Header

Actual Mythos (Classics / History / Religion Lesson) + Gallery

>He's playing a game about the Gods, and he doesn't know his mythology.
>>>I shiggydiggy

Gods & Pantheons

le Roman Pantheon

The domain of the Roman Pantheon stretched from the heart of modern-day Italy throughout the extents of the Roman Empire (Read: Most of Europe and Northern Africa at it's peak) and as you probably already know, was in short the 'abridged version' of the Greek Pantheon; complete with donutsteel OC designs, a few new fanfics and a few other notable variations within the Pantheon (mostly regarding God prominence and worship). That's not to say however they were identical, nor completely equitable - however metaphorically 'close' you think they were to one another, it's probably at least double / triple that in metaphorical 'distance'. Fundamentally, it was the Greek Pantheon adapted into the Tribal Roman religion and traditions.

Owing to their extreme imperialism, the Romans would often refuse to acknowledge other polytheistic religions and Pantheons of the period throughout the Empire entirely (aside from the Greek Pantheon), instead rephrasing them as part of their own (that the smelly outsiders simply had wrong) - one such example being how the Romans refused to acknowledge the Celtic Lugh, instead declaring him as a false depiction of Mercury. While this was almost always an imposed-on process, there are still a good amount of Gods which were borrowed from other cultures of the time (a notable one being Mithras; greatly modeled after the Mesopotamian / Hindu Mitra ~~later known as the Gnostic / Abrahamic Demiurge / Yaldabaoth~~) - hence why it would be incorrect to blanketly say they were 'Greeks Version 1.1'.
At least, a more accurate oversimplification would be 'Greeks: Hacked Save file + Modded Version' instead of 'Greeks Version 1.1'.
This practice of 'ignore-most-absorb-some'/ continued until the breakup of the Empire, and ensuing Christianization of the Byzantine remains (which is also where Christendom got some of it's vicious imperialist streak throughout the Middle Ages specifically, as fallout - though Christian aggression had different motives before then too).

For the longform version of their mythos, just see the bit on the Greek Pantheon. The following will cover most of the differences in practice.

The Romans believed that everything had an associated 'spirit/s' {their 'Numen/a'}, and that the big or encompassing spirits were the Gods. If something comes to be, it will always manifest an associated spirit, weak first, and growing as it grows in magnitude / importance - inverse to the understanding of he Greeks. The Greeks placed the conceptual personification first, with the Gods and their divine family tree being from which reality was borne from; Romans placed the object before the manifest personification of them. Uniquely what differentiated humans from objects was their 'genius' (functionally, their 'soul / guardian spirit'). And fundamentally - that's pretty much it - this core foundation was the belief of the formative Italian tribes that made up the Roman Empire, hence why it's the most deviant thing from the Greek Pantheon, that the Roman Pantheon otherwise mirrored for the most part.
For clarification, unlike the Romans, the Greeks believed that the Divine were only things that were connected to the absolute rats-nest that is the family tree of the Gods. Meanwhile, the Romans were more 'everything-is-possible', provided the spirit manifested well enough. A modern example would be that the Greeks would not have a God of the Internet, unless a pair of Gods created one; meanwhile the Romans would say that the Internet has manifested enough of a powerful spirit today that a 'God' of the Internet would be plausible by their own logic. In practical terms, the Romans placed the Egg before the Chicken, the Greeks the Chicken before the Egg.
Honestly, nice and simple compared to some other features. ~~I should have done this Pantheon later on in the doc, as an easy-one / break for myself...~~

The key differences from what was not!copied from Greek Pantheon (aside from those fundamentals of belief) were that most Gods were given their own modified names (in Latin, instead of Greek), and were a given a general war-throughline theme to their conceptualised designs (for example; Hera was seen by the Greeks as motherly and unarmed, while the Roman Juno / Regina was usually lightly armoured, and armed with a Javelin along with the same shield that was previously Zeus's {Jupiter's / Jove's} Aegis).
In terms of 'da narrative'; the key mythological departure is the tale of Romulus and Remus; two Demigods of Mars {Ares} and Ilia / Rhea Silvia (not the Greek Titan Rhea, just a naming convention alike Keto ___ or Mons ___), who were raised by a female wolf after being left to the elements by Ilia's cucked husband. After a dispute between the two led to Remus's death, Romulus went on to found Rome, and thus the divine origin heart of the Roman Empire.
Ironically, it's disputed as to what the dispute actually was, but often taken as which hill to build Rome on - hence the saying "Is this the hill you want to die on?" (when questioning conviction), is a figurative declaration of intent that you are going to kill the person you ask if they won't budge on their opinion.

In terms of truly unique deities, the foremost was the four-faced God, Janus (God of Flux, Duality, Change, both Beginnings & Endings and as most commonly known, God of Doorways), who like the previously stated foundational concepts, originally hailed from the tribes / protocultures that occupied the area of Italy, before the Roman Empire really got going, and was a prominent God within Rome proper (a Patron to the city of sorts, similar to how Athens and Athena were intertwined, on top of Athena's more overarching role within the Pantheon). Janus is given as the as Pantheon Head of the Romans, and was on equal footing with (if not outright said to be above) Jupiter {Zeus} - with Janus's ritual sacrifices getting absolute priority at the start of wars (to essentially pray for a good start, passage and end to the conflict - not quite a God of 'Time', as much as 'Things going as planned'). As previously mentioned, there's many more Gods in the Roman Pantheon were not a direct rip of the Greeks, like Mithras - for example Orcus & Dis / Dis Pater were both additional Gods of the Underworld on equal footing to Pluto {Hades} representing different aspects of Underworld affairs (conflated with other Greek entities) - but to sit here and list every difference would take all day, considering many were partial-rips that were simply symbolic of things that were of differing importance to the Romans.
Finally, it would be amiss not to mention that Julius Caeser and Gaius Octavia (aka Caesar Augustus / Octavian) were major names to the Romans.... and not just historically. These specific two Emperors of Rome were so revered that they were unironically seen as Gods that had descended to the Mortal Realm to lead the Romans in their formative years, and as such, 'deified post-mortem' doesn't quite cut it when talking about the two. Both were seen as Gods within the Roman Pantheon, and to a colloquial level for the average citizen at the very least.

As for concluding notes to loop back round to the start (since it's interesting) - ever wonder why so damn many statues were defaced (or more accurately, de-faced), usually with ther noses broken off; especially in Greece / Egypt? It was superstition of the Romans (and later Medieval people) that the Numen of statues could either act as a guardian or become malevolent with time - and as such, by snapping the nose off, you'd suffocate and kill the Numen of the statue. So when the Romans (and later Christians / Muslims who incorporated some of these beliefs) went through and invaded each region in conquest, for good luck / self-defence they'd go out of their way to break noses of statues, leading to why so many (eg see: The Sphinx of Giza) oddly lack a nose, but are perfectly preserved otherwise.
~~#Terminus_for_Smite~~ ~~Inshallah cultistbros, he WILL make it in, unaltered from Paladins~~

Roman Gallery

le Norse Pantheon

Hailing from Northern Europe, specifically Scandinavia / the Nordic Countries (but also encompassing much of Northern Germany, hence why it's sometimes referred to a Germanic Culture, even if the Germanics were ever-so-slightly different), the Norse were in part a progression of the tribal European traditions that preceded them - however over the millennia of chronal distance it has from the Celts, it had manifested into a very different and more narratively complex Pantheon in it's own right. While not exactly equatable, it shares a notable amount of similarities and concepts with the neighbouring Slavic Pantheon/s, and still is a foundation of much of modern day Scandinavian and Germanic folklore. As with much of history, lots of what was practiced has been lost to the ages, however, in a ~~fucking near-first for tribal Northern Europe~~ twist of luck for us, a few ~~faggots~~ poets of the era broke the mold and decided to write some of it down; and as such, much of what we know comes from the Eddic texts - the Prose Edda being the more fleshed out of the two, but written from the PoV of a minor Nordic sect (thus can differ greatly from archeological records ~~and with no real indication when~~), while the Codex Regius / Poetic Edda is more 'accurate' to general Norse mythology, but lacks any general throughline or direction (essentially being a collection of, you guessed it, Poems).
As a point to note on before I begin proper, Norse mythology has a ~~nea-~~ no, not near, *actually* autistic level of minor and convoluted details that are functionally worthless ~~mirroring the people that live in the region today~~. While prophecy, ritual, sacrifice and mysticism were all important to the Norse, this manifested in a fuck ton of things like everyone getting names, minor associated groupings, specific numbers and otherwise random details being noted on. While I'm sure LARPing /pol/ neo-pagans will want to lynch me for this, I'm not going to write about every '15th crow of the Golden-Green Cockerel Yyrdshidt at 3:50 dawn before the mighty giant Jothuugifthsafuk bellowed at 76.9 decibels to signal the time when Snorrin went out to walk his dog Houndrtormuhdikovr' in an introductory doc. Because nobody gives a fuck. Just note that it's a facet of Norse mythology if you want to look further into it.

As described in the Voluspa (the Norse Creation Poem); we begin in the infinite spatial void (not a Primordial Sea, we're in a void) known as the Ginnungagap.
Over time, 9 distinct realities emerged, later known as the 9 Realms (unlike other autistic details, these are actually important, as I'll describe later) and perchance, water manifested throughout the 9 Realms as they drifted closer together - condensing due to the differences in heat between the Realms (the hottest and coldest realms in particular). This water channeled into 12 Great Rivers known collectively as the Elivgar, spanning between the Realms (see what I mean with autism? all those rivers have names - the only one really 'mattering' being the Rivier Gjoll, the river running closest to Helheim and acting as the Norse equivalent of the Styx - the entrance to Helheim being the Gjallarbru bridge). From there, the impurities / poisons within the Elivgar froze into Icebergs within Niflheim, then were imbued with life and warmth within Muspelheim - and when those poison-floes (now filled to the brim with the warmth of life) converged, a great ice lake was born. And from that lake, we begin with our primordial being, Ymir. Paradoxically, Ymir's carcass synchronously makes up all of reality, and yet is born from it. Oh, and the Elivgar also all originate from a post-creation entity according to the Prose Edda - just don't think about it too hard.
Ymir is a Jotunn - best translated as a Frost Giant but best described as an Bridge Troll, over a Frost Elemental - and from the icicles that formed in his armpits, the 'lesser Jotunn' race is collectively born. More scandinavian autism goes on, a cow 'appears', licks an iceblock, then from the Primordial pairing of 'The-Area-of-a-Block-of-Ice-that-got-Licked + Cow-that-licked-the-ice-block', a child is born, the first of the Gods. The Gods and the Jotunn get along somewhat well to begin with, but by this child's great grandchildren, relations had broken down entirely due to the brutish and ignorant nature of the Jotunn. These great-granchildren (Odin + two brothers nobody cares about after this) take it upon themselves to put an end to Ymir + genocide the Jotunn - which they do with shocking efficiency.
With Ymir's corpse, reality becomes furnished with life and matter, and everything previously not covered comes into existence. Odin and his brothers create humanity as a singular trinitial God using their different strengths, then split and part ways (Odin taking it upon himself to learn about the nature of all things). However, the brothers forgot the Golden Rule of all good genocides - they accidentally left some of the Jotunn alive, including one named Bergelmir (who would repopulate the Jotunn in preparation for a full overthrow of the Gods). While attempts were made to initially put them down again, when it became clear they couldn't be stopped as easily as last time, the Gods and the Jotunn came to an uneasy truce. The Aesir and the Jotunn are from there on out antagonistically opposed - not necessarily to the point of open conflict on sight, but more like a deep-held grudge between the two that is easily instigated.
And thus begins the escapades of the Gods, and the contents of the Eddic epics. ~~Complex and autistic, I know, but hopefully I've summarised enough.~~

As previously mentioned, there are 9 different 'Planes of Reality' / Realms that interact with each other in various ways (via Elivgar / Bifrost etc) and all revolving around Yggdrasil, a incomprehensibly gigantic Ash tree that makes up the backbone of the Norse Universe.
These 9 Realms (roughly from top to bottom) are;

Muspelheim (Realm of Eternal Fire, the Sea of Flames) (guarded / 'ruled' by Surtr, the Fire Giant)
Asgard (Realm of the Aesir / Gods, and VIP Afterlife for the Glorious Heroes) (ruled by Odin, the All-father)
Vanaheim (Heavily Afforested Realm of the Vanir / Life Gods + Prophets) (ruled by Njordr, Lord of the Vanir)
Alfheim (Realm of the Light Elves, an endless, eternally sun-kissed meadow) (ruled by Freyr, Lord of Lords and King of Kings)
Midgard (Realm of Mankind, our World) (split up and ruled by Humans)
Svartalfheim (Realm of the Dark Elves, the unironic Shadow Realm, an endless, eternally shadow-cloaked field) (few attested inhabitants at all - the only distinct Dark Elf on record being the Cruel Smith, Volundr ~~commonly mis-correlated with Dwarves, in reality they were more a trinitial set of races with the Light Elves / Dwarves / Dark Elves, all 3 being Smithing-races of various expertise~~)
Jotunnheim (Realm of Eternal Cold and the Frost Giants) (partially ruled by Skrymir, the Trickster of the Badlands - but like with Midgard / Humans, rulership split by locality)
Myrkheim / Nidavell (Realm of the Dwarves, the Cavernous Under-world) (ruled by Sindri, the Golden Dwarf)
Niflheim (Realm of the Freezing Mists) (which contains Helheim (Realm of the Dead, ruled by Hel), a common misconception they're separate Realms).

Of the remaining mythology, there are two major events to note on:

First is the Aesir / Vanir War, wherein the two major groups of Gods went to war for who would rule over all things. The two were separate branches of the family tree from the 'Primordial Cow + Iceblock' OTP, so while both groups are Gods, they weren't allies - one such difference being that the Vanir looking down upon how the Aesir decided to slaughter the Jotunn.
Leading the Aesir was Odin, with his team being all his children and brothers families; names such as his son Thor (God of Thunder and Vitality, and on his mother's side, Nott's grandchild), Baldr (Immortal God of Perfect Heroism and Pure Light) and Tyr (God of Justice) - leading the Vanir was Njordr, God of Summer and the Sea (Skadi's, Jotunn-Goddess of Winter and the Mountains, ex-husband) who had Freya, Heimdallr and Ullr (and others, just listing the names in-game) batting for him.
tl;dr Aesir won
After the war, peace was achieved, and Njordr still ruled over Vanaheimr, albeit as a minor God in the Aesir-ran Pantheon.
Secondly, Ragnarok (the Apocalypse) is prophesised to come when Loki's three children with the Frost Giant Angrboda all free themselves, at the call of 3 Mythical Roosters (plus even more minor prophetic aspects).
Loki was a half-frost giant, and a continual instigator within the 9 Realms (most notably when he executed Baldr with a Spear of Mistletoe, and thus was chained to a rock to suffer a snake poisoning him for the rest of eternity) - his children and their required actions being Hel the Crone breaking free of Helheim, Fenrir the Giant Wolf breaking free of his unbreakable dwarven ribbon-chain and Jormungandr the ouroborotic World Serpent / Dragon breaking free of his tail (from his mouth) as he surrounded the worlds under the oceans (Thor accidentally fishing / lifting him up being common myths). The prophetic irony of Hel / Fenrir was that their grudge against the Gods only came to be, because of the pre-emptive actions the Gods took against them to 'prevent' Ragnarok. After they all break free, the Jotunn will be led by Surt to slaughter the Aesir, and in the process taking out almost all life in the 9 Realms as collateral, for a Great Reset.

Norse Gallery

le Chinese Pantheon

There's lots to explain here, because nobody ever gets it right. Consider this a genuine cultural relay.

Spanning through the various ex-dynasterial nations of East Asia (now communistically 'united' as modern China), the Chinese Pantheon is known by a variety of names and encompasses a large range of incorporated practices - best translated into English as Chinese Folk Religion(s), but I find the most internally used Chinese term to describe the Folk Religion is 'Shendao', which is thus what I'll be running with, in reference to it.
While Shendao has seen a definite decline of the whollistically devout in modern times, it's still widely respected in China and is essentially equatable to the national customs and traditions of current Chinese people - observed (but not necessarily practiced) to some extent by over a billion people to this day ~~despite the best initial efforts of the CCP to completely eradicate it from the multiple nations it occupies within the Chinese borders, with the Four Olds campaign~~.

So, first things first. Chinese Pantheon. Shendao. It ain't like the other Pantheons. Don't approach it like you would the Greeks, or most of the other Pantheons in-game for that matter.
The Chinese Pantheon operates differently to other Pantheons - while most classify their Gods as a family or tribe, the Chinese are far, far more bureaucratic, with many positions in the Divine Realm being outright earned from a mix of both caste and meritocracy. The Heavenly Court isn't just a fancy Chinese name - everything is organised, planned and professionally carried out. If the Gods ever lashed out in unjustified anger (like how Zeus might just choose to up and ...SMITE!!! some motherfucker if they pissed him off) it is seen more as an abuse of power and a failing within 'da system', rather than the whim of a fickle God.
The Chinese Pantheon is not a family - it's a method of upper-Divine governance (...a Heavenly Court); complete with a shitton of paperwork, earned positions, consultancy with experienced individuals / specialists in supernatural dealings, raises and periodic company leave / sick days. And I'm not making any of this up, it really is not like the other Pantheons. The Chinese Pantheon are professional motherfuckers ~~brought down by the fact that the words 'Chinese' and 'Professional' are rarely synchronous words.~~.
There's quite a bit of confusion regarding this Pantheon outside of China - in part due to the mostly closed off internet preventing casual communication, in part to the wholly different cultural mindset and understanding the Chinese have towards their Gods, in part because it's often mixed up with Taoism / Buddism / any of the other innumerable smaller religions within the historically turbulent, ~~cult-ridden,~~ lowlands that make up the geography of the Chinese region. And, like many other Pantheons, there isn't one outright 'major' sect - simply concepts and beliefs that are widely shared, but are not concrete in any way. And it pulls aspects from the other religions in the area (especially Taoism - which it shares many concepts with, but is certainly not equatable to). AND.... ~~I-I dunno I just wanted a third sentence starting with And.~~

An easy example of this 'lack of cultural confusion' would be Wu Xing and the overarching concept of Feng Shui. The easiest Western translation would be the Classical Elements (Fire / Water / Earth / Air ~~/ Aether~~) that were used in the early sciences / Alchemy - however that fails to put across for the far more widespread and intrinsic nature of the practice of elemental observation within Shendao, such as how Feng Shui plays a role in many Shendao daily practices; where things down to the positioning of furniture or the timing of actions throughout a day can have a positive or negative effect on the elements, that are silently and passively associated with an entity or concept (which is why practitioners keep the North West of their house clean, or rarely like having bedroom windows that overlook bodies of water - among innumerable other things that may seem schizo without context of it being for the good of the Qi around them).
Another example would be as simple as a translation, for which there is no better word. Let's exemplify with the word 'Immortality'. To a Western understanding, immortality is immortality - you can't ever die, often with free invulnerability to boot, but sometimes is that case that even if you get obliterated, you'll heal back up over time. Meanwhile to the Chinese / Shendao, the immortals are still very much vulnerable, and 'Immortality' is in reference to a single full lifetime of ageless life (hence Shendao understands one can have multiple immortalities - confusing as that may be to a Westerner). Also, all the names and phrases within Chinese translate difficultly - accurate both as singular words as they're spoken or as split phonetic words as they're spelt, closer to the written Chinese alphabet (tl;dr Taichi & Tai Chi are the same thing, I prefer split names for accuracy), creating further confusion, even when both parties are discussing something that both understand what they're generally talking about (for example, if you tried to look up Wu Xing because of above, you'll find it's colloquially referred to as Wuxing in the West, even though it's 'more correctly spelt as' but fundamentally exactly same as Wu Xing).
You'll also notice quite a lot of uncommon adjectives be brought up repeatedly ('auspicious', 'heavenly' etc) - don't ask, just it's how it translates, because the Chinese language can have a sentence with multiple, equally correct, translations simply owing to the alphabet-equivalent they use (especially within mythology, where text often *deliberately* has multiple translations for poetic and philosophical flair).

