So my players are on a mission for the raven queen to kill a Lich on an island continent overrun with undead.
I need Gods and Goddesses to populate my world, I want most of them to be selfish and evil. In the one major city on the island I want there to be cults and religions vying for dominance. The players are two goliaths (barbarian berserker and champion fighter), a half elf moon Druid/abjuration wizard, a human lore bard, and an Eldritch Knight all level 6. I want these Gods to try to manipulate and get their hooks into my players.
How would Gods influence players?
Would they curse them?
Temp them?
Throw your God Names, ideas, and concepts at me original or otherwise.
Steal deities from real world Mythology. Read up on some god from some ancient civilization, change the name, change up some aspects - presto, you have a God for your world.
Create Gods based on important aspects of the culture in which they are worshiped. You have a seafaring Viking analogue in your world? You'll need sea God(dess). Maybe some ancestor worship, a God(dess) of War/Martial prowess, etc.
List out all the Divine Domains. Create Deities based on these Domains - sort of a job portfolio.
Of course you can combine all of these together, mix and match.
As for how the Gods would behave, or how they would influence your Characters - that's hard to say.
Gods will be full blown NPCs ( albeit very powerful ones ) with their own personalities and agendas. How they "operate" would depend on that.
How they will interact with the Characters - that's dependent on the personalities ( and perhaps the backstories ) of the Characters.
For example, if you had a God of greed and corruption, and a Rogue which is very avaricious - that's simple to figure out: tempt them.
A malevolent God of corruption, on the other hand, might curse the family member of a noble and upright Character - agreeing to relinquish the curse if the Character performs a number of services for them - the list of "services" meant to tempt, and otherwise corrupt the Character.
The relationships between Gods, Societies, and Character is a social/interpersonal thing. You kind of have to design their character, before you can figure out how they'll interact.
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This web site has gods from all over the world. I suggest you AVOID the ones you were taught in High School (Norse, Greek, Roman). That way people will not automatically know everything about the gods.
I'll toss a vote in for a mix of Egyptian and Greek. If you change the names, keep the portfolios, and mix and match as you please you can make something they won't expect. Plus, the Greek pantheon is infamous / famous for their interferences with mortals, their pettiness, etc etc.
How love and beauty become evil is simple, lust she has a human form of pure beauty and tries to bed a player roll wis save DC 17 if they fail they are charmed for 72 hours and go to bed with her when they wake up they are in her secret cave on the island for her pleasure
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I will never get discord I play using play by post
I tend to give gods both positive and negative traits, so here is my list of gods with their most negative traits:
Helm - God of order through fear. Tyranny, essentially (on the positive side, he's the god of protection)
Vecna - God of secrets and forbidden knowledge. Hoarding knowledge (on the positive side he's the god of knowledge in general as well)
Nodens - god of the hunt. Does not care about humans at all, since he considers them poor sport. He only wants to hun the multiverse's most dangerous game. (on the positive side, hunting dangerous creatures means there are less to threaten humanity)
Morrigan - Goddess of the wilderness and monsters therein.
Amaol - god of hard labor, exploitation and capitalism, as well as loyalty even to toxic powers.
Orval - sungod, including heat
Khol - God of death, including violent death and suffering
She blesses those who trade herbs and spices. Her temples are basically large spice markets. Maybe a corrupt merchant priest is starting to monopolise the herb and spice market and causing the prices to sky rocket, leading to the food in the nearby inn to be extremely bland. Also, they’re damaging the nearby environment in order to grow more herbs and spices.
Design the gods appropriate to the themes of the game.
Perhaps one of the themes of the game is "Rural vs Urban". In this case, have a rural god and an urban god. The conflicts between their churches and worshippers will illustrate that theme of the game.
Maybe play with the idea that on an island the worship of a god is isolated and would evolve into something unique from the mainland.
For example Tymora a luck and gambling goddess, also has a subset of followers that treat her like the god of YOLO and basically constantly do things that put their life in unnecessary danger to prove their devotion and to her.
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So my players are on a mission for the raven queen to kill a Lich on an island continent overrun with undead.
I need Gods and Goddesses to populate my world, I want most of them to be selfish and evil. In the one major city on the island I want there to be cults and religions vying for dominance. The players are two goliaths (barbarian berserker and champion fighter), a half elf moon Druid/abjuration wizard, a human lore bard, and an Eldritch Knight all level 6. I want these Gods to try to manipulate and get their hooks into my players.
