I've really struggled with gods in D&D. I've always used existing pantheons, and worked from there, but I've never built my own. I'm not sure what my problem is, because I can create NPCs all day long; and I write a lot about religion, and myth and belief and what it means to people for good and ill.
You may find Monarchsfactory's video on building deities and pantheons useful. You don't need a huge, sprawling collection of gods, you just need four archetypes, and one good story. The rest of the mythos can sprout from there!
Sounds like maybe the issue is this monotheistic focus on what is good and evil? Surely ancient peoples also had these thoughts, but their pantheons were more about what made the world and understanding where things in the world came from.
I think it's also important to present the relationship of gods and people in an interesting way. Literally tossing a couple of powerful creatures into the world to hang around like a bunch of high level players is boring. It may seem obvious, but guys, start reading history and philosophy books to enrich your worlds. Maybe it's just me, but almost all the DMs or worldbuilders that I met somehow forgot about the historicism of consciousness and psychology, religious traditions. because of this, their gods with a lot of details and deep characters looked more like cosplayers
This isn’t really about any Tabletop game but I had an idea for a setting and pantheon. Essentially a Multiverse exists but each Universe is ran by different Gods and some are shared Between some Gods occasionally theirs a universe that’s a joint effort by all of them. These are typically your High Fantasy Worlds, since their filled with a lot of different stuff with strange and complicated rules. For example our Universe has a singular God, the God of Law. It enforces strict mathematical design and function to the world and it’s creatures. Everything is calculable in our universe because of Law. Their is also the God of Death who is not exactly a villain but is certainly not a protagonist. Death is more fixated on the decay and conflict of a system, things made by death are either hostile in some way, or otherwise volatile. The world I want is one where all Gods played a part but Life has taken over a little too much. The world is deeply prosperous and utopian due to a clever use of magic and technology. Due to the quirks of this universe as designed by others it functions on Reincarnation and the World is so prosperous that people are being born faster than they die. This creates Husks, bodies without souls, no empathy, conscience they just are and it will destabilize the entire balance. Death works to solve the problem in the only way Death knows how, if the problem is “too much life” then the answer is simple. However Gods are not allowed to directly interfere so decides to draft someone else to solve the problem. Someone so self righteous, so prideful and arrogant that the attention of a God and the declaration of a Divine duty will be enough to spur him on.
@@Broomer52 I have a similar thing where true Gods have shaped universes. Some are so weakened they have to consume other gods to be able to fulfill their designs, others are deeply dissatisfied with what they created, some do something entirely different.
For example the ancient Romans practiced the evocatio ritual. During the war, the Romans turned to the gods of the enemy, offering to join their side. The Romans promised to build a temple, then they sacrificed a sheep and performed divination on its organs. The Romans also feared that their enemies would be able to lure away their gods (especially the patron gods of cities), so they kept their true names a secret. But what is even more interesting is that this very mystery of the names of the patron gods during the time of Pliny the Elder was associated with a separate deity. Then, the Romans often “sacrificed” besieged cities and their populations to their gods, including “positive ones” in our pop culture.
Two things, first is that the "all flame" made me cry, the second is that I felt exactly like that after killing a spider five days ago. It's weird to find some moments of connection in videos, but this was one of those, thank you for your creativiy and work
This is an absolutely fantastic video, and it opened my eyes to the fact that I really wasn't putting enough thought into my gods and pantheons. Mythology was created as a way to understand the world, and I really needed to be reminded that that's exactly how they should be used in world-building. I was never too interested in gods in fantasy realms, and I now know that it's because they're not often done in meaningful fashions. Really great video! Also, the poem at the end was very thought-provoking and it's a brilliant idea to make gods/deities that represent addages and stories that are thought provoking at a philosophical and spiritual level. Again, thank you for making this video! Was really eye-opening!
My way of designing deities goes through the same process the rest of the world goes through. There is an overall theme of the story, for this example let’s say it’s loss, and each deity has its hand in history and the reason the world is what it is. Tying them into the overal story gives them a amazing feeling of breathing living things and they all have goals and such especially when large events happen, which are typically the basis of campaigns.
Superb. Really got me thinking. Loved that spider poem. I was very moved. The trick seems to be - as so often - don't confuse the map with the territory. Don't reduce your world to a series of practical mechanics. "We need a life god to offer these bonuses."
This was so useful. Within 10 mins of watching it twice, once to listen; once to see your awesome art taking shape, I bought the pamphlet of pantheons. Guess I know what I'm doing in my downtime over this week.
I needed this right now, my working on god like beings that inhabitant my world, but I haven't gotten into the actual gods, though I still have an more minimalistic way of representing them, being more localized than overarching.
I love the deity designs you made. Each gives off a level of intensity and significance in their own way. The many masks seem strange, a hulking mass hidden away, keeping information no one else knows. The geometrical hell god seems rigid, off putting, and very dark. The goat grandma seems very kind but obviously weird and fantastical. Still clearly beyond the pale. Great work.
It'd be really cool to see a building better gnolls episode. I know it's been a while since you've done anything like that, but I really love them and they've been pretty consistently misdone.
When I ST/GM/DM my one main rule is: the information used must have a physical copy, that all players can use if desired. So I print the pdf's I use. I love making hypothetical pantheons, but I must admit pulling small bits from poems never crossed my mind. Thanks for this inspiration, I have two old poem books I bought just because they where old.
I've got this game I'm planning to run after we finish our current campaign that we've been running for about a year now. These videos, including the factions video, just helps so much man. This channel is like the best content out there for D&D
My main pantheon for the area is based on the wet and dry seasons, and the balance between the two. mlthere are many minor gods who may be seen as aspects of the big three or members of their "courts"
I've been building a new setting for my players and creating the pantheon of gods has been a very interesting process. I had looked at my gaggle of deities as beings of purpose, almost like tools created by an even greater being or beings, and this suits my setting but the idea of the gods being reflections of some of the harder truths of humanity is a fascinating concept that I took from your video. Thank you for the inspiration and for the lovely art you create :)
When I DM'd for a while, I really wanted to implement some religious aspects of the world around my players. I created a list of 15 deities. Each had a different "job" they controlled in the mortal realm. Life, Death, War, etc. mostly inspired by Greek or Japanese mythos. I even built relations amongst them such as the Earth, Sea, and Sky deities were siblings that often fought one another. All this lead to a 16th, more ancient, deity that controlled over Chaos and was a driving force of most of the drama in my story. The unfortunate thing is that my players didn't really care about those aspects. I don't know if it's because they felt weird having their characters get involved with religious stories and it conflicted with their personal beliefs or if they just wanted to meme the entire time. Either way, I love building religions in a dnd setting - either making one up or borrow from real world counterparts.
