Preview of Coming Attractions...

Sol Invictus

I made a brief list of gods that I would use if I wanted to create a typical D&D style fantasy heathen pantheon, like the old heathen pantheons of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Norse, etc. that are familiar to us from Bulfinch's Mythology and elsewhere. Nominally, my settings are not pagan, but y'know, sometimes you want to option. Lots of people (including past versions of me) considered pagan mythological pantheons as going hand in hand with D&D-like fantasy. Even Tolkien kinda sorta did it with the Valar. Other books I read in the 80s and 90s (Riftwar Cycle, Belgariad, Dragonlance Trilogy, Halfling Gem Trilogy, etc.) had the same assumptions as pretty core element and sometimes even a hugely important story hook associated with them. 

My pagan pantheon isn't going to be "original" per se, as it will include many names cribbed from actual pantheons of past mythological origin. Heck, what started me on the journey in the first place was the idea of using Sol Invictus as a D&D god instead of something like Pelor or Sarenrae or even Apollo, who appears in both versions of Deities & Demigods and therefore qualifies in a basic sense as a D&D sun-god. 

Here's the list, deliberately brief, that I'll be using to build this out. I'll probably have a 3.5 and a 5e version, with domains, etc. Just for the heckuvit. And I'll talk a little bit briefly about all of the characters, and generate ChatGPT images of all of them. Which is my bottleneck; I can only generate so many a day, because I have a free account and if I don't get a perfect image the first time, I have to use a few iterations to get even one of them. It limits my generation to 2-3 characters per day, mostly. 

Anyway, here's the list, and three images. I'll do each one as a separate post at some point shortly. Some of these might be slightly modified as I go through this exercise. 

Sol Invictus - sun god (as you'd expect) with a martial aspect. More like Pelor than like Apollo. Originally a Roman god.

Cernunnos, the Horned King - nature god from Gaulish/Celtic origin, with antlers. Not super friendly.

Cernunnos

Thunraz the Thunderer - the proto-Germanic asterisked form of Thor. I'm less likely to go with the "god of xxx" kind of thing; in real mythology, gods were just characters, and they didn't necessarily belong to domains and spheres of influence as much as we like to make them be. Thor, for instance, was never once called the God of Thunder, or even the Thunderer in any Norse text. He did have a hammer that thundered when he smote with it, but he was just an adventurer Norse god with a quick temper who was very strong, heroic, and featured in more stories than most. But I agree that for D&D there probably needs to be some element of that. 

Mithras - another late-appearing Roman god like Sol Invictus, famous for his mystery cult that was popular among the legions and the foederati, so he's often considered a martial god.

Chernavog, the Dark One - a Slavic god, although I've spelled it slightly differently than normal, who also happens to be the character from the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence of Fantasia. I consider him a pretty typical dark lord style figure. 

Veles, the Sly Mage - both a trickster figure, and a god of magic of sorts; Veles is also a Slavic god originally.

Tellus, the Earth-Mother - an old Greek or Roman spelling of Terra. Pretty typical Mother Earth type of goddess.

The Gray Sisters: Wyrd, Verthand, and Skuld - The Gray Sisters is usually a literal translation of the Graeae, which were Greek (famous for their interaction with Perseus, if you've watched Clash of the Titans lately) but I've used names that are more similar to Anglo-Saxon versions of the Norse Norns. Obviously they are both old Indo-European reflections of the same idea anyway, since the Graeae and the Norns are almost identical. Goddesses of fate, divination, etc. but with a darker, edgier tone than some might have had otherwise. 

Nodens, the Silver-Handed; Lord of the Hunt - A Celtic British god, also known by his Irish name Nuada or Nuadha, although the name Nodens itself is familiar to many gamers from Lovecraft. A huntsman and fisherman, he's kind of like the iconic ranger, maybe.

Brigantia, the Mistress of Victory - a poorly attested Celtic goddess. Well, actually she's fairly well-attested in terms of figurines, but we know little about her. Not unlike Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory, and also often conflated with the Romans with Minerva (Athena). I'd probably see her as the unlikeable girlboss of the gods that the other gods either are annoyed by, or are constantly putting in her place, although she's lacking in self-awareness enough to realize it.

Summanus

Epona - Gaulish goddess of horses. Maybe some elements of Artemis too; a weird, wandering loner of a girl who prefers the company of animals, especially horses, to anyone else.

Sirona, the Healer - another poorly known Celtic goddess (I'm using lots of them, if you didn't notice) but I'll call her the pretty stereotypical Florence Nightingale goddess that D&D pantheons seem to always have.

Tzovinar, Daughter of the Seas - an Armenian goddess. I just like the name and the title that came with her. I was thinking of using Thetis, a Greek chthonic goddess of the seas, and the bad guy from Clash of the Titans, but I like this name better. I need to mix up a few more goddesses, because I'm wont otherwise to ignore them and make the whole pantheon a big ole sausage party.

Mokosh, the Swamp Mother - I can't even remember where I got this name. But a hag goddess in a swamp sounded kind of cool.

Volturnus, the Father of the River - I thought about using Father Ren, or Father Rhine from the Germanic tribes, but I relented and went with this more "generic" Roman name. An aquatic god, obviously, and maybe someone who's frequently irritated by Mokosh and Tzovinar.

Ceres - a Roman goddess of the hearth, agriculture, marriage and domesticity in general, often equated with Demeter, and who picked up the same story of Demeter and Persephone and Hades, except the names were Ceres and Proserpina and Dis Pater in those roles to the Romans.

Dagon - a dark god of the ocean, who borrows more from the Lovecraft and D&D demon lord stuff than from mythology per se.

Orcus - another name for Pluto to the Romans, but of course, he's got a long history in D&D which I'll also be borrowing; a dark demon-god, associated with undeath. He may be more like Orcus as Tenebrous, though—an undead thing. Maybe like Nagash from Warhammer in fact.

Thanatos - another alternate name for either Hades or his realm to the Greeks, although in D&D of course, this is Orcus' layer of the Abyss. I'll call him a dark god of night and murder, maybe not too unlike Zon-Kuthon of Golarion; corrupted by the Dark Tapestry, or Far Realm, or Outer Darkness, or Void Beyond, or whatever I want to call it. Conceptually, they're all the same thing. This Lovecraftian corruption possibly places him in a similar role to Tharizdun from D&D.

Zaltys, the Serpent - a snake god. The name comes from Lithuanian, and refers to the home snakes that they used to keep for whatever reason. The Teutonic crusaders who brought Christianity with the sword to the Baltic peoples killed a lot of their snakes. Elements of Yig, Ydersius, Sertrous and more

Nwt, the Sky-mother - an Egyptian goddess of the night sky.

Ashtar of the Sacred Groves - A Semitic goddess, usually known as either Ishtar or Astarte depending on the language, but I've split the difference. Infamous for her sacred groves and temple heirodules, or "sacred prostitutes" in real life. 

The Old Men of the Sea; Manann, Thaumant, and Halios Geron - odd spellings of Greek gods and one Irish god of the Sea. I thought it'd be cool to have them be a trio rather than just one. 

