Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I was playing around with creating a pantheon of gods for use by clerics in Dungeon Fantasy, and came to an interesting conclusion.

First off, it was essentially a modified Greek pantheon with some changes, with names derived from actual Classical and Homeric epithets. The 'Olympian' twelve were Megistos (Zeus Olympios), Potnia (combo of Hera and Demeter), Nestis (Persephone), Kreno (Kronus/Saturn reconceived as a second generational harvest god), Arcas (Zeus Lykaios), Aethon (Apollo/Helios), Ortheia (Artemis/Selene/Hecate), Enyalios (Ares/Hephaestus composite), Tritogeneia (Athena/Poseidon composite), Cytherea (Aphrodite with aspects of Athena and the Fates), Bromios (composite of Dionysus, Pan, and Herakles), and Dolios (Hermes).

Of these, four (Potnia, Nestis, Kreno, and Bromios) would logically grant spells related to plants, especially Bless Plants. Five would have spells associated with beasts (Potnia, Arcas, Ortheia, Tritogeneia, and Bromios). A few should have abilities to grant control over weather or elements (Potnia, Arcas, Tritogeneia).

Basically, of the pantheon of twelve, seven would do as well to have druids serve as their priests as clerics, or to have their priests 'multiclass' as both (since after all priests of Bromios will want to have Water to Wine and everybody wants healing spells).

Does anyone see any problem with saying that certain deities would be served by both clerics and druids as their priests? Or is this just way overthinking the 'background' for Dungeon Fantasy?

Actually, 'multiclassing' or combining templates in interesting ways could be a whole interesting topic of its own. What kinds of synergies might we find between, say, monks, excuse me, martial artists and knights with Weapon Master?

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

You'll have the official answer later this month.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Thought we might, since I saw Weapon Master just hanging there as one of the Knight's options without any cinematic skills, such as, for example, Power Blow. It just makes too much sense as a power-up. So, Knight/Martial Artist looks good, as does Druid/Scout and, strangely Druid/Martial Artist.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

It's funny, I saw WM and just thought "makes sense, and that damage bonus is really nice". I guess that subconciously I don't see anything past the extra damage and smaller penalties for Rapid Strike and multiple parries as very significant.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Truth be told, that's mostly what it's good for. For a single weapon, you can either invest 12-16 points in skill, add +3 or +4 (and thus +1 or +2 to Parry), and use that to cancel half the -6 for Rapid Strike and -4 for repeated parries . . . and then invest at least 10-20 points in ST for more damage. Or you can just drop 20 points in WM (One skill). It's a pretty sweet deal, really, and it grows in value with ST. A barbarian-martial artist swinging around a weapon for 3d at DX+2 level pulls down +6 damage, which would cost him 60 points to get as ST, and he's probably hitting with it twice as often.

Anyway, my "official" take on all this is in the works. It suffices to say for now that thanks to the number of IQ-based chi skills, those skills aren't the best deal for anyone who doesn't plan to focus on them (like a pure martial artist) or raise IQ.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Whatever pantheon you make, be sure to stat up the gods, so that they can be killed. This being Dungeon Fantasy, it should be possible to prune the cosmos God of War style given sufficiently competent adventurers.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I predict that, seeing as one of my players lurks here, this will be next on his wish list, seeing as his SM+1 norseman just got ST17, though he might hold off until he's got ST19 and then buy it for his longspear.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Why not simply say that druids ARE the priests of your nature aspected deities. Or drop them entirely, strip out a few bits of Cleric to replace with deity specific lenses, and put druid stuff in the lenses for those deities.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Ah, but a few are Will-based, Will doesn't cost nearly as much to raise, and many Knight concepts can make sense with quite high Wills. E.g., if you've WM: Two-Handed Sword, it could be well worth it to boost your Will and buy Power Blow, ending up being able to swing through some of the tougher monsters in a single blow (by doubling your ST into the 30-40 range, then adding the WM damage bonus to your swing damage).

That's pretty much what I concluded; except that they still need some clerics for Water to Wine in one case and for healing spells in others.

More complicated, and takes away from the 'class' feeling of the templates. On the other hand, thinking about taking both forms of Power Investiture leads to the whole discussion of multiclassing.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

In my DF game there are there are three pantheons: The powers of good, the powers of evil, and the old gods.
If a players wants to name a specific patron within a pantheon he can but will gain no special benefits for doing so. The only one to do so at this point is the swashbuckler - he took Errol Flynn as his patron saint. He's having so much fun with the idea that I suspect that over time the others will select their own patrons as well.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Great... a new release date.

BTW, good thread here.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

What will be in the PDF?

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

With druids, I assume that they draw their power not from any one god, but from generic "nature spirits" that inhabit all the wilderness. This, I feel, fits the general theme of Dungeon Fantasy druids better and explains why they can't use their full power in urban of polluted areas.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I've somewhat modified the pantheon, so that there is a clearer split between the celestial and the chthonic deities, with the Celestial ones generally served by clerics and the chthonic ones by druids, since their domain includes all of nature including the clouds and winds. The clerics tend to serve all the celestial members of the pantheon, the druids all the chthonic ones, except that there is a distinction between those related to the living earth and those associated with the Underworld. So, clerics in this setting are more likely to swear by Megistos and Aethon, druids Potnia and Bromios.

