Mythological Musings - More on Gods

[MerricB]

As a companion piece to my dislikes about Sigil, here's a few points about how I see gods in a D&D campaign.

Where do gods get their power?
I particularly dislike "gods get power from their worshippers", despite it being a popular part of D&D. It works best when gods are created by the needs of a society rather than being primal beings who created the world, etc.

The gods wiping out all life/humanity? Yes, that part of Greek mythology as told by Ovid or Hesiod. (Also consider the Flood in various mythologies). Wiping out their (potential) worshippers ain't that smart if their power derives from worshippers. Well, intelligence isn't a prerequisite for being a god, but even a stupid god should try to preserve the source of their power.

My preference is for gods to have power of their own, although it may be derived from sources not innate to the gods. (Thor's hammer accounts for a lot of his power; there is also the possibility of mortals becoming gods, etc.)

What power does a god hold?
Being considered a god implies that you have some power over the mortal realm and are worshipped because of that power. If a town doesn't sacrifice to Demeter, you get the very real result that the crops don't grow, or at least less well. This is a great fun concept to play around with.

Hades holds back the spirits of the dead so they don't invade the mortal realm. What happens if something happens to Hades? Well, it isn't good for the living world!

To put it another way, gods are responsible for the natural laws existing or working.

The Patron Deity
Gods can work as patrons of various activities, peoples or places. This can be instead of being responsible for natural laws, or in addition to it. The gods help inspire people - to discoveries, war, building, etc - and help protect people, from demons or from other gods.

Look at the Iliad, with gods on both sides of the conflict. I contend that if all of the gods had been opposed to Troy, then we wouldn't have had a ten year siege!

A warrior who venerates Ares is likely to gain supernatural aid in fighting. However, although Ares is the paramount warrior deity, he's not the only god who can give such aid. There's an interesting balance here between powers gods hold in an exclusive manner (say, only Demeter can make plants grow) and those that gods hold more than other gods.

My own campaigns - in those ones where the gods matter - use both embodying natural forces and providing patronage, depending on the deity.

What do the gods want?
How human are gods? Do they embody strange philosophical ideals, or are they as flawed as us mortals? I personally prefer the flawed deities idea, where they are as prone to jealousy and spite as the rest of us. (Yes, we're made in their image indeed...)

A god's desires and actions often boil down to the following:
* be adored by mortals
* protect their favoured mortals
* hurt those who offend them
* scheme against their enemies - gods, demons or mortals
* fulfil their duties

Cheers!

 

[TerraDave]

Good topic...

The gods in my current campaign are a single pantheon of "real" gods with a "true" mythology. Parts of the comsos, you couldn't destroy one anymore then you could destroy rain or war. They have a unique origin(s) that cannot be duplicated by others (though they could try...). But they are personified enough to also have a history and relations with each other and mortals.

Gods have certain rules and limitations that keep them from, say, destroying the universe becuase they were having a bad day, and these also mean that they have a use for mortals to advance whatever concepts they are closely associated.

Mortals can interact with these gods. Maybe even "fight" them. But they couldn't destroy one, or really harm it. In theory, they could foil one...in theory.

But what about the final big fight with Tiamat, or Asmodeus, again at least theoretically? These beings are "incarnates". Together with the Lady of Pain, and Orcus, and the Raven Queen and Saint Cuthbert, and other D&D deities. Powerfull imortals that can also serve as patrons and be godlike. But aren't true gods.

 

[LostSoul]

In my game the gods are obsessed with certain things being a certain way. They have no ability to create, but they can alter or manipulate what's already there. When the primordials created the world, they wanted it to work in the "right" way.

Gods don't have any special powers that they confer on others. Prayers do wondrous things, though.

PRAYER is what fuels the divine character’s most powerful abilities. Prayers are short maxims that represent the beliefs of the divine character. Within each prayer is a word or two of Supernal; it is the combination of the word of power with the character’s will that forces reality to conform to the divine character’s wishes.

