Looking into pantheon building.

Okay, I decided to make a pantheon for an idea and want to inquire into how people make their collective of divinities for their stories. Namely, What archetypes and influences are used, and how to come up with original names if needed.

I also want to use it to workshop my own ideas after getting the general idea on how things work here.

It might help if you’d tell everyone about the setting or what kind of story you’re shooting for or some of the themes.

Polytheism is ultimately a practical kind of religion: specific gods have specific jobs and whatever is considered most important is the top god. The greek had Zeus,god of the sky. The Egyptians had Ra, god of the sun.

So is there a top god? What is considered most important to the people? what major functions exist. Ultimately, the pantheon is a reflection of culture and values. If you know one, you know the other.

Sorry about that. The context is for a Urban Fantasy esque RPG Mechanics 'Verse with both isekai and dungeon core elements.

As an aside going forward, I intend to have them be surrounded by an air of ambiguity, some of these deities objectively exist, but whether they are as the myths claim they are is up in the air. This is also for a specific religion that exists alongside others, but is tentative the closest faith towards understanding the metaphysics at play.

As for the isekai element, people reincarnated from Earth souls get slotted into a Messenger (angelic analogs) with some being Divine Dungeons (a square to the former's rectangle. All Divine Dugneons are Messengers, but not all Messengers are Dungeons)

,

I had in the time since making the thread put together a list of Gods to use in this pantheon. I will be vague here and use their titles, so I apologize, but so far they include (relatives will be noted in sub-bullets):

• The Cosmos: Creator God(dess to be clear), Top God, associated with Star Power.
  • The Sunlight: the kid daughter of the Cosmos. Embodiment of the Sun, associated with Light 'em Up. She is among the few gods that incarnates on Earth on a recurrent basis, usually alongside an isekai adventurer as their twin sister.
  • The Moonshadow: Adopted sister of the Sunlight who took up the position as embodiment of the Moon. Associated with Casting a Shadow and the second Deity of Human Origin, being the Sunlight's very first mortal companion deified.
• The Composer: The Goddess of Magic and the arts. Who operates like a composer of music. Associated with Pure Energy as in Mana
  • The Shattered: Daughter of the Composer who herself has many a tale to her name. However she had incarnated on earth to help fight a dangerous Archfiend, using her mother's powers to those end. The clash had ended up shattering her body and spirit, an event thatis claimed to be the origin of the gem-like spheres that enable the learning and mastery of magic (Also a key part of a plotline I have in the verse involving Magical Girls where those girls are in fact the reincarnated fragments of the Shattered). May or may not be a Messianic Archetype, and likely to be a Resurrected God one playing out in real time.
• The Teacher: His inspiration is Prometheus, as his his namesake. This means he is the one claimed to be the reason for sentience. It also means he is associated with Playing with Fire
• The Giver: Mother Nature and fertility goddess. Associated with Dishing Out Dirt and other earthen abilities.
  • The Flood: Sister of the Giver, associated with Making a Splash and is the Lord of the Ocean (or the Lady of the worlds' biggest Lakes if you will). Has a sibling rivalry dynamic with the Giver
• The Pathfinder: The Goddess of the Neitherworld, and the flow of souls. Her job makes her the most seen god by isekaied people en route to reincarnate in the setting. She also has a more active role as she incarnated to fight alongside the man that would become The Ascendant (basically the first isekai'd dude for the setting) to seal the Fallen.
  • the Ascendant: The first isekai'd guy to step foot in the setting, and also the first Deity of Human Origin, ended up marrying the Pathfidner.
  • The Reaper: rhight hand man to the Pathfidner and the resident Psychopomp and Dreamweaver. Basically oversees sleep and dreams.
• The Fallen: Once a nameless god who lived to serve Astra, pride and envy got a hold of him and he led a rebellion aganst...you know where this is going. Anyway he's basically the proginator of demonkind and the exiled God of Evil, sealed by the Pathfinder and the Ascendant
• The Forgemaster: Ultimate Blacksmith basically. Also claimed to the the inventor of Dungeon cores.
• The Lifetree and the Unlifetree: a pair of World Trees that are considered gods despite their lack of anthropomorism. Modeled on the Sephirot and the Qliphot respectively. The other gods use them to track the levels of mana and demonic activity.
• The Hope: An Ascended Demon. An Archfiend that was sealed alongside 72 others, got freed alongside them and soon made it her quest to reseal them and herself. The latter of which was averted by the Cosmos deifying her at the last second.
• The Passionate: The requisite Love Goddess. I intend to paint her an the patron saintess of Yanderes on top of more saner domains related to love. Basically Aphrodite by a different name and a take on her predecessors warlike qualities.
• The Destroyer: The requisite War God. I intend on painting him as a mix of Ares and Thor, being a savage and violent Blood Knight, but one whose duty is to protect Humans and Monsters and will intervene with threats to them, but will also revel in bloody conflict and be worshipped by warmongers.
• The Trickster: She is..the Trickster Archetype. A neutral and enigmatic figure that will aid both sides of the god/demon conflict. No one knows why the Cosmos keeps them around. Also a Troll par excellence, riling people up and pushing their buttons to act in irrational ways. Meta wise, she is basically the go to goddess for when fate demands a negative event must happen for the benefit of all.