1) Megistos - God of the Sky, ruler of the gods (Celestial)
2) Potnia - Goddess of the Earth, queen of the gods (Chthonic, but can also be considered celestial and served by clerics in her capacity as Queen of Heaven)
3) Aethon - God of the Sun (Celestial)
4) Eleutheria - Goddess of the Moon (Celestial, yet just as likely to be honored by bards and wizards (she may grant Magery or Bardic Talent with a Pact to serve her), may also grant druidic Power Investiture in her darker aspect of Enodia, Goddess of Darkened Paths)
5) Nestis - Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Dead (Chthonic, can also grant Necromantic Magery with Pact for controlling the dead)
6) Kreno - God of the Harvest and Time (Chthonic)
7) Dolios - God of Merchants, Messengers, and Thieves (Split Celestial/Chthonic, also not infrequently grants Magery)
8) Enyalios - God of War and Metallurgy (Celestial, smith priests may also gain Magery with Pact)
9) Arctos - God of Storms and the Hunt (Cthonic)
10) Bromios - God of Nature, Strength, and Wine (Chthonic, add Water to Wine to druid spell list)
11) Tritogeneia - Goddess of the Sea, Horses, War and Cities (Split Celestial/Cthonic)
12) Turanis - Goddess of Crafts, Love, and Marriage (Split Celestial/Cthonic, may grant specialized Magery as well)

There are of course darker gods led by Erebus and Adrasteia, Darkness and Mother Night, who grant their clerics Power Investiture with a completely different spell list.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Overthinking? I don't think that.

Anyway, an enough developed Dungeon Fantasy campaign isn't by need radically different from any other roleplaying campaign so, why don't invest some good and fun effort on it?

Maybe interesting to keep in mind Chtonic deities sometimes have clear Underworld-Infernal aspects, too. Chtonic isn't limited to the surface of the earth, but to its abyssal depths too (oops, we are going close to the Underdark!).

So, Druid's preferred gods can be dark or ambiguous in nature. Perhaps someone individual or a entire culture or race perceives them as friendly while they reveal their hellish nature to others.

Or in other words, Darker gods can be different masks or external manifestations of the same Chtonic entities. But perhaps that is a cosmic secret of the campaign world, only for the GM eyes...

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

About the Chtonic - Underworld relation, is interesting the fact of the earth having richness in its surface (crops, vegetables...) and treasures in its depths.

In a mythological interpretation, earth produces its richness and fruits because Pluto (or another one with a similar role) dwells in its depths:

"Pluto. . .the Roman version of Hades, the dreadest god of the Underworld. . .Pluto also had some connections with agriculture. Being the god of the underworld, he owned all the wealth hidden under the ground, including minerals and recently-planted crops. Still, no one worshiped, and rarely mentioned, this deity except in the vilest curses." (GURPS Imperial Rome, second edition, p. 108; see also Plato's Phaedo and Cratylus)

Dungeon delvers have good reasons for going under earth seeking treasures!

This leads also to Druids with ambiguous or darker possibilities.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Because I own Green Ronin's "The Book of the Righteous", I'll be happily using the pantheon and general history and cosmology presented therin for my campaign. It's 300+ pages of fluff, with very little D20 material in it, and I bought it for just such a purpose ;)

I'm curious why you've decided to rename and rework the greco-roman gods, rather than mostly stealing them whole-cloth... but I'm a bit lazy when it comes to my game-worlds religions.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Given that I'm doing the final edit, I don't think that anything will be dropped, so I can rattle it off:

• nonhuman races (37 of them, if I counted right, with notes on how to afford them if you're using character templates, as well as asides on wings, scaled-down gear, and legitimizing reaction penalties as racial disads in a game with little social context*)
• template lenses (each of the 11 base templates gets lenses for the 10 others, which does mean 110 lenses . . . plus various notes on niche protection and how to afford lenses on a budget)
• special lenses for creating evil clerics and unholy warriors (along with evil clerical spells, Unholy Might power, etc.)
• a few suggestions for additional role-specific power-ups that aren't on the templates in DF1
• a few suggestions for new capabilities for any profession that meets the prerequisites (cheesy psi powers of the 1979 vintage, spell-archery, etc.)
• optional rules for old-school experience-point advancement instead of "bonus character points for roleplaying" advancement
• optional guidelines for changing professions and training expenses
• a few new advantages used in all of the above

In short, "advanced character creation and advancement."

* Yes, I kept social disads in the end. As I was trashing them, I thought, "What would dungeon fantasy be if you couldn't use Charisma as a dump stat? What would dungeon fantasy be if it didn't then race to invent dumb way to make Charisma useful after all?" Those who hate it are welcome to charge an extra 20 points or so for "monster races."

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Superb content!

I hope to see there some wizard/warrior "eldritch knight" template or something similar, and some added cool general dungeon delving gear.

However, there is a strong drawback here: we need to wait days for having it!

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

So both faces of the coin... Nice addition to DF!

I was thinking days ago about Dark or Vile Empowerment as the inverse of Power Investiture and Holy Might.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

That's what I was thinking as well. 'Book of the Righteous' has one of the best, fully fleshed-out fantasy pantheons I've ever seen. It's definetly GURPS-worthy. The standard Cleric and Holy Warrior templates could cover the basics, with the addition of lenses for specific deities. After all, while an Officer of Maal, a Hero of Darmon and a Mage Guard of Tinel are all Holy Warriors and share some basic abilities, they each have different specific traits.

