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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 3568515" data-attributes="member: 9254">I'm going to further muddy the waters.  IMC there are two forms of divinities: Gods and Spirits.  Gods are divine, outer-planar beings that have certain cosmic attributes from "birth."   They gain power from followers, giving them incentive to involve themselves with the material planes.  Gods can show different "aspects" to different cultures to gather followers.   They have a portfolio based on their personality/knowledge.  For instance the God of Love is a god that enjoys love and the aspects of love.  During their angsty "teen" period, the God of Love could appear as the God of Unrequited Love, the "college" god of Love is the God of Lust, and later a more mature, family oriented God of Love.   These different aspects can have wildly different churches & followers and the God will be disinclined to give them up.  Spirits are embodiments of a concept that are "native outsiders" on the material plane.  The Spirit of Love isn't "made" of love, but they completely Grok love.  They are the champion and defender of Love.  They can be killed but another Spirit of Love will show up eventually.  The followers of Love are connected to the concept of Love, not the Spirit, and draw their powers from the concept.  The Church(es) of Love and the Spirit of Love may have never interacted, be closely intertwined, or even at odds.  Some spirits tend to die off rather frequently and have churches that treat the Spirit much like the Pope; a transitory, temporal power that should be respected but isn't entirely in control of the church (college of cardinals) and whose edicts can be rescinded at a later date.The kicker here is that Gods try to steal the followers of Spirits and other Gods for the power and some spirits try to gather followers just to weaken the gods.   Furthermore,  churches of the same spirit can be at considerable odds with each other over doctrine, the role of the Spirit in church functions, or even the fundamental nature of the Spirit/Concept duality.  Very messy, very organic and very entertaining to me.</blockquote>

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