Have you checked out the New Gods of Mankind System? Its one were you create and play a god or gods with other players and lead groups of humans. You build myths and more but it has a really deep god creation system to help players create a god founding
Something I've always kept in mind when it came to pantheon building. In the real world, god's don't just appear. In the real world, stories are told, and from these tales, deities spew forth into the zeitgeist. Stories are the origins of every god. For how else is a god, or anyone, remembered, if not for their actions?
Ahh men, I missed the upload! A great video as always. Also, do you have any tips to get more precise, pencil drawings? I find it very hard to get small and light strokes to be small and consistent.
I just want to say that I love all of your designs, you are so talented! But usually your designs seem to be very 'oval like' this is not a complaint at all but I'm just interested in your designs of more 'fluid' characters. I would like to see more of these videos where you fix or give your opinion about specific topics! (again not complaining just suggesting :)
The idea I have been working on is a world where people came from different worlds with their would be own pantheons. The ruling church itself has 10 chief made from several of the pantheons. The nature deity is specifically the Sea elf god, even though all the elf gods have connection to nature, it was the sea elf god whi helped free the others from the elf slavery society. The sun god and night goddess are husband and wife in their pantheon, so their children are sort of secondary deities for acceptable worship.
My current pantheon feels a bit bland, but this might be what I need to give it a little push. I've been trying to keep my godlist small but inclusive, but also I like messing around with dualities. For example, the god of merchants and taverns is also the god of bandits. The god of nature is both the god of woodsmen and hunters but also animals and trees. Kind of inspired by how Sedna was the goddess of sea animals, so hunters had to pray for her so she'd allow them to hunt her beasts. But even then, my gods felt a little too bland and too... _out there_. No element of mystery or otherworldliness to them. I really like your take on the god of knowledge and might do something similar. A god with many hands, each hand representing a different aspect. Currently, my god of knowledge is called Alvath. They're the god of knowledge, arts, crafts, the forge, fire, magic, and innovation. They're the god of dwarves and gnomes, indirectly. They sculpted the dwarves out of stone and created Mekhanes, a machine god who was meant to protect the world from extraplanar threats but was dismantled when he turned on the other gods. Mehanes made gnomes out of gemstones, before abandoning them as they were not perfect, just like all of his other creations. Mekhanes is now long-forgotten and the creation of gnomes has been attributed to Alvath. My other favourite god is Venari, the god of nature, animals, plants, hunters, shepherds, farmers, and therianthropes. But Venari is _so_ messy and unfocused, because while I want to portray them as a beastly sort of being, I also want to portray the fact that progression is part of nature. There are different schools of thought that worship the same gods and can often even go to war with each other, but I don't know if I should stick to that or if I should define my gods a bit more instead of having them be so self-contradictory.
The problem with most homebrew Pantheons is too many gods. Four or Five deities with a great story ( that involves a story Purpose, Authority, Treachery & Harbour for example) is far more impactful then giving an info dump on a dozen or more!
nothing as developed, but the video strike close with the gods i was trying to make. since they themselves are creation of other being, and ironically were born after humanity and the mortals, they take form in anything that exist in the world and so their territory, i thought of one that would administrate over life / death / being and related concept (they are few god with a really broad authority more like administrating figure) anyway this one would look like a cracked egg with darkness inside that would leak outside existing creature that it use to interact with beingsm but since the creature are imperfect and mixed with all kind of thing they look to be foreign. in theory they have no worship or body of faith, but instead regulation that more mortal god have to follow to not fall prey of their rules.
I've had parts of a pantheon kicking around in my head for a while. The rules I've given myself for designing it are that a) gods must pertain to mundane aspects of life moreso than arbitrary fantasy elements like fire, magic, chaos, etc; b) gods must have overlap or ambiguity in their domains because that opens up boundless potential for conflict and storytelling; and c) gods must have unconventional domains. I have a god of passageways (specifically passageways, not passage), whose followers hang old keys above doorframes and on bridges, and is worshipped equally by thieves and the people they steal from. There is a merchant god whose followers see haggling as a form of prayer, and must buy their names. I also have less developed gods of words and art. There's contention over transportation and whether it falls under the purview of the merchant god or the passageway god.
@@sydc3667 The ancient Romans practiced the “evocatio” ritual. During the war, the Romans turned to the gods of the enemy, offering to join their side. The Romans promised to build a temple, then they sacrificed a sheep and performed divination on its organs. The Romans also feared that their enemies would be able to lure away their gods (especially the patron gods of cities), so they kept their true names a secret. But what is even more interesting is that this very mystery of the names of the patron gods during the time of Pliny the Elder was associated with a separate deity. Then, the Romans often “sacrificed” besieged cities and their populations to their gods, including “positive ones” in our pop culture.
I think this touches on a good point. People use pantheon in service to their characters but don't think on the Why. Your druid worships Gjeof, god of the Harvest. Cool, but WHY is the harvest Gjeof's domain? Typically there might be stories of how the deity had to weather great challenges, or how they cultured the First Seed or how they sacrificed something to make soil fertile or brokered a deal with another god to make the stones edible. Like if one looks at other gods (eg Greek), they're not just so in a vacuum, they're part of their own rich ecosystem, and mere humans would call after the individual best suited to the need.
The way I have the Gods set up is they are multiversal Gods, each of them independently create their own universes and they always reflect the personality and reasoning of their respective God. For example our Universe is made by the God of Law, he follows strict rationing and uniformity. It’s why everything can be solved mathematically, It’s a complex code of persistent thought. Just as the universe is structured he’s stoic, unbiased, strict and compulsive. Sometimes different combinations of other Gods will work together on different Universes and typically a Universe formed by all of them tends to be High Fantasy. With few exceptions most universes made by other Gods is so alien we would barely comprehend their function at best and be horrified at worst. Like Death who is fascinated with Decay, violence and Rot. Worlds made by her tend to be Volatile and Unpredictable. In the main setting of my Story Death is a guiding character though not a protagonist, her star creation is The Orc. An Abomination of Life and Magic in equal measures, they reproduce by the swamps and bogs of their lands consuming the bodies of other races, whenever they die if left to decay their bodies will corrupt the land and turn it into more of the same land they live in. Their a blight and pestilence on the Land, corrupting the converted minds into living machines of destruction. The Orcs refer to her as Orkitus but they have no true name outside of what they are and care little for what names others give them (if their creations acknowledge them at all)
this is what I had in mind thinking of my story. a pantheon of gods with authority over 6 elements (typical 4 plus lightning and shadow), they all interact with one another and have relationships among themselves and the humans that worship them. they deliver the manipulation of the elements to certain people in history to pave the way for other people to use the elements (like bending in avatar combined with vocal spellcasting/scrolls like the Naruto world). Phaeben the god of fire is the god of fire of the world the story exists in, because his home planet of all fire-manipulating beings was destroyed; he arrived on the planet and eventually taught the ability to a certain human he connected with. the god of fire and the goddess of water are intimately involved, but their followers hate each other and are destined to fight, after one killed the family of the other as an attempt to appease his god
"and i don't think i'm allowed to kill something because i am frightened" has stuck with me ever since i first read it and hearing it come up here was amazing. love it! love the vision. beautiful art.
