I Want Some New Gods

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.

Alignments

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.

	Law	Neutral	Chaos
Good	3	4	3
Neutral	4	16	4
Evil	3	4	3

Domains Granted

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		N	Charm	Strength, Hunting, Plant
3		NG	Good	Hunting, Nobility, Travel
4		N	Water	Trickery, Nobility, War
5		N	Ley Lines	Rune, Magic, War
6		TN	Transformation	Rune, Luck, Magic
7		N	Void	Strength, Luck, Plant
8		N	Knowledge	Strength, Hunting, Travel
9		N	Madness	Trickery, Nobility, Travel
10		NE	Evil	Trickery, Magic, War
11		N	Glory	Fire, Darkness, Destruction
12		N	Liberation	Weather, Prophecy, Destruction
13		CN	Chaos	Prophecy, Air, Artifice
14		N	Apocalypse	Sun, Air, Community
15		N	Death	Fire, Healing, Community
16		N	Repose	Fire, Darkness, Healing
17		N	Earth	Weather, Darkness, Destruction
18		N	Alchemy	Weather, Prophecy, Artifice
19		N	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.