Overall, little cultural overlap, and lots of potential cultural confusion.
Don't worry, it goes the same the other way around, and there's funny elements both ways around. When they say 'China Number 1', they unironically think that statement alone will convince you of their superiority, which is in part why Chinese shills are so notoriously obvious.
Cultural bullshit over, now more onto the mythology-stuff.

A core concept within Shendao is that there is a general dualism to everything - wherein things are most at harmony when clearly opposed, but with parts of their opposition definedly contained within them. This is better known as concept of 'Tai Chi'. The most common depiction of this is the Tai Jitu (commonly confused to be Yin and Yang itself, not just a representative diagram of the concept) - you already know what it looks like, a circle with a black and white curved tear drop circling the other, and an opposite coloured circle in each.
Chi / Qi (same pronunciation; better anglacised as Chi, more accurately Qi) in of itself is the concept of spiritual energy within the Universe, and if I'm being direct, it's basically a cross between Karma and The Force from Star Wars - an invisible yet widespread magic that can be cultivated with training and meditation to perform supernatural feats; but in Qi's case, to also live a healthy, happy and lucky life. An Auspicious ~~Social Credit Score~~ Qi is beneficial, will lead to great success, open new pathways in life for you and your pristine jade-like beauty wife (or husband, ladies) and will let you retire early to tend to your orchard of delicate plum trees, with petals that flow like water in the wind; meanwhile an Ominous ~~Social Credit Score~~ Qi will fuck you up in a back alley, lead to your kids getting (righteously and rightfully) raped + murdered and will finish up by shitting in your bowl of rice before you have a heart attack. The quality of one's Qi can be altered in a variety of ways, but is mainly passed along via one's bloodline - which is how the Chinese brand of a caste system works, as those born into the backgrounds of those who have done great acts quite literally become more divine and are capable of ever greater acts as they ascend further, with the endpoint being a slow 'escape' from the cycle of reincarnation, via Enlightenment or Ascension (each method offering a different kind of escape from the cycle of life). Another way ones Qi can greatly be altered, is via being worshipped (or more accurately, 'venerated' / 'respected'), which why the Gods still like their offerings, and aren't just sat on their ass, meditating all day.
So.
Got hit by a car? Probably deserved it, bad qi. You want others to help your crippled ass out of the motorway? Shouldn't have had bad qi, don't want that shit rubbing on us. Got it all caught on LiveLeak and now Westerners on a Ecuadorian Yak Racing Imageboard are laughing at you? Probably deserved it, bad qi. Oh, and those at the top are rarely capable of doing wrong - because if they did wrong, how are they still at the top then, huh? Fuckin' dumbass. They gotta have good Qi to be there to begin with, fuckin retard. Are you beginning to understand this otherwise 'odd' stereotypical behaviour from the Chinese?
With this Divine-linked caste system in mind, those seen as Divine are not necessarily so because they can trace their bloodline to an original creator (like with the Greek Pantheon) but are instead Divine / Ascendant because they have cultivated lots of good Qi. And these Divine beings can yet lose their divinity entirely or even become subhuman, with enough wrongful and morally evil acts. Likewise, even if one hails from a lineage of thousands of wrongdoers, even the most despicable of creatures could eventually redeem themselves, albeit over thousands (if not millions) of years or through countless generations of repentance to 'everything'.
And yes, Mao Zedong & Xi Jinpeng are indeed recognised as ascendant / partially ascendant to Godhood to some extent, and in more sects of Chinese Folk Religion than you'd think I'm fucking with you with.

So, to begin with the actual narrative (and not just concepts you're not Chinese enough to understand), a hairy Giant called Pan Gu created everything, after hatching from an egg of Tai Chi within absolute chaos / nothingness (Wu Ji) by mere chance. He used an Axe of his own osmosis to separate chaos into Yin and Yang, which became the blurred boundary between the Sky and Earth (Yin being the murky Darkness that became Earth, Yang being the clear light that became the Sky and the Heavens). As he grew up, he raised the Sky and thickened the Earth, defining them, along with the help of the 4 Auspicious Beasts of the compass - Xuan Wu the Black Warrior (Tortoise with a Snake Tail) of the North, Qing Long the Azure Dragon of the East, Bai Hu the White Tiger of the West and Zhu Que the Vermilion Peahen (not a Feng Huang / Phoenix) of the South. After 18,000 years, he sacrificed himself and his carcass became everything else.
The major remnants of him were the first Gods, the largest remnant of which was Hua Xu (literal 'Mother of China'), who got pregnant after stepping in Lei Gong's footprint (A God of Thunder), and had two human-headed snake-twins called Fu Xi and Nu Wa, the first 'Man' and 'Woman', who then married and did an incest to create the other Gods. Humanity proper came around either after Nu Wa flinged some clay onto the Earth, Pangu's fleas transformed postmortem, or the Jade Emperor made them; with a common throughline between all humanity-creation narratives being that there are some humans that have effort put into them (Nobility / those who start at a more auspicious point), while others were misshapen by rain or haphazardly made (creating Peasantry, and for the really unlucky ones, disease and disability - all who then needed to cultivate themselves more to reach a more auspicious existence).
From there, tl;dr mythological narrative happens, over time the original entities and deities pledge their allegiance to the most auspicious beings of any given period, which by the end of [various escapades leading up to today] ends up with the 16th Ruler of the Divine Court (out of 56 predicted total) - the current reigning Jade Emperor. This forms the bureaucracy of the Heavenly Court as we know it today, commanding rule of the Chinese Divine Realm and the matters pertaining to it outside of our Mortal Realm (with the given Emperor / Dynasty of a period seen as overseeing Earthly matters, subordinate to the Jade Emperor ~~or more precisely, overseeing 'everything under the sky', which is why the Chinese were / are so expansionist. And why 'China will grow larger' is not propaganda... it's almost a hymn~~). Since the start of recorded history, many (actual / real) people have been said to have ascended to the Heavens after death and taken up positions within the Heavenly Court, most notable of which being the Han Dynasty general Guan Yu, who is said to be the next in line for position of Ruler of the Heavenly Court after the current Jade Emperor runs out of time on his immortalities. ~~Or Guan Yu already is the 17th Heavenly Emperor, and the Jade Emperor currently is in retirement, depending on the sect in question.~~
Just a heads up, there is dispute within Shendao as to the Jade Emperor's relative position, given the huge amount of variation in beliefs / major sects. I've explained with the 16th-of-56 version, as it appears to be the most common + logical to Shendao fundamentals and mythology, however there are some who say he's an eternal single-time supereme divine sovereign, some others place him below the entity I'm about to explain and some others again place him below the Budda (within Shendao-Buddhist hybrid beliefs). Take your pick, but 16th-of-56 will probably be the one that'll most impress the asian chick you're trying to score with, to quell your yellow fever. You racemixing / race-fetishistic dog. Disgusting.

As for other notable mythology, it's important to touch on ~~the Chinese Jesus~~ the formation of the collective Chinese people (not just the creation of humanity), set around ~2600BC.
After everything settled up above in the Divine Realm, the humans that were formed as a result of [various opposing myths, but let's go with Nu Wa's for brevity] began to collect themselves, thus making the first tribes, which among themselves were in constant conflict.
This resulted in the 3 opposing Classical tribes of China:

The Shennong tribe; headed by the descendants of the God of the same name, Shennong (known as the Yan Di, or the Flame Emperors)
The You Xiong tribe; headed by the heavenly-sent Yellow Emperor (Huang Yi)
The Jiu Li Tribe; headed by the monstrous Chi You (no title, but given as a major God of War and a lesser God of Weather/Rain).

After the Shennong suffered a decisive defeat against the Jiu Li, the remainder of the Shennong tribe and many of the minor tribes amalgamated into the Youxiong, forming the greater Yan Huang tribe - and from there BTFO Chi You.
Afterwards, the Yellow Emperor assumed the throne of China in the mortal realm for a century or so, along with the Flame Emperors serving under him, before passing on - teaching fundamental civilisational concepts such as animal husbandry / taming, farming methods, medicine and compasswork (some of which was taught to him by Bai Ze, a legendary man-goat chimera of prophetic fortune). Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jiu Li tribe would either be assimilated into the formative Chinese nation, or headed North / East (basically Mongolia and Manchuria) to make up the barbarians that would aggress the Chinese for milennia to come (referred to as 'barbarians' by the Chinese, essentially as a coping mechanism to imply they were less advanced as them - though decisive military records and subjugational history quite clearly indicates otherwise).
To this day, it's given that the Yellow Emperor is the collective forefather of the 'true' Chinese people and is their connection to their Divine Realm, to the point their internal way to refer to themselves translates directly to 'Children of the Yellow Emperor and Flame Emperor' and, yes, this is also indeed why we call chinky people yellow when being racist (instead of referring to their actual skin colour), as within initial cultural communications with them, they essentially referred to themselves as such. 'We are of the Yellow Emperor, we are Yellow'.

The existence of the Yellow Emperor is awkward to describe, to say the least. He features as an extra 5th Auspicious Beast who didn't work alongside Pan Gu (and in the form of a golden dragon at that, Qing Long btfo), he's pegged as the one teaches humanity a huge amount of fundamental concepts (despite alternate myths, where it's split up amongst more 'traditional' Shendao Gods), and reaches his unique position of Earthly Sovereign with none of the background that figures such as the Jade Emperor underwent (the Yellow Emperor not only does not answer to the Jade Emperor, but is supreme, never incorrect and is in a position that even the Buddist Buddas fucking kneel to him)
Real blasphemy nigga time: If the Yellow Emperor sounds like some donutsteel OC cult of personality from ancient times (many of which plagued Ancient Lowland China, and still do to this day) that was shoddily tacked onto Shendao... you'd be correct, and you should overlook / ignore mentions of him when talking about Shendao, as he's completely divorced from the 'main bulk' of the religion. Theres a reason why he's absent in many Shendao myths and literature, and why he is only prominent in the area he hails from (specifically as a Patron of the Han Chinese ethnicity, which is now the major ethnic group of China after historical opposition). Despite this, you do need to at least be aware of the Yellow Emperor, because the comparison between him and Jesus is far from hyperbole - he is devoutly worshipped in the area the myth stems from (Heibei, North-Eastern China, location of Beijing and the CCP's core region of focus - and is what gives the leader of China at any given time legitimacy) and respected throughout the regions / ex-independant nations of pre-communist China; to an equal extent to which The Big J is worshipped in Christianity and recognised by wider Abrahamic religions.
Well shit, whoops, there goes my Social Credit Score. Looks like I'm never seeing that again lol. ... ... ... Let's both hope this loredoc doesn't get traced back to either of our doxXxes, if the Chinese Inquisition happens...

Finally to note, SMITE seems to take great inspiration from Chinese Shenmo Xiaoshuo literature (Divine and Demonic literature) ~~intentionally or not~~, notable takes being from the Shida Qishu (the Four Great Masterpieces; The Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber) and The Investiture of the Gods. This is to the point that currently in-game, there's actually more literature-heroes within the Chinese Pantheon than standalone Shendao Gods.
It's not to say this literature is like other major mythological / fictional texts you may be aware of (ie Arthurian, Lovecraftian), but their contents do mention established deities, they are often taken as semi-canonical to the affairs of the Divine Realm, and do include original characters or name people who as a result of their appearence within this folk-literature have said to have had divine associations in-post of their lifetimes owing to the newfound veneration. It's in this regard that the basis of about half the Pantheon is about equally as valid as the Arthurian 'Pantheon' that also features in SMITE - the key difference being that the English don't consider their folk-heroes capable of becoming Gods (both in Celtic times and 'after' that), meanwhile the Chinese do...... to some extent.

Chinese Gallery

le Hindu Pantheon

Hailing from current-day India, the Hindus are an amalgamate of cultures and philosophies ~~that have conquered India at some point or another~~ that as a singular body, makes up both a religious narrative and a Pantheon. To preface before we begin, 'Hindu' / 'Hinduism' itself is a bullshit word that only caught on after the English accidentally referred to the Hindu people as such (the word Hindu quite literally being a misheard version of the word for the Indian / Indu people, and since basically everybody in India practiced the Indian Folk Religion in question, it caught on). Internally, the Hindu religion is 'correctly' referred to as "Sanatana Dharma", with the word 'Hindu' acting best as a transliteration of Sanatana Dharma into English. If you call them Hindu, everyone will know what you're talking about (and I'm going to keep on referring to them as Hindu for brevity) - this part is just for posterity more than anything.
Hinduism is thought to have initially been founded within the Indus Plateau / by the Indus People (modern day Kashmir Valley, the current and generally thought first attempt at a non-hunter-gatherer-collective / human civilisation) - but in practical reality can be described as ''Vedic +'', or an 'improvement' on the tribally held beliefs (Vedic culture). Hinduism mixed the early Pantheonic views (Vedic culture) with other sets of Gods and even Buddist Asceticism, and in turn creating a 'model within a model' model, compounding many early cultures of Central Asia. There's the 'low-level' stuff, relating to stuff going on in the Physical and the Divine Realms, and the 'higher level' stuff, in relation to attunement with the Universe. Hence, there's what can be described as two groups - the 'lower-level' Gods, the Suras and the Asuras (literally Gods and Anti-Gods, not necessarily Good v Evil, but commonly enough. The Asuras are more similar in notion to the Norse Jotunn as an 'opposing grudged race' than demons, even if depictions and translations them usually puts them across as demonic) and then there's the really fuckin' big boys, the God's bosses - the Trimurti (Male Trio), Tridevi (Female Trio) and their related deities. Both of these groups are divine, both are venerated - however the major sects of Hinduism dictate which among them are most prominent.
Essentially within the Hindu Pantheon, the Gods have Gods ~~in reality, the Vedics got invaded, and instead of forcing them to convert, the new guys just say 'hey, our guys are higher up than yours, figure it out faggots'~~. While this may seem like a clusterfuck, there is no central authority and so there can be a wild variation of beliefs, all contained within one general model of 'Hindu'.
As in... it just works.

According to Hinduism, there is, and has been many, many Universes, with the Trimurti / Trinity of 3 Major Gods overlooking the cycle of rebirth. Vishnu is the Preserver (basically, the overlooker), Brahma(n) is the Creator (acting as a personification of the Universe itself), Shiva is the Destroyer and Re-Creator (basically the janitor, but on a Universal level - cleaning shit up when it hits the fan and putting it in a factory-setting state to be built up again); each of which have various 'lower' avatars, that they manifest parts and aspects of themselves as (which can be fluidly combined, such as the triple-avatar of the Trimurti, Dattatreya).
While the Gods / Suras can manifest their avatars as mortal, the Trimurti's manifestations / avatars are Gods / Suras in their own right - essentially they're on the next level up. Oh, and fun fact, the in-game symbol for Hinduism (the Aum) is the sanskrit symbol indicating Brahma as the physical reality and the rest of spiritual reality (ie, everything conceptually possible) - hence why Hinduists will AUMMMMMMMMMMM while praying / meditating.
In the case of our Universe's creation narrative, on the usual Primordial Waters / the infinite ocean remnants of the last Universe, Vishnu rode a multi-headed Snake (Ananta) and out of his belly button popped out a lotus, and out of the lotus popped out Brahma. Brahman saw to the creation of reality around him, then the Suras and the Asuras, and then Man and Woman (Manu the Wise and Shatarupa the Mysterious). Everybody loves Brahman, because as long as Brahman remains, our Universe exists. That's the core undersanding - from there, you get to play a controversial game of who you think is the big dawg of the Pantheon - the 5 dominant sects being:

.
- Vaishnavism: Vishnu is the original G and keeps on making new Brahmas / Universes indefinitely, so there exists an infinite amount of alternate Brahma's at the same time. Curently the most popular sect in India as of writing, typically popular amongst lower castes.
- Brahmanism: Brahma is the original G and when he dies, fuck knows what's gonna happen, but Vishnu / Shiva are alternate manifestations of Brahma. Closest to original Vedic religion of the major denominations.
- Shaivism: Shiva is the original G and just keeps recreating the same core Universe, that Vishnu / Brahma work with afterwards. Most historically popular sect, though has been overtaken in modern times with India's population explosion amongst the lower castes.
- Shaktism: None of the above / Trimurti are the original G - it's the amalgamate form of their Wives (the Tridevi, known as Shakti when amalgamated) that is the collective original G'-ess, who acts akin to / is a paraphrase of other 'Mother Universe' narratives (Gaia, Tiamat etcetc), as she births / creates reality, and she's just happy letting the Trimurti run things in the mean time as she takes a supportive, albeit still almighty, backing role (only taking an active role when assuming a form of one of her 10 Manifestations / Avatars known as the Mahavidya, of which Kali is one of). Long-runner sect and favoured amongst upper castes.
- Smartism: Who cares who the original G is; Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Ganesha, Surya (God of the Sun) and a mystery nigga (ie Brahma, but we just don't understand him fully so we don't give him a name or form) are all equal in importance. Most 'unified' sect, combining most philosophies of Hinduism. And, my dearest reader, because I know you have an IQ less than that of a chimp, 'Smartism' isn't named so because it's the 'smartest' - the stem of the word is 'Smarta', a branch of Indian philosophy.
- + ???ism: Dude, there's literally hundreds of minor denominations on top of these - some flavours of the above, some their own thing entirely. 1 billion pajeets does that to a religion, and it's through these denominations / separate understandings being allowed to exist side-by-side with one another, that Hinduism persists without constant internal conflicts ~~unlike how the Abrahamic faiths like to kill each other all the time, over whose understanding of an abstract concept is more 'correct'~~.
  In short: Don't fit into any Hindu sect? Just make your own within the boundaries of Hindu philosophy. Whether you're taken seriously or not is another thing entirely, but you're free to try to understand things as you see fit.
- ~~Autism~~: ~~i am a verbal and comedic genius~~

So tl;dr don't fuck with a Hindu if you don't know what denomination they are, because they'll ~~scream at you over the phone while they're at the call centre~~ be insulted and spend half an hour 'convincing you' that their sect is the correct one, as if you care. All of them will imply they're the 'correct one', which is why it can be confusing to look into Hinduism, if you're not aware of the stonewalling sect-ignorance employed by each equally. Anecdotally, Brahmanism / Vaishnavism are the 'most popular' ones in the West, but I'm not saying that out loud because I don't want a ninja Shaivist to rip my nuts off. All of them have followers who *believe* what they're talking about as ultimate truth. Yes, the religious ignorance comes off as bitchy ~~much like caste culture in general~~, but it's better than religious wars.

