What Killed the Gods?

[gameogre]

I'm working on a new game world and in it I want the Gods to all be dead. Clerics are replaced with Mystics who tap into divine magic through another source.

So what Killed the Gods?

My first thought is Titans because well...how cool is THAT? Ragnarok!

Geez Ragnarok might even be a good setting name haha.

Anyway. What do you guys think? What would be the coolest most badarsed way to kill off the Gods? Like ALL of them!


The Titan idea seems fun as I can have Titans still around and not giving a crud about the pc's mortal realms ect... or even with sinister designs on them.

Heck Titans could be more Cthulhu and less normal titans.

oh yeah that sounds wicked!

[JNAProductions]

People. Ordinary people.

Edit: But really, you seem to have a pretty good idea already.

[Daishain]

Most settings have the gods thriving on the devotion of their followers. Gaining energy from it somehow. Perhaps a massive eldritch parasite has surrounded the prime material, feeding on this energy and starving the gods to death.

[Sigreid]

Lack of worship as people turn from the fickle and petty gods to mysticism for their spiritual needs.

[Mara]

I've ran settings like that. In such a world I placed a Godslayer in it. This person decided to test the gods. Any true god would be able to defeat then while false gods would die. All the gods then proved false. This entity would then watch the world for further gods to test, meanwhile the universe had to deal with the consequence of no gods maintaining the world and the aftermath of the great destruction caused from the battles between the Godslayer and all the host of heaven and hell.

[Ralanr]

The gods killed the gods.

[gameogre]

What if instead of no Gods there were only very few sick and twisted ones left?

Like when Ragnarok came some of the Gods seeing what was the wind was blowing threw in with the Titans(Cthulhu).

Imagine Cyric or Loki or even Set still alive but allied and corrupted by the Titans.

A World where Oki the God of Lies and and Blood (a huge obese man from the waist up and a maggot or worm from the waste down) demanding young Blood by the thousands from his Imperial throne!


Ugg now I'm having gods in the world, not dead!

[Ralanr]

What if instead of no Gods there were only very few sick and twisted ones left?

Like when Ragnarok came some of the Gods seeing what was the wind was blowing threw in with the Titans(Cthulhu).

Imagine Cyric or Loki or even Set still alive but allied and corrupted by the Titans.

A World where Oki the God of Lies and and Blood (a huge obese man from the waist up and a maggot or worm from the waste down) demanding young Blood by the thousands from his Imperial throne!


Ugg now I'm having gods in the world, not dead!

Is why the gods are dead important? If not you could make it a mystery.

[ZenBear]

Cthulhu.

In my setting for the campaign I just started gods never existed. The religions and cults of the world are based on an the delusions of mortals that want to believe in a benevolent universe when in fact all magic comes from the sun which was lit by the Great Old Ones to birth life as playthings and tools for experimentation. Divine Magic is typically practiced by clerics of a church, but the power actually comes to their call not by the grace of a deity but by through their belief in the power and will to call it forth.

[Ralanr]

Cthulhu.

In my setting for the campaign I just started gods never existed. The religions and cults of the world are based on an the delusions of mortals that want to believe in a benevolent universe when in fact all magic comes from the sun which was lit by the Great Old Ones to birth life as playthings and tools for experimentation. Divine Magic is typically practiced by clerics of a church, but the power actually comes to their call not by the grace of a deity but by through their belief in the power and will to call it forth.

Faith gives power.

Ok that sounds awesome. Have there been examples of non religious people having similar abilities?

[JNAProductions]

Harry Dresden. He draws power through his faith in magic, such as when he needs to repel vampires. Not D&D, but still a good example.

[Daishain]

Faith gives power.

Ok that sounds awesome. Have there been examples of non religious people having similar abilities?
Arcane spellcasters have similar abilities without the faith. There are differences, but that can be explained away as expectation/approach shaping the result.

[Ralanr]

Harry Dresden. He draws power through his faith in magic, such as when he needs to repel vampires. Not D&D, but still a good example.

I meant in Zenbear's setting.

[Nifft]

Faith gives power.

Ok that sounds awesome. Have there been examples of non religious people having similar abilities?

If this is a 5e setting, then presumably all the other spellcasters, right?

[Forrestfire]

Faith gives power.

Ok that sounds awesome. Have there been examples of non religious people having similar abilities?

That's how it worked in older edition Planescape. Faith fed the gods but also could give people power all on their own.

