The God Mafia: How Deities Operate in My World

[Oudyn]

First off, Megapost warning. Seriously, this thing is long. It took me four hours to write, and I'm getting pretty delirious at this point.

All right, so let's look at your standard fantasy deity. They're very powerful, ancient and mysterious. They tend to mainly communicate through cryptic prophecies and vague portents of doom. Very rarely do they involve themselves directly in any sort of conflict, even though you think they might. Yet, despite this, the standard view on them is always one of two things - either the gods are great and powerful saviors or the gods do not exist. The second of those seems to have arisen as a rational response to the mysterious non-involvement of the gods, whereas the first seems to be inspired by the religions of Abraham; Christianity, Judaism and Islam. There's an immediate problem with this. Namely, the Abrahamic God is a far cry from most fantasy deities. Instead, the standard fantasy deity is actually much closer to the gods of classical mythology.

What do I mean by classical mythology? Really, the Pre-Christian "Pagan" religions of the Old World - The Greek and Roman Olympians, Norse Aesir and Egyptian... not sure if they have a distinct name. Anyway, here I'll be focusing on the Greek Gods. So, what are the Greek Gods like? First off, there are a ton of them, with distinct but potentially overlapping personalities, portfolios and roles. All right, so what did people think about the Greek Gods? Well, for the most part, they were seen as powerful figures, worthy of respect and worship. Not, however, as entirely benevolent. On the contrary, the gods of the Greek era were sinful, indulgent, violent and hypocritical bastards. Not unlike a lot of powerful humans over history, really. And the Greeks KNEW it, too. After all, what is the Odyssey but a tale of Poseidon's cruelty? Some of them were better, but they all had problems, and they were all selfish and near psychopathically vengeful.

All right, so the Greek Gods were kind of jerks. What does this have to do with standard fantasy gods? Well... the actual actions they commit are fairly similar. The Greek Gods wrote prophecies, named mortal champions, and walked the Earth as men. They created quests and adventures remarkably similar to the ones of modern fantasy deities. Except their motivations are made clear, shocking and kind of horrifying. Most of the time a hero is sent to do something, it's because a god screwed up big time. Now, do they have to have a mortal solve their problems? No. They don't. They could easily go out and solve them themselves. So why don't they? Because they aren't benevolent, they're narcissistic to the highest degree. They don't want to admit that they're capable of making mistakes. Their image of perfection matters more to them than any number of lives. Suddenly, knowing this, the gods of normal fantasy settings don't seem so good-hearted, do they? Every time they say "This is a task you must do alone", what if they really mean "You don't matter to me. I'd rather watch you die a million times than admit my own mistakes. Now get lost, I'm going to get back to my life of eternal pleasure while you suffer and die for my image?"

All right, but surely not all the gods are like that? No, probably not. What about the forgotten ones, the minor ones, the ones who have no stories or champions to bring to muster? What if they're the good ones? What if all of these little heretical religions are actually the religions of minor deities and ascended heroes who legitimately mean well for everyone else? No one knows about them, because they aren't leaders, manipulators and such. They aren't the big movers and shakers, and they could never be. In such a cutthroat hierarchy as the one of the gods, to reach the top, you have to become just as bad as the guys already there. This is starting to look less like a Pantheon and more like a Mafia. So let's call it that. The "God Mafia".
All right, so we've established that the major gods function like a sort of corrupt mafia, which is nearly impossible for good-hearted individuals to bring down. Moreover, when one mafia dies, another always rises. And in this case, the God Mafia has ears everywhere. That religion you were informed was one of heresy and blood sacrifice? They were the ones trying to help. But how could this be, you ask? Well, who told you that they were evil? The Church. Who does the Church answer to? The Gods.

But what keeps the God Mafia together, if they're all so narcissistic and self-motivated? Well, for one thing, the gods are also hedonistic and easily bored. They'd rather just focus on having fun than killing each other. For another, they look out for each other. I'm the time god, you're the death god, we play nice, and then if anyone ever comes encroaching on either of our turfs, we've got a friend.

