Individuate the Five Wardens

Here are the idealized goals I laid out for my setting in the last document:

1. Elements of the setting tie together thematically 
2. Tons of hooks without constraining player choice 
3. Make it easy for the game to be exciting 
4. Diversity baked in
5. Build with Dungeons and Dragons 5e play in mind 
6. If it is in D&D it should have a place in the setting 
7. We want the setting to seem fresh without being overwhelming
8. Rule of cool: if it's cool, it may have a place
9. Subvert and lean into various tropes
10. Encourage players to engage with the setting 

I’m not going to tackle these one at a time. But I am going to keep these in mind while laying the groundwork for my setting. Today we will decide on the names and characteristics of our wardens. I think we will want to keep in mind #1, #2, and #4 the most.

Individuate the Five Wardens

I have decided to only have 5 gods in Welkin. This means they will need some ambiguity and they will need to have broad and/or many portfolios. I hope they will have complex and layered personalities. Something that can cause disagreements and even factions and schisms in mortal societies. Also, keeping #1 in mind, we are going to lean into the number five as hard as possible. We want the number five to come up often enough in play that the DM can signal something to the players when another number comes up. Time for some research! Let's find some interesting groups of 5 (or 6) things to add to our barest beginning here.

From the beginning, I need to give myself permission that while creating these gods everything will not be perfectly symmetrical. There may be odd bits sticking out here and there. But I will hope this adds complexity and personality.

Moral Foundations Theory

In my research, I found lots of groups of five’s I can use to individuate the five gods. I will also be taking some common 4’s and adding to them to make 5s as well. Our starting place will be this interesting thing I found on Wikipedia: Moral Foundations Theory.

According to the moral foundations theory, differences in people's moral concerns can be described in terms of five moral foundations:

• Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm
• Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating
• Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal
• Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion
• Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation

There is even the following: "A sixth foundation, liberty (opposite of oppression) was theorized by Jonathan Haidt."

This is just what I need! I want to have a different moral code for each. I can have 5+1 different moral systems to help give each warden their own personality. They will need names too. While doing this for the first time, I will also add a pair of emotions to each of them to add some more complexity.

From the creation story, we have the kingfisher who had total authority, the tortoise who was full of ideas and tried to apportion efforts fairly, the raven who was alert and protective and the stag, whom we don’t know a lot about except that he spoke too loudly, so he must be energetic and boisterous. We also know he was never the same after dragon bit him in half, so we can add some differences to him later. Also, salamander and the dragon.


Animal: Kingfisher
Name: Skrion
Morality: Authority & Respect
Vice: Subversion & Disrespect
Element or Phase: Air
Emotions: Confidence & Dread
World: Welkin

Animal: Tortoise
Name: Onyros
Morality: Fairness & Proportionality
Vice: Cheating & Nepotism
Element or Phase: Earth
Emotions: Joy & Grief
World: Reverie

Animal: Raven
Name: The Raven Queen is cool. But that's a title, not a name. I will leave her unnamed.
Morality: Sanctity & Purity
Vice: Degradation & Pollution
Element or Phase: Water
Emotions: Zeal & Apathy
World: Ashen

Animal: Stag
Name: Ecbol!
Morality: Care
Vice: Harm
Element or Phase: Wood
Emotions: Euphoria & Intensity
World: Weald

Animal: Salamander
Name: Tisar
Morality: Loyalty & Ingroup
Vice: Betrayal
Element or Phase: Fire
Emotions: Love & Anger
World: Lambent

Animal: Dragon
Name: —-
Morality: Freedom
Vice: Oppression
Element or Phase: Void
Emotions: Confusion & Loss
World: ??

This is a great beginning towards fully fleshed out gods for the setting. In a future post, I will layout and explain these traits in more detail for each warden and also keep adding things to each portfolio. After this step, I will take off the animal association as that is only supposed to represent one group's version of the creation story and not be all-encompassing.

Some upcoming posts I need to make while still in Top-Down mode:

• What are the attributes and personalities of the Wardens?
• What is each of the planes like? Emphasize Welkin as that is where we will be playing. 
• Which playable ancestries will there be? How do these relate to the Wardens?
• What about religions and magic on Welkin?