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PnP Fan
2007-03-27, 12:57 AM
Visible or Invisible?

Which is to say, do you prefer the ever present "We've manifested on the Prime Material Plane, with no doubt as to our existence." style of deities (Forgotten Realms for example)?

or

Do you prefer the behind the scenes "maybe we exist, maybe we don't" flavor of Eberron?

Townopolis
2007-03-27, 01:01 AM
Most of the time, Eberron style.

In my darling little world based on NW Euopean classical antiquity, Forgotten Realms style all the way.

Tallis
2007-03-27, 01:10 AM
I generally prefer they work through others to get what they want. They may manifest themselves in visions or dreams, but they aren't likely to show up on your doorstep.

Dhavaer
2007-03-27, 01:15 AM
Visible but not present. They show up every so often, are easily contactable with sufficient magic, but aren't involved on the level of Abeir-Toril.

Sardia
2007-03-27, 01:16 AM
Hidden and inscrutible all the way.
For one thing, never having the deity show up keeps it and its motives mysterious, which means a lot less explaining.

Plus, as a GM, it avoids trying to figure out how to meaningfully roleplay something with an Int score in the twenties or thirties or so.

Dhavaer
2007-03-27, 01:19 AM
Plus, as a GM, it avoids trying to figure out how to meaningfully roleplay something with an Int score in the twenties or thirties or so.

:smallfrown:

I have a non-deific NPC like this. 36 Int, 16 Wis, 14 Cha. I really have no idea how to play her.

Jannex
2007-03-27, 01:20 AM
Generally, I think I prefer them somewhere in between FR and Eberron. I tend to interpret the granting of divine spells as clear evidence that deities exist (and therefore the do-they-or-don't-they question is less interesting for me), but neither do they need to manifest avatars at the drop of a hat. Direct, obvious divine intervention should be reserved for occasions of dire importance and epic (small-e, as in grand-scale, not as in level 20+) consequences. Dreams and visions are fun, and high-level divine magic should permit limited contact, but generally you shouldn't be tripping over your gods.

Cybren
2007-03-27, 01:24 AM
I'd prefer a system of independent religions, which all assert that their god or pantheon are the true one, with no real proof either way, with divine magic being largely unexplained, and with no (recent) direct activities of the "gods".
In effect all clerics are clerics of a cause, and their cause is their, possibly fake, possibly real god.

brian c
2007-03-27, 01:36 AM
:smallfrown:

I have a non-deific NPC like this. 36 Int, 16 Wis, 14 Cha. I really have no idea how to play her.

heh... maybe with an INT of 36 she knows that she's an NPC in a game and acts as such, full of metagamey knowledge. Of course, that would only work if you run a humorous campaign, more serious folk would frown on that...

Kirnon_Bhale
2007-03-27, 01:46 AM
I voted FR style but realise that I should have gone with Other as I agree most with Dhavaer.

I am a huge fan of Eberron but have found that the deity thing has really annoyed me. I can happily go along with little to no contact but not the are they/are they not real feel that Eberron has.

The most dissapointing book I have bought was Religions of Eberron - I will not be using it and while it has not come up in the game I run yet, I know that this is one aspect that I will not be taking up of the Eberron setting.

edit: I think that brian c has the best idea for how to play Int 36 - it would be hilarious.

starwoof
2007-03-27, 01:47 AM
I like both, so I use both.

My greater deities are locked in the outer planes. If you have planar travel you can kind of walk up and talk to them, but they usually dont like to be disturbed (the good one is meditating and trying to solve the worlds problems, the evil one is slaughtering his way across the blood war. Their avatars can enter the material.

My elemental/creation deities are asleep, but on the material plane. THey still grant spells but if you could find them you could have a chat even without something like commune.

The other deities are usually consigned to their planes in the same way as the greater deities. On certain days of the year they can enter the material plane, where they basically do as they will (though they have little divine influence there).

Culwch
2007-03-27, 02:14 AM
In reply to brian c:
Being as divinely intelligent as she is, she devotes most of her time to observation and not acting, realizing that all actions have (un)forseen consequences. You know, the butterfly effect, she wags her finger today and in 127 years a great villain is born to take over half of the continent and killing millions of innocents in his ascent to power. But only his military might will be able to confront the demon invasion due to happen in 162 years and 3 months. The signs are there if you can see them.

