In my homebrew setting, anyone (or anything) that is worshipped by sentient beings receives divine power.
For example, when a dwarven civilisation began worshipping a smithing hammer as an icon of craftdwarfship, it slowly began accumulating divine power until it gained sentience and, in time, godhood. It is now the main god of craft, can aid anyone holding it in making whatever they (or it) desires, and can transform into any tool, etc. Gods can shape their form and abilities through worship, but they are also influenced by it against their will.
Most of the major deities made a divine concorde centuries ago, where they would divide the aspects of worship between them, and guide their followers to destroy any new divine beings threatening their power.
I feel that a system like this allows for more interesting situations than a traditional pantheon would have. Gods now need use their power to maintain control and faith, rather than only acting on morality. There are also a myriad of opportunities for backstabbing and other fun politics at a layer above nations.
My questions to @DnD are:
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Do you see any potential pitfalls in D&D a system like this might have?
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Do you have any good ideas, suggestions, or interesting aspects to your pantheons which might benefit a system like this?
This is very well done in Dimension 20’s Fantasy High live-play games. One of their dieties hates part of itself because they have 2 different worship bases, and one base REALLY hates the other base and ended up nearly wiping out the original worshipers. This has resulted in the god having the personality worshiped by the second base, with traces of the first personality still coming through, and hating itself for when that happens.
Something like would probably require the Gods to be very active in the world, just to protect themselves, since it enables the option of a hostile takeover or pseudo-mind-control of a greater power. With how easily cults are formed here, a world where the Gods are demonstrably real and mind control actually exists would just make it that much easier to create offshoots and true believers.