“Gods die. And after they actually die they’re unmourned and unremembered.” Neil Gaiman
What Taste of God?
Are your fantasy role-playing recreation gods omnipotent, and are they omniscient (they know every thing, which suggests they’re omnipresent as properly)? Monotheistic religions are likely to have one deity alongside these traces, however that is not how lots of the ancients thought. The gods of the ancients tended to be one thing like very {powerful} people or like comedian e-book superheroes, in teams (there may be additionally a viewpoint known as monolatry, perception within the existence of many gods however with a constant worship of just one deity). Right here’s a listing of traits to contemplate when creating your fantasy pantheon:
- Extent of their information (which incorporates, their presence)
- Limits of their energy (if any)
- On a scale from benign to malign, the place are they (See “RPG Gods Benign or Malign”)?
- On a scale from engaged to aloof, the place are they? That’s, do the deities meddle within the affairs or mortals (Greek Gods), or do they hardly ever if ever interact with them (Cthulhu)?
- What’s the relationship with different gods?
- Nature of worshippers (if no worshippers, can the “gods” actually be gods?)
- How do they deal with their worshippers? Are they merely a a method to an finish, or do they love, honor, and care for his or her worshippers?
- How do they deal with their “spokesmen” (clergymen)?
- Are they completely immortality (can’t be destroyed). or conditionally immortal (could be killed (with a lot issue) however received’t die naturally) or not immortal in any respect?
- Can a god be caught in a single airplane of existence, or does the god want to have the ability to journey to many planes, or maybe to anyplace inside a airplane?
Divine Traits
Once you draw the road between gods and not-gods, immortality is the very first thing that involves thoughts. And but, J.R.R. Tolkien’s excessive elves had a type of “conditional” immortality, residing till somebody killed them. Unusually, Tolkien’s elves live on after they’re killed, in a type of ready space in Valinor. And in some instances “gods” can die, e.g. Baldur within the Norse mythos. However gods are often immortal till somebody kills them, identical to Tolkien’s elves. And their worshippers are essentially “mortals.”
The second criterion for godhood that involves thoughts after immortality is nice energy. So are all very {powerful} monsters additionally gods? A few of these are solely conditionally immortal, some could also be topic to dying by very previous age (dragons, usually). Is a thousand years shut sufficient to immortal? Or can we not care about immortality if the “monster” is sufficiently {powerful}?
What about gods as “monsters,” that’s, as opposition for adventurers? I don’t let participant characters achieve godlike powers, so I don’t put them up towards godlike opposition. Then again, you could possibly say that if a “god” is so wimpy that mortal adventurers can defeat it, it isn’t a lot of a god (Hulk: “Puny god.”)! Some GMs might desire to have their adventurers combat “gods” eventually.
Edge Circumstances
This brings to thoughts my “monster” Elemental Princes of Evil that initially appeared within the Fiend Folio. Are they gods? They’re immortal, maybe greater than conditionally (that’s, they respawn if killed). They’re very {powerful}, such that the one time my participant character in a robust get together bumped into certainly one of them, we grabbed what we got here for and fled post-haste. Have they got worshippers? There’s a practice in fantasy that “previous gods” who not have worshippers both fade away, or cling round in obscure methods – as “monsters,” kind of. Or on this case, by no means had worshippers, so that they’re monsters, not gods?
We are able to additionally speak about Demigods. These are frequent in historic Greek/Roman mythology, the results of a union between god and human, similar to Hercules. Usually they’re conditionally immortal, however a lot much less {powerful} than full gods, resembling comedian e-book superheroes, or demons. So typically they’re handled as mortals, typically as gods.
Select Properly
Defining your deities and the extent of their affect could have important repercussions in your marketing campaign: to your divine spellcasters, to your fiendish and celestial monsters, and if the participant characters are {powerful} sufficient, whilst potential foes.
Your Flip: How {powerful} are the gods in your marketing campaign?
