PhilFleischmann

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu.  "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me.  The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too.  There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class.  On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No.  One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book.  And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them.
 
Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was.  And they need to get off my lawn, too.

Or illiterate as the case may be.  The idea of a paladin being a "knight who can heal you with divine holy powers and is always 'Lawful Good'" is a pure fabrication of Gygax & co.  The word "paladin" originally meant "a servant of the palace" in other words, someone directly serving the king.  That could be a fighter-type or a wizard-type, or a non-combatant butler, or anything else - but it does imply true-blue-loyalty and trustworthiness to the king - which doesn't mean they're automatically either "Lawful" or "Good", because the king himself might be neither.
 
Likewise, the idea that a druid is a "'True Neutral' cleric with nature-related spells" was also entirely new with D&D.
 
No one should hope to find consistency or historical accuracy within D&D.

Two points:
 
No more incongruent than Clerics were with those same traditions, and
 
How familiar do you think the average nerd was, or is, with such traditions?
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary points out most of them couldn't distinguish aesthetic from ascetic.

Yep, every word .....

Oh, it isn't really that much of a stretch if you think back to when these actually started.   Not AD&D but D&D, specifically the supplement Blackmoor in 1975.  Cable wasn't really available "everywhere" and even if you had cable you had at best 20-25 channels.   This is relevant because until the 80's I had never seen a "martial arts" movie and had only heard of Bruce Lee in magazines.  When the little black and white book Blackmoor introduced the Monk as a subclass of the Cleric we didn't have much more than that to go on. Where I lived the TV stations didn't even show Kung Fu on TV.  I missed Battlestar Galactica till years later too
 
But it was only the fact that I ran across D&D at an old wargaming shop before my Dad retired from the Army and we all moved back, that I even knew what a RPG was and had a copy. It wasn't until I joined the Navy in 81 that I actually got exposed to Asian Cinema and the often confused 70-80's martial arts action shows.  Since I was a apprentice at the time (being a seaman or airman in the Navy was synonymous to dead broke in the 80's) I took advantage of the MWR at the time.  The rec center on base had hobby rooms you could reserve, a cheap restaurant and a two screen theater. We used to go there and reserve a room where we played wargames, D&D and Champions all weekend long only taking breaks to eat and watch movies.  On Sat and Sun from 9am to 6pm they had free action theater where they showed end to end Martial Arts flicks and so on.   In the evenings they showed movies like Philadelphia Experiment, Top Gun, Flash Gordon and so on for $1 fo the night.
 
By the time I saw Enter the Dragon or Master of the Flying Guillotine, the Monk was firmly a Friar like the Robin Hood Tuck with cooler abilities.

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu.  "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me.  The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too.  There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class.  On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No.  One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book.  And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them.
 
Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was.  And they need to get off my lawn, too.

Not at all weird!  I thought the same thing when I first saw the monk class in the 1st edition Player's Handbook.  The OP is correct that oriental mystic martial artists don't really fit in western-style fantasy.  There are monks in western culture, but they're not martial artists - they're guys in robes who live in a monastery with the top of their head shaved and spend their lives making copies of holy books by hand.  And there are martial artists in western culture, but they're not monks - they're masters of various forms of combat, armed and unarmed - but mostly armed.
 
But so what?  Monks were "popular' in D&D because they were there.  There were SCADS of things in D&D that didn't fit in western-style fantasy.  D&D has *never* made much sense at all, which is why I don't play it anymore.  Let's see, off the top of my head:
 
Psionics
Dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures
Science-fiction-y "fungus" monsters with weird names like "ascomoid" and "phytomid"
Feeble attempts at "hard physics" rules - like the zero-gravity on the Astral Plane
Dozens of spells based in modern technology and science - Duo-dimension, Time Stop, Clone, etc.  Spell-equivalents of flashlights, telephones, anti-gravity carts,etc.
Infravision & Ultravision - as if historical fantasy ever concerned itself with the physics of light frequencies
Monsters that were essentially just math tricks you could do with the dice, like the Tween
"Magic" items that are more at home in the steampunk genre.
The redefinition of words like "paladin", "necromancy", etc.
Formalized spelling that make real distinctions - e.g. demon vs daemon.
EDIT: I remembered the other sci-fi monster I was trying to think of before: the "Cifal", which was an acronym for "Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life".  Yeah, sure, a perfect monster for a FANTASY game.  Conan and Bilbo and Fafhrd and Merlin and Perseus fought cifals all the time!

