Creating a Pantheon: Gods & Goddesses in 5e Dungeons and Dragons and TTRPG - Web DM 

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Concept: There isn't one, but three gods of love and the first one stands for romantic love, the second for platonic love and the third for familial love and the three of them are constantly squabbling over who's most important and who came first. And this trinity of love deities shall be called the Love Triangle™

One thing I find really cool for religion in fantasy settings is the old Japanese folk belief that things that are old enough will eventually sort of develop a spirit or sentience of their own over time. I think it translates really well to a fantasy game, where you can have thousand year old swords that have seen countless battles and have gained a sort of sentience from that.

The opening "pantheon" joke is the worst...and exactly why I love the channel.

It might be interesting to add something like the Campus Martius from ancient Rome. One of the things the Romans were famous for was their belief that all gods were equally real. In order to avoid divine punishment (or ira deorum), whenever the Romans showed up somewhere, they would start worshiping the local gods, and bring back that worship to Rome. That way, the gods were always venerated, and Rome didn't become a target for angry gods deprived of followers. Be interesting to see that applied in a fantastic sense.

I love the Exalted "pantheon." Leads to some great god stories: "This god was the god of walrus mating fights but he got a promotion and is now the war god of the south. You too can become a better god if you work hard and lift yourself up by your bootstraps"

When creating a relgion it should answer at least one or more of these questions: Where did we come from? How should we treat others? What happens after death?

"It's been a long time since I read the epic of gilgamesh" that alone says so much

*gets to ending of video* "God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man, Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs..." *Jurassic Park theme starts playing*

The first 2 minutes in and already learned more about pantheons than I have researching them myself.

I always like the idea of the god of darkness being the upstanding keep-you-safe-from-monsters deity, primarily because it screws with edgelords XD

"We put our Pantheon one god at a time" LOL!

A lot of what makes a Pantheon great is how you handle it, if anyone wants inspiration play some King of Dragon Pass. The Gods are as generic as they can be (albeit with their own mythology), but the interactions between the gods and people make them interesting. For example the Goddess of Disease is somewhat evil (kind of), but when there is a disease that is the god who gets tribute. The goddess of Harvest asks that all her sons and daughters get attention (Meaning, she likes all seeds). The best part is that a lot of the gods explain natural phenomena: Diversifying your crops protects you from blights.

My personal approach has always been to have each culture or people to have their own religious system like our own world. So, the humans may have a pantheon, but the dragonborn are strongly Monotheistic with Tiamat being a satan figure. The elves dont believe in gods instead thinking they are just strong beings. And the dwarves are more ancestral worshipping, etc. That way, it feels more real and different from the standard “every race has a pantheon”

The gods of my campaign are retired adventurers of previous campaigns who achieved that status through their actions. In my present campaign, the players are just now realizing they are on the same road, and how some of their former characters might be the saints and demigods they have known.

The Elder Scrolls franchise along with the True Villains web comic are my two favorite designs of gods and pantheons. The Elder scrolls is rich with multi layers and esoteric godhoods, mythology and religion that I only understand the basics of... Which I am ok with because 99% of the people in that world only understand the basics of the gods and etc too. While True Villains has a infinite number of gods (Their is a god of Grass, Tall Grass, Wild Grass, Dry Grass, Grass roots etc) but only a dozen gods hold true power because only they have enough worshipers powering them. Also all the gods in that world are Neutral beings that do not care if their power is being used for good or evil so long as their aspect is being met.

i find myself often gravitating towards animism in my games. I like the idea that there are deities/spirits of all sorts of things, from the small and mundane to the big cosmic stuff. "gods" is just a handy term to use

Sigh, I guess my homebrew pantheon of 28 can go into a dumpster. Well not really, but I did realize when I was making it for my setting that nobody is going to care about all of them if they were just "god of blank." So when i created the pantheon i gave each god 5 ties to other gods. So all their relationships gradually formed in a pseudo organic manner so I feel like any player who asks doesn't get lore dumped, but might be genuinely curious why followers of the goddess of labor and agriculture hate her brother the god of music and art

In my campaigns, I really don't flesh out the details of what deities exist/don't exist unless they are an important part to the player's quest or relevant to the current storyline. For instance, in my current game, our Dwarven Cleric wanted to follow Thor... so I put Thor (along with Moradin) in our world. As needs for other deities arise, I'll add them down the line. It makes it easy for me so that I don't have to create a pantheon or decide what deities exist in our fantasy world right away. I can be flexible and insert any deity I need at any given moment, should the situation arise.

