Let's discuss: our pantheons

[Darkranger85]

Hey all,

As you may see from my post count, I'm relatively new to this forum. But I'm not new to writing in general (Which isn't to say I'm good, just that I'm not new.).

I've always been fascinated with pantheons. How the gods relate to each other and their followers, the whole nine yards.

I'm hoping to generate a nice indepth and friendly discussion of peoples pantheons of gods and goddesses. But on top of that, if there is a good response to this post I'd actually like to make a series of "Let's Discuss" posts on different topics. And perhaps they can serve to inspire others with a wealth of information.
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In my fantasy world, I have a large and varied pantheon of gods due to the fact that my love of fantasy was first ignited by the Forgotten Realms books, particularly those written by R. A. Salvatore.

I'm just going to give a small sample of mine, specifically the part of the pantheon that serves as the plot for the first book I was planning.

Ganthol created the entire universe and everything in it, and his power is supreme over all others.

He poured so much of himself into the world and his creations though, that his own emotions, thoughts, fears, and dreams emptied out of him leaving him barren of all thought, care or concern for anything.

His fears and nightmares became great monsters, evil races, and gods that plague the world and it's people. Whereas his dreams, and cares became the wondrous and good creatures, peoples, and gods.

Ganthols daughter, Alaria (A goddess of compassion and love), created two holy artifacts, The Tears of Alaria, which channel the thoughts and cares of her worshipers to her father in the hopes that one day he might be restored.

However, one of the artifacts was stolen by Alarias sister, Maira, who placed the tear in her center of worship, dedicated to fear and chaos.
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This is a small part of my pantheon. Please feel free to give me your thoughts on my pantheon, but I'm also hoping that people will post their own ideas for their gods and goddesses.

Please feel free to include whatever details you like. The family trees, how they relate to each other, how they are worships, how they interact with mortals, etc etc etc. .

I really look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

 

[Juliana]

Thanks for sharing, Darkranger, and welcome to the Chrons.

I like your mythology; some great ideas there. As for me, my work so far has focused more on magic than the forces behind it (a lot of it has been Middle Grade), but playing with ideas for a full-blown fantasy novel so will have to do some serious world-building for that!

 

[Darkranger85]

Thank you for your input and for the welcome, I really appreciate it!

Does your magic system have gods and goddesses behind it that you just haven't fleshed out yet? Or is it independent of your religious system?

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

As it is my strong suit, I base my pantheons off Greek mythology, even using their names a couple times. (Thanatos and Gaea.)


However, I also borrow from Judeo-Christian in some ideals, and Egyptian or Norse in terms of mortality. (My gods are not invulnerable; merely unaging.)


And as for magic, I do one borrow one idea from D&D, and that is that divine magic IS backed up by the worshiper's god-and that the god can refuse that worshiper's prayer, therefore nullifying the magic. Arcane magic comes from mental manipulation of the forces around the mage, drawing upon ley lines and one's own mental fortitude in order to gather enough energy to perform the desired effect.

 

[Darkranger85]

That's very interesting Karn. I had never heard of "Ley lines" before.

I did a Google search of it and it looks like a neat idea. Perhaps you can enlighten us a little on how you use these in your magic system?

As for my gods, I do the same as you when it comes to mortality. I don't like a story about infallible and untouchable gods. I prefer when they can be taken down. Of course, it takes a lot to take one down.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

The idea of ley lines is simply like a river of spiritual or magical energy that flows within the earth, and those who are attuned to such energy would be able to tap into the force of power it can wield. What I do with the idea of ley lines is that the mages can then manipulate their mental waves to shape the energy from the ley lines into producing whatever kind of effect they wish. Some magic in my universe, though, comes strictly from the mind. Magic like chronomancy and psychic abilities are from the mind, those with abstract effects. Elementalism, technomancy, enchantment, and necromancy are from ley lines. Healing and divination are from prayer to the gods.


For psychic abilities, the term I prefer to use is psionic. It's not a common term but I've seen it around a couple times. Psionics have all that the term "psychic" applies, with the exception of divination. Telekinesis, pyrokinesis, charm, possession, anything you can think of. Elementalism, as opposed to psychic, however, is far easier controlled, but much less powerful and more time consuming, as study and spell chanting must occur first. Psionics in my universe also tend to be insane due to their minds being overloaded with so many different outlets.

