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Angry Bob
2011-08-14, 01:07 PM
If you use gods in your setting, how do they work? If in D&D 3.5, do you just use the divine rank rules, or do you use something else?

I'll start.

The gods of my setting exist in three tiers: True gods, demigods, and pseudo-gods.

Demigods are mortal heroes granted some unusual power by extraplanar or unknown forces. Exarchs represent some other plane and are empowered by the ruling outsiders of that plane. Paragons represent some concept, such as law or war. Autochthons embody some primal force, such as fire or... force. No one really understands who creates or empowers paragons or autochthons.

Pseudo-gods are creatures elevated through the worship of other creatures. Such creatures are essentially qualified by supporting more than a handful of clerics, though as in Eberron, their power doesn't actually stem from them but rather from the power of belief. For this definition, anything from a highblood avariel(elf caste system and breaks from source material) to Asmodeus himself count as pseudo-gods.

True gods have are entities that have transcended the laws of physics and magic, and appropriately, have no stats, instead running on the rule of "lol u die." However, because of the nature of the universe, this actually gives them less direct influence than powerful mortals: While certainly able to slay these mortals outright, they cannot come into direct conflict with another true diety. Not because of some primordial agreement, or fact that it would result in total annihilation for the universe, but because of something much more fundamental.

This setting automatically and preemptively corrects paradoxes. In this case, the paradox of two or more truly omnipotent creatures in direct conflict. When the setting was created, all timelines in which this paradox occurs were erased, making it impossible in every sense of the word for the gods to ever pit their powers directly against each other. No god will ever take a course of action that would lead to such a confrontation, and those that do will invariably be interrupted to talked down before such a confrontation can arise.

Instead, true deities must rely on their mortal and outsider servitors to accomplish its ends.

From time to time, for unknown reasons, true gods lose their godhood for one reason or another, and are rendered very high-level unique outsiders(Technically a pseudo-god). When this happens, the former god's enemies usually gang up on it and kill it.

Altair_the_Vexed
2011-08-14, 01:16 PM
In my settings, the "gods" are just very powerful outsiders, who allow themselves to be worshipped and make demands of their followers to further their own goals. those goals might be benign or nasty, of course.

Whether there actually is/are or was/were any god(s) of the omnipotent/omniscient/creator style is a question that tends not toward enlightenment, to badly paraphrase a wise old Indian.

Faith, not the gods, is what make divine magic work.

Of course, if this were discovered, it would somewhat upset and disturb the faith economy.

Piedmon_Sama
2011-08-14, 01:18 PM
The Gods in my setting are a mix of Hellenic mythology and pulpy Lovecraftian ideas. You get the idea of the gods creating our world out of a vague concept of "chaos," essentially ordering things and making the conditions for nature and life possible. You also have an idea of successional generations of gods, so the current generation of deities is probably not the original, and it seems gods can be cast down or destroyed, at least by other gods.

The succession of Gods appears to work on a mechanistic changing of the stars as one epoch shifts into the next. As an era passes, the gods' powers grow weak and new ones rise to replace them. As we're seeing in my campaign, if the new god is unfriendly to mankind and 'order' the results for the world can be disastrous.

Jjeinn-tae
2011-08-14, 01:30 PM
I tend to have gods cover wide and oftentimes somewhat conflicting portfolios. This tends to make them have more domains than standard and their alignments tend towards neutral as they embody both positive and negative attributes. As an example, all except one of the gods of one of my settings. This is the most extreme I've had with domains, pretty much the entirety of D&D domains are in these six gods.

Darum - God of the Earth, Dwarves, and Industry.
Domains: Artifice, Cavern, Commerce, Courage, Craft, Creation, Dwarf, Earth, Endurance, Family, Glory, Gluttony, Greed, Metal, Retribution and Trade

Elu Kivi - Goddess of The Forest, Elves, Passion and Animals
Domains: Animal, Bestial, Chaos, Charm, Community, Destiny, Domination, Dream, Elf, Envy, Fate, Fey, Fury, Inquisition, Joy, Life, Luck, Lust, Passion and Storm

Tēvs Ziemā - God of Winter, Life, Death and Order
Domains: Balance, Cold, Competition, Death, Deathbound, Deathless, Decay, Destruction, Entropy, Ghost, Healing, Herald, Law, Life, Necromancer, and Winter

The Scaled One - Goddess of Dragons, Kobolds, The Sky, Magic and Knowledge
Domains: Air, Alteration, Celestial, Demonic, Diabolic, Dragon, Fire, Force, Hunger, Illusion, Insight, Knowledge, Kobold, Madness, Magic, Meditation, Mentalism, Mind and Sky

Groot Vis - God of Goblins, Protection and Freedom
Domains: Exorcism, Feast, Liberation, Ooze, Oracle, Pact, Pain, Planning, Pride and Protection

Thithjen Kėnetė - God of Gnomes, Water and Morality
Domains: Blackwater, Blightbringer, Evil, Gnome, Good, Mysticism, Ocean, Plant and Portal

LibraryOgre
2011-08-14, 02:03 PM
IMC, gods are powerful outsiders (or ascended mortals) who have the ability to grant spells to certain followers. Every act of faith or within a deity's sphere of control adds to their power. Even if you don't worship the god of war, going to war serves his purposes. Even if you don't specifically worship the god of undeath, raising zombies serves his purposes.

This means that certain fundamental activities tend to have powerful deities. The deity of agriculture is powerful, because so many are farmers. Deities of certain universal afflictions (disease, natural disasters) tend to be powerful because people pray to avert them.

Clerics are like employees of large companies. The deity, in this case, is seldom the one who hires them... they're hired by HR managers (clerics already in the organization). The deity has little direct contact with low-level clerics; if a cleric is defrocked, it's because higher-level clerics step in and do so (reference Kierkian Rufo in Cleric Quintet). However, as CEO, the deity can drop in at any time and observe any cleric, if he chooses. Some will do so frequently. Some may visit particular clerics (either due to favor or importance). But, for the average cleric, he's seldom going to hear directly from his deity until he dies.

Tvtyrant
2011-08-14, 02:46 PM
Depends on which of my settings I am using. One of my favorite was one where a "god" was a plane of worship, and the manifestation of it was simply the being the most people connected to that plane. So the "god" of fertility was an Eladrin that had aided people in planting their crops back in the olden days. The Eladrin was as powerful as the "god" itself within the fertility plane where the worshippers went, and acted as the divine will there. She also granted followers spells and the like from her throne, but leaving the plane reduced her to a Paragon Eladrin, the same as she was before being a god but with the Paragon template stacked on.

Thus all of the various demons and devils are trying to get people to think of them as synonymous with an object of worship so they can rise up to godhood.

Morty
2011-08-14, 02:56 PM
My favourite model of divinity is the one where gods are merely manifestations of mortal belief. Mortals believe in gods, therefore gods exist. As a result, gods reflect their mortal followers closely. Whether or not such gods are sentient depends on the kind of setting/game I want to run. In my homebrewed system and setting, they're not really sentient; just semi-conscious masses of belief.
I also don't like direct divine interventions; if divine or clerical magic of some sort exists, I'd rather it worked simply by the virtue of the caster's deep belief and conviction.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-14, 03:55 PM
In my setting, it's a fundamental thing that gods are independent of belief and religion and don't even particularly care of being worshipped. In addition, no tangible god is omni-anything - if you can meet it face-to-face, it has limitations. The difference between gods and mortals is not quantity, it's quality - a god is not guaranteed to be superior to mortals. Gods uphold define natural laws and thus lie outside them themselves - however, when manifesting in the world, their avatars are subject to the laws they make just like anyone else. God of death dies, God of gravity is pulled towards the greatest mass concentration, so on and so forth.

Divine magic, or, well, magic in general is acquired by communing with the divine, or becoming divine. However, since gods aren't omnipresent, you don't just get to say your prayers to thin air! The divine actually has to be around, and willing to listen. Again, faith is tangential to this - self esteem, focus and devotion might help to drive you towards your goal, but at no are they the primary cause of your ability.

Since gods very rarely go about actively spouting dogma, mortal myths and religions are often based on what thoughts and ideas mortals have fabricated based on actual events, and may or may not acknowledge the actual nature, position, or importance of the divine. Since the divine is not immediatly discernible from the normal state of things (since, to an extent, divinity is the normal state), it's possible for mortals to go about their lives not noticing, not caring, or even denying it.

The divine is opposed by the demonic. Demons are, in many respects, akin to gods and spirits, but their motivations are different - while the divine serves to uphold and define the world, demons serve to subvert and unravel it; a core tenet of my setting is that the capital G God is sleeping, and won't wake up as long as mortal life persists (out of sympathy, because his awakening would necessarily mean the end of their world). Demons want to wake it up - they don't see any meaning in the (in their opinion illusory) mortal world, as it is fated to end sooner or later anyway. So they seek to steer it towards the "sooner" part, so God can continue his creation.

In addition to all of this, I tend to make my gods inhuman, often in a bestial manner, to make them harder to relate to, so my players don't get too comfortable in dealing with them. God, for example, is known by the epithet "Great golden-horned beast with ten-thousand hands". Even gods (and demons) who used to be mortals act in ways that would be considered majorly disorderous if encountered among their parent species. Demon-god of War, a former human, will hunt and kill humans as prey just as well as anything else when he's hungry, despite otherwise being pretty jovial guy.

claricorp
2011-08-14, 05:53 PM
In my setting(currently incomplete, but its getting there!) gods are manifestations of a group of peoples or creatures ideals/beliefs/thoughts, the more that actively follow the ideals the more powerful each god becomes. In addition many extremely powerful beings(eldritch abomination like[usually witch patrons{its pathfinder}]) spawn from the primordial plasm of the universe and have goals that are beyond comprehension.

Clerics have the ability to channel there gods power to use the variety of spells available, in addition they can also have there own personal ideal and gods that overlap partially with that one will grant powers, or some exceptionally well destined mortals can manifest powers almost on there own, or by being inexplicably linked to the outer planes(oracles)

Powerful gods can generate and create beings that generally represent a facet of the beliefs that generated them.

Haldir
2011-08-15, 12:33 AM
I've spent a lot of time on the question of Gods, and I'm absolutely giddy to add to this conversation.

First off, in my world, there is no "Divine" and "arcane" magic. "Magic" isn't distinct from "science" in any way. The physics of my world are simply more squishy and fluid than that of reality. The Gods are, quite simply, an advanced race of aliens that excel at the use of magic. The Earth and all the mortals on it were created by the Prophet of the Gods- a being of such advanced intellect that he and he alone holds the secret of peering through time. For eons the Gods used the Earth as a colony of sorts; they lived here, played here, and shaped the very face of the planet with their will. Even though the creator forbid direct influence in the earths affairs, many of them still have strong ties to the planet for one reason or another.

When your Gods are neither omnipotent or omniscient, it can be difficult to justify a single entity fueling the spellslots of (potentially) millions of mortals. In our world when you need a million units of something produced, you build a factory, and the same applies in my world. Gods aren't fueled by the prayers of their believers, Clerics are merely subscribers to the service of industrialist Gods. Those Gods who are the Richard Arkwright's and Henry Ford's of the Divine supply an unthinkable number of spells specially designed and filtered for mortal uses. The knowledge to use these divine spell databanks are passed directly from the Gods or through holy organizations founded by Gods. While there are literally millions of individuals in the Divine race, there are few Gods who actually have the power or the means of projecting influence on mortals (in fact, most of them focus on projecting influence over one another). Those who do often have an agenda, ideology, or goal which they share with their Clerics, which mortals often interpret as domains or spheres of influence.

DontEatRawHagis
2011-08-15, 12:46 AM
In a campaign proof I have the gods set up as epic level encounters that the players would kill and replace later on.

I had a ranking system based on level.

Spirits - Dead Followers/Warriors
Guardians - Divine creatures created by Gods for combat or protection
Chosen Champions - Humans given power by the Gods(Think Achilles )
Demigods - Half Mortal Half God(Hercules)
Aspects of Gods - Minor Deities that work beneath a God(Such as Cupid and Eros)
Avatars of Gods - Mortal Vessels of Gods(like Jesus in the Catholic tradition)
Gods - True form of the God, seemingly immortal.


The idea was going to be that the players would kill off the lesser deities to weaken the overall power of the gods. Then upon the defeat of the God the position would be open similar to "On a Pale Horse".

nyarlathotep
2011-08-15, 01:38 AM
Gods of All: These are distinct entities that formed shortly after the creation of the universe and form fundamental part of it, parts that do not need sapient life to exist. They created the universe as it is now and are automatically replaced by the chaos at the edge of creation if they abandon their position or are killed. The only one that cares about living creatures is the first god of life.

Gods of Man: These are creatures created by ideals and ideas of sapient races. They can be influenced by changes in popular opinion but a radical social change will create an entirely new god instead. They are powered by belief but not by worship. For example a god of tyranny is powerful as long as there are tyrants in the world regardless of whether or not they worship him. These gods have been banned from entering the material plane by the Gods of All because they kept messing it up.

Gods of Earth: Powerful immortal entities that are worshiped and provide spells. They have no existence beyond their physical form and can be killed by sufficiently powerful mortals. Most demons with cults and powerful fey fall into this category.

Gods of Space: Giant extra-dimensional parasites that craft lay eggs into newly forming planets or create planets whole-cloth for their embryos. They gestate within the planet until they reach term and then burst out, usually with the help of one or more parent "gods". These gods are very rarely worshiped and usually no one knows of their existence until their birth. Usually used for endgame epic encounters.

Serpentine
2011-08-15, 04:01 AM
In my game world, the gods are innumerable: core D&D gods, racial gods, real world-inspired gods, small gods, spirit-gods, and so on. They are real beings: They were on the Material Plane for a while, having all their wars and things. Then they decided on a sort of a truce, and left the Material Plane for the most part. They do still occasionally come to the world, on a sort of holiday or for special occasions, but they're banned from having full-scale wars there anymore. They are, to a greater or lesser degree, "powered" by belief, but that's more in terms of relative heirarchy than existance.
However, these gods are just "aspects" of the Greater Gods. These are the true creator beings, the primordial I Ams. They roughly represent abstract concepts, something like (but not necessarily) this (haven't hammered it out properly yet...): The Mother, The Father, The Trickster, Death, The Earth, The Sky, Sun and Moon, Fire and Water and Magic. They're unimaginably huge in every possible way, distant, abstract and almost theoretical.
The "mundane" gods are aspects of these - Loki and Kokopelli, for example, are aspects of the Trickster and Hekate is an aspect of Magic. Sometimes, though, multiple Greater Gods share an aspect: Gaia would be shared by The Mother and The Earth, while Pelor is Father, Sun and Fire and Garl Glittergold is Father and Trickster.
There are very, very few living creatures who know about these Greater Gods. Clerics and others who serve a "cause" rather than a god are perhaps the closest to worshipping the Greater Gods, but even they wouldn't know it. The Greater Gods themselves rarely take a personal interest in reality beyond universal maintenance, although occasionally the urge strikes them, or some creature manages to get their attention.
If there are gods ascended from mortals, it is probably in the sense of Hinduism and Buddhism: upon ascension, they are absorbed into the Greater Gods, and becomes an aspect of one or more of them.

