Pantheon Project: Part 1

THE Pantheon Project

Iteration 80220241

For me, one of the best things to come out of the OGL debacle of Jan 2023, was discovering and getting into all the amazing TTRPGs that I didn't know exist, that could replace D&D.  Mork Borg, Blades in the Dark, Heart, Root, Daggerheart, and now DC20.  But the one that I wanted to run more than any other was Dungeon Crawl Classics.  It has such a Conan the Barbarian, Elric of Melniborne, and Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser feel to it. I love the gritty and gonzo system, and MORE funky dice!

BUT, my GM style is to make the PCs the protagonists in an epic story.  I spend a lot of time and effort prepping to make my stories and combats challenging and dangerous, but the idea of a PC dying is something I struggle with. I tend to make them too important to the story, they are the center of the story.

So, to get around this I needed to make something else the center of the story.

The Pantheon Idea.  Instead of building up a world, the first group of PCs make THE GODS of a new world and as they take on the Providences and Domains, and assign levels of power to each of these, the world gets created. Eventually the PCs will be protagonists in this world, but they will NOT by the center of the story, the World and its Gods will be.

No idea if this will work, but here it goes, and here will be where I post the process and progress.

😱

In the Beginning...

The Abyss; an endless expanse of nothingness and darkness that is not empty. The primordial ocean of pure potential, without the actual, just the every possibility ever... and never...  CHAOS.

Then...

The Crystal Sphere; floating in the Abyss, capturing a fragment of the void, encasing it, molding it, shaping it into something actual.  The death of every possibility but one... LAW.

This new Pantheon of Gods; harbingers of the singularity and justiciaries of Law, bring about the genesis of a new world, the first age of creation and discovery, and a new field of opposition for the ETERNAL STRUGGLE.

This is not the first, this is not the only, and this is not the last...
The motes of cosmic conflict dot each night sky...
Infinitely.

The First Day

Within the Crystal Sphere is a chamber.  Chairs, it is not clear how many… around a circular table… above which hangs a spherical image of creation, featureless… for now.

Providence         Domains

The Sun [Light / Time / Order]

The Earth [Earth / Industry / Strength]

The Sky [Air / Weather / Peace]

The Waves [Water / Life / Love]

The Moon [Twilight / Inquisition / Truth]

The Wild [Nature / Agriculture / Fortitude]

The Mind [Knowledge / Community / Dreams]

The Magic [Arcana / Prophecy / Imagination]