What Makes a Deity?

[Shemeska]

To mortals, there's no practical difference between an archfiend, slaad lord, protean lord, archangel, etc and a deity. Any of them are capable of reducing you to a pile of ashes in the time it takes to blink if they so chose to do so.

But outside of the mortal perspective, there's one big difference between the various planar lords and a deity. A planar lord is a physical manifestation of their alignment; an archfiend is literally abstract Evil made flesh. Many of them completely predate mortals and gods alike, and they represent a form of that alignment or ideal untouched by mortal belief.

On the other hand, a deity is mortal belief writ large. A god represents a mortal conception of an ideal or an alignment. It's a much more personal and conceivable notion of a universal abstract, rather than the purified, possibly alien version that the archfiends, etc represent.

Metaphysical distinctions aside, the difference between universal abstract and mortal belief tends to place limitations upon both types of creature. Planar lords are largely bound in power to their native plane, while gods face no such restrictions. Of course, an archfiend for instance is going to mangle a god or anyone else that picks a fight inside of their domain, but on another plane, the deity will have the upper hand (though planar politics and radically different goals and scope of goals typically keeps the two from interacting).

I'm much more influenced by the 2e, classical Planescape view of things here, rather than the 'gods are big monsters, archfiends almost as big monsters' that you'll get from for instance, 4e. Totally don't care for that perspective. It cheapens the meaning of such beings to just slap on some extra hit dice and treat them as just a larger monster to fight. They deserve more than rolling initiative against IMO.

 

[Snoweel]

Totally don't care for that perspective. It cheapens the meaning of such beings to just slap on some extra hit dice and treat them as just a larger monster to fight. They deserve more than rolling initiative against IMO.

I appreciate the level of thought you've put into your understanding of 2e mythology. It's no wonder you're known as the resident expert on Planescape.

Personally I like the conception of gods as just big, powerful beings that can be stabbed in the face. I actually enjoy the idea of there being something bigger and less knowable than the gods.

 

[Desdichado]

No difference. My default pantheon is made up of transparently disguised demon lords and archdevils, mostly.

In default D&D, the difference is extremely esoteric and unclear, therefore I've long ago decided that it's meaningless.

 

[Garthanos]

To me a deity means a religion defines the relationship the entity has with humanity ... if you cant tell me what religious holidays celebrated in its name? its an old fashioned D&D monster... too inadequately defined to be divinity <-- tasty fluff is missing

 

[Rel]

There really was no difference in the last (4e) campaign I ran.

Actually most of the gods listed in the PHB had been missing for several hundred years after a cataclysm killed 99% of the world population, including most of their worshipers. So the gods in my world became powerful demons, angels, dragons and that type of thing.

I wouldn't do this for every campaign but it was a cool change of pace. It was kind of neat playing with the mythology that arose when one could say, "My god? He lives in that tower on the hill over there."

 

[WayneLigon]

Obviously there is canon (feel free to share; I know some of you are subject matter experts on D&D canon and I'd love to know if there's an official line on this) but I'm mostly interested in your own take on these beings. How does it all work in your setting?

I most of my settings, I generally use that idea from the D&D basic set and other sources: there is a 'Divine Spark' that exists in a deity, and it's presence or absence is what makes you divine. That Spark generally exists in the creator diety and his children. It can be stolen from a source, or from the heart of a god, or gifted in part (that Gift is actually what makes a PC a PC). It can be gathered from the world in general by certain arcane means, but it's almost impossible to keep in one place. That Spark allows several things at once: existing on more than one plane at the same time, immortality, virtual indestructability, the ability to manipulate primal forces or create life, several other perks.

In other settings I've done the qualifications are simpler such as: existing on more than one plane at once; gaining the power to create life; 'transcending'; drinking from the Cup of the Gods; and a few others.

About half the time in campaigns now, there aren't really any 'deities'; there are powerful beings that can grant magical powers to others and who call themselves gods, but there's nothing truly different about them - anyone who amassed enough personal (usually magical) power and undertook certain extraplanar quests could do the same.

 

[Barastrondo]

I'm much more influenced by the 2e, classical Planescape view of things here, rather than the 'gods are big monsters, archfiends almost as big monsters' that you'll get from for instance, 4e.

Or 1e, for that matter. Killing Thor with a push spell, anyone? (And it's not like 1e Tiamat was all that dang tough...)

Totally don't care for that perspective. It cheapens the meaning of such beings to just slap on some extra hit dice and treat them as just a larger monster to fight. They deserve more than rolling initiative against IMO.

Yeah, that's pretty much my default setting, but I do think it depends on the campaign in question. D&D worlds are so diverse that it makes absolute sense to me that you can have 1e-style worlds in which the gods really are just super-jacked up mortals right next to worlds in which they're genuinely ineffable entities rather far removed from the traditional Greek and Norse-inspired "like us, only more powerful." I really like customizing the metaphysics of different campaign worlds, with different ideas about where souls go and what Heaven is, and allowing for a range of different definitions of "god" allows for more tinkering that way.

 

[Nifft]

In my previous campaign, The Six Gods acted like a magical van Allen belt, shielding mortals from the attention and energies of the insane horrors which scuttle through the Outer Darkness.

Gods were:
- Empowering - powerful, yet restricted to acting through intermediaries
- Terrestrial - limited in "jurisdiction" to one world, rather than jumping planes or worlds
- Good - there were no Evil gods in my world, arch-fiends fill that role just fine

Cheers, -- N

 

[Shemeska]

I appreciate the level of thought you've put into your understanding of 2e mythology. It's no wonder you're known as the resident expert on Planescape.

Personally I like the conception of gods as just big, powerful beings that can be stabbed in the face. I actually enjoy the idea of there being something bigger and less knowable than the gods.

Well, that's how I prefer to handle it in my own games, or if I'm running a Planescape game. However for instance in the Pathfinder/Golarion cosmology, it's not the case. Some planar beings (the qlippoth of the Abyss and the proteans of the Maelstrom for instance) may indeed be older than mortals or many or all gods, but others very much are not (the archdaemons are relatively young). And on the scale of power, gods are very much the top of the game (and one of the primary NG deities started as one of the empyreal lords of Nirvana and later attained divinity).

Deviation from my 2e'esque preferences doesn't mean I can't enjoy the heck out of it (or write stuff on it).

 

[Bluenose]

In my campaign the gods are beings that you worship, and get some benefit from this (though that benefit is generally that your local priest has some access to the god's magic, if you aren't that priest yourself). Other powerful beings exist, but those have to be personally bargained with for power. Now it's possible that the gods aren't any different from the other beings, but merely agreed a long time ago to have set rituals anyone could write down and use, but that's not something the worshippers would be able to tell you. And they'd probably be pretty angry to be told that Halvor God of the Harvest wasn't really any different from Jalithian Who Brings The Crops.