Hmmm... these are all interesting perspectives. A lot of stuff I have never really thought of.

The setting I am working on creating is, as I have said, the one of Odeon, as defined in the TRoS Core Rulebook. This world is VERY different than any preexisting world, fantasy or earth. So most of it is being made form scratch. And I do want some sort of concept of the Gods. Its mostly to give some flavor to the game, not like my players will be interacting with the gods in ANY way.

So, the exact question I was hoping to get an answer to is, in a world of near complete fantasy, when I'm writing some flavor about the Gods, can I use some names from existing mythology? Even if I change the story or characters quite a bit?

I mean, the world of Odeon is a female dominated world. And I really want to roll with thins concept. So I need a mythology that shows the head Gods as females. And talks little about the men, except when a jealous antagonist is needed, or a main God has a husband (rare in Odeon).

P.S. Also, ya, made up calendars... so damn annoying... I also play as a character in Iron Kingdoms... man, that calendar, with their three moons, is impossible to keep track of.

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No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.

Yes, you could use the same names for individual gods, but perhaps a more satisfying route would be to examine each god individually, making notes on anything you think is fascinating about that god, and write a new bio for the god containing only the elements you think are wonderful, then rename him/her to seal the deal. Rinse and repeat.

Just to clarify about the above:

If I was a player and was invited to your game knowing that the campaign's mythology was complete, my desire would be to read your vision of the gods. Naming the gods familiar, historical names, would only add confusion to the mix, especially if the re-written gods differed greatly from the historical ones. You also set yourself up by having folks automatically comparing your efforts against the sagas associated with the historical models, with the potential of your model suffering by comparison.

That would IMO be very confusing... However, if you mainly mean as single term you'd like to use, then being clear about what it actually means, I wouldn't mind that at all. What I mean is, "stalker" from Roadside Picnic and "stalker" from Hungry City Chronicles are two very different things. Some of our local sci-fi purists frowned upon the re-use of the word in a different context, but to me the difference was clear enough and so I didn't mind the same word at all. Another thing is giving homage... again, perfectly acceptable. But using a whole collection of terms that typically go together in a whole different context? To me, that's a no-no.

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"Brothels are a much sounder investment than ships, I've found. Whores seldom sink, and when they are boarded by pirates, why, the pirates pay good coin like everyone else."
- Lord Petyr Baelish, A Game of Thrones

Ya... I see how that could be confusing. I got to think about this. Thanks for the advice so far. These forums have been a wealth of knowledge. Please continue to pour out the advice.

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No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.

just my 2 cents worth.

Mythology is a slightly misleading term really.

Sometimes we use the term mythology for a fantasy theology. The gods were in the myths, so studying gods is studying myths. Ok I get that but the superorganised world where the Gods are known (by the GM) really is a study of theology. The primary source for theology might be myths or a sacred work.

But from the players point of view wouldn't it be better to have a mythology (Stories of the epic adventures of so and so and some god's relationship with so and so.) Myths in this setting often are told and retold and they contradict themselves a bit sometimes. But that doesn't really matter.

Even in Christianty, where we understand a lot of theology from sacred writings people are obsessed with making it all into a system that we can understand. When some things are simply unrevealed.

Point is even if the god exists could your average human being understand how he/she thinks or can they see the big picture.

I like the idea of using similar names to real world mythology, mainly so I can remember who is who! I found this working on Helena, that related names or similar names really help. Gods in mythology often represent certain character traits so once you get the name and traits sorted it doesn't really matter what the real world mythology exactly was. (For example I called the town and oracle in Helena Pythia. The oracle at Delphi was the Python, the games held there the Pythian games.)
You could use names which work for you only to. The Helenic god of the sea I called Thelassion (ancient greek word for sea) but its all purely for my personal memory

I noticed that pbj did something similar in his campaign he posted recently.

The other thing I like about using a quasi real world example is that the word itself is a symbol and it comes with a lot of baggage that helps communicate a lot about who we are talking about. Zeus is foreign to us but we know lighting bolts, big beard, looking down from on high. Aphrodite? Mars (Ares)?

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Valthalion
Knight against chaos

If your goal is simulationism, nothing makes you feel more in a foreign world than different calender, moons, day lengths, seasons. But as a priority its pretty low for fantasy gaming, much more important for sci-fi.

Otherwise who cares.

Try a calender for Weyrth. It's got 6 moons!!

I do like Harn though.....we go back.

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Valthalion
Knight against chaos