I love this channel. I've been binge watching it for the past 2 weeks. My homebrew world only has 2 gods, 1 goddess, and 1 ultimate being Good, evil, neutral, and RNG

My prefered pantheon, especially in an edition that has downplayed the game effect of the alignments, is just Nine gods - one for each of the alignments. That way the alignments become philosophies or ways of life personified by a deity and propagated by their priesthoods.

After watching this episode I thought about creating 3 gods, one allmighty but unconscious one and two conscious ones who are against each other, here is what I came up with. At the beginning there was Ao, the ultimate existence in the outer realms, its powers eyed by the beholders. Nobody knows how the Beholders did it, but it is said, by combining their intellect, they were able to trick Ao and strip it of its consciousness. The process was extremely violent, space was separated from the outer realms and filled with Ao's colorful energies, the beholders were banished, for now. Ao's consciousness became Des, the god of destiny, design and descendancy. Ao's subconsciousness became Cha, godess of chance, chaos and change. They vied with each other, both thought of themselves as superior. A game with dice should decide on who shall merge with all that was Ao and become whole again. There were many defeats and many fruitless victories, but there was no resolution. Cha and Des became tired of dice, so they created pawns and a board to place them on. From the energies of Ao, they created the crystal spheres and the many worlds and tribes therein. These pawns adventure, they find treasure and glory or loss and contempt, build kingdoms and civilizations or raze them to the ground. And ultimately... they all die. In time Cha and Des came to love their champions and their doings. Be aware though, because sometimes the dice still fall against us, as we face challenges greater than ourselves or attempt deeds beyond our means. In the end, chance decides our fates at the branches of destiny. -7th Revelation of the Phlogiston Prophet Sikuku Heavily inspired by the spelljammer video of Pruitt and the creation myth in the manga Goblin Slayer. In play I would probably homebrew three faith classes in which the player may progress gaining minor/major gameplay or narrative benefits (depending if they dig it or not) Progress is depending on, whether the players take actions according to the deity he or she believes in (lawful/design=Des, neutral=Ao, chaotic/chance=Cha , player may change faith but starts from zero). All divine domains, which are neither Chance nor Destiny, would be aspects of Ao. In play represented as local gods the local people believe in, or even nature itself. But only clerics, paladins and druids of Chance or Destiny can feel a conscious entity connecting with them, when casting spells or using skills. That gives the characters of the players knowledge of Cha and Des at least, even if the player characters do not come across the 7th revelation of the Phlogiston Prophet.

Oh wow. I have been agonizing over how to put a monotheism into a d and d campaign for years, and you resolved it by the 7 minute mark. Of course, the valor!

I grew up on the movie Clash of the Titans. I’ve gotten so many good inspirations from there. Not necessarily using the Greek pantheon, but concepts like releasing a kraken to destroy towns that displeased the gods, and gods who curse mortals.. making hideous monsters out of them, physically and mentally.

The pantheon In my homebrew is based on the main super Mario characters but with the names of famous generals I.E. Marius is the God of fire and Law

In the medieval period, a good analogue for a pantheon of gods would be saints. Saints were more specialized and had their own areas of specialty - someone might have a Saint Peter medal if they live by fishing, or go to a shrine of St Peter, and so on. Many of the Catholic saints were local or tribal demigods that got absorbed and co-opted into the Christian faith, and then got exported - the Loa of Voudoun got mixed and sometimes hidden under the guise of Catholic saints.

