Sample file Pantheons V his is the Norse Pantheon, home to the Norse gods of the sprawling boreal hills — lands The Gods replete with tremendous russet columns of The deities of the Norse pantheon are of two specific ancient forest pines, iron grey glacial mountain families, the Vanir and the Aesir. The Vanir trace back to the peaks, and rushing rivers valleys rich with ancient matrilineal grain-worshipping cultures that predate game and thickly furred predators — are the incursion of the warlike hunter tribes, whose gods were Tlargely untouched by the mythological and the Aesir. Unlike the cultural upheaval of the Olympians, religious tumults of the Sumero-Akkadian or Vedic deities, sublimated as a titanomachy between the gods and the older but were not as isolated as those of the Kemetic pantheon. generation of titans, the Norse conflict erupted between two More than any other, the Norse pantheon shares traits with classes of deities of the same generation. For the Norse the Olympian pantheon: i.e. a clade of masculine hunter and people, the powers of the Aesir and Vanir were more evenly storm gods overlaid on a matrix of paleolithic mother- matched in their cultural influence than their southern goddess worship. counterparts in the Olympian lands. In the beginning, Ymir the giant was formed in the chaos of The following is an extensive but not comprehensive listing Ginnungagap, the yawning void, a Norse parallel to the of the deities in the Norse cosmology. Only bolded deities are Olympian Chaos. Ymir, in his thirst, drank from the cow presented as creatures in this text: goddess Adhulma and, in this way, acquired the creative Angerbo a (CR 31) Mother of monsters powers of the primordial female deity. Through his dreams ð Annar (CR 35). God of water and slumber, Ymir brought forth the first titan-like figures. Bergelmer (CR 31). Father of the Jotun These led to the j tnar, or giants. Adhulma licked free a ö Bestla (CR 33). Sister of Mimer frozen primordial humanoid named Buri, who fathered Borr, Bor (CR 32). God of the mountains who later fathered Wotan. Wotan and his brothers led a Bure (CR 33). God of ice titanomachy against Ymir and succeeded, then built the Fenrir (CR 35). Wolf of Ragnarok known cosmos from the remains of their primordial ancestor. Freyja (CR 32). Goddess of love and beauty The cosmic tree Yggdrasil took root, its branches and roots Freyr (CR 34). God of sunlight and fertility slipping through the invisible infrastructure of the cosmos. Heimdall (CR 32). God of mead and doom Wotan, deep in search of wisdom, sacrificed himself to the Hel (CR 32). Goddess of death and suffering world upon this sacred tree. There, he gained cosmic power Hrimthursar (CR 32). Father of frost giants and profound knowledge and was reborn fit for kingship over J rd (CR 34). Goddess of the earth the gods of the Norse pantheon. ö Loge (CR 32). God of fire and deception Down through the ages of the Norse culture, the gods have Mimer (CR 33). God of mind and memory played out their familial dramas similar in essence to the Nat (CR 35). Goddess of night dramas of the Olympian deities fraught with very human — Sif (CR 32). Goddess of grain failings and emotions while dealing with ideas and objects of Surtr (CR 33). God of fire giants divine import, the Norse deities and pantheon embodied on a Thor (CR 34). God of storms cosmic scale the Norse people and their culture. They were Tyr (CR 32). God of justice reflections of their worshippers, writ large in the branches of Valkyrie (CR 31). Goddess of death and valor Yggdrasil, and prone to the same sorts of personal failures Ve (CR 33). Brother of Odin and heights. Villi (CR 33). Brother of Odin Unlike their Olympian cousins to the south, the Norse Wotan (CR 35). God of wisdom deities were more thoroughly tempered to the older grain goddess world view of cyclical time. In addition, their traditions seem inspired in part by the eastern Zoroastrian The Clergy faith, the first to ever put forth the notion of an end of time The clergy of the Norse pantheon are a learned elite literate and a battle between good and evil forces for control of the in runic alphabets. Animal trappings flourish their clothing universe. These ideas were adapted by the Norse culture in and artifacts, or stones associated with the elements of ice, the concept of Ragnarok, a cosmic, universe-ending battle storm, life, or fire. Men as equally as women have access to between the disparate gods — a battle so cataclysmic that the cosmic knowledge, owing in part to Wotan’s and Mimir’s entire cosmos must be renewed in its aftermath. Even the masculine claims on the mental realm, and both sexes gods — or most of them, that is — must be reborn in due constitute a near-equal share of the priesthood. time, only to repeat the course of destiny again and again, Druids more than clerics or paladins make up the majority always chasing Ragnarok. of the priests of the Norse gods, though nature clerics and Samplegreen paladins are not unh eard ofilef. PANTHEONS V: NORDIC 2.