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu.  "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me.  The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too.  There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class.  On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No.  One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book.  And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them.
 
Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was.  And they need to get off my lawn, too.

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu.  "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me.  The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too.  There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class.  On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No.  One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book.  And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them.
 
Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was.  And they need to get off my lawn, too.

It was actually quite simple: because I didn't know anything about mystic kung fu.  "Master of Winter/Spring/Summer/Autumn" "Master of the North/South/East/West Wind" didn't suggest anything Chinese to me.  The seasons and the winds exist in Europe, too.  There was not a single Chinese word or any hint of a connection to any Asian culture anywhere in the description of the class.  On a separate page was a table of weapons available to various classes, which mentioned "bo sticks" and "jo sticks", but no one - No.  One. - had any inkling what those were, and there was not even a shadow of a hint of a half-hearted thought about maybe making an attempt to define them in the book.  And in the weapons table, they didn't seem to be particularly good weapons anyway, so no one ever used them.
 
Kids today have no idea how poorly-written the 1st edition of D&D was.  And they need to get off my lawn, too.

Not at all weird!  I thought the same thing when I first saw the monk class in the 1st edition Player's Handbook.  The OP is correct that oriental mystic martial artists don't really fit in western-style fantasy.  There are monks in western culture, but they're not martial artists - they're guys in robes who live in a monastery with the top of their head shaved and spend their lives making copies of holy books by hand.  And there are martial artists in western culture, but they're not monks - they're masters of various forms of combat, armed and unarmed - but mostly armed.
 
But so what?  Monks were "popular' in D&D because they were there.  There were SCADS of things in D&D that didn't fit in western-style fantasy.  D&D has *never* made much sense at all, which is why I don't play it anymore.  Let's see, off the top of my head:
 
Psionics
Dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures
Science-fiction-y "fungus" monsters with weird names like "ascomoid" and "phytomid"
Feeble attempts at "hard physics" rules - like the zero-gravity on the Astral Plane
Dozens of spells based in modern technology and science - Duo-dimension, Time Stop, Clone, etc.  Spell-equivalents of flashlights, telephones, anti-gravity carts,etc.
Infravision & Ultravision - as if historical fantasy ever concerned itself with the physics of light frequencies
Monsters that were essentially just math tricks you could do with the dice, like the Tween
"Magic" items that are more at home in the steampunk genre.
The redefinition of words like "paladin", "necromancy", etc.
Formalized spelling that make real distinctions - e.g. demon vs daemon.
EDIT: I remembered the other sci-fi monster I was trying to think of before: the "Cifal", which was an acronym for "Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life".  Yeah, sure, a perfect monster for a FANTASY game.  Conan and Bilbo and Fafhrd and Merlin and Perseus fought cifals all the time!

Another limitation of the 1e monk class is that the starting at level 7 or so, the character had to fight another monk of that level in order to advance. The loser (if he survives) loses enough xp to put him in the middle of the next lower level.
 
Like 1e magic-users, monks were weak at low levels. However, they became quite powerful at higher levels. The main challenge was being able to survive that long.
 
The monk presented in Dragon # 53 (also in Best of Dragon v. 3) made the monk a little more powerful; some say the class became overpowered. However, the character didn't have to fight to gain levels until reaching level 12.

Maybe that's what a D&D dragon has become, but in the days of OD&D and 1st ed. AD&D, the prototype for the Ancient Red Dragon was Smaug, and he sat upon his treasure horde all alone, and didn't need a powerful array of minions and leveled agents to be an unholy terror to an entire region of the (campaign) world. Don't let the fact that he had an Achilles Heel type weakness detract from the challenge he alone represented. 
It wasn't until players routinely bragged about their 30th level characters and dragons became Just Another Monster in the MM that there was a need to turn them into the equivalent of supervillain organizations just to make them a challenge again.

It's popular because a lot of immature players think "ninjas are cool" and have no regard whatsoever for general atmosphere or whether their personal power trip makes my setting all loopy. Also, in most versions of D&D the monk class is easily exploited to create game-breaking combos like stun-locking a dragon round after round.
 
Why yes, I am harsh and judgemental and wildly opionated. Why do you ask?

The first time I saw the Monk class  was in the Blackmoor book back in the old days.  For some reason we always envisioned them as the Friar Tuck type. 
 
It wasn't until years later that we made the Far East connection. 
 
Weird right?

Booky McBookface
 
Tome Douli
 
The Code in Binode
 
Basic Spelling Lessons
 
Theurgy in Nine Steps
 
Tome in a Bottle
 
The Book of Matches
 
I Came, I Saw, I Conjured
 
Symbols Resounding
 
Poor Witches Almanac
 
101 Uses for a Dead Dragon
 
Edoc Suoivbo
 
Nancy's Fancy -Mancy (At a Glancy)

All I can say at this point is that I have given this issue considerable thought. My intention is to get absolutely the best art I can without spending myself into the poorhouse. I will lose money on the book if I have to, but it is going to be illustrated beautifully.
 
When I have some actual information, I'll definitely pass it along.

I don't know if this has been addressed already, but what about the illustrations?  I rarely ever see illustrations of RPG gods that look "good" - and by that I mean that actually look like gods.  Most of them either look like ordinary characters or monsters, and some look like superheroes.  I know it's a serious challenge to artists to really make their illustrations look "Mythic", but it seems that in most other RPG sources, they don't even try for a mythic look.  If the gods are "special" - something beyond even the mortal heroes that are the PCs and beyond the mastermind villains and powerful monsters - then they ought to *look* like it!
 
I know it's a tall order for an artist who is used to drawing superheroes or ordinary mortal characters and fantasy landscapes and cityscapes and monsters.  Let the illustrations of the gods look worthy of ancient tapestries and temple walls, huge statues and sacred altars.  It shouldn't necessarily be that difficult - pictures of gods generally don't need intricate detail.  After all, mere mortals never actually met these gods face-to-face, except in the myths themselves.  And the myths do not describe every detail of their clothing and facial features.  The pictures should be iconic and symbolic, even abstract to an extent - to give them an other-worldly feel.  If they look too concrete and realistic, it makes them seem more ordinary.

Booky McBookface
 
Tome Douli
 
The Code in Binode
 
Basic Spelling Lessons
 
Theurgy in Nine Steps
 
Tome in a Bottle
 
The Book of Matches
 
I Came, I Saw, I Conjured
 
Symbols Resounding
 
Poor Witches Almanac
 
101 Uses for a Dead Dragon
 
Edoc Suoivbo
 
Nancy's Fancy -Mancy (At a Glancy)

Basic
 
The Book of Three Rings
 
Dweomercraft for Apprentices
 
The Book of Changes
 
The Lazy Man's Guide to Enchantment
 
Diabolism for Dabblers
 
The Book of Prayers in Common
 
The Prayer's Handbook
 
The Lore Plain
 
Authentic Thaumaturgy
 
Approved Practical Catechism
 
Orthography of Phydaux
 
How to Do that Hoodoo So You Do it Well
 
Holbytlan
 
Codex of the West
 
Low
 
Common Clerical Errors
 
Justice Incorporeal
 
Dangers Interdimensional
 
A First Bestiary
 
 
Intermediate
 
The Book of Forty Kings
 
The Arduous Grimoire
 
A Field Guide to Forces
 
Analects that Confuse Us
 
The Bell Book
 
The Codex of Silence
 
The Book of Changes
 
The Monstrum Manual
 
Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics
 
Libram of Useful Herbs
 
The Joy of Hex
 
Auric Onager
 
Pictorial Key to the Law
 
The Classic Way of Virtue
 
The Limb of Gold
 
Which World?
 