Our society is so out of touch. “Gay panic” is NOT and will never be an acceptable defense for murder. When even the highest judges in the land fail us in their humanity this badly, what does that say about ordinary people?
I think I'm going to use that spider poem as the first prayer said to lolth in my game, who I have taken the idea of and changed her more into a trickster goddess, and a protector of the outcasts. It's perfect.
@@mapcrow I don’t suppose you’re being back the “building better X” series, I loved your take on owlbears and would love to see more “lacklustre” monster get the crow treatment
I really like the idea of using snippets of fiction and poems as religious chants or passages from holy texts to set the mood for deity. Such a great suggestion and right as the group I'm DMing is about to visit the a monastery
Great video! Whenever Kyle mentioned the bible in other videos I went "alright... any second now we're getting one about gods" The idea about creating little poems and anecdotes for the gods is really good. Dolmenwood kinda does something like that. It doesn't elaborate on the God themself, but it tells a little story about each of the many saints of the Dolmenwood, and how they used each miracle in the spell list. Aside from that, the Nikki Giovanni poem is so effective. It reminds me of the Japanese saying that "Even the prayers of an ant reaches the Kami", which is a really effective way to convey how Shinto (and, to a degree, Zen Buddhism in general) sees the world as this place where everything is living.
Another insightful video! That was a good point you made about how important it is for deities to represent emotional truths just as much as they represent natural laws, it really ties back into that concept of characters being some of the most powerful worldbuilding devices at a storyteller's disposal
Your gorgeous artwork BEGS to have these beings in the world, accessible to players and their characters. My current campaign is something of an experiment, forgoing traditional D&D Powers/clerics/paladins for something that is inspired by a cross between Shinto and grungy, pagan Celt imagery. Local gods, just everywhere, with limited territories but great power within those territories. Gods that sometimes visit you, or you them, but mostly keep to themselves unless they're angry (and they get angry when people ignore or forget about them for too long). Images like these would be great for gods of that more limited scope, gods that could be summoned or sought out, served or destroyed. Thank you for sharing the zine with us, too! It's always so cool to find new authors and designers.
One thing I like to do with my deities is to make them deities of multiple things in ways that make sense. For example: the God of Health became the God of Cleanliness and Medicine as well since those are very important to remain healthy. So far so good, then the city he inhabited in and the people that lived in it became famous for being beautiful, since you know, being clean does wonders for someone's appearance; so he became the God of beauty as well. Then finally, such beauty attracted artist and musicians from all around the world, many of which ended up living in the city; so now he's also the God of the fine arts. So a simple God passed from being the deity of health to be the patron of Health, Cleanliness, Medicine, Beauty and the fine arts.
I guess rp aspects change things for me. Cus I sometimes focus on the origins of the deities in my worlds, since you may actually meet them. As opposed to the fables & stories that are solely legend in reality. Great video tho!
I absolutely love your art style and video style. The whole "talk about something while I draw something related" is so good for this sort of thing. I only found you recently but I'm trying to make a setting for a DnD game and your videos have been hugely helpful and enjoyable! Thanks and keep it up! :D
Hey thanks for talking about using poems as a way to introduce players to the deities you’ve made. I’ve really been struggling with how to do that without literally boring them to death with words, a poem honestly never occurred to me so uh thanks!
One tip I have is that bigger isn't better. Sure, you can make 20 gods with intricate backstories, but your players aren't gonna remember them, and they'll get reduced to 1dimensional figures. Don't go beyond 3-5 gods, and they'll be much more memorable.
5:50 I really like the third sketch there, it inspired me for a deity of flame and joy: Long before shadows deepend with meaning, and we huddled around what little light we could summon from twig and rock for saftey, the children were quiet. As adult hunted and foraged and made, the children watched mutely and learned. For it was a dangerous place out there, and things that held greater power wished us harm. We killed and found and built and killed and found and built, but each time we rose we collapsed from within. City walls soon became empty, circles of elders fell still as their knowledge was as exhausted as their bones, and no one could say as to why. Until in one village, in a place where the nights were long and cold and the adults worked as the children watched and sat like stones, two sat before a fire. As they watched the flame, their minds became warmed with their bodies. In the darting oranges, one saw the tendrils of fire briefly twist into the shape of two dogs. They moved and danced with the flame, caught in the imagination and now reality of the warmth. The fire was not large, nor were they, and so they did not have far to move. In time, one bumped into another, knocking it over onto it's back, paws raised and flailing indignantly. But it sprang back up, just as warm and full of firey life as before. It knocked into the other, and it too fell and sprang up again. Back and forth they went, the fire crackling in time with their antics. The watching child nudged their friend, who toppled. All the child's life it had seen others fall, to disease and wild beast and darkness alike, and none had returned to their feet. But he did. He rose, and stared at the other child, fire dancing in his eyes. And he pushed the other child over. The child landed too without harm, and rose again. The flame outside crackled on, and a feeling like flame within them both rose, and a sound not unlike it as well burst forth from them, stopping and starting and rising in intensity. The twin dogs in the flame rolled and played and laughed along with them, and the fire of joy spread into song and dance and joke and joy, bringing light to our people.
Having a lot of enjoyment for my own ability to craft works I very much care about how my pantheons work. Though I'll always have them based around some things that are extremely unnecessary to the overall story I'm rolling with, the idea as to how they're there and why is a good way to portray how the actual order of the world operates and the reason the gods are existing to begin with. Such a form that gives way to having themes expressed in their wholeness, their purity. And how much they collide with each other pending on not merely the individual god's ambitions, but the reasoning behind those ambitions and the drive they exude using the god as a tool
So I really liked the third poem as a fun role play prompt, it reminds me of a healer I made for what turned out to be a one-shot DnD adventure, I didn't do a single point of damage in the three or four encounters we had, instead I relighted on the sanctuary spell to protect myself and wind gust to keep my companions safe by using forced movement to remove them from danger, and then healing spells if that failed. I think it was a fun play experience and I could imagine your life goddess as encouraging pacifism towards anything with intellect and maybe demanding it from her priesthood or maybe that being one of a few vows that her player character clerics would need to choose between.