The lack of allignment focus in 5e makes it difficult to make allignment-based dieties. I love the city-state concept. Dieties can have more than one domain and clerics, paladins, even pact-warlocks, and sorcerers connected with the one diety.

To build a pantheon that will be more meaningful to the players, and that only needs bare-bones to begin (honestly, nothing much more than a symbol), try this. It's rooted in an astrological idea - have the gods be experienced as constellations, divine patterns that exist in the heavens that manifest in the lives of those born under their sign. Firstly, you give yourself room once your campaign takes off to either make them actual living beings, or keep them as abstract concepts. But the way this is more immediate to the players, to borrow a little from Elder Scrolls, is you ask your player what sign they were born under, and retroactively flesh out what that means based on how they play their character. So that aspects of who they are become aspects of those under the influence of that sign/god. A nice bonus of this, too, is that you can manage to make your 'gods' matter to players who aren't just playing divine classes - which makes them feel more real, and less like an obligation for those mechanics' sake.

I was just thinking about this exact idea for a Homebrew I've been working on.

I like the idea of divine epithets which was worshipping gods in different capacities largely based on where you were. Aphrodite had a divine epithet of Area who was worshipped as a war goddess in Sparta.

Making the monsters the offspring of gods would work great for low-mid magic campaigns, but I can’t help but feel it’d muddy the waters for high magic campaigns where parties can go slaughter camps of goblins on a whim. Like, if my DM told me goblins were offspring of a god, I wouldn’t take the first quest to go kill some in fear of divine punishment. If that was the case, would it be more player-friendly to say that, perhaps these 4-5 immortal goblins are the offspring of deities, and the rest are further along down the bloodline? Because that way killing those immortal, important goblins would bring repercussions without fearing the mooks?

My gods. That intro pun. Pruitt you clever bastard. I salute you.

Many Gods in D&D were once human like Vecna, Bane, Tyr, Torm etc. Having gods that were once humanoid are tempting and interesting to write, and can give the players pc's motivation for a long, long term goal.

One idea I came up with was for a goddess of monsters (let's call her Echidna). Echidna is worshiped by monstrous races. But she's not really Evil, but rather Chaotic Neutral. She doesn't advocate followers go out and make trouble for trouble's sake. She just wants creatures to go forth, multiply, and be true to their natures, passions, and inclinations. Let a monster be a monster because that's what it is. She's also a goddess of fertility and evolution. Of fecundity and change. She birthed countless monsters, and encourages creatures to do the same. To breed, and allow the natural process of adaptation and mutation take hold. In a more abstract sense, this also means she wants followers to promote life and be flexible, adapting to the shifting situations. "Birth the change you want to see in the world" is her adage. Echidna also is a patron of mothers and oppressed women. If I were running a game with Echidna in it, it wouldn't just be monsters who prayed to her. Plenty of women in terrible situations, or who desire to better their lives, do so too. As do those whose children are born deformed or in some way unusual, in the hopes that Echidna will bless those children with the ability to succeed in spite - or _because_ - of the qualities that disable, afflict, or set them apart. For a medieval-esque setting, a very important blessing, when being born lame or neuro-atypical could heavily affect the ability to contribute, survive, or be accepted by superstitious peasants. Worshipers of Echidna preach that all progeny are of value. All are important, and should be allowed to live. Wandering Echidna cultists could be on the lookout for peasants whose children have such unusual qualities, and quietly convert them and their families to Echidna worship.

I think Godsfall handles gods well, particularly because they're directly involved in the story of the setting itself. The relationships between each of them is well explained and the impact of their apocalyptic war has resounding implications for the cultures in the part of the world where civilization survived.

Y'all keep outdoing yourselves with the puns

Y'all read my mind, this is the exact video I needed from Web DM right now for my campaign.

Amazing advice. Me being an agnostic in real life... This is a very interesting discussion to me. Well said as well.

Great vid. I'm surprised that you guys didn't mention the example of the Glorantha setting and/or the way that Runequest works religion into adventuring. Jim, thank you for demonstrating how historical knowledge can really boost our gaming. Whoda thunk that knowing something about real people and societies could help us with our imaginary people/societies?

The approach I took for one of the religions in my setting is sort of language based. I took the idea from how in French potatoes literally mean ground apples. So their core belief is since that people interpret things differently, divine beings are seen differently depending on the culture and language of a particular group. So two different peoples look at particular power and one may see a caring mother, and the other may see a shepherd, but the underlying power is the same.

I both did and didn't build my own pantheon for my home game. I took a bunch of pre-existing gods and tweaked them in certain ways, like the fact that *all* deities in the setting are ascended mortals so they have less overall power than the gods you might see in Forgotten Realms or Critical Role, but conversely this means they have greater capacity to interfere directly in the affairs of the material plane. I found that to be an interesting perspective to take; the gods were all mortal and still have an almost personal stake in the events of the world they never really left behind.

I kinda have a pantheon in my most recent DnD campaign. There is two major forces one just represent Goodness, kindness and compassion and then the other represents selfishness, callousness and apathy. The creatures of the world have dubbed these two forces light and darkness but they are pretty much just those concepts manifest and the 'gods' are the chosen few which become avatars of these forces and ascend to something akin to godhood.

The Book of the Righteous by Green Ronin has a really fantastic, well thought-out pantheon. It has tons of legends, relationships between deities, holidays, prayers, ect. They even updated it a couple years back for 5e. I definitely recommend giving it a look, I'll be using it for my next game.

I've always felt that, like you mentioned in the video, animism makes so much sense in a fantasy setting like D&D.

Every other minute in this video, I just want to shout "Eberron!" "Silver Flame!"

Just want to say - I am a new DM, started playing a couple months ago (A 25 year old getting into the basis of games , fell in love with DnD). And I must say, you guys have helped me out SO MUCH, along with Absolute Tabletop. But for real, if I ever think "How could my story handle x", I know you guys probably have a video on it already !

Jim was super harsh this video, I loved it!

I can tell you are very learned in ancient history, Jim. Great video guys

Loved the video. The pantheon for my humans, among a select few others , are actually refugee gods from a universe spanning war between the planes. They lost their worlds, so banded together and came as saviors to the humans. But at the same time, there are regular gods as well as a few ascended beings .

I've got a god of remembrance He forms no long term memories of his own, but instead gains those of everyone who've died. He serves as both the god of Knowledge and the god of the Dead.

there can also be squabbles among gods and they may use mortals to settle their disputes in some way or another

Guys, thank you very much for making this video. I too have been tired of how lacklustre and non-immersive most fantasy pantheons are. Because of this, I've created a total of 5 pantheons for my Rolemaster world. I hope mine can help inspire others to improve their own settings as well. One is the stereotypical 9 alignment deity build; another is a group of elemental deities contrasted with a void deity; another is a combination of Greek, Norse, and Chinese inspirations in which a group of mortals ascended to godhood; another is an Eastern Asian themed chromatic/metallic paired Dragon pantheon; and the last is a reworked version of Tolkien's Illuvitar centered around music with the evil/enemy deity being an agent of discordance.

Good God!, this might be your best ever yet, I'm gonna re-watch as it's very topical for the second-half of the campaign I'm currently DMing.

I started to develop my pantheon today, and this was super helpful! I was writing something along the lines of one of your suggestions (with two "central" gods and the other gods kind of having ties to them), and this vid really helped me fine tune it.

I like the Gods of the Dawn Pantheon from 4th edition. There was a sense of a creation myth and interactions between deities that went beyond the "group of monotheistic gods." I would also recommend GURPS Religion, which is a great, largely non-system dependent resource for building religions. Also, the Bronze Age is a severely underrated period for gaming. Look at the Bronze Age Collapse and you have a perfect setting for a post-apocalyptic game.

I’d like to add another possibility to the list of things-other-than-a-fantasy-pantheon that you guys had at the beginning: Worship of a heavenly superperson like Egyptian Pharaohs or Mexica Revered Speakers or Japanese Emperors. I bet there could be something fun there.

