I wanted to create a list of domains for part of the Monster Overhaul.
Creating a list of 100 domains is easy. Creating a really good list is harder. Duplicate ideas need to be ruthlessly pruned. Idea that seem good on paper, but which nobody actually invoked for anything, need to be cut as well. The list grew and shrank for a few weeks, but I think I'm finally happy with it.
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Harrower |
| 1d10 | Greater Domains |
| 1 | Death |
| 2 | Fertility |
| 3 | Fire |
| 4 | Livestock |
| 5 | The Harvest |
| 6 | The Sea |
| 7 | The Sky |
| 8 | Time |
| 9 | Travel |
| 10 | War |
Greater Domains are areas that most pantheons place in a position of importance. They're the gods most people know (aside from regional deities and profession-specific intercessors).
"Travel" is the weakest inclusion on the list. I'd gladly swap it for a Fate/Destiny/Chance aspect, but Travel seems more crucial to D&D-type games.
It's tempting to roll The Harvest in with either Fertility or Livestock, or some other combination of the three concepts, but I think that's just because the association is so common in classical polytheism.
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| Noah Bradley |
| 1d100 | Lesser Domains |
| 1 | Acting |
| 2 | Anxiety |
| 3 | Archery |
| 4 | Baking |
| 5 | |
| 6 | Bees |
| 7 | Bells |
| 8 | Birds |
| 9 | Blindness |
| 10 | Bones |
| 11 | Boundaries |
| 12 | Builders |
| 13 | Chance |
| 14 | Childbirth |
| 15 | Children |
| 16 | Clay |
| 17 | Cleanliness |
| 18 | Contracts |
| 19 | Cooking |
| 20 | Dancing |
| 21 | Darkness |
| 22 | Dawn |
| 23 | Decay |
| 24 | Deserts |
| 25 | Destiny |
| 26 | Diplomacy |
| 27 | Discord |
| 28 | Disease |
| 29 | Dreams |
| 30 | Drowning |
| 31 | Drunkenness |
| 32 | Earthquakes |
| 33 | Endurance |
| 34 | Fear |
| 35 | Feasting |
| 36 | Fevers |
| 37 | Fish |
| 38 | Flowers |
| 39 | Folly |
| 40 | Forests |
| 41 | Fortifications |
| 42 | Friendship |
| 43 | Geometry |
| 44 | Gold |
| 45 | Graveyards |
| 46 | Headaches |
| 47 | Humour |
| 48 | Hunger |
| 49 | Hunting |
| 50 | Inspiration |
| 51 | Iron |
| 52 | Lakes |
| 53 | Language |
| 54 | Law |
| 55 | Lies |
| 56 | Light |
| 57 | Lost Things |
| 58 | Love |
| 59 | Loyalty |
| 60 | Madness |
| 61 | Marshes |
| 62 | Mechanisms |
| 63 | Medicine |
| 64 | Memory |
| 65 | Merchants |
| 66 | Messengers |
| 67 | Mountains |
| 68 | Murder |
| 69 | Music |
| 70 | Obedience |
| 71 | Orchards |
| 72 | Painting |
| 73 | Peace |
| 74 | Poison |
| 75 | Poverty |
| 76 | Prophecy |
| 77 | Rain |
| 78 | Reason |
| 79 | Rivers |
| 80 | Salt |
| 81 | Serpents |
| 82 | Sleep |
| 83 | Sorrow |
| 84 | Stone |
| 85 | Storms |
| 86 | Swords |
| 87 | Teeth |
| 88 | The Moon |
| 89 | The Sun |
| 90 | Theft |
| 91 | Thresholds |
| 92 | Time |
| 93 | Truth |
| 94 | Vengeance |
| 95 | Vermin |
| 96 | Vice |
| 97 | Weaving |
| 98 | Wells |
| 99 | Wind |
| 100 | Zeal |
I've tried to stick to domains that have some historical precedent (i.e. at some point, somewhere, as far as we can tell, people invoked a god / patron saint / spirit of X).