The best thing I learned was that a god must exist for a reason, so I created a need for a higher power. The god I have in my campaign Kini was a slapped together solution to the end of the world by the fallen human civilization. She failed nearly all life died and all the horrors of the old world ran free. So she had the humans get their shit together and start fighting back against the beasts and bandits, but also wrote an instruction manual on how to recreate civilization. 1,000 years later the instruction manual is holy scripture, the bumblefuck peasants she turned into a militia became a paladin order and her last order “unify all the species of man” has had hilarious ideas thrown about to accomplish this goal from fighting hell, stamping out other religions, or doing a full crusade on anyone magical due to its danger. All in all a powerful creature cannot do something without a ripple and having said ripple be comically bad for the world is my favourite way to do it
You are completely right about Dunsany standing up well. IMHO, far better than Lovecraft's stilted style. Don't get me wrong, some of Lovecraft's stuff is still great, but he's not as consistent as Dunsany is.
Of Dunsany's work, "Time and the Gods" and "The Food of Death" are among my favorite, and they are virtually unknown. The guidelines here are somewhat sparse, and you do not provide examples of those you feel were done well *in games*
two of the deities i created for my fictional world are Luck and Fate, the twin gods of fortune. luck takes the form of a young woman, and enjoys blessing and cursing mortals on a whim. she values bravery and decisiveness (fortune favors the bold), and her domain is making little things go right or wrong. she is the patron of gambling and luck. Fate on the other hand is a young man, with a fiery temper and a tendency toward pettiness. when mortals are confident about the outcome of a situation he often interferes for the worse, punishing them for their complacency. this has lead to mortals avoiding judgement statements about their circumstances, calling such statements challenging Fate, and many say "Fate never backs down from a challenge". he values the ability to adapt, independence, and bravado, provided it doesn't cross the line into arrogance. while his sister is small scale fortune, he controls events that can drastically alter circumstance, like enemy reinforcements appearing during a crucial moment, a guard raising an alarm after the point of no return, or a fatal misstep during a duel. he is the patron of everyone who require fortune to succeed, such as military officers, assassins and thieves.
I was literally thinking up Gods before the video started... and I am not serious. For this particular pantheon, these Gods and this world is more a meta world in that they know that if nobody plays the game then they don't exist. So I think up people from our world or pop culture who they are like. I name the gods and think of someone they're like. The king of the gods pantheon is like an annoying streamer that would yell about smashing like and subscribe. The god of war is on the Joe Rogan'y side. The god of balance is Mojo from xmen. I make names for these guys but I ask my players what their names are before they encounter them and will change it on the spot so that the world is more our world then just mine. I tend to make themes up for most worlds I make but this one is meta, and a wink in a nod to knowing they're not real and they have to do outrageous things to live.
I love your interpretations of these different takes on parts of DND! So glad I found this channel. If you ever do another building better monsters, would you ever do a new take on lycanthropes? I'd be very interested to see your take on a werebeast.
hey I loved this episode! and I love the depth you put in your wanderings, i must say. everytime I discover a podcast, a book or something else and I thank you for that! I have a question though. where do you find the time to do that? are you a full time artist?
Thank you! I’m so glad to hear that!! I am a illustration professor as well as an illustrator. I find that my work is at its best when I am at my most curious, so I try to always look around for something else to learn from! It’s a habit, or a compulsion maybe, Haha!!
Hey Kyle you don't have to answer this if you don't want too, but are you Eastern Orthodox? I just assume because you mentioned the Saying of The Desert Father's and you said you talked to a novice monk. I think it's really cool if you are. Eastern Christianity is so different than the Catholic/Protestant Christianity you see in the western world. I'm Orthodox myself and I always get excited when I see others online. Regardless thank you for the video!
Omg these designs are AMAZING!!! I wish i could draw like this :( Do you have any royalty free art anywhere (or affordable art anywhere?…sorry if i sound like a douche for asking)
I love your style so much and this many faced god is top tier, omg such an incredible design!!
Yh it looks kinda Dark Soulsy to me
Thank you so much!!
I've really struggled with gods in D&D.
I've always used existing pantheons, and worked from there, but I've never built my own. I'm not sure what my problem is, because I can create NPCs all day long; and I write a lot about religion, and myth and belief and what it means to people for good and ill.
You may find Monarchsfactory's video on building deities and pantheons useful. You don't need a huge, sprawling collection of gods, you just need four archetypes, and one good story. The rest of the mythos can sprout from there!
Sounds like maybe the issue is this monotheistic focus on what is good and evil? Surely ancient peoples also had these thoughts, but their pantheons were more about what made the world and understanding where things in the world came from.
I think it's also important to present the relationship of gods and people in an interesting way. Literally tossing a couple of powerful creatures into the world to hang around like a bunch of high level players is boring. It may seem obvious, but guys, start reading history and philosophy books to enrich your worlds. Maybe it's just me, but almost all the DMs or worldbuilders that I met somehow forgot about the historicism of consciousness and psychology, religious traditions. because of this, their gods with a lot of details and deep characters looked more like cosplayers
This isn’t really about any Tabletop game but I had an idea for a setting and pantheon. Essentially a Multiverse exists but each Universe is ran by different Gods and some are shared Between some Gods occasionally theirs a universe that’s a joint effort by all of them. These are typically your High Fantasy Worlds, since their filled with a lot of different stuff with strange and complicated rules. For example our Universe has a singular God, the God of Law. It enforces strict mathematical design and function to the world and it’s creatures. Everything is calculable in our universe because of Law. Their is also the God of Death who is not exactly a villain but is certainly not a protagonist. Death is more fixated on the decay and conflict of a system, things made by death are either hostile in some way, or otherwise volatile. The world I want is one where all Gods played a part but Life has taken over a little too much. The world is deeply prosperous and utopian due to a clever use of magic and technology. Due to the quirks of this universe as designed by others it functions on Reincarnation and the World is so prosperous that people are being born faster than they die. This creates Husks, bodies without souls, no empathy, conscience they just are and it will destabilize the entire balance. Death works to solve the problem in the only way Death knows how, if the problem is “too much life” then the answer is simple. However Gods are not allowed to directly interfere so decides to draft someone else to solve the problem. Someone so self righteous, so prideful and arrogant that the attention of a God and the declaration of a Divine duty will be enough to spur him on.
@@Broomer52 I have a similar thing where true Gods have shaped universes. Some are so weakened they have to consume other gods to be able to fulfill their designs, others are deeply dissatisfied with what they created, some do something entirely different.
