Faerûnian pantheon

The Faerûnian pantheon was the most worshiped pantheon on Faerûn, a continent on Toril.

Membership
The Faerûnian pantheon was a pantheon of deities. Pantheons were a group of deities who were worshiped by people who shared one characteristic, for example sharing the same cultural or racial background. In the Faerûnian pantheon's case the believers' shared characteristic was a geographic one, people who lived in those parts of the continent Faerûn where other pantheons did not hold sway were the believers.

Hierarchy
The Circle of Greater Powers were the ones who led the pantheon. The leadership was a loose matter and was more of administrative nature. Apart from this, there was little hierarchy in the Faerûnian pantheon except for the one the gods created among themselves. A unique trait of the Faerûnian pantheon was that deities with similar portfolios clustered in a hierarchic relationship. The reason they did this, or to be more precise the reason why the highest deity did not just kill the lower-raking ones and assumed their place, was surmised to be either a bargain where the lower-ranking deity helped the higher-ranking one at increasing its influence in return of protection or blackmail where the higher-ranking one bullied the lower-ranking ones for divine energy and servitude. It was assumed that the exact nature of such arrangements varied with the personalities of the involved deities.

Activities
The Faerûnian pantheon was a very fractious one that fought among themselves and had no overarching goal. When it expanded its physical sphere of influence, it usually did so at the expense of other pantheons.

The aforementioned Circle of Greater Powers regulated the deities according to the rules as set by Ao, the overgod of Toril to whom all pantheons worshiped on Toril were subject to. However, this the leaders rarely if ever met to do their jobs and even when they did their reaction time was very long, not because they needed a lot of time to think, but due to internal strife.

Tactics
As mentioned above, the Faerûnian pantheon was a single-sphere pantheon. The reason why gods deliberately concentrated their work on one single world at the exclusion of others was that this way they could shut out deities from other worlds entering and infringing on their home turf.

Base of Operations
The Faerûnian pantheon had&mdash;as it was normal for single-sphere pantheons&mdash; no base of operations. The members held their divine realms where it suited them most. The closest to a base of operations the pantheon owned was Cynosure, a pavillon on a demiplane, where the Circle of the Greater Powers met.

Relationships
As mentioned above, the Faerûnian pantheon was subject to Ao and tried to execute his rule of Balance.

As mentioned above, single-sphere pantheons were strong and good at defending themselves from infringement from potential external rivals. This came at the cost of interplanar unimportance, Toril's deities were, as deities who were worshiped only on a backwater plane like Toril, unimportant deities on the interplanar political landscape. However, the rate at their importance grew was equal to that of the most vibrant of pantheons. That said, the Faerûnian pantheon ever becoming an important force on the interplanar landscape was considered unlikely at best.

History
The Faerûnian pantheon was created out of the merging of at least four pantheons, the Coramshite pantheon, the Jhaamdathan pantheon, the Netherese pantheon, and the Talfiric pantheon. These pantheons were all geographically divided human pantheons. In ancient times, human pantheons were loosely geographically divided because the humans' population density and area was such that they did not border each other. Over time, the human cultures and borders intermingled with each other and their pantheons intermingled too. When this happened, deities of similar portfolios had to fight each other for supremacy to get rid of the other one. Over time, the pantheons merged together and the Faerûnian pantheon was born.

The gods, not only of the Faerûnian pantheon but all of them, were cruel creatures who exploited mortals while not pursuing their duties on levels that horrified Ao who was losing his patience with them because of it. The last straw was the theft of the Tablets of Fate at the hand of Bane and Myrkul, two deities of the Faerûnian pantheon. The Time of Troubles was started by Ao as a response. During that time, Toril's deities had to possess mortals or walk in avatar form on the world.