Doctrine and Ceremony of the Great Work
 
Book of the Undead
 
Seer's Catalog
 
A Second Bestiary
 
Scroll of Saving
 
 
Advanced
 
Uncommon Clerical Terrors
 
The Book of the Well Done Cow
 
The Book of Splendor
 
The Donjon Mystic's Guide
 
The Book of Changes
 
Metamagical Themas
 
The Cryptic Codex
 
The Jade Tablet
 
The Tome of Mausoleus
 
A Brief Mystery of Tomes
 
Circles of Arepo
 
 
Forbidden
 
The Tome of Horrors
 
Scroll of the Bones
 
The Sorcerer's Codex
 
The Incunabulus of Diabolotry
 
The Club of the Month Book
 
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Necromancy
 
The Suzerain in Saffron
 
Oracle of the Thousand Hands
 
The Unspeakable Cult of the Unpronouncable Name
 
The Seven Hobbits of Highly Defective Purple
 
Occult Blood
 
Book of Fifty Shadows
 
Songs of the Barred
 
The Zornwil Effect
 
 
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary appears in Circus of Words

Hi.  Remember me?  I used to be very active on these boards some years ago.  I remember some of you.  Hi.  I've been away a long time, and haven't been Heroing or RPGing at all.  I don't have the group I used to have to play with.  Then t'other day, the thought occurred to me to look up something I wrote on these boards way back when.  And thoughts have been going through my head of my old fantasy campaign world.  I don't know if I'll resume my former activity level here, but maybe I'll at least stop in to keep up-to-date.  I have the 5th edition (FREd), but not the 6th, and many of the 5th edition books (and some earlier ones, too - 4th, 3rd).

 

If you were around when I last e-roamed these e-halls, you may remember my avatar.  I probably should change it, since it's source is no longer relevant.  But I'll keep it for now in case it jogs your memory.

 

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

My parents came up with it, actually.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you Played?  

Red Box DnD, like everyone else, followed quickly by 1st ed. AD&D.  It was the only game in town.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?  

Module B1 - "In Search of the Unknown"  A rather generic title - couldn't any module be described the same way?  Was there ever a module called "The Place that We Already Know Everything About"?

 

What are you currently Playing/GMing?  

Not currently playing/GMing any RPGs, but if I could, I'd love to start GMing Fantasy Hero again, or playing Hero in nearly any genre.  I've been mostly playing board games recently, which I also greatly enjoy.

 

When did you start to play Hero?  

I guess it would have been 3rd ed. Champions in the early '80s.  Never went back to that previous system, except for a few isolated times when that's what they were playing, and it was deendee or nothing.

Wow.
 
Thanks for all that!  It sounds amazing!
 
It really didn't take me that long to write that outline, because I wrote it a long time ago.  What took a while was finding it in the *old* section of these threads.
 
My main problem with the old deendee DDG* was that even though it tells me that this particular god wields a +4 spear that does 4d10 of damage, it gives me no clues about what I'm supposed to do if I'm one of his clerics or worshipers.
 
*I have the first edition, with Cthulhu and Elric and all the other copyright-violating stuff.  It might be worth some money on eBay.

First off, PhilF, let me say Thanx! for taking so much time to write out what you'd like to see in Mythic Hero. It's always great to hear from fans who have strong opinions about a book and are willing to express them in a polite and constructive manner. So take 2 XP out of petty cash and treat yourself to something nice -- maybe an CSL with your favorite attack.
 
On to answers and observations about the points you made.
 
1. When I started writing MH back in 2011, it was still a Hero Games project rather than a personal project, and the guys around the office jokingly called it "Steve's Deities & Demigods." So I'm afraid I have to disappoint you a bit by explaining that the main thrust of MH, by and large, is to provide character sheets for the gods and heroes of world mythology (including game stats for weapons and other objects of myth).
 
