Sumerian Dingir

The Dingir

The Sumerian Pantheon

HISTORYWATCH: The Sumerians founded one of the first and most impactful civilisations in our world. From 7000 years ago, the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (also called ‘Mesopotamia’, which means ‘land between the rivers’ in Greek—and is mostly modern day Iraq) became heavily inhabited, eventually leading to the birth of the very first cities. It’s thought the Sumerians were also the inventors of the wheel, astronomy, mathematics, metalworking and of the first writing system, cuneiform—a syllabic script made with wedge shapes pressed into clay. 4300 years ago King Zargon of Akkad founded the world’s first empire uniting the city states, and by 4100 years ago the capital city of Ur was at its height. However, invasions from nomadic Amorites began to weaken the Sumerians, and then 3800 years ago King Hammurabi of neighbouring Babylon conquered the Sumerians. The pantheon of the Sumerians doesn’t seem to have a specific name, so I’ve used the Sumerian word ‘dingir’ 𒀭, which means ‘god’ or ‘goddess’ but also ‘sky’ or ‘heaven’.

CHARACTER: The Dingir are a polytheistic pantheon with many powers who each act as patrons of particular cities, which are often named after them too. The Sumerian powers are ancient, mighty and distant from mortals. They are bitter rivals of the Babylonian pantheon, despite—or perhaps because of—the significant overlap between powers. Many are aspects of similar powers in the other pantheon. However, it was the death of the beloved Enki at the hands of Nergal and Anshar that has pushed the Dingir into outright hostility.

MAPPING INFINITY: The Sumerians believe that the world is a flat disc, surrounded by a huge holed space, and above that lies the Heavens. Water is everywhere, top bottom and sides of this space, and the universe was born from this enormous sea. Now cutter, if that doesn’t sound like the Outlands, Sigil, Upper Planes and the Astral Sea to you, then I don’t know what to say…

The Primordials

These powers are the progenitors of the pantheon, but have largely retreated from the planes these days.

NAME	PORTFOLIO	REALM	PRONOUNS	ALIGNMENT	POWER LEVEL
An ‡ 𒀭	Sky / King of the Gods	Retreated from the planes	Her/Him	Unknown	Ascended?
Nammu ‡ 𒇉	Mother of the pantheon	Became the Oceans?	She/Her	Unknown	Primordial

The Seven Gods Who Decree

These are the powers who wield most of the influence in the pantheon:

NAME	PORTFOLIO	REALM	PRONOUNS	ALIGNMENT	POWER LEVEL
Enki 𒂗𒆠	Rivers, oceans (dead)†	Mechanus / the Waterwheel (former)	He/Him	LN	Greater
Enlil 𒂗𒆤	Air, war, storms, kingship	Elysium / Eronia / Great Mountain of the East	He/Him	NG	Greater 𒀭
Inanna 𒈹	War, love	Baator / Phlegethos / the Jealous Heart	She/Her	LE	Greater
Ki 𒆠	Nature, earth	Elysium / Eronia / Great Mountain of the East	She/Her	N	Greater
Nanna-Sin 𒋀𒆠	The Moon	Elysium / Eronia / Wandering	He/Him	CG	Lesser
Nin-Hursag 𒎏𒄯𒊕	Earth	Elysium / Eronia / Great Mountain of the East	She/Her	N	Lesser
Utu 𒌓	The Sun	Arborea / Olympus / the Absorbing Light	He/Him	CG	Greater

These powers are the Sumerian pantheon as described in On Hallowed Ground. 𒀭 Enlil is the leader of the pantheon. † Enki was slain by the Babylonian powers Nergal and Anshar.

The Sumerian Dingir

These are a selection of some of the many additional minor powers of the pantheon:

NAME	PORTFOLIO	REALM / NOTES	PRONOUNS	ALIGNMENT	POWER LEVEL
Abu ‡	Plants; snakes	Born after Nin-Hursag took on Enki’s pain		N	Lesser
Dumuzid ‡	Shepherds	Shepherd King of Uruk, he has to spend half of the year in the Underworld (hence the seasons, the hot summer was when he ‘died’)	He/ Him	N	Demipower
Geštinanna ‡	Prophetic dreams; language; duty scribe of the Underworld	Spends half of the year in the Underworld recording the names of the dead	She/ Her	LG	Demipower
Idlurugu ‡	Trial by ordeal; drowning	Both accuser and accused would be tried by ordeal and Idlurugu would spare the innocent, and carry the guilty to the Underworld	He/ Him	N	Psychopomp
Nanshe ‡	Divination; social justice; waterbirds	Elysium / Belierin	She/ Her	LN	Lesser
Ninĝirsu ‡	Healing; exorcism	Slayer of the demon Asag	He/ Him	LG	Lesser
Ninkasi ‡	Beer; sociability; hangovers	Cupbearer to the gods, patron of the positive and negative effects of alcohol consumption	Genderfluid	CG	Intermediate
Ninlil ‡	Grain; prosperity; air	Elysium / Eronia / Great Mountain of the East	She/ Her	NG	Greater
Ninshubur ‡	Sukkal of Inanna	Baator / Phlegethos / the Jealous Heart	Genderfluid	LE	Demipower
Ninti ‡	Soothing of pain; long life	Born after Nin-Hursag took on Enki’s pain	She/ Her	N	Lesser
Nintulla ‡	Precious metals	Born after Nin-Hursag took on Enki’s pain	He/ Him	N	Lesser
Tishpak ‡	War; snakes	A more violent aspect of Teshub of the One Thousand Gods	He/ Him	NE	Lesser

A Who’s Who of the Sumerian Dingir

Powers with full write-ups will appear here…

Anu
Being the Skyfather, a Paternal Power of Many Mesopotamian Pantheons

Realms of the Sumerian Powers

Canonical Source: On Hallowed Ground [2e] p60-63

Sources: Jon Winter-Holt; History Hit (they make one of my favourite podcasts!); Mifologica; Wikipedia. Canonwatch: ‡ Homebrew power; from mythology but not included in On Hallowed Ground. I’ve expanded upon the small pantheon that was described in On Hallowed Ground with some more Sumerian powers who seemed like interesting characters. With a lot of overlap between Sumerian, Babylonian and Anatolian powers, and limited details available for some of them, I’ve had to make some divine executive decisions about who to put into which pantheonic box and invent things to fill in the gaps. If you know more about this part of history than me—which would not be difficult—I would love to hear feedback and suggestions for how to improve things and what I mangled!