It deserves a bit of thinking.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I've noticed all the way through DF 2 the reminder that you CAN negotiate or bribe your way past dungeon encounters... this of course is very hard to do when one or more party members has a -8 to -12 reaction penalty :D

Having played a "monster race" PC for a long time (admitedly in a rather odd D&D game), it's definitely an inconvenience. Not as much as it would be in a "straight" game, but it's still there.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Hm, at first "glance" 37 nonhuman races seems a lot, maybe even too many... I hope there will be space in the scarce 31-32 pages of the PDF for other cool and varied stuff.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well, I suppose that I could have gone the Deities and Demigods route of using various real pantheons in a mish-mash sort of way, but I was figuring on changing certain aspects of them and wanted different names so that it wouldn't stand out to anybody who knew, say, Norse and Greek mythology. So, I had a little bit of fun looking up alternate names and epithets for the Olympians, changing some aspects, conflating others, changing the myths around a little bit (so that, for example, Eulothereia - Liberty - is known by that name because she entered the Underworld to rescue her brother Aethon out of darkness).

I could have gone another way, I suppose, looking more to practical campaign roles. One could split the gods into a Pantheon of Light, granting clerical spells, and a Pantheon of Nature Gods, granting druidic spells.

In the first case, one could posit a deity of either gender for each of the following portfolios - Healing, Light, Knowledge, War (including most buffs and protections), and perhaps Justice or Boundaries (to deal with the non-light spiritual warfare spells). In the second, you could have deity of the Forest, of Beasts, of Fertility, of each of the Elements, and either corresponding to Air or separately, of Storm. This would not only correspond to the spell lists, but also suggest temples of healing, of learning, of training in knightly arts, and of justice and law; groves in veneration to the forest god(s), granges devoted to bringing in the crop, wells where fertility is prayed for, and hills and mountaintops where the storm gods are appeased.

One could also posit a patron god for each template; so there would be a god of barbarians (just don't call him Crom), of bards and music, a primary god of light honored by clerics, a singular god of nature (Pan?) honored by the druids, a patron saint of holy warriors, a war god or saint followed by knights, a god or bodhisvatti that is patron to all the monasteries and schools of martial artists, a god of archery and the woods that is patron to scouts, a saint of the sword for swashbucklers, a god of thieves, and a god of magic. Some of these could be joined; there's no reason that the god or saint of holy warriors couldn't be the same one followed by simpler knights, or that druids and scouts couldn't reference the same wood god. You'd probably also want other patron gods for professions that don't translate into adventuring templates as well, so a god of merchants and a god of smiths, and many gods for farmers.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

My bet is that they do double duty as 20-30 monsters ;)

My second bet is that they won't have long racial descriptions, a la Fantasy Folk. Instead they probably get a (short) paragraph, suitable for a GM to spin a description and culture off of, but basically having very few "cannonical" details.

Like the AD&D monster manual, really.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well, races don't necessarily have to take up much space. For example, the Basic Set manages to fit 3 races on slightly less than half of page 261.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I once tried coming up with an original pantheon for a fantasy campaign I ran with my wife. I decided I wanted twelve deities and I divided them into four for the four elements, (earth, air, fire & water); four for the four main races, (humans, elves, dwarves and "monsters"; I felt it important that the orcs and kobolds and dragons have a god as well); and four representing some important abstract concepts; (love, death, justice... and I forget the fourth). Then there was also a thirteenth god of Magic, who had been expelled from the pantheon in the remote past. Gotta have a bad guy in there someplace!

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Let's just say some of them wouldn't be good dinner guests. Unless you're actually having the elves over for dinner. "Og like elf. Good with mint. Must be green elf."

Good bet. The descriptions are there to set the tone, not to tell you how to play your character. They're about as detailed as the ones with the sample monsters in DF 2.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well, you've seen the list: 110 lenses for character templates, various new advantages, advancement options, etc. It's purely about characters -- not items or traps or dungeon design -- but it's lots of different sides of characters. Not to put down my own work, but it's basically all the crud that the GM would need to take weeks out to prepare so that his players could each use 4% of it.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

If Kromm is going to address the issue of "multi-templating" regarding characters in DF 3, the way of handling the relation between Magery and Power Investiture/Holy Might both in a single character may be... interesting, involving the possible distinction(?) between the magical and the divine.

I prefer to think mortals do play approximately with the same power (Magery & Power Investiture), but wizards perspective and method is different than the way of clerics. Their relationships with the source/s of power aren't the same.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I'll just come out and say that I decided not to let people "save points" by merging clerical, druidic, and wizardly abilities for cheap. The three are affected by sanctity, natural purity, and mana, respectively. Each one you're able to use in a situation where one of those things is lacking is a nice backup for the ones you can't use. I don't see there being any fair way to give out discounts on that.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I'm not sure that you need to build a Pantheon ahead of time for Dungeon Fantasy. You could get away with just coming up with Gods as they're needed. When the Cleric asks 'Who can I worhip?' your answer could be 'What kind of deity do you want to worship?'

With that said I'm going for a very basic Pantheon myself:

Mother Earth - a classic nature goddess for Barbarians, Druids, Scouts, farmers, and the like.

Grandfather Sun - a classic Appolonian solar deity for Clerics, Holy Warriors, Knights, nobility and the like.