Of course, if she's the enemy of the players, lie steal and cheat. Demand to know the party's plans and counteract. Read the Overlord's List (If I were an evil overlord, I would not do...) Send bards and heroes to plant misinformation (If I can only be defeated with a crystal sword hidden in the deepest chasm of the Bottomless Sea, plant rumours it has been prophecied I will fall to a blow from a Golden Sickle in the care of the driads on the peak Mt. Invictus. Create the sickle and the driads if need be.)

If she's the party ally, send the party on seemingly silly quests - save the baron's son on level 2, have the baron junior fade from sight become commander-in-chief to the duke and show up with an army and a navy 16 levels later when the players's keep is besieged by the evil barbarian horde?

Edo
2007-03-27, 02:45 AM
I go invisible and advocate invisibility all the way.

Generally speaking, this is because the more present a fantasy god is, the less interesting their associated religion becomes.

This is a shame, for a number of reasons. The biggest one being, very simply, the breakdown of verisimilitude.

ClericofPhwarrr
2007-03-27, 02:46 AM
Extra spicy, with a side of potatoes.

Krimm_Blackleaf
2007-03-27, 02:47 AM
I'm into the whole greek and roman mythology, the gods are way the hell there, and they're all around. But they're fickle and vengeful, you don't know when you're gonna wake up after not killing the correct cattle to find your wife's pregnant with a minotaur from the other bull.

Leon
2007-03-27, 02:55 AM
Iron Kingdom Style

Zincorium
2007-03-27, 03:35 AM
Eberron style. Helps keep the plans of the gods from being more important than the PC's in campaign terms. I mean, how are you going to become better than, say, Eliminster, who's a direct representative of the goddess Mystra? There's just no way short of becoming the representative of a deity yourself. Unless you go into way epic levels, the PC's are always going to be overshadowed.

The Prince of Cats
2007-03-27, 04:14 AM
When I make worlds, the gods are not really interested in direct intervention. In one campaign, they worked through intermediate beings with only one exception, the goddess of magic, and that was only because arcane magic was all but lost thanks to a holy war against it.

I mean, the one time they tried to bring someone back from the dead, the gods ignored them and so a devil came to make a deal with them...

fireinthedust
2007-03-27, 04:16 AM
yeah, I find that as soon as the DM pulls any "I'm super powerful" NPC cards out, it's sitting around waiting for something to happen *to* the players, not something *from* them. I don't like it for villains, I don't like it for good guy NPCs.

Granted, I ran a game once where the NPCs were the gods, thor apollo, zeus, etc. The PCs were epic level, so it got weird. still, if it's balanced for RP, it kinda works out. needed lots of material i didn't have, though. monster stats for the campaign, etc.

anyway, there's nothing quite like having a collection of stats for deities, and running a Time of Troubles scenario. that's just cool. In general play I'd just say don't make them the uber-control for the campaign.

Bouldering Jove
2007-03-27, 04:28 AM
Visible gods strike me as a kind of taunt to the players. "Here, check out these crazy powerful NPCs who can do anything! You can't touch them, ever!" If they manifest on the player's behalf, it's victory by DM fiat, and if they manifest against the players, why not just smite their characters off the face of the planet?

Divine followers, on the other hand, may be incredibly powerful but are always beatable.

its_all_ogre
2007-03-27, 04:52 AM
i can never decide. both approaches have problems.
in my current home-brew world all the gods bar one has been killed, spells are still granted by the essence of the deceased gods though....for now...
and nobody is certain that they are dead, the relevant priesthoods deny it; who is granting their spells after all? the only surviving god is evil and worship of him is banned so any followers found are killed quickly.

Quietus
2007-03-27, 05:08 AM
I use a mix in my world of Vethedar; The gods are real, and there's no doubt to their existence, Divine magic is proof of that - I don't allow worship of a cause, it MUST be a deity. However, those deities never become directly involved in anything that regular people do, they spend most their time working against one another.

They do, however, exist on the material plane, they just know that if any one of them attacks another, all-out war will break out, the material plane will be ravaged/destroyed, their followers will be killed, and in general it'll cause the death of all gods. Kind of a mutually assured destruction situation.

