Olympian pantheon

The Olympian pantheon was a tight pantheon of gods, residing chiefly in the divine realm of Olympus on the first layer of Arborea in the Outer Planes. They were sometimes called the Greek pantheon, as that was the name of a collection of city-states on another world where they were worshiped. The members of this pantheon were little known in the Realms, but had some degree of influence or power to grant spells in Realmspace.

"For all their vaunted talk of freedom, they sure make a lot of rules!"

- An Olympian petitioner about to descend to the Gray Waste

Description
The members of this pantheon largely resembled humans, albeit more beautiful, and displayed many of the same behavioral traits as humans,  in regards to emotions and reasoning. Some described this as them displaying all of humanity's flaws. They tended to be very proud, argumentative, lustful, frequent partiers, highly jealous, envious, petty, and had short tempers.

The Olympians were largely uninterested in innovation, with the exception of some members like Hephaestus, as they chose to focus on emotional and spiritual matters rather than the technological.

Though they were a tight pantheon, and not as chaotic as the Norse pantheon and Seldarine, they were still not very cohesive due to some of the more chaotic aspects of their personalities, which Zeus encouraged to a certain extent. It was not uncommon for them to cause mishaps for their fellow members' followers. They were also rather insular, being neither open nor welcoming of new deities, preferring to display their pantheon's might by crushing new deities under their heel before bringing them into the fold.

Base of Operations
The members of this pantheon chiefly resided upon Mount Olympus, the slopes of which were rooted in the first layer of Arborea. Some thought the Olympians all lived atop the mountain's snowy heights, but in actuality their homes were scattered across it and five of its members lived elsewhere entirely. It was only Zeus and Hera who lived atop the mountain, within a great citadel of polished gold and marble.

The deity Poseidon resided within Ossa, Arborea's second layer, though maintained a seaside shrine near Mount Olympus. Pan and Prometheus lived in the hinterlands of Olympus, rarely visiting the mountain proper. Both Hades and Hecate had divine realms in the plane of Hades, which was connected to Mount Olympus by the latter's twisting caverns. Hades lived in the third layer of the plane that shared his name, while Hecate had a divine realm in both the third layer of Hades and within the third layer of the Nine Hells.

Within a location on the mountain known as the Vast Temple, the Olympians kept a book of their pantheon's history. Bound in the bones of mythical creatures and fallen heroes, the Great Theogony recounted the emergence of the multiverse from their perspective.

Notable Members

 * Apollo: The Olympian god of healing, light, and music.
 * Athena: The Olympian goddess of war and wisdom, whom some speculated was also the goddess Sune or at least similar to her.
 * Demeter: The Olympian goddess of agriculture and the wife of Zeus prior to Hera.
 * Echidna: Also known as the "Mother of Monsters," was an Olympian goddess trapped within the 73 layer of the Abyss. Her lair was dominated by a massive, white marble statue that depicted her as a nymph with the lower body of a serpent.
 * Hera: The Olympian goddess of marriage and the wife of Zeus.
 * Hades: The Olympian god of the dead.
 * Hecate: The Olympian goddess of magic.
 * Hephaestus: The Olympian god of crafting and smithing and the sole child of Hera.
 * Hermes: The Olympian god of commerce, thievery, and travel.
 * Pan: The Olympian god of nature and passion.
 * Poseidon: The Olympian god of the ocean, who had a small following in Impiltur.
 * Priapus: An Olympian god of fertility that was worshiped by primitive human tribes on the Isle of Firando.
 * Prometheus: A Greater Titan who aided the Olympians in their battle of usurpation and was later granted a station of lesser godhood within the pantheon.
 * Tyche: The Olympian goddess of fortune.
 * Zeus: The Olympian god of the sky and the head of the pantheon.

Servants
Almost all members of the Olympian pantheon worked through proxies. Some allowed these to ascend, but others like Zeus were very reluctant to grant such power out of fear of being usurped. The extensive number of lesser proxies they entrusted with minor tasks included such creatures as ashiras, dryads, satyrs, and sirines. Apollo, Ares, and Athena favored the use of pers and solars. Zeus favored the use of his own mortal children. And the bacchae were known to serve the pantheon as a whole, though not as proxies.

Many of their most notable servants were legendary heroes. One such proxy was Circe the Black Sorceress, a long time servant of the goddess Hecate.

History
Many of the members of this pantheon descended from a group of beings known as the greater titans. The leader of the greater Titans, Cronus, would devour each of his first five children as they were born, for his mother Gaea laid a curse on him proclaiming that one day his children would usurp him,  just as he had his usurped his father Uranus. These first five children were Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon. On their sixth child, Cronus's wife Rhea tricked him into instead swallowing a stone in swaddling clothes, thus allowing Gaea to smuggle away the one who would later be known as Zeus and leave him in the care of nymphs. When he reached adulthood Zeus disguised himself as one of Cronus's cupbearers and gave him a potion that induced him into vomiting up his five children.

