Giving Gods Flesh

by Harvest Master | Aug 16, 2026 | Samhain Hearth & Horror, Game Design

I made a good decision when I decided to play in the Samhain Vale for my weekly games. Inevitably, the players start asking for things that become the "next focus". The gods have been coming up a lot in our games and I was asked to provide a write up of the gods of the Samhain Vale. So that forced me to do exactly that.

One of the good things is that there is a crossover with my latest supplement, Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping. That crossover is the goddess, Deatach, pronounced DeA-Tah, she is the goddess of smoke and I get to use the art I drew for her in the zine! As well, there are a bunch more gods that I have had to flesh out at least from the characters point of view. Not an exhaustive or extensive list of attributes and avatar stats, but what they know about these gods, or rather the basics they should know. I have placed these it in the Welcome to the Samhain Vale MUGWORT zine, and I will upload it soon. The current version of the zine is available at my patreon page.

The document is fast becoming thicker and thicker with its page count since I am playing weekly in the setting. It is a win-win for those that are interested in the setting and having game-able things to play today even while it is in its genesis, at least from an actual product point of view.

The gods are a bit different from what you would get in say Greyhawk or Mystara. I have always thought that most D&D gods are more like Roman gods. As in, here is a god and what their domain is. I wanted to do things a little more like folk gods of old. In the Norse pantheon, though people still categorize them like Roman gods, the god Tyr is much more than the god of war, Odin is much more than the "all-father" or a god of wisdom.

There are no clerics in the Samhain Vale, the gods have gone silent, but the people of the Vale still honor the traditions in hopes that the gods still hear. There are gods that have associations but there is crossover between gods like the Goddess Arawyn and the God Maru, both dealing in death. The gods I have are as follows: