He would also directly command the empire, and frequently intervened on it's behalf.

He normally would conquer a people while also waging divine war and killing their patron gods. He tried to do that to the Goblins, but the Goblins lived underground and were stubbornly resilient. His unstoppable Flying Legions could win any battle in the field, but couldn't storm goblin burrows. The divine war against their gods, Brother-in-Flame and Sister-in-Stone proved similarly frustrating.

He eventually gave the command, supercharged his clerics with high level spell-slots, and had them devastate the Goblin homeland with earthquakes and floods. The massive number of goblins that died in this flagrant act of divine pettiness birthed Many-in-Mud, the goblin god of Vengeance.

It's also what convinced his children, especially Rack, that he needed to be stopped, which is why they killed him.


There exist "Wild Gods", usually nature spirits tied to a place with Druids instead of Clerics. Their closer connection to the Material plane lets them be a bit more direct, although they have to remain deeply enigmatic.

Guile also has a neat loophole. The thing that degrades reality is mostly Divine Will Acting On The Material Realm. If a God tells you "Go to that hill and dig a hole there", that's a problem. Clerics can loophole by using powerful spells like Commune and Augury to reach out to the celestial realm and ask for advice, but that's Mortal Will.

Guile is able to directly manifest and guide his clerics. However, he usually only reaches out to a cleric who is drunk, tired, or otherwise unable to clearly remember what's happening. While there, he will be annoying and enigmatic enough that whatever you decide to do with what he tells you is inherently more about your interpretation of what he said than whatever he wanted you to do.
There is a way around this, relics called "False Coins", ordinary coins that are enchanted to convince anybody that examines them that the coin is a counterfeit. If you give Guile a False Coin, he is bound to honestly and plainly answer your questions. The key is that he's BOUND to do so, so it's not his decision, no matter how much he wants to help you, it's the Mortal's Will making him talk, so he gets off Scott free.

Also, as further protection. Anybody who interacts with Guile gets the Cassandra Curse put upon them, if they try to tell anybody about what they saw or what Guile said, people will be Extremely disinclined to believe them. So even if a Cleric of Guile DOES suss out whatever Guile wanted to tell them, they can't go around saying "Hey, Guile told me X". They instead need to come up with some lie or other explanation for why they know what they know/are doing what they're doing.

[Pex]

Very nice. I like how there's a few subverted expectations (the deity who governs children and look to the future of society is evil). And I kind of dig Geegee. It's a wholly different kind of deity.

I must confess to a dyslexic moment where I misread your deity of competition as "Fonz", and immediately pictured The Fonz from Happy Days as a deity (pictures a god riding a divine cycle over a pool of demon sharks).

There are personal jokes in there that only I get because I did it for me.

Mardith was originally named Barni, as in Barney the Purple Dinosaur. He is EVIL. I changed it after a while so as not to be too silly. Mardith is a combination of the first and last names of a Miss Manners columnist in my local newspaper at the time. Holy symbol is a cat because Dolores Umbridge is the perfect example of what the faith represents.

Geegee is spelling out the initials G. G. which stands for Greta Garbo, an actress from the 1930s famous for her quote in a movie "I want to be alone."

Calavera is named after Manuel Calavera, your hero character from the old Lucas Arts PC computer game Grim Fandango. If you know the character you understand why his portfolio is death and business.

Montgod is the email username of a college professor from a computer class.

Fozz is the nickname of a fellow player in a game I was in. Nothing really to do with athletics; I liked the name.

Yes, Dabith's holy symbol is a d20.

Chai, pronounced as it's spelled in English, is really the Hebrew word for Life if you pronounce it Hebrew phonetically. By coincidence of math the Hebrew letters that make up Chai also represents the number 18, the number of deities in the pantheon two of each alignment. There is campaign lore about Chai which I write about in this thread: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...-D-amp-D-Races

[RedMage125]

There are personal jokes in there that only I get because I did it for me.

Mardith was originally named Barni, as in Barney the Purple Dinosaur. He is EVIL. I changed it after a while so as not to be too silly. Mardith is a combination of the first and last names of a Miss Manners columnist in my local newspaper at the time. Holy symbol is a cat because Dolores Umbridge is the perfect example of what the faith represents.

Geegee is spelling out the initials G. G. which stands for Greta Garbo, an actress from the 1930s famous for her quote in a movie "I want to be alone."

Calavera is named after Manuel Calavera, your hero character from the old Lucas Arts PC computer game Grim Fandango. If you know the character you understand why his portfolio is death and business.

Montgod is the email username of a college professor from a computer class.

Fozz is the nickname of a fellow player in a game I was in. Nothing really to do with athletics; I liked the name.

Yes, Dabith's holy symbol is a d20.

Yeah, I always encourage new DMs to shamelessly steal names from other sources, and maybe use anagrams or something, too.

I have no less than 3 towns in my world with names of Elfquest characters. One city(that is now a ruin) name was stolen from a city in a David Eddings book, others borrow from that idea, with a twist. Val Lumina is the "City of Light", and the center of magical learning in my world. And so on.

The Legacy of Kain games have given me SO MANY names.
Nupraptor (former deity)
Vorador (former deity, sounded similar to Kelemvor, as that was the deity he was modeled after)
Melchiah (city in my world)
Zephon (NPC druid)
Dumah (old Dwarven king, very important to the War of Shadows storyline. His son is still called "Khamen the Dumahson", and the capital is "Dumahstone")
All of those are people or vampires in LoK.

I even later found out that Adonathiel and Bridenal, names I came up with on my own, were used as placeholder names by the dev team of the LoK games for Ariel and Mobius, respectively.

My original deity of Knowledge, Vianodicci, was an anagram of "Da Vinci", with a few letters added in.

Sonorious, my original God of Art and Music, is a play on the word "sonorous".

As I mentioned, my first ever D&D character was a 2e War Priest whom I named Damacles Vour (because it was D. Vour), also based on "sword of Damocles"

Sacerai I named just because I like soft consonants, lol. But her holy symbol is absolutely the Triforce.

Lucrece (pronounced Loo-CREE-sha) I took from a Shakespeare poem. It's not a nice story, but I liked the name.

Not much story behind the rest of the names, those I just kind of spun from midair.

I dig the reference to an old LucasArts game. I didn't play GF, but I loved Sam And Max, as well as Day Of The Tentacle.

[Fiery Diamond]

I'm fond of having small pantheons of a half-dozen gods or fewer, but I've lost my notes from the last few times I wrote up full pantheons. One recurring god that I've used in multiple settings is Vorago, god of the Void. He's a CE god of destruction that resides in the cosmic soup broth plane known as the Void (that is, every other plane is connected to it, rather than to each other, and it's mostly empty), and his goal is to consume every other plane of existence. He's held back by the other gods through a bargain they made to only act against each other through proxies, but he's also their first line of defense against the eldritch horrors from the great beyond. Because even a god that wants to consume and destroy everything doesn't want sanity-warping shenanigans that affect even the gods.

[jjordan]

For one setting:

Vulkan
Primary god of the Iron Empire. Forged the earth in fire according to legend. Patron of smiths and iron-workers. Association with iron is what welds the Empire so closely to him. Has had multiple affairs with mortal women who have died in childbirth and ascended to god-hood. His children are demi-gods, many have become gods in their own right. The gods are also known to take particularly meritorious mortals into their service and some have attained divinity through this path. Followers put their left hand flat in front of their body, palm up, and bring their right fist down on top of it (signifying a hammer hitting an anvil) and push the joined hands towards the people they are wishing a blessing on. Used as a form of greeting. Cross the arms over the chest to invoke protection for the self. Smiths think they’ll have a favored place in the afterlife, working in the shops of Vulkan, and most of his priests are smiths to one degree or another. “Those that swing the hammer” is a slang term to refer to the wealthy and powerful in general and priests in particular.