Heksefatter
2011-08-15, 04:07 AM
In my settings, while the Gods have manifested their power through clerics or miracles, they have generally not been defined to have a particular nature. In my view, once you've defined a deity to be (say) a powerful outsider who has travelled to this realm and assumed the portfolio of XXX (this being the background of Tyr in the Forgotten Realms setting as far as I recall), you assign stats, alignment and whatnot, the gods are diminished as a story element.

Serpentine
2011-08-15, 04:10 AM
Well, in my world, the Mundane Gods might have stats assigned to them, maybe, but the Greater Gods certainly don't. It'd be like trying to stat out love.

Mastikator
2011-08-15, 04:57 AM
I too go with the "powerful outsider" lane. I don't bother stating out the gods, they are for all intent and purpose omnipotent from the PCs perspective.
They are NPCs that live in the afterlife of the mortals, they care about what well being of the mortals (the good gods do anyway) and have rules that they want their followers to obey.
Each religion works differently, some are polytheistic, some monotheistic, some are based on spiritism, some based on worshiping nature, some based on worshiping your forefathers.
Because they have different codes of ethics they are incompatible and have different attitudes towards non-divine magic users (some hostile, some friendly).
The ones that value conversion and have it a goal to take over the world view resistance to conversion with hostility and ultimately will try to kill those who resist "the truth".

Which myths in the religion are true is unknown, but all are considered true, because direct divine interventions are rare and not always witnessed by many the true nature of the gods is unknown, and divine revelations are also rare and usually come in dreams and visions that are hard to interpret.
This is because the gods risk exposure to their enemies, and must weigh cost/benefit about whether to aid their followers or to instead reward them in their afterlife. Because no god is truly omnipotent nor truly immortal and if they die their subjects will be at the mercy of their enemies.

I always try to minimize the role of the gods, and maximize the importance of religion and culture. Tangible contact with a deity is a rare and precious thing, contact with their clergy, their rules and their teachings is an everyday thing.

Physics_Rook
2011-08-15, 05:03 AM
I've broken up the major questions regarding deities into bite-sized paragraphs for your perusal. I hope you enjoy. :smallsmile:

The deities of my campaign exist as an effect of the interaction between non-deity worshipers and the void between planes.

What deities are.
Deities exist as large networks of nodes, with each worshiper's soul providing a node in the net. Each node exists in the void and carries two types of links with it. The first type of link connects the node to the worshiper; the second type of link connects the node to all other nodes representing the deity.
How they are sentient.
Eventually the network contains enough nodes to reach critical mass and begins acquiring sentience. An intelligent network is called a deity and becomes aware of itself as well as the worshipers that create its being. A deity is able to observe the planes through the senses of its worshipers. A deity without followers is only aware of itself and nothing else. This leads to deities aggressively defending its worshipers to keep from losing its "senses" or "intelligence".
Their means of influence in the world.
Deities are only capable of directly influencing something that they are connected to. Usually this means followers. Through their followers they can indirectly influence the planes. More followers means more influence. More influence means less chance of being "forgotten" or slain.
How deities influence followers.
Deities are capable of influencing their followers by, sending artificially created sensory input (such as visions, hallucinations, dreams, messages, ect.), granting direct access to portions of the deity's network (divine spells, domains, and other divine powers), and other such effects. Allowing a follower access to their network puts the deity at risk that the follower could be corrupted or used to destroy that part of the network. Followers exposed to large portions of the network can begin acquiring problems, such as increasing inability to communicate, understand events, or comprehend their own senses.
How followers influence deities.
A deity's personality upon its creation is largely determined by the personality that the worshipers attribute to it upon creation. Followers can influence the structural make-up of the network that represents the deity, and alter things like the deity's personality. To protect themselves, deities direct their followers to only act in ways that encourage or reinforce the deity's personality, to avoid being overwritten and changed. This leads to a set of tenets for their worshipers to follow.
Problems relating to followers.
Deities can have difficulties in relating to their followers because of the deity's alien nature. Deities direct their followers by observing how said followers interact among each other, and then mimicking those actions by inducing artificial sensory stimuli in their followers, such as visions and hallucinations.
Problems communicating with followers.
A problem in communication between deities and followers is a lack of clear definitions for things like words. Since a deity is the amalgamation of all its followers, any disagreement among the followers of the meaning of a word is reflected in the deity as uncertainty to the word's meaning. To a deity, using a word results in the deity understanding the word as every meaning and every context that every one of its followers would interpret the word as. The result makes talking to deities very difficult.
Deities being forgotten.
When a worshiper of deity is killed, the node remains even though the node's link from the void to the planes is now severed. In this way a deity can retain its structural integrity and its existence even if all of its followers are killed. This also means that a deity that has no followers is cut off and "lost" in the void, unable to influence anything besides itself until it gains new followers. This causes deities to actively try and spread their own worship as much as possible to keep from being "forgotten" to the void. Even benevolent deities will respond aggressively and harshly towards deserters or hostiles, as every lost follower means the deity sinks that much further back into the void.
Deities being killed.
To truly kill a deity requires the obliteration of its follower's souls. The nodes that create the network only exist so long as the soul exists Destroy the soul, destroy the node, destroy the network, and destroy the deity (or at least cripple it, possibly back to a state of non-intelligence). This causes deities to fiercely defend the souls of their followers, often setting up mechanisms to protect and care for them in a, often transporting them to a domain that is largely protected by creatures favorable to the deity where they continue to exist in a state of perpetual homage to the deity.
The deities aren't locked in a "stalemate/truce" of an improbably perfect balance of power. :smallbiggrin:

They aren't ambivalent to their followers. None of their worshipers are ever "too unimportant" or "time-wasting" to them. Sometimes they don't answer their followers because they don't always understand what's going on, or have a good means of clearly communicating without confusing their followers.

All in all, I think this setup keeps a lot of what makes deities interesting, and also opens up some neat story ideas that are otherwise impossible.

Also, the PCs actually have a chance to kill a god all on their own, no GM fiat is needed. :smallcool:

I'd love to include more detail on the hows and whys of my deities, but I think people might just skip the post entirely if I include any more.:smalltongue:

KingofMadCows
2011-08-15, 05:18 AM
Gods arise from the collective consciousness of a group of people who share the same faith. When there is a group of people come together to work towards a single goal, they share a latent mystical/psychic bond. If the community grows or if their faith in what they're trying to accomplish is strong enough, a consciousness may arise from the collective energy of the mystical/psychic bond. That consciousness gains power from all its believers as well as the souls of dead believers. Once that consciousness gains enough power, it becomes a god.

Yora
2011-08-15, 06:55 AM
My setting mostly has demigods and only a very small number of true deities.

