The Campaign Builder's Guild

So I have had quite a few good conversations about the place of deilogical intervention in RPGs.  And I do believe that the level of interest/intervention that the gods (supreme beings, devils, etc)  are expected to have is an absolutely critical part of seting design.  Not just a list of gods and their spheres, or maybe the more advanced ideas of different religions, no, that is a different but related issue.  
I speak of the predetermined level of intervention and interest that the Gods may have on the mortal world.  Some settings have distant gods with little or no direct interest on the world in question, but this can cause a greater weight on the need for faith.  Some settings have gods that have a very active and direct intertest in the setting, with little to stop their meddling except for other gods.  Other settings have haev hidden agenda's and lost gods, or gods who fight over the worship of countries or heroes.  

Some of the greatest storylines are influenced, openly or from behind a curtain, by the gods.  Ask Homer.

What level of influence and interference do you use in your setting?  How does it affect the daily life of people, and how does it affect your storylines?  

I like to have my settings much like the real world - there is no actual proof that gods exist.  They very well could, and somethings suggest that they do, but there is no solid proof.

My gods almost never intervene directly--you'll never see the god of the sea step in and save a floundering ship, and you're not likely to see a choir of angels show up and say "This is what [god X] wants, do it or else!"

What my gods do like to do is send omens, portents, and (occasionally) objects to their followers.  A farmer who faithfully worships an ibis-headed goddess of agriculture might pray for guidance--"Iliandra, there are rumors of snow from the south; should I plant tomorrow?"--and wake up to find a single ibis feather resting on each of his farm implements, a definite "yes" for planting; a nobleman wondering whether to finance a particular adventuring party might pray to his patron god of the sun and find that for the next hour whenever he thinks about the adventuring party the sun is hidden by clouds--a definite "no" for that course of action.

One of the benefits of this take on deific intervention is that if a choir of angels does show up, people either listen and obey flawlessly and damn the political/economic/other consequences, or get the hell out of Dodge, based on whose god sent the angels.

In my gaming world, any hand the gods played was during the early development and nurturing of the worlds' peoples.

The normal, everyday miracles ever-present in D&D (such as Cure Light Wounds) doesn't exist; it's enough that the gods designed the world so perfectly that the great, flaming ball of fire called Masser doesn't come crashing down into the world and incinerating everyone. ;)

Mine has no proof for or against gods. People believe what they chose to believe. There is no verifiable viewable evidence that they exist, nor has science in the realm reached a point where it could claim they don't. Because of this there are many different religions in UR (much like the real world).

SO, TO THOSE OF YOU LEANING TOWARDS A FAITH DRIVEN FORMAT...do the gods actually exist?  do they have an agenda?  do they have champions, or can a mortan gain their enmity?

The gods most certainly exist, but they are beyond the realm of mortal comprehension. They are personified by humanlike archetypes in order for mankind to understand them, and written of as thus in holy books. More so, the gods are personified specifically to teach mankind morality, virtue and reason. Think Aesop's Fables.

Do they have champions? Certainly, but the gods aren't the ones choosing them. Men simply choose to champion ideals from gods. The lucky ones discover how to tap into a small portion of the power the gods exerted over the world during the early days. However, the gods do not willingly "grant" powers (although some men will claim as such).

Can they gain their enemity? Not really, but they can gain the enimity of their followers. Truth be told, the faiths in my world are nothing more than philosopher's clubs, armed with steel and shield - albeit very influential and wealthy clubs. ;)

The Gods were bored. They had omnipotence and omniscience over their domain. They desired a challenge. So the Gods created a world outside of their domain. One that, once done, they could not influence or see. The only way for them to interact with this world was through their agents.

Every sentient individual belongs to a single deity. Upon that individual's death the deity gains access to all of that individual's memories, and is granted an "afterlife", or possibly even rebirth, based on how well his life pleased his deity.

In addition those of great skill can contact their deity in their dreams, and commune through visage, seeking advise and power.

Every once in a while the Deities are allowed to create "champions" these fated ones have special powers to fulfill the role their god set out for them. Whether they choose to follow the wishes of their god, or even know what those are, is another manner entirely.

There is no way to know hehe. That is the beauty in that nobody knows if they do or not. UR purposefully leaves things vague in order to mirror real life to some degree. It is also more open than most games. I want to have a general platform that a DM can run with and pop in his own ideas without conflict. For this reason UR will purposefully be leaving things out like specific gods or highly in depth city info (specific shops, anything less than a history shifting npc, etc).

After my template world is done I will then be making an actual game module for it, filling everything in. That way DMs have the choice to make the world their own, or to just use a pre-designed one if they don't have time.

So does UR have actual existing gods? That depends on the DM.

In Haveneast, the gods are very distant and their existence is questionable, as several other people (NinjaD would be the first) declared for their own settings. However... they are there. It's just that sometimes, what one chooses to believe is far better than what actually is.

Pair o' Dice Lost and Pellanor, those are some kewl ideas.

Whether or not the actual Gods exist in my setting is a point of conjecture, even for me, but there are certainly many creatures that have been mistaken for the gods or their agents.  For instance, there's this monolithic prehistoric fossilised corpse whose mere proximity causes madness and dis-ease, and warps one's offspring.  Now, it's really just radioactive (bestowing such dubious gifts as dwarfism and Wolfram syndrome), but the people who dwell near it think it to be the remains of Untu, the primordial, titan-esque hound, a force of chaos and mutability.  That's why they call it Dog Mountain, and a whole theocratic nation of freaks has been born at its feet.

[blockquote Dice]What my gods do like to do is send omens, portents, and (occasionally) objects to their followers.[/blockquote]

I'm leaning towards this method myself in the campaign I'm working on, though I would add "visions" and "dreams" to the list.  Almost everyone will insist that the gods are real, due to clerics being able to cast spells.  That's coming from something, right?  However, the gods do not generally walk the earth, and it is totally possible that the generally held beliefs people have been trained to hold about their gods may not, in actuality, be true.

But it is a very good question, overall.  Most RPGs I've played in treat the gods as celestial vending machines: I spend a spell slot, push the button, and get what I want.  Gods with any real personality wouldn't let that slide for any of their followers, with the potential exception of their most devoted followers whom they know they can trust from experience.

The beauty of UR is that there are no clerics. At least not how fantasy views them. It has priests but these are more in line with real life priests. Devoted solely to worship and the like.

You can't get spells from a god. However members of religious often look out for each other in other ways.

At its base, my setting is much like the real world, there is not much concrete proof that the gods exist. I have tried to model the various faiths on real world examples of modern and classical religions. For example, a few of my various faiths have a divine representative, like the Pope or the Dali Lama who control how the religion functions and what is or isn't doctrine. Some faiths believe in the same god but have different interpretations on how they should worship, similar to Islam and he various dominations of Christianity. One of my city states, Averic, has the head of the state religion appointed as a political office, much like the pontificate maximus from the Roman Empire.

 I have also added a few things to nudge belief that gods do exist. I have given most faiths some sort of artifact or other worldly facet. One of my faiths has an Ark of the Covenant type device and another has a an orb that shows the possible future of the person looking into it.

There are no gods. There are only gods. And they're only gods. . . :soap:

I've probably gone into this at length in various ways previously, but I continue to be intrigued by exploring the interplay.

A big factor to consider in this is what the gods in fact are in a given setting. FRPs really dodge this question rather neatly - and rightly so since it generally isn't the role of a game to define real cosmology and theology. (Generally. If you view the cosmos *as a game* to begin with, then gaming theory is the only way to explore such questions effectively. . .) That is, we tend to look at gods in a setting very similar (or even identical to) gods of classical mythologies. These are very different from deities of more "mystical" descriptions. Few classical mythologies pose actual "smith of the world" type creation myths - if you dig into what preceded the gods of a given pantheon you encounter some pretty abstract concepts - even if the more concrete gods created the land forms as we live in them the initial act of creation out of chaos, the void , what ever occurred before that in a rather vague fashion by vague divine agencies which produced more discrete gods which in turn modified creation into more discrete forms. The biggest question ultimately is with regard to the fundamental nature of reality - under which questions regarding the fundamental nature(s) of any conscious, deliberate, creative entities are necessarily subsumed.

The funny thing about it all as that many of us (myself included) try to find ways to reflect such fundamental reality, as we perceive/understand it, in our settings. The games generally need to dodge this - for reasons of marketing at the very least, but within the scope of the game (which we freely expand when we deem it necessary), or setting, or stories often highlight it. Gods in settings tend to range from super-powered NPCs (which can be clearly statted out with a character sheet and all concomitant abilities) to ideological concepts displaying varying degrees of anthropomorhization and amounts of concrete definition and proof of their existence; definition and proof in setting story are usually directly proportional - more vaguely described deities are invariably more "faith based" and indirect in action - to the point of being debatable as to whether or not they even exist.

Okay - a look at the intro to my setting and the descriptions of the deities makes it pretty clear that most of the gods there are very "hands on." These are very much just super-powered NPCs. They have their own beliefs and agendas in play and pursue them assiduously. They manifest directly and through avatars and intervene in matters as they see fit. They don't micromanage generally, unless some detail has truly captured their interest. Given the scope of their perspective on matters - both in broad awareness (though not "omniscient") and immortal span of time - this would directly imply that the detail is in fact far more significant than mortals are able to comprehend. However, should a mortal with the same agenda be able to comprehend such scope, the mortal would act in a similar fashion within the scope of their abilities. In this sense, the gods are essentially "cosmic top level management" whose followers depend upon them to actively pursue their agenda and assist in doing so at the lower levels - everyone working together toward the same end. Gas station attendants rarely encounter the CEO of the oil co. employing them - but it can happen. . . Fortunately, such CEOs don't have such a degree of power to shape the world, delusions of grandeur notwithstanding.

The Primordials are a bit more vague and even less likely to be seen intervening - the goddess of the waters may rarely rescue a vessel, but the fact is, she's concerned with a huge ecosystem and more likely to provide a priest who asks if a voyage will be safe with some indication to "wait two days" than rescue a ship that didn't ask/heed such advice. . . Those involved with weather are notoriously unmovable - but it's because they really care a lot about a hell of a lot more than just the person asking for rain, or absence of it. They're still very active, it's just a question of grasping the scope of their priorities and concerns - mortals have difficulty understanding what really matters.