You two are so good together with the casual ping pong style. Good job.

I've been thinking a lot about this since it went live. I'm definitely on board with the idea that "everywhere you go everybody has the same gods" is boring. Particularly for larger scale campaigns where a group of adventurers may find themselves in far flung, sometimes isolated locales. Even if they do worship the same gods, it's going to look different depending on location and tradition. I personally love the idea of taking a look at real world examples like Santeria for example, where circumstances and culture incorporated and altered popular religious practices creating something wholly new. I also like the idea of a large conquering civilization that collects the gods of the conquered eg Ancient Rome. I go back to the Black Company series a lot when thinking about the religions of different cultures/areas and how they're encountered by a roaming group of adventurers. One that stands out in particular is the encounter with a guy named Marron Shed in an isolated northern town called Juniper. There, the people observe an unnamed religion that's notable for it's burial rites. They maintain a large subterranean catacomb which are curated by a group of semi clerical men called the Custodians. The dead are looked after by mysterious, deadly, possibly supernatural creatures the Guardians who protect the dead from the living. Not much else is given about the religious practices, but for the purposes of the narrative adventure, not much else is needed. There's a vast subteranean network of the dead buried with treasure. Guarded by some creatures, and it's enough for the unscrupulous foreigners to make some gold. I see something like that, and I think this is a great start for a pretty classic adventure, without the need to pull in a pantheon or even a specific deity. You can flesh it out a little just in case the players want to know more about the place (I stick with ancestor worship, as it makes a lot of sense with how protective the townsfolk are of the dead, ancient and otherwise). *I know this is getting long, but you guys triggered some thoughts on this subject, bare with me a little longer though* I've also been thinking a lot about how divine magic works in my own game, where it comes from, etc. Especially alongside a diverse and ever expanding roster of deities of varying powers and influence. So, I've started with the bog standard generic cleric and decided to approach it from a different angle. The Necromancy video actually started me down this path, I thought about doing some work on the Necromancy school for my own game alongside the Cleric. And I looked back at previous editions, and I sort of like the idea of the great wheel cosmology. And starting with the negative and positive material planes as sources for power within the Divine magics. Not so much that these powers are granted by a deity, but drawn from the planes themselves. Additionally, this got me thinking about a sort of Warlock style patronage being possible for a Cleric. Pledging themselves to Celestial or Infernal beings in exchange for heightened powers. TLDR you've set me down a bumpy road indeed.

I think part of the reason people dislike monotheism in a DnD context is because it feels limiting compared to all the possibilities implied by the PHB. You could be devoted to a flawed god, a betrayer god, a god with strange viewpoints or motives, one who has plans that they seek to further and enemies they strain to vanquish. Monotheistic religions (as portrayed in fiction, im not a religious scholar) usually characterize their gods as all knowing, all powerful, and completely righteous. Also I think theres a distinction between having a monotheistic religion prominent in the setting vs having that be the only religion, or especially if its verifiable or seemingly universally agreed that there is a single all powerful god, because that certainty creates a world very alien to even our own.

I love making different septs of the same D&D gods. Like I made a monster hunting sept of Pelor that focused on vampires. They were to eventually radicalized and started purifying villages by releasing vampire spawn and casting sunlight.

When i look at Jim's beard and see the perfectly placed white patches I imagine that he is Santa Claus enjoying my milk and cookies just after he has gifted me with awesome D&D knowledge. This image pleases me.

Jim's expertise + a nat 20= god-tier episode!