The only deity that directly works with mortals, is the one that's currently "Dead" - that is to say, her soul is sealed away and her body slumbers somewhere. And she directly attempts to get mortals to bring those two halves of her together. She's a demideity, really, divine rank 1 or so, had just begun to ascend when she was halted, so she hasn't really had time to grow accustomed to deityhood nor did she ever become part of that whole mutually assured destruction thing. If she ever gets revived again, the other gods will plainly tell her that if she continues with her direct meddling, she'll earn the ire of EVERY god, in the interest of keeping their MAD thing.

Lord Tataraus
2007-03-27, 06:01 AM
Currently in the campaign I'm running, the PCs are on an errand from a god they visited so they can release another god from imprisonment and are running into all of the friends and enemy gods along the way. Of course they aren't fighting any (except when one player decided he didn't like how the king was running things and decided to kill him before they got to the point that revealed the king as a god) since they would get owned.

C Harnryd
2007-03-27, 06:04 AM
I normally have gods that are involved in the campaign.
How visible they are depends on the world. My most active campaign right now has the mythic Greece flavour Krimm_Blackleaf mentions, where the apperance of a minor god is unusual, but not that special.

But regardless of how active the gods are, I never use the Deities & Demigods rules. That every god should be exceptionally intelligent, for example, goes against nearly all non-monotheist mythologies out there. Minor gods, at least, should have quite narrow areas of expertise. IMO.

Dareon
2007-03-27, 06:13 AM
I think I tend to prefer invisible, mostly because I REALLY overreacted to a god (or someone pretending to be a god well enough to fool the party's Cleric) showing up on our first adventure.

It's kinda the same thing Bouldering Jove mentioned. A god showing up from on high, going "ARTHUR, KING OF THE BRITONS. I COME BEFORE YOU WITH A QUEST." doesn't leave you with much recourse to refuse without reaching for 4d6 and a fresh sheet of paper. There are seriously NO good interaction options when dealing with a god.

The mysterious dream in the middle of the night, the old lady on the roadside who disappears when you've turned your back, those sorts of things are how I prefer my gods to be seen. They may use us as pawns, but showing up and presenting us with stylish new outfits is just rubbing our noses in it.

Shadow of the Sun
2007-03-27, 06:20 AM
Dhaevar, have your NPC played in a deterministic fashion- have her believe that she has no real free will, but she can understand why. Doctor Manhattan of Watchmen put it best: "We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings." Have her live her life by that very quote, trying to map out what actions made her do something, what actions did them and so on, as well as what effects her actions will have. Used like this, she could very subtly divulge plot related information, and even be a railroad, if played well.

Dausuul
2007-03-27, 06:27 AM
I like something in between. The gods exist, and this is pretty well established, but it's always hard to say whether any particular event is the work of one of them, their purposes and plans are inscrutable, and they don't come down to have little heart-to-heart chats with their clerics, even the high-level clerics.

"Existing, but remote and enigmatic as hell" describes it best, I think.

Neon Knight
2007-03-27, 06:34 AM
A pleasant mix, where the deities are there but are horrifically vague about what they want, and only bother to appear in dreams or visions, with the occasional appearance of a butt kicking avatar when butt kicking is needed.

El Jaspero, the Pirate King
2007-03-27, 06:41 AM
I prefer the Arcana Evolved model for gods: they are worshipped, but nobody actually knows if they exist. Gods might have power, they might just be figments of communal imagination. Nobody knows, and nobody ever will.

Khantalas
2007-03-27, 06:49 AM
I prefer my deities either undoubtedly existent, but never apparent, or not existent at all.

Om
2007-03-27, 06:50 AM
anyway, there's nothing quite like having a collection of stats for deities, and running a Time of Troubles scenario. that's just cool.That's the one thing that I'd object to. When you stat gods you remove whatever it is that makes them gods in the first place. Suddenly they are just super-powerful NPCs.

Shadow of the Sun
2007-03-27, 06:51 AM
Seeing as I have a campaign idea in my head where the gods are all avatarized to prevent a War in Heaven, I prefer them to be fairly less known whether they exist- some people know, of course, but the rest are in doubt.

The best thing about my avatar campaign idea is that no one really knows whether the avatars are gods, or just insanely powerful madmen (An avatar in this campaign is either a nomad, moving from town to town, or the ruler of a country and the head of a clergy).