At some point there is the interaction/manifestation of even more abstract ideas, such as karma, entropy, and "ultimate reality". It's in this weird grey zone that we actually have religion. Gods as patrons of crafts, arts, or even ideals (such as heroism) aren't the focii of religions - they are at most higher level intermediaries of a greater religious principal - Galenar is "Life's Champion" because he believes that this is a worthwhile use of his abilities toward some vaguely implied "greater purpose or good" - in short he can be said to subscribe to a religion. So what do the gods believe in? The answer to that is presented in Panisadore as "?". Not all of the gods have achieved "enlightenment" - tho' many are quite close. (In keeping with explicit Buddhist teachings on the matter, the gods are also subject to karma and eventual reincarnation and it is in fact under the condition of mortality that a being is most likely to achieve enlightenment.) Certain beings are far less direct, far more abstract and can as readily be regarded as simply a projection of an individual achieving a momentary glimpse of some "facet" of ultimate reality as an actual personification of that facet. Thelema may not really exist, but when someone struggling to comprehend the fundamental "forces" of "karma" achieves a breakthrough in doing so they are briefly in that state of understanding, precisely as that being commonly referred to as Thelema - so Thelema does exist as much as anything else does, since in truth "Thelema Nature" and "Hebnaritath Nature" and "Buddha Nature" simply are (rather poor) terms referring to the inherent "fundamental reality" of everything. Of course none of the preceding (esp. "Buddha Nature") terms are actually used in Panisadore. Instead, those who get it and those who are clueless all use the term, "?".

All of which of course, amuses me immensely, and I love playing monks in convoluted games of ethical intrigue. (Legend of 5 Rings in it's original (non-D20) form really rocks with a game master who can really understand and present the setting and it's mechanics. Sadly, it's one of the few games where I really am a snob - I've met very few who can, even if they're quite good GM's in general, really present the game's potential. I'm not sure how well I could pull it off honestly, but even more, it's one of the games I much more want to play than gm.)

In my own setting, a deity's level of influence over the world really depends on what kind of deity they are. The vast majority of deities in my world are Nature Spirits or Ancestral Spirits. Nature Spirits don't really care; they reward their followers and punish those who despoil their land, but that's really it. Ancestral Spirits have agendas, but these agendas deal primarily with their descendents and not their goals in their life (the world utilizes reincarnation, so an Ancestral Spirit is a collection of fragments of the ancestors of a family line, not the spirit of one individual).

There are also a few ascended deities, and greater powers who represent grand concepts. Ascended deities were once mortal and found a way to become a god; either through great deeds or the lifelong contemplation of monk-hood. Conceptual deities represent aspects of humanity rather than aspects of nature, such as the Seven Virtues (the Angelic Choir) and the Seven Sins (The Devil Lords).

Nature Spirits, and Ancestral Spirits, can be quite 'low' in power, and could be witnessed by and deal with mortals (especially PCs). For instance, the Spirit of the Forest near my current campaign's starting area is a massive Oak tree served by a coven of individual dryads (dryads who are linked to the god, not their own oaks). This spirit, like other deities, is not omnipotent, and it wouldn't take an epic villain to chop it down.

I'm generally not a fan of intervening deities, so it makes sense that i have chosen to make my gods distant and non-existent in my own setting. Although that's of course not what most people believe.

In the world I'm still slowly developing the gods were very active directly in the affairs of mortals and ended up being the direct cause of catastrophic events that led to the shattering of continents, etc. Eventually they agreed to end their conflict and take a less directly active role, but they are still very influential.

Quote from: Steel GeneralIn the world I'm still slowly developing the gods were very active directly in the affairs of mortals and ended up being the direct cause of catastrophic events that led to the shattering of continents, etc. Eventually they agreed to end their conflict and take a less directly active role, but they are still very influential.

Similar to what I have done, which is why I like it.  How do they influence?

Quote from: Kapn XeviatIn my own setting, a deity's level of influence over the world really depends on what kind of deity they are. The vast majority of deities in my world are Nature Spirits or Ancestral Spirits. Nature Spirits don't really care; they reward their followers and punish those who despoil their land, but that's really it. Ancestral Spirits have agendas, but these agendas deal primarily with their descendents and not their goals in their life (the world utilizes reincarnation, so an Ancestral Spirit is a collection of fragments of the ancestors of a family line, not the spirit of one individual).

There are also a few ascended deities, and greater powers who represent grand concepts. Ascended deities were once mortal and found a way to become a god; either through great deeds or the lifelong contemplation of monk-hood. Conceptual deities represent aspects of humanity rather than aspects of nature, such as the Seven Virtues (the Angelic Choir) and the Seven Sins (The Devil Lords).

Nature Spirits, and Ancestral Spirits, can be quite 'low' in power, and could be witnessed by and deal with mortals (especially PCs). For instance, the Spirit of the Forest near my current campaign's starting area is a massive Oak tree served by a coven of individual dryads (dryads who are linked to the god, not their own oaks). This spirit, like other deities, is not omnipotent, and it wouldn't take an epic villain to chop it down.

This is great.  I love the Oak and Dryad image and I imagine it must play out very well.  I also enjoy having the messengers of divinity not being unltra, ultra powerful.  I like the conceptual deities, as well.  My gods often take on or twist their aspects to attraxct new worshipers.

Quote from: LordVreeg

Quote from: Steel GeneralIn the world I'm still slowly developing the gods were very active directly in the affairs of mortals and ended up being the direct cause of catastrophic events that led to the shattering of continents, etc. Eventually they agreed to end their conflict and take a less directly active role, but they are still very influential.

Similar to what I have done, which is why I like it.  How do they influence?

Some deities are much more active than others - Parnyx (God of Revelry, etc.) is very active, not neccesarily just with his clergy, but having affairs with mortals -  which produce normal (though highly gifted) offspring. Others such as Thempys (God of Time) have little interaction with anyone but their clergy. Most of the others are somewhere in the middle.

Similar to some of the greek myths the gods of Ghoraja Juun have their "favorites" who they monitor and may subtely influence things for. Outright intervention is not allowed, and a deity guilty of it will be censured by the rest of the pantheon. Of course the rules are often "bent" if they can get away with it. :)

For my latest project (which may see the light of day.. eventually... or not. No clue. Anyway...) I've taken a different approach. I've started with the basic premise that there is no formal requirement of "godhood," but if the only reaction people could possibly have to you is worship and awe (or fear), you probably qualify.

The end result is something between a cross between Olympian Gods (they're limited and strangely human in their motivations), Lovecraftian (they probably hate you), and Stargate (they're probably actually powerful creatures from another planet/plane/dimension anyway). It seems to be a bit in opposition to the general trend here... we'll see how it works out. :)

Quote from: sparkletwistFor my latest project (which may see the light of day.. eventually... or not. No clue. Anyway...) I've taken a different approach. I've started with the basic premise that there is no formal requirement of "godhood," but if the only reaction people could possibly have to you is worship and awe (or fear), you probably qualify.

The end result is something between a cross between Olympian Gods (they're limited and strangely human in their motivations), Lovecraftian (they probably hate you), and Stargate (they're probably actually powerful creatures from another planet/plane/dimension anyway). It seems to be a bit in opposition to the general trend here... we'll see how it works out. :)

as always with all of your wonderful stuff, I can't wait to see how you pull it off.  But I know you will...

For my setting the Gods cannot physically come to the material world (blocked by the 4 elemental Lords) but can send envoys and servents (most difficult) or send messages through omens (small trick alterations to the material world, burning bush, flower pedals on farm tools (like the idea ;)), or send messages to the indivuals subconcises through dreams, visions/halluciantions ect. However do to interferance from the Elemental Lords the message usually gets twisted, blurry or otherise "unclear".

The are Three sets or sources or divine magic. The Great Old Ones, Racial Gods, and the Elemental Lords. The Great Old Ones  are personifications of the most basic aspects of "civilived life" basically the separation from "man" and beast. God of Sky and Rulership, Goddess of Farming and Hunting, God of learning (Magic and mundain) Ect. It can be debated in world and out weither the Gods are reflections of the world or the world is a reflection of the Gods.

Small story about what i mean: The God of the Meak drops his two Godling Sons and they fell into the Plane of the Restless Dead. After Odin/Ra/Ameratsu ect found out that he left them there (to later become Orcus and Asmodeus) as he was to scared to go after them, he (The God of Sky and Rulership) punished the God of the Meak to push a giant granite boulder through a tunnel that runns the edge of the Disc-World of Tulorain (causeing a tilt in the disc world to create seasons btw). The strong rule the meak... this is a "natural law" are the Gods reflecting the world or are is the world reflecting the gods? This is how the Great Old Ones influence the world.

The Racial Gods are personifiations of the tradmarks and steriotypes of their Races. Elven Gods of Magic, Art, Forests, Archery Ect. Dwarven Gods of Smithing, Mining, Beards :) Ect. Human Gods of Trade, Diplomacy, Agriculture Ect. They are Reflections of the basic priciples of their races, as the members of those races try to live up the ideals of their Gods. Dual Reflection again.

The Elemental Lords are personifications of the World. their are 4 on the base "magical" elements that make up the world. Combinations of them make up everything in the world around people weather, mountains, the sea, a river, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, the land, a cool breaze. This is how the Elemental Lords influence Tulorain, indirectly, undirected, and unpredictable. They dont communicated through dreams or visions but the physical omens they show are much stronger and more obvious than the Gods of Essence. A river will overflow its banks and stream down for miles to the devout people of the Water Lord (rare!), a person devout to the Earth Lord traveling through mountains with find a cave or caves going straight through the mountians in the direction he is going. Although Potent their interation/influence with living beings is incredibly rare.

And i think that covers it :)

S&M,
I swear, no one i have ever read fights with themselves as much as you do.  You are a psychologists wet dream, in terms of the inkblot that is your writing.  Bless you again.

I love the fact that you approach the Karmic element of the religion question. I do have some of my dieties rate/judge/ the actions of their more powerful worshippers.  But I can see few GM's as capable of yourself in discussing over lunch and wine the next day what type of karmic ratings a player's actions should really get...

<gyggle> One thing that I neglected to mention really is that at the more abstract levels some things are deliberately left undefined in the setting - "undefined" being an explicit condition of their existence and operation in the world. "?" is the most obvious - a character pursuing investigation of this deity (and I deliberately dangle the theories presented in the world in such a way that many players are intrigued and nibble it that bait. . .) would eventually learn that the description was in front of them the whole time. The very point being that ? is such an abstraction that it can't be described; so "Who Cannot Be Named," cannot be named not because the name is a secret which no one knows, but because that is an inherent fundamental condition of the thing/concept/being - "The Tao which can be named is not the True Tao" - I really am considering including a "Meddling" stat for the dieties. ? ranks at 0 - does absolutely nothing - while it's most explicit avatar, Behldamh (goddess of insanity) ranks 9. Of course, "the tao does nothing and everything gets done. . ."

