What setting do you know out there that has, in your opinion, superior fantasy pantheons, ones that feel authentic and more like what real-life historical polytheist pantheons have been like?

To me, one of the key parts of this is that they should have a LOT of deities, and that they should come from a variety of sources, being the products of many cultural elements integrated over time, and not entirely logically consistent.

Within the D&D settings, to me the Forgotten Realms deities (pre-4e) were the best for that reason.

RPGPundit

Forgotten Realms is great for this subject because of the varied races, and continents.  When you add in the racial deities and deities from the varous FR settings (Zakhara, Kara-Tur, the Horde, and Maztica), you get a really large mix of deities and cultures.

However, I really like the deities of Greyhawk as well.  It seems to fit the parameters of your OP.

Well as much as I liked 3e, the treatment of clerics, religious organizations, and pantheons was not it's shining point. The 3e Deities & Demigods was a freakng joke, a "deity monster manual".

The FR deities as presented in the 3 2e FR deity supplements were a good example of the approach the 3e DDG should have taken.

Of third party offerings, the pantheon presented in Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous is a nicely balanced pantheon that has good presentation of religious orders and the deities have a nice "real world" feel to them.

The Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror supplements for RuneQuest did a good job in my opinion.
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How do you define "realistic" in this case? What exactly are people looking for in their Deities?

Quote from: Serious Paul;276617How do you define "realistic" in this case? What exactly are people looking for in their Deities?

Well, that's a good question, because another part, just as important as the pantheons themselves, are how the average character in the world interacts with the gods.

One of the things that I find pretty well unbearable is this idea that "its polytheism, but everyone picks ONE god and that's the only god they worship ever".

That's so utterly asinine!

The way it really needs to work is like the classical pantheons really worked: you had the gods of the royal family, the gods of the city, and the gods of your family, and all of these were important and what you did veneration toward on a regular basis at the appointed times. But aside from that there were other gods, tons of them, for specific "jobs". It didn't matter if you worshiped the god of the Sun, Music, and Healing usually (and yes, gods usually had a shitload of "domains that had fuck all to do with each other"); if you were going on a sea voyage you would be making a sacrifice to the god of the sea, and if you were going to break into a palace, you would be making a prayer to the god of Thieves, Wizards, and Messengers.

That's how it has to go.

RPGPundit

I think that is a great question: What happens when your gods are real? Like when you actually can see the effects of their whims and desires? Imagine what a world must be like when you can actually bargain with gods, or gain their favor? Imagine what could happen if you pissed off one particular god!

This is an idea that intrigues me. In my home brew setting the people are generally polytheistic, and pay homage to the gods, although a few choose to follow a single or group of gods more fervently than the general public might.

Quote from: Serious Paul;276790I think that is a great question: What happens when your gods are real? Like when you actually can see the effects of their whims and desires? Imagine what a world must be like when you can actually bargain with gods, or gain their favor? Imagine what could happen if you pissed off one particular god!

You have to be careful with this question, though.  Because of course, in the classical world, people felt their gods were real and blessed or cursed them all the time.

So unless the world is one where gods are really really super-active and make regular appearances, not much would be different to how it was in the pagan world on earth.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Serious Paul;276790I think that is a great question: What happens when your gods are real? Like when you actually can see the effects of their whims and desires? Imagine what a world must be like when you can actually bargain with gods, or gain their favor? Imagine what could happen if you pissed off one particular god!

This is an idea that intrigues me. In my home brew setting the people are generally polytheistic, and pay homage to the gods, although a few choose to follow a single or group of gods more fervently than the general public might.

I've been coming to pretty much the same ideas as you have as I've been pondering this for my upcoming game's setting. I want the gods to be personalities that can be bargained with, flattered or even pissed off in the right circumstances. On top of that I want them to be available and reasonable for all people to worship them. In the small outlines (about a paragraph or two) for my gods I made sure to include typical sacrifices. I've even decided to write a small house rule about sacrifices and how they may attract divine intervention.

I've also differentiated generalist (clerics as the PC class) and specific worshippers (priests as an NPC profession) in my setting too, and it helps explain what makes the cleric class different. Priests are products of wealthier societies who can afford to support people who are in fact professional worshippers and their duties can make it easier for people to reach and entreat a specific god. Clerics have complete devotion and respect for my entire pantheon as the forces of nature, and it is this that allow them to perform their "miracles" (spells), affect the undead, and in the long run, have a better chance at getting a god's attention.

Unfortunately I can't think of a single D&D pantheon that really reflects this idea.

Quote from: RPGPundit;276792You have to be careful with this question, though.  Because of course, in the classical world, people felt their gods were real and blessed or cursed them all the time.