 

[Juliana]

Does your magic system have gods and goddesses behind it that you just haven't fleshed out yet? Or is it independent of your religious system?

Past work includes urban fantasy with 12-yo protagonists, so no religions, just amulets, ghosts, werewolves etc. There was a fantasy piece, but about dream magic, religion didn't come into it. And current WIP is biopunk, so again, no religions involved.

But like I said, have been itching to try something with different religious beliefs, magic systems etc. But only vague musings for now. At the moment I want to finish my biopunk and I have a sword-and-sorcery spoof planned out, so I have lots of time to play around with ideas!

 

[hopewrites]

I was thinking about how to answer this in regards to the book I stopped trying to write while I learned to write (being a vocalists and knowing how hard it is to relearn a song I've already sung just because I have picked up new vocal techniques that would make it better, I decided to get my writing up to where I thought it needed to be to tackle the story I had planned) I just realized that I no longer Needed to write it.
Still sorting how I feel about that.

On to answering your question though, because I do love it, and the answers it has provoked so far.
In the story I now no longer need to write, but might write some day anyway, the MC was to go around collecting Folk Tales for his fairy mistress. Human Imagination being a thing that they had come to rely on and even draw greater powers from when they took humans in during an apocalypse. The story was to take place after humanity had taking over caring for itself again, and Fairies were falling back into story and myth. I was also going to have a separate kind of humanity, descended from humans that had not been taken in and cared for by Fairies, they were more wild and tribal, vastly unlike the Feral Humans who were still trying to cope with becoming self-reliant.
I see that in this setting the Fairies could be considered a god-like element, in that they attempt to save humanity (ultimately for their own ends) and have an interdependence on their charges. Using their magical abilities to control/affect humanity, and using visible symbols to mark out which humans belong to them, have distinctly religious overtones now I think of it.


In the short story (perhaps novella) that I'm working on now, the only religious element are some leaders that make my MC's life hard by (unwittingly) pitting her people against her. And while the gods are silent in this work, there is a demon army to contend with.
Unfortunately (for me) they are very underdeveloped demons, I know they devour human flesh and have the power to panic people. But am as yet unsure if they cause panic through supernatural means, or just by their physical appearance/ presence. The succubus in my story is better developed, I know that she can charm with her voice, devours souls (and sometimes flesh), and has a preternaturally pleasing appearance.
There's an undeveloped scene where a dragon interrupts the local religious leaders in blessing a quest (to kill her). but that's about all I have for religiousness.
Unless you consider the dragons themselves fallen gods. In that they ruled the land and end up usurped and ultimately brought down by human kind who are loath to have anything above them they cant directly (or indirectly) control.

 

[Darkranger85]

Wow, I love the replies so far.

@hopewrites: I really thought your fairy ideas were interesting. And I would definitely say that it counts in this thread because in actuality a 'god' does not have to be the stereotypical one we see in most books and such.

I'd be interested to hear more about that.

@Juliana: I have a friend that writes things similar to that. Sounds interesting even if it doesn't have a pantheon like I'm looking for here.

 

[hopewrites]

Wow, I love the replies so far.

@hopewrites: I really thought your fairy ideas were interesting. And I would definitely say that it counts in this thread because in actuality a 'god' does not have to be the stereotypical one we see in most books and such.

I'd be interested to hear more about that.

Good then I'll go a head and write it anyway.
What I realized was that I came up with the idea as I was chasing down creations myths out of curiosity and becoming a "feral human" my self.

I think if I were to seriously set out to set up a traditional pantheon, I would definitely reference Hero With A Thousand Faced by Joseph Campbell. That book changed my life, and saved me about a lifetimes worth of research.

 

[Darkranger85]

Absolutely, and perhaps you can get some inspiration right here if the thread continues to get quality input like it has so far.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My work which I'm editing at the moment has an entire pantheon of ancient Greek gods. I've used them before, though sometimes they throw up curly issues. For example the Greek goddess of justice (mortal) is Dike. Try putting that in print as in "Dike did this." I thought about using Justitia - but she's Roman. In my current work Dike is only a minor character and I'm using the more formal Dike Astrea.

The challenge though presently, was to have the Greek gods in an epic fantasy, without having to set the work in ancient Greece. My solution was to create "The Five Kingdoms" which are sort of a colony settled by more than just the ancient Greeks. (Hence the title of the work - The Godlost Lands.) There's also teutons and many others - all mixed up. I'm a little worried that that may challenge readers.

