Stealing portafolios and domains through deicide

[Clistenes]

Do you think that, when a deity kills another, they automatically get the murdered one's divine ranks, portafolios and domains?, or do you think some sort of ritual or epic spell would be necessary?.

I'm asking this because you can receive the quasi-god template as a reward at the end of The Sundered Spark adventure, from Oerth Journal 24, and you can kill a deity at the end of the Quicksilver Hourglass module, so this could be a quite straight path to divinity for an epic character seeking retirement.

However, I intuitively think there should be something more to it that just stabbing the divine critter until it dies...How could you steal its divinity if you don't even know how to do it?

[Flickerdart]

Becoming a god is a pretty poor kind of retirement, considering that gods are basically the managers of reality.

[Joe Eskimo]

This happens quite a lot in FR. Cyric became a god, and a greater god at that, from a mortal by killing a number of deities and acquiring a number of their portfolios.

[Clistenes]

This happens quite a lot in FR. Cyric became a god, and a greater god at that, from a mortal by killing a number of deities and acquiring a number of their portfolios.

Yes, but Cyric essentially had his godhood handed to him by Ao. If Ao had told him "thank you, have this cadillac as reward for returning the tablets", Cyric wouldn't have become a god.

I'm more interested on what happened afterwards. Cyric killed Leira, and got her portfolio...is that automatic?. I know that Wyvernspur automatically got Moander's portfolio after killing him, and he wasn't even a deity.

[Kornaki]

Do gods have to act according to their portfolio? Imagine if the god of Good tricked the god of Evil into killing him and acquiring the Good portfolio, turning him into a god of Neutral and ending the threat of that god taking over the world

It would make for interesting deity politics where you are more likely to kill the gods that are more closely aligned with you

[Joe Eskimo]

Good point. Maybe portfolios are rewards from Ao. As when you don't get all the portfolios when you slay a deity. Or you don't get any at all. Maybe it's all Ao's will which portfolio goes where. Velsharoon was the first ever human deity to hold the undeath portfolio. But I reckon that portfolio has been floating around since forever before velsharoon claimed it. I know kiaransalee also has the undeath portfolio but she's for the drow.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hmm, not sure about precedent here, but a comment on flavor.

Too much of super-cool people murdering gods seriously diminishes the coolness of gods. After all, civilizations and cultures grow up around the worship of x or y power, and then all of a sudden some protagonist kills said power. If this is any kind of pattern, gods wouldn't be so influential among mortals, particularly the longer-lived races, since the revolving door aspect and having to repaint the sign above the temple would get irritating. Also, very confusing to worshipers, and since there is support for the concept that deities draw power from their worshipers, behavior that decreases the amount of worshipers (like a change in management over at Pelor & Co.) would kind of work counter to the whole system of divinity.

In my setting, gods or god-like beings kill gods from time to time. Mortals killing gods is not quite impossible, but extremely less common than it is on, let's say, this forum. Since the gods each control a more-or-less discrete portfolio by mutual agreement among themselves, a mortal usurping control of a deity's portfolio would probably invite unwelcome attention from rival gods.

On the other hand, the maximum power level of mortals on my planet is quite high, with individuals over level 20 not altogether uncommon, and the most powerful people in most classes being over level 50. The most powerful wizard is a ridiculous level 75. The eldest dragon, the oldest living critter on the planet, has 90 age categories and a further 120 class levels.

So being a god really isn't that special in my campaign setting, unless one really wants worshipers and to be able to grant them spells.

[Clistenes]

Hmm, not sure about precedent here, but a comment on flavor.

Too much of super-cool people murdering gods seriously diminishes the coolness of gods. After all, civilizations and cultures grow up around the worship of x or y power, and then all of a sudden some protagonist kills said power. If this is any kind of pattern, gods wouldn't be so influential among mortals, particularly the longer-lived races, since the revolving door aspect and having to repaint the sign above the temple would get irritating. Also, very confusing to worshipers, and since there is support for the concept that deities draw power from their worshipers, behavior that decreases the amount of worshipers (like a change in management over at Pelor & Co.) would kind of work counter to the whole system of divinity.

In my setting, gods or god-like beings kill gods from time to time. Mortals killing gods is not quite impossible, but extremely less common than it is on, let's say, this forum. Since the gods each control a more-or-less discrete portfolio by mutual agreement among themselves, a mortal usurping control of a deity's portfolio would probably invite unwelcome attention from rival gods.

On the other hand, the maximum power level of mortals on my planet is quite high, with individuals over level 20 not altogether uncommon, and the most powerful people in most classes being over level 50. The most powerful wizard is a ridiculous level 75. The eldest dragon, the oldest living critter on the planet, has 90 age categories and a further 120 class levels.

So being a god really isn't that special in my campaign setting, unless one really wants worshipers and to be able to grant them spells.