Golarion Remixed and Pantheon Option Added

First off, a diversion. I read a fair bit while traveling, because that's mostly what I do when traveling for business and not actually working. I rarely have time to do any significant site-seeing on business trips, so I mostly load up on books. I finished Salvatore's Exile, which I was about halfway through at the start of the trip, the second book in the Dark Elf prequel trilogy, and I also read Sojourn, the final book. I'd read these before; they were all published in the very early 90s, and I probably read them by the mid-90s at the latest. I remember liking them, and don't get me wrong; I did again, but I almost wish that I hadn't bought them, because now I have them, and I doubt I'll read them again. I think that prequels generally shouldn't be done. You already know where it's going to end up, because of the prequel is a neologism of sequel, i.e., the book (or movie, etc.) that takes place later was actually made first, and this is a sequel that takes place earlier. I'm convinced more and more that while there's always a strong desire to explore the origin of a popular character before he really became that character, it rarely works out well. The Star Wars prequels were disappointing. Solo was disappointing, and shouldn't have been made. Wolverine: Origin was OK, but Marvel were right to be suspicious of it. Ultimately, although it was pretty good and no doubt sold like crazy, it probably did more damage to the "brand" of Wolverine than anything else in the end. And here; Drizzt was a cool character. As Salvatore himself "discovered" while writing the original Icewind Dale trilogy, which was supposed to star Wulfgar as the protagonist, Drizzt ended up being a much more intriguing character, and was the real break-out star of the series, and of his writing as a whole. But seeing him as he was before he was the character that we know was mostly kept afloat by the—at the time, still—exotic environment of the Underdark and the dark elf society, which was more intriguing than Drizzt as a teenager or whatever.

But I already discussed this somewhat in my brief mention of having finished the first book of the trilogy, Homeland; rather, what struck me this time, although again, it's hardly revelatory, just something that struck me particularly this time around, was that neither Drizzt nor Wulfgar, despite being indubitably D&D characters created for a D&D setting, and statted out in various D&D products, don't behave anything like D&D characters in most respects as you watch their bildungsroman in The Crystal Shard and this trilogy in particular. Rather, they start out as exceptional individuals, who go through what amounts to little more than a Rocky-style training montage, and then they're superlative characters who change very little over the course of multiple books after that. Certainly they change very little in terms of powers, abilities or capabilities; I don't mean to imply that they don't have character development. But it is nothing at all like the progression of levels in a D&D game. It just doesn't work very well, does it? The whole leveling thing is a gamism that doesn't resemble anything in the mediums which supposedly informed the game. You don't see anything like leveling in Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. They may learn, grow and age, but they don't "level up" or anything at all like that. James Bond doesn't "level up" (or have a backstory either, for that matter) he just is and we like him as he is. 

Anyway, I dunno. I kind of like leveling in my own games, but I also like flat power curves and more "static" characters. Static at least in the sense that they don't have some crazy power curve, but they just kind of are, and things that happen to increase their capabilities are more in line with things that happen in real life; acquiring materiel that would give them more capabilities, learning something new through study, getting promoted or otherwise creating a network of relationships that offer support, etc. I'm starting to lean more and more into the house rule of smoothing the leveling and minimizing its obviousness, if not eliminating it altogether

Secondly, Paizo. I've been reading and finding lots of stuff on Paizo and the Golarion setting, and watching YouTube videos by MythKeeper and stuff. It's an interesting setting. To use it, I'd still have to make lots of changes. I like the frontier "Varisia" region quite a bit, for example, but I hate Kaer Maga, the "City of Strangers" and I'd have to swap some other city in its place entirely. I'm not a huge fan of the rune magic themes of ancient Thassilon, with their Seven Deadly Sins stuff either, nor am I a huge fan of Deliverance-style ogres (which I honestly find more and more offensive the more I encounter that particular stereotype) or the "Against the Giants" vibe of the fourth installment (the one I just finished) or their take on goblins, honestly. I like the more honest and "playing-it-straight" vibe of goblins in D&D rather than an attempt to hijack them into comic relief, or at least dark silliness. Goblins in Golarion are more like the gremlins of the Gremlins movie than they are like goblins of D&D or Lord of the Rings. They even kind of look like them.

What struck me about Pathfinder, especially as I started to find out about the changes made from 1e to 2e, and even moreso the changes from 2e to the Remastered Project, was that people who went to Paizo in 2007-9 or so often cited the reason for doing so that 4e didn't resemble D&D enough, and it made too many changes to the mechanics and especially to the lore of the game. So, they stuck with Pathfinder, which felt like just another setting—albeit one with high production and writing values, and one still strongly supported—of D&D. Paizo in the early days was more similar to Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms than 4e was, or even 3.5's own Eberron setting. But Golarion of today, post Remastered Project, is less like D&D than 4e was in terms of lore, and honestly, has a lot of similarities to 4e in terms of mechanics, in many ways. It's interesting how the tables turn. I think it's a case of the boiled frog analogy that people love to refer to; 4e was too many changes too fast for most people, but honestly, many of its ideas were good ideas. Many of its mechanics have wormed their way into Pathfinder and 5e and the whole modern ecosystem of games, for instance, and many of its lore changes (which I was always a fan of relative to the "traditional" lore as represented in its later stages by 3e and again in many ways by 5e). I wonder if many of those people who hated the 4e lore are perfectly comfortable now with Pathfinder Remastered's lore or not.

Anyway, I'm thinking of doodling a bit with Varisia like I did with Timischburg. That was my attempt to make a "fake Ustalav", and I think I'd like a fake Varisia too. Varisia may not be my favorite single element of the Golarion setting, but then again, it might be. It's a good one. In some ways, the Hill Country is an even more mundane version of Varisia, and I've deliberately added two city-states that were inspired in many ways by the rivalry between Korvosa and Magnimar in my own Garenport and Barrowmere. I can re-do some of the geography, rename the Hill Country and add some more Varisia-like elements to it, and make an alternate setting that includes some traditional D&D-like races, sort of like my High Fantasy X project, such as it was, was. The draft map I sketched up for High Fantasy X was more like Eberron meets Heroes of Might & Magic III, but there's no reason not to have more than one setting for the game. I like creating settings for its own sake, after all. This one will be more explicitly Golarion Remixed, and maybe I'll use that tag, which I haven't done much with, to explore how I'd change elements of it. 

Whatever I do as part of my "Golarion Remixed" project, it'll probably be more radical than my Eberron Remixed project. Eberron feels more like a single setting with multiple areas in it, while Golarion feels almost like a patchwork of settings that are connected, but for any given campaign, you're not really expected to use more than one of the elements. Maybe two at the most. A campaign set in Varisia is not going to go to Absalom or Katapesh, for instance. Each area has its own tone and theme. If all that makes any sense.

Finally, I also want to have the alternative of using fantasy deities, a mythological pantheon, even if I'm not sure if I prefer that, or not. But certainly, it will help D&D players adjust to my more esoteric tastes if I wean them in by making games I run resemble what they're expecting just a little more. Anyway, here's my full list of gods that I'd use for High Fantasy X, Golarion Remixed (maybe), Eberron Remixed (maybe) and even as an alternative in Old Night if I wanted to do it that way.

Sol Invictus - sun god (as you'd expect) with a martial aspect. More like Pelor than like Apollo. Originally a Roman god.

Cernunnos, the Horned King - nature god from Gaulish/Celtic origin, with antlers. Not super friendly.

