# how many deitities



## r.stubbs (Sep 4, 2013)

good evening hope you all are having a great night. I have been working on my own fantasy world for a few years now off and on. over the last year I have lost a lot of my notes so I am forced to start my world over, so at the moment I am working on the pantheon and I am stuck. what would you say is a good number of gods should there be?


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## T.Allen.Smith (Sep 4, 2013)

As many or few as your story requires...

Only you can know the answer to that question.


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 4, 2013)

I'd say it depends on how you structure your pantheon. You could have a single god who created everything or you could have multiple gods with their own aspects. 
It also depends on how you want religions to work. Keep in mind that a good doesn't have to exist for it to be worshipped and a god that exists doesn't necessarily have to have worshippers.

Two different religions could worship the same god but one of them is monotheistic and one is polytheistic. In my world there are currently two major theological belief systems (and a plethora of lesser ones I haven't detailed yet). There is only one set of gods though and what is one god in the IITA pantheon can be several in the Mahradian pantheon - and the other way around.


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 4, 2013)

The cafe closed and threw me out before I could finish the post. Here's the link to how I do gods and pantheons (and paladins): Gods - Odd Lands Wiki

As T.Allen.Smith points out though - only you can answer that question. It's your story and you get to use as many gods as you want and need. The above is just an example of how I've done it.


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## Saigonnus (Sep 4, 2013)

I use a "one god is many" approach. Each of the cultures have their own beliefs and whether it's in a pantheon of gods or a single one, they are all simply "manifestations" of the single "deity" my world has.


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## Ankari (Sep 4, 2013)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> As many or few as your story requires...
> 
> Only you can know the answer to that question.



Creating a pantheon isn't solely for the story, but for the depth of the world. I think most authors forget that a fragment of your audience differentiates between a world, and the story written in that world. Case in point, any story in the Forgotten Realms setting versus the Forgotten Realms setting.

When you crack open a campaign box for the first time and thumb through the source material, you get lost in the possibilities, the story that is not confined to the words placed on the paper.

A well constructed pantheon is, I think, necessary. I'm the type of reader that will call an author out for lazily throwing names and calling them gods. I don't understand when an author writes of "a people who worship the god of war, and they made war throughout the lands."

So, this author is saying these people _only_ make war? They don't believe in any other facets of life? They don't hold anything else in the realm of mystery to ponder and attribute to a higher power? What of the sun and moon? What of the magical ways the wind presses against the skin, yet is unseen? Or the awesome power of lightning that will split an ancient oak in half?

No, these people evolved from primitive man to immediately picking up sharpened sticks and sheets of hardened wood, knew to form lines, and march until the enemy died.

Even a culture that knows only war will think of life, and death, and the difference between each state of existence. Is it existence? Are we a collection of sinew, skin, blood and bones that march to the beat of our god? Why do we march? What separates us from them? Are they us?

I'm babbling now, but it's meant to highlight a point. Give me a well rounded, thought out belief system. It makes up for other issues I may find in your established setting, or your writing.


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## WooHooMan (Sep 4, 2013)

When it comes to the actual existence of gods, I prefer it if writers keep it as vague as possible.  Maybe there's one, maybe there's many, maybe there's none.  That's just kind of my preference.
In my story there are three religions: two of them have no gods.  The largest religion is made-up of animistic nature-worshipers and the other, smaller one practices ancestor-worship.  And the third religion is monotheistic but I might cut that one from the story.  Personally, I think polytheism is overdone in fantasy.

To answer your question: a lot of polytheistic religions tend to divide their deities into groups; there are the Olympians and the Titans of Greek mythology, the old gods and new gods in (I think) Mesopotamian mythology, the Vanir and Aesir in Norse, the Aedra and Daedra in Elder Scrolls.  I forget which mythology had this but in one mythology I read about, there were two groups of gods: the gods who ruled natural forces and the gods who ruled humanity (fertility, war, etc.).

