@juergen_hubert who doesn't love a good schism? (In my gang we sometimes have moments where the DM explains, 'You know the difference between Catholics and Anglicans, but these guys are trying even harder not to copy each others' homework.')

@juergen_hubert One thing that can get in the way is that in fantasy settings, gods are real.

Also, "Competing gods inside the same pantheon" is very different from the real-world variants (like all the Egyptian cults trying to absorb Ra over the ages, or the all-out war between the cults of Amun and Aten).

And in the real-world sense, "the pantheon" consists of the gods that exist. Conflicts between different pantheia are possible, because the people disagree about which gods exist.

If that way of defining things were taken into fantasy, it would give rather different results, because humans wouldn't really have reason to deny the existence of the gods of the other species.

So in Fantasy, pantheons aren't "all the gods" but rather gangs of gods, usually with familial ties, at odds with other pantheia. Like mafia wars in the heavens.

@juergen_hubert I've always thought of the gods in d&d as being more Greek based, where they have clear assignments (war, trickery, etc.) but volatile relationships (this one's married to that one, that one's trying to screw over this one, etc.)

As a conflict in a setting, what you're saying is totally true and interesting. But how would you handle the character religions? Would you let them choose, or would they have been raised the same way? Or are they from some foreign place?

@anakin78z@mograph.social Depends on the campaign in question.

Mind you, PCs should at the very least tolerate each other's presence in the party, so there's that.