For example the ancient Romans practiced the evocatio ritual. During the war, the Romans turned to the gods of the enemy, offering to join their side. The Romans promised to build a temple, then they sacrificed a sheep and performed divination on its organs. The Romans also feared that their enemies would be able to lure away their gods (especially the patron gods of cities), so they kept their true names a secret. But what is even more interesting is that this very mystery of the names of the patron gods during the time of Pliny the Elder was associated with a separate deity. Then, the Romans often “sacrificed” besieged cities and their populations to their gods, including “positive ones” in our pop culture.
@@Broomer52 it's not a fact that our universe has a singular god, or any god
@@b1bbscraz3y I hope you what I said was ENTIRELY fictional. I made it up because we’re on a video discussing world building with Gods.
Two things, first is that the "all flame" made me cry, the second is that I felt exactly like that after killing a spider five days ago.
It's weird to find some moments of connection in videos, but this was one of those, thank you for your creativiy and work
"... filthy limericks and drinking songs." Ah yes, the pantheon of bards and dwarves.
Great video btw!
I AM A DWARF AND I'M DIGGING A HOLE!
This is an absolutely fantastic video, and it opened my eyes to the fact that I really wasn't putting enough thought into my gods and pantheons. Mythology was created as a way to understand the world, and I really needed to be reminded that that's exactly how they should be used in world-building. I was never too interested in gods in fantasy realms, and I now know that it's because they're not often done in meaningful fashions. Really great video! Also, the poem at the end was very thought-provoking and it's a brilliant idea to make gods/deities that represent addages and stories that are thought provoking at a philosophical and spiritual level.
Again, thank you for making this video! Was really eye-opening!
My way of designing deities goes through the same process the rest of the world goes through. There is an overall theme of the story, for this example let’s say it’s loss, and each deity has its hand in history and the reason the world is what it is. Tying them into the overal story gives them a amazing feeling of breathing living things and they all have goals and such especially when large events happen, which are typically the basis of campaigns.
Superb. Really got me thinking. Loved that spider poem. I was very moved. The trick seems to be - as so often - don't confuse the map with the territory. Don't reduce your world to a series of practical mechanics. "We need a life god to offer these bonuses."
This was so useful. Within 10 mins of watching it twice, once to listen; once to see your awesome art taking shape, I bought the pamphlet of pantheons. Guess I know what I'm doing in my downtime over this week.
I needed this right now, my working on god like beings that inhabitant my world, but I haven't gotten into the actual gods, though I still have an more minimalistic way of representing them, being more localized than overarching.
I love the deity designs you made. Each gives off a level of intensity and significance in their own way. The many masks seem strange, a hulking mass hidden away, keeping information no one else knows. The geometrical hell god seems rigid, off putting, and very dark. The goat grandma seems very kind but obviously weird and fantastical. Still clearly beyond the pale. Great work.
I could watch a series of videos of you just coming up with gods. Man that would be way too good.
DANG! I hadn't even thought of that! That'd be fun!!
It'd be really cool to see a building better gnolls episode. I know it's been a while since you've done anything like that, but I really love them and they've been pretty consistently misdone.
Truly inspirational
When I ST/GM/DM my one main rule is: the information used must have a physical copy, that all players can use if desired. So I print the pdf's I use. I love making hypothetical pantheons, but I must admit pulling small bits from poems never crossed my mind. Thanks for this inspiration, I have two old poem books I bought just because they where old.
I've got this game I'm planning to run after we finish our current campaign that we've been running for about a year now. These videos, including the factions video, just helps so much man. This channel is like the best content out there for D&D
"The Lord of Spirits" podcast has many many great tips for world building in this department.
My main pantheon for the area is based on the wet and dry seasons, and the balance between the two. mlthere are many minor gods who may be seen as aspects of the big three or members of their "courts"
the poems are beautiful. thank you for sharing. the last one really stuck with me.
Those drawings are so cool! I especially love the Goat Lady One.
I've been building a new setting for my players and creating the pantheon of gods has been a very interesting process. I had looked at my gaggle of deities as beings of purpose, almost like tools created by an even greater being or beings, and this suits my setting but the idea of the gods being reflections of some of the harder truths of humanity is a fascinating concept that I took from your video. Thank you for the inspiration and for the lovely art you create :)
Nice timing, I needed this
When I DM'd for a while, I really wanted to implement some religious aspects of the world around my players. I created a list of 15 deities. Each had a different "job" they controlled in the mortal realm. Life, Death, War, etc. mostly inspired by Greek or Japanese mythos. I even built relations amongst them such as the Earth, Sea, and Sky deities were siblings that often fought one another.
All this lead to a 16th, more ancient, deity that controlled over Chaos and was a driving force of most of the drama in my story. The unfortunate thing is that my players didn't really care about those aspects. I don't know if it's because they felt weird having their characters get involved with religious stories and it conflicted with their personal beliefs or if they just wanted to meme the entire time.
Either way, I love building religions in a dnd setting - either making one up or borrow from real world counterparts.
Thanks for your insight, I think I got some good ideas
The best pantheon is clearly the pantheon of hollownest.
Wow this was really inspiring
Have you checked out the New Gods of Mankind System? Its one were you create and play a god or gods with other players and lead groups of humans. You build myths and more but it has a really deep god creation system to help players create a god founding
Something I've always kept in mind when it came to pantheon building.
In the real world, god's don't just appear. In the real world, stories are told, and from these tales, deities spew forth into the zeitgeist. Stories are the origins of every god.
For how else is a god, or anyone, remembered, if not for their actions?
Ahh men, I missed the upload! A great video as always.
Also, do you have any tips to get more precise, pencil drawings? I find it very hard to get small and light strokes to be small and consistent.
I just want to say that I love all of your designs, you are so talented! But usually your designs seem to be very 'oval like' this is not a complaint at all but I'm just interested in your designs of more 'fluid' characters. I would like to see more of these videos where you fix or give your opinion about specific topics! (again not complaining just suggesting :)
Ha! I think with these gods, I wanted them to be larger than life, to take up some room. Thank you for the comments and encouragement!!
This is so sick
Ha! For a second I throughout said it MAKES you sick! Haha
The idea I have been working on is a world where people came from different worlds with their would be own pantheons. The ruling church itself has 10 chief made from several of the pantheons.
The nature deity is specifically the Sea elf god, even though all the elf gods have connection to nature, it was the sea elf god whi helped free the others from the elf slavery society. The sun god and night goddess are husband and wife in their pantheon, so their children are sort of secondary deities for acceptable worship.
well you just found a new subscriber
Your art like a berserk
People don't print PDF's because there bedroom's are already full of Books they never read
My current pantheon feels a bit bland, but this might be what I need to give it a little push.
