Designing gods from scratch || D&D Lifehack

This time talking Dungeons and Dragons, Dael Kingsmill talks through the philosophical theory behind mythological pantheons of gods, and gives one nifty worldbuilding trick for designing your own gods for your homebrew dnd setting.

Here's that link I mentioned:
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Twitter: @DailyDael
Instagram: @daeldaily

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[BlueSparrow]

Those words also make a good acronym!
Purpose
Authority
Treachery
Harbor

Walk the PATH and you'll have a Pantheon.

[aqueousconch]

Lion King Pantheon:
Mufasa- Authority
Rafiki- Harbor
Simba- Purpose
Scar- Treachery

[johntim]

I've been following you for just under a year and I only just realized... King's Mill.... Monarch's Factory... brilliant.

[GreenKnight]

Almost by coincidence I created a similar version of "the one good story" when I made my pantheon for my game a year ago.
That story being that originally there were two gods, Corona and Cronotch, the goddess of light and creation and the god of darkness and time respectively. After the two of them created the universe Corona fell asleep forever (she was tired) and left Cronotch to rule everything, including their eight godly children, four sons, and four daughters.
But being the god of time Cronotch knew of a prophecy that four of his children would rise up and destroy him, taking his throne for themselves. He assumed it would be his boisterous and rowdy sons so he invited them all to a party and when they were all very drunk he one by one lured his sons into a giant pestle and mortar and ground them up into dust, before them scattering that dust to the wind.
The four sisters. mourning their brothers each traveled in different directions to collect the remains of their brothers, they placed each speck of dust in the sky to hang there forever (this is how the stars came to be). Along their journey each sister found or made a different weapon from a different materiel. A staff of Oak, A Shield of Stone, A sword of Silver, and A Spear of Gold. Using these weapons the sisters destroyed their father, thus bringing the prophecy to pass, and the four sisters divided up the world among themselves. Each taking their favorite places from their journey as their domain. But not only did that leave most of the earth neutral, they also noticed that wherever their father's blood hit something that something became a sentient creature (elves, dwarves, humans, all those guys). And so rather then fight about who should claim them they decided that each of them should rule three months out of every year. Their names then became the names for the seasons, Spring with her Staff of Oak (goddess of Fertility and Wilderness), Autumn with her Shield of Stone (goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge), Winter with her Sword of Silver (goddess of the Underworld and Judgement), and Summer with her Spear of Gold (goddess of Storms and the Sky).
Similar, its possible it misses a few of those elements though.

[jigurd]

"If you just start listing off gods attached to domains, it's going to feel like a spreadsheet."
_Me, looking up from the spreadsheet where I am writing about my gods:_ 😳

[pablovenegas]

"I'm so worldly" *waves her hair*
I love this woman

[dragonicdoom]

One of the best pantheons I've seen is in the Magnus Archives podcast series, where SPOILERS the "gods" are eldritch nightmares that embody fear. Throughout the series, characters theorise on the nature of these entities and how they came to be and how they overlap. One of the analogies used for them is colour: they aren't truly separate beings but really all just aspects of one massive spectrum of fear, distinct as red is distinct from orange, but also connected in a way that you can't really define the point where one becomes the other. An example of this is The Stranger (fear of the unknown, the uncanny, things that are almost human but not quite and masks) and The Spiral (fear of madness, delusion, lies, that your reality is wrong). At what point does the mask of The Stranger become the deception of The Spiral?

[mcolville]

"Why is there a Domain of Light?"

I feel pretty sure it's because the DevTeam want to get away from the way religion actually works. They *want* domains that don't bear any real association with the human experience. Basically, the way Blizzard does it. "How can we implement religion without offending anyone?" Well, you do it in the most meaningless, content-free way possible.

[LGreenGriffin]

"Contrary" may substitute for "Treachery" in a story where malice isn't involved.

[felipehonoriobs]

8:55 *looks at my excel pantheon spreadsheet*

idk what you talkin about

[sonjaquan]

Me: cobbling together a Scion campaign.
Dael: I have thoughts about gods.
Me: Yes please. Thank you thank you thank you.

[feildpres]

Uhh excuse me, I came here for an informative video about gods
Not to be scared by a spooky skeleton
0/10, 2 spooky for me

[imboredidid]

I quite enjoyed the more academic feel of this video. I'd definitely be interested in more lecture-esque type videos like this in the future.

[justinparry]

I am the God of finding highly enjoyable videos years after they were posted, and I endorse this content.

[thomasboynton]

I totally misread this as "Designing Goods From Scratch" and was so excited for a video on worldbuilding weird and wonderful trade goods 😅

[Bluecho]

The Light domain is more than just light, though. It's also fire. You get a lot of fire spells. That ties it into blacksmith gods (who, yes, are also Forge domain, don't @ me). It ties into figures like Prometheus, who stole fire and gave it to humans. It ties into gods of destruction, and of cleansing. Even Hestia, goddess of the hearth, might count as a Light domain goddess, because of the associations with hearthfire.

Even just light itself ties into any solar, lunar, and star deities. Apollo, Ra, Amaterasu, Quetzalcoatl, etc. Any culture that values agriculture - which is most cultures that become powerful to form major nation states - will put stock in two kinds of deities: Solar deities and Harvest deities.

Speaking of harvest, that's why you have the Nature domain, and not just the Wilderness domain. "Wilderness" is more specific than is useful for a Cleric class meant to model believers in all sorts of divinity. Pan would certainly be a Nature domain god, but so would Demeter, and even Dionysis (god of the vine). Agriculture is Nature that has been tamed and bent to "civilized" ends.

[BG-wziu]

Wow the Authority, harbour, treachery and purpose is the best explanation of pantheon origin stories

[tehspikey]

I need a gif of "Apparently I have OPINIONS on the topic"

[animistchannel]

Old Norse specialist Dr. Jackson Crawford has made the same or similar perspective on the Norse pantheon. They were personalities first with an anthropological history, and then aspects and elementalism were tacked on later, partly by comparison with the Roman functionalist ideas.

Also, if you can get hold of a copy of "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny, the novel is a telling of this process in personal forms. The gods are actual people with real people personalities, and their aspects and attributes are acquisitions evolved from their own personal tendencies after the fact. It's bloody brilliant, ironical, funny, romantic, mystical, and all the good things that Zelazny could do to you. It's grownup sci-fi/fantasy.

[mikegould]

When I created my own pantheon for Tholl, I wanted the Gods to have multiple names each. An ancient name (known by scholars and other experts), a common nickname (known by peasants, tribesmen, travelers, etc.) and some sort of aspect that would give each one control or interest into more than one thing. That way several cultures or species might be worshiping the same god, but by different names and for different things.
An example might be Verdriette. The Maiden of Sorrow. She Walks Between. The Whisper of Death. To gladiators in the coloseums of the Juvian Order, she is the quick death, and the chooser of the slain. To the Elves of Northern Eolas, she is the end of grief (the reason it becomes easier to deal with loss over time, as it is believed that she takes on the burden of loss as you learn to cope.) Priests might invoke her for funerals, while healers might invoke her to end pain when administering balms and herbs. She is both the reason you cry and the reason you stop. She is both loss and mercy, dark and benevolent in her way, and thoroughly misunderstood. No one, not even the other gods, would take on her portfolio. None could bear the grief she witnesses each day.