Summanus the Thunderer - an obscure Roman god. I'm less likely to go with the "god of xxx" kind of thing; in real mythology, gods were just characters, and they didn't necessarily belong to domains and spheres of influence as much as we like to make them be. Thor, for instance, was never once called the God of Thunder, or even the Thunderer in any Norse text. He did have a hammer that thundered when he smote with it, but he was just an adventurer Norse god with a quick temper who was very strong, heroic, and featured in more stories than most. But I agree that for D&D there probably needs to be some element of that. 

Mithras - another late-appearing Roman god, famous for his mystery cult that was popular among the legions and the foederati, so he's often considered a martial god.

Chernavog, the Dark One - a Slavic god, although I've spelled it slightly differently than normal, who also happens to be the character from the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence of Fantasia. I consider him a pretty typical dark lord style figure. 

Veles, the Sly Mage - both a trickster figure, and a god of magic of sorts; Veles is also a Slavic god originally.

Tellus, the Earth-Mother - an old Greek or Roman spelling of Terra. Pretty typical Mother Earth type of goddess.

The Gray Sisters: Wyrd, Verthand, and Skuld - The Gray Sisters is usually a literal translation of the Graeae, which were Greek (famous for their interaction with Perseus, if you've watched Clash of the Titans lately) but I've used names that are more similar to Anglo-Saxon versions of the Norse Norns. Obviously they are both old Indo-European reflections of the same idea anyway, since the Graeae and the Norns are almost identical. Goddesses of fate, divination, etc. but with a darker, edgier tone than some might have had otherwise. 

Nodens, the Silver-Handed; Lord of the Hunt - A Celtic British god, also known by his Irish name Nuada or Nuadha, although the name Nodens itself is familiar to many gamers from Lovecraft. A huntsman and fisherman, he's kind of like the iconic ranger, maybe.

Brigantia, the Mistress of Victory - a poorly attested Celtic goddess. Well, actually she's fairly well-attested in terms of figurines, but we know little about her. Not unlike Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory, and also often conflated with the Romans with Minerva (Athena). I'd probably see her as the unlikeable girlboss of the gods that the other gods either are annoyed by, or are constantly putting in her place, although she's lacking in self-awareness enough to realize it.

Epona - Gaulish goddess of horses. Maybe some elements of Artemis too; a weird, wandering loner of a girl who prefers the company of animals, especially horses, to anyone else.

Sirona, the Healer - another poorly known Celtic goddess (I'm using lots of them, if you didn't notice) but I'll call her the pretty stereotypical Florence Nightingale goddess that D&D pantheons seem to always have.

Tzovinar, Daughter of the Seas - an Armenian goddess. I just like the name and the title that came with her. I was thinking of using Thetis, a Greek chthonic goddess of the seas, and the bad guy from Clash of the Titans, but I like this name better. I need to mix up a few more goddesses, because I'm wont otherwise to ignore them and make the whole pantheon a big ole sausage party.

Mokosh, the Swamp Mother - I can't even remember where I got this name. But a hag goddess in a swamp sounded kind of cool.

Volturnus, the Father of the River - I thought about using Father Ren, or Father Rhine from the Germanic tribes, but I relented and went with this more "generic" Roman name. An aquatic god, obviously, and maybe someone who's frequently irritated by Mokosh and Tzovinar.

Ceres - a Roman goddess of the hearth, agriculture, marriage and domesticity in general, often equated with Demeter, and who picked up the same story of Demeter and Persephone and Hades, except the names were Ceres and Proserpina and Dis Pater in those roles to the Romans.

Dagon - a dark god of the ocean, who borrows more from the Lovecraft and D&D demon lord stuff than from mythology per se.

Orcus - another name for Pluto to the Romans, but of course, he's got a long history in D&D which I'll also be borrowing; a dark demon-god, associated with undeath. He may be more like Orcus as Tenebrous, though—an undead thing. Maybe like Nagash from Warhammer in fact.

Thanatos - another alternate name for either Hades or his realm to the Greeks, although in D&D of course, this is Orcus' layer of the Abyss. I'll call him a dark god of night and murder, maybe not too unlike Zon-Kuthon of Golarion; corrupted by the Dark Tapestry, or Far Realm, or Outer Darkness, or Void Beyond, or whatever I want to call it. Conceptually, they're all the same thing. This Lovecraftian corruption possibly places him in a similar role to Tharizdun from D&D.

Zaltys, the Serpent - a snake god. The name comes from Lithuanian, and refers to the home snakes that they used to keep for whatever reason. The Teutonic crusaders who brought Christianity with the sword to the Baltic peoples killed a lot of their snakes. Elements of Yig, Ydersius, Sertrous and more

Nwt, the Sky-mother - an Egyptian goddess of the night sky.

Ashtar of the Sacred Groves - A Semitic goddess, usually known as either Ishtar or Astarte depending on the language, but I've split the difference. Infamous for her sacred groves and temple heirodules, or "sacred prostitutes" in real life. 

The Old Men of the Sea; Manann, Thaumant, and Halios Geron - odd spellings of Greek gods and one Irish god of the Sea. I thought it'd be cool to have them be a trio rather than just one. 

I've also got all my Lovecraftian entities from earlier posts, but I won't propose them as part of the pantheon that PCs could conceivably worship.

Trawling

So, I've read a few more books recently and not mentioned it here. I finished "Shadows in Freeport", a Goodman Games module written by Rob Schwalb and set in Freeport from back in the 00s, "Vengeance in Freeport" also written by a third party, Ronin Arts, but which is a direct sequel, or coda, to "Madness in Freeport". I've also read Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun and I've almost finished the Savage Tide adventure path. It's my intention that, if not today then certainly tomorrow, I'll finish Savage Tide. 

I wasn't sure what to think of the Goodman Games module. It clearly wears on its sleeve the old school dungeon-crawl style, which I don't usually have much interest in, so I didn't expect to love it. However... I actually do. Although the format wasn't a great one for reading, I'll admit, the actual module looks like it's fantastic. Although structured as an old-fashioned dungeon-crawler, which it mostly is, it's actually quite a clever and well-done expression of a haunted house experience. It lacks (mostly) silly and hoaky dungeon-crawl staples like tons of unbelievable traps and puzzles—there's one of the latter, but it can simply be written out, I'm sure, and while there are a few traps, they mostly represent regular hazards rather than actual traps; weakened and structurally unsound floors, and stuff like that. It also shows that you don't need fancy new monsters; for the most part, the memorable encounters are with pretty standard stuff that's in the SRD; ghosts, allips, babau demons, etc. It goes to show you; it's about how they're used. Execution trumps innovation every single time. And this is excellently executed. If the module kind of springs fully formed without any backstory to speak of like Minerva from the forehead of Jupiter†, that's OK; you can find reasons within your own game to actually engage the module. 

I do like reading adventure paths and more modern modules that propose hooks and backgrounds, but I find that it's hardly necessary, it's just mostly to make the module a bit more readable for the GM. This is a perfect example of how that isn't really needed though. You go to the haunted house because people have been going missing. They're all ghosts and they attack you once you're inside. Put the monster down at the end to stop the disappearances. Beyond that; any GM worth his salt can work that in. As much as I like the stuff that the writers' come up with for modules, I admit that I frequently have to change what they wrote anyway if I intend to actually use their material. 

