Saturday, February 11, 2012

Of the Gods: Phanes, God of Fauna

Phanes is "The Horned God". He is lord of all natural creatures, including Man. He is the God of Life, and held in highest regard among all other gods throughout Calabria. He is sometimes depicted with rams horns, at other times with the antlers of a stag. He represents the connectedness of all living things to one another. He is Master of the Wild Hunt, which is said to guide the spirits of the slain to the the afterlife. He is the god of fertility, passion, and art.

Carlos Schwabe

The seveth day of the week is Phanesdag, marking the seventh day of Creation when man and the other animals came into the world.

Carl Friedrich Deiker

N.C. Wyeth









Diana, Archon of animals, taught the skills of hunting, shepherding, and animal husbandry.















The festival of Phanes is in mid Spring, and is the most joyous of all festivals in Calabria. A child born on this day is said to be particularly blessed.

The pomegranate is a symbols of Phanes, as is the foliate egg.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The undead shun the symbol of Phanes. Some few mortals who walk in his path have power over them.
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8 comments:

  1. Eldrad WolfsbaneFebruary 17, 2012 at 8:34 PM

    Just freaking awesome! Keep up the fantastic great work!

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  2. NiccodaemusFebruary 18, 2012 at 8:13 AM

    Hey thanks. This has been a really fun project. I've finally been able to put together ideas that have been gelling from one degree or another for 30+ years.

    Choosing the gods was probably the hardest part of all of this. I wanted the gods to relate more to the day to day lives of people than abstract ideas such as "luck", "war", etc... It is also challenging to make gods that are "good", but a bit dispassionate about human affairs.

    I really wanted Phanes to be based on Herne or Cernunnos , but I couldn't find any good art that fits my criteria (that it be in the public domain according to US law). But the Carlos Schwabe Pan is so dynamic, I'm happy with the choice.

    Truth be told, I'm sort of stuck at this point. The things I've posted in the past have all had themes... monsters, people, geography, gods... once I started something, it was easy to create several posts in a series. I don't know what direction to go to next. I think I'll put up a post on the Behind the Scenes blog asking for suggestions.

    Thanks for the encouragement!

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  3. Donna K. WeaverApril 16, 2012 at 12:14 PM

    Pretty cool stuff.

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  4. Charlie WarrenApril 19, 2012 at 2:45 AM

    Stopping by on the A to Z thing - this blog is full of AWESOME! I'll be studying your posts for when I get serious about designing my fantasy world.

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  5. NiccodaemusApril 19, 2012 at 4:23 AM

    Thanks Charlie! Looking forward to getting to know you better

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  6. HaretonAugust 11, 2012 at 11:05 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. HaretonAugust 11, 2012 at 11:11 AM

    You said that monsters and supernatural will be rare in this world. It is interesting in theory, but there are practical problems with it. First is the fact that RPG games has quite a lot focus on combat. Especially that you mention D&D 3.5... This system is about hacking, slashing and optimizing characters. OD&D would work best here. Another thing is mode of adventuring. Dungeon, being theme park of supernatural is rather not good, wilderness where every few miles there are wonders may or may not be suitable - if the action would took place in "enchated dale" as special part of otherwise low magic world, it would be fine to have many encouters here. Third mode of play, adventure module, that is adventure focused on some locale with interactive elements, would be the best for such setting, if it were created with few monsters, and more exploring background story, some NPCs and things like that - good example of this are Jim Raggi's modules.

    It's all assuming that you are going to make it old school (I got here from goblinoidgames forum.)

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  8. AnonymousFebruary 5, 2013 at 5:27 AM

    Sorry, but there's a mistake! You mean Pan, who is greek deity of nature. Phanes was "god of light"/"god of creation" in the Orphic traditions...

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