It's a gradual spectrum starting with the spirits of small creeks, ancient trees, caves, individual hills, and so on, that are barely conscious. They get some small gifts from nearby locals, but mostly just to keep them happy so they don't make any trouble. Then you get to the spirits of larger natural features, like nymphs who are the spirits of lakes and rivers. They are as smart and aware as humanoids, and locals occasionally ask them for boons, when they are in a good standing.
As you go farther up, yu get to the spirits of much larger areas dozens of miles across, which are the demigods. They can take physical form if they want to, but harming or destroying them does nothing to the spirit. The demigods can make crops grow more abundantly if they want to, or easily starve nearby villages if they are angered. They can also command the animals and lesser spirits of their domains. Within their domains, they are gods, but they are tied to it and can only send a much weaker avatar outside.
Eventually you get to the "global" spirits, which are effectively gods. The gods known and worshiped by the humanoid people are the spirits of the Sun, the Moon, the Oceans, the Earth, the Sky, and the the spirit of the Night. However, since these spirits are so large and powerful, they don't interact directly with humanoids or even lesser spirits. They are as much cosmic forces as they are spirits and their worship is mostly faith that they take at least some notice of the plight of the people to bother with a bit of assistance. But such cases are also large scale, like protecting a city from flood or draught. If you want help for personal problems, you have to seek it from a much smaller spirit who will even notice you as an individual.

dsmiles
2011-08-15, 07:07 AM
I use the Elder Gods and the Great Old Ones. No stats, they do exactly what they do in the Mythos. Menace humanity from the edges of space and time (or under the ocean). No stats. They're just there.

hamlet
2011-08-15, 08:34 AM
In my current campaign (Kingdoms of Kalamar) the gods are remote, ineffible, and far beyond the ken of mortals. Any speculation about their true nature is a bit of a fool's errand as it's akin to a bacteria pondering the true nature of a human. So far outside it's frame of reference that it's pointless.

nyarlathotep
2011-08-15, 01:10 PM
I use the Elder Gods and the Great Old Ones. No stats, they do exactly what they do in the Mythos. Menace humanity from the edges of space and time (or under the ocean). No stats. They're just there.

Do they also lose to Conan properly when they visit the material plane. :smallbiggrin:

Choco
2011-08-15, 01:28 PM
IMC, the gods are basically just like Dark Sun's Sorcerer Kings. They are REALLY powerful beings who were created/upgraded through magic/science, and are the only ones able to access what is in effect the Divine power source. They of course can then in turn channel this power to their followers, which they can also cut off whenever they want. They don't live on their own planes or in some generic "heaven" realm, they have physical bodies (which can be killed) residing on the material plane.

That however doesn't stop them from being worshiped as "true" gods, which they basically are from the perspective of the average peasant.

Jarawara
2011-08-15, 01:40 PM
I've written up a number of 'articles' about my campaign world, and I have them available to my players to read. They need not read them all before the start of the game, but rather, it's all just idle reading material for whenever they have spare time.

Though after the results of the last campaign, I bet they had paid more attention to one little article they had previous dismissed as a silly joke...


The article was titled: "Do Gods Really Exist?"

*~*~*

A quick question: A magician casts a spell. Does that prove the existence of a deity or higher power?

No?

So then you see this "cleric" casting spells in town. Does that prove the existence of his deity?

Are you sure he's even a cleric, and not just a charlatan, a magician posing as the voice of a false god?

Are you sure *you're* even a cleric, and not just a charlatan???

In my campaign world, the gods are unproven entities. The magic that is available to wizards is surprisingly similar to the magic available to clerics. While one could claim that the "magic" clerics use must obviously come from a higher source... maybe that's the same as where the magic the wizards use comes from as well. And since we all know wizards gain their powers from trafficking with demons... *gulp*

"God" usually comes to speak to the PC cleric from time to time - in dreams, visions, and times of stress. Taking hard drugs can also help you see god. Usually the visions are unclear, ambiguous, and has a tendency to go off topic, as if the subconscious mind is taking the "message" and sorting it into a dream. You know how a dream can turn rather wacky and off topic? Well, God just showed up in your dream, told you of a great evil that must be smitten, told you where to find the weapon that can defeat said great evil, and then told you to wear more pink frills in your clothing, and then danced around the room holding an infinite number of ale mugs in one hand, and your former girlfriend in the other, doesn't she look pretty in pink frills... *blink, blink* Uh, what was I just dreaming about?

Try telling the party about your dream the next day, evil, smite, weapons, pink frills, infinite ale, girls, more pink frills... all the while keeping an absolute and solid faith in the existence of your god.

Once you realize that you had to "edit" your dream to make it sound more believable to your friends, you then realize that father Monahaim probably edited his visions when he was teaching you all about your god in the first place. A shaky foundation to your whole set of beliefs, yes?

Yet you still cast spells. How? Oops, remember those demons and offworldly powers those wizards gain their powers from? :smalleek:

Then there's the case of the party that proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the god of the orcs (name deleted) and the human warlord god (name deleted) was the same entity. And then proved that the human god (name deleted) and the elvish god (name deleted) was also one and the same. Just who are these gods that seemingly serve different roles on different days of the week? Just how many roles do each of these entities play? How many "gods" are there? Is there perhaps only one, playing the part of multiple gods to better be accepted by each culture?

And if they (or "it") lied about who they were, then what else did they lie about? If these "gods" are masquerading in different guises, just what is their actual true self? Are they "gods" at all, or something else entirely? Do they empower their clerics with spellcasting ability, or do they just manipulate their worshipers for their own dark design?

Or... did that party that supposedly proved how our gods are all fake and are lying and manipulating us... maybe they are wrong, possibly with their own agenda, trying to shake us from our faith in the almighty. Do not listen to these blasphemers, theirs are not the words of the faithful, their souls will burn in the everlasting rage of our father and savior. Heed my words, for they are the only true words of the only true god. Heed my words, for by following my lead, everlasting life and the kingdom of heaven will be yours.

Oh, and that cleric over there, preaching the words of a false god - He gets his spellcasting powers from demons, just like those evil wizards. Only we get the true powers of god. Listen only to me.

And wear more pink frills.

Fhaolan
2011-08-15, 03:50 PM
The deities in my campaign world work a bit odd. They are all the direct creation of the over-deity, and their 'powers' are all portioned out by him. Because he's also currently the diety of apathy, he set up this system where the amount of power available to each diety is proportional to the amount of worship they recieve.

They cannot directly intervene in the world because the over-deity is wandering around the mortal world trying to drink himself into oblivion (long story), and if they do anything around him, he is likely to change the deal to their detriment.

However, the funny thing is that the players in my games all think the gods are far more active than they really are. The gods are *really* good at taking credit for stuff, it seems. A dragon turtle accosts the party's ship, under the cover of a fog bank? Obviously the Tempest (goddess of the seas) and the Lady of the Mists (goddess of magic) are ticked off at the party for some reason and are working together to thwart the characters. They run into a cult that is trying to create new advanced necromantic spells, then obviously the Lich Lord (god of undead) is behind it. The gods don't *need* to do anything in my campaigns. The players do all the work for me. :smallsmile:

Fiery Diamond
2011-08-15, 04:42 PM
It varies depending on my setting, and much isn't set in stone, since I develop things as campaigns progress rather than restricting myself by having a completely determined setting at the beginning.

Currently, I'm DMing a world called Syllenari, the Cylindrical World. The deities are divided into two categories: the greater gods and the lesser gods.

Greater gods:
-Sol, god of the sun, LG. His home is the sun, which is a plane in and of itself. He is associated with justice, power, fire, and such.
-Luna, goddess of the moon, NG. Her home is the moon, which is also a plane. She's associated with water, serenity, nature, and so forth.
-Stella, the goddess of the stars, TN. Her home is the stars, which is a plane. The "stars" that the inhabitants of the material plane see are pinpricks of the stellar plane that are visible. She is associated with air, magic, and knowledge.
-Vorago, the god of the void, NE. His home is the void, or so it is believed. The void is the vast, endless expanse in which the material plane, the solar plane, the lunar plane, and the stellar plane reside. He is associated with earth, as well as destruction and evil. He is the sole evil god.

Lesser gods:
-Melada, goddess of the arts, CG. She's associated with art. As to where she resides...well, that's a matter of contention amongst those who care to pose the question. A demiplane of some kind, but other than that, no one knows.
-Arkon, god of the hunt, CG. He's associated with nature and hunting. He also resides in some unknown demiplane.
-Thellis, god of thievery, trickery, and wealth, CN. He's a prankster sort, and he has a very diverse followers, both evil and good. He also resides on a demiplane.
-Chanera, goddess of change, CN. She's associated with chance and the elements. She resides in the elemental plane, located deep within the core of the cylinder that makes up the material plane. Also has a wide assortment of followers.