Most prayers are well-known. The average peasant knows quite a few and employs them every day. The difference between the average peasant and the divine character is that the peasant does not have the strength of devotion that is required to make their will manifest. Years of study, intense initiation rites, strange and humbling oaths, and mind-altering substances are required to develop this ability.

The most powerful prayers require the divine character to affirm his faith with the people, guiding and leading them along his chosen path, or to perform rites that require heavy use of mind-altering substances. Known as “sanctified incense”, divine characters ingest, inhale, or drink strange substances blessed through secret rites. The sanctified incense enables the character to achieve a state of communion with his god, seeing the world as the god would have it and enabling the divine character to bring that transformation about.​

Basically, the gods saw that the mortal races, if properly "educated", could help to change the world in the way that the gods wanted it to be. They taught them prayers - Words of Power - and the (false) belief that they had to act in a certain way; that belief became so strong in some people that they could change the world.

So, for example, Melora doesn't have any power over the sea. One of her clerics, trained to believe so intensely that the sea should act in a certain way, can use the few Words of Power he knows (prayers) to make it so. In that way Melora can be said to control the seas of the world.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, the major advantage of "The gods exist because mortals worship them" is that it quite handily explains the D&D world quite well.

Why do gods care one bit about mortals? Why in fact does anyone care about them? They're important because in a very real sense they're the source of all ultimate power or at least one readily exploitable source of power.

Where do gods come from? They simply come into existence when mortals believe they exist and venerate them. This can explain various sorts of gods. The distant remote sort may well be beings which predate, and may have created, mankind. They are still dependent on worshipers, or at least gain greatly from having them, which explains how mortals came to be... How do you become a god? Get people to worship you!

Why are some gods stronger than others? More people worship them or do so with greater fervor.

In short this kind of system ties things up quite neatly. In fact it is simply too elegant a solution to let go of really. Not really sure I see a downside.

 

[Aenghus]

Eh, the major advantage of "The gods exist because mortals worship them" is that it quite handily explains the D&D world quite well.

<snip>

In short this kind of system ties things up quite neatly. In fact it is simply too elegant a solution to let go of really. Not really sure I see a downside.

The potential downside can be the conclusion "gods are supernatural parasites on mortals". Especially if worship can be forced, making "evil" gods more powerful. Some players can react this way to this set of rules, kind of like the "humans are batteries" thing in the Matrix films.

Obviously presentation will affect the interpretation, but players seldom find out all the rules of divine creatures, and frankly I prefer a little mystery in this area.

 

[Ryujin]

Gods as archetypes; frequently arrogant, flawed, and jealous. I tend to model mine along the Greek myths' lines. Immortal, yes. Invulnerable? Definitely not. They can be killed by other gods, Primordials, or even very powerful humans, though they are more likely to be injured or maimed, then killed outright.

My current group is formed by 3 characters who worship Kord (The Hand, Sword, and Executioner of Kord), a Cleric of Erathis, and an undeclared Wizard. So far they've been directed to an adventure by a ruler who worships Kord, rewarded with a boon by an Exarch of Kord, and if all goes well they'll soon be meeting and Aspect of Kord. They seem to be enjoying it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Being considered a god implies that you have some power over the mortal realm and are worshipped because of that power. If a town doesn't sacrifice to Demeter, you get the very real result that the crops don't grow, or at least less well. This is a great fun concept to play around with.

Have you ever read Small Gods?

I guess my idea of what a god should be isn't quite so...monolithic?

IMO, gods can absolutely be this (kind of FR-y version) and it's a lot of fun.

Gods can also just be ideas (see: Eberron), powerful outsiders (see: Planescape), nefarious shadow-entities scheming for your destruction (see: Ravenloft), dead (see: Dark Sun), Only One (see: Musilm-Judeo-Christian Influence), not really gods (see: Kobolds worshiping a dragon) or in various combinations of the above.