The number stands at 25 (though 22 in practice since two are again trees and one became the exhiled Black Sheep) but I am willing to add more if needed and if the ideas come up (there are minor gods in the setting of a course, plus angel analogs), but for now I am interesting see the notes that aren't played. What would these divinities roles and characterizations say about the society.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 11th 2023 at 3:18:16 AM

So Gods in your universe are basically deified emotions and personality characteristics, as opposed to say, natural forces, or soldiers in a cosmic battle between dualisms?

I'm not quite sure. There are elements of all three here.

• There are ten gods that are associated with nine elements and Mana as an Infinity +1 Element
• my story would have themes of Genius Loci in general. This would naturally extend to some of them as the Top God is said to be "the origin of everywhere", his daughters are specifically the Sun and the Moon, and two others are the land and sea goddesses. This means there is a heavy lean towards being forces of nature there, even if they were made such at the inception of the related concept (again, see the Moonshadow)
• as for conflict of opposed dualisms. They often act to benefit and advance the society of the planet, but that also entails trying to prevent or undo the effects of The Fallen and his Followers (Demons in this case)

—-

That said I'm also trying to go with a side order of Blue-and-Orange Morality (prolly worthy of its own set of questions in Writer's Block). Most of them don't quite get mortals, and even the ones that do (those being the ones that were mortals, the psychopomps and the sun-kid) would still have or would develop alien perceptions due to several factors of separation, the most obvious being time. To elaborate:

• The Moonshadow and the Ascendant: their qualia and midnsets would become more in line with the others over the passage of time and society moving on from some of the values they held in life. To put it another way, a caveman from prehistory would be as alien to use as we are to them.
• The Sunlight: Her case is more complex. Her incarnations are likened to her dreams, ephemeral and hazy. Even if her flavor is a perpetually comatose child, these dreams would still shift rapidly during her few moments of consciousness.
• The Pathfidner and the Reaper: There is the wrinkle that the people they usually talk to most of the time are dead souls. Thus they have a more unique view of the world.
• The Shattered: Her case is more unique as she is well...shattered and not in a state of consciousness, in a way she is less conscious than the comatose sun girl as she can at least think while in her state and has the capacity to have a mortal form.
• The Trickster: Prolly the most human of the bunch, but at the same time that is prolly the source of her inhumanity in a sense. Much like how the greek gods are vicious because of their human flaws.
• The Hope: While an exception to the typical Demon mindset, that still comes with its own baggage.
• The rest: again, more alien mindsets that would not complexity align with traditional moraltiy, as they prioritize certain things over others. The Passionate believes in true love, but also thinks any act done in its name is justified, including Murder and Stalking. The Destroyer is a defender of mortals, but he will pick sides in a war where mortals are the only players, and they may not be sides considered good from our perspective. The Flood loves mortals as dearly as her sister, but her desire to force them into her embrace would mean the demise of life as we know it in favor of more aquatic beings. The most extreme end is the Cosmos who would be better tentatively described as an Eldritch Abomination with a human side, and could be said to be neglectful of her daughters besides.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 11th 2023 at 5:07:01 AM

So this is a "each character is an archtype of some aspect of human nature taken to 11" kind of story-verse. That lends itself to a certain type of narrative, as your protag interacts with each of these and has to react with a more moderate, wiser version of the God's primary trait.

I'll have to keep that in mind, but the thing is that they are meant to be background lore (hence the board) and not factor into the plot...at least not yet (the Shattered is an exception, and even then she has more unique circumstances)

I do have some ideas for spinoff stories, including one involving the Sunshine, so maybe that premise would come in handy for that.

Well, I think what I would be thinking about in your place (and I have done this for my own isekai mythology thing and I found it very helpful) is that generally in mythology, there is a loose continuity of “very important” stories. In Greek mythology; you got creation, you got the Titanomachy, the Heroic Age and then the Trojan War. And that’s the essentials of Greek mythology. And generally the themes of those stories (divine authority, lineage, fatalism, hubris, the quest for glory, etc.) are themes that run through the entirety of Greek mythology.

So I think the thing to really consider going forward would be: what is the core narrative of your mythology? And, building off that, how do the themes of that narrative influence your setting (or vice versa)?

Like I said, I asked myself this at one point and found that not only did it help with fleshing-out the mythology but it also ended-up helping with the actual story.

Edited by Woosmo on Oct 13th 2023 at 12:55:04 PM

Good points.

I do kinda have an idea for one myth. The Fallen falls, tries to take over the mortal plain and would be defeated by the Pathfinder and the man that would become the Ascendant. (Basically parts of Genesis and Revelations combined)

Likewise I do have an idea for the Shattered's fate. A Heroic sacrifice protecting the world from a different Archfiend. Fleshing out the broad strokes there should also be a cinch.