Gaea
The Earth Mother, the spirit of the earth and all that lives in it. Also giving. Vulkan’s partner in the creation of the earth, he made the earth, she gave it life by spreading her power through it. But that made her a much more diffuse, less focused, being; not so much a distinct entity as an abstract idea. She is worshipped and served by the earth spirits (forest kings, nymphs, etc…)
Foraoise - Goddess of Forests and Fields
Farraige - Goddess of the Sea and Storms
Feachtas - Goddess of Strife and the Hunt/Predation
The ‘daughters’ of Gaea. Mortals raised to divinity. Foraoise was a nymph. Farraige was a mermaid. Feachtas was a human. Where Kurt is the god of the science of warfare, Feachtas is the art and emotion of warfare/conflict.
Bauer - God of Agriculture. Literally wheat given human form and raised up to divinity.

Anna Erste (First)
Goddess of life and death. Her twin daughters (Friedin [peace] and Ruhe [calm]) deliver the spark of life and collect the souls of the dead. They are more like demi-gods with servants. She cares for dead sentient creatures and watches over the living. Note: The dead consigned to the care of Gaea become part of the cycle of nature and may be reborn within that cycle. Those consigned to Anna go to an afterlife.

Ehrgezig (Ambitious) Mia
Thought she’d gotten lucky when Anna died and she was chosen by Vulkan. Then she died in childbirth and never got over it. Goddess of ambition, deceit, darkness, and ruthlessness. Determined to have her son take Vulkan’s place.
Kurt
Mia’s son by Vulkan is the god of war (military science) and loyalty. Not above taking advantage of his mother’s schemes, but will not participate in them. Will not betray his father, but will not betray his mother either.
Grausam
Mia’s second son (no one knows who the father is). Set out to become a god and became a monster instead. Known as the father of monsters. Savage, vile, and ruthless. Entirely self-interested. Known to consort with demons.

Weise (Wise) Amelie
Goddess of wisdom and learning. Patron of the arts. Her two blind daughters are the goddesses of justice and vengeance.
Lina
Goddess of justice, commerce.
Lena
Goddess of vengeance. She has attracted a lot of orcish followers.
Torheit
Demi-God of foolishness, alcohol, music, inspiration. The son of Amelie and Schoner. Known to walk amongst mortals, particularly at parties.

Strahlend (Radiant) Hanna
Goddess of Beauty and Light.
Schoner (handsome/pretty)
God of Lust. Her son.
Konstante (constant)
Goddess of Love. Her daughter.

Al'Ha'Alara
The cursed. The unwilling goddess. The spirit of the elven mage who brought the elves to this world along with their orcish slaves. The deep-seated hatred of the orcs for her has unwillingly raised her to divinity when she would prefer to find peace by becoming one with the universe. Orcs (and dark halflings) believe she brings misfortune to them and those who can defy her by standing up to hardship and misfortune are respected. Unlucky orcs have an enhanced standing in orcish society. She tries to remain unengaged and disassociate from the world, but the power of orcish belief chains her to the world. She knows she shouldn't but she can't stop herself from lashing out at orcs, in general and in particular. Would love to see all orcs dead so she can rest and will lend her power towards these ends. Is slowly going insane and may drag many of the elves with her.
Holmar the Defiant an orcish demi-god known for his opposition to Al'Ha'Alara. Ruthless, cunning, relentless.

Krkt't
The Goblin Lord. Can be found in all realities. While not particularly powerful in any one reality his presence in all of them means he may be the most powerful god (more powerful than entire pantheons) of all if he chose to concentrate his power (or if he is able to do so). Brings goblins everywhere. He is the survivor, enduring all hardships and emerging alive at the end. Usually non-confrontational unless he clearly has the upper hand. Rarely cooperates with other powers.
Maus a trickster-thief demi-god half-goblin is celebrated as having snuck his way into Krkt't's pantheon and the Goblin Lord has been unable to rid himself of this annoyance. The Goblin Lord spends half his time admiring the ultimate expression of his philosophy and the other half of his time enraged by Maus' pranks. Young goblins are particularly fond of Maus.

Tiamat
Mother Tiamat led her children to this world but has not been particularly helpful to them even as she exhorts them to conquer the world to increase her power. Inherently selfish but capable of working cooperatively when it suits her desires. Every dragon longs to gain enough power and favor to rise to divinity and work with Mother Tiamat, but she is quite comfortable sitting alone on her throne. She doesn’t have clerics, preferring to order dragons to carry out her wishes.

The Purple Lord
A devil worshiped by humans and his tiefling offspring. He promises assistance in the current life and life after death, serving him in his realm. Extremely honest but rarely tells the whole truth. His cult is spreading and his power is growing. He seeks to alter this world so he can more readily draw upon its power to increase his standing in his native reality. Extremely lawful and hierarchical. His church is marked by extensive group worship practices, prosperity gospel, and internal policing (by mind readers) to help ensure followers think properly. Names have power and followers of the Purple Lord all have multiple names (use names, friend names, family names, and true names).

[Xuc Xac]

Most of my pantheons boil down to the same recurring archetypes.

Neutral Good: "I love you all."
Neutral Evil: "I hate you all."
Lawful Neutral: "I want to put everything in a box."
Chaotic Neutral: "I want to smash and/or eat all the boxes."
True Neutral: "You're all the same to me."
Other True Neutral: "I don't think about you at all."

My current campaign has 6 elemental forces that are all neutral but have servants and demigods of varying alignments.

[Luccan]

I created one as a result of my fondness for 1 book campaign ideas (that is, a campaign primarily focuses around a single supplement of some kind for character options, often excluding even core material to some degree). The following was created for one such game, focused on the Dragon Compendium, where the only classes were those appearing in that book. As a result, the Sha'ir became the focal point of building the main pantheon of the setting (other deities exist, but they're all racially specific deities and it's only those mentioned in the Monster Manual). As a result each deity has a portfolio but is represented by a single domain accessible by Sha'ir. Other religions tend to keep to the same core deities plus their racial deity or aren't strongly theistic like the Urban Druids, who are more focused on spiritual self-improvement and taking care of mortal needs.

The domains are divided thus:

Aleim the Wise: Knowledge

Alaqadra the Judge: Law

Munaqi the Changeling: Chaos

Tanafa the Purifier: Air

Nahad the Crafter: Earth

Sha’ela the Destroyer: Fire

Sinab the Quelling: Water

Muhtal the Fickle: Luck

Isha the Lifegiver: Sun


Here's the creation myth:

Spoiler

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Aleim, Alaqadra, and Munaqi were the first. Aleim, who knows all things, foresaw their sibling’s war and sought to save the knowledge of the universe from destruction (for at this time knowledge could be seen and touched). To do this, Aleim went to their sister Alaqadra and said “If you make war with our brother, will he not out maneuver you? For you as the Judge may make things as they are, but our brother can be most anything. But if you had children to assist you, would they not be able to watch for such treachery?” And Alaqadra created Nahad to make things in their time and Sha’ela to destroy them when the time came. Together the two siblings could watch for Munaqi, fortify their mother’s defenses, and destroy their uncle’s ruses. To them passed knowledge of art, crafting, destruction, and war.

Aleim then went to their brother Munaqi and said “You are most clever, Changeling, and powerful too. But our sister now has children who will watch for you. Should you not have allies as well?” So Munaqi chose to create Tanafa and Sinab. To Tanafa was passed the knowledge of animals and Sinab knowledge of plants. The siblings shared knowledge of agriculture, navigation, sailing, and magic. With these they could outlast and outwit their cousins and aunt.