Saph
2007-03-27, 07:13 AM
Somewhere in between. I don't like the Eberron model, it's never made much sense to me. On the other hand, I don't want every third NPC to be a god in disguise, either.

The way I run it is that while the gods are undoubtably there, the players won't encounter them unless they go looking (which is generally a bad idea, for a variety of reasons). The gods are busy with more important things, leaving the PCs free to get on with their lives.

- Saph

hewhosaysfish
2007-03-27, 08:18 AM
To my way of looking at it, the gods are a like kings and lords, just on a different scale.

You won't see them loafing around a tavern and they're unlikely to invite you to their house a few hands of poker and a couple beers but nobody is in any doubt that they exist or what they want from us peasants/mortals.

Saying "How do we know Pelor is real and wants us to destroy undead? HAve you ever seen him? Have you ever talked to him?" is like asking "How do we know the king is real and wants us to pay taxes? Have you ever seen him? Have you ever talked to him? He might just be a figment of our communal imagination."

Lapak
2007-03-27, 08:19 AM
That's the one thing that I'd object to. When you stat gods you remove whatever it is that makes them gods in the first place. Suddenly they are just super-powerful NPCs.For the gods that the campaign world deals with, I'm actually fine with that. Plenty of real-world pantheons were made up of very, very powerful individuals who still had definite limitations and vulnerabilities.

I'm liking the model used by Stephen Erikson in his Malazan books more and more lately; the gods are very, very potent but still ultimately vulnerable, both to each other and to sufficiently powerful or dangerous semi-mortal agencies. They exist, and no one denies that, and they have religions that they support with divine magic and influence - but they don't start stepping on mortal toes, messing with earthly empires, and so on. Because gaining too much material power is an invitation for all the other gods and all the other pantheons to come over and beat you down before you become unstoppable.

In practice, in my gameworld, this means that I prefer the gods to be real and powerful but primarily active through their followers only. There is little-to-no direct divine intervention, ever.

Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick
2007-03-27, 08:25 AM
I prefer visible/apparent deities, but not necessarily involved, and almost never what they appear to be.

So, if you go to the temple of God X (mysterious brother of Speed God), you are likely to find his clerics, you are likely to find some manifestation of his divine power, and if you cast the proper spell you can see a manifestation of the man/woman/thing hrirself.

But if you delve a bit closer, there is every likelihood that said manifestation is going to open its head like a disgusting, bloody flower and make you glad I'm not using a sanity system, for the few moments before it tentacles your face off.

Talya
2007-03-27, 08:35 AM
Visible and highly active. Any deities who may exist in real life are already too invisible. I like my fantasy to have active and obvious gods.

Om
2007-03-27, 10:27 AM
For the gods that the campaign world deals with, I'm actually fine with that. Plenty of real-world pantheons were made up of very, very powerful individuals who still had definite limitations and vulnerabilities. Each to their own of course. That said, I do prefer my deities to be somewhat divine :smallwink:

talsine
2007-03-27, 10:42 AM
Extra spicy, with a side of potatoes.

i prefer steamed vegies to potatoes...

to be honest, if i could do away with them, i would. But i can't for the most part, so they are as invisible as possible. If you encounter a god, its more likely some crazed priest who thinks he's the god reborn and i've only ever done that once. I prefer the Arcana Evolved system of magic where there is no arcane or divine, its just magic. makes it easier.

Woot Spitum
2007-03-27, 10:57 AM
I'm into the whole greek and roman mythology, the gods are way the hell there, and they're all around. But they're fickle and vengeful, you don't know when you're gonna wake up after not killing the correct cattle to find your wife's pregnant with a minotaur from the other bull.

I couldn't agree more. There something about playing in a world where a deity's alignment is largely determined by it's current mood.

Krellen
2007-03-27, 11:08 AM
Invisible and active.

The gods of my campaign world cannot enter the Prime Material Plane. One of the ancient gods from before creation sacrificed his divinity to seal the Prime Material off from divine intervention (largely because a rival was about to destroy it personally). The gods can only affect the Prime Material - and all its people - through mortal agents. For that matter, outsiders can only tread upon the Prime Material through the intercession of mortal agents. Without a mortal to open a Gate, no outsider walks on the Prime Material plane.

People know the gods exist, but few have ever seen them.

