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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 8094281" data-attributes="member: 14159">Yes, because air doesn't require a God to exist. Air comes from the Elemental Plane of Air.  It isn't inherently created and defined by a God.  It's a basic element of reality that isn't shaped or regulated by a deity.  There are deities of air that exist as personifications of air, but air doesn't inherently require those deities to exist in normal D&D settings.  It exists just fine in D&D settings without gods, like Dark Sun.If you kill the God of Death, does Death cease to exist in the world?  If you kill the God of War, do all wars everywhere end?  If you kill the God of Nature, does all nature die?  No, because metaphysical concepts or basic physical concepts exist independent of a deity.  Magic has been repeatedly shown to not work like that in D&D settings.When all the Gods left Krynn after the Chaos War (or as it was later retconned, Takhisis hid the world away from the Gods for decades), the things that disappeared were divine magic (due to the Gods not having access to the world), and arcane magic (due to the Gods of Magic not being present to provide it).  When the Gods left Krynn after the Cataclysm, Divine magic left, but Arcane magic stayed because the 3 gods of Magic were the only deities that still were present on Krynn.  When a God dies on Toril, that concept doesn't disappear, fade away or go wild. . .except when it's the Goddess of Magic.  When Myrkul died in the Time of Troubles, the concept of death didn't cease to exist or go wild and rampant until Kelemvor took over the portfolio.  When Leira was killed, illusions didn't fade away or cease to work or become unstable.The only place in D&D lore I'm aware of where a basic, fundamental element of the world just ceases to exist because a deity dies is when a god of magic leaves or is killed and arcane magic just vanishes, which happened in FR and DL.  In both of those worlds, the "fluff" is quite clear that arcane magic is a force that is ambient in the world, originally flowing from the deities, which mortals learn to tap as the energy surrounds them, but which withers away without the deities of magic present, as if turning off a spigot of water.  Divine magic lacks that intermediary, which is a direct connection from the caster to the divine. Psionics skips relations to deities entirely and comes entirely from within, making it popular with those not on good terms with deities (which was at least mentioned a few times in passing in Planescape lore, but never explored in depth)I'm specifically presenting examples from two different major, popular D&D settings to make it clear this is not a single setting-specific expectation but a more baseline concept of D&D metaphysics.</blockquote>

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