However, the operative phrase here is Steve's DDG. I have the deepest respect for the authors of the DDG, a book I love and treasure, but to compare the DDG to MH is like comparing The Pokey Little Puppy to War And Peace. When I write about gods and mythoi, I include far, far more information than the DDG does. I cover the cosmology, the setting, the magic system (if one exists that's worth writing up in game terms), the major myths pertaining to each god and hero (and often the minor ones), relevant monsters and villains, and all sorts of other great stuff.
 
By way of example, look at the Hindu Mythology chapter in the DDG. If memory serves, it's 7 or 8 pages long, and more than half of those pages are basically whitespace. The Hindu Mythology chapter in MH is over 70,000 words long -- and most of that's not game stats, believe me. When I set out to cover a mythos, I cover it. In fact, there's so much info in MH that I am considering a separate publication where I strip out the gaming-related information and put out a book with just the researched, scholarly material.
 
(Another fun data point:  the bibliography for MH, which is far from complete at this time, is already over 6,000 words long. So if you want to follow up on my work, you'll know where to start. )
 
1a. Are you going to be fighting the gods? Quite possibly! World mythology is replete with stories of conflicts between gods and mortals -- be those conflicts physical, mental, social, magical, or just plain weird. And for that I think a character sheet can be helpful. Plus, as you observe, someone may want to play God vs. God, or pit two Greek heroes against some dudes from Aztec myth, or what have you.
 
1b.  But here's the great thing:  you can completely ignore the character sheets if you want to. Just flip on past 'em and read the text (and look at what I plan to be awesome artwork!). The fact that they're there for gamers who want them doesn't mean the book is pointless for gamers who don't want them.
 
1c. Plus, even if you don't want the character sheets as a whole, you might find bits of them -- like the HERO System stats for Mjolnir, or Zeus's thunderbolts, or Maui's magic fishhook -- useful or fun to have. If nothing else they're good argument fodder.
 
1d. In the final analysis, though, it comes down to this:  I want to do character sheets for gods. And this project is all about me doing what I find fun, fascinating, and hopefully of use to a lot of gamers. I've been at it for years, and have years to go. I'm not going to make any money off of it -- in fact, I expect to spend tens of thousands of dollars out of my own pocket bringing the book to print. So I'm going to do it exactly how I want to do it, and that means character sheets for gods.
 
2.  Pretty much everything in your Section II is covered in the character sheets for the individual deities, or when they don't have a sheet just in the text describing them. (Though of course many gods aren't important enough to merit more than a line or two explaining who they are.) Naturally, not every god gets the same coverage; sometimes certain data are available for God X but not for Gods Y and Z. But I am doing (literally) years' worth of research about all this stuff so you don't have to!
 
3.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section III will be in MH. That's not the purpose of the book; that's an entirely separate subject. If and when I happen to come across a useful detail about priests or temples or what not, I often throw it into the text, but most gods don't have any info about that sort of thing. After all, in many cases, those details are simply unknown to modern scholars.
 
However, all that being said, I have an idea for a stretch goal for the Kickstarter I'll hold for the book. It's to write a second book, in PDF, which would provide a one-page description (no more) of the priesthood, temple, etc. of any god important enough to get a character sheet in MH. But these would be entirely fictional -- where I know real world details I will use them, but for the most part I am just going to make things up to create religions that are appropriate for gaming.
 
There will be some information and guidelines for creating your own pantheons and gods for your games, but I don't plan for it to be extensive (at least, not right now). Again, that's not really the main focus of the book.
 
4.  Virtually nothing that you describe in your Section IV will be in MH. However, where the material justifies it, I have written up complete magic systems for the magics specific to a mythology and/or its culture. To name just a few, I've already written up Finnish, Egyptian, Hawaiian, East Slavic (Russian), and Australian Aborigine magic systems. In fact, I have enough new magic systems that after MH comes out, I may extract them and publish them separately for gamers who don't want all the mythology stuff.
 
 
It occurs to me that it might help people see what I'm talking about if I provided a sample chapter. I'll ponder on that, and if I like the idea I will mock up a crude layout and provide a link.
 
Anyhow -- I hope that helps to explain where I'm comin' from. If you have further suggestions or questions, by all means fire away!