Drider
2007-03-27, 08:44 PM
I made a world where while the world was being made+250 years,(players had to be born at least 1700 years after this, not being able to talk to anyone who saw them, or see any art of them) the gods physically manifested and helped their respective races(only race gods existed so far) until the "other" gods(ones like pelor, heironneous, nerull, etc) came into existance as lesser gods and other planes were created.

ajkkjjk52
2007-03-27, 09:01 PM
I generally go visible, FR-style.

In my current dystopian-fantasy game, I've put an interesting twist on it. The gods are visible, everyone knows they're up there, and many worship them, but it's technically illegal to do so, as it distracts from service to the government.

Basically, while everyone knows the gods are there, some people don't worship them because they consider it a lesser priority. And so far the gods haven't taken a personal stake in it, as the govenrment's still standing.

Innis Cabal
2007-03-27, 09:03 PM
forgotten realms style or more of a faith style with no real "gods" just belief and zeal

TheThan
2007-03-27, 09:42 PM
I like mine fried with a hint of hot sauce.

No seriously, I like my deities to be far away and distant, but there is no doubt they exist (well except for my atheistic cleric, he believes the gods don’t exist, this belief is so strong that he’s gained cleric levels. I plan on preaching the truth to the masses and eventually rising to god hood myself, therefore becoming the very thing I don’t believe in. The direct result would be the destruction of the pantheon and the destruction of the world). Having every third NPC being a god in disguise is just dumb. The gods in my world are generally tied up doing the sort of godly stuff their supposed to be doing.
I mean for example the goddess of love makes people fall in love, give birth, protect comminutes (in the form of her clerics), that sort of stuff. Where the god of say death is busy making sure people die when their supposed do, keep tabs on the undead, and making sure the souls of those who made it to the afterlife are being looked after (all my gods have their own servants of various sorts).

Kosmopolite
2007-03-27, 09:49 PM
Well, ordinarily, I might prefer them to be a possibility, but not a certainty. My mind has been changed, however, by the Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. I think the concept of very real and flawed gods such as those (or the ones in Hercules/Xena, based on Ancient Greek mythology) fit perfectly with a fantasy setting. Their petty, fickle natures mean that they won't automatically save the righteous, yet might still get involved in a given storyline on a whim. The fact that "gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at." Just makes me laugh. And make my theological choices carefully.

Galathir
2007-03-27, 11:52 PM
Our gaming group always uses homebrewed worlds, but the deities are pretty much always visible. While you probably won't ever see the gods themselves, their aspects, paragons, and servants are pretty common. If you really start messing with the worshippers of [insert deity here] you can be pretty sure one of his servants will be after you shortly.

PnP Fan
2007-03-28, 12:36 AM
Thanks for the responses everyone!
My personal preference is for invisible deities. To me the Cleric/Paladin that actually has to have faith in order to receive spells is much more interesting. Deities that are visible don't require faith, though they do require servants and people to guide their worshippers, it lacks the sense of conviction that a cleric ought to have. But that's just a personal preferrence, and I certainly enjoy playing in settings like FR, or Planescape (can't get more visible than that!) as well.

clericwithnogod
2007-03-28, 12:42 AM
As a player, I prefer my deities whimpering at my feet for mercy.

In my current campaign under construction, I have a mixture of traditional visible pantheons by region and a triumverate of three invisible deities (one evil, one good, one neutral). There are multiple organizations worshipping each of the triumverate, each of course convinced that their way is the right way.

There are also independent clerics of the deities and clerics which worship no god. Each group or individual has their own beliefs about the cosmology and each other. A KN:Religion roll will tell you what a group believes, but not which group is "right"...

Dervag
2007-03-28, 01:02 AM
:smallfrown:

I have a non-deific NPC like this. 36 Int, 16 Wis, 14 Cha. I really have no idea how to play her.One trick dating back to the old Gygax-written stuff is to assume that whatever the DM knows, the NPC knows. The fact that she has 'human' wisdom actually makes this easier; it should be possible to fool a hypergenius with 'merely human' wisdom, though not easy.


In reply to brian c:
Being as divinely intelligent as she is, she devotes most of her time to observation and not acting, realizing that all actions have (un)forseen consequences. You know, the butterfly effect, she wags her finger today and in 127 years a great villain is born to take over half of the continent and killing millions of innocents in his ascent to power. But only his military might will be able to confront the demon invasion due to happen in 162 years and 3 months. The signs are there if you can see them.The catch is that failure to act will also have huge 'butterfly' consequences. So she'll probably be acting all the time, sometimes in ways calculated to have butterfly effects and sometimes on the basis of her short term interests. There is no way to avoid the butterfly effect, and no way to predict it even with transhuman intelligence because it hinges on unobservable differences between initial conditions.


If she's the party ally, send the party on seemingly silly quests - save the baron's son on level 2, have the baron junior fade from sight become commander-in-chief to the duke and show up with an army and a navy 16 levels later when the players's keep is besieged by the evil barbarian horde?Exactly.

Ted_Stryker
2007-03-28, 01:03 AM
Yes, they exist.

No, they do not have the time and/or inclination to intervene on your behalf, or even to chat. Unless you disjoin one of their artifacts or some such.

Iron_Mouse
2007-03-28, 06:22 AM
I actually have various kinds of gods.
First there are the New Gods, a trio of one good, one neutral and one evil deity. They appeared a few years after the (much more numerous) Old Gods have vanished. After they almost destroyed the world by being to..."active", they made a pact that they would never again interfere. No one doubts their existence and they give spells or appear in visions/dreams and the like, but no avatars or lightning bolts out of the sky.

The old Dragon Gods existed since the beginning of time, but they never seemed to care what happened in the mortal world. They don't give spells or show any signs of their existence. The dragons don't seem to care either, as they aren't religious. So no one knows for sure.

Then there are some minor gods (mostly evil) who can't enter the material plane (because they don't have the power, are imprisoned, sleeping etc.) but would do so if they could, as they aren't bound to the pact. It's illegal to worship these gods and most people don't even know about them, but sometimes cults rise who try to call/free/whatever them. But as long as we have PCs who stop them, the world is safe :smalltongue:

And then there are some "great old one" style gods, who actually live in the material plane. They are no traditional gods, but actually incredibly powerful creatures from other material worlds, horribly alien and almost completely unknown. Most of them could destroy the world instantly, but they sleep, are distracted, too dumb or have other reasons for not doing it. The weakest one of these beings is actually the Tarrasque, which (as usual) awakes every few centuries to wreak havoc and eat a city or two and then goes to sleep again. You can kill it (it's of course a little beefed up so it can't be killed with allips and such crap - but you can still try to beat it in direct combat...) and wish it dead, but even if you do, it will reform itself and return somewhere in the future.

So, it's quite possible for the PCs to meet a god who rampages through the landscape, but they can't expect their *own* gods to interfere and help them with that problem.

Shadow of the Sun
2007-03-28, 08:32 AM
Another good way of making the status of the gods indistinct is to make Arcane Magic and Divine Magic indistinguishable except to those who are really learned. This way commoners cannot tell between a powerful cleric or a powerful wizard, and it makes it so only a really powerful wizard or a divine caster can tell the difference.

For my avatars, because I am a massive fan of overkill, each one can cast as a level 25 cleric with Epic Spellcasting.

I_Got_This_Name
2007-03-28, 03:42 PM
Barbecued.

On a more serious note:
I generally prefer invisible (more interesting religion), as per Eberron, but the other extreme, with the gods running around continually, is interesting too; having the gods be highly visible yet passive looks like a cop-out.

Gorbash Kazdar
2007-03-28, 04:04 PM
I prefer mine sunny-side up, with an order of sausages.

In seriousness, it depends on the campaign world. In some cases, the visible concept - sometimes taken to further extremes than with FR - works better, in others, the invisible serves the tone and feel better. If I had to choose, I think I would go with the latter, though. I don't like the idea that the gods could come down and crush whatever adversary the PCs are facing and muck up a plot, even if there are very good reasons for this not to occur in the campaign world. Also, I like a little more flexibility with religions and clerics, and invisible gods offer more leeway there.

Latronis
2007-03-28, 04:51 PM
Invisible and active.

The gods of my campaign world cannot enter the Prime Material Plane. One of the ancient gods from before creation sacrificed his divinity to seal the Prime Material off from divine intervention (largely because a rival was about to destroy it personally). The gods can only affect the Prime Material - and all its people - through mortal agents. For that matter, outsiders can only tread upon the Prime Material through the intercession of mortal agents. Without a mortal to open a Gate, no outsider walks on the Prime Material plane.