The Hope's story is also easy being a take on the Pandora's box thing.

That said since the creator goddess is also the Top God, a creation myth might be needed

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 13th 2023 at 1:09:57 AM

Updates on the mythmaking.

• Creation Myth 1: The usual Cosmic Egg in a void bit. The Cosmos was born from that egg natch
• Creation Myth 2: Following the former, three more Cosmic Eggs spawned, creating a planet's core, landmass and seas in order. This establsishes the Frogemaster, the Giver and the Flood's borths and that multiple such eggs exist presenting countless other worlds.
• Creation Myth 3: Focusing on yet another Cosmic Egg (noticing a trend) that spawns the Sunshine and also entails the Cosmos seeding multiple suns (read: stars) across herself
• Mortal Creation myth, a creation of the Forgemaster and the Giver, who respectively created the men and women (enby folk can be said to be created by the Flood if necessary). No "Gods curse humanity with myriad evils" thing. But several eggs and by extention gods were created as a result, the focus being on the Reaper as he is tormented by the souls of the dead and it end with the both of the Pathfidner
• The Fall: again a whole plot reference to ol' Lucy's rebellion followed by an isekai story playing out in real time, leading to the deification of the otherworlder into the Ascendant
• The Sun's Awakening: The Sunshine (who is for refenrce a child-coded goddess) has been left in a torpor that had became a source of inquiry for the Pathfidner and the Reaper who discover that the flow of souls in the collective unconscious had gave birth to the domains of dreams and imagination and that the consciousness of the Sunshine was entangled in that place. The Fall myth takes place in the middle of it and its impact leads to the Pathfinder finding a way for the Sunshine to act in the mortal world on a more ephemeral level. The Sunshine's new life leads to the creation of a Moon Goddess from another otherworlder that was incarnated alongside her and establishes that the sunshine frequently take son new incarnations, existing alongside her first dormant form of the sun.
• The Conductor: A "Just So" Story on magic in general, involution a goddess who was born thanks to mortals existing and who had an unforseen level of dominance on the concept of Mana. Tasked by the Cosmos to Walk the earth to hone her abilities her years of knowledge culminates in a grand performance where she beckons and directs the elements to sing alongside her (hence the title)
• The Shattered: the sequel to the above that no one asked for but every benefits from A tailed of the daughter of the Conductor and an archfiend that was born around the same time. A tale of contrasts, harmonies, discords, Magic Music and an ending that ends with the daughter performing a Heroic Sacrifice to merge her other back into herself and landing to the creation of a certain concept that enables more direct use of mana and elemental powers.
• The Resealing: a take on Pandora's Box where the heroine is one of seventy three sealed archfiends that seek to reseal all the world's evils (herself included) once more and winds up an Ascended Demon for her efforts.

I still haven't gotten to the trees and had only glossed over some others (mainly in the Mortal origin story myth), but this is a good starting point for a religious "canon" at least.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 14th 2023 at 3:46:26 AM

Yeah, good starting point for your canon. Also, if you have multiple contradicting ideas, I’d suggest keeping all of them as variations on a myth. That’s generally how real world mythologies operate. Even with Biblical lore; despite having an official book, there are still extra biblical stories (like the Devil leading a rebellion of angels and falling from grace early in creation (which doesn’t have much, if any, scriptural backing in Christianity but is official in Islam)) which are just kind of accepted by the general population. Throwing in those contradictions and variations can help make your mythology a little more vibrant and “lived in”.

Another suggestion: you general got a strong themes around stars with your pantheon. Maybe you can draw a bit from astrophysics. Maybe some symbolism centering around eclipses (like Fenrir eating the sun in Norse mythology) or the day-night cycle (like Apep chasing Ra in Egyptian mythology). I think that would help give your mythology a more distinct personality.

I'll keep that in mind, esp since I derived the creation myth from the Big Bang.

Bumping to ask for ideas on myths for the Passionate. Or stories to sue as inspiration for such myths.

I've always wanted to see one done in which the God is sincerely concerned with finding maximally compatible pairs. That, therefore, becomes a focus in the local culture—how to determine if someone is compatible.

I think love gods are kind of tricky because they are very rarely just love gods. I mean, sun god Helios was also considered a love god.

But I think a cool myth to draw from might be story of Psyche or Adonis. A mortal whose love story is so grand that they ascended to godhood. I think that would be pretty cool (assuming such a thing is possible in your setting). Maybe some kind of warrior chick involved in a sweeping wartime romance and she accomplished some heroic tasks for her love interest but dies before being resurrected as a goddess of love?

kinda already decided on the goddess originating as a goddess, but I can prolly still try something like that.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Oct 18th 2023 at 8:00:10 AM

Maybe a war goddess akin to Athena who decided to follow a different path? After all, both Aphrodite and Athena likely descended from Ishtar so they’re kind of the same character in a very roundabout kind of way.

A goddess of love might have a loyal priest(ess), or other related figure ascend to become a demigod, or becoming adopted family. After all, familial love is a form of love, and it would help cement the various aspects of a god.