Grandmother Chaos - a classic primal force of not necessarily evil chaos for Clerics, Swashbucklers, trickster Thieves, and the like.

Brother Moon - a classic trickster/magic/commerce God for Bards, greedy Thieves, Wizards, merchants, and the like.

For NPC's we have the (Sinister) Comet Cults - the major 'evil' forces for assassins, crazed cultists, evil Clerics, monsters and the like. With enough prayer and sacrifices to them a comet crashes into the planet.

For Martial Artists we'll skip Gods altogether.

Cosmologically Grandfather Sun is the Sun, Grandmother Chaos is a black hole [1], Mother Earth is your planet, Brother Sun is your planets moon, and the commet cults are the commets and other planets in the system.

[1] Yes, I know that having a black hole in a habitable system is astronomically dubious but this is magic, not science.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I would agree that it's not fair to get an extra discount for what are, effectively, separate powers with separate sources.

On the other hand, though, I could see some deities granting Magery with a Pact limitation, which would then fail to work in low mana *or* if you **** your god(s) off enough. That's not really what I would expect to see as a core concept in a DF version of multi-templating, however.

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Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Thaumatology will certainly expand on this idea, but it needs rather a few pages to do so . . . DF is meant to be "quick and dirty," mostly.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I guess that Thaumatology ideas would be applicable to DF, if one wants to use them.


I agree with that. Starting the campaign with a entire pantheon is like starting a campaign with the whole game world fleshet out. In most cases isn't neccessary.

But if you want a image of the whole... that is different.

Well, that Granmother Chaos idea seems to correspond with the Natura Naturans of the medieval Tomism. It is also the universal substance, the pure potentiality (hindu Shamkya's Prakrti), represented in cult as the Dark Goddess, the Middle Ages' Black Madonnas or Black Virgins, and even the popular Babylonic Tiamat.

Nature Naturans, in opinion of some (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Smith) scientists and philosophers, seems related with the subcorporeal domain of quantum physics, despite being an ontologic theme.

The Granmother Chaos is very well symbolized by the image from the astrophysic hypothesis of the Black Hole (ok, maybe a single, universal Black Hole here!), and it links very well with one of the Kabbalistic medieval cosmogonies: the Tsimtsum, the act of God retreating Himself from Himself leaving a vacuum hole of darkness, nothingness and pure potentiality (the hebrew tehôm).

That is a good point.

Regarding that primal chaos (again, the Nature Naturans or pure potentiality) regarded as evil isn't but the human moral and humanistic viewpoint about an ontological and non-human universal principle. It is so correct as thinking about "God" as being "good".

But in the "ancient world", the moral and humanistic perspective wasn't predominant because the ritual and cosmic viewpoint.

However a GM can rule in her campaign perhaps the human moral viewpoint retains some degree of truth after all... I find this theme interesting, because chtonic deities as manifestations or worshipped personifications of the cosmologic prime chaos or pure potentiality is related with the chaotic, dark and evil gods motiff characteristic of Fantasy and Dungeon Fantasy (and Horror).

From a complementary perspective, essence (gods of light, good, etc) and substance (gods of chaos, darkness, evil) aren't enemies, but each one fulfills its own cosmic function in the wholeness.

But from a partial, incomplete, non-complementary viewpoint ("the natural perception of most mortals beings"), yang (essence, light, olimpic, heaven) can be viewed sometimes as oppossed to yin (substance, darkness, chtonic, earth), resulting in seeming clash and enemity.

In other words: universal principles, being beyond all measure and rational knowledge, very well makes the human (or elven, whatever, except maybe those with Power Investiture or Blessed http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...25&postcount=8) perception of their mutual interactions indeed incomplete and partial, resulting in seeing or interpreting on them enemity instead complementarity:

Voila! Here is the Fantasy motiff of the huge divine wars of "alignments" (law-order-light vs. chaos-potentiality-darkness powers) in the world.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

A godess of chaos, eh? Sounds strangely familiar, but I just can't figure out what the fnord it reminds me of...

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I forgot this point.

I mostly agree with you about skipping gods for martial artists, and that has its own background: the "typical" eastern martial artist doesn't portray entirely a religious viewpoint (faith, cult, worship, etc) but a metaphysical one related more with "trascendental knowledge" than with mere faith in different personal deities, spirits or other manifestations from the Absolute, as Taoism.

While a Taoist, in some context, speaks about the Non-Being (Tao Te King), a religious gnostic mentions the "name" of his Black Goddess ("Nigra sum sed formosa", Canticle of Canticles).

But this is open to some nuances: this distinction isn't always (and it doesn't need to be) total . The metaphysical and the religious different perspectives aim essentially at the same core but through different approaches. Some traditions sometimes are examples of mixing both of them: Buddhism is mostly a metaphysical path but at the same time is full of gods and demons.

So, while mostly agreeing with your point about martial artists, I think there can be some space for them having gods -being, from their typical metaphysical perspective, relative manifestations of the Tao, Buddha Nature or impersonal Absolute.

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If you're trying to hint that pnewman borrowed the idea, that's about as old news as the head god being a guy with a big beard in the sky. It's a very common trope, starting with Tiamat, Babylonian goddess of subterranean waters and primeval chaos, and continuing from there.

Of course, considering the only other alternatives are a god of chaos, or a gender-indeterminate deity of chaos, you have to expect it to come up fairly frequently.