While there's far more in terms of tales after this, mostly regarding the realm of the Suras for the background of the Hindu mythology (ie Vedic culture, that placed Agni, Indra and Soma as the early defacto Pantheon-head-trio of the Suras), the introductory part is pretty conceptually simple (highly-religious fluff I'm trampling over, aside).
The only other thing to mention is that Vishnu will reincarnate aspects of himself as a mortal 10 times (because varying reasons; either because he's the not!Superhero of Mankind, or because he's obliged to via curse). He's down 9 of them already; two of which are detailed in the lengthy epics of the Ramayana (Rama, the ~~Perfect Indian Gigachad~~ Archer, #7) and the Mahabharata (Krishna, the ~~Smoking Hot Indian Twink / Pied Piper of Pussy~~ Commander-Advisor-Charioteer to Arjuna, #8), one of which is Hinduism's explanation of Buddism (the irl Gautama Budda himself having apparently been Vishnu's avatar / #9) and one who hasn't shown up yet, and is our segue to the Apocalypse.... well, Apocalypse(s) (Kalki, Horseman of the Apocalypse, #10)

The Hindus have a complex understanding of the 'overall cycle of the Universe' and thus ensuing cataclysms that lead to the reset of the Universe each time, even basing their entire time system off of it.
Humanity will cycle through 4 set 'Ages' known as the Yuga Cycle - the stages being Krita / Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali. Each time, the 'divinity' and morality of the Universe decreases by exactly 1/4 (each age decreasing exponentially by the same factor - Krita being x64 longer than the Kali, ie 64/16/4/1). We are currently at the rough start of a Kali Yuga, the Age of Conflict and Extreme Decline (the name 'Kali Yuga' is related to the Asura Kali, Kalki's arch nemesis - NOT Kali, the Goddess - they sound similar but they're spelt differently in sanskrit, and translate poorly. Phonetically, the Goddess is Ka-Lee, different to the Kal-Eye Yuga).
The next true Cataclysm will happen at 428,898 AD (not the end of the Universe, just a reset) with things getting steadily worse in terms of morals and enlightenment until then, as we progress through the Kali Yuga (tl;tl;dr we're slowly and steadily heading for clown world on absolute steroids, and a Warhammer Chaos God's wet dream), after which, humanity gets a refresher on Dharma (Divinity, or conceptually how to act with Morals and Righteousness - but in this context also referring to the other 3 Purusarthas that make up other aims of life; being the 'Artha' of work ethic, 'Kama' of individual passion / drive and 'Moksha' of not fearing death) and so the Yuga cycle begins anew.
Each God of Man (of which there are 14) gets to reign over 71 Yuga Cycles (a Manvantara) before handing over to the next (currently we're on Vaivasvata Manu, No. 7), and each universe lasts 1,000 Yuga Cycles (or 1 Day in the life of Brahman, 1 Kalpa) before losing all its energy and being shut down and reset by Shiva in a 'true Apocalypse' event.
It's a 'Pralaya' event if it's just the Lower 10 Planes of Reality that need destroying every Yuga, a 'Manvantar Pralaya' once all the 14 Gods of Man have had their turn and the Upper 4 Divine Realms get remade along with the 10 Lower Realms, a 'Naimittik Pralaya' once at the end of a Kalpa / Day of the life of Brahman (which would be the heat-death of this Universe and destruction of everything, the Big Bang for the next Universe along), and a 'Prakritik Maha Pralaya' for when Brahma dies at the age of 100 (at which point your sect denominates what happens next - some saying 'thats it, reality over, thanks for playing', some saying he reincarnates, some saying 'fuck knows', etc).

Finally, for in-game matters, the Hindu Pantheon doesn't exist.
You might think it does, and it does in-game, and occasionally you see a God mentioned in the lore.
But they don't exist.

And if they do, they canonically can do no wrong, unless they're the big evil in Hindu lore in which case they do exactly as they're supposed to because they're XYZ evil.
This is because ever since the game left the state of being an obscure beta title, the pajeets (plural) have had absolutely no chill over their representation (probably the most representation they've got in any Western media ~~the ungrateful fucks~~). Never mind that there's more than an equivalent combined observers of modern day Chinese Folk, Shinto, Pan-Maya, Yoruba and some of the Neo-Pagan stuff (with various other Pantheons, featured or not, being integral to the heritage and cultures of their respective country ~~Read: every country on Earth that isn't the USA, the nation devoid of mythical heritage~~).
Nope, all that doesn't matter - because they're not over 1 billion unified, tepidly angry pajeets and Hindu elders (I'm not even kidding right now) on their minutes off at the call centre clogging up the LoRez complaints system and aggressively wagging their fingers with their SIRS UNLESS YOU HAVE NOT NOTISED GANESHA SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO DAMAGE AT ALL HE IS MUCH PEACEFULIST SIRS I THINK YOU MAY HAVE RAMA WRONG HE IS NOT LIKE HOW THE OTHER SECT OF SOUTH EAST ASIAN SAYS HE IS LIKE MY SECT SAY AND YOU HAVE RESPON IMEDEYET AND DO THE NEEDFUL SIRS OR MY VILLAGE WILL FIRE MANY LAWSUITS!!!!!!!!!! They never do. ~~Well, except that one time.~~
The pajeets have been such a menace to the game throughout it's history that they're the sole reason why Hindu gods have been rare since Beta / early release (because they always take offence) and thus LoRez legally cannot market their Hindu releases in many nations. They've also had three complete redesigns to try to appease them (Bakasura, Kali and Vamana - all three ironically being more accurate in their 'more offensive' previous default skins) and the pajeets still have no chill.
That's what Lo-Rez gets for diversity and trying to appeal to everyone I guess. ~~Or at least caring what they think. Atlus (of the SMT / Persona franchises) doesn't have this problem.~~ So yeah, LoRez treats Hinduism as ~~a mistake~~ cautious ground.

Oh, and if you weren't aware, the Hindus have been in more hot conflicts with Muslims more than any LARPing Christian crusader and hold a far deeper / stronger grudge - so if you're a /pol/tard, it's not 'Deus Vult', it's 'Shiva Bramvada'. ~~Trust me, I've seen bodies, they really don't get along.~~ Just a fun fact. Well... a relative definition of 'fun'.

do not drown in decline surf the kali yuga

Hindu Gallery

le Greek Pantheon

The Greek Pantheon is probably the most colloquially well-known Polytheistic Pantheon in the West, is the most modernly popular in terms of the concept of 'Myths and Legends' and, is the second most significant Greek cultural contribution to wider global human civilization and culture, after the Chicken Invaders franchise (yes, that's Greek). This is mirrored in-game with their high representation throughout SMITE - because, let's face it, we all know why the Romans are in, regardless of if a good chunk of the in-game Roman Gods are the ones unique to the Roman Pantheon.

Intrinsically represented, echoed and referred to throughout most of Western culture, the innumerable recorded myths and legends of the Greek Pantheon generally trace themeselves to the concept of the Divine Family tree - in that the Greeks believed that all things were related to one another in a literal sense. A high emphasis was placed on lineage within the Greek Pantheon; both for the ruling class who would be able to trace their lineage for centuries, and for the Divine themselves, as concepts would literally give birth to personaified versions of one another (with increasing steps away from the Primordials usually resulting in comparatively weaker beings / concepts).
While this may have roots in human history that has since been deified (legendary people immortalised as Gods or Demigods) or as a way to pass on basic scientific ideas, observations and history in an easy-to-remember format (with many Greek stories being allegories within nature or evidenced events - such as how Persephone, Goddess of Grain, would descend to the underworld to be with Hades, God of Underworld as an analogy for how grain would be stored underground during the desolate Autumn and Winter months); the result can essentially be boiled down to being the most significant family drama + romcom in recorded human history, with more seasons than you could ever hope to binge through.
Oh and before we get into the mythos.... and because... (well every other country reading knows who I'm talking about right now), but because we {ahhh} have some {uhhhh}... 'geographically illiterate' people reading; the Greeks were centred around modern day Greece, an archipelago within the Mediterranean (of which had multiple feudal / ruling kingdoms, and ancient borders that stretched into Bulgaria, Macedonia and most of the Western half of Turkey).
For more clarification, the archipelago region is the older area, that was the home of the truly archaic formative cultures of the Ancient Greeks, that can be traced back far past 3,000 BC (Minoans, Cretians etc). Meanwhile the mainland regions (notably the Western landmass that connects to Europe) was the 'newer' area, whose more tribal societies were colonized and eventually became the core location of the major cities (Athens, Sparta etc).

So,

I am the Loooorefag... Anon of the Lore, and proclaimer of Mythos. Anonymuses ~~Mythos like the Romans!~~ Funny, I mean JUSTtheGreeks. HoohoohooOOO I'd like to makes some SWEET shitposts of some of their Classical litera- Greece's story *actually* begins ~~long before Heracles,~~ many eons ago......~~oooAAAAAAAAA~~

Back when the ~~world~~ Universe was new...

over time it's 4 initial embodiments came to be, and gained sentience / form.
Those being, (in order of manifestation)

.
- Chaos {Chaos} (Primordial of Outer Space / the Unknown reaches of Reality. Literally 'the Endless Chasm' that surrounds all things. Rarely given as an 'entity', more just a 'state of things' - but that's not to say it was never given as an entity)
- Gaia {Terra} (Primordial of the Earth / Ground)
- Tartarus {Tartarus} (Primordial of the Abyss, treated as the general Underworld plane of reality. The bottom-most boundary of reality)
and finally
- Eros (Primordial of Desire - mainly 'Desire' in a conceptual philosophical sense, like how a rock 'desires' to fall if dropped. Better translated to English as 'Force of Will') (After ~~being dragged through the mud~~ significantly changing in depiction through time, he was amalgamated with the Erotes / Aphrodite's retainers, which translated to Amores or '{Cupid}' in Roman - God of Reproduction, Love and Lust... ~~yes, the malformed chibi baby that shits itself in-game is a Greek Primordial... not *quite* the grandeur you might expect~~).
Chaos then goes on to asexually produce:
- Nyx {Nox} (Primordial of the Night) (Yes, Night was around before 'Day' was a thing, Nyx reigned over all time until she delegated that to Chronos and allowed for her other children to take up aspects of reality)
- Erebus {Scotus} (Primordial of Darkness) (Again, around before Light was a thing. Shadows were understood to be omnipresent and only repelled by light sources, thus darkness came before than light)

These entities are referred to as the Protogenoi, or the Six Major Primordials (Chaos being the undisputed head of this proto-Pantheon, even if they were more classified as a combined group), with their direct children being known as the Minor Primordials (I'll refer to them as post-Primordials, to make them distinct from the Protogenoi). These various Primordial entities would act essentially as the factory-settings and background processes of the Universe in later myth, and were all important overarching emotional concepts and 'conceptual' concepts - later Gods generally falling into more objective and defined concepts.
Just note right now that if you're using this for reference for the Roman Pantheon, the Romans disagreed on who was / was not Primordial - sometimes adding Erebus and Nyx's first child / daughter, Dies {Hemera} (Goddess of the Day) as the final manifested Primordial, and occasionally the the obscure and enigmatic Caligio {Achlys} (Goddess of Mist, Sorrow, Blindness and the act of Dying) as the second manifested Primordial, and wife of Chaos / mother of the rest of them ~~or even at times mother of Chaos himself - though again, barely noted on, if ever; and more often seen as an attendant of the Morai and Furies~~.
This is also where the family tree begins to resemble a rats nest - because when there's only 6 {to 8} beings in existence (two of which are Chaos's creations), somebody's going to fuck a relative soon enough.

Cut to tons of incest and self-splitting to make other Primordials like it's a certain flash game, with couplings dependent one which Poet / Philosopher you read - but all you need to know is at some point one or two of them create Uranus (the Sky and Stars) who Gaia installs as a defacto ruler (or in literal terms, 'overlooker') of Earth, to look after things while she gets to sit back and focus on producing more children (breeding fetish that strong huh?).
Uranus and Gaia then fuck, and between this specific pairing; create the 12 Titans, 3 Cyclops and 3 Hecatoncheires (a set of great 50-headed, 100-handed giant-triplets). Disgusted by the appearence of his children, Uranus locks away the Cyclops & Hecatoncheires (possibly forced perma-unbirth-vore - yes, exactly like the deviantart fetish - complete with disgusting oversized belly), which pissed off Gaia to no end, because she couldn't have more children while 6 were 'clogging the system up' if you get what I mean.

~~The Planet Earth~~ Primordial Gaia ~~{Terra}~~ was down on ~~its'~~ her lock

Of the Titans, the youngest was Kronos (God of Harvest), whom Gaia whispered sweet nothings to, in typical manipulative ~~hyper-pregnant reverse-vored~~ grooming-mother fashion, and convinced Kronos to overthrow Uranus with an Adamantine Sickle (the rest refusing to do the deed). Kronos worked with the other 11 Titans to castrate Uranus, as-per-Gaia's request - Uranus's blood from his newly-formed axewound creating the Gigas ('ghi-gass', despite being the stem for the word 'Giant', they weren't Giants, just really strong aggressive dudes, essentially a macho-man race - later the causes of Volcanic Eruptions as punishment after they tried to overthrow Olympus during Gigantomachia), the 3 Erinyes / Furies (Bitchy / Annoying Oath Enforcers), Meliae (Wood Nymphs of Ash Trees), and finally his not!sperm squeezed out of his post-Primortial testicles self-creating Aphrodite.
...
But then Kronos flips the table (!) on Gaia's blind tunnel-vision-hatred, and works with the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclops to overthrow all the Primordials above him, in what came to be the initial events of the Titanomachia - installing himself as ruler along with his older sister Rhea (Goddess of the Flow / Progression / Growth of Life) as his Queen. Logically this would be called the Protogenoiomachia, however no such name exists, and much of the literature pertaining to the Titanomachia has been lost to time. Thanks a lot for burning down the Library of Alexandria, Christians.

and everywhere gi-gantic brutes called Ti-t'ns raaaaan amok!... doot x3 !

But all was not good in the hood. Kronos, already having had been manipulated, was left with a final message from Uranus as he was dragged away to Tartarus - Kronos's children would follow in his footsteps, and backstab Kronos. Paranoid, unstable and desperate; Kronos began eating his children alive as they were born, denying them their future so he could cling onto life just a little longer ~~hah, boomers amirite?~~ - but in the process fulfilling his own prophecy, as he became hated amongst the Titans. Only Atlas, his trusted friend, saw the paranoia and malice as the fear it was.
As for 'what' the Titans were - this is the bit where it gets interesting.... as it's heavily indicated they were quite established beforehand - as the Mesopotamian Pantheon. It's the Greek interpretation of the Mesopotamian (including the Babylonians) therein that lays the foundation of the Titans (not a direct lift of the Pantheon - just an interpretation). So the Titans weren't as much the Greek understanding of 'their' world, as much as it was an informed understanding of the entire known world around them at the time, and how it all connected together. While the Titans and the Anunnaki were far too different to be remotely comparable to one another, it does indicate that the Greek Pantheon isn't as much the 'Greek' Pantheon, as much as it was the best informed understanding of the entire known world of the era, compiled into one comprehensive mythology (other mythos of the time seen elsewhere in the Greek Pantheon, such as the tales surrounding the Minotaur mirroring the mythos of the Moloch-worshipping Canaanites etc). Which, was probably why the Romans chose to take mostly from the Greeks over any of the various other cults and religions contained within their Empire of the time.
As to why the Titans were 'bad'.... well they demanded regular sacrifice..... of a HUMAN kind....

It was a NASTY place! {Apollon riff} ...There was a meeeehss wherever you stepped... ...where ~~Chaos~~ Kronos reigned and earthquakes-and-vol-canoes neeever slept!

So (!) Kronos flips the table again (!!), and locks away BOTH the Cyclops and Hecatocheires (in Tartarus this time), guarded by the great Wyrm / twisting-dragon Kampe, so he doesn't have a repeat of his own idea done to him. Suffice to say, Rhea doesn't like her kids being eaten and Gaia doesn't like her kids being locked up (again), and so the two work together to hide the 6th child away, feeding Kronos a rock that he consumes so fast he doesn't notice. The baby is sent away to be raised by the previously menioned Meliae, on a secluded island...
And Who was that child? Why...

wtf is this real??? AND THEN ALONG CAME ZEUS!

When Zeus was fully grown he only had a scarce few allies (mostly minor water nymphs) - but nonetheless was given a chance to sneak into Kronos's palace, and act as his servant. Zeus fed Kronos something that caused him to throw up all his children (now fully grown), and almost immediately, the 'true' Titanomachia began; a decade-long conflict against the old and new Gods.
Zeus's first point of action was to jailbreak Tartarus by himself; with Zeus slaying the guard-dragon Kampe, freeing the Hecatoncheires / Cyclops. As thanks, the Cyclops forged Zeus and his two brothers a 3-pronged legendary item each - Zeus gaining the Thunderbolt, Poseidon the Trident and Hades getting the Cap of Invisibility.
Despite the numbers disadvantage, Zeus and the new Gods now finally had the firepower from the Cyclops and the and siege-support from the Hecatoncheires, and so;

wtf is this real??? HE HURRRLED HIS THUN-DERBOLT,

to signal the 'major' finale of the war (He zapped!). Along with his few siblings and allies; Zeus finally overthrew the Titans, installing himself and the new Gods in their place. For most of the remaining Titans who allied with Kronos, Zeus locked those suckers in a vault (They're trapped!) to be guarded / tortured for the rest of eternity by the Hecatocheires within Tartarus. There were a scarce few Titans who were not allied wih Kronos, but they were the definite exception, not the rule.
There was a potential after-conflict, instigated by Hera and led by Atlas, because Hera was jealous about how well the Egyptian Pantheon was doing with one of Zeus's bastard children at the head of it, but we'll ignore that Titanomachia 2.0, since it's after the 'main' narrative.

and on his own, stopped ~~Chaos~~ Kronos in ~~its~~ his traaaaacks! And that's the Pantheon Truth!

