Pantheon

[sashamerideth]

No, I'm not. You may be, but I'm not. I'm assuming logic must be logical. "Logic" is not something subjective: it is a rigorously defined discipline, with its own well-established rules. Whether these rules apply to deities is more than I could say (and you don't have to have them apply in your writings anyway)… but if or where they do not apply, the deities fall outside of logic. So it is not possible to have "non-logically contradictory omnipotence"—because omnipotence will always lead to logical contradictions. Whether or not such contradictions bother you has nothing to do with whether they exist… and as I already mentioned, there are many people who do not view this with concern: if they do bother you, I'd recommend giving up on the omnipotence part, because otherwise you're stuck with them.

As for thought experiments being "useless when it comes to gods"—if you believe that, why are you discussing the topic? Thought experiments are precisely what discussions like this are about. Are you saying that gods cannot be imagined? I can certainly imagine mine… I can even imagine them having abilities that inherently violate the rules of logic. So I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.…

You are confused? How do you think I feel?

 

[Kevlar]

Did I start a war?

Anyway, fcbkid15 I personally find the elemental god thing doesn't work if its bare elements, or if, like in yours, they're imbalanced. For instance, I always think of it like each element is weak against another, strong against another, and neutral to the last. They also have a celestial body associated with them, though earth is a little hard sometimes. Also, in my opinion, each is either masculine or feminine, in generality but not exclusively. (If you know what I mean.) Here's an example of what I'd do, though its not well thought out, and simply saying those opposite on the spectrum are hostile doesn' t work for me, because wwater almost always beats fire and earth can't touch air, though its not some sort of governing rule:

- Fire - Masculine
Celestial body: the Sun (possibly the stars too, for obvious reasons)
Compass direction: South
Strong against: Air. Just cuz it needs to be strong against something, and oxygen is fuel.
Weak against: Water. No explenation needed.
Neutral against: Earth. Because dirt can put out fire and fire can melt stone.

- Water - Feminine
Celestial body: the Moon. It effects the tides after all.
Compass direction: North
Strong against: Fire. For obvious reasons.
Weak against: Earth, for some reason or another. Maybe cuz earth absorbs it, or is too stable? Who knows.
Neutral against: Air. Just cuz, it makes sense to me.

- Earth - Masculine
Celestial body: Planets? Earth? Stars? (I know, the last one makes little sense)
Compass direction: West. Cuz the tradewinds come from the east. And just cuz it seems more right.
Strong against: Earth
Weak against: Air. Cuz it can't touch it. Or something.
Neutral against: Water. Cuz.

- Air - Feminine
Celestial body: the stars or the black/blue parts of the sky.
Compass direction: East
Strong against: Earth. (Erosion?)
Weak against: Fire
Neutral against: Water

I'd also add other things, like war and the forge to fire, though forging to earth, as well as healing, and to water maybe organisms and cold/ice. To air perhaps weather... etc. Etc.

Plus, fire can be put out by any of the other elements ,so to me it seems strange to have it as the boss.

 

[Ravana]

You are confused? How do you think I feel?

For the sake of sparing everybody else, I'm willing to continue the conversation in PMs, if you want me to try to clarify further. Otherwise, we probably ought to just drop it.

 

[Antaus]

I'm in the process of working out the pantheon in my story, mostly because I'm trying to figure out the gods themselves, and what aspects of reality they cover. War, honor, life, death, ect, ect, without going overboard. The process I go with is fairly simple, figure out the god(dess), what their main focus is, and what other things may be associated with that. Mind you this is subject to change as I flesh things out.

 

[myrddin173]

In my world I have beings that depending on the race/religion are anything from gods to great spirits to angelic beings. Whether any of these are true is another matter. Things that are known about the creatures called Winds include that there are seven of them. Four of them take the appearance of males, three females. The Four correspond to the four cardinal directions (North, South, East, and West), the Three to the three temporal states (Past, Present, and Future). Each also corresponds to a theme such as death, the arts, or the unknown.

 

[Codey Amprim]

Of course! What created it all then? What created us, now that I think about it? Good question.

Our ancient mythologies from around the globe, whether they be Norse, Greek, Roman, Oriental, Central American, yadda yadda, are ALL fantastic sources for inspiration for your Higher Powers. Godly powers explain and help elements within your story, and might even be the basis of them!

There are many uses for Gods and Goddesses in your world, and they come in particular usefullness for decribing reasons behind events, nature and its bounties, and life upon your world. In the Greek mythologies, the Gods were depicted as having human-like traits, because, after all, we were created in their image. These qualities include personalities, emotion, and ambition. These ambitions and emotions have led to many things in our world like the seasons. Your Gods can have these same qualities instead of being completely perfect, but each has their own benefits and attributes.


