When I was designing the pantheon for Cycladic League, my civ-lite BASIC game, I started with the pantheon used in Cyclades by Ludovic Maublanc and Bruno Cathala. The Classical Greek era is prestigious, and it made sense that a tabletop game like theirs would embrace Zeus, Athena, Ares, Poseidon, and Apollo.
In the past I’ve designed a one-page pantheon for a hexcrawl setting and a reskinnable pantheon for adventure modules. My initial design goal for this game’s pantheon was an even split of gods and goddesses (instead of 4 gods and 1 goddess). So I replaced Zeus with Hestia and added Demeter, goddess of agriculture and responsible for farmers, granaries, and colonizing: see my Alpha version in the table.
| Version | Trade | War | Knowledge | Sea | Religion | Colonies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cyclades unit: building: action: | Apollo – – Prosper | Ares Troops Fortress Move | Athena Philosophers University – | Poseidon Fleet Port Move | Zeus Priests Temple Chg. Creature | N/A |
| Alpha unit: building: action: | Hermes Merchants Agora Trade Rt. | Ares Warriors Tower Attack | Athena Philosophers Academy Explore | Poseidon Sailors Port Attack | Hestia Priestesses Shrine Protect | Demeter Farmers Granary Colonize |
| Beta unit: building: action: | Gaia Merchants Mine/Quarry Trade Rt. | Eris Warriors Tower Attack | Metis Artisan Workshop Explore | Pontus Sailors Shipyard Attack | Nyx Priestesses Shrine Protect | Hemera Fishermen Village Colonize |
| Gamma unit: building: action: | Gaia Merchants Quarry/Mine Trade Rt. | Eris Warriors Tower Attack | Metis (any) Workshop Explore | Thalassa Sailors Boatyard Attack | Nyx Priestesses Shrine Protect | Hemera Fishermen Village Colonize |
I knew I wanted to set my game earlier in time than the Classical Greek age of Athens and Sparta, back when the Cyclades archipelago was little known. Instead of a university, an academy. Instead of a temple, a shrine. Yet Zeus and Hera are part of the third generation of gods in Greek mythology, children of Kronos, himself child of Gaia and Uranus.
It made sense that a game set earlier in Greek history would have earlier gods. I looked to the primordial gods and goddess for the beta version of my design: Eris, goddess of strife; Gaia, goddess of earth, with the agora replaced by the mines and quarries more valuable in this era; Hemera, goddess of day; Nyx, goddess of night; Metis, goddess of craft, with artisans instead of philosophers, workshops instead of academies; and Pontus, god of the sea, with shipyards instead of ports (both of which are anachronistic).
Cycladic figurines like those in the cover image are famous, primarily feminine, figures. No one knows their purpose, though in the past archeologists thought they were representative of goddesses. There’s no proof of that, but I decided to embrace that interpretation, replacing the last god, Pontus, with the goddess Thalassa, now responsible for boatyards (sadly still anachronistic). I briefly toyed with the idea of demigods and demigoddesses before rejecting it. My final change was to get rid of Artisans (just worth VPs) by letting Metis recruit any of the other types of units, at a premium.
While I changed the pantheon repeatedly during initial development of the game, going back to work on the second edition I’ve found I’m very happy with where it ended up.
You can play Cycladic League on Itch.io.
Illustration credit: Photo by Zde. “Cycladic figurines (canonical type, EC II) from various places in the Naxian countryside. Archaeological Museum of Naxos, Case 3.” Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