Zeus and his two equal brothers drew lots on who gets what domain (leaving the land for everyone to share). Zeus gets the Sky (as Divine Ruler regardless), Poseidon gets the Sea, Hades gets the Underworld / Land of the Dead (literally called 'Hades' - confusing, as "Hades lives in Hades, whom is ruled by Hades because it is Hades" is a correct sentence).
Zeus settles the 12 Olympians on Mt. Olympus as collective Divine Rulers, those being the children of Kronos / Rhea (Zeus, Demeter, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon) and Zeus's major children (Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Hephaestus and Hermes) ... and also Aphrodite ~~because she was hot~~. Hades was excluded from the Olympian category, since he was too far away to regularly visit Olympus, but was given equal power to them nonetheless, and the title was mostly arbitrary considering his influence. Hestia is sometimes excluded too, but that varies between poets, who dispute if she was so motherly ~~and her anime breasts were so good~~ that she willingly gave up her spot for Dionysus {Bacchus} or if she was simply deemed less important. You can decide for yourself if motherly homeliness or blind drunkenness was more important to the Ancient Greeks.
So yeah, back to Zeus,

the guy was too OP to just relaaaaAAAAAAX! ~~And that's the world's first meta...~~ ~~(YEAH FAGGOT!)~~ Zeus ran the game while still in his youth!

Cue Zeus ruling with his 'wife' Hera and everybody being generally content with their lot in divine life. Initially Zeus wanted Rhea (his mother), to be his wife, but had to demote her to a mortal to fuck her (he fucks so many other women aside from his wife it's almost an in-mythos meme at this point - not even all of the Olympians who are his kids are with Hera).
Cue a shitton more incest and divine unfaithfulness, over 9,000 various myths and legends (major ones including the Siege of Troy + The Odyssey, the Trials of Heracles {Hercules}, Jason and the Argonauts, and the Legend of Perseus ...and more!) along with various new Gods, Demigods and Monsters.

doot x5 Though honey it might seem imposs'ble, that's the Pantheon truth! doot x5

Greek Gallery

le Egyptian Pantheon

Located in.... uh Egypt (I hope you knew that; but given 'some' countries known lack of geographical or world history knowledge, I felt I had to clarify), the Ancient Egyptians have a long and storied Pantheon, owing to their extreme age.
Ancient Egypt itself was a large state that encompassed many micronations along the River Nile (back when Egypt was more arid grassland than desert), which later was given as the semi-independant Lower and Upper Kingdoms (relating to their elevation, not compass direction - so the Lower was the North while Upper Egypt was South).

A key issue when discussing overarching Ancient Egyptian pantheonics is that it went through quite a few, wildly different varieties of worship as different Gods and practices rose and fell within the region, over its multiple millennia of practice - to the point it's inaccurate to say there really was one 'fixed' Ancient Egyptian Pantheon.
Take the concept of Pantheon-head - while for the most part it was given as Ra; Gods such as Amun, Aten, ~~Zeus~~ Seraphis and the amalgamate Amun-Ra also assume that role at some point for a prolonged period in the thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian history, and were either absent beforehand, or re-incorporated after that period as an aspect of another God. Gods from surrounding Pantheons (mostly the Greeks and Caananites in Ancient Egypt's later years) were also fluidly incorporated into the Pantheon, even if treated as minor to the 'main' Egyptian stock. Suffice to say that worship seemed to be relatively vague on the details and on the hundreds-to-thousands of minor gods, and while there were definite core concepts (veneration of the Sun, complex practices regarding the afterlife, animal-headed Gods etc); individual details and Gods could vary greatly on a Pharaoh-by-Pharaoh basis - because the Pharaoh's word was essentially divine law.
To add to the confusion further, while many Pantheons observe a general concept of 'aspectual' deities, where a singular entity can have multiple 'versions' focusing on a single aspect of that God, while still being part of a whole entity when combined; the Egyptians employed the opposite concept at the same time, and observed the concept of God-fusions. Yes, just like a game of YuGiOh where Polymerization is played, or a Dragon Ball powerup, entirely separate deities could fuse with one another to represent a concept shared by both of them, as a completely unique / separate entity.... that could then interact with it's ingredient-Gods. And no, there's no particular method or rule to this - it just happens, and by the logic of a civilization a few millennia old (so concepts that are wildly different to us, may be similar to them), though many times it was for the case of minor local / regional Gods being fused with the overarching Gods of the Pantheon, over two overarching Gods.

So to touch on the creation myth... ahh.... I uhhh.... Fuck. There is no fixed Egyptian creation myth.

Multiple Gods are named as the first creator (in rough order of colloquial validity - ranging from Ra, to Ra-Khepri, to Atum, to Thoth, to Ptah, to the Eight Ogdoad / 'The Nun' {Plural}, to Bennu & 'Nun' {Singular}, to Neith), with multiple 'methods of creation' used throughout (even accounting for the Egyptians partially equating the dawn of reality and dawn of a new day).
If anybody is telling you they know who was the first creator in the Egyptian Pantheon, they're lying to you (or are just stupid) ~~(scratch that, they're more likely than not just stupid. fucking mythologylet secondaries)~~. As previously mentioned, many of these are relative to the time period and local / influencing cultures. For example, many Northern / Lower-Egyptian creation myths have a concept of a Fresh and Saltwater pairing early on (much like the nearby Mesopotamia), meanwhile Thoth's observation as creator was mostly within Khmunu {Hermopolis}, a regional city with relatively high independence and self-identity within Ancient Egypt, and whose Patron God was 'coincidentally' none other than Thoth himself. Thoughout many of thereation myths however, the group known as the Ogdoad are present or in some variation - somewhat equatable with the Greek Primordials, they were 4 couple-pairings of Male Frog and Female Snake headed Gods. As for what the Ogdoad specifically represented, it's been lost to time / lost in translation (much like the accepted Egyptian family tree - of which it's useless to try to make one of any kind), though it's often given that one pair represents the Atmosphere and Seas (not the Sky and Earth, that's Nut and Geb, who came later), while another appears to represent Darkness and Shadow. The final two pairings are completely unknown as to what they were patrons of.
If it hasn't become transparently clear already, we know very little that is concrete about the Ancient Egyptians - and while we have many of the pieces, like an unfinished jigsaw, it's unclear as to what exactly goes where and why. There's a lot of guesswork to the religion, unlike the historical / archeological side.

While the creaion myth is a clusterfuck, the more important myth to the Egyptians was the understanding of Ra's procession on his Atats (the Mandjet / Mesektet); his two boats / barges that saw him travel through the sky and through the Duat / Underworld during the day and night - sometimes given as a continual cycle, others given as Ra's death and reincarnation every day. To put it simply, Ancient Egyptian polytheism was less 'The Gods' and more 'Ra & Friends' in a near-monotheistic manner.
Constantly under attack by the Serpent of Chaos, Apophis, Ra created and employed a large amount of Gods to act as his protectors and advisors throughout the day and night - generally safer during the day, while undergoing ritual trials at various Gates of the Duat at night. While again these Gods varied again by region and timeframe, the key ones are generally accepted to be Thoth and Ma'At (two advisors on the vessel, representing Knowledge and Truth / Justice), Mau / The Great Cat OR Bastet (who would guard and keep Apophis below the horizon during the day, in some variations killing Apophis at dawn break), Seth / Set (Ra's contingency plan, who would deal with Apophis by himself in events that Ra's company would be defeated) and The Eye of Ra (literally just Ra's weaponised Eye that would act as it's own entity, sometimes given as Hathor or Sehkmet).
Aside from this, there's generally quite little about wider internal-Pantheon stories, as much of Ancient Egyptian mythology regarded a set progression / ritual of things that just happen and looping daily narrative, with their worship being what supported and aided Ra throughout his journey. While there were exceptions to this (Geb and Nut's separation, Isis figuratively backstabbing Ra to find his true name and hold power over him, Set's murder of Osiris to be defeated by Osiris's post-mortem son Horus, Sehkmet's genocide of humanity until Ra got her drunk etc), for the most part it was understood the Gods had their roles, and stuck to them quite professionally.
That's right you DON'T FUCK WITH ME, I'm the loreFAG, I'm the editor and GODdamnit I have the power to FUCKING make words bold to throw you off their relative importance.

Final fun fact to lighten the mood: the Ancient Egyptian word for God is NTR ahahaha lmfao religion of cuckholds aaaaahahahahaha. Don't fall for the bullshit that it's the root stem for the word 'Nature' though; it was roughly pronounced n'ter, as a root of the word for 'Natron' and possibly 'Nectar' as it crossed over to the Greeks.
~~Also not!Zeus has fucked Isis, Osiris cucked lmfao x2~~

Egyptian Gallery

le Mayan Pantheon

Located in the Yucatan Peninsula region of modern day Guatemala / Belize / South Mexico (for their more widely known neighbors; the Aztecs were North of the Maya in modern Central Mexico, while the Incans / Olmecs were South in modern Peru / Chile); the Mayan Pantheon was especially focused on practices and worship for the harvest cycle of Maize (Corn).
Their general civilsational history is thought to at least have begun ~3,500 BC within the Central American Cradle, and crystallized into a singular Pantheon of worship around 500 BC. Sacrifices and extremely specific rituals were common, used almost as a divine bartering tool, to trade the lives of one or more (be it animal or human) for a request to the Gods, or to satiate their perceived wrath. Words were important (as explained below), and most divine entities had the ability to shift forms to some degree, either depending on an ability to shift into pre-set formes from birth, or becoming empowered / weakened based on environment / territory (for example, the flint-knife-nosed monster Camazotz - man-sized stone statue of a bat in the daylight, bus-sized giant bat at night).
For SMITE, it's kind of a clusterfuck, as the Pantheon in-game has deities and entities from multiple sects of Mayan belief - for example having the Yutacan Kukulkan and the K'Iche Awilix in the same Pantheon would be like throwing Ares and Bellona in a single 'Hellenistic' Pantheon. Following this example, that's not to say it's wholly inaccurate, as many of the beliefs in the Mayan Empire were basically the same, but just under different names (far closer than the differences between the Greeks and the Romans - a Greek / Roman divide would be something like the Maya / Aztecs) - however I am noting on it now, as it can lead to confusion if you're to assume the Maya were all on the same track.

What we do know is relatively limited, as it was either passed by word of mouth or via relic and hieroglyph - both of which were systematically destroyed by ~~the clinically retarded~~ the Spanish Conquistadors, who promptly wrote almost nothing of what they were told down (and in many cases destroyed the recordings anyways after the fact, so the natives would be able to re-learn it), and melted down the intricate and pristine cultural offerings they were presented by the initially awe-inspired natives, so they could spend it on drugs and alcohol. The Spanish did this so excessively that it caused a notable amount of hyperinflation in their economy back at home. Much of what we now know comes from the archeological remains found within dilapidated abandoned ruins of the various regional cities that the Spanish didn't quite manage to destroy all of, as well as developed sacred cave systems that were likewise overlooked.
We do know they had complex cultural beliefs, a Hieroglyphic Alphabet that was scientifically revolutionary for data storage in the region and an extremely developed, prophetic astronomic system; but little in terms of recorded mathematics or philosophy (they were basically learning the fundamentals by themselves by the time the Conquistadors arrived - an accomplishment, sure, but not one we ever saw the end result of). Most Gods are known via their depiction in hieroglyphs, but since nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition to be so efficient at being censorious cunts ~~(can't have the natives have a history before Christianity, or even a non-Christianised version of history at that)~~, many of their names are generally unknown or unmatched. Archeologists / Historians nowadays refer to recurring hieroglyphic figures as God _ before their suspected historical names, since there were multiple versions / names of each God throughout the various sects / localities within the Mayan Empire - one such example being God A (not to be confused with God A' ), known as Yum Cimil, Hunhau, Ah Puch, Cizin, Kimi and many other names - who also had the Hades conundrum attached to one of his names, being also called Xibalba who ruled over Xibalba BUT ALSO was one of the head Death Gods who were known as a group as Xibalba (over the minor death Gods, who were merely the Lords of Xibalba). XibalbaXibalbaXibalba. Suffice to say, I'll just call them by their generally accepted names, because it'd be boring otherwise.

The most staple remaining document we have is the work Popol Vuh (Story / Book of the People) by Spanish explorer Francisco Ximenez, who was one of the few Conquistadors who actually wrote anything down as they ~~systematically and racially exterminated~~ culturally enriched and brought diversity to the South American populations. The Popol Vuh mostly describes the Creation Myth (the KʼIche sect's version being the only surviving version; their people located in current day Central West Guatemala) and the Adventures of the Hero Twins - but other myths and legends were not included (many having already been written down by others, then destroyed at a later date). While there are other recorded documents (e.g. the books of the Chilam Balam or the Paris / Dresden / Madrid / Grolier Codexes); the Popul Vuh is the most generally coherant thing we have to the mythology itself.
Mythology also becomes more cryptic as one considers that the Pantheon evolved during the various eras of Mayan pre-history (much like how continental European tribal culture progressed from Celtism to Norse/Slavic), that there were many other sects within the Mayan empire, and that the Maya (occupying a chokepoint within the American continent) had lots of interactions with neighboring civilisations (and their Gods) as they passed by. While it was somewhat more coherant / wasn't a complete clusterfuck at the time of worship - what we've got to work with now is essentially an incomplete jigsaw which has *purposefully\& been fucked with, and has random puzzle pieces from other puzzles.

On the topic of the KʼIche Creation myth, one should note that this isn't in reference to the K'Iche sect's or the general Mayan principle creation story - that has been lost to time (almost certainly through the intentional destruction of any texts pertaining to it, by our Spanish '''''amigos''''').
This myth is instead in reference to the creation of humanity, and more specifically the K'Iche people themseves (ie the K'Iche Creation myth). The story is unique to the K'Iche and not so much applicable to the wider Empire's beliefs.
So, we begin *not* at the start of time, but a short way in - the Gods already having been established beforehand by the myth that is no longer with us. Going off of mirrored deities within wider beliefs in the region, it's logical that the Mayan's Itzam Cab Ain (also known as Itzamna, God D or the Earth Crocodile), was the foremost entity linked to the 'primary' creation narrative, and would thus be defacto Pantheon-Head and chief creator of an otherwise leaderless Pantheon - but again, literally no direct evidence exists to support this except the otherwise unreasoned importance of Itzamna, circumstance, proximity to other civilisations.
Not direct evidence.... just.... loads of circumstantial evidence. For example, the Chontal (who were basically Maya in all but name), outright state that Itzamna was the first Primordial, and have a similar narrative to the K'Iche creation afterwards. ~~Man, if oooooonly we had some fucking records to work with.~~
The Mayans operated primarily off of a kind of 'words-of-power' system, wherein the imagination / conceptualisation of a new concept and then associating a word with that concept would quite literally bring it into reality - the Egyptian concept of 'true names' not really present (like how Isis tortured Ra to get his true name, and from there holds some power over him), but is still similar to what the Mayans were working with.
Simply put 'Words' = Creation.
If a God came to think of a Mountain, then a Mountain would exist; as if the Earth itself was in a dreamstate playground for the Gods. In this 'barren period', all that existed was the Sky, under which was the Sea, under which was the Earth within shallow waters. Aside from what was described a chaotic and muddy / swampy Earth that had self-formed from an initial endless expanse of Primordial Sea (precisely when the "concept of existence spoke it's own name" / concept of existence came into existence), all that existed was Itzamna and 3 pairs of other Primordial deities;

Firstly B'Itol & Tz'Aqol. The Shaper and Framer of Earth, likely assistants / servants / advisors of Itzamna.
Then Xpiyacoc & Xmucane. Primal Elder Father and Mother, also known as Hunaphu 'Wuch & Hunahpu Utiw, or the Day Possum & the Night Coyote. The Hero Twins grandparents.
And the last to manifest were the chaotic QʼUqʼUmatz & Tepeu. The K'Iche's name for the Yucatec Kukulkan & Huracan, former described as the Feathered Serpent-God of the Winds + Knowledge and the latter as the Sovereign / Kingly Warlord-God of the non-Primordial Sea and Storms (depicted as a sentient Hurricane). In older versions of the Pantheon, these two were the same God, simply the Royal Feathered Serpent - not Kukulkan, it's own thing entirely.

QʼUqʼUmatz & Tepeu were bored, and decided to meet up at some point, and from their conversations, slowly began to create the concepts that would raise the Earth from the Sea and from there furnish the emergent Primordial World. Jump cut to after they finish their ~~DnD~~ setting; they create life, but the animals they think of are too fucking dumb and can't even say their own names; and so are ditched in the forests. They try making intelligent life out of Mud, but it ends up being dirty and too weak to self-sustain. They try not!Golems / statue-people, but their lack of movement, rigidity and yet vast capacity of memories and intellect displease the two, and so they're culled / have their life snatched from them in storms and floods (interestingly, possible a cultural relic indicating a previous civilisations's relics and totems before the Mesoamericans arrived) - before QʼUqʼUmatz & Tepeu finish up by making 4 Man/Woman couples for Humanity proper - a proverbial goldilocks zone of "just right" to be intelligent enough to worship the two, but not so intelligent that they begin to question who is really in control.
Almost finished, the two gave the humans some Maize to live off of via [convoluted method I'm not going to bother to explain], but alas - the Humans knew too much, started creating concepts of their own (independant of the Gods), and QʼUqʼUmatz & Tepeu ~~got a call from the Bogdanoffs and~~ had to shut it down. The two Gods snatched humanity's true sight (which allowed Humans to see through any material and in any light) - making all concepts opaque, and made it hard for humans to understand / create new ones, bringing darkness ~~and finally, the Fog of War while you're in the Jungle, until you buy your fucking Wards~~ thus making the humans helpless to the predators that could now stalk them in the shadows, the remnants of the first attempt at life. Many humans and many of the things they created were culled off; until the remaining humans climbed the tallest mountain and cried out in prayer - which then caught the attention of Xpiyacoc & Xmucane. These two other Primordials got involved, beginning the Day and Night cycle, which gave the Humans appropriate time to see what they were being hunted by and an appropriate time to rest - and thus all was good in the hood.

On the topic of the Adventures of the Hero Twins, after a dispute over Pitz (see below), the sons of Xmucane and Xpiyacoc (family name Hunahpu); Hun Hunahpu (Head God of Maize) and his brother, Vucub Hunahpu (Brother God of Maize) were murdered by the various Death Gods (major ones being the skull-headed Yum Cimil / Ah Puch and the botfly-headed Mokochih / Akan) who trapped the two men within the 9 Planes of the Xibalba (a lot like a really watery, damp, half-drowned, semi-underwater Dante's Inferno in concept; lower levels for worse crimes).
Hun Hunahpu's severed head spat at the Xquic (pronounced Shikik, one of the Death Goddesses, and Goddess of the Blood Moon), who in turn got pregnant with the boys known as Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who were two Naguals (Human-Animal shapeshifters, most commonly Jaguars) and gave the babies to Hun Hunahpu's stern and mourning mother / their grandmother (Xmucane, now Maintainer of the Length of Days) to look after as they grew up. After some initial adventures at the request of Tepeu / Huracan (most notably defeating the false Sun+Moon demon-macaw Vucub Caquix, and his demonic family), the Nagual twins found out about their fathers fate from his old Pitz equipment that Xmucane had kept secret from them, and underwent numerous trials involving the Xibalba (that both sides would cheat at) to rescue him - most of which they solved with trickery over brute strength (fully utilising their shapeshifting skill and hyper-regeneration).
A recurring challenge was to compete in the ancient Sacred Ball Game called Pitz, wherein a heavy, solid rubber ball would be required to be kept in play by two teams of 2 by alternatively bouncing it against a wall, with any part of their body / a stick; with a high-up vertical hoop acting as an additional victory mechanism (however attempting that would require getting close to the wall for a bounce, and would be directed in a way that would guarantee a loss if missed). The game itself is a particularly brutal one, as the weighted rubber ball was in part designed to tire out players and passively give huge amounts of bruising, physically wearing them out over a game in multiple ways - that, and in high stakes games, the losers would be added to the days sacrifice (often willingly though). tl;dr think of the most hardcore volleyball+ squash + basketball anime you can, and you've got the Adventures of the Hero Twins.

