Author Topic: Ideas for deities  (Read 1247 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Ideas for deities
« on: May 18, 2022, 05:30:42 PM »
This isn't specifically a Rolemaster topic, but it definitely gets colored by the way Rolemaster works, and I respect the creativity of our community here.
My party is heading to a new region where the people worship just about anything/anyone. It's a tropical jungle and coastal civilization. I'd like to have lots of color for the religions they worship, and lots of possibilities for adventures. The main deities are the rather predictable goddess of life and god of death. I've already got ideas for a spider deity (prompted by a post in another thread that mentioned Quellbourne), a god(dess) of waste/rebirth, a god(dess) of streams and rivers, and a god(dess) of plague and disease.
What ideas spring to mind? Or what cults/sects/religions have you used that lent themselves to good adventures?
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline EltonJ

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 377
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2022, 05:56:35 PM »
How about a god/goddess of dreams?

Offline MisterK

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 655
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2022, 11:48:22 PM »
I would try to associate gods with either animals, natural phenomena, or both. A "goddess of battle" must have an incarnation in the real world and this incarnation must reflect what battle evokes in the minds of the people - is it blood (and battle is incarnated as a powerful predator) ? Is it destruction of villages and towns (then battle is incarnated as a destructive force of nature, such as storms) ? The god of metalcraft manifests as the forge, but also brushfires and volcanoes.
Gods are both near and far. You can see them in their incarnation, and fear them every day. The god of darkness and the night is a bat or a spider - or the moon, depending on how people consider darkness.

Basically, you have to think about culture first : what do people strive for ? What do they fear ? What do they despise ? What natural dangers do they face ? You will find gods there. And then, give them faces and masks.

And create the origin myth. This is important.

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #3 on: May 19, 2022, 12:24:31 AM »
Yes, to all of that. The prevailing origin myth is written. The primary deities are the sister goddess of the new moon (dark) and the brother god of the full moon (light). These are the deities that are most prominent. The people relish competition in any form, and death in competition is not considered murder by the survivor. Death in battle is just one form of that. Pain for its own sake is considered cowardly and craven.
I have my own list of things they fear, things they revere, things they don't understand and seek to explain. I'm curious what others come up with because after all, as twisted as my mind is, I respect the contorted minds of you all on this forum. And my players are getting to know my mind a bit too well, so this will help keep them off balance.


I would try to associate gods with either animals, natural phenomena, or both. A "goddess of battle" must have an incarnation in the real world and this incarnation must reflect what battle evokes in the minds of the people - is it blood (and battle is incarnated as a powerful predator) ? Is it destruction of villages and towns (then battle is incarnated as a destructive force of nature, such as storms) ? The god of metalcraft manifests as the forge, but also brushfires and volcanoes.
Gods are both near and far. You can see them in their incarnation, and fear them every day. The god of darkness and the night is a bat or a spider - or the moon, depending on how people consider darkness.

Basically, you have to think about culture first : what do people strive for ? What do they fear ? What do they despise ? What natural dangers do they face ? You will find gods there. And then, give them faces and masks.

And create the origin myth. This is important.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline terefang

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 195
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #4 on: May 19, 2022, 05:24:11 AM »
you basically have the good ones already covered.

one thing, that comes to my mind would be to have the coastal vs jungle people have slightly different if not competing or alternative versions of deities.

like male vs female vs androgynous, various levels of anthropomorphism, and variance in alignments.

this could go so far as to explain why they are joined or separated, or the need to (successfully) celebrate a symbolic marriage between any two deities for cultural coherence.
I'd swallow cthulhu whole, with sushi and soy-sauce.