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To be honest, I just take every opportunity I can get to make Discordian jokes.

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I don't have that book, yet. Do they not allow clerics to get plant spells?

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Or the cultured Cebrebral Slicer who wonders whether a '65 Harital or the '57 Boudelle goes better with fresh Mountain Halfling L'Orange...

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Right, but I've also got it so that Grandmother and Grandfather gave birth to the other Gods - it was a 'mixed marriage' of Law and Chaos. Mother Earth got bored and started making mortals. When they saw this Grandmother and Grandfather got interested and they started making mortals, then Brother Moon stepped in too. This is why the setting has so many sophont races. Mother Earth creates Dragons, Grandfather creates Lawful Dragons, Grandfather creates Chaotic Dragons. Mother Earth creates humans, Grandfather creates Dwarves, Grandmother creates Elves. Repeat until nausea ensues.

Got it in one. None of the Gods, save the Comet Cults, are 'Evil'. Since sophisticated cosmology is too complicated for my concept of Dungeon Fantasy I wanted to create a clearly distinguishable Pantheon that was small enough to describe quickly, all of whom made suitable Gods for party members, but weren't antagonistic enough that they'd cause fights in the party.

I also to wanted to ensure that not all evil people worshiped evil gods, thus making them harder to identify. In terms of that other game a 'Lawful Neutral' God like Grandfather Sun can have both 'Lawful Good' Holy Warriors and 'Lawful Evil' Mongol style Hobgoblin steppe nomads follow him. Similarly a 'Chaotic Neutral' Goddess like Grandmother Chaos can have both 'Chaotic Good' Robin Hood style Scouts and 'Chaotic Evil' Dark Elves follow her.

I also wanted to reject the whole race and culture Gods shtick, it's too complicated. There aren't human gods and Dwarven Gods, or Greek Gods and Japanese Gods. The same Gods just have different names in different cultures. A Cleric of Grandfather Sun can call on Apollo, Amateratsu, Ra, Dazbog, or some made up name like Pelor and it makes no difference.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well that is not very many monster races.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Personally, I think that's too sophisticated a cosmology for a straight dungeon crawl game. Lots and lots and lots of gods scattering around silly artifacts and sponsoring ridiculous cults seems like a natural there. Really you hardly need to know anything about the gods. Probably not even the PCs - it's not like clerics or monks or paladins interact with an existing religious structure, live according to the strictures of a faith other than those they make up themselves, or make much effort to actually spread their faiths. In this genre most players wouldn't want to if you force them.

Make up gods as you need them. Let the players make up gods for their characters. And if it turns out later that the campaign backstory involves multiple mythologies which are completely contradictory, so what? There's nothing wrong with having a dozen different gods all of whom independently created and rule the universe. The story isn't about the creation of the universe. Quit asking which myth is true, go kill some orcs and loot their stuff.

Admittedly a single coherent pantheon lends itself better to "high level" games where the PCs are participating in divine politics and genuinely do get to kill gods and destroy the universe, but this is bordering on the high fantasy epic genre, which has different rules.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Exactly. DF assumes the existence of four sets of gods:

1. Good Gods. These are the deities that clerics and holy warriors serve, and who bless holy water. They heal and protect. They're mostly interchangeable.
2. Evil Gods. These are the bosses of demons. They create cursed items and places. They might have a few evil clerics and unholy warriors. They're mostly interchangeable.
3. Nature Gods. These are the entities that druids serve. They rule plants and animals, and remain neutral in the Good-Evil dispute. They're mostly interchangeable.
4. Elder Gods. These are the gods of lost civilizations, served by insane NPC cultists. They're from Outside Time and Space, and transcend the Good-Evil dispute. They're mostly interchangeable.

Further details are strictly roleplaying. For game purposes, any altar of Good will serve any good cleric well, any altar of Evil will serve any evil cleric equally well, and so on.

In Powers terms, we're talking about two Moral powers, a single Nature power, and a Cosmic power, respectively. There are no truly Divine powers; the setup is more "Moral Forces" than "The Pantheon" (Powers, p. 30), but the Moral powers are identified as "divine" by those who wield them. (And there are also Chi and Magical powers, and maybe Psi powers, but none of those have to do with gods at all.)

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I love your lists!

Really. Maybe this is interesting for inclusion in some DF material, for clearity or curiosity.

(OK, I don't want to make you cut more words but...)

I wonder what is the relation of DF Elder Gods with altars and similar things.

Since Elder Gods are stuff of inimaginable horror (mainly to the evil side of the spectrum, but correct me if I'm wrong with this, please), and they trascend other forces (Cosmic scale), I wonder if Dungeon Fantasy is assuming a maltheistic (3e Religion, p.137; 4e Fantasy, p32) or dystheistic bottom background? ;-)

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I don't know, I might run Elder Gods not too different from how they are in the Malazan Book of the Fallen world. They might not be evil, but as their ceremonies might well be intrinsicialy linked to say blood sacrifices there might not be much that they can do to change their perception, even if they don't personaly care much for such things.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Your paragraph seems ok for me. Speaking from the "campaign world" (The DF Town!) viewpoint (not from an intra-party perspective) even if these gods aren't really enemies, the mortal beings hindranced, perhaps wrong and partial perception of these entities or of their internal relationships can make them to interpret or believe that.

