gods that arent gods

[blelliot]

Does any one run games with gods without divine ranks? I want to have my "gods" be really powerful mortal creatures. Any thoughts/ opinions? Thanks!

[Tvtyrant]

I like to use the Demon Lords and the Dukes of Hell as gods, along with super-powerful Angels, Archons, Modron, Slaadi, etc. Essentially just really high powered Outsiders who rule large chunks of the afterlife.

It works really well if you have all the angels, demons and the like remember their prime material lives, so an individual can become a god by dying and fighting their way to the top.

[ShadowFireLance]

Dragons, Really old, really powerful Dragons, The eldest are close enough to gods to be rated as such. :smallcool:

[137beth]

Vol from Eberron sort of fits this criteria.

[Grinner]

Cthulhu and friends.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I may have NPC's who pose as gods but there are still divine ranked gods. I also had a lizardman character whose tribe once worshiped the black dragon Zepth'thar'alax as a god until they ate him.


Cthulhu and friends.

Actually no their D20 stats include Divine ranks.

[Grinner]

Actually no their D20 stats include Divine ranks.

That's weird, seeing how Lovecraft was an atheist and, as far as I know, wrote his stories to portray a godless, coldly material universe.

I don't think I trust the D20 stats.

[blelliot]

The idea I had is the new 'gods' were adventurers in the long past that challenged the gods. The old gods were evil beings who were barely understood entities. Most of the old gods were killed and the heros ascended, in a matter. There are still a few of these old gods left that are worshipped by cults. That's what I've got so far.

[themourningstar]

That's weird, seeing how Lovecraft was an atheist and, as far as I know, wrote his stories to portray a godless, coldly material universe.

I don't think I trust the D20 stats.

Really? They were called the "Elder Gods". Regardless, from a human standpoint, they are gods. There was a story tat Lumley did, set in the Cthulu mythos... The protagonist (Titus Crowe?) goes through all of these journeys, all of these struggles, and finally ends up in.. Well, I don't think Heaven would be the best analogy. He ended up in the realm of the beings that imprisoned Cthulu and his ilk, and set mankind in a position to watch them.
Then, when he finally meets one, it was just as disgusting and mind tainting as Cthulu. xD

Also- something Im working on in my own world- Godlings. These are beings that are only semi divine. There are real gods, but they largely stay out of human concerns, and cant even come into the prime material plane at their full strength. They would have to sacrifice almost all of their divine power to do so. Instead, they invested part of their essense- the godspark if you will- in various mortal creatures.
Each godspark gives the creature divine rank 1... But they can be taken away. If the Godling is killed, his murderer receives the spark. A creature could even take multiple sparks from various creatures...

[blelliot]

Also- something Im working on in my own world- Godlings. These are beings that are only semi divine. There are real gods, but they largely stay out of human concerns, and cant even come into the prime material plane at their full strength. They would have to sacrifice almost all of their divine power to do so. Instead, they invested part of their essense- the godspark if you will- in various mortal creatures.
Each godspark gives the creature divine rank 1... But they can be taken away. If the Godling is killed, his murderer receives the spark. A creature could even take multiple sparks from various creatures...

I like this idea. Would fit into an idea I had of the gods of my world walking the earth.
Would you mind if I borrowwed it?

[themourningstar]

I like this idea. Would fit into an idea I had of the gods of my world walking the earth.
Would you mind if I borrowwed it?

IMO, you should never put something on the internet if you care about someone borrowing it. I am a straight info whore- everyone should have free access and use of information. :) Feel free to use anything and everything I come up with!

[LordErebus12]

all things considered, Doresain, the demigod King of Ghouls, was given a domain and portfolio in Libris Mortis and stat'd out in BoVD as a CR 10. As such, he is almost certainly the weakest being capable of granting divine spells in D&D.

[zzuxon]

In my setting the "gods" are epic-level psion extraterestrialss.

[themourningstar]

In my setting the "gods" are epic-level psion extraterestrialss.

And who do they worship?

[Tzi]

In settings I've made Gods are typically too ambiguous to have ranks and actual stats. Powerful beings become Godlike and are worshiped and certain ancient intelligent beings of immense power can grant wishes and perform the rough equivalent of miracles.

[Yael]

Imotep... he is so expert.

[PersonMan]

I'm currently running an E6 game on these forums in which a cult worships a high-CR fey as a god of war because, well, as a high-CR fey it stomps anything that's fought it so far.

[Xuc Xac]

If you define "god" as "a character with divine ranks", then you can't have any gods without divine ranks.

If you define "god" as "an entity that receives worship (or interacts on roughly equal footing with other entities that do)", then it doesn't matter what their stats are.

Personally, I think that giving your gods hit dice, and levels, and divine ranks, and so on does make them mortal. If you stat it, it can be killed.