Currently: [BME] [FitD]
Legacy: [d6] [Genesys] [ArsMagicka] [MERP] [HARP] [Ubiquity] [d20] [WoD] [SR] [WHFRP] [WOIN/O.L.D.] [RM2/C]

Offline netbat

  • Seeker of Wisdom
  • **
  • Posts: 255
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #5 on: May 19, 2022, 06:31:34 AM »
In my world I have an agriculture and fertility goddess and in one area with three major rivers that combine just before hitting the sea there are three river spirits/minor goddesses associated with each river. The river goddesses are of birth/fertility, healing, and antidotes/healing herbs. There are also three competing cults/interpretations worshiping them. One believes there is only one goddess of the river who is responsible for healing and fertility of all things and that the three river spirits are just her three aspects. The second believes there is a main river goddess of healing and fertility and the three river spirits are her daughters, the last believes in a agriculture fertility goddess who is the sister of the river goddess of healing who has two handmaidens of the other two rivers.
It gives some reasons for competing religions without too much difference between the dieties involved.
There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away -
                                                   Emily Dickenson

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #6 on: May 19, 2022, 08:31:23 AM »
this could go so far as to explain why they are joined or separated, or the need to (successfully) celebrate a symbolic marriage between any two deities for cultural coherence.
I like this. Not only is there the shore-marine connection to tie this way, but the land-part includes both a lowland, swampy region and a much higher, upland region. Both of those pairings can have cultural-theological ties.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #7 on: May 19, 2022, 08:33:12 AM »
In my world I have an agriculture and fertility goddess and in one area with three major rivers that combine just before hitting the sea there are three river spirits/minor goddesses associated with each river. The river goddesses are of birth/fertility, healing, and antidotes/healing herbs. There are also three competing cults/interpretations worshiping them. One believes there is only one goddess of the river who is responsible for healing and fertility of all things and that the three river spirits are just her three aspects. The second believes there is a main river goddess of healing and fertility and the three river spirits are her daughters, the last believes in a agriculture fertility goddess who is the sister of the river goddess of healing who has two handmaidens of the other two rivers.
It gives some reasons for competing religions without too much difference between the dieties involved.

Thanks, netbat. I'm going to do this with the death god, I think. He's a major deity, so having a splinter group or two makes more sense than doing it with a minor deity. And I've been trying to balance how the people reconcile death and pain, thinking they consider inflicting pain evil but death is fine. Yet, it's rare death comes without pain. Maybe the splinter group is perfectly fine with pain...
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline MisterK

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 655
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #8 on: May 19, 2022, 10:14:13 AM »
If you want splinter cults, you can easily draw from real-world religions to find reasons for splinter (is the prophet divine or human - or both ? Where does the holy scripture ends ? is everything spiritual good, and if yes, does it mean that the body is inherently evil ? Is lust a human, if base, emotion, or is it unholy ? Are the high priest/esse/s infallible as being the Voice of the Deity, or are they human and prone to error and misinterpretation ?)

You can also have variations on the actual meaning of a powerful symbol. For instance, death is often feared by people. However, life is painful - what with wars, natural disasters, famines, and the burden of higher social classes. So is the peace of death not desirable ? A nihilistic cult can rise from any existing religion, and have a variety of origins. And it is both a destroyer of civilisations and a very seductive solace from the pains of the world.

Obviously, you can also have the clash of old (original) faiths and new faiths - religion is, like history, often decided by the victors, and a ruler can change a faith to further their own ends, which splits society and fosters resentment. Or a ruler is a zealot and enforces a rigid interpretation of the holy laws, creating religious resistance and heresies.

Offline terefang

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 195
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2022, 06:19:13 PM »
Obviously, you can also have the clash of old (original) faiths and new faiths - religion is, like history, often decided by the victors, and a ruler can change a faith to further their own ends, which splits society and fosters resentment. Or a ruler is a zealot and enforces a rigid interpretation of the holy laws, creating religious resistance and heresies.

i dont think that this applies here, as the culture might not be that advanced in such a natural area.

other than that you surely can have the usual themes of patrizide, deitiezide, the great enemy/destroyer, etc.

also make sure that you deites come in pairs or numbers of 2,3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, or 16, but not 13 nor 21.
I'd swallow cthulhu whole, with sushi and soy-sauce.

