Worldbuilding - Deity

For whatever settlement I end up using I have the deity ready. I created her quickly for the short story I recently finished. Her name Tswaftss was supposed to be merely a placeholder. It stood for:

• Tortoise, the Goddesses favored animal.
• Shield, the Goddesses favored weapon.
• Water, the domain so that she could have the flotsam subdomain.
• Artifice, the most fitting domain that starts with a vowel.
• Flotsam subdomain, my favorite.
• Thirst subdomain, because water in the desert...
• Sun domain, for thirst subdomain and because it is traditional for all desert deities.
• Scalykind domain, because tortoises are reptiles.

Now I am thinking since we are speaking of a true neutral deity that could easily have started as an awakened colossal tortoise why not have a name that is an acronym of her qualities?


The Flotsam domain is supposed to be for items found washed up on coastlines and riverbanks but finding similar items in the desert is not unheard of, especially on a well traveled trade route. The 6th level Flotsam ability for Sift could work just as well in sand as in water. The fact that Sift replaces Cold Resistance is a bonus. Granted the Water domain spells of water breathing, elemental body (water only), and elemental swarm (water only) do not work well in the desert but nothing is perfect.


When I think of tortoises I think of their shells which shield their bodies. Thus the reason why having shields as the favored weapon for any deity with tortoises as a favored animal makes sense. I mean, what other weapon would you picture with a tortoise? Note, the teenage mutant ninja turtles were not tortoises.


I was thinking of adding the Sun domain too, especially for the desert environment. Also the Thirst subdomain would be fitting, especially with the Water domain.


Origionally, I had the Travel domain but then I replaced it with Flotsam just because I did not think Travel was really fitting.