Next up on the Freeport Trawl would be "Crisis in Freeport." I've often complained that Freeport is often too silly; although I don't think I've ever read Crisis, my understanding is that it swung perhaps too far in the other direction; very dark, serious and edgy, or at least attempting to be, with gratuitous rape and crap like that. Pendulum's are often like that; when they go too far in one direction, the correction is an over-correction. But I'll read it before I judge it. 

(This paragraph is a rambly aside. Feel free to skip.) Because so many of my books on my trawl are books that I have in pdf form, my Sumatra (I prefer it to Acrobat for simple reading) is pre-loaded up with the next one or two for each of my trawls, and I think that I'll continue to do that. So, I've got at least two more Freeport books loaded up; Crisis and "Gangs of Freeport", I've got the next Eberron module, which is next for that trawl, I've still got my Savage Tide fan compilation (it was easier than finding all of my old Dungeon magazines in whatever box they're stacked in in storage), Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Magic of Faerun and The Voyage to Farzeen. But just because I have the next chapter of each trawl loaded doesn't mean that I'm going to read them all equally. For one thing, I'm also reading other things besides my trawl books, and for another, I want to prioritize some over others. Of the books currently on deck or in process, I want to finish (in physical copies) Heroes of Horror, Tales from Celtic Mythology, and the Driz'zt prequel trilogy in the next days (or weeks for the last one; I'll start it when I finish Celtic) and I've got other physical books to add to the list. I'm also listening to audiobooks; I'm probably going to finish At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs (I've read it before, of course, but this is my first time in audio) early next week, if not this weekend. I'll also finish Savage Tide within the next 24 hours or so, as I mentioned, and then I'll load up the first of the Rise of the Runelords adventures again. I've read that at least twice before, and played it at least once, but never as part of the trawl, so it gets to go again. Freeport and the Adventure paths are kind of the priority to read first, with Eberron and the Sandy Petersen Sagas next; the 5e campaigns and the 3e Forgotten Realms books are at the bottom. In addition, on the physical book side, I've had a lot of stuff in mind to read, including an undocumented mini-trawl of the 3e monster books (my recent finishing of Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun thus killed two birds with one stone, and I'm almost done with the environmental books too; only two left to read.)

Anyway; the two Freeport modules I just read could be used in an Old Night game easily enough without major alteration, although both of them are kind of non-essential. "Shadows in Freeport" was absolutely stand-alone and had nothing to do with anything else going on in Freeport. It could easily have been set anywhere, and tying it to Freeport in the first place seems kind of superfluous and unnecessary, and "Vengeance in Freeport" was tied very much to the story of Milton Drac; although it could easily be run as a stand alone without that backstory, and the backstory linkages aren't actually important. It's a superfluous coda rather than one that adds or contributes to the ongoing "Freeport meta-narrative" if you will. Neither of those are surprising, given that both are third party additions to the Freeport thread.

† I don't often talk about this kind of thing, but because for some reason I used the Roman rather than Greek version of this story, it sparked in my mind some thoughts. Jupiter, Juno and Minerva are the Capitoline Triad, seen as among the most important three gods worshipped on Capitoline Hill in Rome in the later Roman period, after the Hellenization of many aspects of their culture. That said, it appears that Minerva was borrowed from the Etruscans rather than the Greeks, only later "merging" with Athena. She seems to come almost exactly as is from Etruscan Menrva and the coming out of the forehead story was adopted from the Greeks, as well as (sometimes) imagery associated with Medusa's head shields, but her essential character and her place in the Triad predates the Hellenization of the Romans, and comes directly from the Etruscans instead. In spite of the Hellenization of Roman mythology, it still always retained a lot of its own original character. Mars was never really seen as having the character of Ares, for instance, even though they were often conflated—Ares was an entitled villain to the Greeks, while Mars was a heroic ideal. The Archaic Triad, which predates the Capitoline Triad, was Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, where Quirinus may have originally been a Sabine equivalent of sorts to Mars who was adopted into the early Roman pantheon when the Sabines joined the early Romans politically and culturally. 

My favorite god of Roman specific mythology is Sol Invictus, however, not only because what a cool name, but... well, mostly because it's such a cool name. Sol was an old Roman god, which should be obvious given that his name is a clear cognate with the word for Sun in all kinds of other Indo-European languages, but his worship largely faded during the early Republican times. Aurelian, the Emperor who ended the Crisis of the Third Century and revived Rome's flagging fortunes is the most responsible for bringing the worship of Sol back, now with the subtitle Invictus (he was occasionally called Sol Indiges previously.) There's even some discussion among modern students of Rome's religious practices and mythology if Sol Indiges, or "Old Sol" is even the same deity as Sol Invictus or not.

I don't have pagan pantheons in my fantasy anymore, but if I were to ever decide to use that for a setting, I'd probably use real life mythological gods rather than making them up, and Sol Invictus would absolutely be part of my pantheon, probably replacing Pelor in the D&D pantheon. (4e and 5e did a real number of the specific pantheons of specific settings, and mixed them all up. Pelor seems to have made the cut in the 5e DMG, if I recall, however.) Borrowing other gods from Celtic, Slavic Germanic and Roman and/or Greek pantheons, to the degree we can recreate them, I'd make my own mishmash pantheon. Or better yet, I simply wouldn't define any pantheon at all, and just let players pick whatever gods they want from whatever source that they want. 

But my own characters would be most interested in worshipping Sol Invictus, Cernnunos the Horned King, Perun the Thunderer, (or maybe Taranis the Thunderer instead), Mithras, a martial god, Chernovog, a dark underworld style god, and Veles, a trickster god associated with magic. 

Heck, that's at least 75% of a workable pantheon right there. Add a couple of goddesses; some kind of nurturing/healing chick like Nerthus or an equivalent and maybe a moon goddess like Artemis or Selene or something, and you're mostly good to go. Some tripartite witch/oracle goddess trio like the Norns, the Fates or the Morrigan would fit (I like the Graeae or the Gray Sisters for them) and Nodens, the Silver-handed, who is a god of seas, hunting and fishing. Of course, I could also use Dagon as god of the sea, but that makes the sea altogether much more unfriendly. There would be other gods, but they'd be unlikely to be selectable as "PC gods"; Dagon and other monstrous or "demon lord" inspired gods who inspire dangerous cults would be the equivalents here. Heck, I'll probably lay out this alternate pantheon in a separate post—I don't need it for Old Night, but whenever I actually get back to work on whatever name I come up with for High Fantasy Hack; well, pagan pantheons seem to go pretty hand in hand with high fantasy. 

Minor pantheon updates

I decided that "Latinizing" my deity names was an unnecessary and in fact more troublesome than it was worth, since the benefit of suggesting that if Cthulhu were an actual entity that was worshiped in real life by a "Hispanish" culture it would probably be written something like Cathulo is a dubious benefit at best--one that really only caters to a kind of philology nerdism--I'm tweaking my DARK•HERITAGE pantheon yet again, a slight amount.  Whew.  Long sentence.