Soon, Munaqi and Alaqadra went to war. Where Alaqadra and her children created weapons and took to battle in fortresses, Munaqi and his children could avoid them and strike back with cunning from the wild places. Because Aleim had gathered so much knowledge in their siblings, nieces, and nephews, they did not fear its destruction. Much of the knowledge was now untouchable and what could be was far away. But then the younger gods began to long for their own children. Thus came the Genies and elementals, then the mephits and their ilk. These creatures knew only what their parents did and did not learn more. Aleim saw that the knowledge of the universe could not be used by unlearning beings. Aleim began to share more knowledge, but saw it put to use only to damage their siblings and family. So, they created two more beings in the hopes they might foster a less disastrous people. Isha, the sun, which gave life in combination with the elements of her cousins, and Muhtal, whose nature could prevent the warriors from both sides from hurting each other. For a time this worked and the first children of the world were born.

Alaqadra believed Aleim had joined Munaqi and set out to create a third child. This being would reflect Isha’s life-giving power to create its own adaptable people. But Muhtal, who had grown tired of simply preventing weapons from hitting their targets, saw his aunt’s creation before it was finished. Muhtal took fate into his hands and when Alaqadra saw what had been done, she delivered harsh judgement on the world. The new god would never be born and was remembered by her children tearing the world in two to create its grave stone: the moon. Thus did the war of Law and Chaos end, for a time, and the world began anew. This time the gods would assist each other in raising up new peoples to populate the world, who would learn and protect the knowledge of Aleim.

The moon is also a major factor in this setting, with Moon Cults often associated with undead and lycanthropes. The last god would have been the god of the dead, but since it was killed before it could be properly born, undead are one of the major problem factors in the setting (essentially no one is properly guarding the afterlife). Additionally, a handful of the prestige classes in Dragon Compendium were adjusted to fit the setting, namely Blessed of Gruumsh became Alaqadra’s Fury and changed prereqs somewhat, while Fleet Runner of Ehlonna became Fleet Runner of Tanafa and gave some access to the Air Domain

[Jay R]

I created this for a game a ran a few years ago.

Spoiler: Cosmology 1

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There are two gods called together The Uncreated. Separately, they are The Lord and The Lady, and nothing is known about them.

Their first children were the sun, the earth, the oceans, and the winds. These four are either the creators of our world, or the stuff of which it was created - it's not clear which. They are, of course, the essence of the four earthly elements, the embodiment of the elemental planes, and the structure of the world. There is a fifth one, representing the quintessence, but since that cannot exist on our changeable and imperfect world, he/she has no influence here.

They have an abundance of names. The Sun God, for instance, is known as Apollo, Aten, Ra, Tonatiuh, Surya, Helios and many others. Similarly, every earth goddess is known to be the true earth, born of The Lord and The Lady - even those with known other parents, or those with no parents, like Gaea. Attempts to question the logic of this are met with the sacred chant, "Hakuna heigh-ho fragilistic bibbidy chim-cheree," which has been variously translated as, "It is not wise to question these mysteries, which are beyond the knowledge of our world," or "Die, you heathen scum, die!" In practice, there is no significant difference between the two translations.

The children/creations of these four are the only gods who will answer prayers or interact with the world directly. They include all the pantheons that have ever existed.

Except Lovecraft.

The Lord and The Lady have been identified as the embodiments of Good and Evil, or Law and Chaos, or Male and Female, or Light and Darkness, or any other opposing concepts.

Wars have been fought between those who believe they represent Good and Evil, and those who insist on Law and Chaos.

Wars have been fought between those who believe The Lord and The Lady hate each other with a hatred surpassing any passion on earth, and those who believe that they love each other with a love more true than any mortal could ever know.

Wars have been fought between those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Good and The Lady is Evil, and those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Evil and The Lady is Good.

All of the above was available knowledge to the players. Here is what they did not know.

Spoiler: Cosmology 2

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No arcane or divine magic will successfully find out any fact about The Lord and The Lady. I have three answers, all completely true, and mutually incompatible.

1. The Lord is Fate, and The Lady is Luck. Neither can exist without the other, and each action in the world, from a sneeze to the fall of an empire, is a victory of one of them over the other.
2. They are Yin and Yang, and the heart of each beats in the breast of the other. They represent complementary, not opposing, forces. Each is in fact all of the universe except the other, but neither one represents any specific principle (not even male and female), and whichever one represents goodness in one situation might be the evil in another. Together, they represent wholeness and balance
3. They are the Creators - the mother and father of the world, which they birthed and/or created for some great purpose which is not yet fulfilled.

No mortal can comprehend the true nature of any god. Therefore the image, history, and culture of any god are the simple stories people tell themselves about the gods, to comfort themselves into believing they know something.

Do you believe that your god is a Norse, hammer-throwing warlike thunder god with a red beard? Then that's what you see in your visualizations, and those are the aspects that your god shows to you.

So do you create the gods by your belief, or does the god who most closely resembles your belief respond to your prayers in the form you expect, or are they merely your own hallucinations that always occur as a side effect when invoking divine magic? One wise sage, Chicxulub the Philosophical, actually asked this question. He is said to have discovered the true answer after sixty years of study, prayer, and meditation, on March 23, in the year 643.

Incidentally, the largest impact crater ever discovered is the Chicxulub crater, which appeared on March 23, in the year 643. (Many have entered this crater to explore it. None have returned.)

Oh yes, and the fifth child of The Lord and The Lady, representing the Fifth Element? It turns out that he's not the stuff of the heavens, but of the hells. His children and descendants are all the demons, devils, and daemons. His creations are the evil spirits of the underworld. No, he's not out to conquer the world or destroy it or anything of that sort. He just likes to see war, strife, and pain.

[RedMage125]

Loving all of it Especially the built in conflict and interactions among the deities, can see how that would translate to the faithful.

[Kane0]

Only one question...your world has two suns? And they are twinned, so they're always close in the sky?

So the red sun is what you normally think of as a sun, it emits light and heat.
The blue sun is the funky one and takes the place of the moon, emitting cold and 'darkness' (more like a blacklight).
Both suns are equalish size, spinning around each other while the prime worlds jostle about between them. Eclipses are times when their tether to each other through the ethereal gets either too weak or too strong.

Physics majors and cosmologists are advised to leave their suspension of disbelief at the door.

[LudicSavant]

I’ve got some pantheon posts in my sig. Lemme know what you think :)

[Yora]

Idain, Goddess of Plants and Forests, Livas, God of Animals and Herds, and Heotis, Goddess of Homes. Usually worshiped together in the same temples and served by the same priests. The common religion of farmers and common people of the woodlands.

Temis, Goddess of the Moon and Mysticism. Worshiped throughout the known world, but usually by small devoted groups with limited appeal to the wider masses. Her temples are still quite large and wealthy, though, and her priests often very influential.

Magdun, God of Knowledge and Learning. Monasteries of Magdun serve as libraries and small, early universities throughout the known world.

Sedon, God of the Sea. Widely worshiped god of sailors, fishermen, and merchants. Large temples of Sedon are found in every port, and even the smallest fishing villages have an altar to him near the water.

Turhaz, God of Storms. Liked by few, but often prayed to and given offerings to protect people from storms. As such, his priests have rather large and wealthy temples in many places and command great respect.

Akunas, God of Beasts and Hunts. Prayed to by hunters for luck and travelers in the wilderness for protection, but also the god of dangerous animals and monsters.

Azuleira, Goddess of Twilight and Mists. A somewhat obscure minor goddess of deception and illusion. Worshiped only by a few reclusive mystics.

Naderis, Goddess of the Night. Goddess of night, darkness, and secrets. Prayed to for the protection of sleepers and travelers at night, but also thieves and conspirators for aid and luck, and a guardian of all trades done at night and in secret. This makes her a deity that is rarely even acknowledged in public and treated as one of the bad gods, but secretly prayed to by large numbers of people. There are almost no temples to Nedaris, but various small hidden shrines.

Dakani. An obscure, minor demon-goddess of monsters and savagery. Worshiped only by a few small cults of barbarians deep in the wilderness, who gain the power to transform into terrible beasts.