"?"'s secret society, the Unseen, likewise does and does not exist. Those who grasp the concept eventually realize that they are in fact the "Illuminatus cabal" they've been looking for all along - if they choose to be. That is, they've been investigating the ramifications of their own (and others very like them, some they know, many only inferred as contacts of contacts. . .) actions upon the world. A small, astute and "global perspective viewing" few, not actively participating in these matters (they believe/assume), have observed the patterns of manifestation and inferred from them the existence of this very secretive and effective cabal/conspiracy guiding those effects. They are partially correct - there really are those in the various 'good alligned' "followers of the way" type organizations (predominantly involving the churches of the various Enlightened Masters, in lesser numbers the Ascended Masters and those other churches/deities with closely associated ethos, esp. healing - Melanar and Behldamh - but ultimately any pursuing an ethos of compassionate assistance to other sentient beings IAW whatever gifts/skills the members perceive themselves as having - such as Galenar (which can become quite amusing) - that is, those with an ethos which manifests, or encourages actions consistent with, the principal of bodhicitta) who of course network, cooperate with and help each other to accomplish these specific goals, and are generally communicating very much behind the scenes even among those who are seeing the "secret activities" simply by way of fact that everyone involved eventually develops a network of personal contacts by virtue of coincidence in past (essentially random) shared activities causing their paths to cross. No such cabal was ever formally created - some have simply come to recognize that it is their own activities which are being described - so that at this point those who realize that they in fact are these "Unseen" can say that The Unseen do indeed exist, while at the same time there really is no such cabal! Treating them as if they are an organized Order at times is useful, at least when describing various related trends and activities of others, such as are becoming apparent in the activities of various worshipers of Hebnaritath (the Lyricists and The Twilight) and those few followers of Melangen and Renosha who are starting to recognize just what an asshole Jessanak really is. . . A lot of what is occurring surrounding Hebnaritath and Jessanak can only really be perceived, much less interpreted, from those rare perspectives which explicitly encompass the activities of The Unseen  - and much of that at this point point remains deliberately "undefined". The same can likewise be said of a number of other areas (dwarven spiritual developments as well as population growth, etc.)

NB - "?" in common misunderstanding is the god whom the gods worship. Those who really grasp this understand there is no such separate "overdiety", however much in the world of samsaric illusion functions as if there is, including the existence of it's avatar. (The avatar of an overdiety of course would be a god itself. However, since there isn't in fact such an overdiety in that sense, such an avatar of something which doesn't really exist would of course be insane. . . Only those who have achieved absolute enlightenment in Panisadore recognize this obvious relationship. Belhdamh's church has a lot more influence in the world than can be rationally explained. That, however stands to reason, given that she's the goddess of insanity, so no one bothers to look closer. . .)  Those who don't understand this (damn near everyone) then assume their is such a separate entity, or at least assume that whether or not there is one is a actually a reasonable and arguable question worth debating, and simply conclude that if there is one then the truth of it's existence and nature must obviously and inherently  be a secret - which therefore makes it essentially a god of secrets and secrecy! In this case they at least have the good sense to realize that if that is the case then all attributes of a god of secrets and secrecy are by their very nature utterly impenetrable secrets, else the god would actually be a very poor at doing what it's supposed to and therefore not a god at all! At which point most people have the good sense not to waste any further time debating the existence of what cannot be resolved without actually negating its very existence in doing so. . .

Zen humor gets really wyrd

Since I like to explore culture and society, I've deliberately set up a metaphysics that allows all kinds of different "deities". A god is anything that people choose to call a god. Religions may be based on deity-worship, philosophy, deity-worship subordinated to a central philosophy, philosophy derived from some primary deity-worship, etc.

There are real entities out there - some of them smaller, localized, and more active; others larger, more distant, more remote. Some deities have large numbers of lesser servants; others rely on their human agents. Some religions may worship deities that are primarily symbolic and may or may not exist.

This gives lots of scope for variability in different campaigns that take place in different parts of the world, for clash of culture, religio-political intrigues, and the like.

Quote from: snakefingSince I like to explore culture and society, I've deliberately set up a metaphysics that allows all kinds of different "deities". A god is anything that people choose to call a god. Religions may be based on deity-worship, philosophy, deity-worship subordinated to a central philosophy, philosophy derived from some primary deity-worship, etc.

There are real entities out there - some of them smaller, localized, and more active; others larger, more distant, more remote. Some deities have large numbers of lesser servants; others rely on their human agents. Some religions may worship deities that are primarily symbolic and may or may not exist.

This gives lots of scope for variability in different campaigns that take place in different parts of the world, for clash of culture, religio-political intrigues, and the like.

Ah yes, clash of cultures.  You do have some countries with a theocratic bent, do you not, where churches/priests have a certain amount of secular power?

What, you didn't think I was done did you? :soap:

What effect do they have on the gameworld (gameplay)? Most systems which propose to quantify this in any fashion use some variant of an equation by which Deific Power is directly proportionate to the # of the deities worshipers. The D20 SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#divineRanks) goes so far as to scale Divine Ranks 0-20 with specific powers/abilities increasing by rank. They don't propose an explicit #worshipers/rank ratio, but group ranks by fives as Lesser, Intermediate, etc. with a general numeric range of worshipers as applied to each group (meticulous GM's could conceivable break this down further). What they don't really look at (and few do) in such a relationship is variables in regarding quality of worship - intensity of actual devotion vs mere belief. Mere belief certainly can provide a lot of basic power - everyone in Panisadore inherently believes in Dashin, whether they worship her or not. Her ethos likewise is not a matter of much debate (save it's scope in certain circles. . .) Mother Nature simply is. As such, not so many in the world get totally wrapped up in their devotion to the omnipresent natural world - and those who do, in DnD at least, being Druids aren't so much worshiping her as engaging in all the natural phenomenon represented by all of the Primordials together. The upshot being that there aren't so many people who will answer "Dashin" if you ask them who they worship. Even so, she is one of the most potent deities in the milieu. Simple belief counts for a lot!

While you might think that intense devotion feeds a god more than mere belief, this doesn't really happen. It does provide a conduit which can accommodate the "bandwidth" needed to permit the total throughput of power necessary to accomplish significant divine effect. Its not a question of how much power the god has at hir disposal but rather a question of how much of the power at hir disposal s/he can bring to bear upon conditions in a particular place and time. Intense devotion tempers the vessel much more than it feeds the god. All things being equal, if you have two deities whom everyone believes in but only actively worships one, the power is equal, but the one with the most worshipers is able to utilize more of it at any given time, i.e., hurls a bigger lightening bolt. Relatively low power deities can still produce high power effects under the right conditions.

So, if you think about the above it will eventually occur to you that "wait a minute, pretty much everyone in Panisadore believes in the existence of pretty much all the gods, except perhaps a god some people have never heard or thought of" but of course the ones listed are basically known world wide, at which point you also realize that "that would mean all the gods have the same amount of power since they have the same number of people believing in them."

I said simple belief counts for a lot. In fact, at actually accounts for everything. What most systems miss is the fact that that is a qualitative statement, not a quantitative one. Since everyone pretty much believes in all the gods, differences in the quantity of the total divine power available to a particular god is a not function of how many people believe in that particular god at all. It is a function of what they believe about that god! Dashin Mother Nature is more powerful and can throw Poncy Mirror Boy Galenar over her knee at any time she pleases because everyone believes this is so! After all, it's pretty obvious that the force of nature itself is far more wide reaching and potent than any motivation to heroism, no matter how good and admirable and noble. The gods compete for followers/worshipers then, not in a contest over sheer numbers, but in the attempt to convince more people to  believe that they are more powerful. Where it comes down to a dispute between opposing claims that "Our god's more powerful than your god," however the numbers win. This can be very difficult to reverse since, once proven, everyone believes that the one is more powerful than the other - they may not lose followers because of this due to ethos (e.g., it may still be important to be nice to others even if nice guys really do finish last) but this situation becomes much harder to overcome later. (Therefore those gods who care about these things don't put them to such direct tests very often and only when they're certain of the outcome.) Reversing such results basically requires convincing a lot of people to disbelieve in the validity of the test for some reason. . . Ultimately, gods seeking to increase their power are trying to find ways to convince mortals that they should be and are inherently more powerful - essentially placing greater importance on some aspect of their ethos - e.g. by convincing people that life should, or is meant to be more fun and joyful and shared with others Benaedras opposes Pahkreet who states that life is inherently mean, brutish and every man for himself. The question of the power of joy and laughter to overcome the power of spite and malice remains unresolved in global terms. Likewise, a struggle in values is occurring between Jessanak and Salistreah and manifest in solar supremacy.

Hebnaritath and Thelema are both quite powerful because Entropy and Karma are immutable forces, yet they are constrained in their power by the perceived nature of those forces, and Belhdamh is probably most powerful of all as anything may succumb to insanity and anything may likewise be healed of it - and she governs both experiences as well as the perspectives and beliefs which arise from each. Power also arises in the contratemps of significant forces - Gaurashiage has convinced the world quite effectively of her power to twist and pervert anything which nature, as her sister, can produce - even though she has few worshipers - she doesn't really need anyone to worship her, so long as there's no doubt in everyone's minds that she truly is their worst nightmare degree of badass, then she is so.

Ultimately, I really am drawing upon concepts described by Terry Pratchett (hhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_causality), just not quite as often or as blatantly tongue-in-cheek (save where it simply can't be avoided, in which case the absurdity must be embraced fully as an inherent condition of reality).

[blockquote=S&M]I said simple belief counts for a lot. In fact, at actually accounts for everything. What most systems miss is the fact that that is a qualitative statement, not a quantitative one. Since everyone pretty much believes in all the gods, differences in the quantity of the total divine power available to a particular god is a not function of how many people believe in that particular god at all. It is a function of what they believe about that god! Dashin Mother Nature is more powerful and can throw Poncy Mirror Boy Galenar over her knee at any time she pleases because everyone believes this is so! After all, it's pretty obvious that the force of nature itself is far more wide reaching and potent than any motivation to heroism, no matter how good and admirable and noble. The gods compete for followers/worshipers then, not in a contest over sheer numbers, but in the attempt to convince more people to believe that they are more powerful. Where it comes down to a dispute between opposing claims that "Our god's more powerful than your god," however the numbers win. [/blockquote]
That's fantastic.  
I have the opposite, with Gods willingly taking on new aspects and sharing religions if it gets them access to more souls and more soul's belief energy.
I like how your gods are trying to usea philosophical debate to empower themselves.  Mine, behind the curtain they have agreed to be locked away at, are desperately trying to gain the upper hand in an ancient battle for the souls of the populace of Celtricia as they traverse from the Well of Life, into being in the 'Waking Dream', and pass through to the Well of Death at the other end, and one of the Planars can claim them once they are there...

