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<blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9259102" data-attributes="member: 32075">The &quot;Gods Born of Belief&quot; shtick is older than Pratchett's Discworld or Gaiman's American Gods. It's also actually an attempt at being 'scientific' about it. The oldest story I know of that uses the concept is the short story &quot;The New One,&quot; by Fredric Brown, first published in 1942. That said, I'm not too fond of &quot;Gods Born of Belief&quot; (or, more cynically, &quot;gods as belief/worship parasites&quot;). In my own settings, I'll at most have hero-worship be what promotes a mortal hero to divine status. But once that step is made, further worship or belief is irrelevant to how powerful the new deity is. (And if you want gods of a really 'scientific' origin, there's Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.)Now in my settings, deities fall into two categories. There are the primal beings who came before the world and often created it, and then there are mortals who became immortal/deified more-or-less in the manner of the D&amp;D BECMI rule set. I'll often have deities of both types use aliases, being known under multiple names &amp; identities. A few will have too many names to list (&quot;The Elf of Many Names&quot;) or will have no (known) name. Some will be archetypes, and some will be identities used by multiple divine beings at various times. Then there are the odd cases. E.g. Starfire, the Ace of Swords. A deity in the form of an intelligent sword, forged by one of the two primal beings of the setting. And in the mortal world of the setting, different cultures can have different interpretations of the underlying 'truth.' E.g. &quot;The gods are all dead, but...&quot;&quot;...the ghosts of some of them still linger, and are the proper objects of worship and reverence.&quot;&quot;...various minor spirits still survive, and have become the Totems of our clans.&quot;&quot;...the Emperor is the rightful Heir of the Gods, and is the proper object of worship and reverence.&quot;&quot;...above the gods (even the primal ones) is the Hand of Fate.&quot;&quot;...it doesn't matter. The world is merely a womb, and spirits who pass through the Gate of Death will be reborn into a greater world, one that's unknowable from here.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Edgar Ironpelt, post: 9259102, member: 32075"] The "Gods Born of Belief" shtick is older than Pratchett's [I][I]Discworld[/I][/I] or Gaiman's [I][I]American Gods[/I][/I]. It's also actually an attempt at being 'scientific' about it. The oldest story I know of that uses the concept is the short story "The New One," by Fredric Brown, first published in 1942. That said, I'm not too fond of "Gods Born of Belief" (or, more cynically, "gods as belief/worship parasites"). In my own settings, I'll at most have hero-worship be what promotes a mortal hero to divine status. But once that step is made, further worship or belief is irrelevant to how powerful the new deity is. (And if you want gods of a really 'scientific' origin, there's Roger Zelazny's [I][I]Lord of Light[/I][/I].) Now in my settings, deities fall into two categories. There are the primal beings who came before the world and often created it, and then there are mortals who became immortal/deified more-or-less in the manner of the D&D BECMI rule set. I'll often have deities of both types use aliases, being known under multiple names & identities. A few will have too many names to list ("The Elf of Many Names") or will have no (known) name. Some will be archetypes, and some will be identities used by multiple divine beings at various times. Then there are the odd cases. E.g. Starfire, the Ace of Swords. A deity in the form of an intelligent sword, forged by one of the two primal beings of the setting. And in the mortal world of the setting, different cultures can have different interpretations of the underlying 'truth.' E.g. "The gods are all dead, but..." "...the ghosts of some of them still linger, and are the proper objects of worship and reverence." "...various minor spirits still survive, and have become the Totems of our clans." "...the Emperor is the rightful Heir of the Gods, and is the proper object of worship and reverence." "...above the gods (even the primal ones) is the Hand of Fate." "...it doesn't matter. The world is merely a womb, and spirits who pass through the Gate of Death will be reborn into a greater world, one that's unknowable from here." [/QUOTE]

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