How can a character achieve divine ascension?

[BastionPress_Creech]

In this thread, one of the things that came up is how there is a need for rules that cover divine ascension. While I have a few ideas to use, I need more. So, what conditions do you feel must be met in order for a character to achieve divinity and rise to the pantheons of godhood? Remember these ideas should cover both good and evil pantheons.

For example:
- Selfless sacrificing of the character's life so that individuals may live.
- Killing a divine power and assuming their position.
- Single-handedly destroying all temples (and clerics) within a city of rival deity.

Ideas?

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

IMO, divine ascension needs to be more alignment based...for instance, why would a NE person ascend to become a NE god for committing self-sacrifice?

The first, very unoriginal requirement would be a divine spark. This could be gleaned from a fallen deity's corpse (whether the char killed him or the deity died through other circumstances), an abomination as per ELH, or direct backing/sponsorship of a deity (preferably Immediate or graeter).

Next, you need worshippers, which can be gleaned from committing great acts appropriate to your alignment or similar. I guess after a certain amount of worshippers are obtained and some event, perhaps a ritual or another great act (such as self-sacrifice to save the masses for a good character, or taking over a layer of the Abyss for an evil one) the character can ascend.

Frankly, I prefer rough guidelines rather than hard rules, so's to keep things interesting for the players ;-)

 

[BastionPress_Creech]

They will be rough guidelines. More of a framework than anything.

 

[Jdvn1]

Well, most games have one big pantheon that covers good and evil. The pantheon itself is neutral.

In a game I played in, the pantheon the gods were a part of was highly formalized and the Overdeity ran the show. He'd make all the deities gather at the meeting place every time period and they'd make sure everything was in order. There were certain rules like "Deities can't directly affect mortals" and "Deities can't directly affect other deities (no fighting)." Although rules were always bent.

Anyway, the Overdeity required any prospective deity to complete a quest/prove his worthiness. You had to go to certain planes (The Elemental Planes and the Energy Planes) and collect the Essence of the Plane. They were basically little balls that were located in a stereotypical place. Like, you'd find an Essence of Fire in a huge volcano and an Essence of Air in a huge, glowing cloud. You had to collect all the essences and bring them to the overdeity and he'd allow you ascension.

 

[Torm]

They have to have their characters die, and then have them return to the game against the active wishes of the DM! I'd say that would prove Deity, no?

 

[Alzrius]

Most of the traditional ideas seem to have been covered, so I'll post one that doesn't seem to have rules yet:

Instead of killing a deity and absorbing their essence, what about absorbing something else? The idea of going on a spectacular quest to acquire a major artifact, and then destroy it to absorb the released energies is a good one, I think. All the moreso if you say the artifact itself determines the initial level of power gained, and what kind of god they'd become.

 

[Roman]

This is very campaign specific. It depends heavily on the nature of godhood in your campaign.

1) If you have a campaign where divinity is determined by worship, than acquiring a certain number of worshippers would deify the character and the greater the number the greater the power of the new god. These worshippers could be acquired by any means - coerced/intimidated into worshipping the character, bribed into worshipping the character, persuaded (perhaps by heroic deeds of the character - thus godhood could even be acquired unintentionally - though depending on campaign it may be possible to relinquish it voluntarily) into worshipping the character and so on.

2) In a campaign where godhood is derived from some source of divine energy, partaking in this energy would elevate the character to a godly status. The source could be anything from the food of the gods through powerful artefacts to a unique divine energy plane that only gods have access to.

3) In a campaign with a god/entity/being of extreme power, perhaps the god or gods could elevate the character to power for faithful service and heroic deeds that saved or enormously benefited the religion.

4) Some campaigns might permit characters to acquire the godhood of a current god by slaying the god or otherwise stealing his godhood.

If you tell me more about your campaign world I might be able to give you more specific ideas.

 

[moritheil]

There's only one guaranteed, approved, all-alignment method I can think of.

Karsus' Avatar.

Now, whether or not your players can pull off the research to realize that they need to travel the planes to Faerun, and somehow pull together enough of the fragments of the spell to reconstruct it is another problem.

In this thread, one of the things that came up is how there is a need for rules that cover divine ascension. While I have a few ideas to use, I need more. So, what conditions do you feel must be met in order for a character to achieve divinity and rise to the pantheons of godhood? Remember these ideas should cover both good and evil pantheons.

For example:
- Selfless sacrificing of the character's life so that individuals may live.
- Killing a divine power and assuming their position.
- Single-handedly destroying all temples (and clerics) within a city of rival deity.

Ideas?

 

[diaglo]

they can't. period.

 

[Voadam]

Since the original thread is on a book about real world mythology I think looking there is a good start for your purposes.

Normally in RW mythologies it is not something you become, it is something you are born into.

There are a few exceptions though.

In greek mythology Herakles was a son of Zeus and a mortal woman but unlike the many others in that category he became a god. One of the Olympians had to step down for him to taker her place though (Hestia). Herakles had the favor of the gods, had lived an epic life, was half-god to start, and one of the gods ceded to him her place in the pantheon.

In Egypt the pharohs are each a living god so gaining that position does it.

Also in egypt there is a historical architect/healer who became the god of healing later, although I'm not sure of his ascension story.

In Norse I'm not aware of anybody making it to godhood, and even the gods eventually die. Norns and Ragnarok and all that.

In Mesopotamian one guy got eternal life after the flood and Gilgamesh (who was half divine) tried to attain it through the same method but failed. I don't think anybody actually ascended in that mythology though.