By the Nine Divines! - A Collection of fantasy pantheons
Hey there, traveler!
Remember the post we wrote about the basic system of pantheons, with all the mysterious concepts that pop-up as gods in nearly any mythology? Well, at long last, it’s time to take a look at how authors (other than Lovecraft) utilized that system to create their own fictional universes. The pattern isn’t always obvious, sometimes they neglect some aspects, sometimes invent entirely new gods, but you can mostly spot the bare-bones behind these deviations.
First, let’s see a typical pantheon. At first, we were thinking Tolkien could be a great example with his enormous amount of lore poured into his world, but in the end, it’s not so different from the ones we got used to in mythology. If you like to read about his take on religion send us a message and we will write a post about him too.
I. Dragonlance - By the book
For Lory, the first contact with the high fantasy genre was the Dragonlance world around the age of 10, so it was quite a big impact on her later good relationship with fantasy books and role-playing games. The Dragonlance books usually revolve around the gods and their machinations in the mortal plane, wars they create to finally achieve domination over the world of Krynn. Just like the Greek gods, they frequently interfere with the world, sometimes mating with humans creating demigods. I know it looks like a different take on the pantheons at first glance, but if you look a bit closer, you can notice the same schema.
Dragonlance has “The High God” who created a universe, then immediately disappeared after he gave a book to Gilean (neutral god of knowledge) where he wrote down the plan from the universe. So we have the passive creator god. He then created the three main gods, who are pulling the strings in most of the books. Paladin and his descendants are considered the “Good gods”, while Takhisis and her family are the “Bad gods” trying to take over the world and bringing bad things to the people of Krynn. There is also a third group the neutral gods, where Gilean is the keeper of the book the High God gave him and writes down the history of Krynn.
If we go a little deeper and look at the other gods (who belong to one of the three categories mentioned above) we can notice the mandatory elements. We have gods of the forge, wealth and money, wisdom and nature in the Neutral Team – I especially like that nature is neutral because it’s really not good or bad. In the Good Team, we have gods of bravery, healing, discipline, sea (although I would put him among the neutral gods), and in the Bad Team, we have gods like the god of the Undead, a god of vengeance (but also honor), a god of envy and a god of tarnished gold.
A detail that differs in Dragonlance from our real world mythology is magic. Since there wasn’t a real-life counterpart to gods of magic, they had to come up with something original for this. The solution was simple and elegant: they gave separate gods of the three moons of this world. The god of the white moon became the god of the good white mages (a member of the good team), the red moon became the goddess of the neutral red mages, and the god of the black moon became the god of the black mages who are considered evil (mostly, but since drama comes from breaking tradition, it’s not always the case). It was also said in the books that although they are in different “teams”, their loyalty belongs to magic only. See? Simple and elegant. If someone wants to create a typical pantheon, then they don’t need to twist and turn it too much to be enjoyable.
II. Narnia - Christianity with talking animals
In our original posts, we mentioned displaying monotheistic religion is an iffy subject at best – however, some authors can get away with it. The first example that comes to mind C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Some of you might know that Lewis based his mythos on the real-life Christian church, and his writings are littered with hints and nods towards the Bible. The most obvious is the creator god and incarnation of everything righteous, Aslan, the Lion. Lewis himself talked about in letters that Aslan was a direct representation (or rather, an incarnation) of Christ. He’s addressed as the son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea, he dies as a sacrifice then resurrects, and many more minor details where you can spot similarities. The world itself is also giving off Christian vibes, like how mankind is addressed as “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve”, how man is the pinnacle of creation destined to rule over the beast of the land (which is really weird considering how Aslan just created a world full of talking animals, then just warped some humans in to rule over them). In the last book, when Narnia ceases to exist Aslan judges every denizen and transports the worthy into Aslan’s Country: a land much like Narnia, except without any of the bad and suffering (a popular take on Christian Heaven). There is somewhat of a Muslim representation as well, with the country of Calormen worshiping a different monotheistic deity called Tash, but since this was written in the 20th century by an English author, they are mostly depicted as barbaric and alien.
III. Powder Mage - The Celts have already done it
I couldn’t really end this post without talking about my recent favorite (excluding the ending) fantasy series, the Powder Mage by Brian McClellan. To give an accurate reading on its mythology, I have to go into heavy spoilers, so please, if you are yet to read it, go and do it, then return here for a great discussion. Done? Okay, here we go.
In this Victorian fantasy world, religion is a mix of Abrahamic and Celtic mythology. They worship nine divine beings, although after a long period of canonical debates they agreed that only one of the nine is actually a god, the other eight is considered saints. The story is set in a land with nine nations, each named after one of the nine beings, so there are always cults that claim their patron was also a god. This is a really interesting and realistic representation of modern-day clergy, especially the Christian Church, but as the story progresses, things get a little more interesting. We learn that the nine beings weren’t actually gods, only the most powerful users of the so-called Privilaged magic (super-powerful elemental magic with the added element of aether which is basically the cellular bonds in a body), but they were so ridiculously powerful they destroyed the previous civilization and reformed it to worship them. The Irish Celtic mythology is somewhat similar, the Thuata dé Danann (the Folk of the Goddess Danu, or the Folk of the Gods) which includes the most well-known Celtic gods, were historically an invading nation that destroyed the previous Fomorian tribes. Meanwhile, in mythology, they are an invading tribe of fairy-like beings with ridiculous druidic powers, able to transcend death with a magic beer (not kidding) and control animals and the earth with magical knots and incantations. I think you can spot the similarities. If you’re interested in a more concrete representation of Irish gods, hit up The Iron Druid series, it’s quite an entertaining read.
Until next time, travelers!
Cheers,
Dar & Lory
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