My Gods, and there are four. Three males, one female. The female, Amlura, Goddess of Nature, falls in love with and weds Tyr, God of Judgment and Justice. This makes Netharn ( havent really decided his function yet, although it doesn't matter. Read on.) jealous since he had a burning passion for the beautiful Amlura. He then decieves their titan child, Helaran, and kills him. Tyr and Oudan, the God of Wisdom/The Watcher God, imprision Netharn for all of eternity. Netharn destroys himself, but only physically. He divides his being into three different entities; Desranith, Nethilaz, and Behezan - all to even the odds. A battle ensues, but in itself destroys them all and sends them into their havens. Netharn's entities went into the Nether, and Tyr, Oudan, and Amlura into the Heavens.

That's a rough draft of how my God system works, it's harder to explain... you are afterall, creating a mythology and filling a whole world with lore.

Any ideas? I'd love to hear them, thanks :/

 

[sashamerideth]

Why is the pantheon important anyways? If we are going to use religion as a source of conflict then maybe... but by even having gods aren't we setting ourselves up for Deus Ex Machinima? Using gods as a cheap plot device or a short cut to creating a facade of tension?

Are our readers going to actually care?

 

[grahamguitarman]

I'm still working on my pantheon, but the main concept is that the spread of gods should reflect the spread of needs (eg a god of war, of love, fertility, hunting ect) a good pantheon should be balanced in the same way a good society should be balance (in theory if not in practice) if you have a world with too much war then the balance is upset, same for too much fertility (overpoulation) or wisdom (too many people thinking instead of doing)

this even applies to love, an excess of love can create a society ill equipped to cope with the bad things that can happen in life (imagine a world with an excess of peace loving hippies - how would they deal effectively with crime, we need hippies but we need policemen too) while universal love may seem like a great concept how many of you would actually want to live in a world so loving that nothing exciting ever actually happens because it might upset someone! (after all you all read fantasy novels that are full of conflict)

the gods want variety and movement, they want a world that lives and evolves through the balanced tensions of all the different aspects of their world, and it is the job of the Druids in my world to maintain that equilibrium.

as for interaction there is a back story to why my gods don't physically interfere, basically in the early days when the gods were still perfecting the world their 'Loki' god, a trickster with a love of chaos tried to weave a spell that would create a world of constantly mutating and evolving species - basically evolutionary chaos, seeing the turmoil such uncontrolled and accelerated evolution would cause the other gods joined together to put a ban on the spell.

But because the universal law of balance means all aspects of heaven & earth must be equal the spell had to include themselves too (or there would have been an imbalance between what one god could do in comparison to another) so in order to protect the world from 'loki' (name TBC) they had to curtail their own ability to interfere in the world.

Of course if things get too bad in the world they still have the option of lifting the ban if needs be but for the most part they limit their influence to visions & dreams to guide their followers, as this would result in something not unlike armageddon where the different powers struggle to impose their own vision on the world.

in a nutshell if you allow the good gods to interfere physically in the world then you have to allow the bad ones to do the same!

 

[Emeria]

The main society in the world I've been creating does not acknowledge that there is a divine presence anywhere (or any deities). Instead, they view technological advancement as supreme and anyone with technology is considered a higher being than one with lesser technology. People who do not live in the city often have their deities they worship, but no one knows if they are real or not. Kind of like the tribal religions in Africa or amongst the Native Americans. As a result, the main character is rather confused as to what to believe.

In actuality, there is a force of good and a force of evil, but I would hesitate to call them "deities".

 

[darthbuttchin]

The little world that is currently being created by me basically resolves around an ancient King who has, over time, grown to become the person they basically worship. I was inspired by the Nazi's and the communists in Russia with this. I know it's not particularly original, but it's not a massive part of the story. It's more a background to what else happens. However, I am quite fond of the idea, it includes things such as huge statues of the king and a mausoleum. Propaganda works hard to keep his memory in favour, as well as mysticism surrounding him (I've made it so that his name has been replaced with a description). It works well to keep the legend alive though.

db

 

[Helbrecht]

The little world that is currently being created by me basically resolves around an ancient King who has, over time, grown to become the person they basically worship. I was inspired by the Nazi's and the communists in Russia with this. I know it's not particularly original, but it's not a massive part of the story. It's more a background to what else happens. However, I am quite fond of the idea, it includes things such as huge statues of the king and a mausoleum. Propaganda works hard to keep his memory in favour, as well as mysticism surrounding him (I've made it so that his name has been replaced with a description). It works well to keep the legend alive though.

db

This sounds interesting. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany didn't go so far as to literally deify their respective dictators. Try North Korea's Eternal President. Kim Jong-Il is only technically head of the country's armed forces and communist party - the office of president is perpetually held by a dead man. It's really quite fascinating, in a morbid and frankly terrifying sort of way. I'd definitely recommend looking into the DPRK if you're writing a society with a heavy cult of personality surrounding a dead ruler. Your ancient king's descendants - the nominal heads of state - could be ruling as eternal regents in the absence of the rightful monarch.

