[Fanzine Focus XL] Pamphlet of Pantheons

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Pamphlet of Pantheons: Guide to Creating Fantasy Myths and Religions is a systemless sourcebook designed for fantasy games in general, rather than a specific roleplaying game. Which means that it will work with many Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. It would also work with Science Fiction settings too if there are cultures with polytheistic faiths. Released following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed and published by Gonzo History Project, better known as James Holloway, the host of the Monster Man podcast, who also published The Magonium Mine Murders.

The aim of the Pamphlet of Pantheons is to make the creation of a fantasy pantheon relatively simple and easy, whilst avoiding two pitfalls. One is avoid making them boring or irrelevant to either the setting or the Player Characters. In other words, they should not be boring and they should matter to the players and their characters. The other is to avoid unnecessary complexity. A richness of detail can be off-putting, Greg Stafford’s Glorantha of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne being quoted as examples. Both are rich and complex, but requirement commitment to get the most out of them. What the fanzine offers to avoid both is a set of twenty-five tables which a Game Master can roll on and using the prompts provided build a relatively complete pantheon.

The first sixteen tables provide the divine archetypes that are the core of the pantheon. These include ‘Bestower of Plenty’, ‘Celestial Sovereign’, ‘Fruitful Earth’, ‘Hierarch of Hell’, ‘Laughing Rogue’, and more. As archetypes, it is easy to recognise gods from various real world (and even fantasy) pantheons, but the aim is for the Game Master to create her own rather than simulate another. The author admits that the archetypes do have a European (though he does reference middle eastern gods too) feel because that is where his influences come from, but that should not limit the imagination of the Game Master. Further tables define the look and feel of the gods, whether they look human or have fantastic features or are disembodied cosmic forces, what their signs of divinity are, which one is the head of the pantheon, what titles they bear, and what do the religions devoted to them look like? Every table has six entries and most also have little asides and thoughts that serve as further prompts for the Game Master to ponder.

The process of pantheon building involves rolling some dice and making a few choices. First is to decide on what archetypes will be in the pantheon, not all sixteen are needed, with eight being suggested as a good number. Having selected the gods for the pantheon, the Game Master rolls a complication for each, the pantheon’s aesthetic, adds a duplicate god or two (or combines them), adds secondary attributes and complications to the gods in the pantheon, and then rolls for minor gods, if needed, to cover very specific aspects of the setting. The pantheon is ready at this point, but to it, further rolls for temples, rituals, servitors, and treasures will define how the pantheon is perceived by its worshipers and how the religion is practised. All the results are noted down on the Pantheon Sheet included in the fanzine. With this done, what the Game Master does next is flesh out the details of her pantheon, making connections between its deities and so creating elements of its mythology. The prompts beneath many of the tables will help with this.

The process is simple and quick. Perhaps the most difficult part of the process is actually thinking up names for the goods themselves (though that can be eased with an online name generator). It helps that the author includes a fully worked out example, based on a livestream he hosted as part of the Kickstarter, with a filled in Pantheon Sheet. The simplicity of tables means that Pamphlet of Pantheons could be created as an online pantheon generator, but arguably that would be too easy and it would not avoid the first pitfall that the fanzine warns against, that is, making the religion and its gods boring, since what it avoids is the process itself which gives time for the Game Master to think about the pantheon and the relationships of the gods within it, building connections, areas of conflict (such as when there two or more gods with the purview for the same thing), and so on.

Physically, Pamphlet of Pantheons is clean and tidy, and lightly illustrated with public domain artwork, most of it small and all appropriately placed.

Pamphlet of Pantheons is an engaging little supplement, a simple set of prompts that direct a Game Master, with a few rolls, to not only create a complete pantheon, but to think how the pantheon works and is worshipped by a particular culture. In the process, she will create background to part of her campaign world and a religion that she understands and can impart to her players, and so bring her campaign world to life.