Many gods in Panisadore do willingly share religion and at times acquire or drop aspects - Hebnitarath being the most extensive example of when you look closely into history. Thelema's portfolio on the other hand has changed little since the dawn of time. Shalireah(proto Elven sun goddess)/2 = Shaliah (Elven evening star) + Salistreah (Human sun) is probably the most dramatic such change - sort of re-unified religiously within the Order of the Ladies Hand. For current change-in-progress, the maturation of Galenar's ethos illustrates a shift in what people believe about him (or more precisely, about what a hero is and by extension, what he represents) which feeds back (loop) as more people invest increased belief in a greater range of power. In DMing terms the whole thing is unfortunately difficult to ultimately quantify should it ever become necessary to actually settle a question of "who can kick who's butt," but as I mentioned - the gods are rarely willing to put such matters to a definitive test unless they're quite certain of winning. Hence, pundits (and nearsighted fan-boys doomed to a life of eternal hairy-palmed virginity alike) will probably forever argue about "if Galenar and Nuhveen fought a duel, which one would win?" The main reason for sharing religion though is as we discussed when I posted The Lyricists - few more immanent deities can really inspire anything deeper than personality cults by themselves - being more emulated than worshiped. The more "concrete" their personalities the more this is so, the more abstract and "transcendent," the more their ethea can be viewed as actual religions. Even so, the Lyricists incorporate two pretty abstract, transcendent deities in their trinity. (Which is part of why their religion is so "mystical" and hard for most people to grasp.)

The problems this is all attempting to address (as I perceive arising in most systems/settings) is that "# of believers" in a literal interpretation of the words doesn't actually reflect the situation - regardless of whom someone worships their is rarely a question of whether they believe that any or all of the other gods exist or not, so that # can't be used to determine anything. Most, like Forgotten Realms, instead try to quantify # of active worshipers = deity's power. This can work, but often either forces some to be surprisingly low powered when you look at what they represent because hardly anyone worships them (imagine a god of "the end of the world" with so few worshipers that he could never actually bring about the end of the world. . .) or gods who are much more powerful (because story needs them to be) than the numbers of people actually worshiping them appear to warrant. (Either that or there are an unbelievable number of evil people pretending to worship someone else and hold "black masses" in their basements. . .) So I'm trying to present a mechanism by which belief can invest power in a deity in a manner consistent with their descriptions which isn't subject to such discrepancies in verisimilitude.

How is this battle actually being fought/carried out? It sounds almost as if they are each trying to "put their mark" upon as many beings as possible prior to incarnation - effectively then producing the most followers in the world who would not have any free-will in changing their allegiance once they're born - which would imply that they have little real effect or relevance to the world of the living (hence locked behind the curtain) really being (to the living) sort of pre-birth archetypal/atavistic memories. Is that close? What then happens after death ("one of the Planars can claim them. . .")?

well, answering the question of the internal dynamic of the Planars is a long email.   I'll try to shorten it without missing anything critical.
 
The world of Celtricia is the 'Waking Dream', created by the Song of Creation (which is still being sung today in the Void).  And when the Waking Dream was created, as well as the Stations and the Houses of the Void, the Plaanrs could enter it.  And the Planars are much more complex and yet much more simple than the folk of the "waking Dream' could ever imagine, in that they exist in a multiplicity of dimensions and at the same time a multiplicity of areas of influence, yet their need to use their power in these aspects is overwhelming.  Nebler is not just the Planar of Defence, he has an insatiable urge to Defend, and despite his great intellect and cosmic understanding, he/it cannot change this or mitigate it.  Vernidale the Green Mother/Serpent Queen feels equally driven to create growth and to support machiavellian, self-interested cold-bloodedness.  And despite the amounts of aspects a Planar might have, their multidimensional nature, their ability to be doing more than one thing at a  time allows for this dynamic.
Song of Creation (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Song+Of+Creation)

The Planars are also aware that they were created in a certain order in the Song, and while no one in the "Waking Dream' realizes this, this is not the first song.  And though the souls that each planar can claim from the Cycle of the Well of Life to the Well of Death do strengthen them today, and increase their power, it is also ensuring their place in the next Song, when this one fails.  And this is very much a survival mechanism.  This is the real dynamic for all the strife between the planars.  Even those of them that work together, due to similarities of their nature or spheres of influence.  (also, the quality of the soul is critical...powerful worshippers that perish on the Well of Death can cause actual strife amongst the Planars over whose domain does that soul fly to).  

So the belief that most Celtricians have that when they die, they are joined in death to their god, is essentially correct.  And the more powerful the soul, the longer it retains it's individuality... between the Journey through the Well of Death to the Domain a soul is going to, and the time it takes to be absorbed into the collectivity of the PLanar, it can be decades or even centuries before they are fully absorbed.

The Planars all have servants that dwell near the Well of Death, on the plains of dark glass shards of Zevashopal, the bottom of the House of Death.  Here they make their case to each other a thousand times a day, as to whose taint is on each soul, how they worshipped, who they served best.  And sometimes, when this conflict is undecided, the Planars themselves will enter the fray to make their claims.  

This the real cosmology, not the teachings within any religion, if that needs to be said.  The inhabitants of the 'Waking Dream' know little of this.  Their Holy books are full of what people have written, of what has driven seers mad and half-remembered uttereances from the Age of Heroes, or before it, the Age of Legends, when the PLanars walked the earth.

I also need to mention from a worldbuilding stance, the reason for existence for gods, what they are really trying to do (versus what mortals think) is good fodder for the beginning of setting creation. Not later on.
   

First, let me add a "me too" to most of what SM said, especially the part about understanding what the Gods "are" before you can get down to brass tacks about how they interact with the world.

The short answer to the question is as follows:

The bad gods care a lot, because they are stuck on earth with people, and they intervene in mortal affairs as much as they think they can get away with.

The good gods care a bit less -- they have other things to worry about besides the happenings on earth.  (The question is open as to whether or not they created other, more perfect worlds after all the stuff that happened with the one the game is set in, but that's not something that the players would have access to so I don't worry about it.)

The long answer, which involves answering SM's all-important question, is...

In my own world, which has very Grecian-style Gods, the Gods were the first things that were created when eternity finally caught up with the primal Chaos.  The idea is that, given an eternity, eventually Chaos would eventually fall into a pattern of self-replicating order.  It only needed to last a microsecond, and all of the sudden the universe is aware and structured.  So it started building.  It started with one God (male).  Then two Gods.  (Both male, brothers)  Then companions for the two Gods.  (two female gods)  Then there were two batches of children.  Then those Gods decided to create a world, which they did.  It sits in the middle of their Celestial Palace.

So far so good.  But bad things happen, even with Gods.  There was a murder.  And someone left.  And things got very bad in the Celestial Palace.  And some of the Gods were corrupted by their actions, and became evil Gods.  But eventually the evil Gods were defeated.  And here's where the answer to the original question comes into play.

The GOOD gods (or rather, the Gods generally seen as good) are still in the Celestial Palace.  They have great powers, and can come and go on earth as they please.  It just so happens that they don't often please.  They give their most ardent followers some of their power, push a few events here and there to keep themselves content, and trust that they've got good followers.

The BAD gods, on the other hand, were banished.  To earth.  They are stuck in a half-life, and bound to the world.  They have to spend some time in material form, and have nothing else to do except mess with things here on the planet.  The really bad God -- the one who committed the first murder -- was merged with the earth itself.  The very soil is contaminated with evil on a very low level.  The earth in general isn't a happy place: things break down, people die, and there is pain.

This is all to say that the good gods trust in their agents, while the Bad gods often intercede with things directly.  One of them travels the world attempting to turn people away from worship of the good gods, using deceit and trickery as his weapons.  Another occasionally merges himself with a chosen champion of his order to go wreak havoc on people.  But the bad gods do things like summon storms, strike down warriors on the battlefield, raise armies (usually through proxies), and bring plagues and famines.

The regulating force to the evil gods' involvement is that the Good gods are now way more powerful than the trapped and relatively defanged bad gods.  As a result, the bad gods have to try to stay under the good gods' radar.  If they were to personally jump out and wipe out an army, that's likely to draw some attention from the Good Gods... something the Bad Gods really don't want to have happen.  They are stuck in this prison of a world, and they'd like to at least be left alone.

So the big question that one of my players had was this: why don't the good gods just wipe out the bad gods when the bad gods get too out of line?  Well... despite how much the good gods (more or less) care about humans and don't like to see them suffer, the bad gods are family.  The bad gods know that, and they know that as long as they don't push things to far, they'll be allowed to survive.

I wanted a fantasy world, and I wanted to allow religions to have some credibility.  A lot of RPG players poo-poo on religion in real life, and while I'm not religious myself, I have a deep respect for those who are.  And one of the things I tried to examine in my world was how religion would change if the Gods were demonstrably real.  So I made sure that there was proof of their existence.  Their primary intervention is by granting their most devoted and proven followers a license on their own power.  This power is granted: the priest can do whatever he wants with it subject to the limits of the license.  It might take a little while for the God to notice that his or her gift is being abused before he or she takes it away.  From time to time the Gods intervene directly -- delivering messages, prophecies, objects and items... but it is always an extraordinary circumstance that -- from the players' point of view -- requires a great deal of time, effort, and ritual to occur.  (This is usually just because you have to get the Gods' attention before they will talk to you.)

Anyway, the following is from my primary campaign sourcebook, and represents some thoughts on what Gods are (warning... it's a bit long):

[spoiler=Thoughts on Gods ]What a God Isn't
         The Gods of Calisenthe are not omniscient.  Nor are they all-powerful.  They cannot themselves mystically peer into the hearts and minds of men, though with their great capacities, they can intuit much more deeply what a person thinks than even that person's own mother may.
   The Gods are not linked to the faith of the followers in any substantial way.  To the extent that they fight for their church's dominance, it is a matter of ego, not survival.  The Gods of the Celestial Palace '" and even the Dark Gods exiled to earth '" will continue to live long after man has left the earth and naught but dust remains.
   Assuming, of course, that they do not die.  For the other thing that the Gods are not is immortal in the sense of ever-living.  Being able to live forever does not mean one cannot be killed, as the story of Inri shows all too tragically.  Now, it takes a great deal to kill a God.  And it is unlikely in the extreme that anything other than another God could do it.  But it is certainly possible.
   The Gods are not, however, corporeal.  They may assume physical shape (in the sense understood by humans), but this is not their form, not the form that they use while in the Palace at any rate.  One of the curses laid upon Elledan's children was that they were bound to the earth, forced to spend a certain amount of their time in actual physical form., and robbed forever of their true forms.
   The last, and perhaps most important thing that a God is not is mystically prescient.  Some cultures believe that Gods are all-knowing, and include the future in the scope of that knowledge.  The Gods of Calisenthe do not know the future, for the future is not fixed.  Certain types of magic can, indeed, tell the future, but it is a matter of probability, not certainty.  Even the currents of the Void, brought to bear on the mortal world with all of their predictive force, cannot make up a man's mind entire.