I'm remembering a story idea I had a while back and now that I think of it, it might make an interesting campaign. In short, the gods died. The pantheon is no more. But their power lives on. Thousands (more?) of beings across the known world have inherited a sliver of godly power and as they face steadily greater challenges, they gather more power from the other godly candidates who failed their own challenges. Eventually there will only be a few candidates left, and those will become the new gods. Part of the reason this might work is that the gods aren't just god of blank. Each god is the direct result of a candidate's personality, goals, and the strange things that happened during their ascension. Then there's the fun questions. Can only people become gods? Are some of the candidates animals? Are there other gods/pantheons out there somewhere? Are they aware of this? Are they interring? Did they kill the old gods? Who/what killed the old gods? Does this have to be a new pantheon? What if one candidate successfully killed all the others? Fun stuff like that. It's also an interesting way to explain the leveling system. Maybe this is why there are so many monsters around? It only started with the old pantheon's demise? The characters could be some of these candidates. Thanks for reading.

Morrowind had an amazing take on religion, and it seemed the Main Quest of that game revolves around exploring that religion, and apotheosis in general. Meeting with Vivec (and to a lesser extent Alamalexia), and speaking to a living god in that game was and still is a fun exercise in theology. The Temple Questline, and the final battle and conversation with Dagoth Ur really help to sell the religion of the Dunmer. I feel like the developers really had something to say, which is why that game is still remembered fondly 20 years later.

I’m trying to design a pantheon for my gf’s fantasy world, but I’ve never played a TTRPG before and was worried about the standards of fantasy pantheons. Watching this has comforted me very much. I appreciate it!

Thanks so much for this, dudes. I'm totally rethinking divine interactions and presence now. Super helpful suggestions

I'm new to D&D, actually haven't even started yet but I'm already thinking about this, I want to create a world that's basically an entire cityscape kinda like Ravnica, with wild areas on the outskirts. Where the gods come in are the 2 moons, both are actually gods, one is a god of order, and the other is chaos. The chaos moon is shattered though, and in my story once a year it reconstructs and some kind of terrible thing happens, I got the idea from Devil's Night, the night before Halloween. I don't have much yet, but that's basically where I've started. I might add demigods as leaders in the city that flip alignments once a year to shake things up as well, and any player characters are welcomed to reference and draw upon their own gods since as far as I'm concerned they're interplanar beings so they can fit in.

Another thing to consider is whether gods are static, or can their personalities and what they stand for change over time? For instance, one of the goddesses of the primary human pantheon in a world I'm developing was responsible for providing rain to farming settlements in ancient times. When war broke out between the elves, humans, and their respective gods, this goddess was assaulted and raped by the god who taught elves subjugation, then imprisoned with the rest of the major human gods. When she and her kin were set free during this world's version of the Bronze Age, she turned her fury into intense downpours that trapped the armies of elvenkind in mud and winds that scattered their arrows. She was quickly hailed as a mighty liberator, and would eventually exact a brutal revenge. Many centuries after being freed, she found her violator in the form of a giant hawk, swooping down to save an elven army from certain defeat. With a great tornado, she tore him from the sky and slammed him into a jagged rock formation, then unleashed her purest rage in the form of this world's first lightning, viciously electrocuting him to death. Still a goddess of the weather, but instead of being a farming deity, she now stands for retribution and the overthrow of tyrants.

You got me to yell at my phone, "woman inherits the earth." Good one.

Well if you remember an early Dungeons & Dragons they actually had Earth God Pantheon's that at least partially got transplanted to The Dungeons & Dragons rounds because of some ancient war because some of their followers were brought there to

I've been waiting to make a pantheon for a while so now I can! Thanks 😁👍

I find the Elder Scrolls gods to be a fun pantheon, because at first it just looks like your standard fantasy pantheon, until you realise that the Wood Elves have a similar pantheon but different. The Khajiit have elements of that pantheon, as well as others. The Redguards have a dramatically different pantheon, but they're just different aspects of the main pantheon gods. And what it is is in the universe of the Elder Scrolls, there are these metabeings, these 9 gods and 16 daedric princes, and different cultures have emerged and created their own forms of faith, but they all are built around these powerful beings. Because they definitively exist, and in the case of the Daedric Princes, you can even meet them. It's a cool way of taking a fairly average Fantasy pantheon, and twisting it to make it interesting and varied, without having to make endless numbers of different gods. And then Tiber Septim, the Shezzarine, the Dunmer Tribunal and the Argonian Hist come along to confuse and muddy the waters of what it is to be divine, and what makes a God.

