Pantheon

A pantheon was a collection of deities that cooperated with each other.

Organization
A pantheon was an organization whose membership consisted of deities. These deities shared one trait. Their faith came from one defined group of mortals and each member was an exemplar of traits this group had.

Every pantheon nominated a head who led the pantheon. It did not need to be single entity. For example, the Faerûnian pantheon was ruled by the Circle of Greater Powers instead of one single deity like in the Seldarine.

Activities
Pantheons could be doing anything. Some were working towards strengthening their organization, others' entire purpose was to increase the standing of their leaders, others were about promoting ideals, and so on.

The above-mentioned activities were only possible if a pantheon was one that worked together in some fashion. There were pantheons who did not do that like the Faerûnian pantheon. They mostly consisted of individuals and groups who bickered among themselves and had no overarching purpose.

However, every pantheon cooperated on one field, the field of information. Every weaker member of the pantheon gave what they had in information and intelligence to the head god who combined these and gave a holistic understanding of what was happening in their world and beyond back to the entire pantheon. As mentioned above, this was the barest minimum of intra-pantheon cooperation. In fact, without this service, pantheon members did not have a reason to stay in their pantheons.

Tactics
Pantheons suffered from time to time from internal strife. This could be because the members tried to improve their station or because a member represented an aspect of a culture or people that was at odds with the rest. Whatever the reason, if the head had any interest in keeping face, he or she had to reign these conflicts in. A particularly crass example of conflict resolution was done by the Seldarine. When Lolth and Vhaeraun tried to overthrow Corellon, Corellon eventually solved the conflict by banishing the two.

Base of Operations
Deities usually lived on the Outer Planes. Where the base of operations of a pantheon was depended on the objective of the pantheon. Blood-related pantheon members had a strong tendency to stick together and form a big divine realm on one plane. A pantheon that wanted to concentrate its strength did likewise. Those who wanted to spread their strength on several planes did so. This gave them influence over a broader area at the cost of concentrated influence on one plane.