Hi.  Remember me?  I used to be very active on these boards some years ago.  I remember some of you.  Hi.  I've been away a long time, and haven't been Heroing or RPGing at all.  I don't have the group I used to have to play with.  Then t'other day, the thought occurred to me to look up something I wrote on these boards way back when.  And thoughts have been going through my head of my old fantasy campaign world.  I don't know if I'll resume my former activity level here, but maybe I'll at least stop in to keep up-to-date.  I have the 5th edition (FREd), but not the 6th, and many of the 5th edition books (and some earlier ones, too - 4th, 3rd).

 

If you were around when I last e-roamed these e-halls, you may remember my avatar.  I probably should change it, since it's source is no longer relevant.  But I'll keep it for now in case it jogs your memory.

 

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

My parents came up with it, actually.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you Played?  

Red Box DnD, like everyone else, followed quickly by 1st ed. AD&D.  It was the only game in town.

 

What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?  

Module B1 - "In Search of the Unknown"  A rather generic title - couldn't any module be described the same way?  Was there ever a module called "The Place that We Already Know Everything About"?

 

What are you currently Playing/GMing?  

Not currently playing/GMing any RPGs, but if I could, I'd love to start GMing Fantasy Hero again, or playing Hero in nearly any genre.  I've been mostly playing board games recently, which I also greatly enjoy.

 

When did you start to play Hero?  

I guess it would have been 3rd ed. Champions in the early '80s.  Never went back to that previous system, except for a few isolated times when that's what they were playing, and it was deendee or nothing.

Hi.  Remember me?  I've been away a long time, and I probably wouldn't even have bothered to reply to this thread (I haven't read all 17 pages of it), were it not for the fact that it was this very topic that prompted me to come back to this website.  I was looking for a post I made in the Fantasy Hero threads, called "Stuff to Make up about the Gods".
 
The main concern I would have with a book like this is whether it will be too much like Deities & Demigods from that other system.  IMO, it was a stupid book.  All the gods statted out like characters?  Are we going into combat with these guys?  Meanwhile, all the actual information that would have been useful for the game was missing.  How is this god worshiped?  What does this god want from me?  From his clerics?  From the world?  What are this gods goals and values?  What's the structure and status of the religion?  What am I required to do?  What am I forbidden to do?  What happens if I break the rules?  How do I deal with members of other religions?  etc.
 
That's what I'd want to know about the gods, not their stats and combat abilities.  Yes, I suppose it's possible to run a game where the players are gods themselves, or at least have god-level power, and might indeed go toe-to-toe with Zeus or Ra or Odin or maybe even Chuck Norris.  And yes, Hero system would probably be a great system to do that with, but I don't think most players and GMs run "god arena" games.
 
So anyway, I found the post I was looking for, and here it is, (with typos corrected) in case you haven't thought of this stuff yet:
 
