So a basic tip for figuring out of the local gods were nice / dicks is to look at the local populace’s relationship with rivers. In Egypt the Nile is very neutral and generous so there gods and magic system is similar with the gods making everything and magic being one of those things so it was up to the individual and how they partitioned the gods in how it would be utilized for good or evil. While in the Middle East during a similar time period the nations building up in between the Tigris and the Euphrates that are much more prone to random floods that would fuck shit up so their gods were crueler. Norse gods were kinda dicks but it was much more dependent on the god itself like when praying to thor you would only need to sacrifice a goat if I’m remembering correctly but for Odin you needed to sacrifice a human to get him to listen. This made people respect Odin a ton but like Thor more and would constantly ask for his help along with many of the lesser gods. So basically the local gods are a representation of the difficultly and type of lives of the local populace and the problems they faced and to answer questions they wouldn’t have been able to reasonably determine through their level of technology and knowledge. Like the Egyptians magic and potion making was for legit medical purposes 90% of the time where they would gather real medicinal plants and then “bless” them through some incantation asking for help from whichever god would be the most useful at the time and then you have a magic potion that can actually heal someone giving proof to the power of magic. Sorry for ranting but currently In a course on the study of witchcraft and magic where we talk about many of these religions and there relationship with sorcerers and witches.