The deities never appear in mortal form on the material plane. They may visit in dreams, which consist of transporting the soul of the dreamer to their native plane/demiplane. They can be met face-to-face if someone manages to planeshift to their plane. But the physical form that they present is not their entirety, merely a method of allowing mortal minds to comprehend them.

The lesser gods have less power to directly influence in the world, and the greater gods generally leave the world to its own devices. Vorago is something of an exception to the general rule: he almost never presents himself as a physical entity and his plane, being the only infinite plane amongst the "inner" planes, has side effects on everything. The gods of the other planes can ward off his influence, but since the material plane has no native god, it is periodically awash in some of his power.

Clerics are directly granted power from the deities they worship, generally. It is also possible for a cleric to sort of channel excess divine energy being unattended by the deity to gain spells, which enables clerics who are more than one step away from the alignment of their deity; if the deity finds the person particularly despicable from their standpoint, however, the deity takes notice and cuts them off.

Ravens_cry
2011-08-15, 06:01 PM
I like gods to be mysterious and alien, majestic and awesome in the old fashioned sense, inspiring awe. A lot of D&D gods are basically what I call Jerks with Superpowers, very humanoid. That can be fun, but it's not how I would usually run things.

Domriso
2011-08-15, 10:23 PM
I must say, so many of these ideas were quite interesting. While many seemed some form of "Powerful Outsiders masquerading as gods," or "Belief as basis of power" gods, some were intensely interesting, including the original poster's system and Physics_Rook's system, and Jarawara's little snippets of campaign information (an idea which I absolutely love, and will need to implement).

In my own case, I switch it up. Even when running things in the same campaign world, sometimes I say there are powerful spirits, sometimes I say it is simple belief, sometimes I say it's all for nothing and power is just power, and sometimes I even go the Elder God route.

All in all, if the players are confused, then I'm doing my job, and loving it, too.

P.S. I definitely would like to hear more of the node and void god system, Physics_Rook.

Knaight
2011-08-16, 05:39 AM
While this varies highly between settings -I've GMed everything from entirely atheistic fantasy to space opera with interventionist deities- I usually leave gods ambiguous. They may be there, they may not be there, some beliefs are probably mutually exclusive (though that doesn't stop the occasional theologian trying to reconcile them), so on and so forth. Its not the gods that matter, it is the religions, and how interesting the religions are isn't tied to the actuality of the gods.

My method in a nutshell: Ignore the gods, focus on the religions and their interactions and influences with and upon cultures.

Telok
2011-08-16, 07:05 AM
I use the Dungeon Crawl gods.

My version is here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EDO-HQJfgu4ypIOYzecIBjk43B-HbSxX4abLZw26qws/edit?hl=en_US).

The base document is here (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=God).

I like using these guys because they're both involved in the world and easily understood by players. Plus they are sufficiently vague that I can use them for thematically appropriate stuff without anyone arguing about portfolios or divine ranks.

My biggest challenge is probably that most players prefer to totally ignore gods unless they are playing a cleric and these gods will answer anyone who is sufficiently pious or makes the right sacrifices.

Physics_Rook
2011-08-16, 07:10 AM
P.S. I definitely would like to hear more of the node and void god system, Physics_Rook.
I'm always happy to share my ideas with everyone on the playground. :smallsmile:

Let me know what sounds interesting and I'll focus on that next time round.

I'll let this post focus on how deities manifest themselves outside of the void in the form of avatars. If interest persists, I'll follow up with a later post about their interactions with other deities, the problems and paranoia of the void, and maybe a bit about the deities natural predators.

How deities manifest in the planes.
To create an avatar, a deity arranges part of its network into a miniaturized replica of itself. The mini-net has many of the same personality traits, goals, tendencies, and abilities as the deity itself, though this means that the mini-net is technically a separate and self-aware entity. The mini-net is still linked to the rest of the network, and though not under any direct control anymore, is still very influencable by the deity.

After spawning a mini-net, the deity opens a suitable follower up to it. This grants the follower direct access to every part of the mini-net, effectively creating an avatar of the deity in the planes. The host's mind still exists, but now serves as the template for the functionality of the mini-net to be shoehorned into. The mini-net which was originally structured to recreate a semblance of the deity now undergoes a similar process as it is restructured to fit within the "template" of a non-deific mind.

The same rules that apply to regular networks apply to mini-nets (mini-net is just a more specific name). A mini-net that's too small isn't sentient. Mini-nets who have their worshipers killed are severed from the planes (but are usually drawn back into its parent network). And mini-net worshipers who have their souls destroyed also destroy the nodes of the mini-net.
Pros of deific avatars.
The short-term benefits of an avatar are usually very great. The host provides a basic understanding of how events and actions operate in the planes, allowing the mini-net the ability properly understand (after a fashion) the world and suggest proper actions. The host also serves as a platform for all the abilities granted to it. The mini-net grants many of the basic functions of the deity itself and constructs mental guidelines for the host to follow.

An avatar serves as a minor replica of the deity that's able to exist and operate within the planes, pursuing actions in the deity's best interests. The deity uses the mini-net as a middleman, since the mini-net is a stepping stone between the worshipers and the deity, the deity can observe how the mini-net as a whole operates, rather then the individual nodes that make up the mini-net. This allows the deity a better understanding of the world.
Cons of deific avatars.
Long-term effects of an avatar are usually less then optimal. The mind of the host can degrade over time by prolonged exposure to the mini-net, warping the "template" that hosts the mini-net and causing another restructuring of the mini-net's personality. This is a feedback loop that is constantly at work within the host, with the mini-net warping its own template, and thereby changing itself. The avatar is its own entity apart from the deity, and has access to a wide range of power and knowledge bestowed upon it from the deity. The avatar doesn't have to act with the deity's best interests in mind.

An avatar is capable of severing its link to the network and hence the deity, effectively making the mini-net into its own separate network and its own separate pseudo-deity. For this reason, avatars are often kept hidden away from any extreme events that might amplify the degradation. An avatar can mislead the deity by deliberating making itself difficult for the deity to understand (deliberating failing as the middleman). A deity can completely reintegrate the mini-net back into its own network as long as there's still an existing link. Side-effects range from complete loss of divine power by the host, to instant death of the host. Neither boosts morale, and can in fact cost the deity worshipers.:smalltongue:
I think this captures the image and power of a deific avatar, while simultaneously explaining why they aren't traipsing around the world like superman and solving everyone's problems. :smallbiggrin:

Avatars are very expensive to make. Deities are made of nodes, and to create an avatar effectively means tying those nodes up in a mini-net that no longer directly contributes to a deity's network. Even if the deity is only loaning the nodes out temporarily, those nodes are still gone, and for a time the deity will be correspondingly diminished, and correspondingly vulnerable.

Avatars are both powerful and pure. They control awe-inspiring abilities, but need to be safeguarded from "corrupting influences". All the kinds of really bad problems that could be easily solved by avatars also present them with the greatest risk of becoming corrupted. While a corrupted avatar might not ever oppose its deity, there will always be a constantly increasing risk that it could because of the feedback loop.

