So I’m building a pantheon of Gods/Goddesses/Divine thingamagigs, and I’m wondering if I’ve left anything significant out. First understand that Divine beings are not inherently good or evil in my story, it’s more of a status.These are just mostly their names and titles, maybe short descriptions. Each one actually have at least a paragraph (or three) write up. Sherin’doh Keeper of the Dead Noir Cygne, the Divine Axiom, the Truth Speaker Ahlin Player of the Song, she represents Joy, Festivals, Wine, Art, and of course Music Castle, of the Infinite Fortress, he represents Protection and Sanctuary Ginnaree of the Limitless Plains, she represents Benevolence and the Harvest Heidrig the Lone King, represents Solitary as he is always found alone, but also Hope for those who strike out alone to seek something greater. Raythel the Worldly, represents youth and self-discovery. Often also associated with sexuality and “foolish adventure” Karinjarr of the Circle, He represents Justice and Revenge Law, of the Divine Court, Law is, well... LAW Kinnaree Keeper of the Kiss Represents Lust and Desire Mulus The Traveler represents Charity and Fortune (both good and bad) Sola of the Way, represents Wisdom Jenavive Red Cloak, she represents the Hunt. Be the hunt for food, or for your enemy Emmeron, God of Sky aka the Sun God Pathanos The Winter Lord Ciridale the Collector, shrouded in secrets and mystery, Ciridale is a goddess of lies, half-truths and shadows. Thouak of the Pain Halls, represents Hatred and Rage Maginjarr of the Great End, it represents Destruction and Rebirth Fel'maydune of the Abyss, is Despair Gorg of the Shimmering Seas is the “Nice Sea God” Krakkafix the Abyssal is the “No so Nice sea god” Why two sea gods? The sea is big. Tepish Archon of Valor Crisatalus the Broken, represents Loss, Sorrow and Morning Sharanha, Keeper of the Flame. Hope, even the Divines need hope Cassie of the Forge That’s pretty much it. Did I leave anything obvious out?
For the most part I think you're set. I don't know how your mythology works, but in classical mythology, there are important gods and goddesses for hearth/home and childbearing/rearing. Also, a Trickster god is a common trope.
It looks pretty comprehensive to me but really it's up to you to decide what aspects are covered and what people in your work worship. The Greek Pantheon (at least in terms of the primary Olympian gods) was more limited than what you've put down here, but it worked fine and lots of minor elements were assigned to minor gods as needed. The real question is what is important to the people in your world, what elements or traits dominate them, and then how are those personified. Honestly the only really big thing I see you leaving out that occurs in most major pantheons is a fertility/motherhood figure. Your sexuality goddess is a youthful virginal figure, so you really don't have anything associated with reproduction, which was a big deal (if not THE big deal) in most major ancient polytheisms - a lot of which boiled down to the basic aspects of rep0pulating the human race and making sure the crops grew.
http://www.angelarium.net/ ^ cool stuff. If you ever need some inspiration, this is a good starting point.
Just a question, are they actual entities or purely mythological in the setting? This pantheon would work in the latter case, but I do not see it working if they are real. Not seeing a deity of peace/mercy/forgiveness.
They where all real at one point in the history. But then the world ended killing most of the gods and drastically changing how their world and indeed how their universe worked. Emmeron useto literally be the sun, when he descended to do some smiting it would become night time, and the entire world shared a day night cycle. It was weird times. When the world ended, Emmeron sacrificed himself to create a "true sun" so that life could continue. peace/mercy/forgiveness, Good call, I should make some of those, or maybe just an all in one. Those three are rather the same ballpark, just different bases in the same sport. Not sure I'd call Raythel a virgin... or even a she, or a he... that's the thing about that one... But you make a good point about the child birth bit. That one I'll need to stew on. The god of creativity and whimsy, is a bit of a trickster. But then so is Raythel, tried to bribe Law with sandwiches so he/she could sneak a mortal into the divine plain. Raythel in general tends not to take much seriously... and often breaks the rules.
Not seeing an arts/creativity/music God either. Not super important, but in Greek mythology, Apollo was pretty wildly known because of those.
Pfffft! Looks like I forgot to mention her (how do I do that, she's #2 on the list) Ahlin Player of the Song, she represents Joy, Festivals, Wine, Art, and of course Music I'm sorry Ahlin... I forgot about you!
Gods represent the values of a culture and or society. Work out what is important, revered or reviled in your fictional culture and plan your pantheon accordingly. Dont just substitute Greek/Norse/Egyptian (and so on) gods for your own. Why should we be interested in the same old catalogue of gods we've already encountered in the cultures of our own world? What sets your gods apart? So far, nothing. Let me give you a challenge. Work out five concepts important to your culture. Five of the most important things that your culture reveres or reviles. Use these five concepts to conceive five major gods. And I'm being super generous with five. If you do this I'll give you the next step in the challenge. Of course, it's it's too much work you can always ignore it
I can't quite tell if you’re trying to be helpful or just conceited. You make a pretty bold statement that I’ve basically plagiarized god pantheons knowing only their names and representations and I don’t appreciate that. Theology was actually one of my majors and that statement makes me question just what you think I’m pulling from. It’s very easy to argue that anything that is written today can be inspired from something else. Maybe the goal was to create a pantheon of gods that was relatable and not too far left field? I’d guess you don’t care. As for you thinking you’re doing me a favor by "being super generous with five." To be honest I don’t remember asking you to set me up a challenge. I think I was asking if I had left something obvious out. I’d like to understand what you think you’re trying to do here, but honestly you just came off in a very negative way to me.
