To bring (and modify) my response from a
previous thread in relation to gods:
IMC (Renya), gods are (in most cases) essentially VERY powerful outsiders (called "spirits" by most people in my world). However, the more powerful an outsider is, the more "diffuse" and less "focused" it is; while the lesser outsiders (such as demons, celestials, nature-spirits, elementals and so on) can easily manifest in our world in a localised and "personalized" form - that is, appear as a "creature" - the stronger outsiders cannot manifest on our world in complete form, but can affect it directly (for example, cast spells on a specific place on our worlds). Those other-plane giants who are usually refered to as gods can rarely manifest directly or interfere directly in mortal lives; they might send messangers (i.e. lesser outsiders), dreams, affect very long-term processes such as evolution or geological processes... And, ofcourse, pass dim visions of their vast glories to mortal minds, visions that either grant magical powers (divine magic and abilities) to those mortals who have affinity with them, or allow the mortals tap some hidden potential within their souls (this is unclear). These vast beings rarely think in the way mortals do; they are more... diffuse... more... nonlocalised. Mosrtals interept the foggy visions, the signs and protents received from these beings, according to the capacity of their tiny, localised mortal; minds; the mortals grant names and agendas to their interpretation, and as long as they follow a conceptual and behavioural road which is, in general, in affinity of that great being, they continue to recieve its "gifts", or to be in touch with the inner potential of their own soul or mind (depends on which scholar you ask).
Why am I keeping my gods non-involved in my world? To keep the focus on mortals; to allow religious schisms and sects who worship the same god (they may vary greatly in details, but have enough common ground to continue to travel in the road of that god), to allow multiple pantheons (they vary by region and culture); and to make belief far more a personal and emotional thing (as it is in our world) than the "political" reverence of a being which everyone could clearly percieve as all-powerful and present.
An example: the One Mother/Great Mother/Tree Mother (name varies with geographical region), a quasi-monotheistic goddess of nature, death, rebirth and fertility worshipped by the non-tribal parts of the Celirans (as well as by Human druids who call her "Nature" or "Mother Nature); tribal Celirans follow a more shamanistic road and deal with a vast multitude of smaller spirits, though they do pay tribute to the One Mother as well. The One Mother has several aspects which could be worshipped seperately (and treated as different goddesses, even though they are very closely related): the Green Mother (usually called just "The One Mother"), a Neutral Good goddess of nature, life, fertility and agriculture; the Dark Mother (or Dark Womb or Dark Moon, depending on cult), a Neutral Evil goddess of death, predators and erosion (and rot); Mother Swamp (or Mother Tree), a True Neutral goddess of nature and the cycle of life-death-rebirth; and the Wild One, a Chaotic Neutral goddess of wilderness, ferality, love and war (who somewhat tends towards evil; my concept of her is based on Anat, the ancient Cnaanite goddess of love and war, which was described as "bathing in blood up to her waist").
