Divine Worldbuilding in the AGE of Rediscovery

The setting of the AGE of Rediscovery campaign is entirely rooted in divine worldbuilding. Literally so, in fact.

Seekers of Lore

The gods all got together to build the prime plane as a place to hide from amorphia, the realm of seething chaos that their own haphazardly-built realm was constructed in. An amorphic storm swept their realm and disrupted their project, and they were forced from the prime plane.

In the process, the world changed and much was lost. Many things were destroyed, others were changed or just moved elsewhere… which is where the adventurers come in. Misfits of their home society, they find their way to the borderlands where things are not wholly explored and seek out the things that were lost.

Deities of the AGE of Rediscovery

The AGE of Rediscovery campaign will be a ‘points of light’ setting, where there are safe havens some distance apart, with danger and mystery in between. I expect that over the course of the campaign, new locations can be found and made into safe havens.

Cultures and Civilizations

Some of these will be associated with cultures other than that of the Kingdom of Bandisal. These cultures will almost certainly have different religions, different deities, than the Bandisal.

Come to that, Bandisal does not have a religion defined yet! I’ll have to create one… no worries, I know how to do that.I imagine their pantheon will be largely centered on community and law.

This sounds like the basis of the Shu-Shi pantheon. The Shu-Shi are fantasy medieval Chinese halflings, and don’t fit what I know of the Bandisal culture. I think I’ll still need a new pantheon for Bandisal.

On the other hand, the goblins of this setting will almost certainly use the goblin pantheon. The vorubec are relatively civilized… a bit standoffish, almost xenophobic, but are unlikely to go out of their way to hurt anyone unless threatened. The jhesiri are stereotypical goblins, willing to destroy or eat anything they think they can get away with. The kouzelnik are mad goblins, traveling in search of jatemst (they don’t know what it is, but trust that they’ll know it when they find it).

The cultures of the Elemental Tetratheon, four cultures, each with its own element-associated pantheon, could be dropped in more or less anywhere that fit.

Lost Temples and Forgotten Gods

What would a setting like this be without temples lost deep in the wilderness, dedicated to deities that haven’t been known mortal memory in generations?

Even apart from finding actual cultures with different religions and deities, their temples could be found almost anywhere. Some might have degenerate descendants of the original worshipers, or have been abandoned and other taken over. These could be great locations for cultists.

I’ll probably want to devise some pantheons that aren’t actually connected to anyone known in the setting, simply to have them be the patrons of these lost temples. I could of course make them standalone temples of arbitrary deities, but I think things without connections are curiosities only, while things with connections are likely to be more interesting.

Closing Comments

I think this will do as a start. There are many things I can work on, none of them particularly difficult, to start fleshing things out.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to Top