FUCK ALL THAT, LET ME SUM THAT UP FOR YOU LONG AGO IN A DISTANT LAND... I, XIBALBA, THE SHAPESHIFTING MASTER OF THE DEAD, UNLEASHED AN UNSPEAKABLE EVIL! BUT A FOOLISH NAGUAL WARRIOR WIELDING A PITZ BALL STEPPED FORTH TO OPPOSE ME. AFTER THE FINAL BLOW WAS STRUCK, I TORE OFF HIS HEAD AND PLUNGED THE LIVING WORLD INTO THE DEAD, WHERE MY EVIL IS LAW! NOW THE FOOLS TWIN CHILDREN HAVE RETURN TO XIBALBA, SEEKING TO UNDO THE FUTURE THAT IS... AH PUCH!

The myth ends with the twins defeating and humiliating the Gods and Lords of Xibalba as so they would never be given sacrifices again, but unable to fully resurrect their father - hence why Maize must be grown from the ground yearly - and the two in turn being promoted to the masculine aspects of the solar and lunar deities. Also, spoiler alert, Xbalanque and Awilix are different aspects of the exact same Mayan lunar entity.

The most frustrating part with Mayan archeology is that the cities were still lived in, right up until the Spanish arrived. They didn't have to be ruins; and could have been left as ancient townships (even if they realistically would be complete-shithole-tier cocaine-ridden favelas / slums by today). The sole reason we know so little about the Mayans and wider South American cultures is because some Spanish spergs had a real fucking hardon to prove themselves as bootlickers for the Pope and Catholic Church... unlike the Protestant Frenchies / Bongs in North America, who comparatively (.....relative terms) pacifistically bought out, forced out *and only then* killed the native North Americans - but otherwise left their relics untouched, and left some reservations for the peoples to remain on (of which the North American Natives simply didn't have as much in terms of long-term structures owing to their more nomadic nature).
Far more of the remains in Central and South America are modern ruins, not age-old abandoned cities lost to time like with the Babylonians.

Mayan Gallery

le Japanese Pantheon

The Japanese Pantheon is in reference to Japanese Folk religion, which is itself is functionally / basically identical to current day Shinto, the national polytheistic religion of Japan. There are differences - just not that many of them. These various differences mean that treating Japanese Folk / Shinto as alternate translations of one another (like you would Chinese Folk / Shendao) would be incorrect. The Chinese Pantheon is Shendao (which is Chinese Folk), the Japanese Pantheon is the Japanese Folk Religion (which is different to Shinto).
One of the oldest Pantheons in human history, the Pantheon is... ~~a headache~~ complex, to say the very least. Perhaps it's because the Pantheon has existed in some formative state over 12 millennia in one way or another, perhaps its because all the words seem to have a double digit number of syllables making everything hard to keep a track of, perhaps it's because of a language barrier because we're all filthy fuckin' gaijin (TL: non-Japanese, literally 'foreign demons') - but nonetheless, let us proceed.

The Japanese Pantheon is only seconded to the Roman Pantheon in it's number of deities - there's ~~over 9000~~ a few million of them, and unlike the Romans (who simply have infinite possible deities, because any concept = spirit = possible God), every single one of them is connected to the divine family tree, albeit following the usual "lower generation = weaker" logic (ie, we can just ignore most of them ~~and trample over this highly revered japanese culture~~).

That out of place rock in Sapporo? Sure, could be a God. That mundane businessman from the Saitama prefecture? Who knows, could be descended from and thus classified as a God. A cold wind blows through your dojo at night? Fuck it, why not, could be a God.

If it's got anything to do with Japan, there's a tangible chance that by Japanese Folk rules, it's possibly divine; and as such, there's a definite focus on the Isles of Japan itself as a land more sacred than the rest of Earth. This lends itself in a way to explain the supernatural - while European Pantheons generally dictate that races of monsters and the like were created by Gods and are a limited number of fixed divine monstrosities, or exist and interfere within an alternate reality to our own - the Japanese can simply peg that XYZ unknown phenomena are Gods doing some spooky shit us mortals can't understand (also meaning that the Japanese 'Monsters' in-game are actually all accurate, if minor, Gods). This is also why you'll see many lesser Japanese Gods given as 'a' God of XYZ instead of 'the' God of XYZ. Because there's literally millions of them, and just because they're related to XYZ doesn't mean they have full dominion and patronage over it.

So, let's begin with the creation myth.
In the beginning there is chaos, but no entities present. With time, said chaos separates itelf like water and oil - the lighter particles form the divine realm / Takamagahara while the heavier particles condensed and solidified into proto-Earth. Within Takamagahara, the Hitorigami (the Lonely / Isolate / Sole Gods) manifest with time, but in the fear of the possible existence of one another, generally secluded themselves (as implied by the name). All genderless, the first few were Amenominakanushi, Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi; followed later by Umashiashikabihikoji and Amenotokotachi, and finally followed by Kuninotokotachi and Toyokumono.
Are you following along fine? Good. You'll want to be paying keen attention to names here, so you're not confused later.
In literal terms, they weren't really Gods of anything, just incredibly powerful manifest beings (even lacking a fixed sex); however over time they slowly became associated with various concepts. So while not strictly being the 'God' of any concept, they're still given as loose 'Gods' regardless - associated with concepts instead of direct Patrons of concepts. To repeat the 7 Japanese Primordials, along with what they all are associated; there was Amenominakanushi (The Constellation of Ursa Major, which all others things in existence revolves around), Takamimusubi (Creator of Heaven) and Kamimusubi (Creator of Divine Life); followed later by Umashiashikabihikoji (God of the Growth of Divine Life / Vitality) and Amenotokotachi (~~Janitor~~ Maintainer of Heaven), and finally followed by Kuninotokotachi (Founder of the Earthly Realm / Corporeal Reality) and Toyokumono (Goddess of Bountiful Fields and Clouds).

Keeping up? Great.
Right, so all the Hitorigami fuck off into hiding (as implied by the name) and are barely ever relevant again.
All that's left is that Kunitokotachi and one of the others (either Toyokumono or Amenotokotachi) at some point created Uhijini and Suhijini (the first Male and Female Gods); who likewise, were irrelevant, had loose associations instead of direct deity-patronage over anything, but had 6-7 generations of Brother-Sister incest couplings (known as the Kamiyonanayo Gods - who, again, were irrelevant and are sometimes left out entirely)..... which finally ends up with our best pals, Izanagi and Izanami. Everything up to this point was pretty much meaningless and all these 'Gods' basically do nothing except exist and be powerful and be representative of consequentially minor things - it's Izanagi and Izanami that actually start to get shit done.

The older Gods give Izanagi / Izanami a magical Naginata (Spear) called Amenonuhoko / Tenkei, and have them sort out the creation of the lower realm from Takamagahara (which at this point is just seawater). Magic divine-y shit happens, the two create a rock in the middle of the Ocean (thought to be a nameless islet near modern day Awaji, South-Central Japan; being the small island that connects the largest landmass to the large island on the bottom right); and from there they use that literal stepping stone as a place to marry and create ~~the Earth~~ Japan.
The rest of the world unironically doesn't matter ~~/ exist~~ to the Japanese Pantheon.
The two decide to get incest-married, but after Izanami fucks up the marriage ceremony by being too headstrong and speaking out of line, their first two children are abominations that are both sent to sea to die (one being a leech-child, that goes on to grow up into Ebisu, God of Fish and Money; the other being Awashima, whose corpse becomes the northern island of the same name). They ask the previously established Gods who are still in the Divine Realm / Heavens what they're doing wrong, they remarry (correctly this time, Izanami shutting the fuck up) and from there have 14 notable children corresponding to the 8 major islands and 6 minor islets of the Japanese Peninsula / Archipelago; starting with Awaiji, and finishing with the major landmass of Honshu (Yamato). They then have a huge number of unknown, unnamed lesser Gods (that went on to begin the innumerably large family tree). While a few were named (eg Kaya-no-hime), most weren't and just went onto become background elements and concepts of life. I guess Izanagi and Izanami shared a kind of 'thing' / shared fetish for pregnancy. Regardless, they fucked and fucked and bred like rabbits. This created the 'background setting' of most things in reality.

But alas, all good things come to an end, and thus we come to the birth of Kagutsuchi, the chief God of Fire. And by "birth" I mean "a fire elemental violently ripping its way out of a heavily pregnant woman and searing what was left behind". Killing Izanami instantly. ~~You *really* don't want an upskirt shot of Izanami in-game, it's not pretty down there, you'd have an easier time looking at a tranny's axewound.~~ Kagatsuchi was immediately slain + beheaded by a very angry Izanagi (which forms a large number of even more deities from Kagutsuchi's corpse, including all the Volcanoes in Japan and a much smaller fragment that maintains the name of Kagutsuchi, as the God of Fire), at which point we finally move onto the creation of the major ~~(4)~~ 3 Gods of the current Japanese Pantheon; who are all said to be Izanagi / Izanami's children, however in the strictest terms are Izanagi's self-creations.
From Izanagi's tears, of mourning his wife, we have Nakisawame (Goddess of Springwater and Crying; of which the former plays an important role in Japanese culture / religion). While Nakisawame is by technicality part of the post-Izanami quintet ~~possibly their mother, depending on how you read into the myth, though it's not interpreted that way~~, she's considered minor and ignored over her far, far more prominent close siblings.
Undeterred, Izanagi heads down to the Underworld (given many names, but usually Yomi; given to be a land of shadow and roots), to resurrect his wife. You already know how it goes; he can't see her, she can't return, he makes a promise to stay with her until she gets approval from the rest of the dead to safely leave, she asks he doesn't look at her while she's ~~either doing 'woman things' or~~ negotiating with the dead, he lights a fire (again, fire being the thing that separates them), he sees she's become a rotting corpse (specifically, seeing the various types of baby Lightning Gods grow out of her like parasites feeding on her flesh - collectively known as Yakusanoikazuchi, one of which is /our/ Raijin) and panics. Izanami handles this.... *very* poorly and scares him even more, starts sending demons to chase him down and overall makes him want to to flee for good. He escapes, she threatens she'll kill 1,000 living beings every day in vengence ~~(>Japanese women)~~, he say he'll ensure 1,500 are born to stop her ~~(Shinzo Abe = Izanagi confirmed)~~.
Exhausted, he retires to a spring (thanks Nakisawame!), and from the filth and grime he gathered while in Yomi, he passively creates the chief Gods of the Japanese Pantheon - Amaterasu (Goddess of the Sun), Tsukuyomi (God of the Moon) and Susano-O (God of the Summer Storm / Typhoon) - each representing different state the sky can be in.

Cut forward a few years of single-dad childraising; after a young Susano-O begs that he wants to see his mother / Izanami too much (real mommas boy), Izanagi has had enough and fucks off for good back to the Heavens, like his grandparents before him - deadbeating the three pre-pubescent kids. He lets them figure things out for themselves; leaving them dominion of the Day, Night and Sea respectively (their older siblings being the embodiments of all known land in Japan). Amaterasu, the oldest child, assumes responsibility for her family, and takes the role of Pantheon Head, attending to the affairs of the Divine Realm.

At which point, you've got the innumerable Japanese myths thereafter. I've spent enough time on the Japanese, if you're interested, read more into it yourself, you fucking weeaboo. Oh, and on closing notes, since it's not mentioned in-game; the event that causes Amaterasu's depression-cave arc is that at some point Susano-O wins a bet with Amaterasu - and to celebrate beating his sister, he throws a (literal) cow at her (killing a handmaiden of hers, who was hit by the projectile cow). I dunno, I just thought that imagery was funny.

Japanese Gallery

le Celtic Pantheon

Currently associated with the modern day Scottish and Irish peoples, Celtism historically was practiced throughout the majority of Central and West Europe at it's peak (believed to have started in the area that is current day Austria - the Celts being one of the many group of tribal beliefs affectionately referred to as the 'Barbarians' by the Romans~~, an accurate take for the most part, even today~~), before it gradually fragmented into other Pantheons and receded to the 'Bretonnic region' that came to be all of the British Isles, Brittony (North West France) and Galicia (North Spain); before receding further into Pictish Scotland / Ireland. Not because they were especially significant or unbreakable Celtic strongholds, but because the Romans (and afterwards, Christians) didn't really see the point in even bothering to ~~desecrate and genocide~~ convert the people who lived there... or at least ''''''''''''''people'''''''''''''' who lived there - owing to their lack of natural resources, extremely rural dwellings and actual sub-civilizational savagery (a step below the usual barbarians~~, an accurate take for the most part, even today~~).

Celtism has a distinct focus on being in attunement to the natural progression of the natural world, and the seasonal changes that occur throughout it - not tree-hugger-hippies, more stoic naturalists. While there was quite a bit of variation of worship between the Celtic peoples, the area SMITE definitely seems to definitely be focusing on is the Gaelic / Irish sect (to the point it would basically better named as the Irish Pantheon; which therein is a cross between Celtic mythology, Irish History and a small amount of Christian influence), so we'll focus on that (since it's pretty much all we have left to study in terms of Celtism anyways, being the best surviving example).
Don't get ahead of yourself though, it's not all Irish; Artio is Brittonic / Welsh-English while Cernunnos is Iberian / Spanish. Well, 'Iberian / Spanish', Cernunnos's depiction in SMITE isn't even his Celtic one, it's his Wiccan one, making him a more modern bullshit nonreligion rep than Cthulhu, lmfao fuck off nu-witchcraftfags you'll never be relevant outside of tumblr blogs.

Otherwise, little remains known of the Celts, outside of their current-day Irish and Welsh ex-strongholds; in part due to general secrecy and *deliberate* aversion to record-making, in part due to the Romans and later Christians actively destroying many of their sites owing to religious opposition. From what we do know, the Celts had 5 major Gods which were all of the Tuatha De Danann [Tribe of the Gods - the pre-translation name varies depending on sect, Tuatha De Danann is the Irish version], later known as part of the Aos Si or Fae (essentially demoted from Godhood, and instead viewed as Spirits / Shapeshifters which became more predominant in later Celtic sects). The Tuatha De Danann and the Gods inhabited a reality known as the Otherworld, a place near-identical to our own (possibly also acting as the realm of the dead), where actions taken there would indirectly affect our own mortal realm, especially where the barrier between the two was weaker (sacred sites or uninhabited wilderness).The nicest / most poetic analogy I've seen for how the Otherworld works is that it's a identical mirror-image of our own world, but with a sentient reflection, and various things seen and unseen, reflected and unreflected.
The Tuatha De Danann can be equated to the Olympians relatively well - as they were the primary Gods and the ones that got the most attention and worship, however not being a member of the Tuatha De Danann didn't mean a God still wasn't a God. Many Gods were just independants who ignored the drama of the 'Gods who associated with other Gods'.
To list the five major entities that made up the Tuatha De Danann, there was;

The Dagda - The Multi-Aspected God-Giant & Celtic Pantheon Head; Patron of Crop Fertility, Masculinity, Druidry / Worship itself, the Cycle of Life and the Cycle of Seasons. His death-based aspect was known as Donn, better known as the Pale Horseman.
Manannan mac Lir - God of the Sea, and Protector / Enshrouder of the Otherworld from Humanity (sometimes the successor of The Dagda in some sects where humans killed him, but in other sects, the Scarlet Crow Bodb is Dagda's successor).
Lugh Lamhfhada - The Tri-Faced God of the Long Arm, Patrons of the Arts and Travel and most worshipped / popular of the Celtic Gods across all of Europe, but especially so in Ireland. Interestingly, also the mythologicaal stem from which Leprechauns came from, owing to his depiction as a rich old shoemaker. Don't remind the Iregroids that they used to literally worshipped a proto-Leprechaun above all other Gods at one point - if you do, they'll rig your car with explosives, fuck it up, kill 3 Irish schoolgirls and then blame it on the bongs.
Neit - God of Horse Breeding, War, Hunting and heritigially the Formorian Uncle of the Tuatha De Danann as a whole.
Brig / Brigid / Brigit - Daughter of Dagda, Goddess of Poetry, Animal Husbandry, Wisdom and Healing.

and for the one major force equal to them all combined, that should be noted on;

The Morrigan - The Tri-Aspected Crone-Temptress that would beckon disaster and command fate. Eriu, Banba and Fodla individually, and named Badb when appearing as a Black Crow. Sometimes given as an outright War Goddess (depending on the sect), sometimes seen as Neit's more... *investigative* wife. While the Goddess was widely attested within Celtism, her depiction varied greatly across Europe - but maintained an alpha-bitch final-antagonist position, matched by none others.

Of the rest of the Gods; either very little was known of them (such as Artio), they were only regionally known to a given sect (such as Cliodhna, Queen of the Banshees and Goddess of Beauty added to the Tuatha De Danann to South Irish / South Munsterian sect of Celts - or just equated with The Morrigan elsewhere) or they have been lost to time (such as ??? ... ... ... ... ~~I mean what did you expect, how can I name a God we don't know of, retard~~). Triplicate Gods like The Dagda and The Morrigan were quite common, so many of the Gods we do know of are not only likely reiterations of one another, but grouped together as a singular entity - further decreasing the total of entities we're actually aware of. Like the Babylonians also, there may have been a 'swaying factor' against worshipping the non-predominant Gods, owing to human sacrifice - said sacrifices being some of the only ways examples of Celtic Worship survived, as their exhumed remains were pristinely recovered from the Peat Bogs sacrifices were drowned/buried alive in, with their various talismans and relics. Sacrifice wasn't the key factor of worship however, much like the Norse, it was just a facet of it (and predominantly animal based ~~or 100% animal based, depending on how human you deem the sacrifice~~).
The above do have an Irish-linked Pantheon-conflict narrative, however that does not mean these Gods were Irish-exclusive. Lugh and Neit especially were known to have been observed throughout mainland Europe in the time the Romans were documenting them, indicating that what we know of the Irish sect is generally applicable to wider Celtism - and while there may be some degree of variation, it's unlikely the Easternmost Bulgarian sects of Celtism differred too greatly from the Northwesternmost Irish sect we're exemplfying with outside of menial factors such as names, ritual etiquette or secondary Gods (otherwise they'd come under a different religion, and would have been in conflict with the Celts themselves - much like how the Mesopotamians had a general shared Pantheon, but disagreed on details based on locality, spiralling into conflict and division of religion when these differences became too pronounced, like how the Babylonians and Akkadians considered themselves distinct).

