Pantheon

in The Archive

The gods of Midgard have a rich and strange history. Slippery and demanding, they are much more than voices that answer pleas for healing, blessings, protection, and gentle repose. The gods have their own goals. They have their own needs. Most of all, they play a game among their own kind, a game of power and deception—because gods, having once been made, can also be unmade.

Power Granted, Power Stolen

    The story begins in the times of the Great Bridge Bifrost and the World Tree Yggdrasil, when the serpent Ouroboros first created and encircled the realms of mortals. In those early days, there were no gods. The elves, the giants, and other ancient races walked the earth, the valkyries soared above it, and the dwarves did not yet exist. Mortals fought for survival, invented the spear and gained the gift of fire, and they pondered the nature of the world. Those who could speak to the dead were the closest thing to priests, the shamans and druids who mastered soul magic.

First Gods

  The Northern gods were once humans and elves, the early druids. One of these priests struck down a dragon and bathed in its blood, and learned secrets of power. Imbued with the force of 100 ley lines, Wotan climbed the World Tree and grasped the secrets of the runes. With the help of his fellow priests he became divine, and together they built Valhalla and ruled all the world.   These first gods demanded worship. They demanded sacrifices in blood and treasure, and they wanted loyalty from lesser creatures. The first gods were suspicious of those who sought to know them too well and asked too much, for the gods knew that anyone might drink from the wellsprings of power, so they guarded them jealously. Some say the wellsprings are the 30 heart scales of the World Serpent. Some say they are the flames that burn in Valhalla, stoked by wood of the World Tree.   Some say that the wellsprings of the gods are older gods and titans, chained and shackled world spirits who gave their strength to those new gods and who still live in bitter darkness somewhere in a hidden prison.

First Shackles and Betrayals

  Indeed, the gods did fight and enslave one another: Loki betrayed the early gods, granting power to a lover in the South, the purring and deceitful Bastet, who became the goddess of cats and perfume. Loki befriended the thursir and Jotun giants, and they taught him lore to make the fire god nearly as strong as Wotan and his runes.   Other gods rose by striking down weaker gods, demigods, and nature spirits.   The stories and slanders run together, each god accusing the others of murder, rape, cannibalism, and theft of divine power and prestige. In the end, jealous Aten killed a dozen of the Southern gods, Ra first of all, then Isis and Nut and Ptah . With each death, he grew stronger—though some dead gods have returned centuries or even millennia later. In time, Thoth-Hermes and Wotan and even mighty Veles grew fearful of what might come: the plethora of gods shrinking to a few survivors, and all others slain or enslaved.

The End of God-Slaughter

  Veles spoke the Words of Peace, which compelled the gods to no longer make war openly, and induced them to wear masks, that they might not know one another. The Great Serpent warned Aten that the sun need no longer shine from the South if the slaughter of mortals, demigods, and gods did not end. And so the open war of god against god evolved into a quieter struggle, so as not to rouse the Great Serpent to further action.   Yet some say Aten and Khors both bargain for the power of the Chained Goddess Mnemosyne, so perhaps the old dark ways are not entirely gone. Now oracles, heroes, and demigods fight on the gods’ behalf, and the gods meddle in mortal affairs more than ever. For if the gods cannot hold the sword that slays their rivals in their own hands, they can give their favored weapon to their priest-heroes, and take satisfaction in their great deeds.

First Masks and their Uses

  All this mayhem explains why so many things about the gods remain a mystery. Their names are various and shifting. They wear masks, the better to show themselves as they prefer to be seen and to avoid being replaced entirely. Sages of the divine order claim that only 30 true gods can exist at any time, and only five within any great city, six in a great kingdom. More than this and some fall into the ranks of the demons and angels—still powerful but no longer able to rise to the heavens or rule in the Eleven Hells. Those who fall from the divine ranks into the realms of demons and devils will do anything to regain their lost standing. Their most common ploys involve much more than animal blood sacrifices—they demand the sacrifice of their followers’ souls and children. These are the dark gods, full of promises, bringing terror to the righteous.   Why so few true gods, and why so many masks? No one is sure. Despite entreaties and the investigations of generations of mortals, the gods of Midgard keep their secrets close. They are a changing family of alliances and betrayals, who regard humans and other mortals as useful tools. All the gods hold tightly to the secrets of how they came to godhood, and they cling to their divinity with all the strength they have—for even gods fade, wither, and die. The gods of Midgard are friendless and yet the greatest allies of mortals, as well as their greatest foes and betrayers. But above all other concerns, they are turned to face one another, and to most of them the voices of mortals are faint. Their wars and loves are among their own kind.   All mortals should know this and be wise before they choose to walk the path of the priest and the petitioner.

