How did gods survive before mortals?

[The Pilgrim]

The Gods survived by drinking Mountain Dew.

Unfortunately, they lost the formula, so they had to create the mortals.

[Grey Watcher]

At first they didn't need mortals to survive. Then at some point, the mortals believed the gods needed them to survive. And so they suddenly did. The end.

I'll take that headcanon. Have it shipped to my PO box.

[RatElemental]

This is like asking what happened before time began. There was no before time, that's kind of how time works as weird as it is to us.

While there was a time before mortals, that time was entirely devoted to the creation of mortals. Unless you think time extended back before the gods existed, but the gods didn't need mortals yet in that case.

[Jaziggy]

If gods need those four things from mortals to continue existing, how did they get them originally before mortals? And if they're made by belief in the first place, who made them?

Could their origin be the planet in the rift?

Woz.

I really enjoy this question- it's not something with a solid answer but it sure is fun to think about. To my mind, when the Gods were created In The Beginning, they were immortal creatures of immense power but were not 'Gods' in the D&D sense of the term. They used their power to create the world, and the world they created eventually began to worship them, increasing their power and making them true Gods. This meshes with what we know about The Dark One- a being of immense power who ascended to godhood through worship.

As for whether losing their worship would actually destroy them, that's an open question. It's certainly possible that they metamorphosed from their proto-God-selves into a new being that *requires* worship to survive, but it's also possible that they have become so accustomed to and pleased by worship that the shell of themselves they would be without it doesn't seem like a survivable existence, looking back on that distant blip of their existence from the distance of an infinity of time. None of them has ever actually tried starving themselves of worship, or been destroyed naturally by the lack of worship between worlds.

Thor says that The Dark One would die between worlds. Assuming he is correct (and he may be mistaken or even lying), it doesn't follow from that though any God would ultimately die without worship. The Dark One's original form is mortal, and frail compared to the immortal Gods. So perhaps the traditional Gods can survive without worship and the Dark One couldn't.

[WanderingMist]

Since most of their natural habitats were destroyed and they became dependent on WWF publicity.



"In hindsight, maybe we didn't think this through."

Pandas are naturally omnivores and survivor better on fruit and meat
But once they start on bamboo they become dependent on it even though they need to eat masses more in weight.

Yeah, while pandas are threatened by habitat loss, they're even more threatened by their own stupidity. They refuse to eat anything but bamboo (despite being carnivores who literally do not have the enzymes required to digest it, relying instead on bacteria in their stomachs for the work) which gives them so little energy that they need to eat 30 lbs or so a day. They are also terrible parents. The fathers do no help raising the child, which isn't uncommon. But the mothers will also leave their dens for hours at a time to search for food leaving the cub defenseless.

[RatElemental]

I really enjoy this question- it's not something with a solid answer but it sure is fun to think about. To my mind, when the Gods were created In The Beginning, they were immortal creatures of immense power but were not 'Gods' in the D&D sense of the term. They used their power to create the world, and the world they created eventually began to worship them, increasing their power and making them true Gods. This meshes with what we know about The Dark One- a being of immense power who ascended to godhood through worship.

As for whether losing their worship would actually destroy them, that's an open question. It's certainly possible that they metamorphosed from their proto-God-selves into a new being that *requires* worship to survive, but it's also possible that they have become so accustomed to and pleased by worship that the shell of themselves they would be without it doesn't seem like a survivable existence, looking back on that distant blip of their existence from the distance of an infinity of time. None of them has ever actually tried starving themselves of worship, or been destroyed naturally by the lack of worship between worlds.

Thor says that The Dark One would die between worlds. Assuming he is correct (and he may be mistaken or even lying), it doesn't follow from that though any God would ultimately die without worship. The Dark One's original form is mortal, and frail compared to the immortal Gods. So perhaps the traditional Gods can survive without worship and the Dark One couldn't.

Loki and Thor certainly seem to think Hel can starve to nonexistence.