Currently: [BME] [FitD]
Legacy: [d6] [Genesys] [ArsMagicka] [MERP] [HARP] [Ubiquity] [d20] [WoD] [SR] [WHFRP] [WOIN/O.L.D.] [RM2/C]

Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

  • Revered Elder
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,221
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2022, 06:58:02 PM »
In order to correctly answer your questions, you should first answer this one: what are "gods" in your world? Do you consider them when placing yourself in the modern (monotheistic) paradigm and mindset where what old religions considered "gods" were nothing but products of their minds to explain the world around them? Or do you consider them when placing yourself in the (cosmogonic) paradigm and mindset of such religions when gods were actual beings responsible for creating and managing the world around them?
That being said, in a true polytheistic setting, you should just have a god or goddess for pretty much each, every and any aspect of life. Now, if your question was more about which major divinities should be worshipped, that's another question altogether...
The world was then consumed by darkness, and mankind was devoured alive and cast into hell, led by a jubilant 紗羽. She rejoiced in being able to continue serving the gods, thus perpetuating her travels across worlds to destroy them. She looked at her doll and, remembering their promises, told her: "You see, my dear, we succeeded! We've become legends! We've become villains! We've become witches!" She then laughed with a joyful, childlike laughter, just as she kept doing for all of eternity.

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #11 on: May 20, 2022, 05:05:18 PM »
In order to correctly answer your questions, you should first answer this one: what are "gods" in your world? Do you consider them when placing yourself in the modern (monotheistic) paradigm and mindset where what old religions considered "gods" were nothing but products of their minds to explain the world around them? Or do you consider them when placing yourself in the (cosmogonic) paradigm and mindset of such religions when gods were actual beings responsible for creating and managing the world around them?
That being said, in a true polytheistic setting, you should just have a god or goddess for pretty much each, every and any aspect of life. Now, if your question was more about which major divinities should be worshipped, that's another question altogether...
Good question. I hold pretty closely to the philosophy presented in The Primal Order, one of WotC's very first publications. It's not original to them, they just fleshed it out for gaming. It's the model where belief begets divinity, and so deities come and go with the energy and number of their believers.
In this particular culture, they do recognize a supreme, overall creation entity that they call Isteru. The mantra, though, is "Isteru only watches," that it created and now does not intervene. Then there are the life and death deities, which the mythology/scripture says came to man when mankind was nothing more than an animal living in fear of the other animals, and elevated them. They came from a type of "beyond," to be brief.
Each civilization in my world has one or more deities, and this culture is going to have the most diverse and numerous. As you said, there could be one or more for every aspect of life. I'm curious how others box up "aspects of life" for this, basically.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline jdale

  • RMU Dev Team
  • ****
  • Posts: 7,101
  • OIC Points +25/-25
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2022, 06:35:12 PM »
>It's the model where belief begets divinity, and so deities come and go with the energy and number of their believers.

Even if you start from that model, it seems incomplete. Belief begets divinity, but if divine entities are capable of acting, divinity should also beget belief. Belief can only shift freely if deities never intervene, and are only capable of sponsoring mortals who make their own choices.
System and Line Editor for Rolemaster

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #13 on: May 20, 2022, 07:15:02 PM »
>It's the model where belief begets divinity, and so deities come and go with the energy and number of their believers.

Even if you start from that model, it seems incomplete. Belief begets divinity, but if divine entities are capable of acting, divinity should also beget belief. Belief can only shift freely if deities never intervene, and are only capable of sponsoring mortals who make their own choices.
It's much better laid out in Primal Order, or in the novel Godstalk by P.C. Hodgell. I was trying to be very brief.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline Jengada

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 409
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #14 on: May 27, 2022, 12:19:30 PM »
It seems I had this culture's deities worked out 20+ years ago. They got packed up when I finished grad school, and I only found them yesterday. The most fascinating part is, almost all of the points others have made are captured there - cultural influences, splinters, deities reflecting relationships with the world, etc.
We ask the hard questions here, because they keep us too busy to worry about the hard questions in the real world, and we can go with the answers we like the best.

Offline Vladimir

  • Initiate
  • *
  • Posts: 154
  • OIC Points +0/-0
Re: Ideas for deities
« Reply #15 on: May 27, 2022, 07:53:36 PM »
  Unless players are significant enough to meet deities, I keep them out of games and make religions vague and pretty much garbage window dressing.

  I could probably cook up a cosmology as good as any other, I don't consider religion important enough to matter in gameplay as any more than meaningless fluff.

  So, I apply two stories: 1) The story all the NPCs believe and 2) the Reality...that only the GM knows.
  As a good reference, I suggest Hesiod's "Theogeny" as a contemporary view  of polytheism and a view of details of ancient mythology that most Westerners are familiar with.
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
-Lao Tzu