I've been trying to keep my godlist small but inclusive, but also I like messing around with dualities. For example, the god of merchants and taverns is also the god of bandits. The god of nature is both the god of woodsmen and hunters but also animals and trees.
Kind of inspired by how Sedna was the goddess of sea animals, so hunters had to pray for her so she'd allow them to hunt her beasts. But even then, my gods felt a little too bland and too... _out there_. No element of mystery or otherworldliness to them.
I really like your take on the god of knowledge and might do something similar. A god with many hands, each hand representing a different aspect. Currently, my god of knowledge is called Alvath. They're the god of knowledge, arts, crafts, the forge, fire, magic, and innovation. They're the god of dwarves and gnomes, indirectly.
They sculpted the dwarves out of stone and created Mekhanes, a machine god who was meant to protect the world from extraplanar threats but was dismantled when he turned on the other gods. Mehanes made gnomes out of gemstones, before abandoning them as they were not perfect, just like all of his other creations. Mekhanes is now long-forgotten and the creation of gnomes has been attributed to Alvath.
My other favourite god is Venari, the god of nature, animals, plants, hunters, shepherds, farmers, and therianthropes. But Venari is _so_ messy and unfocused, because while I want to portray them as a beastly sort of being, I also want to portray the fact that progression is part of nature. There are different schools of thought that worship the same gods and can often even go to war with each other, but I don't know if I should stick to that or if I should define my gods a bit more instead of having them be so self-contradictory.
The problem with most homebrew Pantheons is too many gods.
Four or Five deities with a great story ( that involves a story Purpose, Authority, Treachery & Harbour for example) is far more impactful then giving an info dump on a dozen or more!
Yup! Completely agree!!
anyone else taking notes feeling like your in school again. :)
nothing as developed, but the video strike close with the gods i was trying to make.
since they themselves are creation of other being, and ironically were born after humanity and the mortals, they take form in anything that exist in the world and so their territory, i thought of one that would administrate over life / death / being and related concept (they are few god with a really broad authority more like administrating figure) anyway this one would look like a cracked egg with darkness inside that would leak outside existing creature that it use to interact with beingsm but since the creature are imperfect and mixed with all kind of thing they look to be foreign.
in theory they have no worship or body of faith, but instead regulation that more mortal god have to follow to not fall prey of their rules.
DOOM
I've had parts of a pantheon kicking around in my head for a while. The rules I've given myself for designing it are that a) gods must pertain to mundane aspects of life moreso than arbitrary fantasy elements like fire, magic, chaos, etc; b) gods must have overlap or ambiguity in their domains because that opens up boundless potential for conflict and storytelling; and c) gods must have unconventional domains. I have a god of passageways (specifically passageways, not passage), whose followers hang old keys above doorframes and on bridges, and is worshipped equally by thieves and the people they steal from. There is a merchant god whose followers see haggling as a form of prayer, and must buy their names. I also have less developed gods of words and art. There's contention over transportation and whether it falls under the purview of the merchant god or the passageway god.
Maybe if the overlap persists for a while, the gods will merge together. Happened all the time around the Mediterranean, iirc.
@@sydc3667 The ancient Romans practiced the “evocatio” ritual. During the war, the Romans turned to the gods of the enemy, offering to join their side. The Romans promised to build a temple, then they sacrificed a sheep and performed divination on its organs. The Romans also feared that their enemies would be able to lure away their gods (especially the patron gods of cities), so they kept their true names a secret. But what is even more interesting is that this very mystery of the names of the patron gods during the time of Pliny the Elder was associated with a separate deity. Then, the Romans often “sacrificed” besieged cities and their populations to their gods, including “positive ones” in our pop culture.
I think this touches on a good point. People use pantheon in service to their characters but don't think on the Why.
Your druid worships Gjeof, god of the Harvest. Cool, but WHY is the harvest Gjeof's domain?
Typically there might be stories of how the deity had to weather great challenges, or how they cultured the First Seed or how they sacrificed something to make soil fertile or brokered a deal with another god to make the stones edible.
Like if one looks at other gods (eg Greek), they're not just so in a vacuum, they're part of their own rich ecosystem, and mere humans would call after the individual best suited to the need.
The way I have the Gods set up is they are multiversal Gods, each of them independently create their own universes and they always reflect the personality and reasoning of their respective God. For example our Universe is made by the God of Law, he follows strict rationing and uniformity. It’s why everything can be solved mathematically, It’s a complex code of persistent thought. Just as the universe is structured he’s stoic, unbiased, strict and compulsive. Sometimes different combinations of other Gods will work together on different Universes and typically a Universe formed by all of them tends to be High Fantasy. With few exceptions most universes made by other Gods is so alien we would barely comprehend their function at best and be horrified at worst. Like Death who is fascinated with Decay, violence and Rot. Worlds made by her tend to be Volatile and Unpredictable. In the main setting of my Story Death is a guiding character though not a protagonist, her star creation is The Orc. An Abomination of Life and Magic in equal measures, they reproduce by the swamps and bogs of their lands consuming the bodies of other races, whenever they die if left to decay their bodies will corrupt the land and turn it into more of the same land they live in. Their a blight and pestilence on the Land, corrupting the converted minds into living machines of destruction. The Orcs refer to her as Orkitus but they have no true name outside of what they are and care little for what names others give them (if their creations acknowledge them at all)
this is what I had in mind thinking of my story. a pantheon of gods with authority over 6 elements (typical 4 plus lightning and shadow), they all interact with one another and have relationships among themselves and the humans that worship them. they deliver the manipulation of the elements to certain people in history to pave the way for other people to use the elements (like bending in avatar combined with vocal spellcasting/scrolls like the Naruto world). Phaeben the god of fire is the god of fire of the world the story exists in, because his home planet of all fire-manipulating beings was destroyed; he arrived on the planet and eventually taught the ability to a certain human he connected with. the god of fire and the goddess of water are intimately involved, but their followers hate each other and are destined to fight, after one killed the family of the other as an attempt to appease his god
"and i don't think i'm allowed to kill something because i am frightened" has stuck with me ever since i first read it and hearing it come up here was amazing. love it! love the vision. beautiful art.
Our society is so out of touch. “Gay panic” is NOT and will never be an acceptable defense for murder.
When even the highest judges in the land fail us in their humanity this badly, what does that say about ordinary people?
I think I'm going to use that spider poem as the first prayer said to lolth in my game, who I have taken the idea of and changed her more into a trickster goddess, and a protector of the outcasts. It's perfect.