Horses and Bears should be on the list, but they seem tied to a particular kind of setting. I'm willing to imply the existence of seas and deserts in a table (after all, they don't have to be local seas or deserts), but springing the existence of horses and/or bears on a GM might be impolite.
Serpents and Bees are two notable inclusions that sort-of imply a setting. Serpents are such a common feature in mythology (and snakebites are a constant concern), that I felt not including it would cause more problems than it would solve. Bees and beekeeping tend to fade into the background of most games; I'm not sure many GMs would be shocked to find that their setting included bees (of some description. Arnold's bees are probably horrifying).
The seasons should also be on the list, but since there are Season-themed chapters in the book, I felt it would be a duplication of effort to include a powerful semi-divine seasonal creature here as well.
After revising a shortlist a few times, I remembered this post from Daniel Sell (216 domains, with powers). It looks like we went down similar research lines, but I'm including it for the sake of thoroughness, and because I referenced it while drafting the final list. I also referenced Petty Gods (post here) and this post.
Help!
Are there any duplicate concepts on the list? Entries that could be combined?
Are there any obvious concepts that are missing?
And yes, there will be a d10 (at least) list of Very Minor Domains, to include Hats, Hindsight, Cowardice, Puppetry, etc.
Great list! My players are visiting a big bustling heavenly city soon, and this will be great for random "God of X" faces on the street.
ReplyDeleteA few concepts I'd be curious to hear if you intentionally omitted or thought better covered elsewhere:
* Magic
* Wealth (or Prosperity, more than just gold)
* Beauty
* Knowledge (or Education)
* Fortune / Luck (could have separate domains for good and bad luck, or maybe just for games or gamblers... Chance seems like it's trying to cover a lot)
I agree that Horses should be on the list... maybe to stay world-agnostic, something more general like Riding, or Mounts? Definitely some overlap with Travel, but not as much as Battle has with War.
Good catch. Battle is out, Beauty is in.
Delete(If only that worked in real life...)
I decided not to do a god of magic because a) a fair bit of magic involves invoking/commanding/manipulating the gods, b) it always seems to turn silly in D&D, and c) most uses are covered by Chance, Destiny, and Prophecy.
Knowledge is a decent one, but it doesn't show up separately in some pantheons.
Separating Destiny and Chance instead of sticking to Fortune / Luck seemed like a good idea.
I think a God of Magic can be really cool or really weird depending on how magic is defined in your setting- IIRC, in a lot of classic myth groups, magic and divinity were often closely interwtined, with magic being more something caused by the Gods then some independent thing that people just did. In contrast, DnD settings tend to present magic as some unrelated (super)natural phenomenon that people can Just Do, independent of the Gods.
DeleteExactly. Also seems to imply the existence of magic in a setting (which, to be fair, is probably fine, but it might not be the sort of magic the GM wants to include).
DeleteFor the Travel God thing, I feel like there's definitely got to be some word connection to be drawn between destiny and paths, but I can't quite come up with the right word to define it, hm...
ReplyDeleteJourneys? Endings? Destinations? Destiny/Destinations for sure has a plausible pun in there somewhere
Maybe not as helpful for gameability per se, but I feel like it's pretty common in mythology to have redundant or overlapping gods and other divinity concepts. In fact, something about those idiosyncracies, and the underlying cultural idiosyncracies they reflect, is part of what I think makes them so interesting, compared to many fictional mythologies. So many fictional mythologies feel too... manicured? Manufactured? The attempt to perfectly atomize them, an effort I can relate to intellectually, actually undermines their realism and smooths over their most interesting facets. The idiosyncracies, explicit or not, force one to think about what this culture is really about, what makes it unique.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of usability and generation, my guess at a method of representing something as you have described would be as follows: For whichever domains you feel like, roll 2d4. one of those d4 gives the number of other deities of the same domain. the other determines if those deities are considered independent from one another (even for yes, odd for no). If there is only one god in that domain, but it is not considered independent, choose another deity of a different domain. The original deity and the deity you chose are identified with each other.
DeleteThat's my thoughts on it, anyway.