[JNAProductions]

Harry Dresden. :P

Ah, my bad. At least there's precedence in outside literature.

[Ralanr]

Harry Dresden. :P

Ah, my bad. At least there's precedence in outside literature.

Well that's how I imagine most magic works. That and confidence.

[gameogre]

I think my cleric issues are partly my fault as the DM. In my games the Gods might be there and even have some sort of relationship with the players but it's pretty boring. The cleric dies and another cleric joins and it's pretty much a carbon copy deity wise.

The Gods themselves are boring! Look at their domains! Look at what they are the Gods of?

Seriously? Would any of you devote your lives to these guys? They are so one dimensional and generic.

I think I need Gods with more spunk.

Maybe the players wouldn't want to be a godless Cleric if the Gods were something to be in awe about.

Also I need to make your God matter more. In my games more than once has a player muttered "yeah yeah all hail Lathender, next week it will be Helm we thank, shut it and make with the heals" When the pc's find a evil shrine they loot it and burn it to the ground without a second thought.

I need to make them afraid of the Gods.

[Balyano]

Cthulhu.

In my setting for the campaign I just started gods never existed. The religions and cults of the world are based on an the delusions of mortals that want to believe in a benevolent universe when in fact all magic comes from the sun which was lit by the Great Old Ones to birth life as playthings and tools for experimentation. Divine Magic is typically practiced by clerics of a church, but the power actually comes to their call not by the grace of a deity but by through their belief in the power and will to call it forth.

Seems to me this is just the wishful thinking of mortals trying to elevate their importance, to give more meaning to their existence. The truth is, mortals are an inconsequential byproduct, not something created on purpose. Thinking that the Great Old Ones created mortals for some purpose is just arrogance by mortals. Mortals are no consequence to the creators, best not to gain their attention either, they might choose to fix the accident of mortal life. As for why they lit the sun? Who knows why they do anything, I'm not going to ask them.....or bring my existence to their attention.

[Ralanr]

I think my cleric issues are partly my fault as the DM. In my games the Gods might be there and even have some sort of relationship with the players but it's pretty boring. The cleric dies and another cleric joins and it's pretty much a carbon copy deity wise.

The Gods themselves are boring! Look at their domains! Look at what they are the Gods of?

Seriously? Would any of you devote your lives to these guys? They are so one dimensional and generic.

I think I need Gods with more spunk.

Maybe the players wouldn't want to be a godless Cleric if the Gods were something to be in awe about.

Also I need to make your God matter more. In my games more than once has a player muttered "yeah yeah all hail Lathender, next week it will be Helm we thank, shut it and make with the heals" When the pc's find a evil shrine they loot it and burn it to the ground without a second thought.

I need to make them afraid of the Gods.

I see your dilemma.

I suggest that you don't let clerics talk with their gods easily unless they are cap.

I'd also have your gods influence the world in rare but obvious ways. One god I designed was a God of Law (lawful neutral) whose purpose was to make sure a law works, if it benefits a good or evil person is irrelevant. If it doesn't work as intended then it must be changed. His clerics are basically lawyers and prosecutors (really the whole religion is based around practice in law). For judges they attempt a ritual to summon him, which usually fails and summons an angel or outsider to act in his stead. When he decides to be a judge (which is rare for mortal courts) the cases become legendary even if the offenses were minor. Especially since when he is the judge, no lies can be told and no action that is harmful to the court may be taken.

[Keltest]

How about this: Nothing killed the gods. They just left for some reason, leaving the mortals behind. They have no idea why they were suddenly abandoned, and theyre pretty upset about it, but also curious.

[Balyano]

Maybe the gods were not quite as awesome as people think.

Perhaps the dwarves were simply manufactured by azers, dwarven culture remembered their early handlers as divine beings.

Dragon sorcer-scientists did a little work on some spare eggs, created kobolds to serve them. Dragons are gods...oh these gods die sometimes...dragons are made in the gods image and there are really some immortal ones out there that dont die.

Some archfey gets ancestor worshiped to such an enormous degree that over time the elves forget that they aren't really divine.

An ancient coatl teaches some hunter gatherers about agriculture, masonry, architecture, astronomy, medicine, law, ect. He must be a god the mortals say.

Over time these ''divine'' beings go on to do other things...or die. But the mortals continue worshiping them convinced that they are gods. After a while they notice these gods don't answer...hey but mystics have an alternative.

