Deity fluff help?

[Harry]

Hey guys. Next campign I want my PC's to meet a deity with infinite divine ranks. Only problem is I dont know what such a deity should look and feel like physically.

Anyone want to help?

[Kuulvheysoon]

The only (canon) example I can pull from is Ao (Forgotten Realms), and he's an overgod.

He doesn't really concern himself with mortal affairs at all - in fact, he even refuses to answer mortal prayers.

[Arcanist]

The only (canon) example I can pull from is Ao (Forgotten Realms), and he's an overgod.

Yeah :smallsigh: Ao, is the only Overgod in all of D&D if memory serves (I'm not even sure if the Lady of Pain is an Overgod, because she is never defined as a Deity...)

[Hecuba]

Hey guys. Next campign I want my PC's to meet a deity with infinite divine ranks. Only problem is I dont know what such a deity should look and feel like physically.

Anyone want to help?

It shouldn't. Divine rank 21 is already outside the scope of mortal interaction. Infinite divine rank (besides being outside anything the system can manage mechanically) should be outside the scope of interaction for anything save (perhaps) overdeities.


Yeah :smallsigh: Ao, is the only Overgod in all of D&D if memory serves (I'm not even sure if the Lady of Pain is an Overgod, because she is never defined as a Deity...)

I can't believe I'm saying this (because gods, I hate Planescape), but the Lady is nothing so trivial as an Overdeity. She is danger and beauty, squalor and splendor, order and chaos. In short, the Lady is the City, and the City is the Lady.

Or perhaps not. The important part is that (outside the Venca novels) the Lady of Pain serves a dramatically different point than even Over-deities traditionally do in D&D; you would do better adapting weather rules to indicate her behavior than trying to adapt the Divine Rank system to do so.



The only (canon) example I can pull from is Ao (Forgotten Realms), and he's an overgod.

He doesn't really concern himself with mortal affairs at all - in fact, he even refuses to answer mortal prayers.

If you count Dragonlance, there's the High God and (arguably) Ionthas/Chaos.

[Serpentine]

Mm. Something like that is probably more in the realms of "the concept of the universe, all of reality and existance itself", and praying to it would be like one of our gut bacteria praying to us - except more so, because this god *also* incorporates thaat gut flora, us, and the very metaphysical conception of "gut flora" and "us".
If you want to do this, then as a start, fluff-wise, I'd probably have it share its name with the universe itself - whatever your people call the universe is what they call this god, and likely the difference between them will be extremely blurry at best, more likely interchangeable.

[Eugenides]

I know I'm sort of beating a dead horse here, but infinite divine rank basically means they wouldn't interact with the PC's in any meaningful way.

Or, on the other hand, they interact with the PC's in a meaningful way every day as they are literally so powerful they are a manifested concept of reality and as such really don't have a consciousness that a mortal could identify with, or even really realize they were doing so.

[Arcanist]

I know I'm sort of beating a dead horse here, but infinite divine rank basically means they wouldn't interact with the PC's in any meaningful way.

The best stating of an Overdeity, is just flat out Rule 0'ing the target out of existance. :smallconfused:

[NichG]

It really depends how meta you want to get, and if you want 'infinite' to literally be a stat here, or just a shorthand for 'outside the system'. The obvious answer would be that the characters are literally meeting manifestations of the game system - the DM, their players, Gygax himself, whatever. Things 'outside of the game' that cannot be controlled or influenced within the game except by social interaction. Thats not really 'infinite divine rank' in any meaningful sense, its 'divine rank: N/A because I've got something better'. It also forces the campaign to break the fourth wall something fierce.

If you're a fan of D&D cultural references, its a kobold holding a candle with a squirrel on his shoulder, playing poker with a guy with his head in a bucket of water and horrible wounds all over his body. Again, very meta.

You could take an example from comics, and have it be a physical manifestation of the entire universe and all the planes. Except thats still going to be 'finite'.

For a very mechanical point of view, just look at everything that scales with divine rank - usually radii of effects and so on. If this being exists, then every point 'on the same plane' (when it applies) is always under all of those effects. In some sense, this is a good disproof of the existence of an infinite divine rank being on a given plane - if everyone everyone is not constantly prostrating themselves/being killed by divine aura/being turned into its familiar/etc, it can't be there.

So I'd basically say, 'infinite' here is better taken to be a superlative than a literal thing, since the universe doesn't function when there's an 'infinite' nearby.

[Winds]

The above objections aside, this is a being well beyond anything most players would see. Infinite divine rank means this is a being whose oversees things mortal minds quite literally can't imagine. The emphasis when meeting him should be on the fact that he is beyond anything they could perceive. Rather than imagine what he *should* look and feel like, focus on what he *could* look and feel like. Imagine several different ways you might perceive something that much bigger than you, and have each character perceive it as a separate aspects. For added fun, allow a character to 'see' more than one such aspect.

[Harry]

NichG: Ha I don't want to break the fourth wall, and I want infinite divine ranks to literally be a state.

Winds:interesting and considered.

Eugenides: I kinda already decided on them meeting this being.....so.....

Arcanist: if I remember correctly the serpent is the manifestation and overdeity of all magic.

[Slylizard]

Or take the other side of the coin. The deity takes the form of something very very mundane, say, an old homeless guy, because were the PCs to see his true form their minds would explode as a result of their senses being overpowered thus instantly killing them.

I always liked the "all powerful" appearing as something quite the opposite.

[Arcanist]

Arcanist: if I remember correctly the serpent is the manifestation and overdeity of all magic.

That is something I would actually say :smallconfused: ... Creepy...

On that topic: The Serpent is... WELL! Nobody knows who the Serpent is... Some people say it's Asmodeus, others say it is Vecna's own insanity whisper back to him... I wish I did know who the Serpent was so I could stat him/her out :smallfrown: One of the reasons the serpent interest me so much is because there is less information on it then anything else in D&D in all 4 (5) editions :smallbiggrin: I really liked how WoTC never released that information... allows so much flexibility with it... an Overdeity with an interest for Mortals :smallamused:

[Harry]

Haha i agree arcanist, that's the exact reason why I like it....:smallconfused:

[Eugenides]

There was a reason I included the word "basically" in my post, exactly because of rule zero and the fact that he had already decided to have them meet.

Also, that was personal opinion, I guess. (Hey, I'm running a campaign myself that uses a completely different concept of divinity, and it has gods running everywhere. I never really liked the D&D version of divine ranks.)

[ThiagoMartell]

Harry, I must ask - why the obsession with infinity?

[Harry]

Infinity is sexy :smallbiggrin: