It seems I enjoy creating new pantheons using the Polyhedral Pantheons method. I liked how the last one was shaping up, but it’s based on the older dodecahedron model.
I started looking into an alternate model based on 2d10 rather than a single die, and that looked like it had more potential (and more slots to put domains in). Since I now have a need of a new pantheon, I figured I’d start over with that model to see how it turns out.
So far, it has good alignment coverage (three gods have Law and Good domains, three have Law and Evil, three have Chaos and Good, three have Chaos and Evil; four have just Law, four have just Chaos, four have just Good, and four have just Evil; 16 have no alignment domains) and symmetry. This was on purpose, but it would be very easy to have it less balanced.
By domains granted, so far I have the following:
| # | Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| 1 | LN | Law | Rune, Hunting, Nobility, Plant, War | |
| 2 | CN | Chaos | Strength, Trickery, Luck, Magic, Travel | |
| 3 | NG | Good | Fire, Prophecy, Air, Destruction, Community | |
| 4 | NE | Evil | Weather, Sun, Darkness, Healing, Artifice |
| # | Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| 1 | CN | Strength | Chaos, Void, Knowledge, Charm | |
| 2 | LN | Rune | Law, Ley Lines, Animal, Transformation | |
| 3 | CE | Trickery | Chaos, Madness, Evil, Water | |
| 4 | LG | Hunting | Law, Charm, Good, Knowledge | |
| 5 | CN | Luck | Chaos, Transformation, Void, Animal | |
| 6 | LG | Nobility | Law, Good, Water, Madness | |
| 7 | CE | Magic | Chaos, Evil, Transformation, Ley Lines | |
| 8 | LN | Plant | Law, Animal, Charm, Void | |
| 9 | CG | Travel | Chaos, Knowledge, Madness, Good | |
| 10 | LE | War | Law, Water, Ley Lines, Evil | |
| 11 | NE | Weather | Evil, Earth, Alchemy, Liberation | |
| 12 | NG | Fire | Good, Death, Glory, Repose | |
| 13 | LE | Sun | Evil, Protection, Law, Apocalypse | |
| 14 | CG | Prophecy | Good, Liberation, Chaos, Alchemy | |
| 15 | NE | Darkness | Evil, Repose, Earth, Glory | |
| 16 | CG | Air | Good, Chaos, Apocalypse, Protection | |
| 17 | LE | Healing | Evil, Law, Repose, Death | |
| 18 | NG | Destruction | Good, Glory, Liberation, Earth | |
| 19 | CE | Artifice | Evil, Alchemy, Protection, Chaos | |
| 20 | LG | Community | Good, Apocalypse, Death, Law |
| # | Name | Alignment | Primary Domain | Secondary Domains |
| 1 | CN | Animal | Rune, Luck, Plant | |
| 2 | TN | Charm | Strength, Hunting, Plant | |
| 3 | NG | Good | Hunting, Nobility, Travel | |
| 4 | TN | Water | Trickery, Nobility, War | |
| 5 | TN | Ley Lines | Rune, Magic, War | |
| 6 | TN | Transformation | Rune, Luck, Magic | |
| 7 | TN | Void | Strength, Luck, Plant | |
| 8 | TN | Knowledge | Strength, Hunting, Travel | |
| 9 | TN | Madness | Trickery, Nobility, Travel | |
| 10 | NE | Evil | Trickery, Magic, War | |
| 11 | TN | Glory | Fire, Darkness, Destruction | |
| 12 | TN | Liberation | Weather, Prophecy, Destruction | |
| 13 | CN | Chaos | Prophecy, Air, Artifice | |
| 14 | TN | Apocalypse | Sun, Air, Community | |
| 15 | TN | Death | Fire, Healing, Community | |
| 16 | TN | Repose | Fire, Darkness, Healing | |
| 17 | TN | Earth | Weather, Darkness, Destruction | |
| 18 | TN | Alchemy | Weather, Prophecy, Artifice | |
| 19 | TN | Protection | Sun, Air, Artifice | |
| 20 | LN | Law | Sun, Healing, Community |
Already I can see some that might be a bit of a challenge to explain, but perhaps not. Earth+Weather, for example, may seem difficult at first, but I can imagine a god of sandstorms, or a god of earthquakes. Evil+Healing seems somewhat stranger… perhaps I’ll invert that to disease or something. I see a few combinations I would not have come up with consciously that I think have some fair potential.
This is something of a first cut. I expect to split this up into two or three groups of gods, at least, representing different cultures in the campaign area. I may do a second run if I need more, or to generate even smaller gods (an icosahedron version done just on faces and ignoring the nodes — or a dodecahedron run just on nodes and ignoring faces, same difference — will give me twenty more with three domains each).
When I say ‘choose’ and ‘split up’, I might in fact mean ‘roll d4’ or ‘roll d20’.
As I start assigning the gods to different groups I can expand on their supporting cultures, likely Teraticizing them along those lines. If I get a good set of gods together for a particular culture I might find certain patterns emerging that give me a lot of leverage in devising their history and making them different.
Finally, while the primary domain assignments will likely remain untouched, secondary domains will be carefully considered for replacement with subdomains, or by different domains entirely if I feel there is a better fit elsewhere. Right now most domains are assigned to about the same number of gods (modulo where they landed on the polyhedrons; some naturally get assigned to only four gods, some to as many as six), but there are some that I think should be more or less common than presented above.
Again, this is a first pass… and I think a good start.
It occurs to me that if I want to generate three-domain gods that using an icosahedron but put the domains on the edges rather than the nodes or faces will result in twenty gods each with three domains, with no matching pairs. There would be no coherence between adjacent gods apart from the one shared domain, while the normal model placing the domain on the nodes would result in each god sharing each pair of its domains with another god.
This would also use thirty domains (thirty edges on an icosahedron) rather than twelve domains (twelve nodes). If I also give each god a unique domain (on the ‘face’) it climbs to fifty domains used, but each god has four domains rather than three. It might be worth randomly removing one of the edge domains from each to bring each down to three again.
Later thoughts for a later time. Forty-four gods is enough to work with for now.
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Earth+Weather: Perhaps focus on the purely physical processes of the world, the stuff that happens without even the most primitive life.
Looking at the two you got, I think this would fit quite well:
Weather, Evil, Earth, Alchemy, Liberation
This almost sounds like a god of science, with a focus on ‘damn the ethics, a person is no less a thing than a lump of ore’.
Earth, Weather, Darkness, Destruction
“I hold no malice towards you, but the winds and waves will scour the surface, the very rock will be purged in the depths and even the sun itself must burn itself out and fade. All will be destroyed and cast into darkness, it is the way of things and not even I am exempt from the return of all to its natural state of nothingness.”
Very nice. Or not.
Hell, you know what I mean.
:)
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