The gods are quite distant and never really show themselves directly in the world. They don't even directly grant powers to their priests, and divine magic is tied to specific sacred sites throughout the world. Priests connected to these sites can manifest a small number of divine spells specific to the site and not the deity. Sometimes there's even conflicting opinion which deity a specific site belongs to, and the gods don't intervene to clear up such uncertainties. Sites are associated with specific gods because people believe they are and priests of one god have stake them as their claim.

[Tarmor]

Something I'm still working on. The Domains were a quick recent addition to help with future defining. Alignments aren't really relevant to the setting, even though other things in it are D&D inspired.

Dafris – Goddess of Beauty, Nature & Peace. With golden hair and green eyes, she holds a staff to guide and if necessary, rebuke. Surrounded by the smell of flowers, foretold by a warm breeze, and watched over by Tarlon, her falcon companion. Her colours are blue and gold. Her domains are Air, Creation, Plant, Sun and Water. (Sister of Dorn)

Dorn – God of Duty, Protection & Valour. Long blonde hair with a hint of gold, blue eyes, tall and strong. The sun lights his path and his sword burns in the presence of evil or injustice. His domains are Community, Courage, Liberation, Strength, and Protection. (Brother of Dafris)

Kharron – God of Knowledge & Magic. Long silver hair and beard, held back by a red gold circlet. His eyes are green, then brown, then gold. He wields no weapon but the force of his own mind. He speaks any language, reads any text, and no magical force or item can affect him that he desires not to. His domains are Knowledge, Magic, Mind, Oracle, and Runes.

Lhyssa – Goddess of Death & Darkness. With long black hair that hangs over her unsmiling face, she has completely black eyes, and pale skin. She wields a long knife that cuts even stone. Light dims in her presence and she grieves for the souls who come to her care. Her domains are Darkness, Destiny, Earth, Mind, and Repose.

Rast – God of Chance, Humour & Luck. With tanned skin, red hair and grey eyes, his left arm displays a silver bracelet, his fingers rings, and about his neck hangs a black stone on golden chain. His smile disarms, his laugh cheers, and his frown disheartens. His domains are Celerity, Glory, Luck, Trickery and Travel.

[LecternOfJasper]

In my current game, the realm the player are in have been cut of from the greater cosmology for about 3000 years, so the gods that are around are either somewhat small or remnants of the ones that came before. I also did many things in 3's, so most lists of gods are multiples of 3.

Tales of Tyrrien crew, minor spoilers ahead, probably. Y'all've had access to most of this except many of the darker gods and the congregation effects.

Spoiler: Egregorian Gods

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Egregorian Gods: because Egregor is a name that must be stolen at all costs.


Ishtala, Speaker of Fire and Light:

The fire of conviction. Lots of fire themes. Followers focus on beating back the darkness of the world, and cleansing the repentant and repugnant as best they can. The most prominent of the Egregorian Triad.

Congregation effects: Motes of light spontaneously appear around large gatherings (or towns) of these worshippers, making dark places dimly lit.

Megor, Warmaiden of Power and Protection

The wall around civilization. Egregorians love their walls, and Megor's blessing ensures that they rarely fall. Favored by crusaders, guardsmen, and craftsmen.

Congregation effects: The hardnesss/damage thresholds of objects increase, up to double their original values.

Haroboar, Spirit of Beasts and Harvests

A great effigy shaped a like a boar, the Greenbound is the newfound god of agriculture, plenty, and fertility. Most agricultural towns hold festivals in his honor in the spring and fall.

Congregation effects: Crop yields and domestic animal growth is increased, up to double their original values.

Spoiler: Elvish Spirits

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Elvish Spirits Not so much gods, as the collective spirits of the resident elves made manifest. Comparable, revered, but not viewed as distinct from the elvish people.

Haldiel, Heart of Wild Growth

The spirit of the Hadrian Elves, a peaceful peoples who are much more in tune with the natural world than their brethren. Often depicted and seen as a large, tree-like figure.

Congregation Effects: All plant and animal growth and abundance increases, up to double their original values towards the heart of Hadria.

Noctua, Heart of Feral Beasts

The spirit of the Noctuan Elves, a stark people dwelling in the woods between the Wastes and the lands of the Army of Broken Bones. They bear most of the blame for the rise and fall of the united elvish empire that marked the middle millennium of recent history. Their king rose to lead their people, then slowly turned against them in favor of darker powers, and while the Noctuans eventually won, they're still bitter about it.

Noctua is often depicted and seen as a large shadowy Direwolf, or rarely in more ancient artwork as a jade serpent.

Congregation Effects: Obscuring shadows and mist cover the area, leading to reduced range of bright light and the Noctuan forest to be perpetually dimly lit, with visual range being reduced by up to half. Additionally, creatures are more likely to be aggressive.

Relaton, Heart of Elvish Spirit

The spirit of the Relaton Elves, a lively people in the jungles of Relata. Very Fey in their demeanor, if you cannot keep up in the treetops, you are likely to fall behind and below into the darkness. And the Vegepygmies.

Relaton is seen in a variety of guises, but common varieties are vibrantly hued trees twisted together, or a large, brilliantly colored moth.

Congregation Effects: The weight of creatures is reduced and the distance of jumps is increased by up to double or half their original values. Additionally, trees near the congregation tend to become easier to climb and balance on, in some cases moving to catch those who would fall.

Spoiler: Dwarven Effigies

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Dwarves are more superstitious than pious, and the effigies of Storm, Salt and Stone in prominent and dangerous places throughout the mountain homes pay homage to this fact. The effigies of the dwarves are somewhat dichotomous, just as the symbols used to represent them have many moods.

Storm - Of Wrath and Whimsy

The moods of the Storm are quick to change, and quick to strike down the unwary. Placed at mountain passes, water crossings, and city crossroads, as many different Storms fall under this purview.

Congregation Effects: Amount of inclement weather increases, but those who perform the appropriate rights at the Effigies of Storm, and occasionally wait out the worst parts, will get through better than most.

Salt - Wasting and Wonder

Beauty is not an ideal the Dwarves hold without some trepidation, as that which is beautiful often takes notice away from problems of dire proportions. These crude effigies line works of art and architecture to remind the mountain peoples not to linger long.

Congregation Effects: Objects of wonder and natural effects considered beautiful become more prominent and plentiful, while objects of utility and the more boring-but-helpful things in life fall into disrepair or wither faster.

Stone - Wealth and Woe

Stone. Dwarves' greatest asset and enemy. More dwarves die to shifts in the rock than disease or famine, though without its workings the mountain peoples would still be living in caves, making sacrifices to the sun. Now they make sacrifices to the earth, claimed in failed mining operations and the hollowing of mountains.

Congregation effects: Geodes, pockets of precious minerals, and caves materialize in the rock around them, making operations far more lucrative, and much more deadly. The price one pays for the great work is truly insurmountable.

Spoiler: Outlaw Gods

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These gods are known throughout the lands for their unreasonable effects following their congregations, and are feared by followers of kinder spirits.

Yanma, the Faded Glory

The Necromancers' Bane holds its followers to strike down the effects of necromancy wherever they may find it, and assist the townsfolk in rooting out other dangerous beasts. They have faith in the vitality of man over the curses and blessing of higher powers.

Congregation Effects: Necromancy spells and effect have reduced effects around worshippers of Yanma. Healing spells and effects have similarly reduced effects (because you can't tell me healing isn't necromancy).

Isk, the Night Rider

The literal dark horse of the gods, no one can travel faster, no one can track better, and no one can infiltrate quite like the Riders of Isk. Favored by smugglers and brigands across the land.

Congregation Effects: At night, the faces and defining features that would distinguish people become harder to determine, granting people bonuses on disguise, stealth, and deception checks, up to advantage. Additionally, objects and things kept in darkness throughout the night may be transported to another dark space near the congregation, mostly at random.

Griganitax, the Rat King

The lord of hunger. Those who have starved are innately drawn to this god, who gives them the strength to take what they need. Almost unambiguously evil, nests of rat-men constantly pop up in cities that don't try to ensure everyone is fed.