That’s dope
An "Evil God" that is actually the patron deity of the Ostracized is something I am surprised I have not seen more of.
I love whenever people mention Dunsany his writing is so powerful and mythical, I especially love his short stories.
“Zine” sounds like some bullshit slang and then I looked it up and found out it’s actually a thing. Go figure
Haha! Yeah it’s kinda both!
@@mapcrow I don’t suppose you’re being back the “building better X” series, I loved your take on owlbears and would love to see more “lacklustre” monster get the crow treatment
@@MrLemonaiden Yup, that's the plan coming up soon!! Cheers!!
@@mapcrow yeahhh man. Looking forward to it
I really like the idea of using snippets of fiction and poems as religious chants or passages from holy texts to set the mood for deity. Such a great suggestion and right as the group I'm DMing is about to visit the a monastery
Great video! Whenever Kyle mentioned the bible in other videos I went "alright... any second now we're getting one about gods"
The idea about creating little poems and anecdotes for the gods is really good. Dolmenwood kinda does something like that. It doesn't elaborate on the God themself, but it tells a little story about each of the many saints of the Dolmenwood, and how they used each miracle in the spell list.
Aside from that, the Nikki Giovanni poem is so effective. It reminds me of the Japanese saying that "Even the prayers of an ant reaches the Kami", which is a really effective way to convey how Shinto (and, to a degree, Zen Buddhism in general) sees the world as this place where everything is living.
Oh dang!! I love that koan about the ant!! Wow!! Yeah, Dolmenwood is amazing!!
Another insightful video! That was a good point you made about how important it is for deities to represent emotional truths just as much as they represent natural laws, it really ties back into that concept of characters being some of the most powerful worldbuilding devices at a storyteller's disposal
I'm currently in the process of doing some worldbuilding, and I'm still thinking about my pantheon. This has given me a lot to think about. Thanks!
Your gorgeous artwork BEGS to have these beings in the world, accessible to players and their characters. My current campaign is something of an experiment, forgoing traditional D&D Powers/clerics/paladins for something that is inspired by a cross between Shinto and grungy, pagan Celt imagery. Local gods, just everywhere, with limited territories but great power within those territories. Gods that sometimes visit you, or you them, but mostly keep to themselves unless they're angry (and they get angry when people ignore or forget about them for too long). Images like these would be great for gods of that more limited scope, gods that could be summoned or sought out, served or destroyed.
Thank you for sharing the zine with us, too! It's always so cool to find new authors and designers.
One thing I like to do with my deities is to make them deities of multiple things in ways that make sense.
For example: the God of Health became the God of Cleanliness and Medicine as well since those are very important to remain healthy. So far so good, then the city he inhabited in and the people that lived in it became famous for being beautiful, since you know, being clean does wonders for someone's appearance; so he became the God of beauty as well.
Then finally, such beauty attracted artist and musicians from all around the world, many of which ended up living in the city; so now he's also the God of the fine arts.
So a simple God passed from being the deity of health to be the patron of Health, Cleanliness, Medicine, Beauty and the fine arts.
That such I great idea, might have to steal that for a campaign that I’ll never DM lol
I guess rp aspects change things for me. Cus I sometimes focus on the origins of the deities in my worlds, since you may actually meet them. As opposed to the fables & stories that are solely legend in reality. Great video tho!
i absolutely adore your videos and , at least for me, fresh takes, ideas and generally the sources of inspiration you present, like that little zine.
I absolutely love your art style and video style. The whole "talk about something while I draw something related" is so good for this sort of thing. I only found you recently but I'm trying to make a setting for a DnD game and your videos have been hugely helpful and enjoyable!
Thanks and keep it up! :D
I'm so glad! I like talking almost as much as I like drawing! Cheers!!
1:17 I personally don't really care about having a physical copy of a book. Saves paper keeping it on your phone imo
Your videos are a great man keep up the good work!
Your videos have really helped me design a whole bunch of things that I like, thanks!
Hey thanks for talking about using poems as a way to introduce players to the deities you’ve made. I’ve really been struggling with how to do that without literally boring them to death with words, a poem honestly never occurred to me so uh thanks!
Great video and great art! You put out alot of great videos and have rly found a cool niche within the rpg youtube content section. Thanks!
One tip I have is that bigger isn't better.
Sure, you can make 20 gods with intricate backstories, but your players aren't gonna remember them, and they'll get reduced to 1dimensional figures. Don't go beyond 3-5 gods, and they'll be much more memorable.
Dang a Desert Fathers reference!! IC-XC
All of your insight really sparked creativity for my own homebrew campaign setting. I also really love you art style!
Thank you for the tip. Planning a new campaign this summer and a fresh pantheon will help make things flavorful
this reminds me heavily of pinwheel from ds1!
Ha! Now I can’t unsee it!!
i latch onto EACH and every one of these videos, thank you so much :)
Thank you so much! That encouragement means a lot to me!!
These were some amazing deities you drew
Awesome art and world building! I'm inspired
Yes, printing it out and turning it into a book is a good idea
However, that is a lot of Black Ink and Ink is expensive
5:50 I really like the third sketch there, it inspired me for a deity of flame and joy:
Long before shadows deepend with meaning, and we huddled around what little light we could summon from twig and rock for saftey, the children were quiet. As adult hunted and foraged and made, the children watched mutely and learned. For it was a dangerous place out there, and things that held greater power wished us harm. We killed and found and built and killed and found and built, but each time we rose we collapsed from within. City walls soon became empty, circles of elders fell still as their knowledge was as exhausted as their bones, and no one could say as to why. Until in one village, in a place where the nights were long and cold and the adults worked as the children watched and sat like stones, two sat before a fire. As they watched the flame, their minds became warmed with their bodies. In the darting oranges, one saw the tendrils of fire briefly twist into the shape of two dogs. They moved and danced with the flame, caught in the imagination and now reality of the warmth. The fire was not large, nor were they, and so they did not have far to move. In time, one bumped into another, knocking it over onto it's back, paws raised and flailing indignantly. But it sprang back up, just as warm and full of firey life as before. It knocked into the other, and it too fell and sprang up again. Back and forth they went, the fire crackling in time with their antics. The watching child nudged their friend, who toppled. All the child's life it had seen others fall, to disease and wild beast and darkness alike, and none had returned to their feet. But he did. He rose, and stared at the other child, fire dancing in his eyes. And he pushed the other child over. The child landed too without harm, and rose again. The flame outside crackled on, and a feeling like flame within them both rose, and a sound not unlike it as well burst forth from them, stopping and starting and rising in intensity. The twin dogs in the flame rolled and played and laughed along with them, and the fire of joy spread into song and dance and joke and joy, bringing light to our people.
