How childish is too childish for a pair of over deities?

[Jervis]

This is more a question of tone but I’d like to hear worldbuilding takes as well. Basically this setting follows normal dnd rules with multiple pantheons. Some domains, usually small but important ones, have deities that are effectively the head gods of that domain so every god with said domain basically has to give some of their power up to that deity. Said deity also gains a lot more power than normal from that domain having a presence in the world, the entire world not just areas where they’re worshiped. Gods typically get this position for some unusual reason or by beating the majority of the gods that have that domain in a bet/challenge/fight.

The two most notable deities to hold this high god position are a pair of sibling deities that have the war and magic domains respectively. As you can imagine, pretty powerful. Problem, for everyone else anyway, is that as far as anyone can tell the two only appeared less than a thousand years ago and rose to the position with next to no worshipers. Somehow they beat most of the gods of their respective domains to get the position and ended up more powerful than 90% of deities on the plane despite having a following comparable to a demigod at the time. Nonsensical in setting mystery aside It’s more the problem managing tone for something and figuring out reactions in the setting to the two.

Personality wise one is your typical war god that’s obsessed with fighting, only difference being that he’s only interested in action or war strategy so he doesn’t care for conquest or anything else going with war. So he’s just as amused by war games and gladiators as he is sacking cities. The other war gods just find him annoying. The goddess of magic isn’t so much a matter of personality but she’s a god of magic that hates wizards, which other magic gods don’t like because a lot of their followers are wizards. So to sum it up the two most powerful gods associated with two major domains are unpopular with all the others and can get away with a low following because of a technicality, but getting rid of them would require a lot of cooperation between deities which just doesn’t happen.

Now to the question and why this isn’t a world building thread. I was planning a campaign out that, at one point, would involve a godsmoot style scene between several gods. The in character thing for them is to start bickering like siblings and i’m somewhat worried about tone here. I’m trying to ride between serious and funny and i’m worried this entire plot line might take people out of it. I’d also like to hear some opinions on how other gods would react to this whole situation. Cheers.

[Batcathat]

One way to possibly keep it from being too silly is to emphasize that while they are very childish, they are also extremely powerful. Imagine seeing a three-year old playing with a loaded gun and then magnify that by a thousand. If your players doesn't catch on, maybe have one of the gods throw a temper tantrum during their argument with each other and like destroy a city or something.

[Jay R]

Go read some Greek mythology.

Nothing is too childish for gods.

[Telok]

Go read some Greek mythology.

Nothing is too childish for gods.

Or their heroes & demigods. <cough>Illiad<cough>

...come to think of it every myth cycle I've read in depth had at least a few failures of "act like an adult" on a seemingly regular basis.

[Batcathat]

Go read some Greek mythology.

Nothing is too childish for gods.

That is a good point. Norse mythology have some good examples as well. Loki usually comes off as less evil and more of a jerk (who occasionally does something clever enough to be worth keeping around).

[Kurald Galain]

A great way of making childish deities is giving them something that they Take Extremely Seriously; it's just not something you might expect. So they're all whimsical and selfish and playful except if you Do That One Thing, they will suddenly bare their teeth and disembowel you.

For example in Greek myth, the sacred principle is Hospitality ("Xenia"). Thought the Greek gods were just whimsical selfish jerks? Well, you're wrong. They're whimsical selfish jerks who strongly value Hospitality; and the chief gatekeeper of Hospitality is Zeus himelf, who takes this Extremely Seriously. Meaning in ancient Greece, if you violate Hospitality (against mortals, too), the gods will absolutely band together to murder you and torture you in Tartarus for all eternity (before going back to being whimsical selfish jerks).
Usually in Greek myth, if some god gets outright vicious against mortals, it's not because the god is a whimsical jerk; it's because the mortal violated Hospitality. This is just not apparent to modern readers.

Suggested reading material: this tvtropes page (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality), and anything related to The Fair Folk.

[ShedShadow]

During the Godsmoot itself you could try to have the conversation be serious, i.e. have the gods do an intervention:

"Dear Over-deity, we think that the way that you're approaching this might be oversimplified. You cannot simply out of hand dismiss wizards."

Have the gods sounds like reasonable, albeit disagreeable, participants in the meeting. The Over-deities should instead use a whole host of logical or conversational fallacies to not enter into the argument. i.e.:

"What do you mean 'dismiss wizards'? Like that time X-god took away the Bladed wizards magical power because they had been engaging in the worship of Y-god? Like that?"

Then have the argument get out of hand, with threats being made. I feel that would fit the seriousness of gods, while still being whimsical

[Rynjin]

For other examples of childish Over-Deities, go check out Dragon Ball Super's Zeno(s).

He/it/they act like a literal child. Maybe age 5 or 6 most of the time.

They also have the power to destroy universes and erase timelines in an eyeblink.

This makes them genuinely kind of horrifying when they aren't being utterly adorable. And sometimes even when they are, as they clap their hands in glee and crack a big smile as trillions of lives are erased.

[Batcathat]

For other examples of childish Over-Deities, go check out Dragon Ball Super's Zeno(s).

He/it/they act like a literal child. Maybe age 5 or 6 most of the time.

They also have the power to destroy universes and erase timelines in an eyeblink.

This makes them genuinely kind of horrifying when they aren't being utterly adorable. And sometimes even when they are, as they clap their hands in glee and crack a big smile as trillions of lives are erased.

A similar example might be the goddess Aphrael in David Eddings Elenium books, who usually appears (and behaves) as an adorable little girl, but occasionally makes it clear that she's very much not.

[Vahnavoi]

There is an entire anthropological theory which posits that gods of polytheistic myth cycles are reflections of psychological and psychosocial stages of development in humans. In other words, if your pantheon doesn't include at least one big baby, it's already unusual.

[Jervis]

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That is a fair point. These two in particular are suppose to be black sheep of the setting with the other gods being situationally petty as normal but generally trying to stay true to the gravitas of their position. These two are in a weird position where their power is very disproportionate to the number of followers they have and how long they’ve been around so i’m trying to brainstorm some ways of showing them as “unprofessional” as possible by divine standards.


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That is really interesting, I’ve never heard of the hospitality thing before. Thanks


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Those are some good ideas. Her whole thing about wizards goes into some weird backstory stuff about the setting but to give the cliff notes version someone tried to pull a Karsus and failed before they could go all the way and left a large chunk of the continent, the part where most of her worshipers are, covered in wild magic for a looong time. To the point that it still causes problems for people. Her opinion is that the whole thing happened because wizards “cheat their way to power” while sorcerers and bards and the other spontaneous casters have to have to form a personal connection with magic. Thankfully for all wizards players she might be the technical most powerful god in terms of the magic domain but she isn’t powerful enough to make such a sweeping change as rendering wizard magic inoperable without at least some support. She did, however, translate every spellbook on the planet into blink dog back when she was still a demigod. Which is another reason she’s unpopular with wizards.

Thanks for the ideas everyone

[Psyren]

A pair of childish over-deities you say?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vsbattles/images/5/59/Zeno_sama_y_futuro_zeno_sama_by_jaredsongohan_dbpo qfy-fullview.png