Pantheon wars

[SpaceMarine93]

Imagine if the deities from various mythologies and cultures, whether it be Norse, Greek, Slavic, Celtic, Egyptian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Indian, Chinese, and the other ancient bands of gods suddenly found themselves in a massive war, who might win out in the end? Which pantheon of gods are the strongest, in terms of each gods strength, their minion's strength, and other factors?

And while I am at it, for those pantheons of gods created in fantasy novels by authors, same situation; who are the strongest gods around?

You could go around with individual gods from each pantheons.

Please try to keep this to ancient world deities and not go careening into Abrahamic religions' deity or his expy from fantasy fictions.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Probably the Indian pantheon, if you include Buddha in with the Hindu pantheon.

As I recall from past analysis, the Greek pantheon lack combat skill relative to the Norse, but are far more "immortal", with higher end feats (Zeus, the battle with the Titans shaking the earth, etc').
Native American pantheons aren't combat useful, they're human level. Celts - Do heroes like Cuthulain "count"? (I remember the wars with the formic giants shattering the uk island land bridge in Irish mythology).
Chinese mythology - has some extremely powerful heroes (Monkey), but who aren't really gods (the celestial buerucracy is, well, buerucrats). They might count as having Buddha as well though (there's a myth of Monkey trying to fight Buddha. He loses to Buddha's little finger).

If we're going for fantasy mythologies - In rough, rough order:
Comics. (Marvel's cosmic pantheons, the living tribunal).
Warhammer (40K) - Chaos.
D&D/FR - IF! You're NOT counting AO, the lady of pain, the overgod(s), The Serpent (Asmodeus's real form). (The aforementioned would be above any list).
Lovecraft - arguable. Zero combat effectivity, but some of the hyperbole is quite high end (Azazoth being a universal lodestone).
I could go on, but it's rather to vague and inclusive.

[U-95]

Probably the Indian pantheon, if you include Buddha in with the Hindu pantheon.

As I recall from past analysis, the Greek pantheon lack combat skill relative to the Norse, but are far more "immortal", with higher end feats (Zeus, the battle with the Titans shaking the earth, etc').
Native American pantheons aren't combat useful, they're human level. Celts - Do heroes like Cuthulain "count"? (I remember the wars with the formic giants shattering the uk island land bridge in Irish mythology).
Chinese mythology - has some extremely powerful heroes (Monkey), but who aren't really gods (the celestial buerucracy is, well, buerucrats). They might count as having Buddha as well though (there's a myth of Monkey trying to fight Buddha. He loses to Buddha's little finger).

If we're going for fantasy mythologies - In rough, rough order:
Comics. (Marvel's cosmic pantheons, the living tribunal).
Warhammer (40K) - Chaos.
D&D/FR - IF! You're NOT counting AO, the lady of pain, the overgod(s), The Serpent (Asmodeus's real form). (The aforementioned would be above any list).
Lovecraft - arguable. Zero combat effectivity, but some of the hyperbole is quite high end (Azazoth being a universal lodestone).
I could go on, but it's rather to vague and inclusive.

Talking about D&D settings: where would enter the Greyhawk & Dragonlance pantheons?. On par with the FR one?.

As a side note, in the FR setting Ao serves another even more powerful deity about which nothing is known.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Probably the Indian pantheon, if you include Buddha in with the Hindu pantheon.

As I recall from past analysis, the Greek pantheon lack combat skill relative to the Norse, but are far more "immortal", with higher end feats (Zeus, the battle with the Titans shaking the earth, etc').
Native American pantheons aren't combat useful, they're human level. Celts - Do heroes like Cuthulain "count"? (I remember the wars with the formic giants shattering the uk island land bridge in Irish mythology).
Chinese mythology - has some extremely powerful heroes (Monkey), but who aren't really gods (the celestial buerucracy is, well, buerucrats). They might count as having Buddha as well though (there's a myth of Monkey trying to fight Buddha. He loses to Buddha's little finger).

If we're going for fantasy mythologies - In rough, rough order:
Comics. (Marvel's cosmic pantheons, the living tribunal).
Warhammer (40K) - Chaos.
D&D/FR - IF! You're NOT counting AO, the lady of pain, the overgod(s), The Serpent (Asmodeus's real form). (The aforementioned would be above any list).
Lovecraft - arguable. Zero combat effectivity, but some of the hyperbole is quite high end (Azazoth being a universal lodestone).
I could go on, but it's rather to vague and inclusive.