Well, I think the PCs should always be the first mortals to ever kill a god (unless a it's important for your Campaign Setting that a previous deicide had happened before). They are the heroes, the protagonists of the story, after all.

That's one of the reasons I like Greyhawk more than Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk is PC-driven. Who ruined Iuz's plans in the Temple of Elemental Evil? The PCs. Who repelled the giant invasion in Against the Giants? The PCs. Who stopped the drow invasion in the Vault of the Drow? The PCs. Who defeated Lolth in the Queen of the Demonweb Pits? The PCs.
Mordenkainen, for example, is a powerful, meddling mage, but he's a mere mortal that is far from unbeatable and is probably overwhelmed by everything that is happening since the return of Iuz.


Do gods have to act according to their portfolio? Imagine if the god of Good tricked the god of Evil into killing him and acquiring the Good portfolio, turning him into a god of Neutral and ending the threat of that god taking over the world

It would make for interesting deity politics where you are more likely to kill the gods that are more closely aligned with you

If we take Faerun as an example, gods keep their alignment (Kelemvor and Wyvernspur didn't become evil) but their portfolio changes them, and the opposite. The new Mystra started to see things from the point of view of the old Mystra, and needed to make a conscious effort to see things from a human point of view. And Cyric became mad when he took the portfolio of Insanity (or maybe it was the opposite, and he received the portfolio of Madness because he was mad).

Finder Wyvernspur is an interesting case: He took Moander portfolio, but instead of becoming the new god of Rot and Corruption, he became the new god of the Cycle of Life, so it seems that the alignment of the god holding the portfolio can influence it.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, I think the PCs should always be the first mortals to ever kill a god (unless a it's important for your Campaign Setting that a previous deicide had happened before). They are the heroes, the protagonists of the story, after all.

That's one of the reasons I like Greyhawk more than Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk is PC-driven. Who ruined Iuz's plans in the Temple of Elemental Evil? The PCs. Who repelled the giant invasion in Against the Giants? The PCs. Who stopped the drow invasion in the Vault of the Drow? The PCs. Who defeated Lolth in the Queen of the Demonweb Pits? The PCs.
Mordenkainen, for example, is a powerful, meddling mage, but he's a mere mortal that is far from unbeatable and is probably overwhelmed by everything that is happening since the return of Iuz.

Well, pcs and npcs are little in distinction. The pcs in one game are the npcs in the next game in the same setting. In a similar vein "the first" is a hard thing to use as a theme in a game setting, because it only works once.

In FR, many of the people responsible for moving history in many instances were protagonists of their own stories, some being novels, but some were played as adventures that then became novels, IIRC. A "protagonist" being the hero is extremely subjective. While I do want the player characters to be important and influential, the spotlight need not always shine directly on them for them to be doing important things. Nothing is insignificant in the end, and to paraphrase the undercurrent of all of Tolkien's work, even the smallest of people or the most unassuming events can have profound effect on what's going on in a campaign world.

I tend to shy away from ALWAYS having the pcs at the center of something huge, because then the players might come to expect that all campaigns are this way. Later, when I want a military campaign where you are part of a larger force, or a campaign with a much smaller focus (low-level survival stuff comes to mind), then the players might feel a little insignificant. Not every campaign reaches into the realms of world-changing plots, and I think this is fine, realistic, and makes the campaigns where it does happen all the more special.

Deicide, when perpetrated by player characters, is pretty serious setting revision, especially is the slayer becomes the new god. Also problematic, since usual party dynamic has several people killing the god, but only one might be able to become divine. Hard to reward the other players in a way equal to the one character becoming a god.

[Clistenes]

That's the problem when the consequences of adventures are made into canon. You end having a world in which there are loads of adventuring parties doing awesome things. I don't like worlds full with groups of murder hobos carrying millions of gold pieces in equipment.

The PCs can be normal, irrelevant people, at least at the beginning, and there should be many people more powerful than they are (kings, archwizards, high priests, dragons...etc.) they should try not to piss at low levels, but those really weird, incredible things that happen to the protagonists of big adventures should happen only to the PCs.

I think the PCs should be THE adventuring party. If you want to add your previous characters to the past of the world, it's OK, but the consequences of the adventures of a group of players shouldn't become part of the canon another, different group of players will use. That way, your PCs are the most relevant people in the world.

In the case of Forgotten Realms, I think the Time of Troubles should be an alternate world that would exist only if the players became the party trying to recover the tablets. If the players never played that adventure, then the Time of Troubles never happened, Bane, Myrkul and Mystra never died, and Midnight, Kelemvor and Cyric never became gods.

And again, the PCs can be taking care of little things, like rescuing a child from a group of goblins, but when the commoners see a group of an elven wizard, a druid, a paladin, a dwarven priest, a halfling rogue and a gnome bard, they should say "I have never seen a group like that", not "oh, that's the typical adventuring party, but they need another shieldmeat".