[Precure]

I really enjoy this question- it's not something with a solid answer but it sure is fun to think about. To my mind, when the Gods were created In The Beginning, they were immortal creatures of immense power but were not 'Gods' in the D&D sense of the term. They used their power to create the world, and the world they created eventually began to worship them, increasing their power and making them true Gods. This meshes with what we know about The Dark One- a being of immense power who ascended to godhood through worship.

They were powerful enough to accidentally create an abomination that can kill gods due to their infighting.

[AceOfFools]

Couple of thoughts:

Outsiders exist; souls exist outside the world in the afterlives (powering gods through the time between worlds). There's no reason to assume that the first mortals to exist didn't exist before the the first mortal world.

Gods, like all astral plane objects are made of thoughts, ideas. The idea of death doesn't go away when e.g. Hades died; and indeed there are multiple gods for ideas. While gods may die, the ideas there made of don't go away, and therefore whatever process turned those ideas into gods in the first place might repeat, becoming gods again.

Therefore I postulate that the current gods weren't the first gods, and before the creation of a fixed worlds gods were born and faded back into the astral sea on the regular. Eventually some of them came together to create souls, self sustaining thought generates that could prevent that dissolution and reformation. This was why the gods first gathered together to create a world in the first place, to preserve themselves (much they way someone who reincarnates would want to preserve a particular version of themself).

We know that the strands of reality are a finite resource, since the gods can't build a new prison for the snarl without access to the ones in use by the current world. If they could they wouldn't need to destroy this world to build a new prison, they could just nest this world within a bigger one. We also know that 1) the Snarl doesn't permanently destroy them when it destroys their prison, but 2) the Snarl did destroy Green-quiddity gods in such a way that green strands never came back. Given how many worlds there have been, we can assume that if gods could spontaneously generate from ideas, they would have done so by now.

I will further postulate that without the green strands that are tied up in the snarl, there isn't a critical mass for green theogenesis, or that the existence of the Snarl otherwise fouls the process, perhaps preventing the theomorphic resonances to form properly.

Now looking at these postulates, are there any conclusions I could draw?

Well, assuming it's true, theogenesis could occur without input from the existing gods (a fact consistent with the existence of the Dark One). This imples that there could be gods or godlike beings inside the rift. It also implies that if the heroes did fail, and the Dark One starved, the purple strands making up the Dark One might also reform into a new (demi)god... eventually. He's not unique but a 1 in however many million, and another however many million tries, the gods will get a new chance.

I also think that it makes the Snarl scarier. If gods normally, let's use the word "reincarnate", but don't when ended by the Snarl, that is More Bad than if the Snarl is "just" capable of killing normally immortal creatures, since it disrupts their natural afterlife (much as the way it does mortals).

[KorvinStarmast]

Gods live off souls.

And the gods existed before there were souls, as far as we know. (Enjoyed your post, in any event)

There wasn't a before. Making the world was the first thing they did.

As far as we know, yes.

The Gods survived by drinking Mountain Dew.

Unfortunately, they lost the formula, so they had to create the mortals.

This makes as much sense as any other theory, speaking as a one time Mountain Dew addict (college years).

There's no reason to assume that the first mortals to exist didn't exist before the the first mortal world.

Not sure how you got there.

Gods, like all astral plane objects are made of thoughts, ideas.

But do ideas require mortals to exist, or can ideas come from elsewhere? I'd suggest the latter, so we don't end up in yet another chicken/egg loop. (Enjoyed your post/musing, nicely done).

Given how many worlds there have been, we can assume that if gods could spontaneously generate from ideas, they would have done so by now.

Aye.

[Goblin_Priest]

A baby can live off small quantities of breastmilk, I don't think an adult can live off the same.

The most plausible explanation, in my mind, is that the gods outgrew whatever they were before. The existence of mortals altered them. Since they seemingly predate mortals, it'd be safe to assume they did not need mortals at first, but eventually they did, because belief turned them into something they were not before. Domesticated them, of sorts.

It's also possible that they don't predate mortals. Maybe under some situations mortals can be spontaneously generated, and their arrival led to the generation of the gods.

