Here's a thing about gods that lots of folks, world-buildes and pagans alike, seem to miss sometimes:
Gods are people. People are complicated. Most folks I know resist being stereotyped as 'the movie guy' or 'that photography girl'.
Similarly, saying 'Oh that's the God of Writing' or 'Yay, love goddesses are great' cuts off a lot of the history and specifics and individuality that makes it possible to get to know, and work with, a particular deity.
@Ulfra_Wolfe I mean, go ahead, I guess?
@Ulfra_Wolfe @indi I'd love to hear it too, if you're comfortable sharing. If not, that's okay too. Your opinions matter.
@Ulfra_Wolfe Re: 'Huntress' vs 'Artemis'... From what I can tell, one of the things about that vast and confusing realm is that there are also no clear borders, but instead sort of a continuous semi-taxonomical hierarchy.
@Ulfra_Wolfe I have one like that, who only seems to barely accept an epithet, just because they'd be really diffiult to talk about otherwise. ;)
@Ulfra_Wolfe At the same time, another thing to consider here is that in a LOT of cases, what we (folks reading myths translated into English) think of as 'names' for gods are actually just descriptive titles that someone didn't bother to translate.
@Ulfra_Wolfe At the top you have your all-in-one depersonalized Godheads, with branches off for the named ones (YHWH, Allah, etc) and then it divides out into more conceptual spaces (Light, dark, love, fire, trickery) and those too have sheaves of names associated with them. And each name may itself have different epithets; realizing that the Greeks realized this thousands of years ago was a major boost to my own understanding here.
@Ulfra_Wolfe I think that's definitely a reasonable way of looking at things and I see it as going hand-in-hand with how I look at it. The realm that gods and spirits come from is vast and confusing and names and expectations matter a lot. I think when you use a god's name or seek contact with a spirit of particular sort, you're basically shouting into a crowd, and the main thing you know about whoever responds is that they are willing to go by that name or representation.
@Ulfra_Wolfe (The fact that you're basically making a blind hookup, and that you can't even check their divine ID card, means that you have to be careful, of course!)
@Ulfra_Wolfe Okay, good, we're on the same page here. And bear in mind someone can attest to an ideal without actually embodying it well too; you can get imposters no matter what you're looking for. Guides help a lot, shielding helps a lot, external cross-checks help a lot (divination for instance, ideally done by someone you're not TOO close to)
@Ulfra_Wolfe As in all these things, what's most important is balance; no reason you can't have close connections AND more-distant "reality checkers"
I have yet to see an RPG, or even very many fantasy novels, that have as much depth to their deity characterizations as even the most poorly-attested historical-polytheism deities.