What a God Is
         The Gods of Calisenthe are many things.  They are sometimes selfish, they are often petty.  They can be good, they can be just.  In short, the Gods have free will.  They have their fundamental natures, to be sure, but so do men.  It is in Coridain's nature to be honorable.  That does not mean he is ever and always honorable.  It is in Edrir's nature to be dark and terrible, but that does not mean he cannot show mercy.  The Gods do not consider themselves "the God of War" or "the God of the moon."  They consider themselves as themselves.  It is men who make them into Gods with ascribed titles.  The Gods simply have areas that interest them more or less than other Gods.  Arlavel doesn't really care about arcane magic.  She cares about the woods.  And so her best priestesses are those who care about nature as well.
   If one hesitates to say that '˜Gods are people, too', it is because they aren't.  Not really.  They sometimes act like people, but they are immense powers on a cosmic scale.  They have the power to create and to destroy.  Their powers are not unlimited in scope, but they would not have to be.  Arlavel may not be able to slay the entire world with a wave of the hand, but she could do it over time and with effort.
   
Why Worship the Gods?
         It may seem that the picture painted here is an unflattering one, one that casts the God as not truly divine, and certainly not deserving of the worship of men.  But worship the Gods men do '" most of them, at any rate.  And the reasons are simple.
   First, the Gods created the world, and the seas, and beasts and trees.  The Gods even created man, shaping him and making him better.  One look at the contradictory religions of the 'real' world should show that the notion of creation has a powerful pull '" even when it's not possible that everyone is right about their God.  Imagine a world where the Gods really did create man, and there wasn't any uncertainty!  
   For many men '" most of them, in fact '" the Gods of Calisenthe embody principles of virtue (or vice).  They embody emotions, actions, and serve as focii, beacons by which people can guide their own lives.   Thus, men worship Relleya because they wish to think clearly and understand their own souls.  Men worship Elleleth because they wish to be just.  Men worship Coradain because they wish to be brave, or Teyrinor because they wish to be vigilant.  It helps to have a focus.
   Generally speaking, the tangible benefits of worshiping a God are few.  Churches certainly function as a social support mechanism, but the good Gods, at least, do not often take direct action in the affairs of men.  It is unlikely in the extreme that a man's fervent prayers to Elleleth are going to save him from the bear coming towards him.  But the Gods do reward their most devoted servants with intervention, often by granting unto them great powers of their own.  And it is through the powers that they give their most devoted agents '" a sort of lease on power '" that the Gods take their most active roles in the world.
[/spoiler]

And this is the "bible" such as it is, from my campaign world.  It's the long, detailed story of the creation of the Gods, the first death among them, and all that.  Warning: it's even longer.


File: 1218057488_794_FT52779_irnaciln.pdf (//../../e107_files/public/1218057488_794_FT52779_irnaciln.pdf)

[blockquote[LordVreeg]
The world of Celtricia is the 'Waking Dream', created by the Song of Creation (which is still being sung today in the Void).  And when the Waking Dream was created, as well as the Stations and the Houses of the Void, the Plaanrs could enter it. [/blockquote]

Is the Song of Creation a metaphoric term or a literal description of the (initial and ongoing) process of creation (a la Tolkien's Ainulindalë)? In essence, the entire cosmos can be seen as "singing itself into existence" and in a Buddhist/Taoist perspective the term can be seen as an appropriate and acceptable metaphor for what cannot be described - a "finger pointing at the moon." As a more literal myth it seems to be implying a somewhat more transcendent/separate view of the gods insofar as only they are participating in the actual creative process/act and mortals are not (at least in such a direct sense - see below about souls after death). Also - is it still being actively Sung or simply echoing long after? That speaks to how the Song will end - fading out or when the Conductor signals the end of the piece to the choir. I gotta ask, sonata allegro (or more appropriately, raga) form with the various Ages constituting its movements, (or alap, jod, jhala and bandish), or acid rock opera? (Exploring ragas in this regard could prove quite fascinating, especially in terms of finding appropriate "soundtracks" when writing about various facets of the setting.) In any case the cyclic nature (neither the first nor last of such Songs) can be readily viewed as an expression of "mythical truth" which parallels scientific/historical "fact" (two terms/concepts I use a lot in addressing the matter as a minister). By this I'm referring (here specifically) to the attempt of science to explain the physical mechanisms of creation and continuation of our perceived reality/cosmos (e.g. cyclic "Big Bang" models of expansion from and contraction back to singularities producing a new cycle when they reach a "critical mass") without (inappropriately/essentially irrelevantly to that purpose) addressing questions of "who" established this mechanical process and "why." Ultimately I view all creation myths as true, including the better/deeper/more complete and well considered of those we make up, but none as factual. The question here being what constitutes factual history within the reality of the setting as described by these terms - which can make a significant difference to play. In that regard your last sentence bears discussion here:

QuoteI also need to mention from a worldbuilding stance, the reason for existence for gods, what they are really trying to do (versus what mortals think) is good fodder for the beginning of setting creation. Not later on.

Since we tend to have such similar approaches to things this statement, particularly the latter half, kind of confuses me - I may not be grasping your meaning here. Very often (and some pretty obvious examples among Panisadore's Deities can be readily found as it is quite explicit in the "DM's eyes only" portions of their descriptions) mortal misapprehension of what they're up to vs what they're really trying to do has significant influence on play and the setting's functioning in play. It is primarily the differences in mortal interpretations of the evidence produced in the world by/of deific actions which leads to various factions within religions and outright conflicting religions :fencing:  arising from/relating to the same god(s). In most cases though, I recognize and would agree that where such differences between reality and mortal perception exist they are unlikely to ever be resolved/corrected by mortals in the setting as a whole - in most such instances in Panisadore those who do comprehend reality (enlightened and/or insane) still can't explain it to anyone who doesn't already likewise understand it. :dots:

The reason(s) why the gods exist tend to be more important to worldbuilding than to play, although they can have some bearing on the above as the designer sees useful/appropriate to whatever it is that they're doing and perceived as doing. (In Panisadore it's only significant in terms of what those who understand it are doing - it lies at the root of the actions of the handful of NPC's, mortal and divine, referred to above and so is of use to the DM in the process of consistently confusing the PC's unless/until any of them likewise approach enlightenment, at which point they also realize that it doesn't really matter. . .) This I think is generally true of any setting cosmology - the DM needs to employ a certain consistency during the course of play in order to properly perpetuate that general mortal misapprehension built into the setting should the PC's be choosing to pursue story paths which it has bearing upon. In "kill the monsters and take the loot" :axe:  style play (among the extremes) this of course has little to no relevance. The more active in mortal realms that the gods in a setting are however, the more likely this is to make a difference since they will produce more evidence which the DM will want mortals to consistently misinterpret. :soap: Regardless, in the most extreme cases, should a god actually appear in their principal temples and painstakingly, thoroughly and explicitly spell it all out :hammer:  for the edification of their various misguided and bickering followers, it is still perfectly reasonable for the human (read mortal) capacity for stubborn denial in the face of clear and overwhelming proof to the contrary of their cherished opinions and beliefs to come into play, producing even wilder and more preposterous misinterpretations :morons: among them in the attempt to rationalize their insistence upon clinging to their now publicly and completely confuted dogmas. . . :rambo: . .

QuoteAnd the Planars are much more complex and yet much more simple than the folk of the "waking Dream' could ever imagine, in that they exist in a multiplicity of dimensions and at the same time a multiplicity of areas of influence, yet their need to use their power in these aspects is overwhelming.  Nebler is not just the Planar of Defence, he has an insatiable urge to Defend, and despite his great intellect and cosmic understanding, he/it cannot change this or mitigate it.  Vernidale the Green Mother/Serpent Queen feels equally driven to create growth and to support machiavellian, self-interested cold-bloodedness.  And despite the amounts of aspects a Planar might have, their multidimensional nature, their ability to be doing more than one thing at a  time allows for this dynamic.

Similar to those of Panisadore - in some ways it can be said that the gods are what they do/their ethea. In Panisadore this is a result of the beliefs regarding them - their own and others, but the effect is essentially the same.
Galenar and Hebnaritath provide notable examples of both cause and effect. The first is easily and rather universally understood by mortals while the latter is almost universally misunderstood. (The Lyricists understand him, but they don't count since Those Damn Poets are even more universally misunderstood. . . :drunk: ) That which removes mortal limitations consequently imposes even greater limitations. This of course is a clear indication that they are not the setting's "overdiety" or whatever. (Like Crowley referring to "The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel," I use the term because any thing more "accurate" will inherently produce misunderstanding from overly literal interpretation, while the term is absurd enough to be recognized as a ridiculous euphemism which can't be taken literally. See Thelema. . .) I get the impression that the same holds true of the Planars, tho' I haven't noted to date any indication of whether or not Celtrician "real" cosmology includes any such cognate along the lines of Eru Illuvitar to the Ainur. (Tolkien was very Catholic.)


Song of Creation (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/Song+Of+Creation)

(I will have to go back to this again more carefully - have perused cursorily in the cbgwiki.)

QuoteThe Planars are also aware that they were created in a certain order in the Song, and while no one in the "Waking Dream' realizes this, this is not the first song.  And though the souls that each planar can claim from the Cycle of the Well of Life to the Well of Death do strengthen them today, and increase their power, it is also ensuring their place in the next Song, when this one fails.  And this is very much a survival mechanism.  This is the real dynamic for all the strife between the planars.  Even those of them that work together, due to similarities of their nature or spheres of influence.  (also, the quality of the soul is critical...powerful worshippers that perish on the Well of Death can cause actual strife amongst the Planars over whose domain does that soul fly to).

So the belief that most Celtricians have that when they die, they are joined in death to their god, is essentially correct.  And the more powerful the soul, the longer it retains it's individuality... between the Journey through the Well of Death to the Domain a soul is going to, and the time it takes to be absorbed into the collectivity of the PLanar, it can be decades or even centuries before they are fully absorbed.

To make sure I'm grasping this correctly: This seems to imply that the "soul," that is, what remains after the body's death, has no intrinsic reality of its own (parallels Buddhism/Taoism in that regard) - the "shell" of the aggregate ego/personality continues after death to "echo its unique chord in the Song" :blah: for a period of time directly proportional to the power with which that chord was sung in the Waking Dream - and it can further be viewed as harmonizing with the Vocal Parts of the Song sung by more than one Planar, who fight over which will absorb the energy which produced the chord once its echo finally subsides. That energy itself however is an "extrusion" from Source (as are the Planars) and ultimately reabsorbed into that source along with that which is manifest as the Planar which will have previously absorbed it.

QuoteThe Planars all have servants that dwell near the Well of Death, on the plains of dark glass shards of Zevashopal, the bottom of the House of Death.  Here they make their case to each other a thousand times a day, as to whose taint is on each soul, how they worshipped, who they served best.  And sometimes, when this conflict is undecided, the Planars themselves will enter the fray to make their claims.

I take it then there is no "judge of the dead" to serve as (final) arbiter of this dispute. Also - this implies a further hierarchy of (pseudo-angelic) powers existing between the levels of mortal and (deific) Planar (Maiar to the Planars' Ainur).

QuoteThis the real cosmology, not the teachings within any religion, if that needs to be said.  The inhabitants of the 'Waking Dream' know little of this.  Their Holy books are full of what people have written, of what has driven seers mad and half-remembered utterances from the Age of Heroes, or before it, the Age of Legends, when the PLanars walked the earth.

I infer here that mortal perception is not actually capable of encompassing the whole of the Song, only various, very limited parts/voices/strains/themes, leading to vastly different perceptions/descriptions of the same thing along the lines of The Blind Men and the Elephant. "Seers driven mad" having managed then to experience the sound of say, the entire Tenor Section, :band: rather than the voice of a single tenor. :sosad: (Or would hearing a soprano hitting a high note which, for the sake of safety and good taste, normally lies beyond the frequency range of mortal hearing be more apt? :explode:)

Finally - your characterizing mortal life as the "Waking Dream" seems to imply it as not actually "real" - Planar realms perhaps being so and the Waking Dream a pale imitation, false projection, etc. of them - or entirely opposite, along the lines of Australian aboriginal cosmology, the real manifestation of what is first conceived of in the Dreamtime and sung into being (like told into being as Story - telling the Story of the Dream makes the Dream/Story real) as Acid Rock Opera in Raag notation. . . Or are you referring here to The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?

Llum, Steerpike, any input?
Audio Ninja D, how about the new setting?
SCMP, any opinion?

Vreeg, I thought you killed threads, not brought them back to life...

This is awsome, I think about this all the time, so now I get to put my thoughts into words.


Divergence

In Divergence I rarely use the word God (I removed the one time I did I believe). This is because there's no suddenly completely omnipotent being. Powers are mortals who by some fluke gained powers that allowed them to go through a singularity of sorts, and mostly survive emerging on the other side. The Powers cannot be understood by humans, mere contact with them scrambles the mind. Powers are divided into two categories, Elder and normal I guess. Powers are humans who underwent this process, they're now beyond comprehension of their former fellows. Elder Powers are the same thing just it happened to aliens thousands or millions (or billions) of years ago.

Powers are very active in The Origin, although not directly (what happens when two omnipotent beings clash? nothing, they cancel each other out) instead they go after goals and fight each other with proxies, its something to pass the time. The Elder Powers (The Deep Green and the Twin Golds) do the same, but on a much vaster scale (The entire universe). The Orange and Steel and other Powers (Elder and newer) went insane, well that's what we would call it, since can a God really be insane? They gather champions to themselves, people augmented so they can handle being in their presence, semi-divine people, demi-gods in a sense.

The Divergences are largely unaffected by the Powers, they were just created when they first came into godhood, now they're left alone, mostly.

The Penumbra is off-limits, it was a prison created by the Twin Golds to hold something in, Powers can't effect it. There is however a side effect, the wards ended up creating sources of power called galactic energy, which when used can allow someone to ascend to Godhood, of sorts. These Gods wield extreme power, that of their specific galactic energy, have divine nature, but they still have bodies. Then there's all kinds of complications, a God (Hindu Ala) stripped her sister of her divinity (Khali Ala) this led to a semi-divine person. All other kind of godly hijinx ensuied

The Aberration is another story, the Gods are impersonal Aspects, competing for control of the Web of Aspects. The Aspects aren't sentient, they only manipulate things and create servitors to wage war on the servitors of opposing aspects.

The Calm in the Eye of the Realmstorm

Gods do not exist, end of story. Some immortal people (elves mainly) have achieved extreme powers, but they're largely gone (The Refreshing).Immortals don't worship, why would they since they're basically divine in themselves, Light and Darkness for Surface and Dungeon Elves come close, since they're revered as their creators. Dwarves don't even do that. Humans currently worship freedom, they want it badly its become almost divine to them. The Orcs find nothing divine, since what divinity would give them their bastards lot in the world? The closest thing for them is the study of how the Realms interact.

Daemons just worship those stronger then them. The Hive doesn't understand the concept of worship, nether do Golems. Elementals aren't sentient so they don't worship anything ether. The Undead revere the meteors and what summoned them.

The Naga pray to the Timeless Ocean, but they know its just geology. Coualt and Salamanders are immortals and don't worship. The Morrow have the closest thing to real worship, The Flux as they call it, the divine Light of the Water, but its really just a sentient water elemental that hears them. The Giants revere they're totemic animals, but it isn't worship, just deep respect until they fuse. The Ophidian worship nothing, unless they're a Shark Giant around, then it becomes a local God to them, but its still just a Shark Giant.

Tough Worlds

In these two collection of ideas (I'm still fleshing out both of them) I haven't decided on how worship will work. In the world of the devouring I can see all kinds of cults springing up, but no real deities. In the world where magic comes from the sky, certain Dragons (unique fey creatures) are worshipped (these include Hel, Cerul and the Cornicopia Dragon) and city folk revere the sky, because that's where their power comes from (magic). The two opposing schools of necromancy each worship opposing beacons in the sky, (the Sun for the Dawn School and the Moon for the Twilight school). That's all I've decided for now.

In conclusion I've touched both extremes (active Gods and lack of Gods) and a little (very little) in between.

Quote from: AcrimoneVreeg, I thought you killed threads, not brought them back to life...

Oh, this is thread necromancy, not resurrection...this way I get to kill it again...these were a few threads that got some great responses, so I thought we'd hit 'refresh'.

The gods in Crystalstar tend to meddle fairly often, and they send their emissaries to meddle even more often than that. In this way, they are somewhat akin to the Greek pantheon, which was always up to something. It is not unusual for high-ranking priestesses to have actually spoken to them.

On the other hand... in many ways, they're more akin to the "godlike aliens" that often appear in sci-fi-- they have great knowledge and power, but are not truly "godlike," and at the end of the day, they don't have all the answers either. In that sense, the "real gods" in my setting are like the real world, where nobody knows.

Llum, this gives me a much better insight to how your settings 'feel', especially in the Diveregence...

I'm using two different sorts of deities in the Cadaverous Earth.  The first are the possibly fictitious deities worshiped by most of the world's inhabitants: Striga, the star-gods, the many gods of Lophius Driftwood District (which are worshiped outside of that city as well), the Weeping Lady, Verlum, the Gibbering Goddess, and more planned.  The other group are more like the Tarrasque or something, huge quasi-divine monsters like Hirud, the Ravager Worm - Lovecraftian things and elemental destroyers, the so-called "Chained Ones."  They're revered by a deranged few but most consider them more like enormous demons.

A few crazed nature-worshipers revere the Fecundity, but most get eaten in short order by the beasts that dwell within or the cancer-forest itself.

I don't use gods. :D

While I have no deep analysis about the mechanics of belief, which I think are sufficiently expostulated above, I tend to make divine/cosmic beings very active in my worlds. The reason for this is simple: it's harder to pull off without a heavy overdose of deus ex machina, but it also invokes a great deal less paperwork on the PCs' level. They already know there's someone watching out for them (whether to help them along or to wreak unforgivable harm on them), and they don't have to have deep theological discussions about how Bob the Evil Cleric gets his spells. Don't get me wrong, I love theology, and I'm deeply opinionated about it'¦in real life. I find it fascinating to write and create it, but in play I personally try to stay away from the inevitable bogging down of the game that occurs.

As far as world-building is concerned, divine mechanics are usually the first thing I hammer out. Gods and immortal beings are factors that have a direct and powerful impact on any setting (whether or not they are active)

Here are some examples:

Asilikos '" For those who have looked at my setting here, you'll notice my list of divinities is most of what I've posted so far, and looking at the summary you'll see why. The disaster that tears apart my world was touched off by a war between such beings, and worsened by their attempts to end the conflict. It also, however, birthed new deities that walk among mortals and may be the most likely to end the suffering of the world (one way or another). There, the presence of the gods and their fiendish and celestial rivals and enemies directly shapes the policies of their servants. But at the same time, the catastrophe of the Shearing also limits them to a mortality of their own, and keeps them from affecting the actions of individuals and small groups, in whose hands lie destinies beyond immortal ken.

As an aside, I don't subscribe to huge pantheons, and tend not to make use of animistic faiths with numerous spirits and '˜little divinities'; take Forgotten Realms, for example. There are literally hundreds of established deities on Toril, all fairly active. That's too much interference, and with each maintaining sects of his/her/its own that's tens of thousands of little dots of influence moving about the world. It seems almost impossible that any god there has any way of getting things done with so many potential meddlers milling about (power levels aside, the rules implicitly make it out that even a greater god would have trouble with so many lesser powers interfering).

Wyctil '" As with Asilikos, a great disaster is just being overcome. In this case, the unearthing of a mighty artifact has devastated the divine ranks at the top, forcing the demigods and quasi-deities to step into shoes way too big for them. For instance, the goddess of dance is now the goddess of war, and three '˜councils' of these small gods-made-big try to sort out their new authorities while also trying to contain an invasion by the ethergaunts.

Aphon'anak '" This one does focus on a theological disagreement between the gods of the common races and the draconic gods. Both sides claim to have arisen first and created the world, which has trickled into a massive war between mortals (okay, so I like using huge wars as a campaign backdrop, if not the main event). The gods actively take to the field to lead their armies, and mortals have begun to mutate and become resistant to the powers of their patrons, and mortals take their gods' presence for granted. This is an example of the opposite end of the '˜active divine' argument; familiarity breeds contempt.

In all cases, I never, never use real world religions as more than an outline for any pantheon. Asilikos, for example, uses the basic relationships present in the Norse, Egyptian, and Greek pantheons as the skeleton for three separate groups of powers, but none of these three have been crafted to resemble those inspirations in any other way (hopefully soon I can get that posted, too).


To get back to the main question, I believe that deities that are actively involved in their worshipers' lives are more interesting than distant ones. They have more story potential, both in the ways they interact with mortals and how they interact with each other.

[blockquote[Cavalier de Corvus]the goddess of dance is now the goddess of war[/blockquote]

Are you paraphrasing Confucius? :fencing:

Quote from: Snargash Moonclaw[blockquote[Cavalier de Corvus]the goddess of dance is now the goddess of war[/blockquote]

Are you paraphrasing Confucius? :fencing:

Not that I'm aware of. Just a notion I found rather appealing.

"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." (It's a notion I find appealing as well - buried a little more in the details of this religion (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Public_Organizations#Lyricists.2C_.28a.k.a..2C_.E2.80.9CThose_Damn_Poets.E2.80.9D_in_regions_where_they_are_particularly_active.29.2C_Formally:_Trinitarians).)

Quote from: Snargash Moonclaw"Never give a sword to a man who can't dance." (It's a notion I find appealing as well - buried a little more in the details of this religion (http://www.thecbg.org/wiki/index.php?title=Public_Organizations#Lyricists.2C_.28a.k.a..2C_.E2.80.9CThose_Damn_Poets.E2.80.9D_in_regions_where_they_are_particularly_active.29.2C_Formally:_Trinitarians).)

That's funny. The quote is almost precisely something I wrote in some fiction I toyed with a while back.

The Lyricists seem very similar to the priesthood of the goddess I mentioned, in fact. Weird.

Because I'm on a roll tonight and can't stop myself: [blockquote[LV]Do your Gods give a flying ^#$%, and if so, how does it affect gameplay? [/blockquote]

Of course they do, if only to rub the faces of mortals in the fact that they can and it's so much more full of awesomeness when you can ignore the laws of gravity while doing it. When the Rimenosha discovered the surface you couldn't look at the sky for at least a century without seeing one or more of their First Ancestors engaging in a fireworks display with some other race's deities. (Except for Rimilnix - he didn't want to find himself in the embarrassing position of being unable to deny how hot he secretly thinks Salistreah is. . .) As to the second part of your question, it motivates characters to learn to levitate. And while I'm on the general topic, would a Flathead halfling subrace be going too far?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled topicality. . .

In my games gods tend, like D&D deities to be very pagan, as in they are still aloof and powerful, but not infallible and certainly not omnipotent.  And yet in my games, beyond them there are gods who are bit more like Monotheistic Deities in the sense they are absurdly powerful beings who are almost beyind the mortal realm.  And beyond them we have actual elder evils who are beyond the universe itself on every level.  And then there are the four great beings, True Law, True Chaos, Good and Evil.  And finally there is the creator, nameless
from
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Quote from: SteerpikeI'm using two different sorts of deities in the Cadaverous Earth.  The first are the possibly fictitious deities worshiped by most of the world's inhabitants: Striga, the star-gods, the many gods of Lophius Driftwood District (which are worshiped outside of that city as well), the Weeping Lady, Verlum, the Gibbering Goddess, and more planned.  The other group are more like the Tarrasque or something, huge quasi-divine monsters like Hirud, the Ravager Worm - Lovecraftian things and elemental destroyers, the so-called "Chained Ones."  They're revered by a deranged few but most consider them more like enormous demons.

A few crazed nature-worshipers revere the Fecundity, but most get eaten in short order by the beasts that dwell within or the cancer-forest itself.

The  Many Gods of the Lophious Driftwood District?  Quasi-divine totemic monsters?  AS always with your fiendishness, you tease...
How does worship feel, in this setting of despair and where the past is so muffled and lost?  Why do people worship....where do they find hope?

Steepike, Llum, LightDragon, and others...do your Gods care?  DO they give a flying *)&^&^%?

My gods tend to be ambiguously real, for the most part.  Hirud is definitely real, but he doesn't care so much as want to devour everything and leech the entire world dry.  The Beast Gods seem to be real, but they're asleep and dreaming.  The others are probably all human inventions and aren't actually real at all, although many people in the Cadaverous Earth claim to have met such figures as the Bloodletter or Melmoth the Wanderer.

[blockquote=sTEERPIKE]The others are probably all human inventions and aren't actually real at all, although many people in the Cadaverous Earth claim to have met such figures as the Bloodletter or Melmoth the Wanderer.[/blockquote]

Somehow, the CE seems like a place like the nightside, where belief and human invention can be enough to make a dread real...

Yeah, maybe I should play more with the idea of the gods becoming real... certainly the oneiroi fulfill the whole belief-made-manifest thing.  It might be cool to extrapolate that idea.

In the latest three creations of mine here is how it goes down.

The Bronze Setting has gods, lots of em. Some care, deeply about the sentients they've adopted as their own. Others are just out to cause as much chaos and havoc as they possibly can, maybe with the help of some like-minded mortals elevated to demi-gods. Kinda works both ways because a lot of people try and take advantage of the gods as well, like he whole Dominii fiasco.

In Hen Mut I've only thought up a few gods and how religion would work. The Soul-King is a Pharoah type person who says he is a god-king. Otherwise there are only the Phage-Gods, viral deities who bless plagues and poxes to cause humanity even greater trouble.

In the Advent of the Ninth Zenith, there are nine mountains, each revered as gods by those who live on them. (Some are actually volcanoes and one is mostly a glacier). Not sure how much they care, if anything they're probably annoyed. I mean going to sleep and waking up with all these people building junk and living on you, how rude :p

Well, I suppose this is part of the initiation process. Thank you Lord Vreeg.
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It should be noted that I have never adventured in either WonderWorld or Gloria- both settings were created especially for this board. In neither do the gods play a large role. The world was created in some fashion, but there are no heavy-handed deus ex plays.

In the setting I play and DM DnD in- "Rebirth", the Gods also do not intervene in the world. They give their magic to the world but do not visit. Religion however plays a large role. The entire world was destroyed in a magical cataclysm called the "Demise" and everyone who survived transported themselves (or had their gods transport them) to a new planet crafted by the "Recreator," a powerful mortal.

He has his own Church, but does not grant divine spells per se. The old religions and his clash mightily and many choose not to believe in any gods; others only believe in the Recreator. The old religions are mainly based around dualistic gods/goddesses. But there are no "evil" deities per se. In one city, the shrine of the Goddess of Pestilence is located in the city, as is the Graveyard of the God of Death, the Goddess of Luck, the Goddess of Misfortune, the Goddess of Light. (The only really negative God would probably be the God of Darkness.)

I do not generally like to have Gods too involved in the world itself- their involvement seems to abstract a lot of the struggles that characters can make into mere "good/evil" battles. I see every god as necessary for my worlds to work and want the characters to behave like characters in a well-written novel. Everyone has interests that must be acknowledged and fulfilled by the characters' adventures.

In one game, I amusingly had a treaty of versailles-sort of argument between players and three other sides over what to do with an artifact that had, over the course of 6 game sessions created a domino effect of the world's creatures running into each other. (In very brief form: Characters are adventuring in session 1, 2, and then in session 3 they jump onto the main story-line) signs of the problem have been building in the early sessions. In session three they actually have to deal with the actual problem- lizardfolk are coming into conflict with human settlers at the edge of the city; so the characters are supposed to push the lizards back somehow through a negotiation. Well, they find that the lizards have been fighting and moving south because the Kobolds pushed them south. Then the characters discover, from fleeing fey, that the Sahaugin (who have been sinking ships since episode 1) are the real problem- Nazi Sahaugin storm the beaches, flood the land and enact war on landdwellers ! It turns out they are seeking the return of an artifact that was stolen from them by a witch (characters find this out in session 5 and locate the witch) then the characters are captured by the witch and then capture the sahaugin king, her mortal enemy... (much left out) long story short- the negotiations came down to: Sahaugin King, Witch, Wizard, Emissary of the Interior-- all of whom had interest in the artifact... When negotiations broke down (because I realized we would never solve this problem equitably... after 2 hours of talks) it was discovered that the Witch didn't even really have the artifact, she had sent it to her sister! Regrettably the game broke apart at that point and we will never be able to adventure to the interior to end the menace.

I've always come down more on the side of real "faith," which requires that either the existence of the gods is suspect, or that it is uncertain whether they are really gods.

In the Clockwork Jungle, I use both.  There are "powers," such as the Elder Wyrms, the Caretaker, the greater Aras Tay, and so on, who have abilities far in excess of anything mere mortals can offer.  Mylsegemmen, an elder wyrm, can shapechange into anything; the Caretaker is apparently invulnerable and can reduce sentient beings to its silent, willing slaves with a touch.  Yet the mere fact of their inarguable physical existence makes many question whether they are indeed gods, since beings of their stature have indeed died before.  As for how interested they are in the world, many have long since tired of meddling in the world many thousands of years ago - Mylsegemmen in particular once was effectively "Emperor of the world" (if the legends are believed), but grew disgusted with it long before the current "civilized races" emerged.  He and his kin have long since explored every aspect of power and want nothing of it.  One of my main priorities with the Clockwork Jungle is to portray a world that is much, much older than its present mortal inhabitants.  It has seen civilizations rise, fall, and vanish into the jungle many times before, and one might say the world itself no longer really cares.

Other powers have a mindset so clearly alien that no communication with them is possible; the Caretaker, for instance, does not even seem to recognize that its worshippers exist.  It is consumed only with its everyday duty and never leaves its little domain.  Such entities might be powers so old that they can't even relate to reality any more, or - like the Aras Tay - creatures who embody the cycle of life and death itself, with no concern at all for "minor fluctuations" within that cycle.

This leaves gods that aren't physically present - and by their nature, any influence they have on the world is inferred by their worshippers.  As a world-builder, I believe in a policy of non-intervention - if something doesn't absolutely require my clarification, I don't give it.  Is the world really made up of the serpentine coils of Fthawy?  Do the gods of the Ivetziven pantheon really exist?  I (purposefully) have no comment.  I believe that it should be the DM's place to decide how real such gods are, and how much influence they have on the world.  Certainly I don't intend to introduce "divine magic" or anything else that would remove such doubt, because without doubt, there is no faith.

The campaign setting I'm working on isn't hugely detailed yet, but I'm working on a cosmology and a certain framework for how things work.

