Here is my idea, "God" is basically the Platonic ideal of good encompassing an infinate amount of good, in an infinate amount of ways, with an infinate amount of beauty, glory, and virtue, including virtues that would be seen by mere mortals and immortal beings as paradoxical.
But as an infinate being that is already everything good and every possible good, its static and unchanging directly.
This stuff sounds awesome for a setting.
I was wondering about defining ‘positive energy’ as a physical manifestation of the ‘divine infinite light’. Thus the D&D plane of positivity would be infinite, thus impossible to enter, but possible to access to ‘illuminate’ the finite planes, thus making them more ideal. All things that exist would be created out of this small steady flow of energy shining into the finite universe from beyond.
Anywho I've giving it some thought and perhaps a kind of Henotheistic kind of Monotheism could work.
But it gives off eminations, the gods, which are facets of God and independant from each other, like faces on diamond.
Each god represents a different ideal of good, an infinate glorious understanding of that ideal of good, but only that good, for only God contains every type of good.
For my personal tastes, I still perceive these kinds of celestials as more like angels and less like gods.
Gods are finite creatures that get worshiped.
The deep question is, is it good to worship an object just because that object is powerful? And for me, the answer is, it is less good to worship a finite object for any reason.
By contrast, an angel refuses to be worshiped personally, and always directs worship to the infinite beyond oneself, and beyond all things. Only the infinite is worshiped.
So despite the fact an angel can genuinely speak on behalf of infinite good − and wield power that derives from the infinite good − the angel knows it itself is not the entirety of infinity but only a limited framework within the finite.
When I try to make sense of angels, I think of them as personification of abstract patterns in the universe. But these are specifically personifications when the finite universe becomes open to the infinite, in tune with the infinite, and light from the infinite enters this universe (in the form of blessings such as health and success). So angels are sort of like windows in a finite room, thru which one can glimpse the infinite outside.
Just as God has eminations, the gods have eminations, because the gods physically manifest as infinate celestial planes, so they work through the Domains, Domains are Angels who basically form when a god tries to understand and interact with mundane aspects of reality. The Domains functions as minds that are embodied by forces. This can make it harder fir them to interact on a conscious level with mortals and immortals, so the Domains have their own eminations, Solars.
Solars are physically embodied by celestial flesh, which makes interacting with lesser beings easier, but they lack the relative omnipresence of God, gods, or even Domains, so they they too create emminations, Planatars, who in turn have Deva emminations.
The other Celestials races are the gods attempts at creation via a method other them emminations of themselves, with Empyreans being their more successful, if still failed attempts at creating new gods (with Atropals being the more horrifically and sadier failures).
This process of divine energy becoming increasingly physical by layers, is cool.
Infinity → Celestial → Domain → Solar → Planetar → Deva
(Again, I feel these celestials also behave more like angels, who refuse to be worshiped personally.)
The increasingly physical manifestations make an intriguing setting, where it is possible to have encounters that are ‘more spiritual’, more abstract, more ideal, more concept oriented.
In the process between coming with an idea to implementing it to creating the final physical product, it is possible to talk to the idea itself.
Primordials are failed attempts at creating new material planed by the Angels and other Celestials, these failures end up unbalanced turning into different unique manifestations of what are functionally elemental planes. There are many Primordials of Fire for example, but while they are all elemental planes of fire, they all are unique takes on it.
Alternatively, the primordials are on purpose. Essentially, they are simply elementals, thus the stuff that the physical world is made out of. As pure finitude they are the furthest away from the infinite source. But because the physical world is so important, the primordials have an important job to do, sustaining the stuff of physical existence.
The Far Realms are alien realities that germinate in the Astral Darkness outside of the influence of God. They and their creations the Yugoloths and their mortal incarnations abberations are the only beings completely ourside of God, who is emminate in everything else, including even mad and horrifying Demons who are still apart of God's creation.
The Far Realms are mad planes and Lovecraftian horrors, but not all are Evil, more Evil by lack of understanding reality. In fact in the rare case a Far Realm manages a even tiny grasp of reality it tend to lend to rare goodly and neutral Aberration species like Flumps appearing.
I see Far Realms as personifications of insanity. In this sense, they are the result when human spirituality becomes harmful and nonsensical.
Associating Lovecraft-esque Far Realms with D&D Yugoloths sounds appropriate.
I would say all evil powers are the *result* of humans misusing any blessings that come from good.
So, it is innocent when the finite ‘hides’ the infinite. But it is evil when humans abuse power, thus making the power a new kind of darkness.
There is a reallife medieval tradition that all demons are spirits that are born in darkness, when a human does some malicious action. But when a human returns to atone and to try repair that malicious action, and do good instead, then this demon is also redeemed, and becomes one of the forces of the divine good. The demonic powers that were once used to do more evil, instead get used to do good. By the way, according to this same tradition, while this demon is evil, its main goal is to find a way to destroy the human that created it.