And whether gods or mortals came first, it also doesn't answer when "ideas" came into being. Maybe the ideas are cosmic forces, which leech into mortals, instead of being aggregates of shared mortal beliefs.

I don't think Rich will ever elaborate on the matter. He probably has an idea, but writing out the finer details of the origin of the gods in this setting doesn't really contribute to much. In the current context, anyhow, I suppose it could potentially be a plot point down the line.

[KorvinStarmast]

The most plausible explanation, in my mind, is that the gods outgrew whatever they were before. The existence of mortals altered them.

This also makes sense.

[BaronOfHell]

And the gods existed before there were souls, as far as we know. (Enjoyed your post, in any event)

Glad you liked it, thanks for the compliment! :)

[AceOfFools]

Outsiders exist; souls exist outside the world in the afterlives (powering gods through the time between worlds). There's no reason to assume that the first mortals to exist didn't exist before the the first mortal world.

Not sure how you got there.
Aye.

We’ve seen several souls in the afterlife, so clearly souls can exist outside of a mortal world.

We know that gods in the astral plane arguing face-to-face can create a two color snarl, that’s the reason for the godsmoot to work the way it does. I extrapolate from that the gods could create things much smaller than worlds, if they wanted.

From this I argue it’s possible to create mortals that live and die in the outer planes.

For most large projects, especially the first time a thing is made, the first step is prototyping, building a smaller working piece. Often when you do this you learn about the process, like “hey, dedication is so sustaining” It’s natural to me that the gods would want to do some prototyping. This is projecting real world human processes onto literal gods.

From this I argue it’s a reasonable thing to believe happened. I don’t argue that it had to happen that way, just that it seems more likely to me than not.

[KorvinStarmast]

We’ve seen several souls in the afterlife, so clearly souls can exist outside of a mortal world.

We know that gods in the astral plane arguing face-to-face can create a two color snarl, that’s the reason for the godsmoot to work the way it does. I extrapolate from that the gods could create things much smaller than worlds, if they wanted.

From this I argue it’s possible to create mortals that live and die in the outer planes.

For most large projects, especially the first time a thing is made, the first step is prototyping, building a smaller working piece. Often when you do this you learn about the process, like “hey, dedication is so sustaining” It’s natural to me that the gods would want to do some prototyping. This is projecting real world human processes onto literal gods.

From this I argue it’s a reasonable thing to believe happened. I don’t argue that it had to happen that way, just that it seems more likely to me than not.

Heh, with my engineering experience, all of that makes sense. Nice.

[Goblin_Priest]

We’ve seen several souls in the afterlife, so clearly souls can exist outside of a mortal world.

That souls can *be* in the Outer Planes does not mean that souls can *spawn* in the Outer Planes.

I'm not really aware of any settings that clarifies where souls come from, and, well, their whole cycle of life. The OotS-verse says that when mortals die, their souls are freed to the outer planes most resembling them, where they are slowly absorbed as some sort of nourishment. It doesn't say where the souls come from, though, and at what point does a living creature earn its soul, where does the soul spawning take place in the reproductive cycle, and what the soul is made out of.

Outsiders in a typical D&D setting, if I remember correctly, are basically recycled mortal souls. Can new souls be created outside of the material plane, in this context? Is it a faculty that's tied to the material plane, or to its typical inhabitants? If you take mortals to the Outer Plane or Outsiders to the Material Plane, what's the impact on their abilities to procreate? In other words, is a human's ability to spawn a new soul (infant) tied to its innate characteristics (mortal/humanoid), or to its environment (Material Plane)?

I think that with the lore as we know it, both from OotS specifics and generic D&D settings, really doesn't go in enough depth about these details to be able to deduce what came first. The possibilities are endless.

[KorvinStarmast]

Outsiders in a typical D&D setting, if I remember correctly, are basically recycled mortal souls.

That really depends on which edition you are talking about

[mjasghar]

Depends on the specific being
Outsider is a general term for any non Material plane being - your place of birth has a tie to your spirit
In death souls migrate (sometimes, depends on setting) to other planes and then become tied to their new plane
They can then go through processes that transform them (or not, see Einheirar) into various beings
There’s also mortal outsiders which covers humans etc born on the outer planes and the source of the summon monster spells
And then there’s elementals who aren’t created from prime material souls - most are native species though there’s some suggestions they are created and shaped by belief in the elements as a force.

