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<blockquote data-quote="Hobbit4Hire$" data-source="post: 9259068" data-attributes="member: 7044635">I agree with your very nuanced and informative take on the issue of defining &quot;divinity&quot;. In my opinion, I would avoid using the term &quot;deity&quot; or &quot;divinity&quot; in a simple way, or by labelling one entity as a &quot;god&quot;. In addition, one option I have been playing away with is to permit the possibility of some form of &quot;faith-based&quot; magic, something similar to a &quot;placebo&quot; type magic. Essentially, magical energy that could be highly psychoreactive.Here is my thinking. The idea is that there may be some prophet or preacher who thinks that the empirically verifiable magical sponsors are not real gods. This preacher wants to find and worship the real god, a transcendent god or gods. Think Malkion from Runequest, or the Athar from Planescape. Essentially, this preacher stumbles across a type of &quot;magic&quot; or &quot;mana&quot; that is highly wild and psycho-reactive (i.e., very sensitive to nearby emotional states). A kind of &quot;mana font&quot;, a bit like the Silver Flame from Eberron.This preacher uses this kind of Mana Font to establish a kind of magic system. The more the person practices the religion, as in actually attending the temple and performing the rituals and obeying the commandments, the more they can access this &quot;wild&quot; magic system.&nbsp; Skeptics think that this is just a kind of &quot;auto-suggestion&quot;. Believers think that they are being rewarded for their faith. The believers view the other typical fantasy &quot;physical gods&quot; are just &quot;sufficiently advanced aliens&quot; or &quot;sufficiently advanced wizards&quot; who happen to live on other planes, kind of like how the Athar view the &quot;Powers&quot; of Planescape, or how the Malkionites view the gods of Glorantha.To me, this would add a wrinkle to the magic system seen in many fantasy tabletop rpg.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hobbit4Hire$, post: 9259068, member: 7044635"] I agree with your very nuanced and informative take on the issue of defining "divinity". In my opinion, I would avoid using the term "deity" or "divinity" in a simple way, or by labelling one entity as a "god". In addition, one option I have been playing away with is to permit the possibility of some form of "faith-based" magic, something similar to a "placebo" type magic. Essentially, magical energy that could be highly psychoreactive. Here is my thinking. The idea is that there may be some prophet or preacher who thinks that the empirically verifiable magical sponsors are not real gods. This preacher wants to find and worship the real god, a transcendent god or gods. Think Malkion from [I]Runequest[/I], or the Athar from [I]Planescape[/I]. Essentially, this preacher stumbles across a type of "magic" or "mana" that is highly wild and psycho-reactive (i.e., very sensitive to nearby emotional states). A kind of "mana font", a bit like the Silver Flame from [I]Eberron[/I]. This preacher uses this kind of Mana Font to establish a kind of magic system. The more the person practices the religion, as in actually attending the temple and performing the rituals and obeying the commandments, the more they can access this "wild" magic system. Skeptics think that this is just a kind of "auto-suggestion". Believers think that they are being rewarded for their faith. The believers view the other typical fantasy "physical gods" are just "sufficiently advanced aliens" or "sufficiently advanced wizards" who happen to live on other planes, kind of like how the Athar view the "Powers" of [I]Planescape[/I], or how the Malkionites view the gods of Glorantha. To me, this would add a wrinkle to the magic system seen in many fantasy tabletop rpg. [/QUOTE]

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