The setting I'm writing at the moment doesn't have any gods that have any sort of power over the world - even any gods that definitely exist, for that matter. Pantheistic systems are generally untouched. A few of my cultures have distinct pantheons of their own, but most of them have trickled away into folklore, having been subsumed by one of three schismatic branches of the setting's dominant religion, which is monotheistic. It's a pretty clear parallel of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (or perhaps Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism is a better analogy) and so perhaps is more appropriate to another topic.

 

[darthbuttchin]

Hi,

Cheers for your kind comments. I know they didnt go so far as to deify their dictators. I've read alot about North Korea (largely because I'm worried about them) and that is another perfect idea. My inspiration by Lenin was more things such the giant statues (which I find really impressive) and the Mausoleum where his body currently rests. As for Hitler, the inspiration from him is more when the ancient King was alive, in the way he was almost revered by his armies and subjects.

I'll definitely consider the DPRK though. I'd forgotten about them when I was designing this concept last night haha.

Cheers again,

db

 

[ScipioSmith]

This sounds interesting. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany didn't go so far as to literally deify their respective dictators. Try North Korea's Eternal President. Kim Jong-Il is only technically head of the country's armed forces and communist party - the office of president is perpetually held by a dead man. It's really quite fascinating, in a morbid and frankly terrifying sort of way. I'd definitely recommend looking into the DPRK if you're writing a society with a heavy cult of personality surrounding a dead ruler. Your ancient king's descendants - the nominal heads of state - could be ruling as eternal regents in the absence of the rightful monarch.

I sort of have that idea going on in my work of the moment. The founder Empress ascended to godhead rather than die, and for generations after her descendants ruled as Prince/Princess Regent, temporal ruler under the spiritual authority of the God-Empress. She anoints and appoints a champion, the First Sword, to fight for the Empire in her name; but the office has been vacant for several centuries due to lack of anyone able to pass Her rigorous moral standards. By the time of the story however the cult has waned to two named characters, though the protagonist becomes one as well over the course of the story. The God-Empress isn't entirely happy about this, nor about the fact that the Imperial dignity has been usurped by mortals, but she loves her country and her people too much to bear them real malice and concentrates on supporting those who continue to stand by her.

 

[Elishimar]

I wish I could just post my prologue because my prologue is basically my pantheon... I have being that in an essence willed himself into existence with his conscience. He pondered everything that he could think of and added to himself the attributes which he saw as perfection (the basic "good" qualities). To be sure that his qualities were supreme and perfect he willed into existence a being that obtained every opposite quality (the basic "bad" qualities). He then created a planet and breathed life into it, etc, etc. And said that whoever can influence the rational beings of that planet in following their philosophies etc, etc. would then be the ultimate perfect and reign supreme over the universe.

I also added in angelic type beings, which I call "servants" who's main priority is to teach and guide humans. They can also be pulled to either side of the good vs. bad influence struggle. this is where we get demonic type beings and fatherly/motherly spirits. They are far less powerful then the good and bad gods, but are immortal.

As time went on the humans began to abandon the spirits, when those who were forgotten left the planet and became stars and other heavenly bodies to fill the void. The remaining spirits and demons are the most powerful and influential ones, and things start pick up quick. The evil god takes a physical body and starts to conquer the known world, etc, etc. and this is where the story actually beings. The story follows from a human's perspective as he deals with death, retaking his kingdom, falling in love, and facing his fears.

 

[Ghost]

The gods in my world are real beings. There are currently over 40 gods and goddesses, but I'm still playing around to see which ones I can combine or get rid of altogether. They don't play major roles in my stories, but their churches are important for daily life in most countries. Whether an individual god is important, or even recognized, varies by culture. The most important influence my gods have on the stories is that their symbols have a small degree of power against supernatural beings.

I made my pantheon by looking at a few pantheons from around the world. I picked the most common, useful, or interesting domains, and immediately knew what sort of persona would govern each of those. After that, I searched long and hard for names that matched those people because names were almost as important as what someone is god of.

The customs and rituals need to be worked out for each of them since I only know the basics. It will take time because it is different for each culture and time period.

 

[Calash]

At the highest levels several of my story universe share the same pantheon. This is especially true of one of my worlds, where the main character deals with gods and demons on a regular basis.