Or even the personal goals of people can to make them falsely interpret whatever they want about gods, too, giving birth to different "sects" each one enforcing conflicting interpretations about these gods... For instance, someone wanting war, could claim revelation for the awareness of a inner clash between gods.

So "godly enemity" can be put down to the human sphere of beliefs and interpretations if one wants to do that. And then that enemity of cults is real in the world's history.

Of course, all this is "fluff" roleplaying stuff ;)

I agree with that, myself not being fond of race specific pantheons (ok, this would need some nuances -different races worshipping or relating with different aspects/names of the same divine entity-, but not now). These multiple pantheons (that goes beyond the idea of polyteism) add a non needed degree of IMO nonsensical complexity (even for a straight Fantasy non-dungeon game), a purely quantitative pluralism difficult to handle with some sense.

Instad, the interchangeability factor of Kromm here is very well suited here, and enough generic.

Well, that is another approach. But when I think about DF material I expect it to have some degree of sense for being useful in a non-dungeons Fantasy campaign too ;-) I know, that is my personal bias.

Anyway, nothing stops a GM from integrating all that maddening Forgotten Realms Faiths & Pantheons plurality of player & GM created gods in an almost effortless way in the middle of the course of a given campaign for suiting the view offered by pneuman:

If you have a lot of gods hanging around in the campaign world, I prefer this approach because it turns all that complex and nonsensical pluralism of entities back to a sort of "simplicity". But this remains as a matter of taste.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I understand, and I appretiate your answer.

I remain interested in Kromm's take about this point. Even if it is the simplified DF one.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well, here I go again thanks to pnewman is providing good examples for this:


Again, Chaos, Darkness, Evil are names or aspects of the pure potentiality. (1)

On the other hand, Unbound (absence of restraint) and Freedom are aspects of it, too.

So Dark Elves perceiving and worshipping the pure potentiality (or potentia) as their Grandmother Chaos "Llolth", and Robin Hood's scouts honoring that anarchical (sometimes righteous, too) Grandmother Chaosin their fighting for freedom, are great examples of different races & cultures worshipping the same entity (I prefer to think here about impersonal universal principles, however) under some different chosen set of its own multiple aspects (2).



(1) "Chaotic neutral" is, inside of the limited "D&D terminology", the best suited, most impartial and comprehensive "name" for that universal principle that is, after all, the "stuff" of the Infinite.

(2) By the same token, regarding these 'Lawful Good' Holy Warriors and 'Lawful Evil' Mongol style Hobgoblins, as you say both would be related to the Yang principle (universal essence) oppossed & complementary to yin (universal substance): Granfather Sun has, between its (or His) names, Love and Justice (the names-aspects chosen by these "lawful good" Holy Warriors), while it has too the names of Implacable Order and Harsh Rigour, in line with the "lawful evil" Genghis Khan's hobgoblins.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I get the point of the simplification here, but I also recall some of the appeal of extremely classic DF being the calling out of the name of one's favored god, the (remote) chance of divine intervention, and eventually the opportunity to actually go out, kill some gods, and take their stuff. Also, and not so fondly, I remember even the Good Gods being differentiated a little according to a more complex (two-dimensional, really) structure of Moral Forces. Oh, let's be honest, I'm talking about Deities and Demigods and the D&D Alignment structure with the Lawful-Chaotic axis added to the Good-Evil one.

There's also the point that in my personal experience I pretty quickly moved on to 1st edition Runequest, which supported standard dungeon crawls just fine even though there was a rich world background that you could use or not as you saw fit. I mean, really, you could search through underground warrens for treasure just as in classic DF, only now with the option of playing a duck. I even seem to recall one of the earliest adventures released providing more detail on the local town than usual, but in typical DF fashion providing stats for the inhabitants and quantities of treasure in each house in case you wanted to just maraude through the place as though it were a dungeon.

Both the alignment variations in D&D and the religious differences built into RQ from the start provided opportunities for intraparty conflict and occasional back-stabbing, both of which I remember being quite frequent in even the most munchkiny of campaigns. Just the number of times that some Chaotic Evil nutter we for some reason allowed into the party got everybody killed at once... strange that we didn't notice at the time that it was frequently the same player that insisted on cheating at cards in Boot Hill or insulting the daimyo in Bushido, but let's leave that aside for now.

But enough reminiscing. I guess my original point was that so far in DF proper we only really have the two Power Investiture lists of spells to go by, one for the Good Gods served by Clerics and one for the Nature Gods served by Druids. One thing that struck me was that a few items in the Druid spell lists were things that the Good Gods would be able to or want to do for their worshipers, such as Bless Plants to provide great crop yields without miserable peasants all over the place (yeah, there I go worldbuilding again) or Lightning to punish the evil (actually, a Call Lightning spell where a bolt came down from the sky after some delay might be a nice addition). Likewise, there were some things in the Cleric spell lists that seemed like they might fit just as well with Nature Gods. So, in trying to add a little more detail in terms of the gods to fit my half-remembered paradigm of swearing oaths by strange gods while in the stone tunnels, I came across quite a few cases where it seemed a god might be served by both types of priests.