In the history of this pantheon its squabbling members had gathered together on a common front primarily on two occasions. The first was to usurp the greater titans, following the overthrow of their despotic Cronus. They cast the majority of the greater titans into Carceri (referred to in some recounts as Tarterus ),    an event that occurred sometime after the Seldarine took up residence in Arborea. Those who were spared this fate were the lesser titans, children of the greater titans, who had allied themselves with the Olympians. These included Prometheus, Rhea, and many others. The second time they came together on a common front was the construction of Mount Olympus.

The legitimacy of that second act was questionable though, as some claimed that the mountain had existed since before the titans had even ruled Olympus. Additionally, some recounts of the pantheon's overthrow of the greater titans told of its members having thrown the titans off of the mountain, into Carceri, and using their combined might to shatter the mountain's connection to that Lower Plane in order to trap the titans there. Others told of them taking credit simply for fashioning it into a continuous conduit through the Astral plane and into Hades, connecting along the way to all places on the Prime where they had followers, though some claimed this too had existed prior to them.

Over the course of a few thousands years following their founding, the Olympians grew to be among the most influential pantheons on the Outer Planes. To the point that many people on the Prime Material referred to their home plane as Olympus, though not the inhabitants of Realmspace. Though they also garnered many enemies, such as when they appropriated portfolios from what would later be known as the Mulhorandi pantheon, blatantly drawing from their rivals to gain ever more worshipers.

History on Toril
Sometime around -4370 DR, a devastating plague occurred on Toril in the land of Raurin, ravaging the ruling Imaskar Empire. Four years later, the mages of the Imaskar Empire sought to revitalize their population by opening two great gates to another world, then kidnapping from it numerous humans to serve as their slaves.

Eventually the Imaskar Empire would crumble in -2488 DR, but survivor states would emerge in its wake, such as the kingdom of Bakar. The people of this kingdom built a mighty city, Medinat Muskawoon, that housed temples to the gods of their ancestors' original world. Among them were temples to Prometheus and Tyche. The people of this kingdom also built several temples to Prometheus the spanned the River Athis.

Later in Toril's history, a wave of planar immigrants came from the same world that the Imaskar Empire had taken humans from. One group came from the aforementioned collection of city-states, while another came from a land of empire and glory. These groups brought their own societies and faiths, the worship of the Olympian gods, and settled around the time of the rise of Netheril. From them the goddess Tyche would go on to become worshiped in the Netherese people's pantheon until the Dawn Cataclysm.

During the Dawn Cataclysm, Tyche manifested herself into two separate forms, the goddesses Tymora and Beshaba, who would go on to become members of the Faerûnian pantheon. Though some believed her body and spirit had been split between them. What ultimately became of her would be unknown to the rest of the Olympian pantheon.

Some time after that, Hermes began a romance with the goddess Tymora, which was known to only a few on Olympus. Some claimed this was solely him trying to learn the fate of Tyche. Also around this time, both Hermes and Pan were sending their avatars out across the cosmos in search of the truth of Tyche's demise, but they were unable to send them to Realmspace proper. Eventually the two would resort to sending priests through portals to Toril to uncover the truth.

Relationships
The Olympians got along well with the Seldarine, as they never competed for land or followers, though they didn't associate much. And the celestial eladrin in general were on good terms with them.

The Celtic pantheon was considered their primary rival due to its opposing, open-minded and tolerant nature. And the pantheon as a whole embraced the deity Nebelun, who for a time camped within the workshop of Hephaestus.

Some individuals in this pantheon had relations with deities of other pantheons that were worshiped on Toril. For instance, Hephaestus was one of the closest allies of the dwarven deity Dumathoin and was supplied by him with adamantine ore. Hermes was often visited by the halfling deity Brandobaris and occasionally had conversations with Selûne. And throughout their time knowing each other, the goddess Demeter had always gotten on well with the Chauntea.

Worshipers
The original worshipers of this pantheon were largely humans. While some worshiped specific Olympians, because they were a tight pantheon a cleric could have all the Olympians as their patron, what was known as being a polygot. Those who did could be of any alignment and choose any of the following divine domains:
 * Air, Animal, Chaos, Charm, Community, Creation, Death, Destruction, Earth, Evil, Fire, Good, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Trickery, War, Water, or Weather.

Polygots were known to ask each of the Olympian pantheon's deities for intervention in matters that reflected their interests. Such as asking Athena for an oracular vision or asking Hades for the ability to repel undead.

Upon the Rock of Bral in Realmspace, there existed a temple known as the Planar Church of Olympus that venerated almost all members of this pantheon.

Within the Outlands city of Sigil, there stood temples to Apollo, Hermes, and Zeus. Some of the proxies of these deities could also be found within the city, specifically within The Lady's Ward. In regards to the planar factions that resided in Sigil and elsewhere, Hades was revered by the Dustmen, Athena and Zeus by the Fraternity of Order, the Furies by the Mercykillers, Zeus by the Sign of One, Aphrodite by the Society of Sensation, and Tyche by the Xaositects.

In Greatspace, the good-aligned Olympians were worshiped and Zeus was believed to be the creator of the crystal sphere. Some people in Greatspace believed that the evil members of this pantheon, such as Hades and Hecate, didn't exist and were just rumors started centuries ago.

Hades was also worshiped by one group of humans within the Astromundi Cluster under the name of Yul.