I really like the idea of divine magic existing in a world without gods in which magic is drawn from the strength of belief in your idea of god in which the power comes from the caster.

In my world there are multiple creation mythos. It gives scholars something to argue about. Im currently using Greyhawk deities in my main campaign, but there was an Empire that worshipped Elementals and Titans before the current deities. Most of those beings are still around somewhere since they are immortal, but there power has waned. Another setting/continent I run has an Empyrean godking. Worship of other deities is outlawed. He doesn't have clerics he has celestial warlocks. He fears magic powerful enough to harm him so magic and magic items are tightly controlled. Also there is a Kraken that creates a maelstrom to prevent the Empyrean and people from leaving his continent.

This is very interesting. In the homebrew game I played each major deity had different philosophies and "branches", for example, the God of Suffering had people who believed their God wanted them to suffer and sacrifice themselves for others, while another branch thought that causing conflict and Suffering was the only way to separate the strong for the weak.

My pantheon is basically the gods from Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim. But I customized them a bit, made them into a bunch of adventurers who travelled together (Except Helia and Lunord, those two are separate), they have a pretty nice story and if my players ever go back in time for whatever reason, or we set the next session earlier in my world, they could actually meet the people who will be worshipped as gods in the future.

One day, Jim Davis will tell us how he really feels

Jim used the f word a lot this episode and I was slightly more in tuned because of it 😂 great video guys, I always put your stuff to use.

One way I like to handle domains is that gods either have no or just a list of preferred domains... But domains are something that is unique to the Cleric. So a Cleric of Hermes can be a Cleric of the Forge, the Forge is what the Cleric brings to the table in the flavor of Hermes (I mean someone has to make those winged sandals). I also like to consider Clerics to be the clerics of the entire Pantheon a lot of the time, their patron is essentially their favorite.

when I think of successful campaigns w homebrew pantheons, I'm really drawn to the Friends at the Table podcast with their Hieron campaign setting. Particularly w the "Marielda" arc, the group does a wonderful job of EMBEDDING the mythology in the gameplay to the point of like... having a literal god narrate the opening to each episode and having the PCs participate in a living myth of their world! Good stuff.

23:00 So, does this deity have a name, or has its name been forgotten? The idea that there *is* a god that empowers humans (and maybe demihumans too) to smite and lay low the monstrous and aberrant, but nobody can invoke it directly because its name is unknown seems like a good story hook.

What i always thought was a good idea for pantheons is there is only one god, this god is extremely powerful but has no will, and the will of mortals shapes this god into many different gods. These gods have more power the more mortals who believe in them. So if a large society believes in X god this god will have more power than a small society believing in Y god.

I am currently creating a world. I have a version of Norse, Cotholoism, and Slavic Druid Pantheons that are waring against each other. Literally, the world was created as a game of Russian roulette, where only one can survive. Causes large-scale wars, and opens up historical religious events for adventure fodder. Like witch-burning and such.

Great video, but I'm a bit disappointed that Aztec gods of fitness weren't mentioned.

It's exciting as a dm the ways you can make the cleric of the team feel special when he channels his divinity or cast certain spells if you put some time into the pantheon. A cleric player in my campaign worships Apollo and casts spirit guardians. Dolphins are a symbol of Apollo so a bunch of flaming, squicking dolphins attack the monsters. Lots of laughs. Sometimes I take a little control and explain to that player the rage and indignation he feels when facing undead which guides him to be a little more reckless. Having a grip on your pantheon can make the game fun for just single encounters without having to delve deep into how those God's effect the whole world. It's definitely worth at least some basic consideration for every game. Good video too guys, love the puns and content.

Honestly, most religions share common tropes that evolved from animistic observations of the world and human psychology, so it makes sense to have those tropes in fictional religions.

In my campaign the pantheon is basically a bunch of surviving bureaucrats. There is a council of gods that are creators of races that have a home and they vote on things. But thy don't get a lot done.