There was also an issue with my monsters. Taking some ancient Greek monsters and turning them into species - so the Minotaur became minotaurs etc, wasn't an issue for me. But I found that I just didn't have enough soldier type monsters, and I needed armies of them for the plot. So I ended up creating leonids as well, and then unleashing the hounds of hell - cerberi instead of cerberus.

I think it works as far as story elements go, but I suspect anyone who is really into ancient Greek mythology will have issues with it. And that in a nutshell is I think my main worry with using established mythologies. As a writer you usually need to change them to fit your story. But in doing so you risk upsetting those who are really invested in the mythos.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

That does seem to be true, Greg. And I can definitely see the issue with using ancient Greek mythological monsters as species, though it's commonly done with the like of minotaurs.

I pretty much say, though, screw all that. I don't-and wouldn't-worry about borrowing elements from outside sources and molding them to fit your needs. Using the term cerberi however, is a bit...jarring to me. Traditionally, the term "hellhound" is used to describe the beasts as a species in fantasy. If you're basing it off actual Cerberus, though, I could see the distinction. (Yes, Cerberus wasn't just merely a giant, three-headed dog. Myths I have come across state that in addition to his three heads, his back was a mass of snakes and his tail was that of a dragon.)

 

[Michael Colton]

A little comment about borrowing from pantheons: it is hardly uncommon and I have a hard time imagining readers being bothered by it. An example from television, the BSG remake borrowed and 'bastardized' all sorts of mythology to create the spirituality and mythology of the twelve colonies. I never once heard someone complain about it. Stargate did the same thing although a bit more explicitly.

 

[Darkranger85]

@psychotick: First off let me say that I think your story and it's pantheon sounds very cool. I would certainly give it a read, and while I'm not an expert by any means, I do find the Greek pantheon fascinating.

I really don't see an issue with borrowing from the Greeks, or in changing things to suit your needs. Books, shows, and movies have done many times before, most notably Stargate SG1 which was mentioned by Michael above.

In the TV series of Hercules (With Kevin Sorbo) you will notice that despite focusing on Greece, they use the Romanized version of his name rather than the Greek 'Heracles'. Granted, this is probably because the Roman version is much more widely known, but I think it's also proof that you can change things if you wish.

As further information, the Forgotten Realms pantheon borrows from Earth pantheons in a few areas, mainly Egyptian (Link). And many of the FR books are NY Times best sellers, so it can be done.

Also, it might be slightly off topic but I'm not sure what you mean about not having enough soldier type monsters. There are numerous creatures in Greek mythology that could be used. Centaurs, Harpies, Cyclops, Gorgons, and the list goes on. Unless I'm not understanding what you mean lol.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Actually, Gorgons isn't on that list, Ranger. There were only three in total, one of which-Medusa-wasn't even a natural gorgon, and she was killed by Perseus.

 

[Darkranger85]

What list are we speaking of Karn? Am I missing something important here lol?

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I misread your last reply. What Psy was talking about was mythological creatures that could be used for an army, and I thought you included that in there. Three isn't much of an army, hehe.

 

[ginny]

It's and interesting idea and a lot of its worth as a concept seems predicated on what you intend for your story or stories if it's epic.

By that I mean to ask what role the gods play. I've written in some of the usual Christian religions and have gone so far as to include witchcraft and the use of Tarot cards and astrology as a loose extension to to all of that. But I have never shown the gods actively participating in anything other that in the sense of people praying and paying homage to their beliefs. So I can't say that my world is built around the gods themselves and even the structure of the gods having any sort of influence. Perhaps one might say that my religious icons are more caricatures and props.

I gather that you mean to make yours more than that by creating a distinct mythos along with the gods. Not to say mine don't have a mythos, but in many ways it's predefined and not something I dwell on.

But back to my question. Are you going to have the gods acting within the mythos and reality concurrently or only as a means of establishing a mythos to drive the actual characters within. If they have an active relationship how will this impact the characters and their believe-ability?

 

[Darkranger85]

@ginny: Who is your question directed at? There have been a few posts that list pantheons and god like characters.

@Karn: I knew that he was looking for mythical creatures to use in an army. I just listed 4 that came to the top of my head. And I'm assuming that you would have more than a single instance of each creature if you were to make an army lol.

Again, I could be missing something lol.