So unless the world is one where gods are really really super-active and make regular appearances, not much would be different to how it was in the pagan world on earth.

Well, part of how I see it is that the Gods can be in many places at once. The concept of avatars (Both physical, spiritual, and maybe even conceptual) is not uncommon in most RPG's, and the way I'd like to see it done is the more fractions a god splits himself into, the weaker each piece is. I also like the idea of few Gods, and many Demigods. And many more people impersonating gods, or avatars of gods impersonating peoples.

I also think the big dividing line in most RPGs is that Magic actually works, and is a part of the way the universe works. Where as no matter how much the Romans may have believed in their gods, and their magics, frankly it amounted to little. Same for christians, hindu's, etc...

Depending on your campaign world, healing the blind could be an everyday thing, an accepted fact of life.

Now imagine living in this world. What steps would you take to not piss off, say the God of War? Or the goddess of death? Would just hope neither notices you, and go about your day, or would drop an extra copper or two at the big service to praise the gods? (Obviously I think that's a fun part of the game-and we each need to make our own choices when it comes to that!)

Quote from: JamesV;276796Unfortunately I can't think of a single D&D pantheon that really reflects this idea.

Yeah I made my own. 12 Primary Gods, 36 Demigods. And that's just one pantheon. We've discussed having as many as four Pantheons interacting with each other. (We've sort of liked the Neil Gaiman American Gods view on how gods get their power-belief. The more people who believe, the bigger and badder you are!)

Quote from: RPGPundit;276792So unless the world is one where gods are really really super-active and make regular appearances, not much would be different to how it was in the pagan world on earth.

I find the historical (realistic) pantheons a bit dense and hard to present to  players. By the Classical period my impression is that many areas had several eras of overlapping mythology/religions to create the local mix. It become information overload. You probably have an advantage as a religion professor in that you can instill this in to easily digested chunks.

For my own Majestic Wilderlands I was influenced by several ideas. Tolkein's idea of the Valar charged by Eru (God) as guardians of Middle Earth. That one deity can have different manifestations depending on the culture. That the immortal elves serve as living witnesses to the "gods". That my history is old enough that a handful of religions have developed universal appeal and spread beyond their original culture.

The unifying theme or "truth" behind all my campaign religions is that the demon are those who revolted against the One's plan (God) for Creation. The Gods are those who continue to defend the One's plan. However the revolt has effected many of them. The worse are what the main cultures of my campaign consider evil. Although I don't have any true malethestic (sp?) religions. I save that for crazy demon cults.  

For example of what I consider an evil god look at Sarrath (or Set) in Points of Light. Other include Hamakhis who delved too deeply into the primal chaos to fight the demons and encourages his followers to practice human sacrifice to feed him the energy needed to control the aftereffects. The main culture that worship him has a lot of mesoamerican and assyrian elements.  The last is Kali who was focused on nature until raped by the demons. Now she all focused on vengeance and uses blood magic to give power to her worshippers. The deity featured in the next Points of Light was developed from my notes on Kali.

I use historical names as shorthand to allow the players to make  assumptions the deities without being too far off. Although with today's gamers this is becoming less useful so have started going with original names.

I feel that anything to do with the gods in a fantasy RPG should focus on the religion not the deities themselves. The religion being the trappings, temples, hierarchy, creed,and motivations that fuel most of the interactions that PCs would have.

That the final product should be inspired by history and what really happen but also be a simplification so that it is playable. Of course if your group really into hard core realism then by all mean let loose.

I'd say the range of gods and demons worshiped in Tekumel, the home of Empire of the Petal Throne, is pretty realistic. It resembles (purposely) the pantheons of Mesopotamia, India, and those of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. It doesn't seem all that fun to me, and, ultimately, not all that interesting. It's just hard to connect with a bunch of "gods" who only seem interested in human sacrifice, or are, at best, indifferent to humans.

Quote from: Serious Paul;276822(We've sort of liked the Neil Gaiman American Gods view on how gods get their power-belief. The more people who believe, the bigger and badder you are!)

It's older than Neil Gaiman, and more widespread than his influence. I have to admit, it's actually one of my least favourite tropes of fantasy religions. I like the gods in my homebrew settings to be more independent of mankind and more fickle than a god who relied on its worshippers as batteries could be.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;276851I have to admit, it's actually one of my least favourite tropes of fantasy religions. I like the gods in my homebrew settings to be more independent of mankind and more fickle than a god who relied on its worshippers as batteries could be.

Great, because in my Kadiz (Kaddish) campaign the players will discover - to their horror - that a God who regrets is probably the most dangerous being in creation. (If they survive this, we will tongue the zeitgeist with Aos's Metal Earth setting using Savage Worlds)

Regards,
David R