Thirteen (in need of a better name)

[Kappa]

As seen on IRC, with editing to streamline the explanation:

(8:47:16 PM) kappabeta: Okay so: Before there was anything else, there was Katiravan, the Walker in Darkness
(8:48:15 PM) kappabeta: Katiravan made Banakor, Lord of Stone, and Tialai, Lady of the Lights; and the Lord of Stone made the ground, and the Lady of Lights made the sky and the lights that hang in it
(8:49:07 PM) kappabeta: and this was enough to satisfy Katiravan, but the Lord and Lady began to get lonely after a while, and they thought the world was a bit drab and samey with nothing in it but rock and starlight
(8:49:35 PM) kappabeta: So they decided to have children and see if their kids could spruce the place up a bit
(8:50:02 PM) kappabeta: Their eldest was Lyrimel Tidebringer, who created the sea, which was already an improvement because unlike stone it moved
(8:50:24 PM) kappabeta: Then came Eledima Seedmaker, who made plants, and *that* was exciting as hell, let me tell you
(8:50:45 PM) kappabeta: Rashakirei Stormkeeper made weather, which *ahem* blew everyone away
(8:51:01 PM) kappabeta: And then their last child, Votheynas Dreamlighter, made *people*
(8:51:51 PM) kappabeta: Which was generally agreed to be the most amazing gift of any of the children because the thing about people is they go around doing new stuff all by themselves
(8:52:28 PM) kappabeta: But on the other hand, without water and plants and weather (and animals, the Seedmaker branched out after a while), people would kind of have a hard time
(8:52:56 PM) kappabeta: So in a sense Votheynas needed the rest of them to have already done their bit before he could step in and wow everyone
(8:54:13 PM) kappabeta: The six active gods spent a while being really excited about the existence of people, but they found it kind of hard to relate to them, what with being from a totally different mode of existence and all
(8:54:39 PM) kappabeta: So they decided to make some new gods to try to bridge that gap a bit
(8:55:35 PM) kappabeta: Each of the six came up with an idea for a new god, and they worked on their projects and helped each other out a bit and after a while there were six more gods
(8:56:01 PM) kappabeta: Banakor made Adavio, the Sculptor, who does scuplture and metalworking and architecture
(8:56:26 PM) kappabeta: Tialai made Sothrenni, the Weaver, who does textiles and painting and visual arts in general
(8:56:45 PM) kappabeta: Lyrimel made Firivanya, the Voyager, who goes places and sees things
(8:57:40 PM) kappabeta: Eledima made Halmirin, the Gardener, who gardens and farms and cooks and throws amazing dinner parties
(8:58:24 PM) kappabeta: Rashakirei made Niranthi, the Dancer, who does dance but also gymnastics and martial arts and generally any activity whose focus is the body
(8:58:51 PM) kappabeta: and Votheynas made Malya, the Singer, who works with words - singing, poetry, books, etc

God genders:
Katiravan, Walker in Darkness - n
Banakor, Lord of Stone - m
Tialai, Lady of the Lights - f
Lyrimel Tidebringer - f
Eledima Seedmaker - f
Rashakirei Stormkeeper - m
Votheynas Dreamlighter - m
Adavio, the Sculptor - m
Sothrenni, the Weaver - f
Firivanya, the Voyager - m
Halmirin, the Gardener - m
Niranthi, the Dancer - f
Malya, the Singer - f

Things about this world that still need figuring out include: how do the ground and sky function mechanically in a day-to-day sense, what do I call the various beings of divine origin that came after the thirteen major gods and aren't as powerful or well-known...

[Armada]

Apologies in advance if I have misread something and you did not in fact mean to imply that you would like help brainstorming things about this world that still need figuring out; I will be perfectly content if you would like me to delete this and go on my merry way.

Is the world heliocentric? I can't see a reason that this can't be a standard creation myth with the bonus of having actually happened. If you throw in something about Tialai and/or Banakor deciding to set it up so that [insert whatever planetary model applies] then you're basically covered. Unless I missed something and this solution doesn't make any sense, like there not being a sun or something - otherwise I don't see the problem with having the ground and sky function as they do normally.

As for the other: demigods, hearth-gods, patrons, lesser-gods, spirits, [Animal] or [Object] (e.g. Wolf, Pine, Owl, etc) if they work like totems, Xs or Ys where X and Y are made-up fantasy names for the category...? If there's a certain subset of the population (e.g. farmers, witches, homemakers, warriors, whatever) that stereotypically calls on said various beings then it could make sense to name them after that subset. Alternatively, any and/or all of these plus more depending on how many cultures you've got and how monolithic the planet is. I can probably come up with more but the whole Greco-Roman setup might have some handy translations too.

[Kappa]

I am delighted by your contribution!

I was planning on this being an infinite-plane world, so I can't so much do planets.

Hmmmmmmm. Spirits and demigods might be useful terms, and I may yet go for made-up fantasy terms. Not sure about the number of cultures on the plane, but potentially a very large number, because it's not like they're going to run out of room.

[Armada]

Oh good! I am glad. :)

In that case... idk, I guess technically you could have plants and things without a sun, as long as they got enough light from assorted not-as-nearby stars. They'd be black and all kinds of weird-looking, but it's not disbelief-inducingly impossible.

If you wanted you could introduce a myth about, say, Niranthi teaching Tialai how to dance, and use that as justification for a day/night cycle. You could also set a sun perpetually on the horizon, which... would be kind of weird on a plane but it's what happens to tidally-locked planets. Or really the creation-myth setup pretty much lets you do whatever you want and justify it with interactions between gods.

Are your people agricultural? You could steal the thing that Egyptians did along the banks of the Nile, where they planned their lives around regular mild flooding (I think - I am very foggy on this subject). That way even if there's no ocean nearby or the setup doesn't support a water cycle, you could have, say, Lyrimel and Halmirin cooperate to make the soil okay for planting things.

Man, gods are pretty useful.

[Kappa]

I want there to be a sun or suns, I'm just not sure how to... choreograph them. XDDDDD

There's bound to be at least some agricultural societies who could do the flood-cycle thing. It's a nifty idea.