[Telwar]

So what Killed the Gods?

Their worshippers, when the gods refused sit the (bleep) down, shut the (bleep) up, and keep granting them their 14th-level spell slots like they're supposed to.

Though they initially were just "boxed", plugged into devices to keep them alive while mutilated to prevent resistance. Some of the less useful gods were, of course, sacrificed and turned into artifacts.

They wound up dying when this civilization of ridiculously high level adventurers (don't dare call them heroes) collapsed.


And thus, your game.

[Sir_Leorik]

In the Dragonlance campaign setting, the gods distanced themselves from mortals after the Cataclysm, in hopes that the mortals would repent. The mortals accused the gods of abandoning them and turned to "new" gods that didn't provide magic.

In your campaign you could have the gods make a similar choice, to withdraw from mortalkind as a punishment for sins, to encourage mortals to become more independent or for some other reason. What it boils down to is that its better if the whereabouts of the gods become a mystery. Maybe some (or all) of them are dead, maybe they went to Tahiti (it's a magical place, or so I've heard) but the PCs shouldn't know anything other than they are gone. If the PCs decide to pursue the mystery, you can leave clues; if the players don't care, don't bother developing this plot thread any further.

[gullveig]

So what Killed the Gods?

The One God killed Himself.

He created the world without life and to bring life to the universe, He had to kill Himself.

Now, every living creature are a bit of God Himself.

[KorvinStarmast]

What Killed the Gods?
Smoking cigarettes.

(This is a riff on an old Far Side toon about dinosaurs).

[FatherLiir]

Copious amounts of alcohol. Don't drink and drive kids.

[supergoji18]

Godzilla...

[Orbis Orboros]

The novel Hogfather from the Discworld (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld) series comes to mind here.

It's a satirical goofy series, but the Hogfather concept fits: someone kills the spirit of Father Christmas by casting a spell to make the whole world stop believing in him. He does this by going to the Tooth Fairy and using her teeth (so he has bits of each person in the world, that they may be affected), but like I said, goofy satire.

The basic concept could be applied - mass mind alteration erasing belief in the gods (and their subsequent demise).

[Shining Wrath]

Boredom. After eternity upon eternity of the same struggles of good versus evil, law versus chaos, elf versus orc, human versus human, and another few eternities - the gods got bored of answering prayers and granting spells, the mortals got bored of worship, and everything just stopped.

However, all the power that was once granted to mortals is still floating around like so much phlogiston, waiting to be used.

[TheCountAlucard]

So what Killed the Gods?THE ICE AGE! :smalltongue:

[georgie_leech]

Harry Dresden. He draws power through his faith in magic, such as when he needs to repel vampires. Not D&D, but still a good example.

Quibble, it's less that magic is faith and more faith is magic. Faith in the Dresden-verse has its own, difficult-to-quantify but very real power. He was able to repel vampires because they respond to displays of real faith, which Dresden's belief in the power of magic used to bring about good certainly qualifies. The rest of the time, it's all focus, concentration, and careful alignment of energies, without much "faith" to back it up. At least until Soulfire starts getting tossed around...

[Rimeraven]

I like your original idea, with the Titans. It makes one really scary world. Not only has everyone's safety blanket been taken away, but in its place is standing a big bad wolf.

Another idea is Fred Saberhagen's 12 swords books. The gods get bored and make 12 powerful swords to send down to earth to see what happens. The artifacts end up making people so powerful they stop believing in the gods, and make the gods weak enough to be killed.

[Vogonjeltz]

I'm working on a new game world and in it I want the Gods to all be dead. Clerics are replaced with Mystics who tap into divine magic through another source.

So what Killed the Gods?

My first thought is Titans because well...how cool is THAT? Ragnarok!

Geez Ragnarok might even be a good setting name haha.

Anyway. What do you guys think? What would be the coolest most badarsed way to kill off the Gods? Like ALL of them!


The Titan idea seems fun as I can have Titans still around and not giving a crud about the pc's mortal realms ect... or even with sinister designs on them.

Heck Titans could be more Cthulhu and less normal titans.

oh yeah that sounds wicked!

Well, it depends on what the overarching mythos is...are you tacitly saying the Greek pantheon exists in your universe? If not, no Titans.
Do the norse gods exist? If not, no Ragnarok per se (although you could substitute any 'war of the gods in which they're wiped out to a man').

etc...

Here's a non-specific possibility: All the deities have winked out because of a substantial decline in actual worship in favor of mere lip-service. The deities subsist on genuine prayer (which is why they bother to reward it), but in the last hundred years of the world the existence of real belief has declined to the point that deities are now basically reduced to non-entities. This would have consequences for how it's all portrayed, but it could be a thing.

[ZenBear]

Faith gives power.

Ok that sounds awesome. Have there been examples of non religious people having similar abilities?

There is a cult in the western sea that worships a kraken. They have Storm Clerics. Also three elf royals of the northern kingdom once led an expedition into the wilderness to end a persistent threat and when they returned they were changed, one of whom became a Death Cleric. Lastly there was a mad southerner with unexplained powers who wrote a scary book and was torn to shreds by invisible forces in the middle of a crowd in broad daylight (10 points if you can guess his name!).


Seems to me this is just the wishful thinking of mortals trying to elevate their importance, to give more meaning to their existence. The truth is, mortals are an inconsequential byproduct, not something created on purpose. Thinking that the Great Old Ones created mortals for some purpose is just arrogance by mortals. Mortals are no consequence to the creators, best not to gain their attention either, they might choose to fix the accident of mortal life. As for why they lit the sun? Who knows why they do anything, I'm not going to ask them.....or bring my existence to their attention.

Exactly! 😁

[Nifft]

1 - The God of Technology invented canned ambrosia.

2 - The God of Being a Jerk crashed his dirtbike into a stack of cans, but he hid his mistake, because that's what being a jerk is all about.

3 - The Gods died from botulism.


Lastly there was a mad southerner with unexplained powers who wrote a scary book and was torn to shreds by invisible forces in the middle of a crowd in broad daylight (10 points if you can guess his name!).

The Mad Carib, El-Jasred.

[AbyssStalker]

The gods were cursed by the last generation of gods to die off, whom were in turn cursed by the generation before that...

If you want to have a horrific feel for whatever way you decide to get rid of the gods, make sure to imply whatever happened to them is part of a cycle, people like to think that their actions make a difference and PCs EXPECT their actions to change things, so having them not be able to change the cycle in any apparently meaningful way can screw with them, especially if they are becoming gods themselves...

P.S. Alternatively, Sarda. Sarda killed off all the gods, if any of your players have read 8 Bit Theater they'll know. (If you haven't, I recommend it)

[saeval]

In the Dragonlance campaign setting,.

They actually present more than one option on gods leaving/dying. In the one described, they actually took offense at our collective pride. "Good" was winning, and was persecuting all sorts of people and the high clerist was spouting how great he is, and oh yea, my gods swell too. The gods got pissed, gave one last test/warning, which they failed, scooped up the genuinely faithful clerics to join them in their respective heavens, and tossed a Meteor down which altered the shape of the planet. Then they kicked back and watched their creations struggle and resent them, and turn elsewhere in an attempt to get back what once was.

They also had trapped the "father of all and nothing" when they had originally created the world. They attempted to capture some of "dads" essence, and were a bit too successful, trapping him in a gem. He wasn't too happy about it. The evilest of the gods used the confusion to literally steal the world away. kinda a zany plot point, but played out well. She lay exhausted, slowly regaining her strength while the world tried to make sense of its new stars/lack of godly influence. Mysticism and Sorcery were discovered out of desperation/need. They literally didn't know it was possible before that. kinda messed with the schools of magic.

ramble ramble. lots of good sources for why they are gone/dead. Making the gods something actually fun to be invested in, is the best solution though.

[gameogre]

Well, it depends on what the overarching mythos is...are you tacitly saying the Greek pantheon exists in your universe? If not, no Titans.
Do the norse gods exist? If not, no Ragnarok per se (although you could substitute any 'war of the gods in which they're wiped out to a man').

etc...

Here's a non-specific possibility: All the deities have winked out because of a substantial decline in actual worship in favor of mere lip-service. The deities subsist on genuine prayer (which is why they bother to reward it), but in the last hundred years of the world the existence of real belief has declined to the point that deities are now basically reduced to non-entities. This would have consequences for how it's all portrayed, but it could be a thing.

Because if you use titans with other Gods the REAL Greek Gods show up and Groincrit you? You better tell WOTC that cause they used Titans in the realms!

Also Ragnarok is a cool name for THE END, I'm gonna steal it and if the real norse Gods show up to complain.....I will quietly and politely call it something else.

[Valwyn]

This is setting specific for the Forgotten Realms (and maybe 3.5), but if someone brought down the Wall of the Faithless, mortals wouldn't need to worship gods and could starve them to death. The Wall basically takes the souls of everyone who dies without worshipping a god, tortures them for a while, and turns them into a brick. These souls cease to exist. Completely. Everyone agrees Myrkul is a meanie, but apparently even the good gods approve of the Wall he made (which, fun fact, not all mortals know it exists, so millions end up there because no one sent them a memo). Kelemvor thought of tearing it down when he replaced Myrkul as god of the dead, but the other gods dissuaded him. You could have an alternative universe in which Kelemvor said "screw it, this is effed up" and takes down the Wall (possibly with the approval/help of Illmater). If you do, Kelemvor's original plan was to arrange faithless souls by alignment. He would place Good souls in nice areas of his domain and Evil souls in nasty places (I don't recall the details at the moment). This had the effect that Good adventurers weren't affraid of death any more and became more reckless while Evil characters became more careful (doesn't make too much sense to me, but that's what happened during Kelemvor's early rule).

[In fact, Mask of the Betrayer (the awesome NWN2 expansion) toys with the possibility of tearing down the Wall, but the developers didn't want to mess too much with the canon. Which is ironic, since the 4th ed removed the Wall entirely as far as I can tell. The best Evil ending also comes up with a way of killing gods (massive spoilers ahead):

if you eat what remains of Myrkul and Akachi, you become an eldritch horror. You become an incarnation of the hunger of the Wall of the Faithless, something that even the gods can't destroy, for how can you destroy that which is hollow? In the epilogue, they attack you. And you devour them, destroying them forever. Not all the gods, but you inflict heavy casuaties to them. It's ambiguous whether they destoyed you or not, but they claim to have been victorious. Kelemvor points out that your soul never passed through his domain for judgement, so you might still be alive. In fact, he theorizes that you might be the only truely eternal being out there, and that when the multiverse finally ceases to be, you will still exist.

Good characters have the possibility of joining future attempts to tear down the Wall, but it never happens. At least, the epilogue doesn't say anything about it.]

And I think I might have gone way off topic, but hopefully this will give you some ideas.

[Kane0]

Ur-Priests.

[Coidzor]

There's always bringing back Pandorym from 3.5's Elder Evils, I suppose. An Elder Evil that exists just to destroy the gods and, IIRC, steal away worlds/planes such that gods not already active on that world can't perceive it or reach out to it, directly or indirectly.

Or you could go with the route that the planet itself that everything is happening on is comprised of one or more dead deities. I believe Norse mythology did something similar with Ymir's corpse and it's come up in other various mythologies that reality is made out of someone or another's kidney.

Or with a sort of Manichean dualism where there's two sister planets that are sort of dark mirrors to one another that are the corpses of two gods that died fighting one another. The inhabitants of both worlds may or may not be continuing this feud. *coughXenobladeSagacough*

[Vogonjeltz]

Because if you use titans with other Gods the REAL Greek Gods show up and Groincrit you? You better tell WOTC that cause they used Titans in the realms!

Also Ragnarok is a cool name for THE END, I'm gonna steal it and if the real norse Gods show up to complain.....I will quietly and politely call it something else.

I'm referring to the common understandings of the words, in the same way Armageddon is understood to refer to a rather specific event, and The Book of the Heavenly Cow refers to yet another very specific ending of humanity (Egyptian myth).

So, yeah, it would be very weirdly confusing to pull critical mythological events and only use some of them out of context.

[Desiani]

What about they died to a lack of faith? The Science or Mathmatical Arcane Science?

[Knaight]

They never were all that divine, and they faded away. The old god-kings and god-queens were astoundingly powerful mages, splitting the entire world's reserve of magic between them and a handful of priests, higher servants, and civilians who illegally learned it. Between a vastly higher population and significantly more widespread magic, their piece of the pie shrunk to where they became no more than very old, very experienced mages. Some died because they couldn't even maintain immortality. Some got in over their heads in conflicts with younger people, and were killed. A few remain, but they are known as powerful hermits more than anything, and there are several mages from this generation every bit as powerful as them.

[ZenBear]

They never were all that divine, and they faded away. The old god-kings and god-kings were astoundingly powerful mages, splitting the entire world's reserve of magic between them and a handful of priests, higher servants, and civilians who illegally learned it. Between a vastly higher population and significantly more widespread magic, their piece of the pie shrunk to where they became no more than very old, very experienced mages. Some died because they couldn't even maintain immortality. Some got in over their heads in conflicts with younger people, and were killed. A few remain, but they are known as powerful hermits more than anything, and there are several mages from this generation every bit as powerful as them.

That is a really cool idea. I might use that for my next setting.

[Arcuriel]

In 4e Points of Light, the Primordials fought the Dawn War against the gods and lost. One of the suggestions for varying core settings (presented in the DMG) was if the gods had lost. (iirc that was also behind 4e's Dark Sun, but I'm not sure on that one.)

[Spectre9000]

The eons of countless inner strife have claimed countless Gods. Though new Gods have risen, more have fallen. Now, the Gods are either dead or have removed themselves to the Far Realm, tired or killed by their latest series of battles. Their power and influence has remained for so long due to the tireless work of their disciples, but now even that is dwindling. The evidence of the Gods absence, and their fates have been revealed to the people. This void, left by the Gods, has created a power vacuum that has brought strife to all the Planes of existence.


Your adventurers have been brought up in this hell devoid of Gods, determined to end the mad chaos and restore order back into the world, in their own way. Now is a time of delusional, but ever fervent, Disciples to Gods long gone, and deluded Pretender-Gods. All the Material planes are battlefields, and mortals live and die praying for new gods to rise and end the nightmare. What can your adventurers do? Will they fall to darkness and madness, or shine as a beacon of light and order? Perhaps the next Gods are about to be born... Will they answer prayers, or silence them...?


Additionally, when this campaign is over and your group creates new characters, they can use their previous characters, now gods, for their diety's, and sort of continue your own world.



My 2¢.

[Nifft]

What about they died to a lack of faith? The Science or Mathmatical Arcane Science?

Hmm.

Maybe someone wrote the Anti-Life Equation, but it turned out to be the Anti-Divinity Equation.

The Gods all disappeared in a puff of logic, but it was explicitly Evil Logic, and it can probably be defeated with sufficiently advanced Smiting.

[Celcey]

I think my cleric issues are partly my fault as the DM. In my games the Gods might be there and even have some sort of relationship with the players but it's pretty boring. The cleric dies and another cleric joins and it's pretty much a carbon copy deity wise.

The Gods themselves are boring! Look at their domains! Look at what they are the Gods of?

Seriously? Would any of you devote your lives to these guys? They are so one dimensional and generic.

People did devote their lives to that. Think of the Greek/Roman Pantheon. They're the embodiment of these archetypes, and people really did worship them.


I think I need Gods with more spunk.

Maybe the players wouldn't want to be a godless Cleric if the Gods were something to be in awe about.

Also I need to make your God matter more. In my games more than once has a player muttered "yeah yeah all hail Lathender, next week it will be Helm we thank, shut it and make with the heals" When the pc's find a evil shrine they loot it and burn it to the ground without a second thought.

I need to make them afraid of the Gods.

So make your gods very involved in the world. Take the Greeks, for example. In ancient Greek, you were always a very good host because you never knew if your guests were really the gods in disguise. Have them be human-like in that they have human emotions and human flaws. Hades captured Persephone because he was lonely, and Eros refused to put love in the world because his mother wouldn't let him marry the woman he wanted to. Flesh them out as characters first.

To make it easier on myself, I limit the number of gods I have. For me personally, the way I do it is I'll have a certain number of "greater gods." These are gods in the truest sense, in that no mortal could ever harm them, they cannot be killed, etc etc. So I might have one greater god for every domain, or for every alignment, or maybe I'll just have a certain amount. Make sure your players aren't restricted in domain access, but try and keep it limited enough that you can keep easy track of them. These are the main and universal gods of your world.

Then I have "lesser gods." There are an unlimited number of these, but I don't really care about them as much. They can be anything from the children of the greater gods to anyone who can get enough worship to become a god (a la Banjo the Clown). But What I like about this system is it allows me to keep in pre-made gods, like Asmodeus and Tiamet. It also allows me to have separate pantheons for every race without having to keep track of them all if I don't need them. The lesser gods can technically be killed on their home planes, or however you should choose, but they're still gods. They can be worshipped and smite and blight, but are not as powerful or universal as their greater counterparts.

Also, talk to your players about what they want from the gods of your world. If they're very active in your world, it really can be a lot of fun. And it can make for a good sidequest. An old, ugly woman asks the PCs for a favor with no payment, because she cannot afford it. But secretly, she's a godess in disguise testing your players. Perhaps she has a bigger quest she wants them to complete, now or in the future. Perhaps she just wants to see if they are truly worthy. And maybe they'll get something nice out of it in the end. Who knows? You do!

[eastmabl]

Their own hubris.

[JoeJ]

Some ideas:

1) The gods aren't actually dead, they've just abandoned the world. They know that the universe goes through vast cycles and they've decided to end the current phase, let the cosmos dissolve back into primordial chaos and start over. Yeah, things will suck for mortals for a while, but it will all be better again in only a few million years.

2) Tiamat. No, not that silly dragon, but the real Tiamat that the Babylonians knew the barest hint of. The sea beast. The personification of destruction and chaos. The creature that Cthulhu has nightmares about. She awoke from her slumber, deceived and killed the divine champion Marduk, and quickly devoured all the other gods.

3) Each other. Battles between all the different gods escalated and one by one they were slain by other gods. Now, if there are any gods left, they are in hiding until they're sure that their enemies are all gone.

[ZenBear]

The Aboleths finally got their revenge!

[Windscion]

The One God killed Himself.
He created the world without life and to bring life to the universe, He had to kill Himself.
Now, every living creature are a bit of God Himself.

You mean Lorkhan? Because this is exactly what happened in the Elder Scrolls Lore. (Unless it wasn't. The elves remember it differently than humans do.) Also, the other gods killed him.

Plus, the purpose was not so much to grant life as to grant freedom, meaning and significance to mortals. And it worked!

[manny2510]

They looked to the world and all together one sober dawn yelped an "Oops" of finality. They agreed to start from scratch on the other side of the star the world orbits and casted a world-sized anti-divine magic sphere on the world so nothing magically omnipotent popped up while they were away. Unfortunately as a cooperative effort between the gods the sphere had a quasi-divine power source that "leaks" as divine magic and touches the souls of nearby mortals. As a composite creation, certain aspects of old gods influence these souls more than others, thus Mystics.

[Coidzor]

I'm referring to the common understandings of the words, in the same way Armageddon is understood to refer to a rather specific event, and The Book of the Heavenly Cow refers to yet another very specific ending of humanity (Egyptian myth).

Hm? :smallconfused: Armageddon is generally understood to be a generic term for the end of the world rather than the specific term from the religious text it was popularized by. Hell, Ragnarok is a generic "end of the world" term about as often as it's the specific myth.

[Logosloki]

The gods grew old and died. In hubris they believed they were immortal but alas they were merely long lived. Supplications raised to them reach empty realms and gather an echo of energy. One day these realms might be unlocked and to those who can unravel the secrets will take up the mantle.

[MeeposFire]

The gods died when people decided that they did not exist.

This is a play on an old Planescape concept of belief affects reality and that if enough people believe or if the belief is strong enough it becomes reality. In this reality an arbitrarily large enough group of people had enough belief that the gods ceased to exist. Then the rest of people could doubt that they ever existed at all. Clerics in this setting have no real deity (though perhaps tehy feel otherwise) and are trying to bring the gods back (or are trying to create them in the first place since you may not be able to tell the difference).

[Ralanr]

Science and philosophy?

[JoeJ]

One thing to consider is the role the gods played in the world while they were still alive. Did they just sit around trading spells for worship, or were they actively controlling their various portfolios? If it was the latter, who is doing that now? In other words, what makes the sun come up, and the rain fall, and animals and people give birth, if the gods are all gone?

In one Greek myth, Demeter stopped doing her job because she was upset about her daughter being missing and all the plants in the world stopped growing. If a god like that dies, how does human life continue?

[Xyk]

A disease so deadly that the Gods themselves could not defend against it. Bacteria that ate their eyes and brains, and are now hurtling towards the material realm on some kind of comet.

[PoeticDwarf]

Pandoryn, of course.

[Inevitability]

Pandoryn, of course.

I think you mean Pandorym. I second it, though.

[MinaBee]

A ragtag group of 4 to 6 absurdly specialized, heavily armed, and highly unpredictable humanoid mortals whose exact motivations for murdering a pantheon have long been lost to legend.

[napoleon_in_rag]

So what Killed the Gods?



Friedriche Nietzche????
Richard Dawkins????