Cutting Down Confusion?

[Rencii]

Okay, so this seems really dumb but I've just been coming back from a major roleplaying hiatus and while I still have (updated versions of) my old roleplaying OCs, I recently began a pantheon project with some friends of mine.

For those confused, it's essentially creating your own group of deities, choosing attributes for them all. Most of the characters are mine and I want to roleplay with them, but there's roughly ten main deities and thirty minor ones, and none of them really make sense as solo roleplaying OCs.

If I were to cut this group of deities down to make them more roleplay-friendly, how would you guys recommend I do that? There's a main family structure that spans four generations with a bunch of different deities branching off so how would you guys cut down the numbers?

Start with the main structure and immediately remove the minor characters connected to anyone I remove? Or work from the outside in so I can look at the main structure with less clutter in the way?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Elle Joyner]

Well, courtesy wise, my first question is have you talked to and okayed this idea with the friends you were working on this woth originally? I'd be pretty upset if I helped plot something and then found out it was not only being utilized elsewhere, but that my creations/contributions had been carved out of it.

The first step if it were me would be to ask the folks I worked on it with and get their feedback. That's not to suggest you haven't done that already, I just feel obligated to ask because it wasn't mentioned.

 

[Rencii]

Yeah, I did get the okay from them. They use their own characters for other things too so it's all good in that regard.

 

[Loveless]

This has been silent for a while, and I have little to no experience with this at all but I think that before removing anything, you should look at the world-building itself as a whole and pin down all of the notable deities related to major aspects of that would-building. The characters themselves may be minor, but I'd consider anything unique and quirky to be just as important to the setting as the actual bases of let's say the creation and establishment of the world itself; If you have a magical system, I'd start by looking at that one first, then the world mythos and any subsequent religions or group of beliefs.

No idea if this is inside-out or outside-in, it may be a mixed approach, but it's how I'd do it if I was in your place. I do have an original setting with rather complex world-building, but since I tried to keep it limited from the start (it is my first attempt after all) I've never really dealt with this kind of issue to be entirely sure...