How would Gods influence players?
Would they curse them?
Temp them?
Throw your God Names, ideas, and concepts at me original or otherwise.
Couple of ideas.
Of course you can combine all of these together, mix and match.
As for how the Gods would behave, or how they would influence your Characters - that's hard to say.
Gods will be full blown NPCs ( albeit very powerful ones ) with their own personalities and agendas. How they "operate" would depend on that.
How they will interact with the Characters - that's dependent on the personalities ( and perhaps the backstories ) of the Characters.
For example, if you had a God of greed and corruption, and a Rogue which is very avaricious - that's simple to figure out: tempt them.
A malevolent God of corruption, on the other hand, might curse the family member of a noble and upright Character - agreeing to relinquish the curse if the Character performs a number of services for them - the list of "services" meant to tempt, and otherwise corrupt the Character.
The relationships between Gods, Societies, and Character is a social/interpersonal thing. You kind of have to design their character, before you can figure out how they'll interact.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
This web site has gods from all over the world. I suggest you AVOID the ones you were taught in High School (Norse, Greek, Roman). That way people will not automatically know everything about the gods.
https://www.godchecker.com/
Pick something unusual, such as Finnish or Carribean, and go with it.
I'll toss in a vote for Egyptian mythology. It also buys you a lot in terms of death cults, mummies, and the like.
Plus, hieroglyphics are awesome.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'll toss a vote in for a mix of Egyptian and Greek. If you change the names, keep the portfolios, and mix and match as you please you can make something they won't expect. Plus, the Greek pantheon is infamous / famous for their interferences with mortals, their pettiness, etc etc.
I have one not quite original.
Serena the goddess of love and beauty
Alignment ce
How love and beauty become evil is simple, lust she has a human form of pure beauty and tries to bed a player roll wis save DC 17 if they fail they are charmed for 72 hours and go to bed with her when they wake up they are in her secret cave on the island for her pleasure
I will never get discord I play using play by post
I tend to give gods both positive and negative traits, so here is my list of gods with their most negative traits:
Helm - God of order through fear. Tyranny, essentially (on the positive side, he's the god of protection)
Vecna - God of secrets and forbidden knowledge. Hoarding knowledge (on the positive side he's the god of knowledge in general as well)
Nodens - god of the hunt. Does not care about humans at all, since he considers them poor sport. He only wants to hun the multiverse's most dangerous game. (on the positive side, hunting dangerous creatures means there are less to threaten humanity)
Morrigan - Goddess of the wilderness and monsters therein.
Amaol - god of hard labor, exploitation and capitalism, as well as loyalty even to toxic powers.
Orval - sungod, including heat
Khol - God of death, including violent death and suffering
Scathach - Goddess of battle and violence.
If you're bored you can try looking into slavic, finnish or mongol.
Or just insert a country in to a google search and add mythology after it. you will find some interesting gods, spirits etc.
First one that comes to mind to me is the finnish 'death' gods. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuonela
Kuutar (Lady moon) would be interesting as she is quite blank page so you could do anything with her tbh.
Here are some ideas
If you have $s look up Gods and Demigods on eBay. Its rare and not cheap.
Syfixia, goddess of herbs and spices.
Alignment: N
Domain: Nature
She blesses those who trade herbs and spices. Her temples are basically large spice markets. Maybe a corrupt merchant priest is starting to monopolise the herb and spice market and causing the prices to sky rocket, leading to the food in the nearby inn to be extremely bland. Also, they’re damaging the nearby environment in order to grow more herbs and spices.
Could be an interesting minor side adventure.
Some members of the pantheon from my world:
Design the gods appropriate to the themes of the game.
Perhaps one of the themes of the game is "Rural vs Urban". In this case, have a rural god and an urban god. The conflicts between their churches and worshippers will illustrate that theme of the game.
I got this idea from an Angry GM post, https://theangrygm.com/conflicted-beliefs/. Warning: Angry's faux-antagonistic style is not for everyone.
What? Your game doesn't have themes? You should decide some - it will dramatically improve the game world and experience.
hel, loki, hades, and zehir.
Maybe play with the idea that on an island the worship of a god is isolated and would evolve into something unique from the mainland.
For example Tymora a luck and gambling goddess, also has a subset of followers that treat her like the god of YOLO and basically constantly do things that put their life in unnecessary danger to prove their devotion and to her.