Talking about D&D settings: where would enter the Greyhawk & Dragonlance pantheons?. On par with the FR one?.

As a side note, in the FR setting Ao serves another even more powerful deity about which nothing is known.

Greyhawk - I don't know anything about it, except that Vecna came from there, and as I recall it's rather less high powered. (Powerful devils are on par with lesser gods there [the withch queens son - Iyuth?], while in FR proper, Arch devils are far far below even lesser gods (Elminister in Hell).
Dragonlance - Below FR. The gods have far more restrictions on what they can do, and the all time best feats are really not impressive. (Smashing Istar with a mountain or volcano - doesn't even come close to what mortal Netherese wizards were doing back in the day). Even Chaos (The "highgod of Dragonlance) didn't do anything overly impressive.
A final case, is that Raistlin at his best was just barely capable of defeating the most physically powerful of all he gods (Takhsis), and Raistlin while awesome is NOWHERE Near as powerful or capable as Elminister (I recall Ed Greenwood wrote a vs scenario between the two back in the day. It was brutal).

Also, Ao's "master" is Gary Gygax/The DM

EDIT: Vecna the arch lich, not Karsus

[DarkSilver]

For one, Chaos isn't the High God of Dragonlance..he was a "imposter" meant to oppose the other Gods. The High God, as stated by Weis and Hickman, is some distant and powerful being, with the Krynn Pantheon being a intermediary step (and those gods being more like the Greek Gods than anything else)

And Istar was smashed with a Meteor, not a Mountain or Volcano.



I'd still rank the Dragonlance Pantheon below the FR one though.....

[The Grim Squeaker]

For one, Chaos isn't the High God of Dragonlance..he was a "imposter" meant to oppose the other Gods. The High God, as stated by Weis and Hickman, is some distant and powerful being, with the Krynn Pantheon being a intermediary step (and those gods being more like the Greek Gods than anything else)

And Istar was smashed with a Meteor, not a Mountain or Volcano.



I'd still rank the Dragonlance Pantheon below the FR one though.....

KK.
It's been a very long while since I read the books

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

All D&D-setting pantheons can be lumped in together under Planescape (even though FR wants to be a special snowflake). Heck, for that matter, all the real pantheons are also included in Planescape. So, convenient point of comparison!

[U-95]

Probably the Indian pantheon, if you include Buddha in with the Hindu pantheon.

As I recall from past analysis, the Greek pantheon lack combat skill relative to the Norse, but are far more "immortal", with higher end feats (Zeus, the battle with the Titans shaking the earth, etc').
Native American pantheons aren't combat useful, they're human level. Celts - Do heroes like Cuthulain "count"? (I remember the wars with the formic giants shattering the uk island land bridge in Irish mythology).
Chinese mythology - has some extremely powerful heroes (Monkey), but who aren't really gods (the celestial buerucracy is, well, buerucrats). They might count as having Buddha as well though (there's a myth of Monkey trying to fight Buddha. He loses to Buddha's little finger).

If we're going for fantasy mythologies - In rough, rough order:
Comics. (Marvel's cosmic pantheons, the living tribunal).
Warhammer (40K) - Chaos.
D&D/FR - IF! You're NOT counting AO, the lady of pain, the overgod(s), The Serpent (Asmodeus's real form). (The aforementioned would be above any list).
Lovecraft - arguable. Zero combat effectivity, but some of the hyperbole is quite high end (Azazoth being a universal lodestone).
I could go on, but it's rather to vague and inclusive.

Talking about D&D settings: where would enter the Greyhawk & Dragonlance pantheons?. On par with the FR one?.

As a side note, in the FR setting Ao serves another even more powerful deity about which nothing is known.

Greyhawk - I don't know anything about it, except that Vecna came from there, and as I recall it's rather less high powered. (Powerful devils are on par with lesser gods there [the withch queens son - Iyuth?], while in FR proper, Arch devils are far far below even lesser gods (Elminister in Hell).
Dragonlance - Below FR. The gods have far more restrictions on what they can do, and the all time best feats are really not impressive. (Smashing Istar with a mountain or volcano - doesn't even come close to what mortal Netherese wizards were doing back in the day). Even Chaos (The "highgod of Dragonlance) didn't do anything overly impressive.
A final case, is that Raistlin at his best was just barely capable of defeating the most physically powerful of all he gods (Takhsis), and Raistlin while awesome is NOWHERE Near as powerful or capable as Elminister (I recall Ed Greenwood wrote a vs scenario between the two back in the day. It was brutal).

