The idea was that there would be an actual, real, game-mechanic existing pantheon that actually did things. That significantly would have upped the fantasy quotient seven or eight years back. These days? Not so much.
The "actually did things" part has never been close to certain.
The idea is more to have a reasonably well-defined pantheon, with different Gods having clear portfolios, and then allowing a certain amount of latitude for players to split or combine those Gods, while retaining the basic ideas that
these aspects go together in some way, while
those are clearly separate.