At the highest point is Balance, who created all the conflicting aspects of the universe (Light and Dark, Order and Chaos, Life and Death, etc). From these the ancient gods were spawned and so on until you get to the young gods who are most active in the mortal world. To better explain it I have written in a father/son and brother/sister relationship between the, as it makes reading a bit easier.

 

[Ravana]

Why is the pantheon important anyways? If we are going to use religion as a source of conflict then maybe... but by even having gods aren't we setting ourselves up for Deus Ex Machinima?

Only if there's also a machina.

Using gods as a cheap plot device or a short cut to creating a facade of tension?

The problem is, religion seems to be such an utterly pervasive part of human existence that, as wiser voices have said in the past, even if gods didn't exist humans would still invent them. So the absence of religion can be as jarring as its mishandled presence, in some instances. This isn't much of an issue in shorter works, but in longer ones–particularly those that stretch past a single novel–at least some readers will wonder what the religions of your world are like. Which doesn't require you to include them, only to be prepared to dissatisfy such readers with the answer "I don't know, and I don't care."

On the other hand, unless your gods are going to be active participants in the lives of your characters, there's no special reason to worry about pantheons. Everybody can worship "god"–or gods–without anything other than the barest of gestures in the direction of detail.

If the gods are going to be active participants, however, I'd strongly recommend hammering out all the details you can in advance… in order to avoid ludicrous situations such as you mention. Does having real gods set you up for dis ex machinae? No: having one real god does. But having two, who are opposed to one another? Guess what happens whenever one of them feels like dropping down from his machine? Anything that one of them feels important enough to intervene in will almost certainly strike the other the same way. And the more, the scarier. Or something like that. Sort of a fantasy "mutually assured destruction": no one's willing to be the first to bring out a nuke, because once that happens, everyone will.

(In fact, my normal approach to the issue–and by way of extending the metaphor–is that mortals are what the gods use to resolve their disputes with one another: they're the proxies, the Banana Republics, what have you. They're what allow the gods to fight safely. The gods can provide all the indirect aid they're inclined to–the equivalent of military aid, selling them the guns: giving them strength, courage, whatever run-of-the-mill assistance they think to pray for; but actually stepping in personally? Big no-no.)

When I use gods–as anything other than impersonal forces–it's far from "cheap": usually, it's ghastly expensive, to all concerned. I know, that's not what you meant… but think about it: take your gods as seriously as they no doubt take themselves, and "plot devices" are about the last thing they can be used as. And unless you're willing to then pull out some even cheaper plot device to save your characters (and story) from the situation you've created… the characters lose.

One alternative approach, albeit one many will not find particularly satisfying, is for the gods to be far less than "all-powerful": they're somewhat tougher than mortals, but not enough so that they can squish armies (let alone individuals) at a whim. This is similar to what's seen in much of mythology… and evidence of its less than satisfactory nature can be seen in the fact that most "mortals" who contend with gods, successfully or otherwise, tend to have divine ancestry of one sort or another. Probably this is a result of the ancients either (1) not wanting their gods to be too weak (and thus pointless to follow), or (2) not wanting to admit their own inadequacies (being themselves unable to similarly contend with the divine)… or, more likely, both. If only demigods can strive with deities, that provides an excuse for the rest of humanity to knuckle under–and, not coincidentally, keeps the priests in business as well.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

On the other hand, unless your gods are going to be active participants in the lives of your characters, there's no special reason to worry about pantheons. Everybody can worship "god"—or gods—without anything other than the barest of gestures in the direction of detail.

I wouldn't skimp too much on the detail, depending on how important their belief is to the characters. Highly devout characters would think about the gods a lot, and what the gods mean to them, and you may need to provide a decent amount of detail to deal with that, even if the gods are not physical participants in the story.

It doesn't have to be a big part of the story, but if you're trying to explore and detail a character, a devout character's religious belief is as important as their personality.

 

[Ravana]

I wouldn't skimp too much on the detail, depending on how important their belief is to the characters. Highly devout characters would think about the gods a lot, and what the gods mean to them, and you may need to provide a decent amount of detail to deal with that, even if the gods are not physical participants in the story.

It doesn't have to be a big part of the story, but if you're trying to explore and detail a character, a devout character's religious belief is as important as their personality.

Assuming there are any devout characters. Or at least any you're using the PoV of. I always know how my religions affect the world and the characters… but if the answer to that is "minimally," I tend not to bother making reference to the religions, apart from the occasional swear word. (I'm in general agreement with you: I tend to have extensive detail in my own notes. It's mostly a question of whether or not any of that shows up in the stories. I've seen fantasy done successfully with little or no reference to religion–but I also always notice it when it's not there, which is why I said what I did at the outset.)