There is not much known about the etruscans, even less about their religion. What we know is that they had a strict organized religion, with only a few deities, compared to their neighboring cultures.
The highest god was Voltumna, next to him were 24 high deities and there were only 40 big deities at all. They were aided by demons, like the Lasen (minor goddesses and servants of Turan). Unlike the roman or greek pantheons, where hundreds or even thousands of deities were mentioned in their mythology.
Voltumna was a lightning throwing god of the earth and high king of the gods, if one could call it like that.
Second to Voltumna was the sky god Tinia, king of the gods, god of the sky, light and vegetation. He had, among the lightning throwing deities, the strongest and most destructive lightnings.
Between them was Uni, Queen of the gods, lover of Voltumna and wife of Tinia, goddess of earth, vertility, childbirth, family, love, defensive war, towns, rule and lightning.
The most important goddess was Turan, the etruscan equivalent of Aphrodite.
Next to the earth and love deities, the most important were those of death. Death was, like in orientalic religions not seen as something bad. The underworld was seen like a paradise (As far as we know from frescoes inside etruscan graves). Unlike the believe of many european (of the indoeuropean branch) religions, that saw death as a sad thing. With faceless shadows of the once living, wandering through the underworld. Where only a few heroes had a good afterlife.
Here are some examples of death deities.
Aita, the equivalent of Hades.
Calu, bringer of death, unlike Aita, Calu was worshiped.
Leinth, a god without face, welcomes the dead into the underworld.
Apanu, goddess of death and love.
The etruscan religion is mostly build around chtonic deities, gods and goddesses of the earth, agriculture and underworld.
In this story, I divide two groups of etruscan people, as I divide early and late etruscan religion. In early times, there was an unknown number of deities, that were perhaps (It is not exactly known) parts of the high deity Voltumna. These deities were the nature itself, lightning, birds, water. They had no body, gender or personality, they were just there. According to the limited knowlage, we have. Over time, they developed at least names and personalities, but no body or gender.
In later times, the etruscans were influenced by the indoeuropean religions, mostly of the greeks. Their gods became anthropomorph and they adopted some myths of the greek mythology but changed them a bit. Some of their gods and goddesses were, during the same time, compared with the greek olympian gods. Through, their role and character was often very different.
For example, there was no concept of holy virginity in the etruscan culture. For example, Menrva, the goddess of warfare, wisdom and handycraft, compared with Athena, had a sexual relationship with Hercle, the etruscan version of Heracles.
An other example is the different view of the relationship between immortals and mortals. While roman and greek, and overall most indoeuropean worship of gods was almost like a trade, where mortals in their mythology interacted with the immortals often, even had friendships with them and were even able to injure or kill the gods (killing would be extreme difficult but possible in norse mythology), in the etruscan culture, the relationship between mortals and immortals was more like the relationship between a slave and his owner or even more extreme between cattle and farmer. Like an ant hill, at the mercy of a human with a bucket full of hot soap water.
The etruscans feared their gods and did nothing important without first asking through sacrifices and divination for approval. Etruscan priests and magicans tried, through trance, to communicate with the gods, to learn their will.
In this story, the two groups of etruscans are at war with each other, as one groups sees the existence of demigods as impossible and all who say otherwhise as sinners. They follow the older tradition of faceless deities and think of the worship of antropomorph deities as a sin.
The other group follows the younger tradition and see their deities as antropomorph beings, that can come in contact with mortals and have children with them. As many of them are demigods.
I did not invent the idea of etruscan demigods, as the heros worship of Hercle, or Herakles was, as an example, very popular among the etruscans.
This will cause a split in the personalities of the gods, like in HoO between the roman and greek gods.
I have to emphasize, that this split between groups of etruscans and of the personality of their gods is my idea, and not a thing of the real etruscan mythology. In this it is like the, in real life, not existent anger of the greeks against the romans for "Stealing" their gods or the split of personality inside the gods, like it was depicted in HoO.
I hope it was not too confusing. It is a very difficult topic and I don't know why I had the crazy idea to write a story about it.
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The joy of the afterlive, etruscan grave fresco. Tomba del Triclinio, 480 BC. Necropole of the etruscan city Tarchuna, now Tarquinia.
