Domain and . . .

As I've mentioned before, I get somewhat annoyed at the Forgotten Realms approach to religion in a fantasy world. You know, where you just draw up a list of "spheres of interest" and assign a name to every one of them and call it a pantheon? While it appealed to my teenage self, the present me that has studied religion and mythology for over twenty years finds it to be pretty lame. The original Greyhawk took the idea a step farther than (ironically) the later Realms, giving each deity one or more cultures that it came from. For astute DMs, this gave a lot of background to play with in their campaigns set in Oerth. The Kingdoms of Kalamar, while unfortunately losing the cultural dimension, fleshed out its gods even more, given each a distinct symbolism: totem animals, holy days, sacrifices (both bloody and not), and so forth. Moreover, it was not difficult to figure out which deities were most common to any given area, so it wasn't difficult to draw up a calendar of holy days to flesh out the local culture of any given nation.  For better or for worse, clerics have become very specific in 5E, with seven domains (plus the Death domain in the DMG) that, in the PHB, can theoretically be mapped out to every god in the classical D&D campaign pantheons, as well as many quasi-historical pantheons. As I've said before, I'm not a fan of that approach, and find the idea that "The Seven" are an ubiquitous mythological motif in Newold to be far more interesting.  However, just because the Seven are a universal constant among the civilized nations of Newold doesn't mean that they have the same legends surrounding them, nor the same secondary spheres of influence. Let's take a well-known pair from Greek mythology for an example: Both Zeus and Poseidon possess the Tempest domain, but they're very different gods: Zeus has the secondary spheres of influence of Sky and Rulership, while Poseidon has dominion over the Ocean and (ironically to our mindset, but not to the Greeks) Earth (Earthquakes). So I came up with the following chart which provides fifty secondary spheres of influence. Assign 1d3 spheres to each deity, whether you're limiting yourself to seven or filling out a whole pantheon. You can either select what makes sense, as in the Zeus and Poseidon example above, or roll randomly to flesh out your campaign's powers. Get something that doesn't seem to make sense, like the Light domain also controlling Darkness and Time? Perhaps the god is a dualistic deity who represents the balance between light and darkness over the course of the ages, and this just happens to be a time when darkness is in ascendance, causing the god to give his chosen light-based powers.

d% Sphere of Interest 01-02 Animals* 03-04 Arts* 05-06 Chaos* 07-08 Children 09-10 Competition 11-12 Crafts 13-14 Creation 15-16 Darkness 17-18 Dawn 19-20 Disease 21-22 Dominion 23-24 Earth* 25-26 Evil 27-28 Family* 29-30 Famine 31-32 Fate 33-34 Fertility 35-36 Fire 37-38 Fortune 39-40 Good 41-42 Guardianship 43-44 Healing 45-46 Hunting 47-48 Justice 49-50 Land* 51-52 Law* 53-54 Love 55-56 Marriage 57-58 Messengers 59-60 Metalwork 61-62 Monsters* 63-64 Moon 65-66 Music 67-68 Oceans 69-70 Peace 71-72 Plants* 73-74 Poetry 75-76 Prophecy 77-78 Prosperity 79-80 Redemption 81-82 Rulership 83-84 Seasons* 85-86 Sky 87-88 Strength 89-90 Time 91-92 Trade 93-94 Truth 95-96 Wandering 97-98 Wisdom 99-00 Writing

Aside from helping to flesh out the religion(s) of one's campaign, this could also provide inspiration for the cultures. A culture which worships the dualistic Lord of Light and Darkness is going to be very different from one whose god of Light is also the god of Rulership and the Arts.

Enjoy!