But yeah, I completely understand that this sort of thing can easily be left to the players to flesh out, if and when they care. The clerics can be assumed to be worshipping the entire Crystal Dragon Jesus pantheon of Good Gods, and the druids can be assumed to be worshipping all of Nature, and it won't matter as long as you know the location of the closest Temple of Healing and how much they charge for a Great Healing, etc., or where the local Grove of Druids is and whether they will even take gold pieces to serve as wilderness guides. The PCs probably neither know nor care whether the Grove is annually the site of ceremonial castings of Bless Plants with the attendance of the local farmers, and other details of that nature.

That said, I think it could be kind of fun to parse out the customization notes or the spell lists themselves, add in the concept of patron saints or deities for each of the templates or professions, and develop a more detailed pantheon on that basis.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

And to do just that... let's take the Clerical spell lists (and Holy Might power) first. Categories of spells (and some of these may overlap):

1) Healing. There are so many of these that we could easily divide them further into physical/mental healing, or healing of diseases/afflictions and of wounds. Note also that some of them (Lend Energy, for example) work as combat buffs as well, and that Resurrection might fit into its own special category. For the moment, just note that there'll be at least one major God of Healing, even if that god has other attributes.

2) Protections. We could lump warning spells like Watchdog in here with the physical protections, give them their own category, or lump them in with another category such as Wisdom. The physical protections could be one aspect of a God of War, or have their own deity that is purely passively protective.

3) Wisdom. There are quite a few informational spells normally part of the Knowledge college spread throughout the lists. It seems appropriate for the Good Gods to include a God or Goddess of Wisdom.

4) War. There are a fair number of combat buffs, leadership buffs, and even direct attacks in here, that seem appropriate for a God of War.

5) Spirits/Undead. There are quite a few spells concerned with dealing with spirits or physical undead, exclusive of sunlight spells mostly useful against vampires. This might point to a Good-aligned God of Death, or possibly Peaceful Rest as a polite euphemism. Resurrection might be in this god's portfolio in addition to or instead of that of the God of Healing.

6) Light. Clearly, there are quite a few light-oriented spells, including some effective attacks.

Now we start to get into finer gradations - any of the following could easily enough be folded into any of the above.

6) Purity. There are a few spells devoted specifically to cleansing or purifying things, as distinct from healing people of diseases. This could be an aspect of Healing, or the bailiwick of a distinct deity.

7) Truth and/or Justice/Law. There are a few spells that get at the truth which might be part of or independent of Wisdom. There's also Oath...

8) Food and/or Plenty. Actually, there are quite a few Food spells in here. They could be part and parcel of an Earth Goddess that also grants Healing, or they could have their own deity behind them.

9) Oddball spells. There are a few that almost seem more roguish (Silence, Silver Tongue), and then there are some really powerful spells that seem to point more at a Sky or Ruler God.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

The Druid spells are a little easier to separate out. You would get:

1) A God of Beasts, or as many different deities as you want for as many types of animals as you want to differentiate - maybe you like totems. Responsible for all the Animal college spells.

2) A God of Paths that grants most of the informational spells. Seek spells could be separated out by element/type of terrain, or available from this god, or both. Would be very popular with Scouts, for obvious reasons.

3) The Gods of the Elements. There aren't a lot of Fire spells, so the God of Fire might not be much dealt with, but the Gods of Earth, Air/Storm/Wind, and Water would be very important to the druids, given how many of their powers derive from them. Of course, it's also possible that each individual mountain, river, etc. has its own deity/nymph that must be treated with for these kinds of effects.

4) The God of Forests. Plant spells, obviously. Might or might not be separate from a Grain God or Goddess of the Fields, if the druids would even deal with such. Again, there could be a separate dryad for every tree, leshy for every forest, and disir for every field, if so desired. Even if so, there might still be a central Green Man figure, or maybe Totoro.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Last, but not least, patron deities for the classes, excuse me, templates, other than the cleric, druid, and holy warrior themselves.

1) Barbarian - Wouldn't necessarily have only one god that they worship; druidic nature worship of many gods probably suits their backgrounds better. But only the strongest of their gods, the Ruler Warrior God (like Conan's Crom) is fit to be their patron or signature deity. Whether he fits in among the Good Gods or the Nature Gods doesn't really matter, unless you plan on an expedition to barbarian lands where you might encounter the occasional tribal shaman or priest with significant powers. Or, like in the background of Leiber's Fafhrd, perhaps all the women of the tribe are powerful witches with access to the druidic spell lists.

2) Bard - It would be a nice bit of background if there was a God of Music, or even just a legendary hero who was the first Bard ever. Which pantheon such a deity or demigod belongs to matters little, since he won't be granting any powers to the Bards except perhaps for their Bardic Talent itself. Unless you end up with multi-templated Bard/Clerics or Bard/Druids, of course. The former option meshes better with a founding figure who, like Orpheus, went into the Underworld; the latter with the concept of a singer whose song could command beasts and the elements. If you want both, it might be better to avoid the dichotomy there and simply take full Song-Based or Musical Magery. Otherwise, this deity fits fine in other slot; Gods of light are often also gods of music, but then too are the gods of sheperds. This area could also have multiple deities, like the Muses, whether based on instrument or mode of performance.

3) Knight - generally speaking, any God of War from the ranks of the Good Gods works fine for the Knight.

4) Martial Artist - Martial artists don't *need* to be worshipping any gods at all, but it wouldn't harm them to either have a patron saint of sorts that founded their disciplines and orders (and there could be many of each), or to pay homage to one of the Good Gods or War and/or Wisdom.