Then there are the individual churches. Churches are for the most part benevolent. They mean well, but their worship feeds and strengthens a god that ultimately maintains the God Mafia that they aren't aware exists. Still, they use their magic to do good things. Churches are widespread and far reaching.

But how does one join the God Mafia? Simple. Start a cult. Cults are smaller than churches, generally, and tend to pop up around a specific individual, or a small group. This group of individuals or individual tends to have a lot of power within the cult. Cults are generally a "You help me, I help you" kind of deal between a small or aspiring god and a covenant of worshipers. They grant the god power, and in exchange, he grants them miracles. Sometimes, cults can be the most legitimate and good form of religion that exists. Other times, they're one person's ticket to joining the God Mafia, and that person casts off his "chosen" once he gets there.

All right, so we've got the God Mafia, how they function, and how you'd join them. Let's say you figure this all out and you decide you want to bring them down. There are a few ways. First off, Destroyer Cults are one of the most common varieties of cult. When someone finds out about the God Mafia, they sometimes form a Destroyer Cult. Destroyer Cults have varying motivations, and are frequently led by individuals seeking absolute power. Still, they are brought together by a collective desire; to kill the gods and end the God Mafia. This often requires one to kill the gods' servants as well. They kind of share a philosophy with more than a few politicians across history (not going to name any) - destroy an admittedly corrupt Establishment through drastic, risky and potentially disastrous methods.

Let's say you don't want to hurt anyone though. You just want out. Well, every now and then, a deity with a conscience gains enough power to become what you'd call an Ark deity. They, their followers, and often a few other gods wanting "out" decide to leave and create or populate a new world or region. When they succeed, it is inevitable that a power struggle eventually results one way or another. Should it happen between the Ark deities, one of a few things will happen. If one is more powerful, they become the supreme ruler. If they turn corrupt, they are overthrown and new deities are crowned, often creating a new God Mafia. If the Ark Deities are evenly matched, though, you get what's called a cyclic world. Basically, in a cyclic world, there is an endless war of ideology that leads to the rise and fall of society, repeating ad infinitum. Bounties of natural resources form, and are used to build a society, the society exploits too many resources and is destroyed, allowing resources to grow again.

All right, topic. Can Ark Deities exist in the same world/region as a God Mafia? Yes. Then we have what I'd call Lost Deities. Hearkening all the way back to the Greek progenitor gods, Uranus and Gaia, Lost Deities are Ancient, wise and powerful. Lost deities have often transcended the hedonism and selfishness of the standard God Mafia deities. However, for all their age and theoretical power, Lost Deities are apathetic. Imagine being old enough that you remember having created the world, and possibly the one before it. If you ever were mortal, you cannot remember, all that you know is that nothing will ever last. Even the best and most optimistic of Lost Deities, who legitimately mean the best, don't care for individual lives. Lost Deities deal in the fates of worlds. They play only the long con, acting as the man behind the man and the background manipulators.

But back to the God Mafia for a second. As we've established, Mafia Gods are likely to be the dominant group of deities in any non-cyclic world. What does this actually mean for the world? Obviously, it's a pretty cynical outlook. The beauty of it, at least I think, is that it really doesn't mean anything if you don't want it to. The God Mafia system can easily be used as a method to justify a standard fantasy setting with its pantheon of standard gods (the Mafia), mysterious pseudo-god beings (local/small-scale gods) and predecessor deities/overgods (Lost Deities). It gives them a dynamic and reasons for their bizarre behavior; as explained above, all the gods with any power don't actually care. They're just living hedonistic power fantasies and warring with each other, occasionally involving mortals in their schemes or sending heroes on quests to solve their own problems. Of course, it also paints an incredibly grim outlook of them, so it's probably not that good for more light-hearted stories. Really, I feel like I wrote the most Grimdark justification for a standard fantasy pantheon I've ever seen. Maybe I should call Games Workshop. I could have a real future writing for Warhammer.

