I look forward to sharing resources I’ve used for game design in future posts. Some of my favorites are Matt Colville’s YouTube series and On-Writing by Stephen King. This first post is about designing my Polynesian inspired game-setting. My worlds always focus on a theme. In this world, I wanted to capture the feel of a mythological story. So, I centered world development on the Pantheon.

While many mythological Pantheons could be used directly in TTRPGs, the vast array of gods within and across Polynesia made this challenging. I struggled to find a starting point, so went back to the drawing board to consider what I’d do if no Pantheon existed. If I were designing a Pantheon from scratch, I’d start with key domains the gods needed to support, create those, and add details as needed.

I used a variation of that approach here. I started with the gods in the Maori creation story. Then, where I found gaps, I looked for other Polynesian gods to fill the gap. Overall, my goal was to design a Pantheon that captured Polynesian mythology and worked well for game design.

So, let me quickly summarize the creation story I used and the gods in it.

In the beginning, Papa (mother earth) and Rangi (father sky) were locked in an eternal embrace, with the world between them stuck in darkness. Their children grew tired of the darkness and lack of space and discussed what should be done. First a suggestion to slay their parents was raised, but in the end the siblings, all but Tawhiri, agreed to rend them apart. One by one their children tried, and failed, until Tane with the strength of his forests reaching into the sky broke his parents’ eternal embrace. The gods listed below form the major gods of this Pantheon.

Tane. Tane is associated with forests and birds.

Rongo. Rongo is associated with cultivated food.

Haumia. The father of uncultivated food.

Tangaroa. Fish and reptiles.

Tawhiri. The father of winds and storms.

I realized I needed gods associated with healing, war, and death. So, I looked around Polynesian stories for gods to cover these domains. I choose two more from Maori mythology, and one from Hawaii:

Ku. Ku is the god of war in Hawaiian mythology.

Hina. Goddess of the Moon, associated with fertility, and mother of Maui.

Hine-Nui-Te-Po. The mother of death. There is a great story about Maui trying to make humans immortal and failing related to Maui and Hine.

One thing we’ll cover in a later post is the godly influence mechanic I’m working on building. This required lesser gods that have some association with the major gods. This part took more research. Stories from Polynesian mythology are filled with hundreds of minor gods, and I imagine thousands more have been lost to time. I could have just started picking and choosing which ones to use, but I wanted to first understand the hierarchy of Polynesian gods. Usually, these minor gods represented a narrow natural phenomenon. Two broad patterns emerge.

The first pattern is the progeny of the major gods covered narrow aspects of their broad domain. Given the emphasis on genealogy in Polynesian mythology this was unsurprising. The Maori creation myth provides one example of how these gods relate to the major gods. Tawhiri wanted to exact vengeance on his siblings. To do this he created a host of minor gods associated with the winds. These included gods for the four directions of the winds, squalls, and fierce storms. Then he sent these gods to battle against his siblings. The story goes on to describe his siblings doing the same.

The second pattern is slightly harder to disambiguate. Many of the gods themselves have multiple aspects, and compound names to represent them. One particularly profound example from Hawaiian mythology is Hina. Hina of Hawaii has dozens of names each an aspect of who she is. Some examples for Hina are Hina-puku-iʻa (Hina-gathering-seafood) the goddess of fishermen, and Hina-ʻopu-hala-koʻa who gave birth to all reef life.

While I haven’t fully selected the minor gods I’m using, I decided to borrow inspiration from both approaches. The minor gods will encompass narrow aspects of the major gods’ domains, even when they are not distinctly separate in the stories.