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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 7377057" data-attributes="member: 6677017">5e divine rankings are an inconsistent mess.The DMG is vague about the nature of greater deities (or apparently it's just beyond my comprehension!) So vague that I wondered which deities were even going to qualify. When it comes to lesser deities, they give examples of two deities that were previously lesser deities, and one that was a demigod.They also don't address the "divine" demigods of previous editions, instead using "demigod" to refer to the literally correct half-gods, but saying they can't hear prayers and such. So maybe they are just consolidating previous edition demigods into lesser deities for simplicity? The MM gives us more information by calling out the rank of a few deities. Magubliyet is a Greater Deity--so they are (or at least include) previous edition greater deities. Kurtulmak is in as a lesser deity.Okay, so it sounds like if something was a greater deity in the past, it is a greater deity in 5e, and everything else is a lesser deity, right?Except - not.Many of the arch-fiends were also considered deities, but they seem to have backed off of that, only attributing that to Asmodeus. Same thing with arch-fey. (Oh wait, forget about the fey. The MM unicorn entry speaks of fey deities. Titania, Oberon, the Queen of Air and Darkness, deities or not deities? Nobody knows.)I can't remember where, but I know there is mention made of other previous demigods being downgraded to something completely non-divine.Okay, I can live with that. Deities are one thing, but there are other powerful beings that can be super powerful without being deities, and they don't grant spells, they just make warlocks. Cool, that gives us some variety and distinction in the super beings. (Except, who are these fey gods???)This Volo's Guide to Monsters book is cool. I can see why it's so popular. Wait a minute, Raxivort is a demigod who can hear prayers, but who is less powerful than the demon prince Grazz't. So now we have real demigods again, and yet non-divine arch-fiends that are more powerful than them.I've got my own working model, but I really don't know what's actually going on in the heads of our D&D pantheon of Mearls, Crawford, Perkins, and the rest. It sounds like it might be something awesome, but there are clearly discrepancies and they need to explain how it's meant to be understood. It doesn't do us any good if the assumptions behind it all only exist in their greater designer minds, incomprehensible to us mortals.</blockquote>

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