Genocide of the Devas

[LibraryOgre]

Ok, the 4e Dark Sun book names Deva as one of the races genocided by the Sorcerer-Kings.

How do you genocide deva? Don't they reincarnate, literally, somewhere else once they die?

[Buufreak]

Going out on a limb and claiming it isn't really possible, and is just 4e writers terrible way of saying "hey, this race doesn't fit in this world, and instead of leaving it at they we are going to make a lame excuse."

[LibraryOgre]

Only thing I can think of is magic jarring every single one.

Or, that it was incredibly easy, since the Gray ate them all once they died, before they reincarnated, but that only works if you explain how any were there at all, in the first place.

[Beoric]

It would have been cleaner to say no gods = no devas.

[Lord Haart]

I don't really remember much about what's in the books. Based solely on your description of the issue, I — as a GM — would tie this in with how Deva who get corrupted become Rakshasa. That is, the genocide was part spiritual in nature — the abuse Deva souls took over multiple lifetimes of being hunted and destroyed, combined with the overall ****tiness of the world (particularly depressing for immortal souls that can remember the splendor before), eventually made them all into Rakshasa.

This would allow me both to use Rakshasa as somewhat nuanced (am I really evil if it took multiple lifetimes of concerted effort to make me this way?) antagonists, and to give green light to a hypothetical player who wants to play a Deva after al… If they feel up to the task of being either a freshly-cleansed soul who spent untold centuries as an evil corrupter, or a late straddler whose reincarnation got delayed somehow, and now his immortal once-brethren are worse than extinct.

The simplest explanation, of course, would be Grey this, Planes/Astral Sea that, Devas got killed on Athas and reincarnated somewhere else, and their souls can't/don't bother to reincarnate in that particular inaccessible ****hole anymore.

[Twelvetrees]

There were a few other options for how the devas could have disappeared.

Some were eradicated in ancient wars, some were hunted down by agents of the sorcerer-kings, and others died out with the passing of the old world.

And then there is this bit as well.

When a deva dies, his or her spirit is reincarnated in a new, adult body that appears in some sacred place, such as a mountain peak, a riverbank, or a desert oasis.

You could say as a DM that the defiling magic of the sorcerer-kings ripped out everything that made such places sacred and that without a proper place to reincarnate, the devas just faded away.

[Duff]

You could say as a DM that the defiling magic of the sorcerer-kings ripped out everything that made such places sacred and that without a proper place to reincarnate, the devas just faded away.

To have some fun with this, maybe they didn't fade. They're still stacked up in a holding pattern waiting for the chance to reincarnate

Going out on a limb and claiming it isn't really possible, and is just 4e writers terrible way of saying "hey, this race doesn't fit in this world, and instead of leaving it at they we are going to make a lame excuse."

My biggest beef with 4e is that this would be entirely on-brand