Absolutely. I'm not trying to imply a 1:1 domain:god system here, just get a list of the base atomic elements to create the complex molecules of a divine primordial soup.
DeleteBoundaries and Thresholds seem redundant, as do Destiny and Prophecy.
ReplyDeleteregarding boundaries and thresholds, St. Augustine once said of the roman liminal gods "evidently Forculus can't watch the hinge and the threshold at the same time", so I would defend that distinction on grounds of historical accuracy and hilarity
DeleteThat wasn't the quote I had in mind, but I am _so tempted_ to claim it was and act all clever. :D Superb.
DeleteIt's a good quote, but I do think that if you need to make room, one could go easily.
DeleteI think the distinction between "dreams" and "prophecy" may also be a modern distinction.
Gorinich raises below the idea of a land or underworld domain, which I think isn't bad, although underworld would practically overlap with gold and/or the dead. (I feel like there are counter examples, but I can't think of any.)
"Stone" is a wierd one, could easily be "land", but I think "clay" folks a gap nicely.
I also think there is a gap that I don't have a succinct word for: there are no messenger or intermediary gods generated by this list and those are common and important. Especially if you're unhappy with "travel", something that describes Papa Legba or Hermes or Janus or Iris would maybe feel "major" enough for that slot.
I think Something like The Land or The Underworld could be a greater domain. Or maybe just a Lesser one.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I want to add "technology" to the Greater Domains.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's there in the domains of The Harvest and War, and in the Lesser Domain of Mechanisms, but there's a particular Promethean aspect that's tugging at part of my brain that's not quite covered by any of those. Something to do with human striving, aspiration, and--yes--hubris.
Does that make sense?
Fair, but how hard do I want to imply a shift in the status quo in a table? "Mechanisms" covers known technology. "Inspiration" might cover invention. But "Technology" would feel too modern.
DeleteNo gonna disagree. Blame it on reading too Moorcock-inspired RPGs.
DeleteSecrets, lust/seduction/desire, trade, despair, caves, destruction, creation/manufacturing, dreams,
ReplyDeleteGods should take more than one domain... gods should compete for attention. Gods should be around, rather than living in other planes. Gods should not be omniscient. Gods should not be able to help you when you are too far away from their temples.
Dwarf Fortress has a funny god generator. Dwarf Fortress has funny generators for everything.
https://external-preview.redd.it/7Uv66DTrCgsT9yUTF2jsy0mZp7SrdOhX8va3mUr-eLU.png?auto=webp&s=a37ab484086c54c3cfecc656d7533aacd1434cf0
Secrets seems to crop up mostly in fiction.
DeleteLust gods never seem to end well in games. It always goes strangely.
Trade -> Merchants
Caves -> Plausible, actually...
Despair -> Sufficiently distinct from Fear and Madness and Anxiety?
Creation/Manufacturing -> See above, answer on Mechanisms.
Dreams -> on the list
Good generator.
I find this a good way of describing small gods (=saints):
ReplyDeletehttp://necrotic-gnome-productions.blogspot.com/2018/11/some-saints-of-dolmenwood.html
Random major patronages: domains, professions, animals etc.
Random minor patronages: domains, professions, animals etc.
One or more (1d4?) characteristic miracles/spells: [spell type] of domain
spell types: (heal, smite), (summon, banish), (bless, curse), (commune, command), (shape change, undo).
What does "Zeal" mean on the list?
ReplyDeletePassion in the pursuit of a goal, eagerness, active and almost overwhelming interest. Like Inspiration, but continuous rather than discreet.
DeleteVictory
ReplyDeleteThe Hearth
Monsters
The Underworld
Insects/bugs/crawling things?
I notice time on both the Great and Minor lists. Is that intentional? If so, i'd be interested in the reasoning
ReplyDeleteJust a typo.
DeleteI found this and thought it might be useful: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Sphere
ReplyDeleteIt is! But for this list, I want the main source to be historical/existing belief systems, not fictional ones. Fictional systems can be useful, but they're often a list of what people think should believe in/worship/propitiate, not what actually was.
Delete