The Pantheon of Fenwrath | The “Good” Guys

One of my first steps in designing Fenwrath, other than the name, was coming up with a pantheon of deities. Now this might strike you as odd, but I wanted there to be a heavy religious aspect to the world. Not in the sense that everyone was a super devout paladin or a evil murderous cult leader, but more so that the gods existed, and that you could pay attention to them or not. There would just be no denying that they existed. Plus I had a couple of players early on that wanted a deity to worship for classes such as warlock and cleric, and there for awhile I had nothing to give them. Or when left to their own devices they began to form devout relationships with the great God Emperor Trump.

Now no matter where you lie on the political spectrum you have to admit that a fantasy themed role-playing game was no place for such an agent of chaos.

So I began my work. Fenwrath was openly about the freedom to do whatever you wanted and having a set of overly powerful god-like entities that you could worship or ignore at your leisure seemed to emphasize that.

The “Good” Guys

• Celeste the Goddess of Light and Life
• Rune the God of Light and War
• Aegis the God of Light and Civilization
• Elvy the Spirit of Nature
• Hafleikr the Salt Spirit
• Amadeus the Storyteller
• Illira the Goddess of Light and Chaos

This list is mostly complete, and hopefully I will be able to write a small something on each of the deities. For now lets just start with the biggest.

The pantheon of Fenwrath is governed by whomever controls the most power. The power in this case is represented by the souls accrued by the entity in question. Celeste was the first deity in the pantheon of Fenwrath. Some credit her with the creation of the Prime Material Plane. She also holds the most worshipers thus the most powerful and as such she is the supreme ruler of the upper plane of existence. She takes guidance from Rune and Aegis, but ultimately her word is law.

The visage her worshipers have created of her is that of a approximately 11 foot tall female humanoid with large white angelic wings. She has bright golden hair that extends down her back. She is depicted in a suit of gold and silver plate armor, wielding a sword and shield, standing in defense of her followers.

Her followers wear white robes with gold and silver trim. They typically wear or carry a pendant that is a perfect triangle with a curved line waving across the center. This pendant is usually made from silver with the wave in the center made of gold. Other less fortunate worshippers have carved this out of wood or used copper or in place of the gold and a steel or iron in place of silver. The followers of Celeste believe they are the guardians of life. Most are pacifists with the rare few taking up arms in defense of their homeland.

Celeste even during the calamity had a tendency to ignore the problems of mortals. She is, after all, considered the goddess of all creation.

Among those loyal to her is a band of an unimaginable number of celestials. One of which was a seraphim by the name of Uriel. Uriel was a gifted practitioner of the arcane arts and a highly skilled member of her personal guard. During the Calamity however he became attached to the plight of the mortals, and for his trouble Celeste banished him from the Upper Planes. This is the commonly spread version, at least among those loyal to Celeste. No one can say for sure what happened.

Celeste was one of the first deities in the pantheon to grant godhood to a mortal. During the time of the Calamity, there was a group of worshipers that swore obedience to Celeste. They rose to prominence by defending mortals against the horrors that plagued them during the Calamity. They were led by a young priestess of Celeste who was as fierce as she was devoted to the cause. Toward the end of the Calamity this priestess led an army of the most devout into the Abyss to fight back the onslaught of demons. This impressed Celeste enough to grant the young priestess her godhood and a small portion of her power. Illira as she became known, would be come the goddess of light and chaos with dominion over a portion of the Abyss.

This article will continue to recieve updates as I write. I hope you enjoyed it.