I. The pantheon
A. Creation myth
1. Creation of the natural world
2. Creation of people
B. Organization
1. Family tree
2. Command structure
a) Rigid-fluid
b.) Degree of authority/control
3. Relationships between deities
a) Couples
b.) Allies/Partners
c) Rivals/enemies
C. Reality
1. Form. Examples:
a) The gods are all myth/superstition.
b.) The gods are legends based on exaggeration of historical events.
c) The gods are spirits of dead ancestors or other historical persons.
d) The gods are abstract concepts with no actual consciousness.
e) The gods are quasi-real with forms/attributes/aspect assigned by worshiping cultures.
f) The gods exist on a different level of reality, which allows them to modify their aspects/appearance based on their own desires or the culture they interact with.
g) The gods exist in a concrete sense and have true forms/attributes/aspects, which may be subject to interpretation/misinterpretation by worshipers.
h) The gods (at least some of them) are natural forces/phenomena which may or may not have consciousness, e.g., there is no "god of the sun" - the sun *is* a god.
2. Power Level. Examples:
a) The gods are nothing more than mere mortals that are worshiped.
b.) The gods are mere mortals believed to rise to divinity upon death or other event.
c) The gods are somewhat more powerful than typical mortals.
d) The gods have great power that only the greatest of mortals could rival.
e) The gods have incredible power beyond any mortal.
f) The gods have cosmic power, incomprehensible to mortals.
3. Power Source. Examples:
a) The gods' power is intrinsic.
b.) The gods' power is granted by superior gods.
c) The gods' power comes from external forces.
d) The gods' power comes from natural phenomena related to the gods' portfolio.
e) The gods' power comes from worship.
f) The gods' power comes from mortals' deeds.
II. The deity
A. Symbolic
1. Name(s)
2. Epithets/Nicknames
3. Appearance/Typical depiction
4. Symbol/Icon
5. Associated items/animals/materials/colors/phenomena
B. Intrinsic
1. Myth/Story
2. Portfolio/Sphere of influence
3. Differences/similarities to other deities
4. Stats/powers/abilities
a) Possessions/Artifacts/Relics
b.) Pets/Familiars/Mounts
5. Divine "rank"/Level of power
6. Home
a) "Plane" where the deity dwells
b.) Relationship of the deity to the "plane(s)"
C. Psychology/behavior
1. Personality
2. Goals/desires
3. Degree of involvement in mortal affairs
a) Manifestations/Avatars
b.) Spells/powers/abilities granted to clergy/worshippers
c) Signs/Miracles
D. Social
1. Among the gods
a) Reputation
b.) Position/function/purpose
2. Among mortals
a) Popularity/Obscurity
b.) Purpose of worship/reasons invoked
c) Abilities/skills typical/valued
III. The religion
A. Internal
1. Principles
a) Values/Dogma
b.) Obligations/expectations of clergy
c) Obligations/expectations of laity
d) Laws/taboos/restrictions
e) Attitude toward heresy/disagreement/questioning of doctrine/theology
f) Theology: What the gods are, their nature and aspects.
g) Theology: Afterlife, other "planes" of existance.
2. Practice
a) Rituals/Rites
b.) Holidays
c) Prayers
d) Priestly Vestments/Raiment
e) Temple architecture/layout/decor
f) Expressions/idioms
g) Equipment/paraphernalia used
h) Resolution of disputes
i) Punishment/penance/atonement
j) Education/Indoctrination of the faithful
k) Proselytism
3. Status of clergy/laity
4. Sects/factions/orders
5. Organization/hierarchy
B. External
1. Position in the community
2. Relations with other religions
C. Race/ethnicity/location/culture of worshipers
1. Alternate interpretations/aspects
2. Alternate names
IV. "Divine Magic"
A. Effects
1. Types of effects available/not available
2. Power Level
3. Special Effects
B. Source/Method to acquire/use. Examples:
1. No actual divine magic exists. Priests don't claim any magic.
2. No actual divine magic exists. Priestly magic is all chicanery.
3. There's no real difference between divine magic and "arcane" magic.
4. Divine magic is an inherent force in the world, separate from wizardly magic. Priests access it by their own means.
5. Divine magic is a fragment of the god's or gods' power, which priests access by being priests or doing something that priests do.
6. Gods grant magic to priests directly and consciously, if they choose to.
7. Gods grant magic to priests through intermediaries or lesser divine beings, with occasional oversight by the god(s).
8. Gods grant higher-powered magic to priests directly and consciously, while lesser magic is granted more-or-less automatically.
9. Priests access magic through their own faith, without the god's direct involvement. Strength of faith determines success or power level.
 
Not that you'd necessarily need to fill in *all* of these details for every single god/pantheon, or even any of them.  It's just a list of things that might be relevant.  I came up with this as a guideline for creating ones own custom mythos for a game world.  I assume there will be some text devoted to how to create your own gods.
 
And BTW, I lived in Hawaii for a while when I was a kid, and learned about the Hawaiian gods.  I actually wrote them up way back when, when I was playing this other RPG system.  The gods book from that system had me believing at the time, that gods needed full write-ups like characters or monsters.  
 
EDIT:  And one other thing to possibly include about gods/religions is their eschatology.  And if you don't know what "eschatology" means, don't worry about it, it's not the end of the world.