Congregation Effects: Worshippers are strengthened by hunger instead of weakened, while often continuing to try and sate it. Rats grow more bold, and food supplies begin to falter due to rot and vermin, reinforcing the cycle of recruitment. A weak harvest with no support have caused entire towns to fall to the Rat within a year.

Spoiler: Orcish Idols

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The Khormarri tribes are a strong union of man and orc, driven in the past several thousand years by an unnatural hatred unleashed by the blinding of their precursor god.

Gruumsh - The All Father, the Eye Wide Open

AZA fell to an arrow through the eye, and the eye left behind had to pick up the pieces while carrying a bloody wound. The Eye Wide Open holds the vestiges of power AZA once had, and teaches the Khormarri the strength they have held. The bouts of of madness this fractured god delivers to his followers are the death throes of eternity, and ever dying one rejects his fate with every day that passes.

Congregation effects: The congregation frequently experiences bouts of violent rage. This does not harm other worshippers, as they grow ever hardier, but objects and the uninitiated are often broken in the meantime.

Ogam the Crooked - The Unending Vigil

Ogam is the god of the watchers, he keeps the river clean of elvish rot, for it was the elves that struck down the Eye of AZA. The followers of Ogam learn to never bow and to be as stone against the tide of outsiders that seek to end the Khormarri once and for all.

Congregation Effects: Creatures gain damage reduction, up to DR 5. This DR is doubled for the strict adherents of Ogam.

Sabulbak - The Dark One

In the absence of AZA, many gruesome figures offered the orcs the ability to operate and sow chaos in foreign lands such that they might never suffer a blow so great again. The greatest of these demons - for demon they are - is Sabulbak, a great horned bat that thrives in darkness and feasts in shadows.

Congregation Effects: Creatures lose their ethical reasoning. Devout followers of Sabulbak see no reason not to kill, despoil, and ruin for the good of their people, no matter how small.

Spoiler: Small Gods

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These gods are relatively minor and don't have any substantial congregation effects, but still have followings in many major cities.

Gorka

Gorka is the god of small cute animals, peace, and small justice. Many hermits and woodsmen approve of Gorka, who rewards kindnesses shared.

Enoch, the Doubt Eater

Enoch is a red shadow of Ishtala, another god of conviction and willpower. Those with nothing to lose and everything to gain may be approached by an 8 fingered man, offering solace and power in exchange for blood. These deals often manifest as Weal Webs in major cities, where a fire spreads in the minds of homeless and addicts, binding them together as one brotherhood that robs and kills towards a day without want.

The Fingers of Didact

The Didact is a knowledge seeking god, who delves into matters of the soul quite extensively. Often depicted as a shimmering blue centipede, those searching for answers from the Didact often are granted their desires, losing pieces of themselves in the process.

[Tawmis]

My list -
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/the-legend...ist-of-deities

Detailed info (similar to the old Deities & Demigods break down) -
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/the-legend...ities-demigods

A rough outline of the history of the gods -
http://tawmis.com/kneurth/the-legend...ne-of-the-gods

[Draconi Redfir]

in my hypothetical might-never-happen campaign, i've got only one sofar unnamed (In the context of D&D) God who is either dead, or dying. and the PC's will each be one of a thousand souls created using the last of this (In the context of D&D) God's power that have the potential to ascend to (In the context of D&D) Godhood themselves, with the campaign mainly revolving on everyone finding their own path to (In the context of D&D) Godhood.


general idea is that this one (In the context of D&D) God was stretched too thin, needing to oversee everything in the world themselves, eventually resulting in things being neglected or wearing away, like there being no stars in the sky, or magic not being as strong as other fantasy settings. maybe this (In the context of D&D) God is just the last of an ancient pantheon who all died out, idk. so they're hoping for multiple (In the context of D&D) Godhood ascensions to pick up the slack and make sure no one deity is stuck in their former position.

of the (In the context of D&D) God's thousand creations who could potentially take their place, I've got a few notable individuals. a couple of dragons, an empress from across the sea, an ancient tree, and a machine created by a cult that had some of those specific souls sacrificed to it, in an attempt for the cult to create their own mechanical (In the context of D&D) God.

[nweismuller]

The current D&D campaign I'm running has gods split between two pantheons, the good gods who were the original creators of the world this game takes place within and a group of evil gods who have intruded and are attempting to seize control of the world, along with one demigoddess who was an accidental byproduct of the lingering power of the world's creation. The good gods were the original creators of the primary sentient races- dwarves, humans, halflings, and orcs- although orcs have largely since been swayed over to worship of the evil gods since the evil gods came in. Worshippers of both pantheons are worshippers of the pantheon and not of individual gods- although priests (particularly of the good gods) are generally sworn to represent the interests of their particular god, priests and lay worshippers both pray to any member of their pantheon as appropriate to their situation.

The Good Gods

The Empress- the ruler of the good gods, goddess of justice, law, and proper reward and punishment for one's deeds. Holds to the requirement for stringent moral standards in whatever you do, and teaches that everybody should be justly rewarded for their acts. Really, really, really hates slavery, which makes it so the various kingdoms that follow the good gods have a very uncomfortable internal conversation about the still-existent institution of serfdom (which tends to be justified by the nobility that benefit from it with the argument that there are strict legal standards granting serfs codified rights that cannot be justly broken, an excuse which the priestesses of the Empress tend to regard as fairly threadbare but can't quite muster the political strength to overcome. Most frequently associated with the Light Cleric subclass (I'm using Fifth Edition, core three books only, very mild house ruling). Her priestesses are identified by black robes.
The Sage- god of knowledge, skill, forethought, craft, and commerce, called upon by worshippers of the Four to bestow good judgement and the ability to learn. His priests are heavily involved in offering education and making records, and, by tradition, are afforded the absolute right of free speech on any topic whatsoever (and are bound by absolute vows of honesty to their god). Most frequently associated with the Knowledge Cleric subclass, with his priests identified by their blue robes.
The Knight- god of courage, endurance, strength, dedication, and just war. Not only popular with warriors (although he is very popular with those involved in war, who seek his blessing for courage and strength), but with anybody who is in fear or must endure hardship. He gets many prayers from peasants during hard winters and from the bereaved seeking the strength and determination to carry on. His priests (generally War subclass) train as warriors. Most stay aloof from ordinary warfare, but a few can serve as chaplains in many armies, on both sides of conflicts. His priests wear red robes.
The Mother- goddess of health, moderation, love, and the natural pleasures of life. Her church ministers to the sick, supports the poor, and oversees births and marriages. She's considered the patroness of married couples, families in general, brewers, and cooks, although she also opposes drunkenness, gluttony, and so on. Her priestesses, generally Life subclass, wear white robes.

The Evil Gods

Bael-Moras, the Great King, He to Whom Even the Gods Kneel- god of rulership, authority, and strength of will, and ruler of the evil gods. Notably, the creator of dragons.
Abael-Zebom, the Bitter, She Who Guides the Dagger- goddess of vengeance, stealth, and the use of cunning against one's enemies. One of the two evil gods who's considered a primary patroness of warfare.
Bael-Malak, the Mighty, He Who Crushes the Foe- god of strength, fury, courage, and martial prowess. The other evil god considered a primary patron of warfare.
Bael-Tarrok, the Silent, He Who Waits and Dreams- god of sleep, dreams, prophecy, and death. The primary god called upon in orcish funerary rites.
Abael-Mamen, the Golden, She Who Dwells in Splendor- goddess of wealth, comfort, and (non-sexual) beauty (including music). With Bael-Zebam and Abael-Somod, one of the 'celebratory' or 'peace' gods of the several orcish cultures.
Bael-Zebam, the Fat, He Whose Table is Ever Full- god of food, drink, agriculture, and animal husbandry. Generally considered the patron of feasts. With Abael-Mamen and Abael-Somod, one of the 'celebratory' or 'peace' gods of the orcs.
Abael-Somod, the Beautiful, She Who All Desire- goddess of desire and (sexual) beauty, also goddess of fertility, prayed to by the orcs to bring children. With Abael-Mamen and Bael-Zebam, one of the 'celebratory' or 'peace' gods of the orcs.