So once you've decided on how you'll organize your pantheon, you decide how many gods based on what functions are needed.  Even numbers between 6 and 14 seem to be popular for the "important" group of gods and then I'd suggest more gods in the less important branch or maybe keep the exact number vague.

I'd also strongly suggest keeping the entire pantheon vague.  "Less is more" and all.  Mentioning a god every now and then when it relates to the actual story but not explaining the full pantheon might give your pantheon some weight.  You can just let the audience fill in the blanks (assuming they care but if they don't, it's not a problem).  I call that the "Crom and Set" approach.


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## Gurkhal (Sep 5, 2013)

As mentioned you make as many gods as your story needs or that your settings needs to work with it. If you want a monotheistic setting then one god is fine, and if you want a polytheistic you could have hundreds of different gods.


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## Queshire (Sep 5, 2013)

greek mythology had the 12 olympians plus however many lesser gods, however it seems to me that most pantheons in fantasy I've read seem to prefer a lower number than that, about around oh, 6 or so? Mind you this is just my opinion. Having under three gods might limit your choices for what those gods might be. It's very tempting to have a good of good, one of evil, and a third of balance. Or law and chaos, or whatever. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, if that's what your story needs then by all means go for it. There's also the having thousands and thousands of gods approach, however with that route gods could end up becoming hmm.... what's the word I'm looking for? more mundane?

Personally, in my story gods, spirits, demons and their ilk are just another kingdom of creatures just like animals or plants, so there's a bunch of them.


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## Devor (Sep 5, 2013)

To try and force an answer to the question, I would shoot for 6 to 10, unless your story needs more, and depending on the details.  That's not a rule, or a guideline, just a range to start with.

The more important thing is going to be breaking away from the mold of a D&D Domain-driven pantheon, and to some extent the personal biases, and seeing the task of creating a pantheon in a fresh and creative light.  In two years on this site, it is the topic about which I feel I have seen the same three ideas pitched over and over again as if they were new.


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## Graylorne (Sep 5, 2013)

My Revenaunt pantheon has 26 living Gods and Goddesses; 13 male, 10 female and 3 female killed). They all have their own specialties (knowledge, health, smithing, arts, war, farming, etc. The pantheon is over the whole world the same, only the names differ locally.

The question is not so much how many deities there are, but what is their purpose (even if they're all dead and serve only to have a name to curse).


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## r.stubbs (Sep 5, 2013)

wow thank you all for answering, I didn't think I would get so many people to post. I find all your post very insightful on the matters of the deities and a pantheon. i think I am going to go with a set number of deities per alignment. once again thank every one for your quick feedback


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## r.stubbs (Sep 5, 2013)

also I plan to go through in do a full background story on all deities and I have a place where dead and or forgotten deities go when the time calls for it


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## psychotick (Sep 6, 2013)

Hi,

My current WIP has thirteen. However I don't yet know all their names / bailiwicks and since the novel is almost complete probably never will. My thought is that most of them are only a simple name and a function which is good enough for adding interest. So Eldas The Fortunate One is the god of luck, and he gets a few mentions as people hope that Eldas favours them etc. Only three of my gods are important to the story line and so they're really the only ones that get a lot of coverage. The rest are interest, some colour for the world and filler.

Cheers, Greg.


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## r.stubbs (Sep 7, 2013)

most of the deities in my world are important enough to have full backgrounds, they are a big part of the first novel.


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## SKAndal (Sep 13, 2013)

Another possible approach is the one that Terry Pratchett takes. The gods of the diskworld play games with the lives of mortal man (D&D like) . Some gods return in later books, and others don't even get a name or domain, only a description. 

Midkemia has lesser, greater and chief gods.  When people pray to a god that doesn't exist comes into existence or a god takes that domain under his or her wing. For manny little things there would be a god. Like a god of 'hot baverages' or the god of 'guard duty' for instance. 

What I'm trying to say is, there are many many possible ways to create a pantheon. It can be as grand, small, rediculus or awe-striking as you want to make it. 

cheers, 
SKAndal


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