(July 12, 2010 at 11:04 am)Paul the Human Wrote: I've actually invented a few myself - two for books/stories that have never been written and three for forum based roleplaying realms. Of course, these are all fantasy based, polytheistic pantheons of deities...
Mythmaking can be fun. I recently did that myself for my own fantasy RPG universe. What started as an attempt to simplify from D&D's 10,000 gods and alternate planes into something more minimalistic and with each individual god fleshed out turned into an elaborate backstory.
I managed to get it down to just nine gods and yet cover all the bases as far as what's needed for an epic fantasy universe. Then I began to think about how the deities relate to each other and the point behind their struggle. I even tried to give the evil gods believable motivations and objectives instead of the tiresome evil-for-its-own-sake. Oh, and no stats for the gods. They're pantheistic spiritual forces that shape the universe, not anthropomorphic beings.
I switched the classic good-creator, evil-rebel paradigm found in Islamo-Christianity. The two creator gods are evil and their lesser god servants rebelled to save the universe.
The two creator deities were Baateza and Tanaros, mother and father of the universe. Those familiar with D&D will immediately get where I'm going with this, the first being derived from their term for "devil" and the latter being derived from their term for "demon". She felt her creation needed her strict, if merciless, order and guidance. He felt that only bloody chaos would give rise to a better species. I got inspiration from Babylon 5 but I'm sure Stranzinski didn't invent the idea for such a struggle. The "Blood War" between the devils and demons amounts to the most destructive divorce in history. The other seven deities each have their own ideas of how to best guide the mortals.
Quote:...that actually manifest physically and grant their followers special powers.
Hence why a lot of gamers are atheists.
"As a matter of fact, Sol will heal amputees. You just have to be powerful enough to channel enough of his divine energy to make it happen."
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
