Demigods and their issues

[Peat]

Skip preaches truth. Gods are weird.

Like... what's Apollo god of, what are his traits? He's a Sun God, he's a Dragon-slayer, he's a hunter with powers over life and death, he's associated with oracles, he's a god of music... that's an incredibly wide grab bag caused by some mad-cap syncretism between very different religious traditions.

And overlap is regular as all hell. Do you pray to Athena or Ares before a war? Or to your local patron?

If you die in battle do you go to Valhalla or to Sessrumnir?

The most interesting pantheons are those as mad as the real ones.

Also, consider how many of the Greek minor gods were patrons of areas that their divine parent held sway over; or Thor's sons being Fury and Strength. That's one way to approach making your demigods.

 

[AJ Stevens]

I've done this is a fair amount of detail. Which isn't to say it's any good, but I'll share it to perhaps give you some ideas.

I have a Pantheon which is split into two. The Elemental Gods - Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Life. Then the Younger Gods, which are War, Dreams, Chaos, Time, 'The Hunter,' Death, and finally, the mysterious 'Missing God.' Some of these are obviously aspected, others aren't.

Below that, I have a plethora of Patrons, who carry more specific aspects. Summer, Winter, etc. Patron of Assassins, Harvests, Chance, Love, Patron of the Seas, Patron of Mercy, and so on. I have close to a hundred of these, though many will get no direct screen time I suppose. They are entities that mortals would perhaps pray to for something specific. What's more, the nature of Patronhood is fluid. That is, Patrons rise up and fall away as time goes by. Patrons with new aspects can come into being following heroic (or not) acts. Similarly, when a Patron dies, forgotten about, it's not compulsory that another takes their place.

In other words, the Pantheon of gods are a constant presence, and Patrons are brought into being by worship and prayer. The former are immortal, the latter mortal, though long-lived. Alliances and betrayals abound of course.

 

[Queshire]

Everytime I see the title of this thread I keep thinking it's about actual demigods and not gods by another name. Not that it's bad thing, but the Percy Jackson series has shown us that there's plenty of interesting things to explore in the idea of someone born to humans with the blood of the divine flowing through their veins.

I don't normally do much with gods. If I do they're not very godlike. One take I've thought of for them basically takes inspiration from Final Fantasy type summons while another has them work as basically magical Artificial Intelligence and govern over... whatever they govern over. Most towns would have a local god that would help with governing it and protect from monsters, a river might have a god to act as sort of a magical flood control system and so on.

I don't think that creating a mythology, with living, breathing gods/demigods, is as simple as picking some broad areas like Death, Harvest, War, etc., and plugging those holes first.

I think you should look at the kind of story you are trying to tell and choose the demigods that will make that story the most interesting.

Decide who the main players will be, protagonists and their antagonists, decide the thematic scope you want, decide how to best tie characters, setting, and theme together, and then create the demigods that will support your aim or accentuate the things you are trying to achieve.

I have to caution against this. It's more common in table top RPGs like D&D, but if you go that way there's the very real risk that you end up with a Pantheon that seems to be custom made to appeal to the needs of adventuring folk (or in this case the protagonists / antagonists) instead of the masses of the civilians who would be the ones actually filling the pews every weekend. My suggestion is to put yourself in the shoes of someone living in your world and think about what areas of life are they most likely to ask for some good fortune with or where they would look for someone to blame their misfortune on.

Take your average God of War. I don't think you'd find them trying to start wars. People have been able to start wars all on their own throughout history just fine. There's exceptions of course, for example if they've come to equate going to war as to leading to their fortune some way. Also, what would a God of War actually do? Human armies already have Generals and Grunts, Camp Followers and Supply Lines. They don't need a god for that stuff. They would need a god for the type of stuff outside of their control. There's plenty for that in a war; not getting killed by a random arrow to the eye, favorable weather, spotting a chance to break through the enemy's formation, etc and so on. Even in settings where the gods are real stuff like that is going to be the most common miracle of the god than something like a giant bronze warrior appearing to smite the enemy. ... Well, I suppose that's actually up to the writer, but if something like that ends up being common place than that's going to have a rather interesting effect on your setting.

The other thing to consider is what inspiration and philosophy the god embodies. Athena and Ares are both war gods but they embody two very different approaches to war. If you consider that then I feel you've got a good place to start considering how priests / followers of the god would conduct themselves and what sort of rituals they'd be likely to perform to gain their god's favor.

Naturally this presumes that you're starting from the mortals and building up. It's different if you're starting from the gods and building down.

For that, my main advice is to not get too hung up on their domains. Apollo was mentioned before along with all the things he was god of, but he didn't start as god of most of those things. Through the legends and tales of him he became associated with certain traits and as a result, those things became part of his portfolio. For each of your domains think about what sort of legends would cause someone to be associated with that trait and what that legend says about them. Alternatively the domains might exist independently of the god. Maybe if you kill the war god you become the war god? But then again, Ares and Athena. Even with the same domain there's a lot of room for variety. How does their domain and the responsibilities of it shape them? Or maybe it's the other way around and the war god was explicitly created to be the war god? In that case, go the other way. What sort of hobbies or tales might exist to shape them into not "just" a war god?

 

[Miskatonic]

One thing to take into account is whether or not the gods communicate directly or even indirectly with human beings. Would they present themselves in the way they wanted to be perceived by humans or would they appear as something more grandiose to put a sense of awe and fear into humans.

Or perhaps the gods create the planet and then just sit back and watch and after awhile people start attributing great power to things like the sun and moon, and decide to make sacrifices or hold celebrations in honor of those things, then the gods responsible for that are like "Hey look, they are celebrating what I did, check it out" and then become fond of those humans and want to protect them.

The hierarchy is important, as well as how they govern themselves, if they have rules when it comes to intervening on behalf of humans, etc.

The nice thing is you really don't have to plan this all out in some big guidebook, just stay consistent and leave plenty to the imagination.

The gods in my series play a big part but I try and keep their actual presence to a minimum. Maybe one or two have a secondary role that sees them appearing every once and awhile, but the rest are merely hinted at or given an appearance in maybe one or two chapters at most.

The world itself and how well it functions can be a great reflection of how the gods really are. Is the world in chaos and there is no intervention on behalf of mankind? Does this mean the gods have no mercy or do they believe it is in mankind's best interest to solve it's own problems?

Another question to ask is the story going to be focused on the gods and their own exploits, or are they merely a part of a bigger story where the focus is on other characters?

 

[WazpByte]

War/Power/Politics, Harvest/Food/Fun, Love/Peace/Sex, Life/Living/Humans, Death/Undead/Suffering, Work/Fire/Metal, Sleep/Spirit/Mind

Hope it helps!