People know the gods exist, but few have ever seen them.

Mine is kinda similiar to this, there are two true gods, invisible, have no influence don't get worshipped etc they are basically just two greater opposed powers representing basically order vs chaos

Cosmology is different, there is planets in a solar system, each is a prime material plane and each has its own spirit world, which is close enough to other planes not to matter on the surface. Now once upon a time powerful critters came about on some of said planets and learnt to travel between worlds, created servants, became worshipped, discovered a way to draw power from that worship and basically became gods in a dnd sense, now on the standard dnd timeframe world where i run campaigns said critters are true dragons and interstellar warfare was not going in there favor (they were invaded by 'gods' from a dying world) so they abandoned the world to save it from outside sources effectively creating a barrier that cut the world off from other worlds. If you think of the planets as living entities composed of 3 parts: body, mind and soul the body is the battery, the soul is the life and the mind is control station and all the minds are connected via a sort of interstellar superconscious these original gods could follow the links the superconscious to the life of the destination and make themselves known on the physical world through the spiritual. A mind without contact stagnates and without control the body wastes and the spirit suffers so severing the world from the superconscious is not an option (this wasn't thought out but rather instinctual) so instead they limited the interaction between physical and spiritual to one way, the physical feeds the spiritual but the spirit can't affect the physical without the intervention on the physical side, then they abandoned there physical bodies to become a pure spiritual barrier around the planet and like the barrier between worlds can only be penetrated from planet side (which comes into play in a more modern time frame) So they become largely forgotten but protecting there home.

Only now there creations evolve and become sentient\sapient (which ever largely inaccurate term you prefer) and like the planet from which they sprang are comprised of 3 parts and like wise connected by a superconscious(has to do with explanation of the division between psionic, arcane, and divine magics) only these people have learned to manipulate the 3 so now mortals can interact with the spirit world, and that gives extraplanar critters a source of influence on the material world (and sometimes alien entities from other worlds) aswell as a way into the physical world (via summoning\gating etc) and the best way of influencing the spirit world? belief. If you believe this exacting ritual makes this happen, it does. So these pesky mortals unwillingly have invited invasion.. only the original gods can't intervene for starters they are too ancient and to little known to have much influence and returning to the material is weakening the barrier, and the one overly passionate and benevolent dragon who did so was banished and punished, she intervened risking greater doom and was forced by combined might of the others to do so for eternity, now she roams from place to place as the highest authority of the largely contrived religion of the protector goddess as the only mortal who communes directly with the goddess. Forced to live away from her peers and forever protect the mortals she became fond of.

So creatures worship an ideal in the form a deity who has no direct influence, or occassionally a powerful mortal who has become eternal through worship but is too powerful to leave the spiritual world to access the physical and only has influence through worshippers(such as the entirety of the elven pantheon).

There are real invisible gods, but no-one can actually know they are real. Athiesm is valid choice, and many people as a society dont even hold to the concept of gods. Clerics cast spells much as any wizard...... although to cast a cleric, which the common man can't tell the difference requires faith so believing in a god is just as valid.

Mechanically clerics need a patron diety, other forms of divine power are covered by other classes, and specifically clerical powers are dependant on deity (and yes people can worship false gods, or weaker spiritual creatures) Domains are picked from deities list, and turn\rebuke and spon. inflict\cure is dependant on deity rather then alignment (the protector goddess mentioned aboves clerics spontaneously convert to inflict spells while turning undead for example)

uh so yeah in short: INVISIBLE

Hzurr
2007-03-28, 04:57 PM
I like my dieties like I like my coffee; Hot and Strong! .... With a spoon in them!

Overlord
2007-03-28, 04:58 PM
Well, I actually prefer for my campaigns to not have deities at all.

Firstly, the presence of beings that can swoop down and make everything better greatly de-emphasizes the PCs' contributions. There simply shouldn't be an NPC with nigh-unlimited power that the PCs can come crying home to. If such beings exist and can access the Prime, there's no reason they need the PCs (this is the classic problem that some, obviously including me, have with direct involvement of deities, and oddly enough, I've never seen a good solution to this problem).

So if that's my big problem with deities, why don't I just switch to an invisible style?