While it was externally known that the Celts were of higher culture and had deep superstitions (implying both a Creation and Apocalypse myth may have existed), the aforementioned factors of secrecy and desecration has (as of now) left them lost to the ages. ~~The moral of the story being, archive and back up your shit.~~
As for final details that are unique to the Celts, within the Pantheon itself there appears to be many generations of divine groupings (so for example, the Greeks have 3; Primordial, Titan and Olympian, which can be equated with the 2 groupings from the Mesopotamians / Babylonians, plus one being the Greeks themselves) - that included the aforementioned Formorians and Tuatha De Danann, by the time they were commented upon by external historians and poets (since, again, the Celts went out of their way not to be recorded). This is in likely reference to the huge amount of word-of-mouth development, and general warring within pre-civilisational Europe itself in the millennia or so that the Celtic Pantheon developed itself - in short, those generations are representative of of once-prevailing sects that were usurped and thus died out. Overarching Celtism is thus an amalgamate for many of the practices that spawned from the post-Ice-Age Indo-European migrations and thus habitation of Europe itself; and would also go on to be the general foundation itself for later European Pantheons (namely the Norse and Slavic Pantheons) - all of which would at times have wildly different practices and deities.
For an example of how wildly this could vary, a fragmentation of Celtism that at one point spawned within the general central European region (East France / Germany / Austria / West Poland) practiced quite pro-active cannibalism ~~krauts being sub-human, no surprises there~~ and were in intense conflict with the later Celts who branched from them. This led to their mythological depiction as the Androphagi within the Greek Pantheon, before they at some point died out - for reasons that never went on record.

Celtic Gallery

le Slavic Pantheon

Less an organic and singular religious Pantheon, and more like a /pol/itical alliance (woah, woah, stay with me, stay with me. It's medieval politics, it's not that bad); the Slavic Pantheon is the amalgamate form of the various tribal practices observed throughout far-Eastern Europe and Western Asia (and in of itself is the foundation of current day Russian nation) - united so it could sustain itself into a future where alone, each singular tribal practice would otherwise have been wiped out.
So, politics time, lets have a QRD on /his/tory first to set the scene before we get into beliefs.

You ever wondered why Russia is called Russia?
No? You aren't Russian and have better things to do with your life than learn etymology?....
~~F-Fuck. Uhhh..... Sh-Shut up.~~

Christianity was a menace to Eastern Europe around the time of ~850 AD, and the Slavs weren't having any of it. While the Tribal Europeans in North-Central Europe eventually became the aggressive Norse people, and the people in North-Western Europe managed to retain Celtism simply by geographic security / being unwanted and worthless lands / people, the North-Eastern and Eastern tribes were quickly being eradicated by the Christian expansion, as it ~~genocided those who worshipped different Gods and desecrated their holy grounds~~ brought the lost lambs of God into the peaceful flock of Jesus. The Byzantine Empire expanding in the South, the Vatican expanding from the South West, and no way to retreat further North, the Slavs were all but backed into a corner.

Who would take a stand against God?

Vladimir the Great was that man.

And Kyivan Rus' [Land of the Rus'ians] was his empire.

They don't give the 'The Great' epithet out often, so when you hear 'The Great', you know it's gonna be a pretty big guy 4u - Alexander he Great, Alfred the Great, Charlemange the Great, Ramesses II / Ramesses the Great etc.
While Vladimir would convert to Christianity in his 30's for military reasons / because they were the best choice of a bad selection / to ensure the Jews or Muslims didn't take control of the Kyivan Rus' (said to be because he saw the Jews / Muzzies as living failures / too anti-Vodka respectively - yes, unironically); the decade/s before then, Vladimir saw to it that the various tribes of all of Eastern Europe were united in direction, mostly by ironing out individual tribal practices and establishing a shared Pantheon that all the Slavs could roughly agree on at the very least, without getting into petty conflicts amongst themselves. One thing to note is that he did not manage to conglomerate the Western tribes, and some of the South-Eastern tribes - so while they were 'Slavic' and 'Pagan', they do not classify under Slavic Paganism, and many died out with time (the farthest West the Kyivan Rus' got to was ~ the Eastern A8 countries of the EU, or the non-coastal nations bordering Russia - so if you're Polish, don't even bother lecturing others on Slavism, because you're not from a Slavist nation).
As a result of this action on behalf of Vladimir, even when monotheistic Christianity began to overrun the Slavic region, polytheistic paganism was still widely practiced locally / in secret, and regular pagan uprisings would occur for centuries to come, along with many pagan traditions withstanding the test of time (some by themselves, some in the form of a semi-tribal Orthodox Christianity amalagamate, where given Pagan figures were Saint'd and previous rituals became church-related, etc).

/his/tory and /pol/itics over. Wasn't that bad right?

Slavic Paganism (henceforth and previously Slavism, because I'm not writing that out every time), uniquely dictates that there are two (2) Pantheon Heads - usually given as Perun (God of Thunder, Rain, Honor and the Heavens / Sky ~~aka not!oldmanversionThor~~) and Veles (God of Music, Livestock, Trickery and Death / the Underworld, who saw that the dead would pass on in rays of sunlight).
Past that, while deities were widely observed and respected, it came down mostly to locality as to who 'was' and 'was not' a major God (for examples from in-game, our boy Chernobog in-game was feared throughout much of Slavism to the point he was taboo to be observed, however his base was mostly within Western Slavism - meanwhile Baba Yaga was a more widespread folk tale, but more known to the Eastern Slavs). A common thoughline is that Gods are usually (usually, as in 'not always') associated as morally Good / Evil (over any nuance), as the Christians of the region, despite being non-Slavist, still exerted influence - and so the dichotomy of God & The Devil was popular. The Good Gods are blessed and bring happiness wherever they tread and all that bullshit, who are a boon to all (even when doing seemingly evil actions); while the Evil Gods are dastardly tricksters, usually out to hurt and manipulate to their own ends (even when doing seemingly good actions). To this end, many different Gods essentially became not!God-coded and not!Satan-coded, to appease any Christians 'inspecting' the tribal villages.
As a result of their amalgamate origins, any assessments on 'major' Gods is harder to pin down too, and anybody telling you who 'the most popular' Slavist God was is lying to you (unless their region of popularity is also noted). Slavism is / was an extremely flexible religion, owing to the fact its intent was to get hundreds of minor tribes to just 'get along', with some Gods only known to specific localities, and unknown elsewhere within the Kyvian Rus' - hence, why you may have also noticed that I said 'usually' in reference to the Pantheon heads. While Perun and Veles were the most known-of across the entire Kyivan Rus' and anecdotally treated as the Pantheon Heads across most of the Kyivan Rus' (names like Rod, Dazhbog, Svarog, Yarila, Marzanna and Zorya being somewhat-widespread too), it didn't mean they were the Chief deities everywhere (many times taking secondary place to smaller regional names like Radogost or Svetovit, who despite not being the Pantheon-Head entities, were treated as more important for the locality) nor were they necessarily the names associated with the conceptual Pantheon Head entities described (for example, Perun vs Veles may have been switched out for Belobog vs Chernobog - Perun and Veles would still known about and seen as Gods of the Thunder / the Underworld resepctively, but not necessarily as the Pantheon Heads, just as 'mundane' Gods). The same can be said for a creation myth; with a not!Yggdrasil origin (where not!Vedrfolnir and not!Nidhoggr fight as the two primordials, Slavic associations varied), a not!YmirDeath origin and even some creation stories that mirror the Chinese conflict between Zhu Rong and Gong Gong all existing locally to some sects of Slavism.
HOWEVER, the most widespread creation myth goes as follows (likely because it jived well with Christianity in it's concept, and was 'allowed' to persist / spread)...

In the beginning, there was the Good God / the White God and the Evil God / the Black God (again, names vary, but these two are the Pantheon Heads described). Both equal in strength, both as eternally old as the other (their forms simply being primordial manifestations), neither able to overcome the other; but the Good God having the general edge in the small-scale conflicts.
One day the Good God descends from the Heavens to the Primordial-Sea-home of the Evil God, and is tricked by the Evil God to make Earth. The Evil God dives into the Primordial Sea to provide the Good God with the material to do so, and in doing so hides some material for himself, to create his own land, where he can begin to machinate the Good God's demise. He conspires in secret, but the Good God finds out the Evil God's plan via [various methods], yet holds his tongue at the sleight. The Evil God presents the material; the Good God creates Earth, then turns the Evil God's plan against him via [various methods], at which point the Evil God flees, and in the process the material the Evil God was holding onto is dropped and accidentally made into the mountains and valleys of Earth.
As for 'who' said Good / Evil Gods were... it definitely wasn't not!Abrahamic (even if the two do heavily mirror a concept of God & Satan, in this case the story came far before Christians were in the region and was just a happy coincidence), however the Pagan interpreation varies by region. Sometimes it's Perun vs Veles, sometimes Belobog vs Chernobog, sometimes Svarog vs .... you get the idea. Otherwise, the Good God usually oversees the Heavens and weather, while the Evil God oversees the Underworld and the dead (their 'morality' not impacting their duties or patronages).

Practices otherwise greatly vary by region outside of a few generally accepted holidays, but otherwise little is known of how historic Slavism would have been practiced, for almost an identical reason to why we know little about Celtism - this time, it was the Slavs that generally didn't like making written record of their practices, and the imperialist commentators are the Christians instead of the Romans. Oh, and it didn't help either, that the ~~predominantly Jewish-led~~ ~~(don't start, /pol/, it's just on-topic religious context)~~ Communists genocided and systematically eradicated much of what was left over of Slavism (far more efficiently than the Christians ever bothered to do). Some smaller-scale local practices still do persist today, but it's certainly a hollow remnant of what once was, and would be inaccurate to apply to wider Slavism.
Veneration of of ethnic history does appear to have been present (some folk heroes being deified) making Slavism semi-race-based-but-not-outright-racist. Crossover between local tribal customs was somewhat fluid, and we have far more in terms of remaining idols and statues compared to what was left of the Celts, given general Slavism is still practiced on a small scale today (the various opponents of it couldn't burn every monument down across Russia in the time they were given); but otherwise Gods were less treated like an associated community of one another (like say, the Greek Olympians or the Egyptian Ra-posse), and were more as isolated individual manifestations, who would on occasion interact with each other if nearby.
Need something? If you're Slavist enough, you should know the God/s local to your area to venerate, present offerings to and get chummy with the priest of. Simple as.

Slavic Gallery

le Voodoo Pantheon

The ethno-spiritual Pantheon that hails from the Carribbean (correctly spelt Vodou, but colloquially Voodoo); most notably centred around Haiti, the only place that it's historically been openly practiced (post-slave-uprising and resultant genocide of the Europeans and the native Taino Mesoamericans).
Quite frustratingly, I can't actually comment on this Pantheon at all, because ethno-spiritual doesn't mean "spiritual practices common within an ethnic group" - in this context it actually means "spiritual practices that can only be understood or commented on by those of the same ethnic group" (as one will be reminded of, numerous times, when doing any research on this extremely race-based Pantheon; and as I'll explain why later).
As a green faceless man in a sharp suit ... I'm just not of the correct bulakc mann descent, and thus unable to comment, for lack of virtual melanin.

...

Oh wait, like I give a fuck what some racist ~~third~~ fourth world N I G G E R S think - we shall continue... undeterred! ...

The Voodoo Pantheon.... is a clusterfuck, and I don't even mean that insultively or negatively.
To begin with I'll dispel some false notions, so you don't go into this with the wrong idea. The notion of Voodooism being 'black magic' ~~(not that kind of black, the non-racial one)~~ and not!Satanism is completely inaccurate, and while it may have become ingrained slightly in modern times as a result of heavy association; it's not relevant to the core Pantheon and is something I'm just going to shoot down now - Voodoo does not have any.... 'explicitly' malicious bias to it. This misconception appears to stem most notably from Voodoo's extreme focus on inviting and observing possession; universally haram in all Abrahamic teachings, but vital in many African religions. Practitioners will often use themselves as husks, as to which the supernatural can occupy and thus communicate within the human realm - and while it might look like a bunch of retards acting silly and sperging out in the middle of a patterned rug with some candles lit from an atheist's PoV, to the Christians and Jews of the time this would immediately invoke the idea of demonic possession - leading into it's conflation with Satanism. This is in tandem with the complex rituals required to perform a possession - complete with unique runes, relics, instruments, offerings / sacrifices and chants (just in case the Pope wasn't already having a heart attack at the nignog hissing and slithering around on the floor - an actual facet of invoking some of the serpentine Gods). Oh, and one important invocation relic is ~~desecrating~~ using the Holy Bible as a semi-common ritual ingredient. Really, Voodoo practitioners are not doing themselves any optics favors.
Also while we're on the topic of dispelling myths about the mythology - Voodoo Dolls ~~(or when I use them on my enemies, 'hedgehog-looking pincushions')~~ ~~(even as I type this out, methinks janny will be having an unfortunate slip on the stairs tomorrow...)~~ are purely an urban legend - they're just not prominent, and are the product misconception of otherwise mundane idols of Voodoo Gods combined with the Christian understanding of Poppets within witchcraft.

Now only the Pantheon proper - while a core set of generally-agreed Gods do exist; priorities, practices, rituals and beliefs can quite literally vary on a household-to-household basis. Hence the 'clusterfuck' adjective... /his/tory lesson time! Because it's relevant. /pol/, contain yourselves, we're gonna loosely be talking about da oppression of da blak mann - trigger warning, I know you're sensitive to this stuff...
The 'clusterfuck' part is due Voodoo's origins within the African Slave Trade; wherein the local beliefs and practices of the hundreds of minor tribes that were enslaved by the Dahomey, Oyo and Ashanti Empires (and others) were forceably amalgamated into one general shared belief system, as they were bought by the Jews and Europeans and sent to the Americas for use within labor forces. This is compounded with an underlying tone of extreme secrecy that many believers needed to practice, so they wouldn't get rumbled by the religious administration of the various regions they were ~~given free holidays~~ exported to as slaves.
As such, Voodoo pulls Gods and practices from all across Western and Southern Africa, while compounding many Christian influences (in part from Christian-converted slaves who had their own sway in practices, in part to further conceal it's practice as the tribal Africans were forced to at least pretend to be Christian by the usual ~~genocidal~~ peaceful lot). For some reason the Jews didn't convert many... wonder why... couldn't be to do with anything in Jewish scripture, that would be 'anti' the induction of Semit- wait what? Why would the Tanakh be against the induction of new jews, unle- [Lorefag was shut down for this comment]
This in turn presents quite a conundrum with the formation of Voodoo - there was a fucking shitton of regional tribal practices, and all of them were suddenly forced together and basically told to get along. ~~Some~~ Most didn't, leading to a large amount of instigated inter-slave killings and the formation of black gang culture in the Americas (albeit on the basis of religion). Such behaviours were ignorantly and falsely attributed to their race, over the poorly thought out religious compositions of the various plantations and slave housing. Yes /pol/tards; muh stutistics / muh dikkwaving / muh biological racial differences do exist; but in this case, these behaviours and the resultant stereotypes / cultures were not a direct result of them - simply compounded with the primary reason of overarching religious conflicts within the slave pools. Meanwhile the other slaves who did try to make the best of the situation and get along amalgamated into a general Pantheon... which came to be known as wider Voodoo.

Now, due to the lack of communication (not only on a national scale but regionally too), these practices manifested wildly differently - and as such, the only real throughlines are general throughlines that were present throughout all African tribal practices (Possession, Sacrifice etc), with some Christianity thrown into the mix. This is also why many ~~racist fourth worlders~~ Voodoo practitioners would be technically correct in saying that only Africans can 'get it' - because there's nothing really 'to get'; it's so loose to begin with, there is no central leadership structure and is almost on a personal / familial level as to what was locally amalgamated (or not), and thus what is individually practiced. Hence, by virtue of an African talking on it, chances are they're speaking for their own practices - but if you're not African, then there's a pretty good chance are you don't hail from an African tribe and are blowing smoke out of your ass. It's an objectively race-ist Pantheon, and definitely the most racist one present in SMITE - though it's not particularly aggressive about it, just exclusionary.
Finally on this part - make no mistake at all - there's very little 'secret' about Voodoo, it's just that you don't know what the other guy specifically believes. If you know of all the hundreds of regional tribal African practices, then you'll basically know Voodoo inside out. Counterpoint to that: saying that is exponentially easier than doing it. There's less than 20 Pantheons in SMITE, meanwhile there's almost certainly a triple-digit number of African Tribal Practices incorporated into Voodoo in some way or another. If you've been reading this Classics doc in order and are already feeling somewhat lost, then you'll begin to understand why it's quite hard to 'bruteforce' your way into knowing all foundational religions of Voodoo (let alone the evolution of their practices within the Americas).

But that doesn't mean there's 'no' coordination within the Pantheon.

Again, while different sects have (sometimes wildly) different practices around the Caribbean and American regions, we're focusing on the Haitian sect; the most developed, and owing to it's generally historic open practice ~~if you can really even call 200 years 'historic', in relative terms~~.
Let's begin (for real this time).

Haitian Voodoo hits a middle ground between Monotheism and Polytheism - on one hand there's definitely a central God figure, known as Gran Met or Bondye, who occupies a role similar to / directly held in comparison to the Abrahamic God, in that he is simply the Eternal Almighty and omniscient originator of all things. He's generally benevolant, but ignorant - so while it's important to venerate the concept of Gran Met / Bondye, there isn't as much of a focus on worshipping Gran Met as there is on worshipping his servants, known as the Loa (tl;dr Fuck whiteys church, all my niggas hate church, Gran Met ain't even listening anyways, lets fuck off down Mwenge's basement, get drunk and summon some Gods instead lmfao). On top of being representative of the Christian God, Gran Met is also symbolic of multiple African Pantheon Heads - such as the Yoruban Olodumare / Olorun. This rule does not apply to Yoruban mythology, just Voodoo.
So how does one appease and unite literally hundreds of minor tribes and polytheistic pantheons under one understood religion? Well the Voodoo did it via the use of the Nanchon concept - essentially sub-pantheons within the pantheon, which each are said to represent the spirits of a given African region / major tribes previous Gods, or in Voodoo's case, the Loa (sometimes phonetically spelt Lwa). Essentially, every tribal God and practice was legitimised, however their overreach was limited to the nation a given Voodoo practitioner hailed from (nation = nanchon, if you didn't twig) - all otherwise subservient to Gran Met / Bondye, and the Loa were thus treated as equivalent to Angels within Christianity (explaining why the Loa of one Nanchon didn't interfere with the Nanchon that a different worshipper may have hailed from - the Loa were seen as regional Gods / spirits, not overarching entities).