[hamishspence]

"Outsider" is separate from "Extraplanar".

Mortals who have migrated to the Outer Planes and become native to the plane they emigrated to, gain the Extraplanar subtype, rather than replacing their existing type with the Outsider type.

So, humans who have emigrated to the Lower Planes and adapted to them, for example, become fiendish humans. And so on.


Whereas outsiders are a bit more "spiritual". Ones native to the Outer Planes have "do not need to eat or sleep", for example.

Native outsiders are the often the offspring of extraplanar outsiders and mortals. They do need to eat and sleep.

[RatElemental]

That souls can *be* in the Outer Planes does not mean that souls can *spawn* in the Outer Planes.

I'm not really aware of any settings that clarifies where souls come from, and, well, their whole cycle of life. The OotS-verse says that when mortals die, their souls are freed to the outer planes most resembling them, where they are slowly absorbed as some sort of nourishment. It doesn't say where the souls come from, though, and at what point does a living creature earn its soul, where does the soul spawning take place in the reproductive cycle, and what the soul is made out of.

Outsiders in a typical D&D setting, if I remember correctly, are basically recycled mortal souls. Can new souls be created outside of the material plane, in this context? Is it a faculty that's tied to the material plane, or to its typical inhabitants? If you take mortals to the Outer Plane or Outsiders to the Material Plane, what's the impact on their abilities to procreate? In other words, is a human's ability to spawn a new soul (infant) tied to its innate characteristics (mortal/humanoid), or to its environment (Material Plane)?

I think that with the lore as we know it, both from OotS specifics and generic D&D settings, really doesn't go in enough depth about these details to be able to deduce what came first. The possibilities are endless.

Some settings actually do answer the question of where souls come from, but that doesn't help us since there's no reason OotS would be anything at all like them. I suspect the actual answer from the giant would be "Imagine whatever makes the story make sense to you, this is about the order not cosmology."

[Dion]

How did chickens survive before eggs?

[Goblin_Priest]

That really depends on which edition you are talking about

Well, 3.5 of course being the only one of interest here, or just about.

"Outsider" is separate from "Extraplanar".

Mortals who have migrated to the Outer Planes and become native to the plane they emigrated to, gain the Extraplanar subtype, rather than replacing their existing type with the Outsider type.

So, humans who have emigrated to the Lower Planes and adapted to them, for example, become fiendish humans. And so on.


Whereas outsiders are a bit more "spiritual". Ones native to the Outer Planes have "do not need to eat or sleep", for example.

Native outsiders are the often the offspring of extraplanar outsiders and mortals. They do need to eat and sleep.

Outsiders is a type, native and extraplanar are subtypes. Let's quote the more relevant passages:

Outsider Type

An outsider is at least partially composed of the essence (but not necessarily the material) of some plane other than the Material Plane. Some creatures start out as some other type and become outsiders when they attain a higher (or lower) state of spiritual existence.

Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an outsider. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be.

Outsiders breathe, but do not need to eat or sleep (although they can do so if they wish). Native outsiders breathe, eat, and sleep.

Extraplanar Subtype

A subtype applied to any creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane. A creature that travels the planes can gain or lose this subtype as it goes from plane to plane. Monster entries assume that encounters with creatures take place on the Material Plane, and every creature whose native plane is not the Material Plane has the extraplanar subtype (but would not have when on its home plane). Every extraplanar creature in this book has a home plane mentioned in its description. Creatures not labeled as extraplanar are natives of the Material Plane, and they gain the extraplanar subtype if they leave the Material Plane. No creature has the extraplanar subtype when it is on a transitive plane, such as the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, and the Plane of Shadow.

Native Subtype

A subtype applied only to outsiders. These creatures have mortal ancestors or a strong connection to the Material Plane and can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be. Creatures with this subtype are native to the Material Plane (hence the subtype’s name). Unlike true outsiders, native outsiders need to eat and sleep.

