Divine Powers & Divine Purposes
Since the beginning, humans have delegated certain tasks, certain area's of power and influence that their gods wield power over. These area's of divine influence are referred to as Portfolio's, and they represent not only a given gods powers and affinities, but also their inclinations, their proclivities, and their own understanding of their divine roles.
These portfolio's are subject to change, as are the nature of the gods themselves. Since gods represent and are empowered by human faith, they are also shaped by that human faith and their portfolio's may change.
Many times throughout history a conquering country adopted it's vassal's gods, or wed the two distinct families of the gods into one greater whole. Other times, because of the stories humans tell about their gods, their nature changes. The One God of the Jewish peoples once was simply known as "El" and over time he evolved to become more and more encompassing, and powerful.
Under the Divine Aegis
A portfolio is a way of determining what a God, is a god of. Zeus for instance was a god of sky and lightning and grew to encompass the role as a god of Justice, of Law and Order, and storms. Gods, for the most part, tend to gather in pantheons, or groups of gods that descend from a single divine being, or several divine beings. Pantheons provide a mutual frameowrk of support for gods and as a means of regulating their portfolios. Examples of pantheons would be the Greek Pantheon featuring Zeus and Hera. Another example would be the Norse pantheon, featuring Odin and Thor. These divine organizations are sometimes extended families and other times are rivals.
Pantheons allow for gods not only to organize, which is almost always beneficial to the gods themselves, but also to help ensure that the gods do not need to fight for worship and that their portfolios are all supported and organized.
The portfolios listed below are arranged around certain 'essential' elements to any human society and include the roles of celestial objects, functions in society, and the primary concerns of human life. The description's include symbolic associations and allegorical or metaphorical connections between the divine portfolio and the mortal understanding of that portfolio.
When considering portfolio's for a pagan deity remember that a God's personality is shaped in part by their portfolios and by mortal perceptions of those portfolio's. A god of science should be reasonable, logical, and maybe absolutely merciless.
Sample Portfolio's
| Portfolio | Description |
|---|---|
| Sun | The Sun portfolio concerns itself with the power of the sun, from its life-giving warmth to its scorching fury. The Sun is a symbol of power and vision, of healing and harming, of light, glory, grandeur and majesty. |
| Ocean | The ocean portfolio associates itself with everything to do with the sea, from the power of its waves to the bounty of its depths. It governs the might of the storms which occur at sea and holds the knowledge of the secret of the depths. |
| War | The war portfolio associates itself with this enduring legacy of humanity in all its aspects, from the glory and praise due a warrior, to weapons, combat techniques, military strategy and reasoning, and all the myriad ways humanity wages war. In this regard, it can also be said to touch on politics, logistics, and loyalty. |
| Death | All things come to an end, and the portfolio of death concerns itself with these ends, both the transition into death, the separation of the soul from flesh as well as the biological and spiritual processes that accompany death. The death portfolio also concerns itself with souls, the undead, and the underworld. |
| Nature | The portfolio of nature concerns itself with the entire natural world, and is not only incredibly broad and sweeping, but also encompasses everything not related to man directly. This protfolio encompasses plants and animals, weather, storms, natural processes such as evolution, and the principles behind the sciences. |
| Animals | The animal portfolio concerns itself with animals in all of the various forms, shapes, and sizes, but also encompasses traits and quaities associated with animals (factual or otherwise) including obedience to instincts rather than rationale, the cycles and patterns within the animal kingdom, and the domestication or atavism of animals. |
| Plants | The plant portfolio concerns itself with the flora of the world, from the merest algae to the largest of the Great Tree's. The processes of the flora of the world are open to the God with this portfolio, including photosynthesis, evolution, psychoactive chemicals and poisons and toxins. |
| Hunting | The hunting portfolio encompasses the hunting of animals or beings for food, for pleasure, or for protection. |
| Creation | From the engendering of worlds, galaxies and universes down to the merest acts of personal and intimate procreation, the portfolio of creation encompasses the concepts of creation in the sense of making things, procreation in the sense of reproduction, the fabrication of new things, and the sparks of inspiration which drive artists, theorists, and the rest of humanity to bring their inner worlds into the outer world. |
| Destruction | The portfolio of destruction encompasses the act of destruction - the breaking of material things, structures, organizations, or oganic existence. It borders the portfolio of Death, but does not concern itself with the transition, only bring about the ruin of a person, place, or thing. |
| Law/Order | The portfolio of law encompasses the rule of law and order, the foundational elements of civil society and formal justice. This portfolio includes the rule of law & order, the legalistic tendency. |
| Chaos | The chaos portfolio encompasses everything that is opposite of law and order. It includes crime and madness, the unpredictability of anarchy, disorder, lawlessness. It also extends to cover more metaphysical forms of chaos, the unpredictability of reality, chaos mechanics (chaos math), entropy in systems. |
| Cities | The portfolio of cities encompasses everything within a city, the systems that run it, empower it, and the people that maintain the cities. Gods with cities as their portfolio's are sometimes referred to as "City Fathers/City Mothers" and some deities are regarded as the patrons of specific cities. |
| Emotions | The portfolio of emotions encompasses all the emotions experienced by humanity, and indeed by the gods themselves: Love, Hate, Lust, Wrath, Rage, Kindness, Compassion and others. The divinity with this portfolio typically is master of one or two emotions (such as Aphrodhite, the goddess of of Love), and can influence people experiencing their emotion or induce emotions in others. |
| Medicine | The portfolio of medicine encompasses actual physical knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and biology, but also expands to include doctors, nurses, healers of all kinds and reaches further into the realms of psychology and mental illness. Gods of medicine have the power to heal or harm. |