While there are a few Voodoo-original Gods, and some that are popular across the whole Pantheon (such as our buddy Baron Samedi), in direct terms a Nanchon is a Pantheon of a previous region of Africa, placed within the Voodoo Pantheon (eg, the wider Yoruban / Nigerian Pantheons are known as the Nago Nanchon within Voodoo, with Ogou as the Nanchon head, not Obatala - only a few major Yoruban Gods are shared outside of the Nago Nanchon, such as Oshun). Furthermore, a key difference Voodoo separates itself from Christianity by, is that there is no concept of Satan, Hell or Eternal Punishment for not seeking forgiveness for your sinful actions - none of the Nanchons are outright evil, simply ones that are more or less violent. Demons and the like simply do not exist - the closest equivalent being especially violent, cruel and Faustian Loa, usually from the Petro Nanchon and demarcated with Red Eyes (a Loa's eyes usually being a good mood-indicator). Depsite as much as they say all this to try to cover their asses however, it's quite hard not to paint the Goddess of Rage, Revenge and Genocide, Ezili Dantor, Head Loa of the Petro Nanchon as anything but the kind of nasty that would make Satan blush.
The two major Nanchons are the Rada and the Petro (phonetically Petwo) - the 'Cooled' ones and the 'Heated' ones (in reference to their temperament), of which the most of the rest of the Nanchons / Loa also have a minor alignment towards. Nanchon alignment dictates the ritual and offerings required for invokement of any given Loa, and sometimes a given Loa may have multiple aspects across other Nanchon (ie, do the Rada ritual, get XYZa - do the Petro ritual, get XYZb). Nanchons can further be broken down into Fanmi (Families) if appropriate, representative of major sects within each regional Nanchon (the two Nanchons with an unusually high amount of Fanmi being the Kongo and Ibo, owing to their huge landmass of origin).

Since there's just too many to list coherantly, I've just made a Venn diagram roughly explaining the Nanchon categorization.
While I in no way shape or form claim any kind of academic standard here, this is probably the best material on the internet for this shit in a simplified manner - it's just so goddamn disorganised. It's more than likely there aren't just 17 Nanchon, and that there's more corresponding to the various other peoples imported in - but since they've never been listed in one unified place and 17 is the number they always run with, this is the result. If you're an actual voodoo practitioner and notice a mistake (eg I've accidentally implied two Nanchon that are just synonyms of one another, are two separate Nanchon)..... look, I just don't care, I've got other shit to do, fix it yourself before you throw it on your shitty wordpress blog and claim it as your own (which you were gonna do anyways, weren't you, lazy nigger.
Otherwise, thank me later.

Nanchons

~~And yes, I did portray Gran Met as gigganigga and God put together. We woudn't want anynigga stealing this as a resource for their supersrs Voodoo blog, unmocked and unmolested now, would we?~~

Individual Loa hail from a Nanchon clan that roughly correlates to a region of origin; and to just cut through the bullshit, every Voodoo practitioner will tell you that their Nanchon of patronage / origin is the most popular one of them all (but bro... we're all just so secretive that nobody else will tell you this ;) ). The only three you need to care about are Rada, Petro and Ghede, as they make up the major distinct groups. Rada being the chilled out ones who focus on emotional and interpersonal rituals; Petro being the stern, powerful, serious and heated individuals who focus on the 'serious' rituals which require more powerful magic; Ghede being the most popular Voodoo-only / non-ex-African grouping (the rest, again, basically being an incorporated African Pantheon - for example, yes, Yemoja does appear in Voodoo within the Nago Nanchon).

Myths vary as to which Nanchon a practitioner favors (since many are just carried over from previous Pantheons); however in the case of a Creation myth, the most common one ('speakers personal = most popular' bullshit aside) describes that Damballa, the man-faced, winged ~~World~~ Earth Serpent ~~(and not!Moses)~~ was created by Gran Met perchance. Damballa then went onto create our reality by coiling and slithering around, before somewhat settling as the hills and mountains of Earth. After shedding his skin under the Sun (that he created with his heat and movements), he created water, and from that water's reflection a rainbow sprung up, which in it's own right was Eyida-Weddo / Aida-Wedo, the Rainbow Snake and embodiment of the sky. With the world now created, other Loa began to descend (these being the ones from the other Nanchons), and after Damballa and Eyida-Weddo fell in love, they created Loa of their own (these being most of the ones that are Voodoo original / or independant from the Nanchon system, who aren't ascendant humans).
Observationally, this similar in vein to the native Mesoamerican myths of the Haitian region, suggesting the ~~genocided~~ culturally enriched natives of the regions that the slaves were brought to may have had some influence in the formation of Voodoo.

I'm not even going to attempt to define any other narratives or aspects of mythos - because again, it's all up to who you ask as to what ultrasecret superduper popular underground tales are big within Voodoo. If you want a more overall understanding, you'd need to look into basically all the regional practices each tribe hailed from. Maybe read some Anansi in the mean time?

Voodoo Gallery

le Polynesian Pantheon

The Polynesian Pantheon indicates the beliefs held by the wider peoples of the island Pacific, spanning from Tuvalu to Easter Island, from Hawaii to New Zealand (sometimes the regions of Micronesia and Melanesia also being grouped in as Polynesian Outlier, covering the area up to Papua New Guinea).
Despite it's huge geographic range and isolation, most of the islands within the Pacific Ocean have a somewhat equatable Pantheon of belief, given it's focused spread through the Polynesian Expansion and initial colonisation of the islands about 1-2 thousand years ago, and the varying level of seafaring communication between these island settlements. While the religious beliefs are equatable however, it does not mean the Polynesian Pantheon is a singular, unified body throughout all of Polynesia - practices can vary (wildly) depending on the island community in question, and a general 'evolution' of the Pantheon can be observed as later-inhabited islands generally practice a modified version of the earlier-inhabited islands.
SMITE could reasonably borrow from any of these cultures (7 internationally recognised independent nations, a few more international territories, many times more inhabited islands), however from the few releases we've seen, it appears to lend most from the later Northern Arm of the Expansion (Hawaii etc), over the Western 'Root' of the Pantheon closer to Micronesia ~~and most likely because Hawaii is burger turf, and LoRez are indeed, burgers~~.

Interestingly, you should already be quite familiar with many principle concepts of Polynesian religion; either by circumstantial luck or because of the familiarity of Polynesia between the two modern-era cultural powerhouses (USA and Japan) after their WW2 conflict, as many aspects of Polynesian culture has passively inspired / ingrained itself into international media as 'general terms' within fantasy. Regardless, I'll explain - I'm just shadowing that you'll probably know quite a lot of this by chance. I'll try to be as overarching as possible and not focus on any one island chain's religion over the others; but try to understand that these concepts do often have variations, depending on the culture discussed.

To begin with, the Polynesians generally understand that all things have a related energy level - not manifest as a spirit, but as a literal resource that can be exchanged between one another, and fuels all things - from the strength of a man, to a burning fire, to the sharpness of a knife. This is known as Mana ~~>inb4 h-hey, I've heard of that stuff!!~~ - and to aggressively manipulate mana (regardless of intent) is almost always seen as a form of desecration or theft, and thus said to be as "Tapu" {pronounced, Ta(p)boo, semi-silent p, so anglacises to 'Taboo'} ~~>inb4 hey, I've heard of that!!~~. Ergo, many of the rituals and customs within Polynesia are equally as much to cultivate mana and appease the Gods, as it was to avoid tapu / taboo actions. The most commonly attested / well-known tapu action would be stepping over something - especially its shadow (and thus merging it with your own, absorbing it's Mana) - but other actions that impose a kind of physical superiority were generally the ones to leech or poison / pollute anothers mana pool. Sleights like this usually resulted in the death of the offender.
In order of who's got the most Mana, the Gods are entities and concepts empowered with near endless Mana, while folk heroes would have drawn much of their strength from an overflowing mana pool (especially in sacred regions close the the Gods, similar to Celtic places of power). Then as for the order of ~~plebs~~ mundane people; religious chiefs and elders would have accumulated much mana over their lives and after currying favor with the Gods, virgin women inherently would have a good amount of mana (to be passed on during childbirth), with a good amount left over in the rare case a old woman survived to menopause - and finally at the bottom of the rung we have the normal guys, who would often need to be careful with their limited mana pools, else be unfit for work / combat. That's not to say Polynesia is matriarchal - it's to say that men needed to earn their place in a society that just accepted women because reasons (>inb4 /r9k/ ~~commentary~~ whining). Much of the intricate and detailed architecture / relics that give the Polynesians their distinct imagery is resultant of being a conduit / multiplier of mana for the men.

As for creation stories... well I can't describe all of them. To touch on general notes - the beginning usually begins with a primordial, Sky-Male/Earth-Female couple, whose tight hug makes the boundaries of reality (names vary) - similar to Geb / Nut's schtick in the Egyptian Pantheon, but more 'space-y'. Their children occupy the space between the couple's tight embrace, which is an infinite Primordial Darkness (name varies) - after which one of the children wakes up and frees themselves with Light / Fire, and assists a few other siblings to also break free of the primordial darkness (names again greatly vary along with the number that free themselves - but for brevities sake, the Hawaiian sect refers to them as a quartet of Kanaloa, Kane, Ku and Lono; Kane, Squid-God of Fertility ~~>inb4 hey, I've seen that tag in my hent-~~ being defacto Pantheon Head, having been the first to awaken. To emphasise similarities, the Maori's version of Kane / Kanaloa is Tane / Tangaloa). Most of the primordial children that break free go on to create the lesser Gods at this point and furnish the Earth, before the first to break free creates Humanity in it's image - meanwhile it's commonly given that one of the primordial children goes renegade and acts in an antagonistic manner - creating an opposing race of his children (once again, all this varies - sometimes the brother is given as a rival who occupies the oceans and whose children are fish / reptiles who predate humans - sometimes the brother is given as the ruler of the Underworld and whose children are monsters / malevolent spirits).
From there, [shennanigans] occur that make up most of Polynesian mythology stories; which will slowly lead up to the Polynesian Apocalypse prophecy, wherein given God of the Dead / Evil will empower themselves over time, off of the deaths of humans who do not receive proper burial rites - culminating with them bursting free of their death-realm, obliterating all of existence and returning everything to the Primordial Darkness; perhaps even harming the Primordial couple that make up the fabric of reality itself (names vary, most known example of the big-bad being the Maori Whiro).

Polynesian Gallery

le Arthurian ...Pantheon(?)

The Arthurian narrative is based off of the heritigial Hero-King of post-Roman / pre-Norman Britain - King Arthur. Specifically speaking, King Arthur is *not* tied to the Anglo-Saxons that make up the majority of the English people, concentrated in the South / South-East (around London) today, but instead more relevant to the Welsh and the area that is today North-Western England (tl;dr Norf). The Arthurian tales borrow heavily from both Christian and Celtic folklore and influences of the time, amalgamating in a romantic / epic collection of stories that stand as their own body of work. One should note however - the Arthurians were a popular topic in Europe, and so there are many tales that are quite literally fanfic on behalf of French, German and Spanish authours, that over time integrated themselves into the overall narrative itself, despite at no point being present in the 'original' mythology. As such, the Arthurian narrative is less a coherant and singular 'plot', and more reminiscent of other world Pantheons; as there are numerous accounts, tales and legends describing the escapades of King Arthur and those around him.

The Britons of the time (~500AD) were being invaded on nearly all fronts by the Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Franks and Saxons (all from North / Northwestern mainland Europe) and were in regular conflict with the Celtic Picts and Gaels to the North (modern day Scotland / Ireland) on top of Viking / Norse raiding parties and pirates pillaging the coastline regions of the British Isles. Suffice to say, true Britons should be used to being in a state of themselves vs seemingly the entire pissed-off known world. Maybe it was good practice for when they later over largest amount of landmass in human history, the British Empire. King Arthur was the legendary (and possibly real) king that managed to juggle every single group at once, bringing peace and prosperity to the desperate native people of Britain.
The events of the overarching tale of the Arthurians don't as much follow the life of the titular King Arthur Pendragon (first name based off of Artio, a minor regional celtic Goddess that *his* name re-popularised, for his apparent bear-like strength), but moreso the unnaturally long life of his demonic Wizard-advisor, Merlin (full name and/or origins being Myrradin Ambrosius, whose life encompasses all of Arthurs life too). Merlin is far from the 'main character' - but it's in a similar vein to the observation that the Journey to the West covers more of Sun Wukong's life than it does the 'main character' Tang Sanzang. King Arthur is the undisputed protagonist, Merlin a secondary-lead.
Since belief wasn't really practiced (again, they're legends, not Gods), there's nothing much to note on that regard, aside from faith in God (the Christian one) being a virtue... and all the other Christian-y things that entails. The catch there being that Christianity wasn't a thing in the British Isles in the time of King Arthur, and would definitely have been viewed as foreign and invasive - especially with how many events happen within the Arthuran narrative that mirror Celtic mythology. Almost all mentions of Christianity would have been post-Arthurian writers hamfisting it in to imply they've always had presence within bongland (as oppose to being a foreign and invasive religion from the Middle East), which then became heritaged in with time, as the narrative developed.

As for relevant tales related to the Arthurians within British folklore, there's such examples as;

.
- Merlin's birth being that of the intended Anti-Christ (only to be saved be saved by Blaise upon birth by immediate baptisement), henceforth why Merlin is in attune with the unnatural and natural alike.
- Merlin's shoddy and borderline feral upbringing, being outcast after his birth - assuming a role similar to a forest-mage. This is closer to his suspected origin, an orphaned child brought up in the wliderness with the spirits - but is not his 'canon' origin (that being above).
- Merlin advising on the Red and White Dragon fighting at King Vortiger's Castle, establishing him within the various feudal royal courts of the region (whose legendary victor is still today on the Welsh national flag)
- The tale of the Sword in the Stone and right to kingship, as Arthur showed his right to rule by pulling the legendary Caledfwlch / Caliburn from the Stone.
- The creation of the Round Table of equal knights and advisors (Lancelot, Galahad, Percival, Gawain, Lionel, Tristain, Gareth, Bedivere, Bleoberis, Branor, Lucan, Palamedes, Lamorak, Bors the Elder, Safir, Pellias, Kay, Ector-de-Maris, Dagone, Degore, Brunor, Gingalain, Alymore and Mordred) - and the litany of tales each had attributed to their names during Arthur's 'Golden Era'. This is the part of the narrative the majority of legends come from, essentially being a cloudy period where hundreds of various adventures and dramas fit into.
- Arthur's wife Gwynevere's love for his head knight Lancelot; spurning Arthur's half-sister, Morgana's, hatred of Gwynevere and continual undermining of the Round Table from then on.
- Merlin's romance and ultimate entrapment by Morgana, within Merlins Hill, so he could not be present for...
- Arthur's bastard son Mordred usurping him and the two ultimately each killing the other at the Battle of Camlann
- Finally, to end the overarching table, Bedivere casting (the now) Excalibur away, to be caught by the Lady of the Lake. If you never realised - 'Excalibur' wasn't the name of his sword when he used it, only after the fact. 'ex-'Calibur(n).

If you want the short of what is and isn't noted on in 'da originals' - almost the drama with the women was stuff added on in-post by continental writers, and many of the Knights of the Round Table were entirely fictional additions. ~~I can't really think of anything to pad this section out with. It just isn't a Pantheon.~~

Arthurian Gallery

le Yoruban Pantheon

Practiced in a large part of Western Africa (mainly in a region around West Nigeria, or the *Yoruba* River) Yoruba...nism (?) / Isese Religion can be best described as a scattered patronage to a concept of Destiny / Fate, in which divine spirits (Gods) called Orisha overlook rituals and the like, and pass them on to the Primordial Creator and Origin, Olodumare / Olorun (kinda like a more Polytheistic-focused take of how Buddhism operates, with the concept of Enlightenment replaced with Fate - or in their words, Ayanmo).
For an explanation on the first comment - Yoruba is the name of the people who practice it, while Isese is the name of the religion and Panthon itself - not to say SMITE is just plain wrong on this front, just that it's an odd choice of name when 'Isese' Pantheon would be more accurate.

Similar to the Romans, the Yorubans believe that all things have an associated and manifest spirit-level by right of existence (named Ase, the spark of life / ability to change. Best translated / anglacised as something like 'Flux') - however the spirit is developed by the being it resides in, so in practice is closer Chinese Feng Shui and the concept of Qi, in that the spiritual energy of all things can influence the environment directly (rather than simply influence the conditions of an environment) and can even be cultivated to allow a being to enact change on a larger magnitude. Inversely, if a person or object were to become malignant, it would have a direct negative effect on everything around it. People, spirits and objects can be in a way 'purified' if the positive Ase energies surrounding them can counteract malignant Ase, emphasising a tone of communal wellbeing (basically, if everybody gets along, things get better in both a literal and spiritual sense). Things that are especially positively attuned (both in terms of positive energy, and acceptance of their fate) are said to be closer to Orun / the Yoruban Divine Realm, and thus able to call upon more favors from the various Orisha / Gods (usually in the form of advice / divination over outright miracles) to aid them in making the world a better place and in becoming more attuned to their spiritual eneries / alternate consciousness (Ori).
Those who successfully become fully attuned to their Ayanmo / Ori Orun ~~/ Destiny~~ and carry out their duties in the physical realm ~~(have proportionally bigger heads and larger skulls, because that's where the Ase is stored)~~ ~~(unironically)~~ go to Orun Rere upon death, returning to Olodumare's conscious and can persist in bliss from thereon out - while those who fail to find meaning have their spark of life fade a little, and are reincarnated (though due to their faded primordial spark of life, in a less attuned state, making the process of apotheosis slightly more difficult in later lifetimes).
It is a mandatory goal / destiny for all things to reproduce, at minimum ~~partially explaining the population crisis in the region, because retarded and ignoratn do-gooder westerners keep facilitating this goal for them~~.

There's very little in terms of recorded history or practices, both due to it's tribal roots and due to the Europeans that visited at the time paying little attention to the cultures they were trading with - even today, cultural exchange isn't exactly expansive.
What we can gather is that the religion is one of the older and more organised Sub-Saharan African Pantheons, even if it is a very 'young' Pantheon in relative terms to other world religions. Based off of relics in the area and the similarities of nearby tribal Pantheons, it's safely estimated that Yorubanism expanded less via open conflict, but by amalgamating other regional tribal cultures into it's own, though the extent to which is unknown. The earliest evidence of Yoruban practice dates to the latter stages of the Bantu Expansion (which, for those of you who aren't as informed on African history; the Bantu expansion can be summarised as the ~2-3 millennia long population movement and spread of a primitive African Iron Age, spurned by the desertification of the Sahara Grasslands.... now 'ex-Grasslands' / 'Desert' before resultant technological stagnation) - however Yorubanism is far from a dominant religion, simply a large one in a infamously divided and chaotic region.
There are quite obvious similarities to Christianity (Major God who commands over spiritual beings that assist humans etc), and while Christianity was at a peak in Europe around the time Yorubanism began to form - there's no outright evidence of missionaries passing through Sub-Saharan Africa at the time, and nowhere to the extent they would have commanded much influence. In this case, it's more likely it manifested independently, and the similarities are simply happenstance.
One should note that a large amount of African religions (especially those centred around central Africa) share similarities in core concepts, as a result of the Bantu Expansion. That's not to say they're equatable, more that they manifest as different interpretations of a core set of 'Da Rulez' - if another Central / West African Pantheon were to be added to the game later, I likely wouldn't need to establish much / anything in terms of new concepts, since many African Tribal religions understand similar loose concepts like veneration of the sun / stars or persistent life-energies following one around, or the treatment of animals as supernatural beings at times. The Yorubans believe the spiritual essence is more of an inert core to meditate on (as oppose to a semi-sapient 'guardian spirit') - but aside from that, you'd recognise quite a lot.