Regardless, if you really want to embrace the God Mafia system, you can take it to its logical extremes. Suddenly, the God Mafia is more than just an informal power structure and web of half-trustworthy allegiances - it's an actual malevolent council that conspires with each other to rule the world together. This creates a world that is basically a playground for the whims of bored and selfish madmen in the skins of deities. They see humans as tools, useful only for business and pleasure, although they may occasionally take a liking to one... and those people are the scariest of all. This is what happens when you give the God Mafia too much power. Of course, the breaking point of humanity is too the limit of the God Mafia's power, so this requires a world that's already broken. After all, if they kill everyone, there's nothing left, and if they enslave everyone through force... it's just no fun anymore. There's no challenge, no unpredictability.

So, yeah. This is probably terrible and ranty and stupid, but I felt like I had some insight on the whole fantasy god situation. This whole thing evolved out of me trying to justify a standard fantasy pantheon, but I feel like it's evolved into something more interesting. As always, feel free to use it or not. Either way, I'd like to see your thoughts.

[Vrock_Summoner]

and if they enslave everyone through force... it's just no fun anymore. There's no challenge, no unpredictability.

Well, there's that excuse, but you mention earlier that they get their power from worship, so I imagine the real reason they don't just enslave everyone is that the worship has to be free-willed for them to get anything from it. You can force somebody to go through the motions of prayer, but you can't actually force them to put in the feelings associated with worship - and enslaving everybody is a great way to ensure that only a very small handful of people worships you while everyone else hates you forever and immediately pours all their worship into somebody who offers to kill you all.

[khadgar567]

I think i am out of my deep and this treat literally begging for banning

[ACExtravaganza]

I think i am out of my deeped this treat literally begging for banning

I'm sorry, is this person saying you should be banned for such a long post? I personally found it very interesting and might use it in some worlds of my own in the future.

[arrowed]

This rant I like. A lovely piece that has nice tones of power corrupts, goldmines of inspiration, and consistent reasoning. Regarding the end few paragraphs, I don't think the divine mafia would just kill/enslave everyone even if they didn't depend on mortals for PrayerPower^TM.
Firstly, a world full of dead skeletons is boring. If you're annoyed by all the flies outdoors, it's normally easier to move inside than kill all the flies (meaning going to Olympus or whatnot in this metaphor).
Secondly, dominating a populace takes a fair amount of effort even if you're an uber-powerful god. Consider how many births there are every second in modern times (I think it's about 10). In the ancient world, it might be much lower, like 1 per minute. That means a deity who could enslave people with a touch, who had already enslaved the population of earth, would need to take about twenty seconds every minute to find the next baby born, enslave them, and pop back to whatever they were doing before (assuming they have nigh-instantaneous teleportation and know whenever a baby is born as well).
I can't see the hedonistic gods described doing that. Set up a temple that runs itself? Sure, if the payoff is good enough. Smite heathens on Thursdays? Something to do with your deific buddies. Systematically suppress any thought of rebellion among the insects who can't even hurt you anyway? Boring.
Look at Xykon in OotS. At his level of power he could easily take over a large portion of the Western Continent, maybe even unite it all below the Goaway Mountains. He could outdo Tarquin without any reliance on subtlety or trickery. So why is he pursuing the other thing? Apart from the fact that it can let him rule the whole world, I think the main reason is one of laziness. The Plan he has requires little from him in the way of logistics, or leadership, or organisation. It requires him and his small team to go to a, do b, and do c, nice and direct. He doesn't have to throw his weight around personally manipulating a lot of people or come up with the next big initiative or really exert himself that often. Instead he gets to spend most of his time doing whatever catches his fancy, fulfilling his self-indulgent wants.

[khadgar567]

I'm sorry, is this person saying you should be banned for such a long post? I personally found it very interesting and might use it in some worlds of my own in the future.

fixed my original post

[Inevitability]

I'm sorry, is this person saying you should be banned for such a long post? I personally found it very interesting and might use it in some worlds of my own in the future.

I think he's referring to the 'no religious topics' rule while ignoring that real-world religious may be mentioned as long as they aren't discussed. The greco-romain religious are discussed, but those aren't really part of the real world anymore.

[khadgar567]

I think he's referring to the 'no religious topics' rule while ignoring that real-world religious may be mentioned as long as they aren't discussed. The greco-roman religious are discussed, but those aren't really part of the real world anymore.

I am more on caution on stepping wrong person's toes camp when i first read the topic and still in that camp