The end result makes avatars rare (big investment and big risks), reclusive (often untouchable), and real (they aren't glorified phones for their deity's voice) individuals.:smallsmile:

kieza
2011-08-16, 01:44 PM
My gods are...absent. Thousands of years ago, they were a race that mastered magic and technology on a distant world. There was a civil war, which left only a handful of infertile survivors from both sides of the conflict. Because they had no way of replenishing their numbers, and they weren't invulnerable (merely very powerful), they set aside their differences to try and create a successor race. To this end, they travel across the cosmos, reshaping every world they can to support life and seeding them with primitive species. They hope that out of the millions of worlds they plan to seed, a few might produce sentient beings suitable to inherit their place in the universe.

When they shaped the campaign world into a form that could bear life, they left behind a device (called the Signum) which would, once it was found by mortals, start broadcasting messages to anyone tuned in to the right spiritual "wavelength." (It's sort of a time capsule.) Then they went on to the next world. A couple of milennia, some of the caretakers the gods left went a little bit crazy, and they damaged the Signum. The damage made it activate prematurely, and it's still trying to send its messages, but all it's really producing is a carrier wave. Anyone tuned with the right spiritual outlook can tap into the power that the Signum is blasting out, and they get small fragments of the message each time they do. Each god left their own message on a slightly different frequency, so people with differing outlooks tap in to slightly different types of power.

Over the millennia, all of these wise people suddenly getting messages and godlike powers have sparked religions. In reality, the gods would be ticked off that their "grand experiment" got screwed up by a faulty piece of hardware. Thankfully, they're half a universe away, working on their latest project world, and there haven't been any signals to tell them that things have gone wrong. Of course, if somebody stumbles across the Signum installation and starts messing with the controls...

In game terms, the gods are a long ways away and don't actually know, or care, what goes on among mortals. They don't have statistics, aside from "if they notice you, the entire world dies in the fires of creation."

Another_Poet
2011-08-16, 02:03 PM
I try to maintain a believable theology. I feel that most fantasy games treat the gods very superficially, like an over-the-top version of Greek myths. It feels comic-booky.

In my games, gods are never evil. If there are evil supernatural beings, I call those demons or titans. Gods might be actively good, or just disinterested in mortal affairs.

Most clergy worship multiple gods, often a whole pantheon. Sometimes I create divided factions within a single religion.

Gods can never be killed, and don't need to rely on mortals for help. As a result, gods seldom intervene in the world. The quests or missions the PCs go on may be given by a church, but they reflect the temporal concerns of mortals ("the bishop needs you to find and destroy this necromancy item"), never any cosmic failing of the gods ("the Goddess of Life has been imprisoned by her evil brother!").

Most of the religions in my worlds train their priests and scholars to view the myths as metaphorical . Gods don't actually rape, murder, commit adultery or so forth. Those are just stories meant to teach morals.

There are people in my worlds who view the myths as literally true, but they are either viewed as uneducated peasants (superstitious) or dangerous zealots (crazy).

All in all, I try to leave a little mystery about the gods. The things the churches teach may not always be 100% accurate. The gods may not reveal themselves often and they expect mortals to make it on their own. Divination spells that consult with deities are powerful, but it would be reasonable for someone to doubt them. "How do I know a god told you that? You could just be making stuff up!" Zeus won't hit you with a lightning bolt for saying that.

There can be atheists in my worlds, because the only proof you have of the existence of gods is some paladin saying he can see things you can't.

Ravens_cry
2011-08-16, 02:14 PM
I had an idea that might work better as a story than an RPG as I am not sure how to make it work mechanically, but the idea was there is basically two kinds of applied magic, Turgical and Mantical. Turgical magic involves manipulating forces, elements and objects directly. It's fast and direct, but uses more mana, power, energy, what have you. This has little to do with gods, but the second kind might, or might not.
Everything that exists, absolutely everything, has an associated spirit or daemon with the ability to instinctively control that domain. Everything, from chairs, to a specific chair type, to different chemicals and minerals. Maybe even ideas. That word is used intentionally. Mantical magic involves bargaining and negotiating with such spirits to do so. This takes time, is a bit less precise, but takes far less magical fuel. After all, you are not doing it yourself.
Yes, I love my dead languages.
What does this have to do with gods?
More powerful daemon have broader domains. Instead of nephrite, they manipulate jade. Instead of jade, they manipulate rocks. Instead of rocks, they manipulate solids. There is a theory (in-setting) that the gods of the setting, which I am stealing from the Dragon #77 magazine article "Elemental Gods" in modified form, are daemon with really, really broad domains.
To most religions in-universe, this is, of course, heresy.
But is it right?

Morithias
2011-08-16, 03:24 PM
Gods are the holy powers who seek to actively better the world. Their powers do not work on the material plane so they have to use clerics. A god will often seek out areas of problems and tell their clerics to go to the place and give aid.

There is no god of death, god of war, etc,etc. That is played by the Archdevils and Demonlords (in this setting they are the powers that run the prisons that hold tainted souls until they have served their time).

A cleric who loves fighting and seeks to fight off invaders in the military, would worship Bel for instance. While a vampire who likely worship Orcus if he took cleric levels.

Gods = Holy, you cannot have an unholy character who worships the gods. Unless you use Ur-priest. (which in this setting is an unholy caster who somehow managed to bypass that limitation).

Although you have a main deity, the gods play out a lot like greek. Gods of many things worshiped at different times. A business owner worships to the god of merchants, then goes to sleep and worships the matron mother to protect his children. Gods are often replaced at different times. For example if the current god of merchants chooses to take a break and retire (most likely temporary since you know, immortal), another great merchant in the heavens would be offered the position.

A godhood is something many people aspire to be. It is common knowledge that you can become one by being a great person, which leads to many people trying harder, and even in the afterlife continuing to practice their craft. (You can plane shift to the heavens and buy a holy avenger cheap in this setting).

Physics_Rook
2011-08-16, 06:07 PM
Here is some more information on how the void-god system of network-deities operates.

Again, I like this system since I believe it keeps much of the same properties of deities operate and act, but opens up some more interesting ideas and concepts for players and GMs. :smallsmile:

How divine abilities work.
By arranging small portions of their node structure, a deity can create a specific pattern that creates a specific effect. These node patterns are then opened to worshipers in the form of spells, powers, abilities, and other effects. Large/Powerful/Influential effects or spells are usually very complex to create and require a larger number nodes to be patterned. While a worshiper has access to the deity's node network is when the worshiper is most powerful, but it is also when the deity is most vulnerable.

The "spell/day" format of granted access is designed to protect the deity. In some cases, the deity might grant unlimited access to a pattern, effectively allowing a worshiper to wield it as often as they are able to do so. Since access to more powerful effects requires access to larger node networks, deities are more partial to granting unlimited access to lesser patterns to minimize their vulnerabilities. The more capable and powerful a worshiper is, the more likely a deity will entrust them with more access to more powerful patterns.

Since deities have a limited amount of node resources to align into patterns, there is a practical limit on what sorts of powers there can be at any given time. Not all deity's grant access to the same powers.
Deities are natural competitors.
Deity's are natural competitors with each other since they all use the same resource, of which there is a limited amount. Even deities with hostile dispositions toward other deity's understand that destroying opposing worshipers is like poisoning the drinking water. It might harm your enemies, but it's hard to avoid the consequences yourself (unless you've got your own drinking water).

Destruction of opposing worshipers is still acceptable to some deities, who prefer scorched earth tactics that will destroy their opposition, leaving only their own followers left to prosper. Other deities prefer to convert or subvert opposing followers, only destroying them as a last resort if "redemption" is impossible.
Corrupting deities.
Corrupting or subverting a deity requires changing the network that gives the deity's personality. From the planes this is possible by corrupting the worshipers which in turn influences the nodes and links in a deity's network, restructuring the network to change how the deity thinks, reasons, and acts.