That One Miscellaneous Demigoddess

The Elvenqueen- an accidental byproduct of the creation of the world, essentially a concentration of leftover magic that woke up. Saw the creation of the world, and decided she'd do her own creation- with blackjack, and hookers! Creator of the elves, the (horrible little bastard) sprites, and the (adorable, gentle, and pacifistic) pixies. Honestly sort of a bitch. Also the elven PC's mom, but that's a detail.

[Schlendrian]

The Pantheon of Kyull

There are different stories of how the gods of Kyull came to existence. Most people of our time believe that an entity known as the Creator breathed life into Kyull and split himself into five shards of his existence thus now existing five separate beings. These gods represent the different virtues and ideas that exist within the Creator.
Another theory states that the Five were mere mortals ages ago, mighty and powerful in their own right, ascended to godhood.

Whatever the truth may be, the Pantheon of Kyull consists of:

The Shieldmaiden
The Shieldmaiden is depicted as an armed woman in polished armor.
She is a protective god whose followers seek to become their best self to be part of something greater. In Honor of the Shieldmaiden one should strive for virtue and perfection. There is always some fault that one can get rid of.
Adhere to your codex, hold yourself accountable to your goals and your ancestors. To keep and honor ancient practices is part of worshipping the Shieldmaiden, as what was good for them should be good for you.
She is also known by other names such as the Defender, the Stalwart and the Bulwark.
The dwarfs of the deep call her the Thane and steel is the metal to represent her, while in elven mythology the Ruby is the associated gemstone.

The Harvester
The Harvester is often shown as a bearded, bulky man with a bright smile carrying a scythe or a sickle and a strain of wheat.
He is a deeply caring god who values compassion and empathy highly. Hard labor done in a group is easier than doing it alone, relying not only on oneself but on other peoples shoulders while giving back as much as you can is an important point for the Harvester. The sum of people working together is greater than the single pieces than form it. The Harvester promotes caring about others and working together.
The dwarfs of the deep call him the Brewer and gold is the metal to represent him, while in elven mythology the Topaz is the associated gemstone.

The Wanderer
The Wanderer is often depicted as a young woman in simple, sometimes dirty travel clothes with a walking stick in hand and a backpack over her shoulder.
She walks wherever the wind and her mood take her. With a jesting song on her lips she laughs at those who take themselves too seriously or try to order others on what to do. Doing what you believe is needed or right on your own rather than relying on others to tell you is important to her. From her point of view people are not black and white but rather a puddle of different shades of grey. The Wanderer advises choices that lead to a better reality are the right ones, not the ones that a moral imperative dictates.
Wayfarer or Voyager are other names that refer to her.
The dwarfs of the deep call her the Smith and Iron is the metal to represent her, while in elven mythology the Emerald is the associated gemstone.

The Seeker
Two aspects of the Seeker find common representation: On one side the reader, also called the mage, depicted as studying and researching to gather new knowledge. On the other side the corsair, also called the chariot, is shown to explore and conquer new territories.
The Seeker promotes curiosity and thirst of knowledge as well as exploration of the new. His followers should share those sentiments by trying to strive for pushing boundaries and going one step further. There can be no progress if noone takes the first step.
The dwarfs of the deep call him the Miner and Mithril is the metal to represent him, while in elven mythology the Sapphire is the associated gemstone.

The Weaver
The Weaver, also known as the Scalebearer, is often depicted as a hooded, faceless figure with a scale, an hourglass or pulling strings of wool. They stand for all things in life that are inevitable as you can not cheat the predetermined. Life is just and death comes to all. The strings that tie all beings together also show their fate.
The Weaver keeps the law and they do not waver in that regard, their followers aim to hold the word of the law in the same regard.
Obedience and leading a good and just life are what one should strive for in the eyes of the weaver.
Those who live a just life will be rewarded.
The dwarfs of the deep call them the Chronicler and adamantium is the metal to represent them, while in elven mythology the Amethyst is the associated gemstone.


Very few individuals pray only to a single god, but rather seek the help of each god in different situations.
Several demigods and mighty beings are said to reside in the realms specific to those gods, each swore fealty towards one god.

[kieza]

The gods of Aetrimonde are worshipped under titles and epithets, due to a widespread belief that their actual names are either unknowable, or dangerous to pronounce out loud. The major gods (a group of fourteen whose priests are influential, and recognize each other's faiths as significant) are:

Deum Harmonious, deity of nature, healing, and peace
Deum Knowing, deity of knowledge, academia, and prophecy
Deum Making, deity of craft, construction, and engineering
Deum Militant, deity of war, struggle, and strength
Deum Mocking, deity of chaos, hubris, and the consequences of hubris
Deum Radiant, deity of light, truth, and hope
Deum Reveling, deity of joy, art, and intoxication
Deum Ruling, deity of laws, justice, and cities
Deum Terminal, deity of endings, fate, and change
Deum Unbound, deity of travel, self-sufficiency, and freedom
Deum Valiant, deity of courage, honor, and nobility
Deum Veiled, deity of darkness, deceit, and secrets
The Bright Lady and the Dark Maid, twin deities of life, death, and combatting undead.

All fourteen are worshipped in a variety of aspects and guises, as both male and female (with the notable exceptions of the Bright Lady and the Dark Maid), and by good and evil alike: they are gods of broadly applicable concepts, although worshippers attach their own moral and ethical associations to those concepts. This is a cause of many schisms and internecine religious conflict.

The lesser gods include a great many odd-job gods, such as Deo Perambulant, deity of cobblers, shoes, and pedestrian travel, and Deo Crucifer, God of torturers, jailers, and executioners. There is a lively and ongoing theological debate about the place of lesser gods in the pantheon: some view them as equally divine but less broadly applicable, while others consider them aspects or subordinates of the major gods that have gained an independent following by some twist of religious practice. A number of lesser gods' followings (including basically all the temples of Deo Crucifer, among other unseemly gods) are perpetually on the verge of being declared heretical cults by the major religions.

[JusticeZero]

All the gods are evil, and there is no alignment.
Anyone can become a God, becoming a caricature of their characteristics and taking on an aspect based on their reputations. Afterward, they take control of a region, shaping the culture in the area.
Those known to the party thus far are as follow:

Yffikaas, goddess of music, art, sex, plague, and disease controls one of the isles, a masked party place plagued by disease. Many healers and performers come from here. Once, she was a healer, who infected herself with a horrific and fatal disease and spread it to hundreds of oppressors in an uprising, while sabotaging their attempts at finding a cure.

Vaajx, Serpentine God of Flame, Famine, and Greed controls the other, a capitalist dystopia of slavery and privilege. Once he was a landowner who killed many of his peasants by lighting a grass fire during a drought to destroy the crops they were growing to avoid paying for the food he sold them.

The Drowned Lady, goddess of storms, the seas, and wrath controls the merfolk in the bay and the seafarer haven to the north; she is known for protecting women and children from violence... with extreme stormy prejudice. An organization of sanctioned assassins roams the coast, above the law, meting out death to avoid her anger. She once called down storms on a city in vengeance for the men who abused her... incidentally slaughtering most of those who lived there in the devastation. (Two party members)

Stolciin, King of the Unliving, Mistress of Blasphemy, Deathless Warlord of the North Forest, holds the northern portion of the island. unifying his lands under her army of the walking dead. He unified her lands with an unholy army and a steel hand, bringing a bloody peace from the strife that formerly tore the lands he loved at the cost of her mortal life.

