Divine Ascension
On very rare circumstances, a character may achieve the means to ascend to the level of divinity and become an avatar of a deity or possibly even be asked to join a pantheon of gods. This is not an action that should be taken lightly and without extensive conversations with the Game Master and his approval. The ability to ascend is highly dependent upon several factors outside of the GM’s willingness, including such things as: the character being epic or legendary in status, whether or not there is a need for a new deity in the existing pantheon, the presence of a divine spark within the character, successfully completing a dangerous quest (akin to the Twelve Labors of Herakles) and faithfully following a Path of the Devout, or achieving the landmark of having enough worshipers and followers that the character is infused with the power to grant spells to clerics of 4th-level or greater.
The path to ascendance is very difficult to say the least and should vary greatly according to the individual campaign worlds that are established by the GM. Presented here is a minor framework that may be used should the GM be faced with the decision (or opportunity) to have a character become immortal and possibly even omnipotent.
Divine Potential
Any character that seeks to become a candidate for divinity must possess an inner quality that separates him or her above all others. This “spark” serves as the foundation for the character’s ability to develop salient abilities to become an avatar and even a lesser deity. (No character should ever be allowed to replace or become a greater deity without the approval of all other members of that particular pantheon.) Characters seeking divinity must fulfill the following requirements prior to embarking upon their quest for godhood.
Divine Perception [General]
You can sense the workings of the gods in the mortal world.
Prerequisites: Wis 13, Skill Focus (Knowledge (religion)), Knowledge (religion) 5 ranks
Benefit: You are sometimes aware of the active presence of gods and other powerful Outsiders. For example, you may feel a chill when in the presence of an evil shrine, or become calm when visiting a sacred spring dedicated to a good deity. The awareness this feat grants is purely passive, meaning the GM should determine if and when the character detects the hand of the gods in the mortal world. Moreover, the awareness is highly inexact and impressionistic; it does not replace spells such as detect chaos/evil/good/law, know alignment, or anything similar.
Normal: Without this feat, the skill Divine Sight is barred to the character.
Divine Potential [General]
A thread of divine essence has been infused into your soul.
Prerequisites: Epic character level 45+ with at least 20 levels in any one single class, Divine Perception, Path of the Devout followed faithfully without a single transgression for at least 5 years.
Benefit: You have been granted a spark of divine power and now have Divine Rank 0 and all privileges entitled to that status.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time you take the feat, you gain 1 divine rank (maximum Divine Rank 5).
Once both feats have been chosen during the character’s career, he may now begin the next phase, a quest that has been given by his patron deity. The character may be allowed to have companions accompany him, but must perform key parts of the quest on his own without their assistance. The quest should involve matters of epic challenge and test the character’s every ability to the extreme. An example of such a test would be to collect a sample of planar essence from each of the elemental planes and energy planes. The essences must be kept intact within a specially constructed container and brought to a single location. To make matters more challenging, other deities in the pantheon will be sending minions to stop the character and his companions. GM’s should use this opportunity to craft truly memorable adventures for the players to reminisce about long after a character has attained his divinity.
The final stage of the character’s journey should be the acquisition of worshipers. There is a correlation between sustained divine power and the number of worshipers among minor, lesser and intermediate deities. Greater deities derive most of their divine power directly from the cosmos itself, the fabric of all realities. As a newly formed diety, the character needs to establish worshipers fairly quickly, lest other gods decide to move against him while he is vulnerable. The table below presents GMs with an estimation of the required number of worshipers needed for each level of divine godhood.
Divine Rank
0
1-5
6-10
11-15
16+
Number of Passive Worshipers
Less than 100
101 – 10,000
10,001 – 100,000
100,001 – 1,000,000
1,000,000 +
Number of Zealous Worshipers
Less than 10
10 – 1000
1001 – 10,000
10,001 – 100,000
100,000 +
While passive worshipers (beings who believe in a deity and occasionally make a prayer to her) make up the bulk of the total number of worshipers, it is the number of zealous worshipers that helps define the power level of a deity. Zealous worshipers are those individuals who actively worship through daily prayer and devout belief in the existence of a god. Clerics and paladins are considered to be zealous worshipers as are commoners who openly profess their belief through dedication and commitment.
As the total number of worshipers increase, the ability of that god to grant divine spells also increases. Greater deities are not inhibited in any way because of where they draw their power from, however, intermediate and lesser deities are greatly dependent upon these worshipers to serve as the “fuel” to provide spells to their clerics and followers. For example, certain demon lords fall into the minor deity category as they may have between one and five divine ranks and have at least 50 devout clerics. This allows them to grant spells up to 4th-level with a maximum cleric level of 7th. Once a deity has increased his divine ranks, his numbers of worshipers (both passive and zealous), and the minimum number of devout clerics to the next needed level, he may move into a new divine category and increase the maximum spell level granted and the maximum level of devout clerics, but at the same time increase the minimum number of devout clerics needed to maintain his status.
Divine Rank
0
1-5
6-10
11-15
16+
Max. Spell Level
1
4
9
9
Epic
Max. Cleric Level
1
7
20
20
Epic
Min. Number of Devout Clerics
5
50
500
5,000
N/A
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
heh heh heh If that don't give him grey hairs.......... 