I notice you don't seem to have a god/goddess of nature. This one is usually fairly important as they govern wildlife and woodland. Also you have a god of the sun but not one of the moon - these typically go hand in hand. you could incorporate nature and the moon as one goddess.
Looks like you've covered most of the bases although I would add a few little nitpicks: No god of love? Or even of fertility? That's typically important to most early civilizations and it feels a bit strange to me to have two gods associated with sex but none with love or family. Obviously just as an outsider looking in it's hard to say what stuff you've deliberately left out; say if your society is one that revolves around arranged marriages then love might be a rare and alien thing that most people wouldn't aspire to. But to me it feels like a society that wouldn't pray particularly on their wedding days or when trying for a baby is a bit odd. I'm totally in favor of keeping love and lust separate; that's interesting from a religious perspective but I think if you have lust you need love. Love could easily be added to Ginnaree's purview I think, would fit fine. There's plenty of deities in mythology associated with rage but they very seldom just have that as their sole provenance. And that makes sense because, well, it's really hard to create a successful sect just around the idea of being angry all the time with no particular reason. That drawing of early gods is (I suspect) the result of early Christian revisionism, dressing up the old gods as being something bad and scary. Point is you may want to roll Thouak into someone else or expand his remit to a more general war god who prizes strength and martial honor too?
I didn't see a deity of the soldier or warrior, which could be deity of valor. That would possibly equate valorous acts as the same as those in conflict or combat. Sola, deity the Way... as a student of the Dharma this was interesting to read. Gives me the image of a form devoid of male or female form, the pure light of balance. You have something awesome here. Look forward to reading more on these deities. EDIT: Just noticed no God of War.
I agree with your point on the god of rage - if you are going to look at deities and their aspects you should consider how that deity would be worshipped. What form would it take? Who would the worshippers be? How does their worship affect their daily lives? Just something to consider
The mere fact that you asked if you'd "left anything significant out" says to me that you are merely substituting your own gods for gods we should all be familiar with from our own cultures. How are we supposed to know what isn't yet represented in your made up fantasy world? We don't know anything about it. All we know is from ancient cultures that exist in our world. Thus, asking if you'd left anything out, we can only judge by the gods we know from our cultures. I'm not accusing you of plagiarism. I'm merely playing devil's advocate by suggesting that your pantheon is unoriginal. If you are a student of theology then why not draw from your expertise and your creativity skills as a writer and come up with some truly original gods. I never meant to insult your intelligence. You didn't ask for opinions on your pantheon so I apologize for giving what wasn't asked for.
Take Steve for a spin. He is the master of raining on peoples parade, and the don't give a s**t attitude. Seriously though you have quite the list there:24 Gods is a lot to manage. The Greeks had 14 Gods and 33 Titans/Titanesses in all, and a lot shared realms and similar 'powers'. As for giants you can tackle that list on your own. Although others have said you have left out things like a Goddess of Fertility, and a God of War. You could in fact tack these onto some of your existing Gods, effectively saving yourself the trouble of coming up with more. Although I must agree with @Aster, that you should use your skills as a writer to create some unique Gods/Godesses/Deities. For instance you could in fact have Tanyra Goddess of fertility and war, cause you need bodies (fertility) to protect your land (war)(see I just made that up off the top of my head.).
Jumping ahead ...I'm curious as to how this huge pantheon of gods—each responsible for some earthly phenomenon (whether added to by suggestions made here or not)—is going to figure in your story. Are these gods going to be characters in your story, or will they underpin the religion of human characters and only be referred to occasionally, or what? My initial feeling is one of slight dismay. This is very complicated stuff, and unless you handle it carefully, you could swamp the reader. Plus, if each 'god' has a specific job to do, this can hamper any development of character, can't it? And erase ambiguity? I'm not saying you're going to go astray with this ...but I do wonder how it's all going to work.
Thats a cool list, plenty of potential plots to be had with an enciunter with one such god or its cult.
Thanks so much so far for all of the suggestions and feedback. I have a few new things in the pot that you’ve given me to think about. As for how they work into the story, despite “direct interaction with mortals” being against “The Law” the Divines still do it quite a bit. Openly showing themselves and interfering with events on the mortal plane. This of course drives Law up the wall pretty much on a daily basis. I also have a few short stories planed out that involve specific gods and their backgrounds, or just little side stories. Probably going to just wrap all of those into a single book of shorts. As for a god of war, you could say this is one of the parts where I deviate from most standard pantheons. There is no god of war, but there are gods who have representation in war, such as destruction, wisdom, valor and protection. As a student of warfare myself simply making a god of war seemed over simplifying. I can see how having so many deities could be overwhelming for some, but really they don’t come up a ton in my main story, and when they do they’ll come with a short description of “who the hell are you” It would get a little heavy to follow in any of the stories that take place just with the divines, but that’s just Divine politics for you. Something worth noting, all of the gods, or Divines as I call them in the stories, are not inherently good or evil. Some certainly are one or the other, but they all live in the same place, the Divine Plane. Hell isn’t really a thing, and when people die they don’t go to the divine plain, they pass into the either, or get drawn into the abyss if their spirit isn’t guided after death.