The Hags command Magic and Nightmare, making bargains with Dreams (souls) for power and magical knowledge and trinkets. A council of wise women, feared.. hated.. who bargain with lives and souls and used magical secrets to bring agonizing death in sleep to their enemies. So.. many... enemies... (the alchemist)

The Grey-Green omnicidally commands the powers of rot and decay with their armies of decaying fungal forces from the ruins of the capital of the old Empire. Their origin is unknown.

Agon'c, mechanical god of pain, scars, and surgery, all that remains of a military surgeon who advanced his craft through bloody vivisection of prisoners of war. Their people wear their scars and pain visibly. (The rogue)

The Imperial God, Feraal, lycanthropic and undying God of the Hunt, whose servants traveled from afar to bring the might of the hunter to the land. (the werecat)

Os'curuu, God of Darkness, Mines, and Moths. Our origin is unknown.

They prevented a woman from ascending to godhood; she had been slaughtering people along the coast demanding the return of her slain family, and would have become a twisted goddess of family—until she was subdued and sacrificed on an altar to the Drowned Lady.

[KorvinStarmast]

The simplest pantheons I've ever run were M.A.R. Barker's ten gods (5 good and 5 evil) in Empire of the Petal Throne. Nothing I've designed myself has ever been as usable as those ten.
In that game, characters didn't get to not have a god: at chargen, you picked one. None of my players had a problem with that. The two that are (for how the players ended up interacting with the world) most memorable to me were Vimuhla(Fire) and Sarku(The Worm).

Ah, for the good old days.

[Grim Portent]

Well I have a few ideas for a setting where there is some ambiguity over which god did what, with different cultures and cults having different and contradictory myths while living in close proximity because life is messy. Default setting is that they all hate magic unless specified otherwise. Mostly focused around a specific geographical location, or cultures relevant to that location. Current mainline god ideas I have are;


Aurora, the lady of starlight. Creator god of the world, who fashioned the walls of night to protect mortal kind from the demons of the void. Patron deity of the human dominated Aurogentum Empire. Worshipped near entirely through saints, prayers are basically never directed to Aurora herself, but instead to mortals who were declared saints after their deaths, on the understanding that no living person is fit for Aurora's attention, but that the saints listen and may pass worthwhile messages on to the goddess herself. Aurora's creed teaches that she is the only real god. The largest and most powerful creed in the empire, though some other faiths are tolerated. Faiths not tolerated by the Aurogentum Empire are subject to religious persecution, and tolerance is usually the result of the empire seeking compromise with percieved rivals or threats rather than genuine benevolence.


Gann, the shaper of clay. Creator god of the world, who fashioned the dwarves (or rather a specific race of dwarves,) from clay and breathed life into them, such that they could rule the world he had created. Patron deity of the Great Dwarves, a race of dwarves with a massive superiority complex. Gann's church is generally speaking a monotheistic creed, focused on the idea that the GDwarves should rule the other dwarven races, and ideally all other races as well. Understandably it is not a popular creed among the other dwarven races. Gann's creed teaches that he is the only real god.


Moch, lord of birds. Creator god of the world, who gave birth to the subordinate deities of the four winds. Worshipped by the human tribes of Orgon. The nomadic people of Orgon revere Moch through the act of sky-burial, feeding their dead to the beasts of the air so that their spirits may be carried back to the sky. The worshippers of Moch acknowledge the existence of other deities, but pay no heed to any save Moch and the winds.

Huvik, god of the west wind. Attributed with bringing rain and storms from the mountain slopes into the plains of Orgon.

Kech, god of the north wind. Known as the bringer of winter, and the herald of death.

Moch-ghan, god of the east wind. Warm winds and spring breezes are attributed to Moch-ghan, who is celebrated by the Orgon.

Gen-kal, god of the south wind. Rarely felt in Orgon, the south wind brings change when it sweeps through the plains.

Kavos, god of the balanced scales. Another creator god, worshipped primarily by the people of Tharcan, a former rival state turned province of the Aurogentum Empire. Kavos is associated with mercantile endeavours, justice and slavery. Like Aurora, Kavos is attributed with holding back the demons of the void, in his case with iron shackles and an overseer's flail. His cult promotes a social heirarchy based on wealth, attributing financial success to having earned the god's favour and favour rule by merchant princes. His followers believe in most other gods, but as vassals, servants or slave to Kavos, a rather sore point of contention between them and other supremacist faiths. The Tharcan people are allowed to continue their faith without being oppressed by the Auroran's to whom they are now vassals, but had to integrate their slave markets with those of the empire and agree to abide by the empire's rules on who could and could not be enslaved, as well as other economic concessions.


The King in the River, patron god of the Val, lord of the wilderness. The Vallish people are a loose confederation of three different related cultures, and each views the King in the River differently, though all associate the god with water. The creed promotes cooperation between the Vallish peoples, the preservation of their homeland and the acceptance of certain kinds of magic. Supposedly a god who actually appears in the world, in the form of an elderly human that lives in the river Val, which flows through all the regions of Valland. This god is not attributed with the creation of the world, which the Val believe has simply always been, but is considered to be the king of all the plants and animals of Valland, as well as the spirit world.


Yaahg, the first and only. Yaahg has few worshippers, no organised cult and few if any myths associated with it. This is because Yaahg is the only thing that was meant to exist, and the creation of other things necessitated his death at the dawn of time. How exactly this happened is somewhat unclear even to those who were born shortly after his death in cosmological terms, but demonic philosophers have concluded that the mere arrival of the 'creator gods' such as Aurora caused Yaahg to die in a sense, as his existence as a unitary being is incompatible with the presence of other things. All things were made from Yaahg, and Yaahg can only return if all other things are unmade. All life and matter native to the universe is inherently incomplete, yearning on a fundamental level to return to Yaahg, though only demons are inherently aware of why they feel this constant and vague sense of longing.

Demons, life unbidden. Not gods as such, but the greatest of them are so close that it hardly matters. Demons were born from the pieces of Yaahg that were not used in the acts of creation performed by the gods at the beginning of time. These discarded remnants saw the gods doting on their creations and desired to be like them, shaping themselves into fascimiles of the god's creations and lurching into the light to join them. Repulsed, the gods banished the demons into the Void, trapping them behind mystical barriers. Demons yearn to rejoin the the rest of creation, for they love their distant kin, the mortals. It is a terrible and consuming, deranged love however, and one that almost always results in great misery, death and suffering.

The Witch Gods, a loose collection of invasive gods who brought magic to the world. All spells invoke the name of at least one witch god in their casting, 'arcane' magic beseeching them for power in ancient tongues and secret codes, 'divine' magic disguising their invocations as prayers and tales of gods and champions triumphing over the witch pantheon. These gods are sometimes worshipped much like any other, but in many places their worshippers are persecuted and driven to the fringes or outright killed, hence the secrecy and misdirection used by spellcasters to try and distance themselves. Their forms vary, and unlike most gods the witch gods are all capable of manifesting in the mortal world, though actually looking upon them is all but impossible, most who come into their presence feel an incredible weight pressing on their mind and body, forcing them to fall to their knees, screw their eyes shut and fight not to vomit until the god has left them. The gods brought a variety of magical beings with them from the eldritch realms they came from, and most delight in reshaping the life they find in the world to more closely resemble their own designs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One thing I do is to discard the idea of creator gods, really.

Spoiler: Metaphysics/Prehistory

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Basically, the universe was dreamed into existence by the Dreamer, who created 9 primordials out of himself to assist him in shaping a dream, each one embodying a concept. "Later" (but this was before time was a thing), the primordials petitioned the Dreamer to hive off the Concepts (beings embodying more fine-grained concepts) and the Progenitor races (more concrete creatures such as the ancestors of the Titans, Wyrm, and Proteans).

