Speaking of which, I've been toying with the idea of unifying the sumerian and babylonian pantheons into a coherent whole (never been to keen in their division as presented in AD&D/planescape canon). Can we discuss this here, or should I start a new thread?
I agree on this, and would try to help you if you started said thread.
Also, I think that humans get extra special treatment when it comes to Powers. I think that either the divine rank of human gods should be lowered, or the deities of supposedly much older (dragons, elves, dwarves, orcs, giants) or more numerous (goblins, kobolds) races get a divine rank boost to show that they have not been lesiuring around all that time they spent as gods. Think about it, here you have the Finnish pantheon that has FIVE Greater powers listed. I look at the elvish list and there is only ONE greater power. Same with dwarves or even DRAGONS. Sorry, but thats just silly. Sure, the Finnish Myth may dictate that their powers are all incredibly powerful, but come on... Powers and clerics exaggerate all the time.
So what I suggest is either decrease the divine rank of most human deities to intermediate and lesser with the exception of pantheon chief, and/or increase the non human powers to a well deserved higher status. I think that deities like Io, Moradin, Corellan, Gruumsh, Shekinester, Ilsensine, Great Mother, Annam, etc, belong to a rank higher than greater, they can said to be "elder powers".
Sorry if the post was irrelevant. The lists above are great Rip. You are unbeliavable.
Thanks for the offer, I will try to start a new thread about it,, and see what comes out.
As for the other deities, I've never given it much thought, but I gathered that, roughly, a god's power derives from it's worshippers, the greater powers beign gods with quite a bit of worshippers, and seeig how humanity is such a prevalent species,, especially compared to the non-human races (we have a real human infestation here in the Prime), I don't find it too strange that there would be several powerful human gods. Now, you could also factor in some kind of pantheon hierarchy, power related. Two examples I've read in different "canon" sources that come to mind: Al'Akbar from Oerth Is arguably one of the most widely worshipped of the Baklunish deities (It's even the official religion on various states), yet the LGG (I think) states that he, being respectful of the "true" gods of the Pantheon, has refused to rise above demigod status, as he cosniders himself their servant, seeing as he could easily enough rise to at least lesser deity level. On the other hand, according to one issue of dragon (cant remember which one) Nomog-Geaya has not risen above lesser status, despite his widespread worship among hobgoblins, beacuse of Maglubiyet's rampant paranoia.
Another thought: perhaps humans are more fervent worshippers than other races, and they "feed" their gods more? What do you think?
Indeed, the deities/base classes section was a bit bland in my opinion, I too was hoping on more info abut it.
Now, regarding the pantheons, I'm no expert, but from what I've read, the civilizations in Ancient ;Mesopotamia, from the Sumerian city-states, to the Assyrian empire, largely worshipped the same pantheon, usually varying whom was the head deity according to whichever city was the most poweful/most influential at the time (i.e., during Uruk's prominence, An/Anu was king of the gods; afterwards, during Nippur's hegemony, Enlil became the ruler; when Babylon rose to prominence, its patron god, Marduk, inherited the rulership of the pantheon after defeating Tiamat), and a slight variation on naming, essentially, the ancient sumerian names (i.e. Enki, Inanna, Utu) and the Akkadian/Babylonian names (Ea, Ishtar, Shamash), so I was assuming it would be a case of "same god, different names".