Creating a Pantheon in a world of Monotheists
One of my favorite things to do back when I was a teacher, was to talk to my students about Mythology. I actually eventually developed an entire class on global mythology based on the class I was taught by my fantastic teacher back in 12th grade, in the far away year of 2006-07. The folder I used still had the papers, stories, and assignments he’d given us that year, so I was able to take and modify from there. This love of mythology did me a world of good when I got into tabletop games, especially learning about their gods and stories. One of my favorites was actually a podcast called Godsfall that I listened to for years that took a fun and unique look at a world where the gods had died… and were now being reborn into mortal bodies portrayed by the player’s characters themselves.
So how could I possibly create gods that reflected the best aspects of my world, while still feeling like they fit? Well… My players answered that by accident. See, in the back of the player’s handbook, it gives a list of gods from different editions of the game… but it also gives real world gods that existed in history. My two holy characters, Luis and Lee, independently chose to portray characters that followed gods that had actually worshiped at one point in human history. The best part… without the knowledge of where the story was going to take place. I just said it was a wholly original world, and to pick gods that I could create reflections of in game. I suppose they found it easiest to just go with ones that reflected real world values easier.
If you’ve been reading along with us, you’ll know who each of our holy men follow, but I wanted to go into a bit of detail as to what makes these gods each so special both in our world and in the world of the Displaced:
Starting with Luis and his choice of Nike, I remember feeling so excited when he told me which god, or in this case goddess, he was planning on following. I’d often talked to my students about Nike and how she was representative of how we see echoes of mythology in everything we do every day. That checkmark on the shoes isn’t a ‘swoosh,’ it's the wings from the sandals that she wore that carried her on to victory! It always blew my mind that they asked if the goddess or the company came first… but I digress.
Seeing Nike come alive in my campaign was something that I was super excited for because it definitely was a way to start exploring both the paladin mindset and the idea of what victory actually meant. Victory wasn’t something that was a stranger to a paladin, they sought victory in everything they did, but to have a paladin take an oath to victory? That carried some pretty heavy implications with it. Victory at any cost could mean that you would need to do something dishonorable in order to attain it… maybe even something evil. If it shifts your alignment but doesn’t affect your oath, are you still a paladin? Can you still be a trusted ally? Some decisions that Luis makes are based on his personal belief of what victory is, as well. If a battle is lost, but he saved his allies, that could be as much of a victory as slaying the great beast that threatened them in the first place.
Then Lee chose a celtic god, Goibniu, a god I had never even heard of in all my years studying and teaching mythology. (Keep in mind, I was teaching very general concepts and taking on a wide spread of cultures to expose my students to as many different ones as possible, a few slipped through the cracks). When he was first introduced I wasn’t pronouncing his name properly, I couldn’t spell it properly, even as I write this I needed to go back and look it up again just to make sure that I was getting it correct. This could have been a great frustration to a game master, but my love of mythology made me dive down a rabbit hole to explore the god, the stories, and the history behind him. I actually loved one of the stories so much that I added it to my curriculum for a couple years before I transitioned out of education.
Goibniu was an interesting and difficult addition because there was nothing like him in any pantheon in a fantasy book or game that I’ve read or played. The closest I could come up with was Hestia, but even she didn’t have the same personality that Goibniu had. I needed to mix the gruff artisan that is a blacksmith with the warm host that is hospitable, all while connecting it back to Lee, who had his own detached and distant personality. Coming up with ways to bring the two together was difficult at first, but eventually, while we played more and I learned more, I discovered that both characters had layers to their personalities that could, and would, come out at different times under different circumstances.
Complex characters don’t just need multiple reasons why they are the way they are, but they can also act differently depending on the environment they find themselves in. I would have that conversation often with students: “I’m not the same person with my friends as I am with you, just like you’re not the same person with your parents that you are with your friends.” It’s amazing how my own lessons can come back and hit me with my own words in ways I never considered.
The final aspect was how can I justify these types of characters in a world full of monotheistic religions? Well, that was actually pretty easy. Polytheistic religions, such as the Celtic and Greek that we were basing our characters on, understand and respect that there are other gods out there beyond their own. When a monotheist approached the characters, they saw the god presented to them as just another god from this strange world. It fell on the NPC’s of my world to come to terms with the characters rather than the other way around. Just goes to show you, acceptance isn’t something individuals need to strive to gain, it’s something we need to learn to give.
