Worldbuilding | Pantheons and Deities

We talk about Worldbuilding with Pantheons, and how you can get more mystery and spirituality out of your deities with a little poetry and song! We also use James Holloway's "Pamphlet of Pantheons" zine!

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Twitter: @kylelatino

I am using just regular cheap pencils in this video.

[MedievalAngryDude]

I think it's also important to present the relationship of gods and people in an interesting way. Literally tossing a couple of powerful creatures into the world to hang around like a bunch of high level players is boring. It may seem obvious, but guys, start reading history and philosophy books to enrich your worlds. Maybe it's just me, but almost all the DMs or worldbuilders that I met somehow forgot about the historicism of consciousness and psychology, religious traditions. because of this, their gods with a lot of details and deep characters looked more like cosplayers

[FoldingScreenMonkey]

I've had parts of a pantheon kicking around in my head for a while. The rules I've given myself for designing it are that a) gods must pertain to mundane aspects of life moreso than arbitrary fantasy elements like fire, magic, chaos, etc; b) gods must have overlap or ambiguity in their domains because that opens up boundless potential for conflict and storytelling; and c) gods must have unconventional domains. I have a god of passageways (specifically passageways, not passage), whose followers hang old keys above doorframes and on bridges, and is worshipped equally by thieves and the people they steal from. There is a merchant god whose followers see haggling as a form of prayer, and must buy their names. I also have less developed gods of words and art. There's contention over transportation and whether it falls under the purview of the merchant god or the passageway god.

[itisALWAYSR.A.]

I think this touches on a good point. People use pantheon in service to their characters but don't think on the Why.

Your druid worships Gjeof, god of the Harvest. Cool, but WHY is the harvest Gjeof's domain?

Typically there might be stories of how the deity had to weather great challenges, or how they cultured the First Seed or how they sacrificed something to make soil fertile or brokered a deal with another god to make the stones edible.

Like if one looks at other gods (eg Greek), they're not just so in a vacuum, they're part of their own rich ecosystem, and mere humans would call after the individual best suited to the need.

[nonana]

"and i don't think i'm allowed to kill something because i am frightened" has stuck with me ever since i first read it and hearing it come up here was amazing. love it! love the vision. beautiful art.

[sugarette_burn]

Two things, first is that the "all flame" made me cry, the second is that I felt exactly like that after killing a spider five days ago.
It's weird to find some moments of connection in videos, but this was one of those, thank you for your creativiy and work

[nicklarocco]

I think I'm going to use that spider poem as the first prayer said to lolth in my game, who I have taken the idea of and changed her more into a trickster goddess, and a protector of the outcasts. It's perfect.

[igrek]

I love whenever people mention Dunsany his writing is so powerful and mythical, I especially love his short stories.

[VirusVisal]

I love your style so much and this many faced god is top tier, omg such an incredible design!!

[InkyTheHooloovoo]

I really like the idea of using snippets of fiction and poems as religious chants or passages from holy texts to set the mood for deity. Such a great suggestion and right as the group I'm DMing is about to visit the a monastery

[LoganCrazyBoy]

Great video! Whenever Kyle mentioned the bible in other videos I went "alright... any second now we're getting one about gods"

The idea about creating little poems and anecdotes for the gods is really good. Dolmenwood kinda does something like that. It doesn't elaborate on the God themself, but it tells a little story about each of the many saints of the Dolmenwood, and how they used each miracle in the spell list.

Aside from that, the Nikki Giovanni poem is so effective. It reminds me of the Japanese saying that "Even the prayers of an ant reaches the Kami", which is a really effective way to convey how Shinto (and, to a degree, Zen Buddhism in general) sees the world as this place where everything is living.

[NumbSkull]

I've really struggled with gods in D&D.
I've always used existing pantheons, and worked from there, but I've never built my own. I'm not sure what my problem is, because I can create NPCs all day long; and I write a lot about religion, and myth and belief and what it means to people for good and ill.

