After The Breaking, many gods and deities perished either fighting evil entities or attempting to restrain Harudogan the Divine Virage. As a result, only 15 deities remained. Without the power supplied to them by their planetar domains, they are individually weaker then before (although still significantly stronger then their parton mortals) and having wisdom to see that Ygorl had exploited their division and distractions, the remaining divine came together to form a single council... The Sovereign Host. This however did not bring peace for long as six of them banded together to betray the others. Having no power to remove the betrayers divinity, the Sovereign Host expelled the six offenders to the deepest depths of the Underdark. These nine remaining deities, most of the time referred to as "The Nine", share responsibility and accountability for the new world. While each has their specialty, they act as one. Instead of serving a specific deity, Paladins and Clerics will take the Sovereign Host as a whole, treating The Nine as a single host.
In order to ensure equality between The Nine, divine titles where surrendered and replaced with "Sovereign". A person who serves The Sovereign host, regardless of magical ability, is called "A vassal"
The Nine
Dara’Khul - Sovereign of the Dead
Primus Delta - Sovereign of Law and Order
Chauntea - Sovereign of Nature
Mystra -Sovereign of Magic
Anatar - Sovereign of the Forge
Sashelas - Sovereign of the Forge Sea
Oghma - Sovereign of Knowledge and Wisdom
Pelor - “The Dawnfather”, Sovereign of the Sun and Healing
Kovys- Sovereign of Chaos
In addition to The Nine, The Dark Six are a loose cooperation between evil or selfish deities who betrayed the Sovereign Host. They keep their own realms in the Underdark but do tend to interact with each other regularly.
The Dark Six
Lolth - Queen of Darkness
Shar - Mistress of Pain
Kossuth - Lord of Flames
Bane - Lord of Darkness
Cyric - Prince of Lies
Asmodeus - The Supreme Master