It's also possible to restructure a small portion of followers in such a way as to create a self-aware intelligence within the deity's network (akin to how the avatar creation process works). This mini-net can be created with goals such as "destroy the network", "restructure the network", or even "capture the network".

"Viruses" like these are defended against by constantly trying to keep worshipers on the same page of tenets. Straying from the tenets is what causes shifts in the deity's personality, so things like spin-off cults are actively pursued and attacked by other "true believers" to "prevent the perversion of the deity". Disagreements to a deity's tenets can lead to spin-off sects naturally occurring, but they can be artificially induced as well.
Communication between deities.
Deities are capable of connecting their networks to one another, though the possible risks it opens them up to often make them paranoid and mistrustful of each other (this is in part due to a terrifying history with their natural predators). Rather than straight connections between deities, they will often use specialized node patterns that allow them a semblance of protection against one another.

These specialized node patterns act as a semi-intelligent buffer between the deities. At their most basic they possess two features, communication and apoptosis. Apoptosis usually occurs when a relay-pattern believes it's being hijacked or corrupted. Communication occurs by way of "free-form" nodes within the relay-pattern that a deity can rearrange into simple messages that an adjoined relay-pattern can read and recreate on its own end, effectively passing messages.
The manner in which divine powers operate allows for a greater amount of differentiation among deities. Certain basic spells would be available to all clerics, while higher level spells may be deity specific. Even the same spell granted by two different deities might have subtle differences (visually or even mechanically). You could even "steal" unique node-patterns from other deities to offer to your own deity. :smallcool:

A limited resource of potential followers among the planes means that deities who just go around blasting away things that they don't like will quickly earn the ire of other more "benevolent" deities. Differing tactics of acquiring followers and denying the opposition followers can lead to deities forming cliques and pantheons against each other. Even deities that prefer to destroy can find a home in a "kinder" pantheon, so long as they're always pointed at the enemy.

Deific corruption means that even as powerful as a deity might be, they are still only as strong as the faith of their worshipers. Conversion or corruption of a deity's followers can be just as effective and destructive a tactic against a deity as obliterating their followers' souls. (This effect in particular is really cool to me.:smallsmile:)

Deities are born separate from connections to all other things besides their followers (and the void). This means that any connection between two or more deities must first be established by way of their followers, resulting in traveling priests and missionaries being sent out with explorers and settlers.

Since deities aren't (usually) created with direct access to other deities, even if they theoretically are aware of other deities, they don't ever actually know who else is out there until they finally make contact. This can lead to some interesting conflicts that arise from a deity stumbling onto another deity and suddenly finding out that it isn't alone in playing the divinity game anymore. :smallbiggrin:

I like how the system more or less handles itself. PCs can actually makes plans and take action with/against the gods without requiring GM fiat or a mcguffin. :smallsmile:


snip
This is a really cool idea for how divinity operates in a campaign. I like how the "gods" are off doing their own thing, while a malfunctioning piece of hardware is messing up their hard work.

The idea that the Signum itself provides divine power to all parties hostile or benign is a nicely ironic twist. And the idea that you could really mess things up if you ever gained physical access to it is also really neat.

It would be interesting to have multiple competing Signums. Or devices that fake effects like the Signum. Even a jury-rigged Signum jammer (scrambling a person's ability to receive signals maybe).

I'd really like to hear more about this, and the mythos behind the "gods", the Signum, and how people and the campaign world have interacted with or been affected by it.

Malificus
2011-08-16, 11:09 PM
In my current setting there are really only two major gods:

Laplace's Demon (despite the name, he is a God) who left, having known something the rest of creation didn't, and The Prime Mover who keeps the universe going but is, himself, unaffected by the moving of the universe.

There are great Philosophers who became like gods, and are the progenitors of philosophies capable to changing the world, but lack the lifeline or raw power of such. Their heritage is left in the form of their followers. They have left a mark on the world just like the two Gods did.

The followers of the Gods and Great Philosophers do not get divine power for their adherence to the philosophies, but are instead given new forms that reflect their belief. Ex: People who ascribe to the philosophical teachings of Plato are Platogres: and become strong, large with broad features, while the Determinators, a group of people who try to gain knowledge comparable to Laplace's Demon, so that they can use that knowledge to figure out the future, are ashen colored people who occasionally have a keen insight into what will happen

Divine power, at least in terms of clerics, is a product of belief. Belief in something greater than oneself, but usually not one of the Gods or Great Philosophers. For example, a Centhustran, a follower of Nietzsche, may become a cleric of Love. As such, he follows the philosophical teachings of Nietzsche, while preaching and following the ideals of Love.

On a side note, the full list of philosophical groups is as follows with a brief note on belief.
Hobbesgoblins - who think nature is harsh, so mankind must be united
Lykantropes - Who think the only actions that have merit are ones that help others
Centhustrans - Who think life is meaningless so they should give it one, they also strive to create the ultimate man.
Euclizardmen - General philosophers who pursue beauty and an expansion of practical and philosophical knowledge
Platogres - Who think the world is an allegory for a greater world of ideas.
Soccubi - Who think that truth is acchieved through the elimination of lies. They seduce the youth with new ideas and subvert and question established beliefs to the chagrin of others
Determinators - Believe that everything is predetermined, so if they can know everything now, then they can know the future too. They are building a machine for this goal, and are the most unified group
Aristotieflings - They believe in the Prime Mover, and pursue practical philosophical knowledge, one aimed at doing good, rather than knowing for the sake of knowing
Millotaurs - Who believe in a high happiness, which is best for everyone, despite what others may think. Basically, if everyone loved hopscotch, but they knew that theatre was better, they would work on theatres and get everyone to go to those and stop doing hopscotch.
Nihilithids - Who believe that the human will is evil, and as such, seek to subvert and control it. Good ones focus on criminals, but there are plenty of neutral and evil ones who aren't as picky.

Ravens_cry
2011-08-17, 01:36 AM
That's an impressive litany of puns, Malificus.
I approve.:smallamused:

Domriso
2011-08-17, 01:39 AM
@Physics_Rook
The concept of avatars works really well with that manner of gods. I agree with you; it seems like it would work perfectly in causing gods to work essentially the same way, but while also opening up new ways for gods to work.

Wyntonian
2011-08-17, 04:44 PM
In my world? There aren't any, really. Yes, there's a whole host of spirits and ghosts and such, ranging from the mass murderer and unrepentant serial rapist to good old uncle Jim-Bob the smith, who'll share his strength in your time of need. But real, actual, living, owners of their own plane, gives spells to clerics, Capital Gods? Hell no. Yeah, the lord bishops of Soleh cast spells themed around light, partially due to their devotion to it as an ideal and a manifestation of their spiritual beliefs, but they're no more holy than the snake oil vendor down the street doing the same thing to impress kids and swindle a couple of bucks. The fact is, while religion is as real as rocks, gods are essentially unknowable. And really, if they were limited to portfolios and domains, what kind of gods would they be, anyway?

Fera Tian
2011-08-17, 04:59 PM
My gods work on RAGE and CHAOS and LIPTON ICE TEA.

Lord Vampyre
2011-08-17, 07:11 PM
In my current campaign setting there are only 2 dieties. The creator and the corruptor. Each race has their own names for these particular dieties. For the elves, they are reffered to as Corellon and Lolth. For dragons and all of their kin, they are reffered to as Bahamut and Tiamat. For Humans, Sundryl, Sindryl, and Orcs, they are reffered to as Ao and Orcus.

Now, some of the societies within the world mistakenly raises the servants of these two dieties up to the same level, calling them gods. It matters very little to these beings as to what they are called by mortals, for they respond to the intention not the wording of a prayer.

byaku rai
2011-08-17, 09:03 PM
In my campaign, I've taken some drastic steps to nerf magic and psionics, resulting in a much more visceral, and oftentimes more bloody, campaign.