Also, Ao's "master" is Gary Gygax/The DM

EDIT: Vecna the arch lich, not Karsus

Greyhawk deities -at least before 4th-; were the default deities for D&D, and like the FR ones they had a book where one could see their stats -along with greek gods and I think others from ancient myhologies-.
I don't know if they were more or less powerful than the FR ones. At least some of 'em were quite similar (Ehlonna was very similar to Mielikki, from FR) and others like Corellon Larethian, Lolth, and Gruumsh are in both settings.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

See above. It's because they're unified via Planescape, so an FR elf worships the same Corellon as a Greyhawk elf.

[U-95]

I'm afraid I don't know very much about Planescape except it's ruled by the Lady of Pain and it's a kind of "Grand Central Station", in which you could go everywhere and see people from everywhere; I still remember some bad experiences during the campaign in which my character (a half-elf bard) ended there .

[Ritterin Sophia]

Sounds a lot like Scion's "A World at War" companion book.

[SpaceMarine93]

Well, which gods are the strongest, then, in all D&D?

[Sriad]

Well, which gods are the strongest, then, in all D&D?

Level 30+ optimized PCs.

[Master_Baerne]

Why, the Munchkin Pantheon, of course. Ruled from on high by the Munchking, Lord of Min-Maxing.

[Havok]

I submit that D&D Gods are not all that powerful at all as they only have dominion over D&D worlds.

The Celestials from the Marvel Universe.

Possibly Odin.

Then there is Death.

DC has Superman.

[Havok]

Edit: Got the Celestials confused with the Proemial Gods. Although the Celestials can wreck shop on pretty much anyone. They aren't strictly speaking 'gods' though and are just REALLY fucking advanced humanoid beings.

But yeah, the Proemial Gods. The two or three that are left.

Galactus of course. Duh.

[Mr Bean]

I'm afraid I don't know very much about Planescape except it's ruled by the Lady of Pain and it's a kind of "Grand Central Station", in which you could go everywhere and see people from everywhere; I still remember some bad experiences during the campaign in which my character (a half-elf bard) ended there .

So close yet so far from the mark.

Planescape is the Great Wheel
The Great Wheel is formed with the hub being the Outlands which is in essence a giant non-denominational plane with a giant spire at the center of it, floating above the Spire is Sigil the City of Doors which is in fact ruled by the Lady of Pain (Not hear real name but what locals call her) who prevents any gods from entering Sigil and punishes all those who attempt to worship her as a God or do anything to directly harm the city. The rest of the Great wheel is represented by the sixteen outer planes each of which is broadly tied to some concept of the D&D alignment system except there are extra planes like Limbo or the Beast lands which are tied to concepts rather than morality. In Planescape it's quite possible to travel and visit any God in his/her/it's domain out in the planes. While I say sixteen outer planes there's a great deal more than that since each plane has layers and those layers can be with finite or infinite which is why Ysgard has room for several different Norse and Germanic Pantheons as well as the extra D&D only gods. As well there are energy planes and transitional planes which puts the whole total at twenty seven possible planes plus the Prime's which are the D&D campaign worlds.

Speaking of matchup's the D&D books actually provide a system of comparing gods ranging from Demigods to Lesser, Intermediary, Greater and Over gods and including ranking the classical gods on the D&D scale. Jesus and Yaweh for example are very unimpressive power wise since all of Jesus acts could have been preformed by a 10th level Cleric while Yaweh only gets Greater God status because authors are generous for the ones they worship. The high end of the scale the Over-Dieties are the ones like AO in FR who don't give a shit about being worshiped and don't answer prayers but who's actions can still be measured if only by the impact on other gods.

[Ford Prefect]

Thread necromancy less important than making a point:

In the Mahabharata, the mortal hero Arjuna possessed two different astras which could destroy the entire universe. Arjuna's rival Karna was able to knock Arjuna's chariot around with normal arrows and eventually reduced it to dust, despite the fact that the charioteer was Krishna, and thus the chariot contained the weight of the entire universe and was otherwise indestructible. Lesser heroes than Arjuna could kill a million dudes and hundreds of thousands of elephants literally in an afternoon.

I don't even know where to begin with the devas, let alone the supreme beings of the Trimurti.