Here's the modified list:

The Four Horsemen

• Chernavog - the Black Pharaoh.  Said to be the "father" of Baal Hamazi and the kemlings.
• Perun - The Thunderer - a "slavic" Thor - a kozaky god who's worship has spread throughout the region
• Culsans - The Judge
• Charon - The King in Yellow.  Often followed in iconography by Tarush, the Fallen One

Other Major Deities

• Ishtar - The Heirodule
• Dagon - The Sleeping Sea God.  I prefer Dagon to Cthulhu.  Cthulhu's just a little bit too on the nose.
• Susinac - The Traveler
• Cernunnos - The Hunter, stag-headed god.  I liked the Celtic title better than the more esoteric Etruscan one for a god of the woods and wild-places.  Plus, I like the antlered iconography.
• Surtur
• Pan, the Great Beast of the Woods (ape-god)
• Azathoth - Blind Idiot Daemon-sultan
• Yog-Sothoth - The Gate

Lesser Deities

• Grigori - The Watcher
• Samyassa and Iblis - Fallen Angels
• Herne - The Green Man, master of the Wild Hunt
• Dog

The Heresiarchy (not actually deities, but demigod-like characters)

• Bartolommeo, the Many Angled
• Esmeraude, She Who Ushers the Apocalypse
• Sébastien, He of the Beast Aspect
• Kefte Taraan, Mistress of Forgotten Secrets
• Kadashman, He Who Peers Into the Void
• Djemaa Mennefer, the Gnomic
• Amrruk the Ancient
• Jairan Neferirkare, the Soul-less
• Arzana, Clad in Black
• Siggeir Sherihum, the Sangremancer
• Shimut the Flesheater
• The Master of Vermin

Pantheon remodeled and expanded

So, I'd like to further explore the pantheon of DARK•HERITAGE.  This isn't strictly necessary, since I downplay both religious and mythological elements in actual play, but at the same time--I love a good fantasy mythology, so I can't resist.  First, let me redraw the pantheon and other mythical or semi-legendary figures.  Then, let me add additional members, myths and elements to it.  For today, I'm only going to expand on one, but eventually I'll add more.

The Four Horsemen

• Ciernavo (Chernavog) - The Black Pharaoh
• Peronte (Perun) - The Thunderer
• Culsans - The Judge
• Caronte (Charon) - Death, with Orcus (Hell) behind him

Other Major Deities

• Istaria (Ishtar) - The Heirodule
• Cathulo or Dagon (Cthulhu) - The Sleeping Sea God
• Susnacco (Susinac) - The Traveler
• Selvans - The Hunter
• Surturo (Surtr) 
• Pan - The Beast of the Forest
• Huudrazai - The Blind Idiot Stargod
• Yog-Sothoth - The Gate

Lesser Deities

• Grigori - The Watcher
• Samyassa - The Fallen
• Herne - The Master of the Wild Hunt
• Dog

The Heresiarchy (not actually deities, but demigod-like characters)

• Bartolommeo, the Many Angled
• Esmeraude, She Who Ushers the Apocalypse
• Sébastien, He of the Beast Aspect
• Kefte Taraan, Mistress of Forgotten Secrets
• Kadashman, He Who Peers Into the Void
• Djemaa Mennefer, the Gnomic
• Amrruk the Ancient
• Jairan Neferirkare, the Soul-less
• Arzana, Clad in Black
• Siggeir Sherihum, the Sangremancer
• Shimut the Flesheater
• The Master of Vermin

The Great Beast Pan is a deity that is poorly known among the more civilized peoples of the Three Empires, but some few call on his name.  Among the barbarous apes and monkeys of N'gah, he is the patron deity and the King of N'gah resembles him in most respects.  The apes of N'gah are more anthropomorphic than gorillas or chimpanzees, being better at bidepalism and capable of using tools and their hands more like a person.  The same is true for the larger monkeys that make up the intelligent (yet savage) populace of N'gah, which resemble baboons that are more anthropomorphic.  The King of N'gah is, however, an icon if Pan himself, a savage god that resembles a gigantic human-like mandrill covered in spikes, with steel-clawed hands.  The King occasionally uses weapons, but given his steel-like claws, he usually doesn't need to.

It is unclear why this race of Pan-worshipping intelligent apes and monkeys exist, or why their range is so constrained.  Pan's motives are inscrutable.  However, sorcerers and others occasionally worship Pan, especially if they desire vengeance.  The dominant theme of Pan is anger, rage and ferocity, and such is the society of the apes as well.

The current King of N'gah is Kivili.  He would best be represented in d20 as an awakened dire ape with some class levels.  In m20, he'd be similar (although obviously less complex in terms of what rules to use.)

Religion in Dark Heritage

Well, the World Cup has come and gone.  The US did relatively well, which was fun to watch.  I'm not a huge fan of Brazil, so I admit to a bit of schadenfreude watching them completely fall apart near the end in a humiliating display of tears and incompetence.  And more tears.

While, of course, I would have loved to see the US win, I never really considered it to be particularly likely, so my favorite to win was Argentina.  I picked them to come in second, which they did.  I picked Brazil to come in first, which they did not.  I picked Germany to come in third, and they did much better than expected (by me, anyway) although I was not at all surprised to see them as extremely competent and dangerous.  Lionel Messi was a bit disappointing.  He played very well, certainly, but he had very little of the type of incredible displays of athleticism that I was hoping to see.  And with Dimaria injured and out, and Higuain and Aguero at less than 100% because of past injuries, the Argentines hopes were a little too dependent on him alone.

I also discovered (yet again) that I can't watch too much soccer at a time (I utterly reject this notion that seems to be gaining some steam that we should call it futbol in America.  That's absurd.  Futbol is obviously not an English word, at least with that spelling.  It's obviously, also, an English word transliterated into Spanish.  The English word is football.  We have another sport here that already bears that name.  So we have a perfectly adequate and appropriate name for the sport already: soccer--and I think it's absurd that we should take an English loanword into Spanish back out of Spanish with the Spanish spelling to replace our own perfectly fine word for the sport.)  It's simply too boring if you watch too much of it.  I mostly only get into the sport during World Cup, and for the same reason I get into the Olympics--i.e., not because I love the actual sport, but because I like the idea of friendly patriotism vis a vis sporting events.  By the time the entire spectacle is over, I've seen enough soccer to last me for quite a long time, and I'm finding that watching games bores me.  They're too long and not enough happens to really keep my interest, in general.  Even in a game like the final, where one of my favorites (arguably, my actual favorite since I never had any hope whatsoever that the US would be in the game) is playing for the biggest prize in the sport.  At least, in a final with Argentina vs. Germany, the instances of drama and flopping were considerably minimized in favor of simply playing the game.  I've got to give both teams credit for that.  Another reason why I wasn't terribly put-out watching Brazil get so dramatically humiliated.

So... I won't say any more about the World Cup, even though a post-game commentary on the final wouldn't be unexpected.  Instead, like I said, it reiterated to me why, exactly, soccer has never really taken off in America and never will unless the demographic changes sufficiently such that socialist soccer fans start to outnumber actual Americans.  Of course, we see the Obama administration doing all that it can on our southern border to facilitate exactly that change, so... I dunno.  Maybe in my lifetime.  I hope not.

Instead, I'll talk a bit more about my long-neglected setting, DARK•HERITAGE, which is putatively the actual purpose of this blog.

