How do you like deities that were once mortals?

[DiamondB]

In my campaign I have 3 categories, Elder Gods, Gods and Incarnates. Mortals are never going to ascend to the Elder God and God states, that's just the way it is. My Incarnates aren't quite gods, but are more powerful than standard outer plane beings. Orcus, Grazzt and Demogorgon would fit well in this catagory (though I haven't decided if I'll integrate them into my cosomology). One of my Incarnates is an ascended mortal, so I've implied that it is possible, though it is not something common and the mortal must be somewhat "special".

 

[Darkness]

Even counting that triple, we're looking at four ascensions in the last couple of thousand years.

Five. Myrkul was a greater deity as well.

Of course, all of these ascensions (plus Bhaal's) were the result of only two events, many centuries apart - hardly what I'd call a 'normal process.'

 

[Valesin]

I always make up my own pantheons. In the current one, ALL of the gods but two (Death and Nature) are former mortals, although almost no mortal knows that.

 

[sniffles]

But how do you like the idea? I think that in greek mythology it didn't happen that often: I remember only Hercules being admitted to Olympus, and not exactly turned into a god (and then he was son of a god and a mortal since the start IIRC). Having the option there is ok for me - at least seems to me the players always want it open for themselves - but if it becomes too common, then it feels quite bleah :\

Aeschylus (sp?) was also elevated to godhood IIRC.

I do agree though that it seems very common in FR. But if you look at other real-world pantheons, the Egyptians for example elevated all their pharoahs to deity status. Imhotep (not the one from The Mummy movies) was made a god and he wasn't even a pharoah. And I think early Chinese emperors were also considered semi-divine.

Actually what I miss in FR is the children of gods. With as many deities and other divine beings as there are in Toril, there ought to be more half-celestials/infernals or aasimar and tieflings running around. Which I suppose is why those races and templates were included. It seems like the gods of FR ought to be dallying with mortals more often when they're busy sending their avatars to visit the Material Plane.

 

[ChimericDream]

This I just had to comment on. I actually am designing my campaign setting around this exact concept. In order to ascend to godhood, a character must enter into the divine tournament and defeat a deity in single combat. The deity is reduced in rank and the mortal gains DR 0. Now, this isn't something that is commonly known throughout the world, which helps prevent the whole "everyone wants become a god" syndrome.

 

[Khairn]

It really depends on the setting.

It seems to work great for Iron Kingdoms' Morrow and Thamar.

And ever since reading Erikson's Malazan series I've wanted to add a few twists and turns that he introduced.

 

[the Lorax]

How do you like deities that were once mortals?

(with some snippage)
Personally I think the idea is ok, but it's been overdone too much.

But how do you like the idea?

IMC (homebrew), ALL the gods are ascended mortals.
Works fine for me. =)

One campaign setup I thought would be potentially interesting was something akin to the "Elemental Nodes" thing behind the Dark Sun dragon kings, and their ability to grant spells. That is, you have some impersonal source of divine magic that certain mortals have found a way to tap into, and thus become gods. In effect, therefore, all the gods of the setting are (or once were) mortals. What's more, 'gods' in the setting would be eminently killable, and would rise and fall quite naturally as the history of the setting progressed.

Which is fairly close to how I've been doing it, but outside of a cosmic level world event, I think only 2 have fallen due to PC actions in over 25 years of gaming.

 

[Geoff Watson]

In most worlds I would agree with you, but those three ascensions were part of the FR Time of Troubles-- an innocuous name for a world-shaking cataclysm. All the greater and lesser deities were kicked out of heaven and had to walk around in mortal form; before it was over almost a dozen of them had been killed. The results came close to destroying the entire world, and even decades later the aftereffects are still being felt. If there ever was an appropriate time for mortals to ascend to godhood, that was it.

Even counting that triple, we're looking at four ascensions in the last couple of thousand years. On average that means it happens only once every few centuries, which doesn't sound like a "normal" occurrence to me.

Finder Wyvernspur also became a god.

It's likely other "author's favourites" became gods too; I haven't read all of the FR books.

Geoff.

 

[Ry]

Gods that were mortals are cool. Me and Cu Cullain go way back. I even jammed with Thor when he was a drummer for Hendrix. And a very reliable source told me that Jesus is f'in metal.

 

[freyar]

Mortals becoming gods does seem to be more common in recent Realms history; Velsharoon also ascended recently. I do think this is a bit of a syndrome of the fact that "recently" is when the authors are writing about. On the other hand, it seems to have been quite a while beforehand since any other mortals ascended.

IIRC, Lathander is not an ascended mortal, but I'm not sure where he's supposed to have come from.