5) Scout - Scouts are likely to pay their respects to druidic gods of forests and/or pathfinding. On the other hand, if the Good Gods include deities of sun, moon, or war that emphasize archery, those could be favorites instead. Or there could just be a legendary heroic figure, the first Ranger or Huntsman, instead.

6) Swashbuckler - Swashbucklers are less likely to honor a God of War, and more likely to favor a patron saint of the sword, or perhaps a random God of Luck (or Panache or Style, if you want to get silly).

7) Thief - Why, of course there should be a God of Thieves! The only question is if he is just another face of one of the Good Gods, an Evil God that is also served by assassins or something, or a random element of some sort.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

8) Wizard - There might be a separate God of Magic, or that office might be folded in with that of a God of Knowledge or Wisdom. Either works equally well.

Other professions: If you want some flavor when you visit the local town or village, let there be patron deities of other professions, even if they aren't adventuring templates - farmers, smiths, masons, merchants, sheperds, sailors. They don't necessarily need to have clerics of their own or provide anything but flavor, or if you end up building your world up past the simplest modes, you can have them be granted the ability to cast a few spells per Mysteries of the Trade in Fantasy. Perhaps most of the weapons and armor enchantments currently being done (as opposed to recovered from underground dungeons) aren't done by wizard enchanters, but rather by Master Smiths who basically only know how to do those enchantments, and maybe a cantrip or to dealing with heating up metal and such.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

That is the point.

Well, the Fantasy Thief has a numinous side, and it is related with invisibility, darkness, betrayal (unreliable and chaotic trait), danger and mistery. All that relates him -again- with one of the universal principles, pertaining themselves to the order of the non-manifestation: uncreated, invisible, misterious and morally unreliable.

The Fantasy Thief is specially drawn to the dark potentia, yin or the "Grandmother Chaos" (or "Night"). So my opinion is if you seek a god/dess for thieves, work out a divine personification of it/Her.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Well, in my pseudo-Greek pantheon that I started this thread with, I did have a deity called Nyx (couldn't find a good alternate epithet) or 'Mother Night'. Like the Nyx in Greek mythology, she had lots of children that aren't really formally worshipped by the clerical establishment, but would fit in these odd roles. So, besides Death, Sleep, Dreams, Fear, etc., she could easily have twins who are the God of Music and the God of Silence respectively, patrons respectively of Bards and Thieves (although the latter might frequently invoke Mother Night directly as well).

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

Intelligibility (supernatural knowledge and wisdom) is an aspect of the essential pole (Yang, Celestial, light, order, consciousness, etc) of existence, opposed to the unintelligible and insane chaos own of the substantial pole (yin, darkness, chaos, unconsciousness, ignorance).

So knowledgeable and learned Wizards may praise the intelligible nature of the essential Being (again, one of the two universal principles), even giving it/Him the name of a mysteric teacher god or guru of knowledge.

For more about the ancient and mysteric difference between "rational understanding" and "intellectual knowledge":

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

More fluff roleplaying & worldbuilding stuff:

I forgot to add regarding the wizards and their arcane wisdom viewpoint: the degree of mysteric intellectual knowledge would determine the identification and proximity with the essential-celestial pole (in other words, Holiness...), while the lack of this knowledge would determine the ontological proximity (downwards) to the substantial-chthonic pole.

The seeming problem here would be all wizards worshipping this aspect of the essential principle, would be almost in the path of the Buddha in its pursuing the knowledge of the source of all magical wisdom (again, the essential principle)... (1)

Perhaps evil gods of arcane arts or dark supernatural patrons of magic (personifications of aspects of the pure potentiallity) offer to some wizards a sort of pseudo-knowledge, not for advancing ontologically "upwards" but for achieving more raw magical power and control of the phenomenologic order at exchange of the possibility of achieving truer knowledge making them paying the price of taking some steps downwards (2)... The Black Robes or the Dark Side theme...

In a Fantasy cosmos (even if it is Dungeon Fantasy), Above and Below (4e Fantasy, p.40) are meaningful notions because each one aims at one of the two universal principles, or at their respective realms.

BTW, a cosmos with the dark, substantial pole as the only universal principle (if such thing can be said), lacking its essential counterpart, would be very close to the maltheistic Dark Fantasy & Horror wordlview: that very unopposed primal darkness fits very well as Elder God (or Goddess), in the most negative and horrific sense: "Only Hell is real. What you regard as Evil is indeed the only principle."

Beware, then, with the Grandmother Chaos!

(1) The generic and default indistinction of GURPS Magic between wizardly magic and clerical or divine magic would match with this. But DF assumptions aren't neccessarily the same.

(2) Perhaps these dark patrons of magic offers their patronage in an deceptive way, portraying the unknowable "unintelligible and insane chaos own of the [mysterious and non-manifested] substantial pole " as the Mysterium Tremendum itself, as the very goal of intellectual and mysteric knowledge, turning these black wizards in powerful madmen step after step closer to the Abyss.
In other words, the unknowable and by definition unintelligible nature of the substantial dark pole lends itself to be mistaken with a possitive trascendental cosmic mystery, and some entities could try to take advantage of that for advancing their goals.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy Pantheons
 

I'm too lazy to go check, but my general impression of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy was that there was an attempt to make Arcane magic different from Divine magic, and making Druidic magic different from both.

Hence my guess would be a "no".