: Re: Avoiding cliches when writing gods When writing fictional polytheisms, it's tempting to draw inspiration from the existing ones. In ancient religions (I'm mainly thinking of the Greek/Latin, Egyptian

@LarsenBagley300

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Some Pantheon aspects are little known but rather fun to work with because the initial concept is poorly understood among the non-faithful, and sometimes even the faithful. While religions are typically divided into Monotheism (one God) and Polytheism (More than One God), there is a third classification about the number of Gods called Monism (spelling is correct). Monism is not Polytheistic but not Monotheistic either. Essentially Monism holds that there is one God who is ultimately so fantastic he/she/it (I'm using a he to simplify, but ultimately it's insufficient to call this entity by any gender) and to interact with the faithful it appears as aspects of itself that are specified to a nature humans can understand. This is actually the nature of Hinduism, which has a diverse pool of gods (there are the traditional ones of course, but it's not unheard of to see a Hindu consider Jesus and Pope John Paul II as god figures of worship). There is some logic here, as a Hindu would understand the message of cows being gentle and thus should be consider sacred, where as a culture of people in Mesoamerica would find several issues with this teaching... the first of which would be, "What is Cow?" Additionally, while you dismissed the idea, a lot of Indo-European Polytheists have similar figures suggesting an evolution from a similar pantheon (even Asgaudians, though they are distant compared to comparison between the Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Gods). Similar religions are Voudon/Voodoo and similar East African-Carribean-American religions which has the God Bondyne (The Good God) who again, is so fantastic he cannot interact with humans directly and relies on the Loa (definitely not deities) who can be summoned and served by the faithful in exchanged for champion the matter with Bondyne. Most Loa have certain sets of items (usually favorite foods and apperal) that will please them and make them more willing to take up your case. This religion surived because the concepts are similar enough to the Catholic Church, the Saints, and the nature of God (One God, Three Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit/Ghost. Essentially God is all three, but the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.) Again, Saints are not deities (rather they are real people confirmed to be in heaven) and are not worshiped. Unlike the Loa, they are not served for their championship, but interceed on matters related to their patronage (which is usually tied to notable stories from their life and sometimes, bizzarely and even ironically humorous. Saint Lawrence of Rome, for example, was told by the Romans to turn over all the treasures of the Catholic Church in Rome in Three days. In response, he donated everything of value to the poor and appeared with a large group of the poor who could not get donations and declared them the treasure of Rome. The Romans, not amused by this at all, sentenced him to be grilled to death. While the execution was being carried out, Lawrence, an already notorious fan of groan worthy puns, shouted at his executioners, "Turn me over, I'm done on this side!" He is now the patron saint of the Church in Rome, Comedians, and Cooks! Saint Sebastian is the Patron Saint of Archers not because he was an Archer himself... but because he was shot by a lot of them.). A good analogy is to think of Saints as lawyers for you. Sure, you can go to God/the Judge without a lawyer and argue your case, but Lawyers know the ins and outs of court room better than someone representing themselves.

Other pantheons have Dieties that cross over, but specialize in different aspects of the same domain. The Greeks actually have two major figures as War Gods: Aries and Athena. Why they need two is because there are two types of war that they saw and each God specialized in one or the other. Athena was more stratigic focused while Aries was more brutality focused (he was also typically the villain God. Hades was rather apethetic and not malicious... well, with exception to the story of Persephone). Anyway, the best way to describe the difference is to imagine who two players would blessed by the two gods would react in a game of chess to losing a Queen: Athena's Patron would be collected about it, because he would realize that his opponent was now locked into a series of moves that will, 20 turns later, ultimately allow the blessed to declare check mate. All according his plan. Someone blessed by Aries, upon losing his Queen in chess, would upend the entire board, spilling all the pieces on the board, then punch his opponent in the face, and declare himself the winner because his opponent cannot make any legal moves the board (on account of the board being flipped upside down... and the opponent being unconscious). Other Gods can have carved up domains for more specialization... for example, A lone Death God could be split into God of Death By Drowning, God Of Death by Falling, God of Death by Old Age, Goddess of Death by Lovers Shouting "On my gods, My Husband is Home Early!" (She is also married to God of Hide and Seek Players) and many many more.

Other Gods can be given odd combonations of Patronages. Posiden is the God of the Seas... and Horses and Bulls (He created both, if you're asking why... he had a weird fascination with making hooved animals. He also is the god of Giraffes and Hippos.). As mention the Catholic Church's saints are the... er... Patron Saints of this aspect (Thank you for the assist, Saint Lawrence) and again, have some really odd patronages, and unconnected lists of patronages. Saint Nicholas, he of "Ho Ho Ho" fame, is the Patron Saint of Children... and sailors, fishermen, merchants, pharmacists, archers (again), pawnshop owners (Try getting the image of Santa spending the off season watching Pawn Stars), prostitutes (Mrs. Claus was not happy about this... Or was VERY Happy for his... er... patronage!) and repentant thieves. Meanwhile, St. Drogo must be a Saint's Saint give his list of patronages: Broken Bones, Hernias, Sick people, Insane People, Ugly People, Bodily Ills in general, and Coffee Shop Owners (If you're gonna spend all that time around hospitals, you're gonna be pretty chummy with the Starbucks staff too). Presumably he's also the Patron of people who write "Side Effects Include" lists for commercials in TV.

For humerous things, often times, people will have patronages that are pretty much meant to set up a joke (among Catholics, the fact seemingly everything has a patron, typically at least two) you have funny gags like the early 2000s joke of the Real Saint Chad being the Patron Saint of disputed Elections, or Catholic School children naming Saint Bernard as the Patron Saint of Snow Days. One from the 70s listed Pope John Paul I as the Patron Saint of Temp Workers (John Paul I is not a saint, and the gag is joking about how his papacy lasted for entirely 30 days.). Personally, If I wanted to make reference to a sillish god in my fictional Pantheon, I would have a "God of Atheists" and everyone wonder what the hell he does all day.

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