| Judgement | The portfolio of judgement concerns itself with the pursuit of justice, truth, and mediating disputes or arguments. Gods of Judgement are sometimes referred to as Lawgivers, and they concern themselves with justice, vengence, weighing mortal lives and mortal souls according to their own psychospiritual laws, faiths, and religions. |
| Femininity/Women | The portfolio of women, of femininity, is one that encompasses the mysteries of women including birth, death, holding the power of creation and the principles of succor, giving, empathy and compassion. It expands to include all that is good and bad in women, the purity of the virgin and the power of sexuality. The portfolio includes concepts tied to the feminine principle or the eternal feminine, the virtues of reception and redemption, of cleansing and those virtues which are internal and rarely perceived. |
| Masculinity/Men | The portfolio of men, of masculinity, is one that encompasses the mysteries of men including protection and destruction, love-giving and war-making. It expands to include all that is good and bad in men, the purity of focused action and the virtues of strength, energy, and libido. The portfolio includes concepts tied to the masculine principle or the eternal masculine, the virtues of strength, courage, leadership and those virtues which are externally perceived. |
| Weather | The weather portfolio governs the complex processes which dominate, influence, and ultimately control the weather. This portfolio includes specific examples of weather such as rain or drought, blistering heat or monsoon downpours. |
| Protection | The protection portfolio encompasses not only the act of protecting someone or something from harm, regardless of form, but also those that stand as guardians including soldiers, cops, fire fighters, and |
| Retribution | The retribution portfolio concerns itself with the concept of vengeance and represents the principle of punishment or reward, or recompense for actions good or bad. |
| Travel | The travel portfolio represents not only physical journies, such as moving from one home to the other, but also spiritual ones. It expands to encompass the concepts of journies of all kinds, transitions, and modern scientific concepts of space-time. |
| Fertility | The fertility portfolio concerns itself with the successful procreation of humans, animals, and plants. Fertility gods can grant fertility or introduce sterility, and lay blessings or curses on the offspring of humans, beasts, and plants alike. |
| Farming | The portfolio of farming encompasses agriculture and the cultivation of plant life for human consumption, and touches on husbandry and the domestication of wild animals for human purposes and consumption. |
| Wilderness | The wilderness portfolio encompasses specific types of terrain. There are gods of deserts and jungles, of forests and plains and the wilderness portfolio encompasses these diverse locations. |
| Magic | The portfolio of magic encompasses magical practice and the principles of magic. All the magical traditions of the world lie under its purview and and gods of magic are particularly puissant at deploying magic for good or ill. |
| Sex | Sexuality is a powerful force in mankind, and in the natural world, engendering behaviors that people and animals might not normally engage with. The sex portfolio encompasses all of these things, the act itself and the various biochemical, emotional, physical and emotional changes that accompany sex, including lust and desire. |
| Life | The Life portfolio encompasses everything that life does including healing, growth, the great cycles of life, nature, and all things under the sun that live. |
| Peace | The portfolio of peace encompasses the cessation of violence, hostilities, and the sense of security and safety, or of personal harmony and tranquility. |
| Earth | The portfolio of Earth encompasses the material and spiritual affinities of Earth such as metals and minerals, earthquakes, dowsing, gold, silver, iron, copper, magnetism, and pressure. It expands to include concepts such as solidity, reliability, fecundity, physical sensation, growth and steady movement. |
| Air | The portfolio of Air encompasses the material and spiritual affinities of Air such as breath, wind, cold and expands to include concepts such as storms, lightness, bows and arrows, thrown weapons, motion, travel, and invisible force. |
| Metal | The portfolio of Metal encompasses the material and spiritual affinities of Metal such as hardness, weapons, armor, fortitude, resilience, endurance and it expands to include things like magnetism, metallurgy, metalworking/crafting, swords and the individual metals themselves (gold, iron, steel, silver, etc.). |
| Wood | The portfolio of Wood encompasses the material and spiritual affinities of Wood such as plants, growing, the seasons, archery and expands to include carpentry, shipwrights, forests, and hunters. |
| Fire | The portfolio of Fire encompasses the material and spiritual affinties of Fire such as flame, heat, light, the passions or sharp emotions (love, hate, anger, desire, compassion and expand to include concepts such as cleansing, destruction, warfare, and perpetual movement. |
| Water | The portfolio of Water encompasses the material and spiritual affintiies of water such as fresh and salt water, other liquids, lakes, rivers, oceans as well as the animals that call those locales home. It expands to include concepts such as cleansing, erosion, freedom, steady conquest, overcoming obstacles, storms, drought, rain, and blood. |
| Technology | The portfolio of Technology encompasses all of the innovations which have allowed mankind to prosper, grow, and develop. From the development of the bow and arrow to the modern age of assault weapons and nuclear devices this portfolio encompasses everything of technology. |
| Machinery | The portfolio of Machinery encompasses the recent trend in the last two centuries for mankind to turn to machines to assist with manufacturing, construction, day to day living and entertainment. |
| Crafting | The portfolio of Crafting encompasses the concept of crafting in an archaic and modern sense of the word. Engineering, blacksmithing, carpentry, art, all of these things fall under this portfolio which concerns itself with creating objects and things. It expands to include the spark of inspiration that drives artists and designers to create. |
| Moon | The portfolio of the Moon encompasses those events controlled by the moon such as the tides and some mating cycles, and expands to include things like lycanthropy, shapechanging, transformation, madness, women or femininity, the mysteries and darker side of nature, the middle ground between states of existence, magic, and goddesses. |
| Electricity | the portfolio of Electricity encompasses all forms of electricity, whether generated by man or by nature and expands to include concepts such as swiftness, heat, lightning, storms, and violence. |
| Metal | Value 14 |
Portfolio's
- Sun
- Description