What does make Yorubanism unique, is its unusual longetivity in continual and focused practice (especially for a tribal Pantheon in such a contentious area as the West Coast of Africa - unlike an example like the Celts, who utterly dominated European tribal practices for the most part at their peak), with the Pantheon persisting for a few centuries now, both without evolving into something unrecognisable or being wiped out by a neighbouring tribal religion like many others in the area. This success is in part due to another relatively unique aspect of it's practice - it's general pacifism - an outlier considering a majority of neighbouring tribal traditions are outright warmongering and demand sacrifices of opponents. That's not to imply it's wholly peaceful or devoid of sacrificial practices - one should not forget it was also the main religion of the Oyo Empire, a major slaver and force within Colonial Africa. While it became more secure in it's position as a world religion with the aid of of the slave trade ensuring enclaves across the globe (especially when the Oyo were BTFO by the neighbouring Dahomey Empire, and were started to be enslaved themselves), for the few centuries before the Modern era, it's continued practice is impressive in relative terms to say the least.
On the other hand, owing to the innumerable amount of variations and international sects of Yorubanism as a result of this unorganised spread in various West African diaspora communities, general word-of-mouth transmission over any fixed religious texts and the lack of outright religious leadership, agreed beliefs are becoming more dilute and are increasingly evolving away from the original religion (one such example being Yorubanism's depiction and overseas cross-development within Voodou) - not quite to the point they can be considered individual religions just yet, but enough that getting a clear answer on a given question pertaining to the religion may be difficult.
Fundamentally, the core is in Nigeria with the Yoruba people, so the obvious case can be made that it would be considered the 'most accurate' / mythologically canon version of it - and it's what I'll be running with.

As for creation, we begin with the Gods / Orisha being established as eternal manifest beings already, serving under Olodumare. The Orisha assist and aid other stars (seen as other planets within space, with populations - the Earth being but one of many light-emitting bodies within the sky) as they are each fragments of Olodumare's Primordial Ayanmo. Initially, when inspected, Earth was overlooked due to being too aqueous (basically just a ball of water), however one Orisha saw potential for life - Obatala, Orisha of the Sky and acting Pantheon Head. To make a more understandable comparison to a corporate structure, Obatala would be the regional manager while Olodumare / Olorun would be the CEO - the former attending to Earth and the Yoruban people's issues, the latter being the undisputed top dog, but otherwise too busy managing the Universe to simply focus on just Earth's issues.
Obatala saw to it that stable land was raised out of Earth's Primordial Sea, and with the assistance of 16 other Orisha, saw to it that it would be furnished appropriately with their alien concepts (plant life, birds, geographical features etc) and the husks that would make up humanity were moulded from the dirt. After they finished terraforming, Obatala and the other Orisha that worked on Earth requested Olodumare's attention, at which point Olodumare gave Earth heat (drying the land out) and breathed sparks of life / Ase into the earthen figures - thus creating the Yoruban people / humanity proper. From there, other Orisha visited from the stars to to monitor the life there and to help (or 'helpfully' hinder, in the case of tricksters such as Eshu) the Yoruban people, on their way to improve their I'wa (or way of life) so they can come closer to the apotheotic state of communal wellbeing, as so to be attuned with Olodumare again.

Holy shit, I managed to explain all that without saying n-

Yoruban Gallery

le Great Old Ones (Lovecraftian) ...Pantheon(?)

Based off of the works off the American H.P. Lovecraft, from the early Modern era (by far the least historic 'Pantheon'), and across multiple short stories and literary works, Lovecraft narratively puts forth that humanity are nought but specs in the grander scheme of a Universe that neither acknowledges nor cares about them.
Much like how a human may choose to ignore, fuck with or accidentally step on an anthill (or on a more relevant scale, bacteria), there are equally some beings in the farther reaches of space (or in the mantle of Earth) that are just as uncaring towards humans. Some enjoy the attention, some enjoy tormenting lesser beings, but a common theme is that most operate on a thought process beyond our own (like trying to understand how a supercomputer thinks) and are a more science fiction / horror take on what a 'God' would be like compared to a human. To this end, those who attempt to understand such thought processes, or begin to grasp their lines of logic find themselves externally driven to insanity and internally in a doomed state of partial enlightenment, physically incapable by the biological capacity of their brains to grasp the full concept of the idea put forward.
An easy example of this is the short story, 'The Colour Out of Space' - where a 'new colour' barely perceivable and in-understandable to Earthen life begins to spread influence, boon, then malform it's surrounding, near an innawoods farm - until it's revealed to be the equivalent of a spore that a greater being simply uses to both attract prey and digest a region before consumption, like how a spider's venom will make its a victim's insides into an edible soup. Or well, it's not exactly clear what the giant tendril that comes out of the localised portal at the end of the story otherwise does with all the biomatter it had just harvested.

In accordance to the concept of 'there's always something bigger', the greatest known being is the slumbering Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God (named as his slumbering actions appear completely erratic and ignorant of his surroundings, despite having incomprehensible logic of his own motives to them), located outside the boundaries of the known Universe within what is scientifically referred to as Chaos - yet in the the absolute centre of the grandest concept of reality possible both including our Universe, all of Chaos and all other Universes comprehensible (referred to as 'The Centre of Infinity'). Azathoth is surrounded an innumberable number of other Eldritch beings 'singing' to him to simply try to keep him asleep. If Azathoth wakes up.... immediate and instant Apocalypse for everything (the implication being that reality itself is but a facet of a dream, of a being that paradoxically exists within it's own sleep-reality - Azathoth exists within his own dream, and his dream is existence).
Azathoth assumes the role of the de-facto ruler / spawn-father of many of the beings loosely grouped as the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones, simply by his interactions while asleep; which include beings such as Nyarlanthotep (God of a Thousand Forms), Cthulhu (The Great Dreamer), Yog-Sothoth (All-in-One and One-in-All) and Shub-Niggurath (The Screaming Black Goat of the Woods). While Azathoth is the greatest known being - there is very much implied a good chance there's something yet greater again - in, out, or in another Universe or reality entirely, that is out of scope in a similar way yet again to these beings... and to ourselves.

While the mythos of Lovecrafts work has been expanded on by other writers, the concept was never intended on being a communal effort, and the only truly canon work is that of the author and advised on by his close friends - much like how the Lord of the Rings is J.R.R. Tolkien's, or Alice in Wonderland is Lewis Carrol's. It's in part why the work / mythos is known as Lovecraftian, instead of 'Eldritch' or 'Cosmic Horror' - the 'expanded universe' being little more than well-regarded but ultimately glorified and unrecognised fanfiction.

And so, since Lovecraft is 'pretty important' to Lovecratian mythos, lets have a short biography.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft had a happy life.
When Howard was 3, his father went completely insane (psychosis, likely caused by an STD / Syphilis after cheating on his wife, and was dead by the time Howard hit 8). At 28, his mother went completely insane (nervous breakdown, dead when Howard hit 31) - meaning that for the duration of his life, he spent abut 20% of it in and around asylums, reclusively caring for his mindbroken parents in borderline-poverty (being on record having reached utter despondency and being suicidal no less than 4 times and as early as 9 years old - and this was back before suicidebaiting for attention on social media / the authorities was a thing - the kid really did just want out). All this, before he even really notably got into writing at age 34.
Wow, wonder where he got his inspiration from...
Like many other greats of the arts, he was unrecognised for the duration his lifetime, his works never became successful until decades after his death and he wasn't a financial success in the slightest - but in Lovecraft's wonderful case, his wife divorced him after they didn't spend enough time together, he was bullied relentlessly as a child / teenager to the point of living seclusion with his loving and overprotective mother (making her death even harder on him), his caring grandparents likewise died relatively early in his life, he was stricken by severe and crippling illness multiple times (as much as he tried to ignore it / pretend he was fine to his peers) - oh and did I already mention he was borderline destitutely poor throughout all this? Despite this, he became well educated by his own merit, ingrained himself in the obscure fiction circles of the time and maintained his creative independence over taking potentially lucrative deals (outright putting sellouts on blast). It wasn't endless suffering, but he certainly could have had a much more comfortable life; and much of the hopelessness, depression and commentary on insanity found in his work likely came from extensive experience.

And.... for the part everyone knows ~~and loves~~ - well, Lovecraft wasn't 'racist'.
He was 'advanced racist'.
See, when one thinks of racism, one thinks of decision-making based on skin color. Where does one draw the line though? Are Aryan Indians huwite? Are Semites huwite? Are Mediterraneans huwite? Well Lovecraft only recognised those of fellow Ingurlish descent as huwite - to him, a Frenchman was just as foreign as the darkie at the back of the bus. ~~Ummm....based?~~ And, it's a cope of the modern era that implies he moderated his views at all in his later life (since normalfags wanna enjoy a flanderised and casualised genre of spooky scary tentacle monsters, but are fearful that a nearby social justice inquisitor won't be too impressed with Lovecraft's power level) - only Lovecraft's views on culture changed, in that he thought nationalism and preservation of others culture was a respectable trait (in part because of his fondness of the Greek Pantheon and Mythology in his early life) - nothing however changed on on his stances towards race. Until the day he died, Lovecraft observed that both Freya and Yemoja could tidily be classed as 'nonhuwite'. Another common cope is to 'separate the art from the artist'; ignoring that part where a chunk of it is railing against miscegenation (race mixing / cross-breeding) and another chunk is railing against other races - as if to imply anyone other thn Lovecraft could have came up Lovecraft's work, or that Lovecraft's upbringing had no impact on the narrative put forth. The 'art' itself is *very* much based by modern standards. He also called himself a fascist by the end of his life, even if he got the definition wrong lol. Oh, but bad news /pol/ - he thought Hortler was a fuckin retard in the years before Lovecraft died pre-WW2 (based), and that national culture took priority over race likely because if race took priority, the inferior germs would be on a level field to what Lovecraft saw as the superior ingurlish.
To this extent, it's actually quite beneficial that most of his modern fans are consumerist retards in it for the aesthetic and who haven't actually read any of his work. Be-Cause, 'ho boy - it's *so* much more based than you think it is.

">One final note: Just as we reject the ancient Mayan tradition of ritual human sacrifice, we reject the racist and homophobic ideas espoused by H.P. Lovecraft. We believe that Cthulhu has grown beyond its creator over the past 100 years. We welcome Cthulhu to SMITE, not Lovecraft; racism and homophobia have no place in SMITE, period." wtf is this real??? Do you feel in charge Lo-Rez? ~~Look, same as the Arthurians, I've not got much to talk about here, so I'm just padding this out.~~

It's quite racist of LoRez to single out and shit on the Mayans, when *every single Pantheon in the game* has had evidenced practices of *human sacrifice* at some point, with the sole exception of the Arthurian 'Pantheon' and overarching Hinduism where still, the Hindu stance on human sacrifice (along with fucking cannibalism), simply varies on sect - and as much as apologists try to cover it up, some minor sects with these practices still have practioners in present day India. Oh, and of course, Lovecraft's work hasn't caused any deaths as a result of 'worship'. Since we are talking about muh 'cultural sensitivity', after all~ And... while on the topic of muh raysism... a quick reminder that the Japanese Pantheon / Shinto quite literally dictates that 'people' outside of Japan are objectively inferior, the Romans (and to a lesser extent Greeks) deduced and commented that everywhere that wasn't practicing their approved-culture were to be treated little more than literal animals (leading to the false modern impression that the Northern Celts and Southern Carthaginians of the time were tribal mud-hut savages), the Chinese Pantheon dictates that everything under the sky belongs to the Chinese by divine right (and that non-Chinese affiliated peoples are, again, sub-human), while the Voodoo Pantheon dictates that non-Afro-Caribbeans / Africans are essentially completely excommunicated because they're quite literally the wrong skin colour. Lovecraft's work is *utterly* incomparable in the racism-scope of many other Pantheons - his beliefs, ~~based~~ racist as they may be, are very much moderate compared to the outlook of most of humanity for most of history (Lovecraft after all, did marry and not only tolerate but genuinely love a woman who held separate (((beliefs))) to him - punishable by death for most historical religions, outside of periods of ~~diversity~~ conquest). The only difference for Lovecraft's stuff is that it's just easier to understand what he was saying, because it's written in modern English, and he had visibly different racial groups to discriminate against instead of the 'usual' harsher lines against between smaller-scale ethnic groups. It's partly why modern Americans are infamously bewildered as to how Europeans can dislike and grudge against each other despite 'being the same race'. This statement and reasoning to 'avoid Great Old One releases' is utterly hollow and meaningless, and only appeals to a pandering misconception and lack of understanding (the accurate word for which, is 'Bigotry'). LoRez would do best to remember that our current Western societal standards are highly abnormal compared to most of human history - whether you think it's a civilizationally progressive or civilizationally destructive thing is irrelevant; ignoring and even attempting to erase history does nobody any favors. ~~Cthulhu's pretty lonely, and wants some Pantheon-frens too.~~

So it's ironic that their attempt at appealing to the sensitivity crowd is the most hilariously ignorant and by-definition bigoted thing I've seen put out by them. If I was a beaner ~~(and wasn't so lax on casual racism lol)~~, I'd be quite offended for having my ancestry laser-focused so.

Lovecraftian Gallery

le Babylonian Pantheon

The Babylonian Pantheon originates from the region that is modern day Iraq, and in SMITE, appears to be in representative of the various neighbouring historical Mesopotamian Pantheons of the region, on top of the Babylonians.

Owing to their extreme age, many of their beliefs are only inferred from artifacts or have been lost to time itself; however we do know that worship of relics, statues and other physical objects was seen as vital, as the Gods were believed to inhabit the colossal-temple Ziggurats (man-made raised plateaus, that acted as a wide, flat, elevated foundation for an elevated temple - bigger than modern day stadiums, and as tall as multi-storey buildings) that cities would often be built around - with their large sacrificial cults forming the foundations of human society itself (each cult respectfully rivaling each other within the borders of Babylon and aggressively opposing enemy religions in the region, with High Priests being the initial rulers of Humanity there). There were only a few principle deities (the rest being deemed minor in their wake, likely owing to the difficulty of starting a cult to another God, while the others controlled Ziggurats and were looking for excuses for more human sacrifices), with almost all of them being observed as shared entities across the Mesopotamian region (borders not simply being drawn where nations began and ended, but also where the Pantheons and associated cults asserted their power).

One thing to note is that Babylonian =/= Mesopotamia. If you're stupid enough to think the Assyrians and the Akkadians or the Hittites and the Mittanians were chummy; then it'd be like saying Serbians and Bosnians are basically the same because they live next to each other. While the Empires within the region shared some characteristics and cross-Pantheonics, they very much were not peaceful, and would ~~remove kebab~~ semi-regularly attack one another or balkanize internally, because of disputes and differences between one another. And yes, a portion of this motive was for gathering subjects for human sacrifice. Don't equate them. While each region of Mesopotamian Levant worshipped different Gods to different priorities depending on the prevailing cult; Marduk was treated as the principle deity of Babylon, later amalgamated into Bel, and so is the Babylonian Pantheon Head.
One other thing to note is that Babylonian =~= Neo-Babylonian. While in technical terms they're the same, they were multiple millennia apart, and the Neo-Babylonians had to adapt many practices from the regions they invaded, so there wouldn't be constant rebellions - to imply the two were the same would be like saying Tribal Rome and the peak of the Roman Empire are equatable (I-I mean they both have Janus, right!!!?!?!!!!?!). While you can equate parts of them, it's best you don't blindly do so. The game states the Babylonians, not the Neo-Babylonian, so we'll be following the Babylonians - sure they have the same word in their name, but so does 'Latin people' (aka Ancient Roman) and 'Latin-American people' (aka Wider Spic).

In their creation myth, first there were 3 Primordial Deities - Mummu of Primordial Knowledge and the concept of Thought, and then Abzu and Tiamat of the Waters. In the physical world, first came Abzu, All-knowing Father and God of Primoridal Freshwater Ocean after the first rains, who converged with Tiamat, the Shimmering One and Goddess of Salt Sea (originally named Nammu in Sumerian and known more by that name across Mesopotamia, modified by the Babylonians) - both entities entirely made of water, with no sky or Earth above or below them (just a ball of water mixing).
From their combinations and separation, the other Gods were birthed (most notably leading to the creation of Anum of the Sky, Ki of the Earth, and from them, Enlil of the Winds a few generations down the line). The Sky and the Earth are split, and yet more Gods are born of these two, known as the Anunnaki (Children of Anum and Ki). Things were peaceful for a while until Abzu saw Enki (God of Wisdom and Mischief) plotting to kill and usurp him on behalf of the Anunnaki - Abzu fleed from his descendants, but didn't escape in time and was slaughtered, catching the ire of Tiamat. Tiamat shifted into a great draconic form and used the rest of her strength to birth poison dragons, imposing Qingu (another of her sons) as ruler in Abzu's place; tyrannically imposing herself on the other Gods, who were caught in the crossfire. Tiamat and her cohorts were then slain by Enki's son Marduk, to the joy of the other Gods, who declared him their rightful ruler from then on. From there, Enki assumed the title of God of the Waters, and Marduk uses the corpses of Abzu and Tiamat to furnish the Heavens and Earth with life, slaying or enslaving the remaining poison dragons (leaving only snakes behind as embodiments of Tiamat's wrath), then finally using Qingu's blood to create the first humans who would venerate the Gods. Anum assumes up the role of the God of the Sky, and the Gods who side with him along with the Anunnaki assume the role of the predominant Gods within the Mesopotamian region.

If you didn't twig, this mirrors quite closely to the Titanomachia of the Greek Pantheon, suggesting it may have been a precursor for Levantine / European Polytheism going forward, much like how the Epic of Gilgamesh became a precursor piece for the Hero's Story - the Epic being the second oldest surviving text in history, detailing Gilgamesh initially capturing the Primal Man Enkidu by using a priestess to steal away Enkidu's virginity (things were different back then, preistesses worked differently), Gilgamesh and Enkidu's adventures (Gilgamesh using it as a way to silently apologise), before Enkidu's untimely death due to Gilgamesh rejecting the Goddes Ishtar (as Gilgamesh refused to repeat the same thing he tricked Enkidu with) and then Gilgamesh's resultant search among the Gods for the meaning of eternal life and importance of death from the loss of his friend. Alas.... the story is unfinished. The final tablets as of yet have not been found - but the story is still often given as poetically 'complete' as Gilgamesh has been ingrained and immortalised within the canon of the human race.

Babylonian Gallery

Map of the Pantheons

We'll go more in-detail about it in a later aside, but I thought it would be fitting to have these at hand within this Doc.
See https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#smite-geography for more detail.

Map 1 / Most

Map 2 / Others

Link back to Portal Doc. https://rentry.org/smgenloredoc