For much of its existence, the setting has been, to borrow an overly trite term from TV Tropes (they're all overly trite, but they've created a lot of labels for things that needed labels.  Whatcha gonna do?) basically a crapsack world.  I've gradually, over some time, lost my enthusiasm for that mode of thinking.  I guess I've read a little too much of it, and now find the intellectual underpinnings of the notion unappealing, to say the least.  Or maybe I've just hit a few too many who are a few too free with their crapsackiness.  When Glen Cook pioneered the notion in The Black Company, and with a bit of Lovecraftian flair to it, it sounded attractive.  After reading a bit too much George Martin and Joe Abercrombie (and it's not actually like I read that much of either) I find the crapsack world nihilistic, dreary, and frankly... kinda whiny.

Now granted, horror fiction is still a major influence on DARK•HERITAGE and I suspect always will be.  But the notion that being heroic, of doing what's right is always the wrong choice... I can't support that kind of paradigm anymore.  Not sure that I ever really could, without playing it off for laughs eventually.

This isn't necessarily a major change; more of a minor one that has significant implications.  However... as a very visible symbol of this change, I need to have an element of some hope inherent in the setting itself.  I've decided that the pantheon as a crapsack pantheon with nobody good to look at is, perhaps, problematic.

Rather than change it outright, however, I'm going to posit a religious movement--more grassroots rather than organized--that recognizes a Creator over the pantheon, who recognizes a hope for an afterlife for those who live well.  In addition, I'm going to completely abstain from the temptation to make this religious movement in any way an analog for a corrupt and political Catholic church.  Rather, I'll have it more like Protestantism in the early 1800s in the US... very grassroots, very decentralized, with traveling pastors or teachers who aren't sure exactly of their authority or their doctrine... but who feel called to try and make the world a better place by teaching of the rewards of Heaven.

Cathulo/Dagon

Dread Cathulo, also known as Dagon, is the god of the sea in the pantheon of DARK•HERITAGE.  Not known as a friendly god, it is in fact the goal of sailors and coastal dwellers everywhere to keep this guy asleep.  His sleep is a magical sleep; and although he stirs on occasion (causing storms and waves that wreck ships and flood coastal cities) he doesn't truly wake, and is believed, in fact, to be not only asleep but bound beneath the sea in his submerged prison-city of Rillyè.

On occasion, in the legendarium of Terrasa's religion, Cathulo has awakened.  The ancient city of Arggo was destroyed by Cathulo, due to the impropriety of its rulers.  The remains of Arggo are elusive, even today--a number of desecrated and ruined landscapes on the edge of the sea are proposed as sites for the city that was destroyed so thoroughly that even identifying its ruins is difficult.

The mythology also states that Cathulo was once awake completely, and rampaged throughout the seas and coastal areas, and even far onto land, in the time before the rise of human civilization.  There, it came across another titanic being, Ubbo-Sathla, and the two of them waged terrible war across the landscape, scarring and deforming it in ways that are still visible today, uncountable eons later.  The spawn of Ubbo-Sathla, including the vile shoggoths, and the spawn of dread Cathulo warred alongside their sires, and the instinctual animosity of that ancient conflict still drives these creatures, who today are in many ways nearly mindless.  Both beings now slumber, some say recovering from the wounds they received in this titanic struggle--Ubbo-Sathla in the depths of the earth, and dread Cathulo under the sea.

In the DARK•HERITAGE setting, it is much more likely that the common man will propitiate rather than worship the gods.  It is best to divert their attention rather than call it.  To this end, most rites involving Cathulo are about keeping him asleep.  When praying for good weather for a voyage or during hurricane season, wine or other liquor is poured into the sea (or harbor) in an effort to ensure that Cathulo remains asleep.

Cathulo is the name of this god in Terrasan, but he has other names as well.  The Qazmiri know him as Dagon.  They do not believe, as do the Terrasans, that Rillyè is located in the Mezzovian Sea; rather they believe it to be in the open ocean, far from the shores of Terrasa.  They also have rumors of nations destroyed by Dagon in times gone by, similar to the story of Arggo.  Also, they have a strange tale of one Obed al-Marssa, a man who discovered a muck-covered new land which rose spontaneously from the depths of the sea.  Obed later settled in a coastal town, and brought worship of Dagon to its people.  They had a bounteous harvest from the sea as a result of their worship, but horrible things happened in the mystery cult, including coupling with inhuman creatures of the sea--debased and diminished spawn of Dagon himself.  The progeny of these unholy couplings would appear human--at first--but eventually their heritage would out itself, and they began a blasphemous transformation into inhuman Deep Ones, creatures of the sea.

Rumors of this cult of Dagon are still common among the Qazmiri, although seldom is any far-flung town actually openly accused of such heresy.  The myth of Dagon's cult has spread to Terrasan territory as well, where Dagon and Cathulo were naturally enough conflated, if in fact they weren't already the same being from the get-go.

As Dagon, he is often depicted as a bearded and crowned man with a fish's tail.  This representation has spread to Terrasa as well.  But in benighted and forbidden texts, such as Prophecies of the Daemon-sultan, The Book of the Black Prince, The Book of Eibon, The Eltdown Shards, and others, he is described as a monstrous creature of the sea, with razor-sharp teeth as found only on bizarre and hideous deep-sea fish like dragonfish or anglers, clawed hands, an only vaguely anthropomorphic body and head, a long tail, and many, writhing tentacles.  He has a few other names, in the local languages--Ketos in the ancient Terrasan, Kraken in balshatoi, and even Leviathan in the vernacular of many areas.

Religion: setting flavor or necessary healing mechanic?

I'm calling this post a DARK•HERITAGE setting post as well as an FRPG post.  Kill two birds with one stone, and all that.

Although I've posted in the past about gods and religion in DARK•HERITAGE--including in my older Dungeoncraft series--I'm revisiting it slightly, and want to discuss the idea in light of a fantasy game that's not D&D.  In D&D (and D&D clone fantasy heartbreakers) religion is important because of the made-up archetype of the cleric.  See, the cleric isn't really a fantasy or mythological archetype (although it does bear some superficial relationships to some.)  It's a gamist construct; the cleric can heal other characters, and therefore keeps the game moving in the Dungeoneering environment without having to go up and recuperate.  It's been handy enough that a lot of computer games have "health packs" that offer instant healing too--it's the cleric archetype all over again.  If you think about books, movies, TV shows, or anything else, though, the notion of instant healing is really kind of absurd.

So, how to you overcome this dichotmy?  I think that there's two solutions, and they are not mutually exclusive; in fact, elements of both of them in play is a good thing, in my opinion.  The first is the notion that "oh, maybe it's not as bad as it looked."  This should be pretty familiar to anyone who's ever watched an action movie.  Main characters (or villains too) can appear to be seriously injured, can appear to be taking a major drubbing in a fight, and suddenly stand up again acting as good as new, just with a bit of Hollywood style blood or bruised make-up effects to show that they were injured earlier.

After the action is over, the character may wince or limp, or otherwise remind the audience that yes, he was injured, but clearly it's not an issue when stuff needs to happen!  How can this be represented in game?  There is a perfectly valid mechanical option for d20 games already: the Wound Points slash Vitality Points system that debuted in the d20 Star Wars game, and which is designed to accomodate exactly this paradigm.  But, it requires quite a few changes to things like critical hits, sneak attack, and some other stuff, so it may be more trouble than it's worth.  In d20 Modern where magical healing is not assumed to be readily available, the Heal Skill is revised to be the Treat Injury skill, which is substantially more effective at actually patching characters up.  Add to that the Surgery feat and a few other bonuses, and a doctor character can get somebody up and running nearly as easily and effectively as a cleric.  Well, kinda.