1. No planes other than the material exist. Results: If gods exist, they are pretty much just extraordinarily powerful beings within the material plane. Other consequences: summoning spells don't exist.

2. No spells above sixth level are in any permitted to be used by the players. There are suggestions that such spells may have existed at some point in the past, and it's possible that I might become lenient and allow the players to discover some, but it's unlikely. Especially since it's highly suggested that the reason such spells don't exist is because there simply isn't enough magic to support them. Results: even greater power gap between any supposed deities and mortals, and since it also applies to clerics, suggestion that whatever divine sources they're pulling from aren't very strong...

3. The world is a death world. Leviathans populate the depths of the oceans, large, dangerous creatures lurk in the wild places of the world, and the end of all life as the characters know it is lurking underground, just waiting for its chance to emerge... Result: If there are gods, either they don't care about their creation, or they are amused by anguish and suffering, or, as the more vehement clerics say, it is all a test for the faithful.

Malificus
2011-08-18, 12:10 AM
And really, if they were limited to portfolios and domains, what kind of gods would they be, anyway?

Normal polytheistic gods?

hiryuu
2011-08-20, 02:25 PM
Normal polytheistic gods?

Sorta. D&D's setup isn't really polytheistic, though. It's henotheism. Clerics tend to worship one god and acknowledge that the others exist. In a true polytheistic setup, a priest would worship all gods, though not necessarily all at once. Such a priest might favor one god, such as Heironeus, but wouldn't hesitate to offer a gift or service to, say, Hextor or Erythnul if doing so served his needs (perhaps by making those two gods tell their followers to spare him or to help reduce the pain of a wound by drawing Erythnul's attentions away from it).

I like the way Eberron does it, with multiple faith types. I've never understood the whole "clerics need a god" mindset simply because one of the biggest faiths on our planet, Buddhism, doesn't involve a deity concept at all, and if that's what you're going with, what's the big deal. I have a sneaking suspicion this is more of a player problem than a problem with clerics as written.

Anyway. I usually prefer to write up several religions present in the setting, some with gods, some without, some animistic, and then let the individuals involved in the faith decide.
"It's an angel!"
"No, it is a sky person."
"No, it is one of the men made of fire and air by the great Ishala."
You know?

The setting I normally work with is heavily animistic, with one of the primary religions not involving "gods" as D&D would see them, but as both the object that they are and a representation of that object, and with families possessing a matrilineal house spirit that serves as their family name and as their source of familial blood. Joining the family actually changes you to share the blood of the spirit who sponsors that family (the other primary religion sees these things as simply smaller representations of that thing, since, according to them, the human mind couldn't contemplate it all at once, and has patrilineal family names; there's then a spectrum of faith that runs between the two, and some families even have both names and spirit sponsors).

clockwork warrior
2011-08-20, 11:11 PM
im currently working on a mythos build up for my next game, but in a previous sword and sorcery style iron heroes game, i had a set up that worked really well for the low magic setting.

the main thing is that most of the gods worshiped by people are just made up, and most knowledge of gods is lost.

the true origin that only a few in the setting knew (and the players were slowly finding out)

the world, with humans (the only race, things like elves and dwarfs were just humans with a different culture and slightly different physical features) existed before the god. its creation has no explanation, but humanity was only beginning, and a race older than humans were much more advanced and used humans as slave labor (humans were basically slightly above animal intelligence at that point.) the god, a powerful spiritual being, found the elder race at the beginning of its time, when their numbers were small, and found that it could feed off of the sacrifices and praises they offered it when it acted with their lifes. so the god served the elders in exchange for prayer and sacrifices. this made the lifes of the elders very easy, with human slaves and an active god.

over time, the elders numbers grew to the point that they had to begin splitting clans and spreading across the earth. the god was powerful, but not all powerful, and couldn't keep up with the elders increasing numbers. so it began splitting its self into separate identities to serve each clan. this continued, as the gods slit, they weakened, and their identities were shaped by the clan they served.

once the elders spanned the known land, they began competing for resources, and started warring with each other. because the gods were dedicated to their own clan, this meant the the gods had to fight as well. the winning god would consume the dead god, making it stronger, but also making it crazy, the more gods it consumed, the more it lost its sanity. some gods became demonic, existing only to consume all the other gods with a fierce hunger.

this warring caused the downfall of the elders, and the slaves had takening what they saw from there servitude to start their own civilizations. they also tried to keep faith in the gods, but were not very wise to them, so most knowledge was lost.

big teej
2011-08-21, 04:54 AM
well, before this thread, I hadn't decided on how the gods work in my world.

now, I'm a tad closer, as I have decided on how the gods came to be.


the plane was created by a being known as "the one and the many"

the being established the plane in such a manner that exemplars of certain traits could rise to become the diety of said trait.

I was lead to this idea by ... well, half-asleep brain-storming. I was attempting to name The god of Valor. and typically the gods have titles.

The First Knight sprung to mind... and thus, now I've established how my gods are created. :smallbiggrin:

now I just have to fill out the pantheon.
the valor god's name is Bowric or boric (haven't decided on spelling) if anybody's wondering.

Bhaakon
2011-08-21, 06:57 AM
I'm toying with the idea of having the gods in my next campaign setting work mechanically. Literally mechanically, as in vending machines of divine magic. To the point that some death-worshiping lunatic could walk up to a sufficiently holy shrine of the neutral good godess of healing, plunk down diamond the size of a toddler's fist, utter a formulaic prayer, and have the setting's most dementedly evil mass-murdering necromancer resurrected without clerical intercession. And clerics would work the same way: an utterly evil and debased person could be the cleric of that same NG goddess of healing if he had enough wisdom and knew the correct rituals to have his spell allotment refilled by that goddess. The various churches would become protectors of shrines and rites, defending each god's holy places and rituals from desecration.

I'd fluff it as claiming that the god blamed their person squabbles for creation failing the first few goes, so they're taking a hands off approach this time around (but they're still cheating plenty, as oracles [it's a PF settling] would get their power directly from the gods, and the highest powers in most of the major churches have at least an inkling of the will of the gods they worship, even if the gods can't really do anything directly to force them to enact that will). This would also mean that a number of large and successful churches to utterly fake gods would spring up around charlatans who happen to control a holy site or know a few prayers (easily identified because they won't bring dead worshipers back to life, as they'd immediately tell everyone how much the afterlife sucked for devotees of a false god). Also, I wouldn't tell the PCs which churches were legitimate and which weren't.

ILM
2011-08-21, 09:12 AM
Gods in my setting are fluid and abstract entities, if that. They have no physical existence, they have no stats, and if they exist they play a game of chess that you'll never be able to follow. Nobody's even sure of how many gods there are, or even whether they can be denominated as separate beings. People don't worship gods, they worship aspects and have no other option but to ask favors from the gods that control these aspects. Problem is, some domains frequently appear to fall under the purview of multiple gods, and nobody knows if they're actually one and the same or different gods sharing a portfolio. More importantly, there's no actual proof gods exist beyond the fact that divine magic, well, works - along with the occasional rumored miracle. Gods never appear to mortals; while a sufficiently focused and devout mortal could become, for instance, a physical embodiment of the desert, the god of sand and sun remains eternally silent. As do the god of sand and water, the goddess of sun and moon, and all the other overlapping gods who may or may not exist.

Similarly, other planes are very much terra incognita. People are pretty sure there are elemental planes (including evil, which would be the hells, and good) but anything beyond that is likely to be too removed for proper understanding. Sure, some of the more crazy summoners can pull weird stuff from places not even them understand, but there's no actual map of the planes.