Kill the gods, your experience

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, since I saw the Immortals' Set before Deities & Demigods, and D&D Immortals are SUCH a step above even 36th level characters, with powers and immunities out the wazoo...no, I never thought once about what it'd be to try and kill one. Or rather, to actually succeed. I DID try to imagine how the character looks after his failed attempt, though...wasn't a pretty picture. That set made even demons a true nightmare.

 

[Nightfall]

Blacky,

I think by now a number of people have killed Kyuss.

*has yet to kill a god* but then that's what Orcus is for.

 

[WarlockLord]

One of the goals of my drow wizard is to kill Lolth, because he's sick of being an oppressed drow male.

 

[Nightfall]

Warlock,

Make you a deal, worship Orcus, and he'll take out the entire Drow panethon for you.

 

[Kristivas]

My group killed Cyric in Forgotten Realms... by accident.

There was a nefarious plot, blah blah. All we were supposed to do was help Tyr by bringing him a broken shard from Godsbane and getting it forged into a dagger. In the midst of delivering it, Cyric had made his move and there was an epic god battle. It was supposed to be "in the background" as we avoided demonic soldiers and got the dagger to Tyr's throne.

The rogue, who had the dagger, thought it would be best to help Tyr and threw the dagger at Cyric. There were several celestials around, meaning Cyric was technically flanked. The ass rolled a 20 and scored the hit. Though it wasn't a crit, Godsbane had some kind of special properties against deities. I don't recall it all... but that attack turned the tide and won the battle for Tyr.

I didn't particularly care for god-killing (I think it's cheesy), but it's something I'd put on my resume'!

 

[Nonlethal Force]

In our opinion, a deity could merely snap it's fingers & the PCs would be obliterated.

In a monotheistic understanding, yes. If your pantheon consists of one god with all power, yes. But then it isn't much of a pantheon.

In a polytheistic world, we have to give up the idea of gods weilding absolute power. Otherwise we have to explain paradoxes all over the place. What happens if Hextor snaps his fingers and Alahandra dies, but Hieroneous decides that Alahandra should live and doesn't want her dead? Is Hextor more powerful than Heironeous? Does Alahandra bounce back and forth between life and death so that at any given moment she is more like Schrödinger's cat? [See wiki if you don't get the reference]

The point is that in a pantheon, deities only have as much power in so far as the power does not infringe upon the power of another deity. Thus, in order for a diety to snap a finger and cause a character to die, all the other deities must have abdicated the power to keep that person alive. Or, to put it in a more positive spin ... in order for a character to be blessed by a diety, all other deities must have abdicated their power to curse the person.

This is one of the reasons that pantheons break down in RL. You cannot possibly have multiple gods who are omniscient and omnipotent. Two (or more) omnipotent beings creates many paradoxes along the way. You can have pantheons with a rich abundance so long as none of the dieties are truly omnipotent. [The Greek pantheon is a good example. There the dieties had better than human powers, but none were omnipotent.]

 

[Crothian]

So, I'm just wondering if any ENWorlders have actually participated in a game that involved deicide. Tell us about about it.

It has happened in my game but only with demi gods. Greater gods can kill with less then athought. Demi Gods while still really freaking tough the PCs of high level can deal with. My last campaign they fought a Demi god. They won and it was a TPK.

 

[Steel_Wind]

As it so happens, I (and a few thousand other DMs) happen to be running a campaign right now where the climax of the campaign is to kill a god. The god in question? That would be Kyuss in Paizo's Adventure Path the Age of Worms

Admittedly, Kyuss is not exactly Odin or Jupiter - but he's no wuss. You got to start small and work your way up.

 

[Toras]

Depending on how the pantheon handles things, God's can be within the realm of mortal threat or otherwise. Some of the God's in Chinese Myth were simply mortal who ascended and similar such things can happen. It comes down to sphere of influence, one world and one concept will be far weaker than cosmos spanning deities.

Gods can kill other gods, it can happen and has happened (Set I'm looking at you, Orcus you too). Generally how you go about killing gods should depend on the explanation for them, but one good way is to simply kill everyone who believes in that God and let them shrivel on the vine.

 

[RichGreen]

Don't forget Lolth! She was practically invented to be killed, hence the Q1 module. 88 Hit points! Of course, that's back in the godd old days when she was more a Demon Queen and less of a Goddess.

I think she only had 66 hp, but she was AC -10!

When I was about 13 or 14 and Deities and Demigods 1e had just come out we killed off a few of the gods too. I think from the Finnish Mythos. We also did for Asmodeus.

Cheers


Richard