The wording on these is somewhat vague, ambiguous, and conflicting. Sure, we can use the "specific trumps generic" rule, but the fact that native outsiders can be resurrected doesn't really say much on whether everything else about the "single nature" stays intact or not. Which leads to puzzling situations given how various templates can result in outsiders spawning on the Material Plane, plus native outsider races.

[BaronOfHell]

How did chickens survive before eggs?

Well, perhaps they didn't?

Dun dun DUN!!!♪♪

[Psyren]

How did chickens survive before eggs?

They didn't - the egg came first, laid by something that wasn't a chicken.

[RatElemental]

They didn't - the egg came first, laid by something that wasn't a chicken.

Evolution is a bit less cut and dry than that: At no point did something that wasn't a chicken lay an egg that contained a chicken. The first population of chickens would have arisen from a population of almost chickens, though.

[Dr.Zero]

Evolution is a bit less cut and dry than that: At no point did something that wasn't a chicken lay an egg that contained a chicken. The first population of chickens would have arisen from a population of almost chickens, though.

Which, when you look at the single specimen, means the same
Mind you, I understood your point, yet, if I take a modern chicken and go back toward generations, I will come to a point where I can say "ok, this is too far from my definition of chicken", and that way we had exactly an example of a not-chicken who laid a (close-enough-to-)chicken. It can be very far in the past or very close, depending from how strictly we define our chicken parameters, but it is bound to happen.

[KorvinStarmast]

Evolution is a bit less cut and dry than that: At no point did something that wasn't a chicken lay an egg that contained a chicken. The first population of chickens would have arisen from a population of almost chickens, though.

It was approaching the status of chicken asymptotically, and eventually ran out of digits of precision to the right of the decimal ...

[Goblin_Priest]

Well if you adhere to the idea that you can always positively identify an individual as being a chicken or not, then necessarily the chicken has a very precise starting point. Or multiple starting points. All of which being with the chicken embryos preceding the chicken adults.

Practically speaking, though, nobody could credibly identify when a chicken was first born from a non-chicken. "Chicken" is an abstract concept, which seems really set and objective, with a latin name and official description and all, but it really all starts falling apart the closer you look at it.

[Dion]

it really all starts falling apart the closer you look at it.

*blue* about how close do you have to look at a chicken before it falls apart?.

[Dr.Zero]

Well if you adhere to the idea that you can always positively identify an individual as being a chicken or not, then necessarily the chicken has a very precise starting point. Or multiple starting points. All of which being with the chicken embryos preceding the chicken adults.

Practically speaking, though, nobody could credibly identify when a chicken was first born from a non-chicken. "Chicken" is an abstract concept, which seems really set and objective, with a latin name and official description and all, but it really all starts falling apart the closer you look at it.

It's not that the chicken is an abstract concept or that we can't -more or less arbitrarily- set some parameters (even regarding DNA) to call a living being a "chicken".
It's that we enter in the paradox of the heap territory, so we have a difficult time to accept even the idea to set such parameters.

[Dion]

It's not that the chicken is an abstract concept or that we can't -more or less arbitrarily- set some parameters (even regarding DNA) to call a living being a "chicken".
It's that we enter in the paradox of the heap territory, so we have a difficult time to accept even the idea to set such parameters.

Suppose the criteria is “a chicken is any animal that can mate with any of the population of existing live chickens and have viable offspring more than 5% of the time.”

If that were the criteria we chose, then I’d imagine there were many many generations where a lot of chickens had non-chicken offspring, and a lot of non-chickens had chicken offspring.

But I’m certainly not some sort of evolutionary biologist. I’m just some guy thinking “Huh, Here’s a wacky hypothesis. I wonder if it’s true? Oh, no matter. I’ll type it into the internet and let someone else do the work of proving it wrong. That seems like a good use of everyone’s time!”

Also, maybe gods can also get their energy from the radioactive decay of unobtanium, but the multiverse ran out of unobtanium a billion billion years ago.