And 4e D&D had the concept of healing surges, which I adapted as an Action Point option.  This also perfectly represents what you see in action movies where characters inexplicably get "second winds" after being heavily battered earlier.  It also significantly reduces the need for "magical" healing.

The second solution is to change the paradigm of play.  Don't do dungeons.  Do other kinds of action movie paradigms.  Chases.  Spies.  Intrigue.  Standalone fights.  Etc.  If a character gets too injured for healing surges and Treat Injury to get up and at 'em immediately, then they have to stop and recuperate for a while.  Hole up in a safe house or something.  I've heard lots of D&D players express to me their skepticism that this will work, but trust me: most RPGs that aren't D&D (or D&D clones) already operate under this paradigm.  It works quite well. 

There's an interesting correllary to that, though.  Most of those games don't have dedicated faith-based classes.  If a character wants to be faithful to a particular creed or religion, that's just a matter of flavor that the player adds; there's no mechanical follow-through (unless, of course, that's part of the setting.)  There's no need for a cleric, in other words, which means that technically, there's no need for religion in your campaign setting at all.

That said, I like the idea of religion in fantasy settings.  The notion of a pantheon of mythology-like gods--like the Greek or Norse gods, or what have you--just feels right for fantasy to me.  Plus, it's a good way to establish a bit of the nature of your world.

For DARK•HERITAGE, for example, since I see it as a dark fantasy with fairly strong Lovecraftian overtones, I'm eschewing the popular "good" goods; the friendly gods of the sun, of the harvest, of civilization and commerce, etc.  Rather, I've got a number of rather  unfriendly gods that aren't so much worshipped as they are propitiated by a benighted and superstitious populace.  And, as a bit of an esoteric reference, many of the gods are characters who are familiar to D&D players or Biblical scholarship as demons or pagan gods that notoriously tempted the Israelites.  I don't have Baal (mores the pity) transparently referred to, but many of the others will be familiar.

The most notable and noticeable of the pantheon are the Four Horsemen, who are frequently associated together on iconography and elsewhere.  They are:

• Ciernavo (from Balshatoi Czernavog), also known as the Black Pharaoh, and The Conqueror.  Riding a White Horse, and firing a bow into his enemies, Ciernavo is a god associated with the spread of civilization; the wresting of new nations out of wilderness, or out of the ashes of the old, either one.  He is pictured as obsidian black, with long hair and a crown-like growth of eight four to six inch horns on his head.  The hamazin see him as their patron and father, pointing to their resemblance to the traditional depiction of him as evidence.  (Name is slightly revised from the name of the big demon lord in Disney's "Night on Bald Mountain" segment of Fantasia, which in turn comes from Slavic mythology.  He's also pictured as looking very similar to Graz'zt, the famous demon lord of D&D lore, and is also meant to subtly invoke Nyarlathotep from Lovecraftiana.)
• Peronte (from Balshatoi Perun), the Thunderer.  Riding a red horse and swinging a sword that flashes like lightning, Peronte represents war.  He is a wild-eyed and wild-haired man, charging into battle on his horse naked except for his warpaint, and his face is obscured by constant crackling of lightning.  (Name is a Italianized version of a Slavic thunder god not unlike Thor.)
• Culsans (from ancient Terrasan), the Taker, The Hoarder.  Riding a black horse, he's a cold god, associated with weights, measures, scales, money and civilization.  Infamous for his miserly attitude, he's also associated with famine, and when famine strikes the land, it is often believed that it is Culsans withholding his bounty because he hasn't been sufficiently propitiated.  (Name is an Etruscan god; aspect is pretty much exactly like that of the third Horseman, without being combined or blended with any other source.)
• Caronte (from ancient Terrasan Charun); Death, The King in Yellow.  Riding a pale, sickly (or even dead and mummified) horse, Caronte is depicted as an emaciated, hunched, sinister figure wrapped in yellow rags that completely obscure his features (except sometimes a skeletal face), often with a scythe or sickle in his hand, harvesting the lives of those who's time has come.  Behind him is another figure walking slowly behind him, a leery, crawling demonic figure of uncertain and inconsistant depiction, known as Orcus or Hell.  (Combing the fourth horseman with Charon of Greek mythology (or Charun of Etruscan who had many similarities) with further aspects of the Grim Reaper and Chamber's King in Yellow seemed fun.  Caronte is all of them rolled into a single package.  Reading the Biblical verse, Death was followed by Hell--not a horseman, but apparently a flunky or assistant to Death.)

Besides the horsemen, several other gods are frequently worshipped or propitiated, or depicted in art and literature around the area.  These include (in much more brief format):

• Istaria (uncertain origin of the name, but older versions Ishtar and Ashtarte are noted from old books), a goddess of books, libraries, and knowledge.  Also pictured as lascivious and decadent, her worship is famous for it's heirodules, or temple prostitutes.
• Cathulo (uncertain origin of the name, but also known by the alternate name of Dagon), a god who lives under the sea, supposedly dreaming in his underwater palaces, waiting for the day he will rise and flood the land again.  His propitiation often includes the pouring of alcohol into the water, to keep him sleepy.
• Susnacco (from ancient Terrasan Susinac), a god of travel with statues in most towns.  When in embarking on a long journey, it is often customary to kiss the statue first.
• Selvans, a wild god of the wilderness and the hunt.  Tall and lean, with claws and fangs and a skull-like visage, adorned with great antlers, Selvans is a figure that represents the terror the civilized man feels at the wildness of untamed places.
• Surtr (name of balshatoi origin), a god of fire and the sun.  While seen as friendly in some locations, most see him as untrustworthy and dangerous, and see his hand in devastating wildfires and sere crops alike.

And a few other gods are known to the scholarly, but not to the general public--they have frequently been at the core of dangerous and seditious cults.  Worship of--and even knowledge of--these gods has been widely surpressed.

• Demogorgon, a primal god of the earth, said to predate the other gods, and belonging to a much more wild and chthonic order of beings.
• Huudrazai, the blind, idiot Stargod, who sleeps in the blackness of the void, lulled into restfullness by the incessant piping of strange and hidious entities.  One day, his cultists say, the piping will stop, jolting Huudrazai to wakefulness, which will initiate the End Times.  Sometimes called the Daemon-sultan.
• Yog-Sothoth (also Yaji Ash-Shuthath, Yaji'u Ash-Shudhdhādh or Iog-Sotôt,) an ancient entity, knowledge of which came in suppressed and forbidden texts from the jann, is The Gate, the Lurker; the way to communicate directly with the gods, in a certainly suicidal and mind-blasting ritual.  However, lesser rites remain which skate the edges of sanity, but which canny sorcerers occasionally risk to increase their own power.

Gods & Deities, Mk. II (with details)

Some scholars of theology believe that all the world actually only worships a single pantheon of gods; it's just the names and representations of them that differ, as well as regional importance of one god over another. Others resist that notion, calling each nation's pantheon of gods a unique set, specific to that culture, although cults may migrate from culture to culture from time to time.

Be that as it may, these are the gods that have temples in your area, as well as a handful of others that are also worshipped. Although, honestly, people in general are better described as "superstitious" rather than "religious." Offerings and invocations are tossed off out of habit, and people have a healthy respect for the ability of a displeased god to give you a really bad day, but they don't often otherwise pay particular respects to them. Pick whatever domains or favored weapon you think are appropriate if playing a cleric or other class that needs domains.

