I started a new pantheon this morning, resulting in 44 gods (or at least, 44 sets of domains, to be described as gods with portfolios and the like). First, I’ll start by splitting them up into groups of gods that are related somehow. I don’t particularly want them to be related by domain sets, nor even by ‘which polyhedron they started on’. For expediency, I simply rolled d8 for each one and dropped it into a group based on the result. I’ll see if I can make sense of them after this.
Random Division
Group 1
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| LE | Healing | Evil, Law, Repose, Death | |
| NG | Destruction | Good, Glory, Liberation, Earth | |
| TN | Water | Trickery, Nobility, War | |
| TN | Void | Strength, Luck, Plant | |
| TN | Knowledge | Strength, Hunting, Travel | |
| TN | Glory | Fire, Darkness, Destruction |
Clearly Strength, Glory, and Destruction play significant roles in this group of gods, but otherwise there is no real coherence or repeated domains. I don’t have a feel for this yet. I’ll come back to it.
Group 2
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| TN | Earth | Weather, Darkness, Destruction |
This is a very small group indeed, and I’m not certain what to make of it. It is likely to be a cult of some sort.
Group 3
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| CN | Chaos | Strength, Trickery, Luck, Magic, Travel | |
| NG | Good | Fire, Prophecy, Air, Destruction, Community | |
| CN | Strength | Chaos, Void, Knowledge, Charm | |
| LN | Rune | Law, Ley Lines, Animal, Transformation | |
| LG | Nobility | Law, Good, Water, Madness | |
| CE | Magic | Chaos, Evil, Transformation, Ley Lines | |
| CG | Travel | Chaos, Knowledge, Madness, Good | |
| LE | War | Law, Water, Ley Lines, Evil | |
| TN | Ley Lines | Rune, Magic, War | |
| NE | Evil | Trickery, Magic, War | |
| LN | Law | Sun, Healing, Community |
This group is pretty big and seem fairly complete. I see all nine alignments represented, at least, and a broad range of domains. This is probably a large and powerful culture.
Group 4
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| CG | Air | Good, Chaos, Apocalypse, Protection | |
| TN | Charm | Strength, Hunting, Plant | |
| TN | Transformation | Rune, Luck, Magic | |
| TN | Apocalypse | Sun, Air, Community | |
| TN | Protection | Sun, Air, Artifice |
Clearly Air, Apocalypse, Sun, and Protection are powerful, powerful forces in this culture. Given how similar the domain sets are, I expect this culture is pretty monomaniacal about the topic… but at least they’re generally Chaotic Good, so I suspect it might be dedicated to preservation through the apocalypse coming rather than dedicated to bringing the apocalypse and revelling in the destruction of everything.
Group 5
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| CE | Trickery | Chaos, Madness, Evil, Water | |
| CN | Luck | Chaos, Transformation, Void, Animal | |
| TN | Madness | Trickery, Nobility, Travel | |
| CN | Chaos | Prophecy, Air, Artifice | |
| TN | Death | Fire, Healing, Community |
And this might be the direct foil of the previous culture. I see lots of Chaos, plus some small overlap in the other domains, and Madness and Evil. I think I’d rather live with the previous group.
Group 6
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| NE | Weather | Evil, Earth, Alchemy, Liberation | |
| CG | Prophecy | Good, Liberation, Chaos, Alchemy |
An interesting pairing, I think. A strong split in alignment on the Liberation and Alchemy combination. I don’t have a feel for this yet, but I perhaps something to do with two competing philosophies relating to Liberation and Alchemy?
Group 7
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| LN | Law | Rune, Hunting, Nobility, Plant, War | |
| NE | Evil | Weather, Sun, Darkness, Healing, Artifice | |
| LE | Sun | Evil, Protection, Law, Apocalypse | |
| NE | Darkness | Evil, Repose, Earth, Glory | |
| CE | Artifice | Evil, Alchemy, Protection, Chaos | |
| LG | Community | Good, Apocalypse, Death, Law | |
| TN | Animal | Rune, Luck, Plant | |
| TN | Liberation | Weather, Prophecy, Destruction | |
| TN | Repose | Fire, Darkness, Healing | |
| TN | Alchemy | Weather, Prophecy, Artifice |
I suspect this might be related to Group 4. Perhaps not in contention with them, quite, but maybe they have some shared origin. Hmm. Group 4 seems to be related to Groups 5 and 7. I expect they may be in close proximity to each other.
Group 8
| Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| LG | Hunting | Law, Charm, Good, Knowledge | |
| LN | Plant | Law, Animal, Charm, Void | |
| NG | Fire | Good, Death, Glory, Repose | |
| NG | Good | Hunting, Nobility, Travel |
Okay, these are clearly the good guys of the region. Lots of Law, Good, Hunting, and Charm. Again a pretty tight culture, in terms of domains, so I expect a very homogeneous group at heart.
Closing Comments
These… are going to take some consideration before I can really explain them. I think that’s cool. It’s easy to make an internally-consistent and coherent group work, getting some of these to make sense will probably take me interesting places. Only eight groups, representing different cultures. I think I may want to do another complete set and either build out on this (add more cultures) or build it up (add more to each). I need to think on this some more.
Continuing the thoughts I had on Earth+Weather in the last post, the groupings you got seem to fit:
The ‘everything will end and return to its natural state of nothing’ god is off by himself. He and what followers he has might not have any real beef with anyone else, (“all of your works will come to nothing with or without my intervention”), although I could see others having issues with them.
With “Group 6” you could extend the science theme: One sees the freedom and improvements in life that WILL come about from teasing out the underlying rules of the physical world, the other believes that there should be no restrictions or limitations in what lines of investigation to take or how to follow them. Perhaps have them not as competing gods/sects but rather their followers see them as two sides of the same coin, gods who are allied because they both see the other as a necessary component of their own views, (the good seeing the evil as an unavoidable component of research and accepting its necessity while trying to mitigate its effects, the evil seeing the good as the understandable long term impact but only caring about what he gets out of it).