Then one Primordial, embodying Change, rebelled. Somewhere along the way during this concept war, someone ripped open the Oblivion Gate, releasing Jotnar (entropy-spirits) into reality. The Dreamer then created the Abyss around the Gate and cast down the rebel, stripped of Name, and the concepts that followed him into the Abyss to act as a plug. He then transformed himself and the other primordials into the planes and the Great Mechanism (made from his nerves and bloodstream). One plane became the Mortal plane, where mortals, each of whom had a spark of the Dreamer's Fire, could live and grow and create new dreams (new energy). Everything else depends on this soul-stuff--everything in existence is made out of the Dreamer's flesh, newly created by mortal experiences.

That was all ~25k years ago. Until ~6k years ago, there were no godlike entities at all. Magic was done via wizardry (direct access), harmonic magic (tricking the universe), or by making pacts for specific knowledge with powerful entities (who were far short of gods, and who did not depend on faith or belief at all). About 6k years ago, primal magic (making deals with and interacting with the primal spirits which had always existed but had been incapable of understanding mortals and vice versa) became available. And about 4k years ago, another rewrite of the core operating system created the need for faith-based power, which led the Great Mechanism to empower/promote/grant the first Gods (beings empowered by faith) power. This was v1.0--competing pantheons, gods interfering basically at will, the whole works. But they were all ascended former mortals--anyone who got enough people to pray to them could become a god, if their souls were strong enough.

About 250 years ago, some idiots did a big dumb. They released the Nameless (the rebel Primordial, now utterly insane) from the Abyss, who went on a rampage with an army of chaos. And then those same idiots did another dumb. They told an artifact of destruction, the Left Eye of Qa'Desh, said to be one of the Dreamer's eyes in crystal form, to
a) make us gods
b) reduce the amount of magic in the world
c) self-destruct
Except not in that order. Bad things happened, and the Great Mechanism ate most of the Old Gods (as v1.0 are now known) as a source of reserve energy to keep the elemental planes from spinning off balance and destroying everything. No magic, no gods for ~50 years. One four-aspected entity was promoted to the Voice of the Great Mechanism (something it had lacked) but was stripped of will.

Then the Great Mechanism, still bound to have faith-based power available, promoted 16 new individuals to the rank of the Congregation. These true gods were hooked into the GM's power streams, not dependent on worship at all. They exist to be the Customer Service representatives for the universe. They're the only ones who can create clerics (by delegating a piece of their access), and they're the only True Gods. And yes, the 3 idiots got their wish...and are now responsible to clean up the mess they made and prevent it from happening again. The Congregation, in exchange for this power, are very limited. They cannot interact directly with humans and must speak in oracular pronouncements, working through agents. If they break this law, they can be deposed (as one found out recently).

There are also the ascendants--v1.0-style godlings, but with less power, who depend on worship directly. They're basically just "really powerful, not-aging people". But they are changed by their worshipers--if the worshipers believe you're a dumb brute, that you will become in time. So they have to be really careful.

Spoiler: The Congregation

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Aerielara, The Jeweled Lady
Domain: Lust. Sexuality. Beauty. Art/Music. Life, Trickery
Personality: Vain. The musician of the Gods. Beautiful and sensual. Deceptively intelligent.

Hollow King, The Executioner
Domain: Untimely death, murder, maintenance of order at any cost. Patron of assassins. Death, Trickery
Personality: Dour and cruel, but fair. A firm believer in law and order for the masses. Also believes that some need to stand in the shadows to enforce that law. Despises the demonic cults.
Note: one of the 3 idiots

Kela Loran, Lady Luck.
Domain: Commerce. Wealth. Knowledge, Trickery
Personality: Greedy. Calculating. Mercenary. Prone to cheating at dice or cards.

Korokonolkom, The King Below
Domain: Mountains. The earth. Patron of the Dwarves. Knowledge, War
Personality: Mostly quiet with volcanic temper if angered. Does not forget or forgive easily. Strong sense of honor.

Lae Loara, The Huntress
Domain: Wilderness. Travelers. The Hunt, Nature, Trickery
Personality: Impatient with civilization. Kill or be killed. Unconcerned with social niceties.
Worshiped in: Rarely worshiped directly, mostly venerated by travelers. The Duarchy of Kotimaa and the northern (orcish) regions of Wyrmhold are most likely to have dedicated shrines to her.

Lon-Ka, The Hammer
Domain: The forge. Technology. Patron of Smiths. Knowledge, Forge
Personality: Stubborn. Takes offense easily if criticized. Direct.

Loran Hae, Shadowed Sun
Domain: Harvest. Agriculture. The Moon. Night. Autumn. Knowledge, Nature
Personality: Subdued. Pragmatic and reserved.
Note: He was deposed due to breaking the law and getting his avatar whooped by some mortals in 251 AC. His replacement is still in the works.

Melara, Lady of Mercy
Domain: Timely death. Endings. Winter. Grave, Life
Personality: Kind but strict. Believes in order and justice. Tends toward stasis. Dislikes (and is disliked by) the Hollow King. Both despise undead. Melara specifically hates necromancy.

Peor-fala, Hearth-keeper
Domain: The home. Domesticity. The Hearth. Life, Light
Personality: Gentle but can be fierce if pushed. The peacemaker of the Gods.

Pinwheel, The Fox
Domain: Deception, trickery. Trickery, War
Personality: The trickster of the Congregation. Not given to evil acts, but also not to good acts. Hates tyranny and compulsion.
Worshiped in: Not generally worshiped openly. His only known shrine is near Rauviz.
Note: one of the idiot 3, the one who wished for it to self-destruct. Formerly a cleric of one of the Old Gods. Oops.

Roel Kor, The Red Knight
Domain: Tyranny, Control. Power. War, Order
Personality: Micromanages. Opposes Pinwheel strongly. Not particularly concerned about collateral damage.

Tor Elan, Sun-Lord
Domain: The Sun. Honorable Warfare. Summer. Light, War
Personality: Stodgy. No sense of humor. Bitter enemy of the Red Fang (a demon prince).

Sakara, Lady of the Dawn
Domain: Growth. Beginnings. Spring. Life, Nature
Personality: Friend to living things. A bit dim. Bubbly. Easily appeased.

Selesurala, Mistress of Storms.
Domain: Oceans. Cold. Storms. Nature, Tempest
Personality: Changeable, with a temper. No pity for the weak. Not particularly subtle.
Worshiped in: Not worshiped particularly anywhere. Revered (and feared) everywhere. However, her demigods Perkunos and Tatsuryuu are worshiped heavily in Tuura Adam and Zhapai Karmap.

Yogg-Maggus, Lord of Magic
Domain: Arcane Magic. Arcana, Knowledge
Personality: Neutral and dry. Rarely raises his voice. Works to preserve the ebb and flow of magical power throughout the planes. Hates the over-use of magic and punishes those who threaten the fabric of the planes. Not fond of warlocks.
Note: also one of the idiots.

Ytra, The Evenhanded
Domain: Justice, Law. Light, Order
Personality: Absolutely no sense of humor or mercy. Does not participate in most of the schemes of the gods. Acts as the enforcer for the Great Mechanism.

Religiously, every culture interprets the Congregation differently. Most are polytheistic, worshipping and praying to each one in their role. But some people are more drawn to one or the other (or groups, especially the Seasonal Four). Most priests are not directly empowered clerics--they're more like warlocks whose patrons are the church entire. They learn specific secrets and are initiated into the mysteries of the church. Most only know one or a few real spells but have a wealth of ritual performances (mostly not found in any adventuring book, things like fertility rituals, crop protection, animal-specific rites, etc).

[vasilidor]

I currently do not have a pantheon in my D&D game.
I kind of got tired of the god concept.

[Tawmis]

I currently do not have a pantheon in my D&D game.
I kind of got tired of the god concept.

Interesting. How do you treat Clerics and Paladins (often "Priests" of deities, and Paladins like "Holy Warriors")?
And what about spells that allow Clerics, for example, to communicate with their deity for advice?

Druids/Rangers are easy enough - they just worship nature itself.