I ALWAYS love a new podcast.
BTW, are there any other monsters you'd like to reimagine? I love those videos
I love thinking about these kind of things when playing/running games.
~ Adam
This is such a cool idea, I definitely want to make my own pantheon now!
Having a lot of enjoyment for my own ability to craft works I very much care about how my pantheons work. Though I'll always have them based around some things that are extremely unnecessary to the overall story I'm rolling with, the idea as to how they're there and why is a good way to portray how the actual order of the world operates and the reason the gods are existing to begin with. Such a form that gives way to having themes expressed in their wholeness, their purity. And how much they collide with each other pending on not merely the individual god's ambitions, but the reasoning behind those ambitions and the drive they exude using the god as a tool
So I really liked the third poem as a fun role play prompt, it reminds me of a healer I made for what turned out to be a one-shot DnD adventure, I didn't do a single point of damage in the three or four encounters we had, instead I relighted on the sanctuary spell to protect myself and wind gust to keep my companions safe by using forced movement to remove them from danger, and then healing spells if that failed. I think it was a fun play experience and I could imagine your life goddess as encouraging pacifism towards anything with intellect and maybe demanding it from her priesthood or maybe that being one of a few vows that her player character clerics would need to choose between.
The best thing I learned was that a god must exist for a reason, so I created a need for a higher power. The god I have in my campaign Kini was a slapped together solution to the end of the world by the fallen human civilization. She failed nearly all life died and all the horrors of the old world ran free. So she had the humans get their shit together and start fighting back against the beasts and bandits, but also wrote an instruction manual on how to recreate civilization. 1,000 years later the instruction manual is holy scripture, the bumblefuck peasants she turned into a militia became a paladin order and her last order “unify all the species of man” has had hilarious ideas thrown about to accomplish this goal from fighting hell, stamping out other religions, or doing a full crusade on anyone magical due to its danger. All in all a powerful creature cannot do something without a ripple and having said ripple be comically bad for the world is my favourite way to do it
You are completely right about Dunsany standing up well. IMHO, far better than Lovecraft's stilted style. Don't get me wrong, some of Lovecraft's stuff is still great, but he's not as consistent as Dunsany is.
I think you're probably the only youtuber I've ever heard mention Lord Dunsany. I particularly liked The King of Elfland's Daughter.
I love how you draw and give those textures
Of Dunsany's work, "Time and the Gods" and "The Food of Death" are among my favorite, and they are virtually unknown.
The guidelines here are somewhat sparse, and you do not provide examples of those you feel were done well *in games*
two of the deities i created for my fictional world are Luck and Fate, the twin gods of fortune. luck takes the form of a young woman, and enjoys blessing and cursing mortals on a whim. she values bravery and decisiveness (fortune favors the bold), and her domain is making little things go right or wrong. she is the patron of gambling and luck. Fate on the other hand is a young man, with a fiery temper and a tendency toward pettiness. when mortals are confident about the outcome of a situation he often interferes for the worse, punishing them for their complacency. this has lead to mortals avoiding judgement statements about their circumstances, calling such statements challenging Fate, and many say "Fate never backs down from a challenge". he values the ability to adapt, independence, and bravado, provided it doesn't cross the line into arrogance. while his sister is small scale fortune, he controls events that can drastically alter circumstance, like enemy reinforcements appearing during a crucial moment, a guard raising an alarm after the point of no return, or a fatal misstep during a duel. he is the patron of everyone who require fortune to succeed, such as military officers, assassins and thieves.
I was literally thinking up Gods before the video started... and I am not serious. For this particular pantheon, these Gods and this world is more a meta world in that they know that if nobody plays the game then they don't exist. So I think up people from our world or pop culture who they are like. I name the gods and think of someone they're like. The king of the gods pantheon is like an annoying streamer that would yell about smashing like and subscribe. The god of war is on the Joe Rogan'y side. The god of balance is Mojo from xmen. I make names for these guys but I ask my players what their names are before they encounter them and will change it on the spot so that the world is more our world then just mine. I tend to make themes up for most worlds I make but this one is meta, and a wink in a nod to knowing they're not real and they have to do outrageous things to live.
Map Crow: says a lot of profound and terrifying stuff about the god of knowledge and “becoming all flame”
My dumb nerd brain: omg this is a Mimikyu
I love your interpretations of these different takes on parts of DND! So glad I found this channel. If you ever do another building better monsters, would you ever do a new take on lycanthropes? I'd be very interested to see your take on a werebeast.
Basically just cherry pick dark souls flavor text for everything. If they ask for more detail, send em to your world anvil :p
Insta subbed, desert fathers, prayers from a Coptic Orthodox Christian!
hey I loved this episode! and I love the depth you put in your wanderings, i must say. everytime I discover a podcast, a book or something else and I thank you for that! I have a question though. where do you find the time to do that? are you a full time artist?
Thank you! I’m so glad to hear that!! I am a illustration professor as well as an illustrator. I find that my work is at its best when I am at my most curious, so I try to always look around for something else to learn from! It’s a habit, or a compulsion maybe, Haha!!
I want the goat goddess to be my grandma she looks so peaceful.
Im getting done a lot of work after watching your videos
Magazine is just such a long word who has time for that?
Any tips or places for finding interesting poems?
Map crow X splatbook synergy
Would you be able to show your process of digital line art please?
I don’t often work digitally, but I have some videos in mind about digital drawing coming up soon!!
@@mapcrow Radical.
Become all flame is one of my favorite quotes/stories.
Heck yeah!! Love that story!!
Subscribed good sir Subscribed.
i really need to make a pantheon...
Dunsany reference! If I wasn't subscribed already, that would have pushed me over.
We are Dunsany enjoyers in this house. Haha! Cheers!!
Hey Kyle you don't have to answer this if you don't want too, but are you Eastern Orthodox? I just assume because you mentioned the Saying of The Desert Father's and you said you talked to a novice monk. I think it's really cool if you are. Eastern Christianity is so different than the Catholic/Protestant Christianity you see in the western world. I'm Orthodox myself and I always get excited when I see others online. Regardless thank you for the video!
I am not, actually. I just have had the joy of talking to many wonderful folks!
Omg these designs are AMAZING!!! I wish i could draw like this :(
Do you have any royalty free art anywhere (or affordable art anywhere?…sorry if i sound like a douche for asking)
If you check my itch page link in the video description, you'll see my creative commons works! Mostly maps at this point!
Gods aren’t characters gods represent how a culture sees a world they come from a group trying to rationalize world phenomena
Tell that to Homer! Haha. But you are right, that’s one way to do it.