In the real world, the only difference between god and demon is which side you're on. For example, devas and asuras (or daeva and ahura) have an east/west divide in their characterisation. In eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism), devas are good and asuras are bad. In the Middle Eastern religion of Zoroastrianism, it's the opposite. The Vedic traditions say that the devas and asuras were both deities, but the asuras turned away from goodness and fell to pride and wrath. Zoroastrianism says that the daeva are liars who don't deserve worship like the truthful ahura.

You can do the same thing in a D&D game. For example, if you have a god of Law and a god of Chaos. Maybe the followers of Law think of themselves as Lawful Good and they demonize the enemy god as Chaotic Evil. Their Law god wants to bring order to the world so everyone can live in peace and safety, but the Chaos god brings only destruction and wild abandon. Meanwhile, the Chaos worshipers see themselves as Chaotic Good because their god wants to empower them to overcome all obstacles that stand in the way of their happiness, unlike that Lawful Evil tyrant that wants to lock the whole world in chains. And they can both be right or both be wrong if you want!

Unless you give them stats, in which case the gods are just another combat encounter with a ridiculously high CR.

[ArlEammon]

Since I'm a Christian and think Catholic Saints are boring, I have a lot of these. Examples include something called Aeons, which originally were Gnostic gods, but in my game are imply non-god with divine power.

[Cealocanth]

I'm helping build campaign with a concept that could work with this. The idea is that in the beginning four races were created. Known as Titans, these beings fed off of, bred, and lived in the raw embryonic fluid of the universe. Each race different in appearance and power, the represented the forces of creation, destruction, purification, and corruption. From living in and experimenting with the universe these races eventually stirred the fluid and caused the mortal plane to coalesce, which eventually gave birth to the mortal races. The setting takes place fairly soon afterwards. The world is new and the Titans still walk the earth as well as the planes, and are nearly as numerous as mortals. Each Titan aligns to a certain domain (so many titans can embody a single domain) and if one wishes to, they can decide to grant power of their domain to a certain mortal (we call these mortals Clerics, Avengers, and Paladins).

As beings of immense power almost unthinkable to the amalgam minds of mortals, the Titans are beings that are worshiped and treated as gods.

They eat, breathe, live, and reproduce. They are completely mortal and can be slain by powerful adventurers and the like.

The alignment to different domains (said domains being separated into four groups) allows divine magic to operate within the confines of the D&D or Pathfinder systems. Clerics and the like can select multiple domains if necessary.

Just pitching ideas here, but the way I see it, a world with gods that are mortal is a world of religious chaos. There isn't one pantheon that everyone worships and follows after. Most people haven't even heard of the gods that others worship. While there may be some religious conflict due to the designation of creation vs. destruction, and purification vs. corruption, there is hardly enough religious unity to start a religious war. Basically speaking, the divine world is still in chaos, and adventurers that exist during this time have a chance to play an active role in the ultimate fate of the universe.

On a side note, it also means that civilization will have a lot of trouble getting off the ground. Religious unity and fanaticism is one of the fundamental forces that allow groups to bind together and create societies. Without that, I imagine that the mortal races will be nothing more than scattered tribes, each one working as slaves, servants, or a private militia for a Titan who feels they want to control some worshipers.

[JackRackham]

I'm working on a setting where the Gods mostly died in the Three Great Wars between gods, demons, devils, daemons, elder evils, and whatever else I think of to throw in the mix as I reveal history. So people get divine power from things like meteors, minor Gods who have been trapped and exploited somehow, a cave containing high concentrations of radioactive minerals, a divine tree, a particularly important battlefield where a bunch of Gods ate it, that it imbued with divine essence, surviving fiendish princes, etc.

[Alexkubel]

whatcomes to mind is from warhammer 40,000 The god emperor, he isn't a god, he made a point of killing gods.

the dark elder in warhammer 40,000 also have their dark muse's but ty don't count really.

[Yora]

In my setting, people worship spirits of the land. Which in some cases can be extremely powerful, if they are the spirits of entire mountains or oceans.

[Tanuki Tales]

whatcomes to mind is from warhammer 40,000 The god emperor, he isn't a god, he made a point of killing gods.

the dark elder in warhammer 40,000 also have their dark muse's but ty don't count really.

The God Emperor more or less has become an entity similar, if not identical, to the Four Ruinous Powers after his sequestering to the Golden Throne though.

I agree with the idea of just making your "gods" creatures with CRs that are obnoxiously out of the scope of your PCs to deal with.

[Yora]

I say don't give them stats at all.

[Jormengand]

Godlings.

Did (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/adept-godling) you (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/clever-godling) just (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/mighty-godling) say (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/eldritch-godling) Godlings? (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-prestige-classes/super-genius-games/godling)

[Tanuki Tales]

I say don't give them stats at all.

I think he wants them to be fight-able though.