Polytheistic Deity Builder
Had an idea for a way to make deities in a way that allowed for different peoples to conceptualize of the same deity in different ways. This is basically a proof of concept as I haven't actually had use for this in my game.
First, think of some 4 different tiers of society. For this example, I'll go with Village, Region, Kingdom, and People.
Next, develop random tables for a few deities which they have in common. I've made these two:
The Thunderer
He wields a big spear named Stormbringer, which he hurls from on high during storms
He wields the Shield of Athos, with which he protects us from our enemies
He castrated his father and thus ascended to become King of the Gods
He is a cruel tyrant who must be appeased by regular hecatombs
He is the one who dispenses justice and retribution from his two big pots on high
His mind is what comprises the entire world as we know it, and thus it can be known rationally
Our leaders descend directly from him, as he has a predilection of taking many mortal women for wives
He once cut open the goddess of harvests and wandered for a long time in his youth, young warriors mirror themselves in those tales
Those who are killed by lightning are considered to be picked by him to live in his palace forever
Roll on the Master of the War Cry table
The Master of the War Cry
He is feared by all, and thus this society considers warfare to be a necessary evil but ultimately undesirable; his statues are depicted in chains by those who would control him
He sacrificed one of his eyes for infinite wisdom, people pray for him to make decisions
He wields Peacebringer, the spear which trembles when war approaches and wreathes itself in laurels when peace is at hand, and with it he protects us from our enemies
He is conceptualized as raw masculine sexual energy and is said to have taken many male lovers, thus it is accepted in this society for warriors to have sexual relations with one another
In the spring, he discards his weapons for the plough and is thus known as an agricultural deity, also
He is actually a female goddess, invert all of her other rolled attributes where gender is mentioned; this culture accepts women as warriors
He is the King of the Gods by right of conquest
In his aspect as a child, he is a notable oracle and is believed to speak through his chosen
He chooses those who die in battle to live with him in his hall, and sometimes sends these chosen warriors on errands in our land, as angels
Roll on the Thunderer table
And now we do this: roll from top to bottom, the results will trickle down.
So let's imagine our People are the Istriones, and they have 2 kingdoms: Merovingia and Godelia. We roll for each god. For the Thunderer we get:
He once cut open the goddess of harvests and wandered for a long time in his youth, young warriors mirror themselves in those tales
And for the war god we get:
He sacrificed one of his eyes for infinite wisdom, people pray for him to make decisions
So in both of these kingdoms, this is the common thread: the god of thunder was once a famous warrior, and the war god is a one-eyed wise guy.
Now we go into Merovingia and roll again:
He wields a big spear named Stormbringer, which he hurls from on high during storms
In the spring, he discards his weapons for the plough and is thus known as an agricultural deity, also
So in the kingdom of Merovingia, the Thunder God got into many adventures as a young man, and carried with him Stormbringer, that's what they call lightning. And the one-eyed god of war and wisdom is also associated with agriculture here.
Now we go deeper, let's see what just these gods looks like in the North of Merovingia:
His mind is what comprises the entire world as we know it, and thus it can be known rationally
He is feared by all, and thus this society considers warfare to be a necessary evil but ultimately undesirable; his statues are depicted in chains by those who would control him
Ah, so while the rest of the kingdom sees the thunder god as mainly a warrior, it appears that the northerners of Merovingia also believe him to be the source of all wisdom; and they fear the war god. Perhaps to them, the war god's wisdom belongs to the thunder god? Maybe it is him who chains the war god? Much to think about.
We already have a pretty good idea of these deities, but we can go one more further. The players arrive at a village and they believe that:
He is the one who dispenses justice and retribution from his two big pots on high
In his aspect as a child, he is a notable oracle and is believed to speak through his chosen
So they likely are very focused on the worship of the thunder god, who is considered the wisest, but they go a step farther and believe him to also be active in the life of his worshippers, a supreme deity who chooses all that is good and all that is bad.
Meanwhile, the chained, agricultural war god of much wisdom here receives another reputation: he speaks through people. They must have a local oracle nearby or something.
With time, we could then expand it further and to other regions. Maybe we could find that the north of Merovingia actually is closer to the worship in Godelia, what does that say about their cultural connections? These are the same group of people after all, perhaps they're related in some way or another.
For a larger exercise, I would expand those tables to include specific stories too, as well as having more self-contradictory entries. Say, perhaps the Thunderer has a story where he brings rain because he cut open a dragon, or is believed to have shaped men from clay. Meanwhile, the War God has in his table "Shaped man from an ash tree", and then you roll both. How do these cultures reconcile these stories? Perhaps they believe the men of old were made of clay, but the new men are made of wood? Or maybe they believe men and women are literally made of different cosmological stuff? So on and so forth. It's not very difficult to come up with these bite-sized vignettes and I believe they could make for a more erratic yet self-consistent pantheon of deities, a bit closer to how polytheism actually works.