I like different flavors of gods, depending on the setting I'm into. While a global cult of Demeter requiring sacrifices or famine is interesting, it's also limiting. In such a world, you can't have, say, competing pantheons. If Demeter is the Goddess of Harvest, you can't also have, say, Xipe Totec, because the idea behind the "natural world" in one pantheon is completely different than in the other, and they can't BOTH be right. Or, at least, when given the option between flaying captives and wearing their rotting skin, or just killin' a goat, the choice would be fairly obvious. Your ability to have adventures about rival deities is much more circumscribed. If someone wanted to kill Lolth, it would clearly be a bad idea, since it would upset some natural order, whereas in a more diverse setting, Lolth can be stabbed to death no problem, and the only things that go away are Bad Things. It also makes it hard to play a character with a more pseudo-scientific or atheistic leanings. Any character inspired by an archetype dated after about 1400 might crash up against the idea that, no, crops don't grow because of air, water, and light...they grow because Demeter Says So.

So I pick and choose deific influences based on what I want kind of stories I'm planning on telling with the setting. Generally, I take an agnostic position that implies that the role of the gods is not going to be especially important in the game. A character can believe the Moon is Sehanine, and can believe that the Moon is a hunk of rock, and can believe that the Moon is green cheese, and all of those are compatible, because the game isn't vitally concerned with the fictional reality of what the moon is...it's more concerned with worldly matters. This excludes certain plotlines -- any choice would -- but it at least allows for the maximum diversity of characters. Plants can grow in one part of the world because Demeter Says So, and in another part of the world because you run around with the flayed skin of an enemy on you for a few months, and in another part of the world because of air, soil, water, and light.

For instance, the characters in my current home game are traveling to the North Pole to talk to a Crystal Dragon who can see the future in the stars. Not exactly a god, but worshiped as one, with her own monestaries and servants and everything. On the way, they met a group of dohwar who don't believe in fate, destiny, or mystic nonsense. The paladin's reaction was to react "as if you met someone in real life who denied gravity." That -- hilarious -- interaction could never occur in a world where there was one definite truth that everyone was aware of.

 

[Pheonix0114]

I have all different kinds of gods in my homebrew setting. The basis of my whole setting is that the "Far Realm" is a realm simply where reality is defined by willpower, which would inherently shred a mortal mind that is used to a concrete world. So first we have an Elder God that exercised such power that he separated a section into his own reality.

Then their are the Progenitor gods, gods that created the initial races of the world in their own image (Initial races being: Dragons, Dwarves, Elves, Giants, and Goblinoids). These gods are unkillable, but aren't interested in much else but the fortune of their race. (Humans were created by a rogue god that also made death, he doesn't protect them though)

Then there are secondary gods, gods that are all mortals that came to embody an ideal so strongly that the belief in them made them undergo apotheosis. These gods vie for followers, gain and lose power based on that, and generally muck things up.

This meshes nicely with what I wanted out of a fantasy world and the wide range of epic destinies that give players god like power and imply that the character still has farther to go.

 

[S'mon]

Gods can predate Worship, yet still draw power/sustenance from Worship. One version of the Greek myth I've seen had it that mortal worship was the power source that gave Zeus & co the edge to defeat the Titans. That would make sense in 4e too.

 

[sciborg3]

I can see lots of cool stories about why gods need worshipers for power or even to survive, but I agree with the OP that this can detract from the wonder and awe one might feel towards them.

To me the reason gods recruit mortals is that worshipers allow a god to spread its ideal reality to wherever its followers are as well as draw strength from that area. So a god of winter like Skadi can start pushing the world into her ideal version of winter as well as draw power from the winters of the worlds her followers are on.

So worshipers are a resource, but there isn't an exact ratio where 10 worshipers equals 20 spell points or anything. Some of the more mysterious or hostile gods might eschew large congregations in favor of spreading their portfolios. So a plague god might spread plagues across the Prime using jackalwere cultists because every person with one of its diseases is a power source. A god of conspiracies and anarchy might only have a hundred followers, but the god sky rockets in power when the 7 kingdoms go to war.

Really, I think the mystery of why gods recruit mortals helps keep the game's sense of wonder alive. Also, personally I don't like stats for gods but that's just me.