Egyptian Pantheon

In the sun-baked deserts of the hinterlands, in the steaming jungles along the river, and in the arid, barely tillable plains, where every square foot of fertile land is an asset to be fought over, the Egyptian powers hold sway. Their civilization is a step between the Sumerians and the Babylonians. Some have even said that the Egyptian pantheon rose to power as mortals under the Sumerians, and turned on their former masters when they discovered the truth of divinity.

The true origins of the pantheon are dark, its history hidden. Some claim that Ra gave life to the other powers. Others mark Ptah as the high-up, and still more put forth that the mysterious Eight Fathers and Mothers of Light and Life were the true creators. A body can believe what he likes, but the Eight (if they existed) have vanished into the mists of time, and Ptah's been relegated to the position of a minor deity, his heart and tongue silenced (or at least muted).

Perhaps the folks who believed in Ptah lost their faith, or maybe he never really had any power in the first place. Whatever the truth, the histories now call Ra the father of the pantheon, and claim that those who weren't born from his line came from elsewhere - either rejected from other pantheons or formed whole from the fabric of the multiverse. And only eigt powers came from Ra. His family, known as the Ennead or the Psedjet, were among the first to realize the importance of the Rule of Threes.

In any case, the Egyptian powers don't care as much for good and evil as they do for law and chaos. As one of the earliest pantheons known, the gods were responsible for helping bring the light of civilization to the anarchy of the early humans; they generally build instead of destroy, create instead of kill. The enemies of the pantheons were those creatures that sought to return humanity to its primitive roots, such as the serpent Apophis that constantly tries to swallow the sun. It's law and organization that sets humanity apart, or so the pantheon believes. Sure, they may espouse freedom of choice and individuality, but their true foes are the destroyers, not necessarily the evil.

It's said that the Egyptian powers are given form by the shape of belief of their worshippers. The faithful find that certain animals best represent the qualities they admire, and thrust the shapes of these animals onto the gods - it helps to understand them better, if nothing else. That's nothing new, but the followers of the Egyptian pantheon actually make their powers therianthropic: bloods with human bodies and the heads of their totem beasts.

The Egyptian Powers

Ra	Sun, kings
Anhur	War
Anubis	Guardianship of dead gods
Apshai	Insects
Bast	Cats, pleasure
Bes	Luck
Geb	The earth
Horus	Sun, revenge, war, sky
Isis	Marriage, magic, motherhood
Nephythys	Wealth, the dead
Nut	Sky, couples forbidden to marry
Osiris	Vegetation, the dead
Ptah	Artists, craftsman, travellers
Seker	Light
Set	Evil, drought, desert storms
Shu	Winds, atmosphere
Tefnut	Storms, rain, running water
Thoth	Knowledge