[Lordsofplural]

My way of designing deities goes through the same process the rest of the world goes through. There is an overall theme of the story, for this example let’s say it’s loss, and each deity has its hand in history and the reason the world is what it is. Tying them into the overal story gives them a amazing feeling of breathing living things and they all have goals and such especially when large events happen, which are typically the basis of campaigns.

[SeeleSO]

I'm currently in the process of doing some worldbuilding, and I'm still thinking about my pantheon. This has given me a lot to think about. Thanks!

[jhorn]

Another insightful video! That was a good point you made about how important it is for deities to represent emotional truths just as much as they represent natural laws, it really ties back into that concept of characters being some of the most powerful worldbuilding devices at a storyteller's disposal

[hogwarner]

This is an absolutely fantastic video, and it opened my eyes to the fact that I really wasn't putting enough thought into my gods and pantheons. Mythology was created as a way to understand the world, and I really needed to be reminded that that's exactly how they should be used in world-building. I was never too interested in gods in fantasy realms, and I now know that it's because they're not often done in meaningful fashions. Really great video! Also, the poem at the end was very thought-provoking and it's a brilliant idea to make gods/deities that represent addages and stories that are thought provoking at a philosophical and spiritual level.

Again, thank you for making this video! Was really eye-opening!

[Quarataia]

I needed this right now, my working on god like beings that inhabitant my world, but I haven't gotten into the actual gods, though I still have an more minimalistic way of representing them, being more localized than overarching.

[thecaveofthedead]

Superb. Really got me thinking. Loved that spider poem. I was very moved. The trick seems to be - as so often - don't confuse the map with the territory. Don't reduce your world to a series of practical mechanics. "We need a life god to offer these bonuses."

[xaosbob]

Your gorgeous artwork BEGS to have these beings in the world, accessible to players and their characters. My current campaign is something of an experiment, forgoing traditional D&D Powers/clerics/paladins for something that is inspired by a cross between Shinto and grungy, pagan Celt imagery. Local gods, just everywhere, with limited territories but great power within those territories. Gods that sometimes visit you, or you them, but mostly keep to themselves unless they're angry (and they get angry when people ignore or forget about them for too long). Images like these would be great for gods of that more limited scope, gods that could be summoned or sought out, served or destroyed.

Thank you for sharing the zine with us, too! It's always so cool to find new authors and designers.

[soulrenvods]

5:50 I really like the third sketch there, it inspired me for a deity of flame and joy:

Long before shadows deepend with meaning, and we huddled around what little light we could summon from twig and rock for saftey, the children were quiet. As adult hunted and foraged and made, the children watched mutely and learned. For it was a dangerous place out there, and things that held greater power wished us harm. We killed and found and built and killed and found and built, but each time we rose we collapsed from within. City walls soon became empty, circles of elders fell still as their knowledge was as exhausted as their bones, and no one could say as to why. Until in one village, in a place where the nights were long and cold and the adults worked as the children watched and sat like stones, two sat before a fire. As they watched the flame, their minds became warmed with their bodies. In the darting oranges, one saw the tendrils of fire briefly twist into the shape of two dogs. They moved and danced with the flame, caught in the imagination and now reality of the warmth. The fire was not large, nor were they, and so they did not have far to move. In time, one bumped into another, knocking it over onto it's back, paws raised and flailing indignantly. But it sprang back up, just as warm and full of firey life as before. It knocked into the other, and it too fell and sprang up again. Back and forth they went, the fire crackling in time with their antics. The watching child nudged their friend, who toppled. All the child's life it had seen others fall, to disease and wild beast and darkness alike, and none had returned to their feet. But he did. He rose, and stared at the other child, fire dancing in his eyes. And he pushed the other child over. The child landed too without harm, and rose again. The flame outside crackled on, and a feeling like flame within them both rose, and a sound not unlike it as well burst forth from them, stopping and starting and rising in intensity. The twin dogs in the flame rolled and played and laughed along with them, and the fire of joy spread into song and dance and joke and joy, bringing light to our people.

[Gibbons]

This was so useful. Within 10 mins of watching it twice, once to listen; once to see your awesome art taking shape, I bought the pamphlet of pantheons. Guess I know what I'm doing in my downtime over this week.