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For my homebrew setting, I was wondering if this pantheon was balanced, with enough deities for every role and not too much overlap.

Ink-The god of knowledge, study, and learning. They have made it their duty to learn everything about the cosmos and keep their knowledge in a giant extraplanar library that they occasionally let worshippers visit. They also have something of a death god role as when you die, they read the book that contains all information about you to decide what happens to you. The primary god of humans.

Eyes-The younger brother of Ink who is jealous of them. They are the god of untruths, harmful knowledge, and illogic.

Stars-The primary goddess of the fae. The goddess of stars, nature, and wishes. Helped cause a genocide, which is why non-fae hate them. Are somewhat dead now.

The Thief-The goddess of magic and progression. They stole the secrets of the fae to give to the rest of the world, which is why their name was blotted from the records.

Blood-They used to be the god of history, but grew angry when people stopped worshipping them, so they brought their vengeance to the world. They were stopped and are now more of an evil god of war and death.

The Dead Light-Originally just "Light", they were humanity's first god/king/member, but grew so powerful that the fae conspired against them and sorta killed them. A few remnants still worship him and hope to bring his return.

Arthur (yes, Arthur)-Apparently, they are an individual who appears to people in need and some say they are the god of the damned and the unlucky.

Ice-The god of prophecy and natural disasters.

Wonder-The god of games, childhood, and imagination.

Do you see any problem with this pantheon?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I wouldn't include asking if this pantheon is interesting. It is subjective and causes your question to actually ask two questions, which are both frowned upon in SE. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2022 at 1:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Well, it's also that we're not sure what the roles are. This doesn't specify that it's for a game which there might be pantheon-related roles, for everyone. Feedback is essentially personal discussion here, not something that can have a best/correct answer. (also, hi, fellow doppelganger!) \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2022 at 2:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ I removed the subjective add-on question on it this pantheon is interesting, which will just get your question closed. If you don't agree, please roll-back my edit \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2022 at 4:53

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Pantheons don’t need balance (and are optional)

If you even need a pantheon depends entirely upon play style. For example, in OD&D, the deities were effectively undefined for quite some time in the original Greyhawk campaign, until St. Cuthbert and Pholtus were introduced somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and players just called upon deities from real-world pantheons like Thor. You don’t need a pantheon to play. As such, having or not having a pantheon has no bearing whatsoever on game balance.

If you want to know if this pantheon is covering all roles for a normal pantheon, judging by most other pantheons, it has gaps. The vast majority of believers are common people, most of them peasants, craftsmen, traders, fishermen. This is why most pantheons include gods of agriculture, war, the sea, fortune, love, rulership, and so on. Is this a problem? No. As you do not need a pantheon to begin with to play, your pantheon also has no need to be "balanced" in roles for play.

With this pantheon, half of the gods being dead leaves a god of knowledge, lies, war, magic, disasters and help. Together with the background tension between humanity and the fae, that is plenty to choose from and drive stories for play.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Generally agree with this, but I think you could also expand your answer by talking about how pantheons usually work to facillitate creation of phanteons that are similar to dnd lore (words like portfolio, alignment, symbol, domain, worshippers etc.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Nov 5, 2022 at 9:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Akixkisu, Yes there is much more one could dive into here... I had some originally on portfolios, what it means if the god dies etc., but it is a slippery slope, and I did not want to write a thesis on the subject, as all of it is somewhat tangential to the core question, so I cut it out again. \$\endgroup\$ Nov 5, 2022 at 10:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Akixkisu, I have most domains and whatnot planned, except for figuring out what domain Eyes, Arthur, and the Thief are. \$\endgroup\$
    – NielIGuess
    Nov 5, 2022 at 15:33

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