Well, I do prefer a style of play in which the PCs are pretty much on their own, in the grand scheme of things (not that there's anything wrong with powerful allies; I run games with them all the time).

But more importantly, I just never like the idea of a bunch of guys sitting around a table roleplaying followers of invented gods. But a big part of that goes into religion, which I'm forbidden to discuss here on pain of death. :smalltongue:

EvilElitest
2007-03-28, 05:01 PM
Iron Kingdom Style

Whats that?
from,
EE

Fax Celestis
2007-03-28, 05:02 PM
How do I like my deities? Medium-well.

GunMage
2007-03-28, 08:33 PM
Whats that?
from,
EE

In the Iron Kingdoms, the gods exist and are known to exist. Their existence is proved by the powers of their clergy and rare, very rare, divine manifestations. Gods do not have avatars, but they can manifest their power in mortals.

Theodora
2007-03-29, 04:26 AM
I like them visible. Not all the time, but, yes, visible. It is sooo thriling.

The Prince of Cats
2007-03-29, 04:56 AM
I like my deities like the Klingon gods... killed many centuries ago in glorious battle.

Actually, I have toyed with that idea for use in my campaigns. I have often see the gods as vulnerable (as the Norsemen did) but I would argue that killing a god just leaves a slight vacuum that will be filled before long.

Mr._Wilson
2007-03-29, 05:01 AM
Mixture between the two styles. The gods are there, everyone knows about it, but they only interact through mortal agents or manifest in symbology, which allows the players to control their own destiny. I.E. extremely rare to no direct interaction.

Theodora
2007-03-29, 05:47 AM
Mixture between the two styles. The gods are there, everyone knows about it, but they only interact through mortal agents or manifest in symbology, which allows the players to control their own destiny. I.E. extremely rare to no direct interaction. That's right. I find it fantastic. That was what I had in mind.:smallsmile:

JadedDM
2007-03-29, 06:06 AM
I don't run any published worlds, just my own home-brewed worlds. I make it a point to make each world's pantheon completely different from the other. I have a lot of fun with this, trying to come up with new ways to use gods.

On one world, the gods are fairly invisible. Due to a pact they all made (after their meddling almost destroyed the world), they are not allowed to intervene in the mortal world directly at all. Thus, they can give prayers and powers and sometimes give mysterious dreams, but they never pop into the Prime or anything like that. I notice, as a result, that I wind up with an unusual amount of agnostic PCs.

On another world, it's quite the opposite. Like the ancient Greek gods, these gods are incredibly meddlesome. They are constantly poking around the mortal realm, seeing mortals as playthings to have some fun with. Insulting a god, even in passing, might cause them to turn you into a bug or something. They often send avatars down to the world and tend to cause more trouble than not.

On a third world, the gods are not actually real gods per se, but incredibly powerful dragons (akin to the Overlords from Dragonlance). This means they are actually mortal and can be slain (although that is no easy task).

A fourth world is actually monotheisitc, with just the one god. And like a bored DM, he does occassionally 'stir things up' just to keep things interesting.

Matthew
2007-03-29, 07:15 PM
My Homebrew Campaign World has a Monotheistic Religion, but only in the sense that there is only one 'true' God. Numerous Deities and Divine Powers (in the sense of Supernatural beings) exist, but very rarely manifest in the form of Avatars, though miraculous events in the vicinity of their Holy Places are reasonably common. These sorts of Deities are mainly invisible, but Outsiders are not.

Druid
2007-03-29, 07:19 PM
I prefer Eberron's style. Makes it more interesting.

NecroPaladin
2007-03-29, 07:22 PM
I like my dieties to have questionable existence on the material plane, but to be fully corporeal and ready to kick butt on their home plane. If they do go to the material plane, they cannot manifest as themselves, and are not conciously aware of their divine powers (IE: an avatar, but they don't manifest themselves so much as possess a body and generally not even change the person's thoughts)

PirateMonk
2007-03-29, 07:40 PM
I actually kind of like the setup in Diana Wynne Jones's Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin: the gods occasionally show up and either mess around or just chat, but they aren't clearly visible.

lumberofdabeast
2007-03-30, 10:19 AM
Very, very, very visible.

As in, the CG and CN deities of my pantheon visit every pub on the plane at least once a year.