The way the pantheon works is that no god has "primacy" over another one according to myth. The various gods work in their respective sphere of influence, and their importance varies from region to region. Because the gods appear to be "hands off"; how their worshippers view them, and the popularity of their cults, evolves over time. If the gods exist at all, they may not resemble what mortal worshippers think of them anymore.

While many gods and goddesses have priests or priestesses dedicated solely to their worship, few people worship one god exclusively, including most clergy.

Czernovog (CHERN-uh-voag) "The Black Prince" - As his name implies, Czernovog was originally a Balshatoi god; perhaps even the chief god of that people. His cult has spread throughout the surrounding area, however, and he is an important figure in the religion of the Terrasans, and even moreso in the religion of Baal Hamazi, who view him as their divine "father." In most representations, he looks like an ideal hamazin; jet-black skin, handsome, sharp features, and a crown of six horns poking up through his hair. His concerns seem to be with civilization, although that has taken on a darker pall in many cults, where he's also seen as the patron of the seedier side of civilization: thieves, plague, corrupt politicians, bandits, and worse.

Perun (pare-OON) - He also sports an originally Balshatoi name, but Perun, "The Thunderer" is associated with war, and as such, his mystery cults have suffused the Terrasan military for generations. As he's worshipped today, he's a hybrid of the original cult of Perun and the cult of the war-god of the south, Belcadros, and is sometimes referred to in full as Perun Belcadros. Perun is usually depicted as a primitive warrior, wielding a spear, hammer or ax, all of which are metaphors for his thunder and lightning.

Ashtarte (ash-TAR-tay) - Also known as Ishtar or Ashtar, depending on the dialect of the speaker, Ashtarte is one of the goddesses most associated with civilization. She's sometimes known as "The Divine Librarian" or "The Goddess of Knowledge." Her search for knowledge is only one aspect of her worship, though, and older cults still remember her as a more generic goddess of civilization, to whom fertility and animal and crop husbandry was as important as knowledge. To this day, heirodules, or "temple prostitutes" make up an important part of her religious observances.

While the search for knowledge is an important part of her worship, and the libraries of her temples are amongst the greatest in Terrasa or beyond, Ashtarte's priests are notorious for lusting after knowledge they shouldn't have, and the more forbidden the knowledge, the more they seek after it. Even the old myths talk about Ashtarte stealing forbidden knowledge in scandalous ways (as a courtesan, or through murder.) The temples of Ashtarte have to cover up the scandalous actions of her too-curious priests with disturbing regularity. Ashtarte is usually pictured as a voluptuous naked women with angelic wings, seated on a coiled serpent for a throne, and with a smaller serpent in her hand. In her other hand is a book.

Orcus (OAR-cuss) - The God of Death is not much worshipped or revered locally, but since his temple has charge of preparing dead bodies for funerary rites, it remains important nonetheless. Ironically, the priests of Orcus are notorious for trying to escape death---urban myths of the priest of Orcus who turns to dark necromancy are common bogeymen that mothers use to frighten their children. Orcus himself is never pictured out of superstitious fear; nobody knows what he's supposed to look like---or if they do, they're not saying.

Dagon (DAY-gonn) - One of the most respected and revered gods near any body of water is the Lord of the Sea. Since literally everyone in coastal areas depends on the sea to some degree or another---either for food, livelihood, or at least in the hopes that it won't rise up in a tropical storm and wipe them off the map---Dagon's ceremonies are the most attended of any in those regions, and icons of him appear in almost every single building. He's usually shown as a merman with a flowing beard, but he's also occasionally pictured otherwise; one popular variant is a shark-like creature with grasping tentacles and mouth and eyes similar to that of horrible deep sea hunters.

Veles (VELL-us or VELL-eez) - Veles is the goddess of magic, and few are the arcane spellcasters who don't at least give her some nominal votive offerings from time to time. Her priests are famous for selling charms that protect the faithful from minor harm and bad luck. Most people agree that they do indeed work, although some decry the practice as charlatanism.

In the myths of many peoples, she is linked with Orcus, but the nature of that linkage is obscure, and varies from place to place.

Susinak (SOO-sin-ack) - Susinak is the ultimate traveler. Most people about to embark on a long journey will stop by the temple district and touch the hem of the robe of her statue. Most cities have a brass statue of her in an important plaza, but temples are few. Clerics and other faithful clean and polish the brass statues daily. They do, in fact, frequently start to lose some of their detail and definition because of the constant polishing.

The etymology of Susinak is unclear. While clearly not a native word in Terrasan, she is a goddess who's cult originated in the south, perhaps amongst neighbors of the old Terrasans.

Charun (char-OON) - Charun is a bull-headed god famous for his feats of strength. His temples are small shrines that are simply a roof supported by four pillars with a granite altar in the center.

Selvans (SELL-vans) - "The Horned God" is often seen as a dark god; a representation of nature "red in tooth and claw, and frequently associated with wolves or wulfen. Hunters and outdoorsmen worship him, but these are hard and cynical men, usually. His depiction is common, but his name varies wildly from place to place. He's also known as Cernunnos, Herne, and in the southwest, in Kurushat, as Yinigu. There, he is seen as the patron of the entire nation, and associated with hyenas instead of wolves. It's possible that all of these have different root myths for a similar figure which has merged in the minds of the more cosmopolitan modern world.

Vanth - The God of Penitance is not a popular god, but one that you occasionally hear about from those who have had to spend time in prison. He encourages extremely dilligent penitance and flagellations, so his followers are at least easy to spot. Mythology supposed a link between him and Orcus and Ashtarte, usually hinting that Vanth is a discarded lover of Ashtarte, and a former prisoner of Orcus.

Moloch (MOLE-ock)- The god of fire and the sun. His worship is more prevalent in tropical, open areas (unsurprisingly) where he is seen as a harsh and demanding master. In more temperate climes, he's more likely to be viewed benevolently, as a bringer of clement weather and bountiful harvests. In hotter regions, folks shake their heads knowingly, and watch their own crops go sere with Moloch's displeasure.

Human sacrifice, especially of slave children, has been strongly associated with Moloch's worship in the past. In most Terrasan regions today, this is no longer practiced.

Culsans (CULL-sans) - While never openly worshipped, this god of thieves is very commonly given a quick prayer by the land's many less than upstanding citizens. Also known as Frezur Blue as a nickname (origin unclear), many invoke his name only to make fun of it, and ask what part of him is blue (usually with a randy joke about his sex life) which causes the priests of Ashtarte or other more learned theologians no end of frustration. They simply roll their eyes, comment that "Blue" in this case is merely a mispelling of his proper name anyway, and although Culsans may seem to be an easy-going god who doesn't mind a few jokes made at his expense, only the truly foolish think that it is wise to upset the god who can take away everything that they own, and even steal their very souls.

Many other gods exist, but these are the ones that are most important and that everyone will know.

With thanks to Green Ronin; this bears obvious similarities to the deities of The Pirates Guide to Freeport, mingled with the demonic pantheon showcased in Armies of the Abyss. Also thanks to the Etruscans, Canaanites, Elamites, ancient Slavs and ancient Romans. You guys rawk, dudes!