1 - D&D religions tend to be a bit too much like Greek mythology, but without the personal aspects of Greek mythology. More should be henotheistic (one chief god, other gods not denied and sometimes partially embraced) or with more of a transcendent god with lesser gods that are either just beings of power or manifestations of a god beyond comprehension. 2 - D&D gods are a bit too bound up in the clerical sub-classes. more gods should be focused on the practicalities (sky gods and fertility gods on top, death gods as prominent but intimidating figures, sea gods conditional on type of society and their experience with the sea).

The gods I’m working on for a upcoming campaign is reflecting the idea “too many of a thing could be problematic”. For example, the god of Order and Tyranny, order is good, but too much order would become tyranny.

The best example I can remember of the generic D&D gods being fleshed out is from the 3.5 setting book Ghostwalk. It had a generic god of water and a generic goddess of fire. They weren't sworn enemies or rivals or anything dumb like what is used for every other god v god relationship in D&D. But the designers gave them a unique gimmick that could be expanded on in campaigns if the players and dm really wanted. The fire goddess could not see, feel, or interact directly with the water god, but he could see her just fine. That struck me as neat because it complicates the dynamic between a good diety and a neutral diety that are otherwise not in any sort of competition, and it established that fire could not even concieve of the idea of water for fear of being put out/destroyed.

I personally like the set up presented in 4th edition, especially with the primal power adding in the primal spirits being the ones holding sway in the prime material plane and holding back the celestial and elemental forces from continuing to war there.

I never considered those to sides to religion you guys brought up! "Hope and/or Obedience"

In the biggest City-State in my world, where my current campaign is taking place, there are a handful of Patron Gods. There's the Good Lady of the City, who's very benevolent and heal-y, the Prince of River-Kip, "The Man of the Water", and Nyph, a sort of "Divine Bookkeeper", plus others I'm stewing on. And that's just one city.

When creating pantheons I typically go with 3 to 8 gods. 3 gods is the closest to my own religion,which is the original finnish religion of worshiping the god of the sea,the god of the forests and the god of the sky. However typically in D&D setting you need more than just the gods of 3 elements so I'll either just add more things to the domain of these gods or I'll create something like the god of magic,god of death etc but I'll keep it very short so all players will eventually know the names of every single god and what they're about. Which is completely impossible in norse mythology for example since there's like 100 gods in that pantheon if not more.

I had to pause the video and set my phone down to properly facepalm after that opening joke. Brilliant.

When I run D&D, it's usually set in FR. For the deities and their churches, I've been inspired by other games and literature, such as, Warhammer Fantasy, Call of Cthulhu even American Gods, as well as our own history. No two churches of Lathander or Kelemvor operate the same way nor do they emphasize the same aspects of said deity. I think adding diversity and schisms to a religion in a D&D pantheon brings a realism to the churches that revere any particular deity

Only 2 or so minutes in but I did NOT expect this to be the topic that Jim hated this much. Damn.

I'm going throught the process of creating my own world and BOI !! I'm so happy you relieved me on my "but....can i do thaaat ??"

I was pleased to see you brought up some alternate approaches to religion aside from the usual loose pantheon and thought I'd share a little about one campaign I am in right now. It uses an animistic system where there's a ton of individual spirits out there, and I'm surprised it's not a more popular approach given how fun it's been. It gives the game more of a Fey flavor as the spirits are more like powerful NPCs than gods and they often have alien values since their domains are narrow. Also, important concepts or locations to humans can cause the birth of young spirits: there are spirits of natural landmarks and forces, but we've also had spirits of gunpowder, written language, and buildings. I've been liking the flexibility this approach gives for character concepts, as well. Instead of pickin from a list, Warlocks and divine characters have the option of designing their own spirit or having the DM design one especially for them.

I borrowed a lot fo ideas for my pantheon from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which is the best example of fantasy world0building ever put down on paper. Bar none. The author's take on gods is awesome.