How Gods Use Masks

  Behind the names and temples lies a secret of the gods’ creation: gods are not individuals in Midgard but archetypes or instantiations of universal forces. They aren’t people in the same sense as a mortal individual; rather, they arise from the strength of their priests and their place in the cosmos, and the same god can look and act entirely differently in different places. The beliefs of their followers vary from place to place. Many gods of Midgard go by multiple names, have variant domains or local titles, and even switch gender and appearance.   As a result, the gods of Midgard are unknowable and mysterious, and their faiths embody shifting channels of power. Their forms are variable and protean. Stranger still, only a few gods at a time hold sway in any city or region. Savants believe there might only be room for five or six gods per city, and perhaps only three in a town, and one in for a village. Shrines to more than a small number of divinities rarely prosper. But the human heart has room for many gods. In Midgard, faith is not a matter of choosing a single god but choosing the right god for a particular need or occasion.   The gods of Midgard are involved in the world, speaking to their priests through oracles and visions. They are also largely disassociated from mortals because they rarely explain themselves, and their divine concerns seem unrelated to mundane or mortal troubles.   The gods seem eager to hide their true identity from worshippers and sometimes pretend to be other gods entirely. This deception is common: Wotan might also be Horus, and Khors might also be Aten as well, and any fool can see that Perun, Mavros, and Thor are clearly brothers if not entirely the same divine wellspring with slightly different avatars.

Value of Confusion

  Why are the gods eager to disguise their identities? Philosophers discuss three possible reasons, and divine heralds and messengers offer variants to their priesthoods.   First, adopting new names and slightly different avatars helps the gods steal their way into new regions and absorb new followers. In this way, the gods of Midgard can be worshipped under several names and avoid the difficulty of overcoming regional or racial hostility and prejudice. Surely Ariadne is happy to have worshippers calling out to her as Rava as long as her divine goals are met.   Second, it provides a form of insurance against the decline of any region or nation. If a rampaging horde from the east burns all the temples of Perun yet the fanes of Thor remain untouched in the North, then the Thunder God still retains a measure of his worship and power.   Third, the gods use avatars and masks for purposes of their own, and they want to retain some degree of deniability. This is why the exact relationships of the various masks remain in doubt. They might use masks to assassinate a god “behind the scenes” and take over his temples and worshippers wholesale, for instance. The deceased god’s worshippers still pray to a divinity and receive boons and spells, even if, over time, the god’s demands shift to reflect the goals of the god who effectively took the faith from a prior divine being of a different character.

Design Note: Masks and Mystery

  Divine masks help inject uncertainty and the sense of a great realm into the setting’s religion. While the cut-and-dried, god A matches portfolio A style of gaming is convenient for players looking to min-max their cleric, it’s absolute death for any sense of mystery and doubt in divine acts. If the gods are too easy to understand, it detracts from their role as larger-than-life creatures of wonder and awe. If a god can be both Hermes and Thoth at the same time, and if a divinity can contradict itself because it is beyond mortal understanding, so much the better.   Some GMs might find this ambiguity difficult or uncomfortable, or not worth the trouble. For others, it’s the thing that makes the Midgard gods more interesting than saying “pick any two domains and give them a name and choose a symbol.”   Gods need to be mysteries, especially from their followers, because otherwise there’s never a sense of a divine journey or greater purpose, and clerics might as well be wizards who can heal. The perception of gods as unknowable makes them objects of fascination and curiosity. The inability to fully comprehend a divine force makes it, strangely, more appealing.  

New Domains

  Gods and goddesses of Midgard command divine forces not seen in other realms, or at least not in exactly the same way. These forces wax and wane, and some priests hold the skeins of this divine net more tightly than others.   See the Midgard Heroes Handbook for full details of these domains and their associated divine powers: Apocalypse, Beer, Cat, Clockwork, Darkness, Dragon, Hunger, Hunting, Justice, Labyrinth, Moon, Mountain, Ocean, Prophecy, Speed, Travel, and Void. See Appendix for the Lust domain.   The use of these domains is entirely up to the GM and players, but they provide both variety and depth to the existing list. The alignment domains are entirely optional in the Midgard campaign setting.

How to Read the Pantheon Details

  Each god in a pantheon has a description of the same type, starting with the name and titles and moving on to mechanics and setting information.  

• Divine Domain: The divine domains that clerics can choose from. The domains are further described in the Midgard Heroes Handbook.
• Alignment: Most gods of Midgard have just one alignment element.
• Favored Weapon: Priests of the god may use any of the weapons listed here.

  The setting information that follows includes a physical description and background, plus typical worshippers, symbols, sacred books, famous shrines, priests, and more. It also includes a section of the god’s common masks and divine allies and enemies.   Most important to PCs is the last item: “What the God Demands.” This is the creed and worldview of that god; failure to follow it means that a cleric or other divine caster will no longer be granted spells, and devout followers who fail to follow the creed will lose favor with religious hierarchies.

Demigods of Midgard

  Stories abound of the children of the gods. The product of the union between the divine and mortals, these children are sometimes gods in their own right but more frequently are born as demigods. Carrying a godspark from their divine parent, demigods are considered to be legendary creatures and have special legendary actions. Demigods gain 3 legendary actions per round that must be used one at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. A demigod regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.   Though each demigod is different, most have the following actions:  

• Legendary Strike: The demigod makes one attack.
• Legendary Resistance (costs 2 actions): If the demigod fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
• Legendary Healing (costs 3 actions): The demigod magically regains 20 hit points.

 

Design Note: Gods and Alignment

  I’m not a fan of giving gods specific alignments; it seems to put them in a box, and true gods are above mortal morality, or apart from it. But given the requirements of roleplaying games, the entries provide some hints at alignment, though in many cases, they note only the preferred axis of the divine being’s alignment. For example, Loki is described as Chaotic, meaning his priests may be Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, or Chaotic Evil. This might correspond to different factions or tendencies within a faith, though it might also mean that the god is poorly understood and contradictory.