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Message: <blockquote data-quote="carpedavid" data-source="post: 1258704" data-attributes="member: 6971">Just to toss out more ideas for others to plunder, here's how I've structured the gods in (one religion of) my campaign:An original creator god created the world, the sun, the moon, aarvarks, and jam. He watched over the world for a while, populated it with dragons and fairy-kind, and then created the first generation of gods to run the world for him. These elder gods were few in number and embodied very broad concepts, such as life and death, nature, the sun and moon, war and conflict, etc. He also created servants for the gods - to fetch them coffee, make them biscuits, and occasionally intervene in worldly affairs.Then the first god got sleepy and took a very long nap. This was a big mistake.After untold aeons, the elder gods began to bicker about how to run the world. The embodiment of war wanted massive death and destruction, the embodiment of the four elements wanted balance and harmony, the embodiment of nature wanted to populate the world with lots of small, furry, woodland creatures, and so on. Without the first god to give them direction, their arguments became quite heated.Eventually, they manifested in physical form on the surface of the world and came to blows. Mountains crumbled, rivers changed course, forests sprang forth, and cats and dogs began sleeping together. The end, was, as they say, nigh.As the blood of the gods spilled upon the ground, humans were created. As it spilled upon the forests, elves were created. As it spilled upon the mountains, dwarves were created, and when it spilled upon the jungles, lizardfolk were created. Fortunately, for the newly-created sentient races, the end wasn't as nigh as it first appeared.The gods fell, one by one, and their spirits fractured, creating an entirely new generation of gods: each less powerful and holding dominion over fewer fundamental concepts. These new gods took one look at what had happened to their parents, and vowed never to set foot in the mortal realm again. No-siree-bob, not for a million gold pieces.The servants of the elder gods became the servants of the younger gods, and through their knowledge and the vestigal memories retained from their parents, the new gods ran the world pretty well for ten millenia. Except for that incident with the gnomes. They still don't like to talk about that one.Unfortunatly, the creator god was still dreaming, so the new generation of gods also lacked direction. They, too, began arguing and almost came to blows. They were stopped by the god of the sun, who reminded them all that they swore not to do what their parents had done, and offered an alternative:Why not, he suggested, get some mortals to fight for us - after all, they have to die anyway, being mortal and all. The rest of the gods agreed to the plan, chose mortals to serve as their champions, endowed them with tremendous powers, set them against one another, and sat back with a big bowl of popcorn.The sun god's champion won, and he declared himself the king of the gods. However, because he was the embodiment of laws, justice, playing well with others, and sharing (in addition to that sun thing), he declared that, after a thousand years, they would have another battle, so that someone else could have a chance to be king.So, every thousand years, the gods select another bunch of mortals, have them duke it out, and crown a new king (or queen) of the gods.At any rate, the gods are the embodiment of fundamental concepts, and are therefore outside the ability of mortals to affect. They literally cannot be harmed by mortals, no matter how powerful the mortal. However, they can hurt each other when manifested in the mortal realm, hence the millenial battle-by-proxy.Instead of creating avatars or manifesting physically or other silly things like that, the gods send their extremely powerful servants to the mortal realm if they need something done. Therefore, in my world, you'll never meet Dominus, the sun god, in person, unless you travel to the celestial realms. However, you could meet one of his celestial servants while you're on your way to the market. You probably wouldn't, but you *could*, and that's what's important.To sum up, in my campaign, the gods are not statted. Mortals simply can't affect them if they don't want to be. They can affect each other, however, but only if they're manifested in the mortal realm.</blockquote>

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