Deities exist on a spectrum. Things that are nearer to the material world are also less powerful, more mortal, and less strange than things that are further away. Also, the more powerful, less mortal, stranger things that are higher up are less and less concerned with the "real" world, or influence it less and less directly. There are little fey and nature spirits and gods of the grove. There are monsters (like the bull in the cedar forest) and strange demigod champions (less like hercules and a little more inscrutiable... maybe the green knight is a good example?) as well as demonic and angelic things (a little more ambiguous than usual maybe... angels might still kill you however good you are for convoluted reasons). There are petty feuding gods, always arguing, breaking things, etc. (think the mesopotamian pantheon) and the bigger badder pantheons they replaced in coming to power (as the titans and giants). At the very highest level there are the gods one would find in Pegana or on Kadath or in Lovecraft's mythos.

Hypothetically, there may be a One God figure at the very top of the totem pole, but anyone who's gone looking for Him hasn't come back. They've either been killed by all the nasty stuff on the way up or by God Himself. People have hypothesised that looking on the face of God will kill you or that there is no God, among other things. The fact that no one has come back to tell the tale of what's up there means it's impossible to verify.

As for why and how the gods' impact on the material plane actually diminishes with their power... the real world is less and less important to them, and they are preoccupied with other things that interest them more. Mainly their interaction with other gods and the stuff that drives the universe (the latter part is why I say that they may still be influencial, but indirectly and on a larger scale). That isn't to say that the higher gods don't occasionally look down and see something they don't like and kill everyone... it's just that it doesn't happen very often.

I hope I explained all that okay.

Quote from: beejazzHypothetically, there may be a One God figure at the very top of the totem pole, but anyone who's gone looking for Him hasn't come back. They've either been killed by all the nasty stuff on the way up or by God Himself. People have hypothesised that looking on the face of God will kill you or that there is no God, among other things. The fact that no one has come back to tell the tale of what's up there means it's impossible to verify.

Strangely, reading that made me imagine a supermassive black hole that swallows everything that approaches it. The ultimate trap where even gods can't escape :weirdo:

[blockquote=Beejazz]Deities exist on a spectrum. Things that are nearer to the material world are also less powerful, more mortal, and less strange than things that are further away. Also, the more powerful, less mortal, stranger things that are higher up are less and less concerned with the "real" world, or influence it less and less directly.[/blockquote]
This is interesting.  So it is easier to access, understand, and to find influence of those things that are less strange.  I like that.

re: Ghostman: It's entirely possible... unfortunate for any curious PCs though. :P

Quote from: Lord VreegThis is interesting.  So it is easier to access, understand, and to find influence of those things that are less strange.  I like that.

Yep. Though the influence of the less strange things can also be a little less useful, as they are weaker too.

The gods of my campaign world vary--really there are a number of beings called 'gods'.

1. Ancient creatures from a bygone age that are worshipped by the ignorant. For example one cult worships the Kraken, but there isn't really a Kraken. There are just giant squid that on certain nights come up to the surface to breed. At this time they are also dangerous but can be appeased by food. The cult leaders have learned strange ancient magics that have nothing to do with giant squid at all.

2. Superior races. These are the most common deities; they include the Tuatha de Dannan (who are essentially beings who once lived in the world and now live in another one but can still be contacted) dragons (who are a very powerful and solitary race that are more revered than worshipped outright) and the En, a similar family to the Tuatha de Dannan of powerful beings that really live in another world and enjoy the benefits of the earthly one. These creatures have various and often individualistic reasons for dealing with humanity, and sometimes whimsically help or torment them. The wise know that 'the gods toy with us'. While they live in 'another world' the truth is that it is more like another dimension that is part of our own. Humans and other mortal creatures can ascend there with sufficient knowledge.

3. Otherwordly beings. There are few of these with earthly contact, none of them pleasant. They are otherworldly horrors, nightmares that slumber. The mad, ignorant and power hungry worship them, but the truth is that they are accessing power that might turn on them.

Don't know why I never really read this before. Actually, I've only read part of it now ;)

It varies from story to story, really.

I'd say I have a fairly similar approach to Tybalt. Within the world itself, there are very few supernatural beings. Mostly just real antiquity.

There are no true gods, in the usual sense. But there are spirits, some of which are very powerful.

So you've got the fae, which are nature spirits, most commonly genius loci. They get worshiped by animistic cultures. Incidentally such cultures may worship a natural feature even if it doesn't have an actual spirit. But the fae exist and, in times past, used to interfere or even have liaisons with mortals. Almost never happens any more, and usually it's not good when it does.

Some cultures worship ancestors, and every once in a while, a human soul does linger as a ghost. Generally they can interfere only on a very small scale.

Then there are the greater spirits, or cosmic beings. Their motivations are pretty much unknowable, most of the time. The top of this chain is actually people that achieved enlightenment in ancient times, and they created the angels and demons (next link down) from the souls of people not enlightened. Their interference is very rare, especially for the most powerful ones. Similar to what Tybalt says, if they are interfering, it's generally bad news for humanity.

Also, historical figures are sometimes deified in myth.

There is certainly nothing like gods granting spells to mortal worshipers, fighting over worshipers, or anything like that.

In my setting Aardellum, the 3 Goddesses are an enigma. There is no direct proof that the 3 are real. The eight Dragon Kings (essentially 8 Angels sent to protect and guide the Aardellans) claim the Divine exist, even though the Dragon Kings have no direct interaction with the Goddesses. Many times heroes are given flashes of inspiration or preform heroic feats (that would kill most) and often claim that the Goddesses aided them (often citing some sort of divine sign, such as a cloud in the shape of a holy symbol, etc.). Many people also claim to have had discussions with Saints while dreaming, though this can not be confirmed (for obvious reasons). Even mighty Damoklese, the most wizened of all men, knows not if the Goddesses truly exist. What is known is that Divine spells do not work unless one is truly pious, giving reverence to either a Goddess, a Dragon King or one of the many saints. And it is for this fact alone that most acquiesce to the existence of the Divine.

EE: who sent the Dragon Kings and assigned them their mission? Or are they essentially self-appointed?

Quote from: Snargash MoonclawEE: who sent the Dragon Kings and assigned them their mission? Or are they essentially self-appointed?

The Dragon Kings allege that they were given their mission directly by the 3 Goddesses prior to the seeding of the continent by the 8 tribes of mortals. However, no one can verify the validity of the Dragon's claim since the alleged orders were given in the divine realms and occurred long before any mortal walked the land. To make matters worse all of the original Dragon Kings have long since died save for one, who hasn't been seen or heard from in nearly 300 years.

There are, however, broken legends amongst the Minotaurs that the Dragon Kings arrived long after the seeding of Aardellum, just after the founding of the Empire (of Aardellum). The legend states the Dragon Kings came to Aardellum from a distant realm and challenged the newly crowned Emperor and his warrior knights to a traditional Knightly tournament. In the end, the Dragons won by a score of 8-2 and thus were allowed to settle the periphery of the Empire. If true it would definitely poke a large hole in the Dragon Kings' claim to being the Guardians of Mortals and the Faith (a mantle to which they are quick to defend but do little to be worthy of). Further complicating the issue is the fact that Minotaur legends have an odd habit of bending the truth for the narrative. It just so happens that the only two non-Dragon victors in the tournament were the Emperor and his stalwart Minotaur Marshal...

[blockquote-EELF]To make matters worse all of the original Dragon Kings have long since died save for one, who hasn't been seen or heard from in nearly 300 years. [/blockquote]
Clarification, please.
so this is DM knowledge, becasue everyine thinks they are all dead, if they have not heard form this dragonking for 300 yrs?

Quote from: Lord Vreeg[blockquote-EELF]To make matters worse all of the original Dragon Kings have long since died save for one, who hasn't been seen or heard from in nearly 300 years. [/blockquote]
Clarification, please.
so this is DM knowledge, becasue everyine thinks they are all dead, if they have not heard form this dragonking for 300 yrs?

I apologize in advance, this may take a paragraph or 2 :(


It's rather complicated. To put it simply the Dragon Kings are actual Dragons, Great Wyrms to be exact, that came to Aardellum and pledged themselves to uphold the faith of the 3 Goddesses and ensure the Emperor's protection (prior to any of the mortals arriving (supposedly)). The Dragon Kings' Draconic form is actually an Avatar, of sorts, used to communicate with mortals and interact with the mortal world. When not in their Draconic form they are bound to their Kingdoms, lands that the Dragon Kings have mixed with extra-planar powers, merging them to fit the Dragon King's desire. The Dragon King's Draconic form is more of a shell to contain their 'divine essence' and wears out at a rapid pace. Most will spend much of their time sculpting their new bodies out of precious materials and stone. When the Draconic form withers, the Dragon King transfers his essence into his new body and is reborn. As a side effect of the process the Dragon King forgets most of his/her life except for the moments just prior to the transfer.

Now one may ask 'but why couldn't the Dragon Kings, being so powerful and knowledgeable simply write down and preserve their personal history for the new form to learn from?' Well the answer is quite simple - they did just that. All 10 of the Dragon Kings made a pact to freely share information between themselves and the mortals and agreed never to horde knowledge (especially not knowledge pertaining to their previous lives). The many tomes scribed by the Dragon Kings were housed in the Great Library at Eireni. Unfortunately, the Library was destroyed during the Dragon War, enticed by the Interregnum (which also sundered the Dragon Kings into the 2 Coteries. With the Destruction of the Great Library went all the knowledge of not only the Dragon Kings but of the Empire and Creation. Some dutiful monks scribed replicas of the many tomes many years later however there exists many discrepancies between different Monk's recollections.

As for the one Dragon King who has not past died (and been re-incarnated) he is a whole different case. Following the sundering of the Dragon Kings and the Interregnum, Dragon King Brass became very engrossed with the idea of losing his memory, some would say to the point of paranoia. To ensure his memory would last forever, he fully bound his 'Divine Essence' with his Draconic body. By doing so Dragon King Brass was able to keep his mortal form and is never forced to reincarnate. However, this comes at great cost - Dragon King Brass is now mortal. He can be slain by anyone at any time, just like anyone else. For this reason, he shut himself away in his mighty palace and has not been seen for centuries. During his absence (some would say due to his paranoia) the Elves of his Kingdom became more and more insular, wishing to keep all outsiders, no matter their intent, out of their King's lands and thus protect him from any and all threats. Thus, Dragon King Brass has not been seen from nor heard from in well over 300 years.

The Brass Elves do say he is alive and well but can provide no conformation to prove their claims.