Well I mean if you wanted to do the idea with the Gods keep in mind that many civilizations shared the same general Pantheon. For example most civilizations had some sort of war deity, justice deity, creation deity. Stuff like that. I guess the main problem would be what sort of gifts would all these deities provide? If you provide me a list of the gods you want, I would be more than happy to exercise the creative mind and come up with different gifts for each of their "chosen".

In terms of races, Lord of the rings kept it pretty simple, so don't go creating like twenty playable races hahaa. Just the basic four: Humans, halflings, elves, dwarves, and perhaps add one or two more to make it unique.