Richard Baker on Orcus and Deity Slaying

[DM_Blake]

It looks like I'm in the minority here.

PCs killing gods isn't something I ever care to see in a campaign. Having gods killed by other gods / greater beings is open game. I plan to use Requiem for a God and have my PCs witness the death of one of their gods in my next campaign.

Demon princes and arch-devils are another story, though. I consider them just a step below deity status, but I prefer to have them beefed up a bit more than RAW have them.

As far as the top Demon? hmmmm, sorry, Clark, I'm going with Demogorgon over Orcus; nothing personal.

Ahh, but you can do both.

I've never had a party of mortal PCs take down any god. Not even a petty godling or abyssal princeling.

But I have run campaigns where powerful PCs ascend beyond being mortals. Become god(like) in their own right. Contend with demigods, princelings, and other petty divinities to find their own place in the pantheon pecking order, and eventually even rise through that comological muck to take a seat at the big table - by knocking off the guy who was already sitting there.

I once had a group of ascended PCs decide to start their own pantheon. They picked spheres, like War, Magic, Justice, etc., but they just couldn't win many followers. Eventually they figured out that every pantheon needs strife, and theirs was totally lacking in evil entities. So they got some NPC divine hirelings, if you will, ascended them to a truly godlike status, and hung spheres like Death, Destruction, Evil, etc., on them. Then declared war on them. And eventually the followers started flocking in...

Puts a campaign into a whole new realm when you take it places like that.

That was over 15 years ago, and I still have players reminiscing about how angry it made them (in-character anger) when their newly ascended adversaries ran around destroying their hard-won temples and followers to undermine the PC's divine source of power.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Ahh, but you can do both.

I've never had a party of mortal PCs take down any god. Not even a petty godling or abyssal princeling.

But I have run campaigns where powerful PCs ascend beyond being mortals. Become god(like) in their own right. Contend with demigods, princelings, and other petty divinities to find their own place in the pantheon pecking order, and eventually even rise through that comological muck to take a seat at the big table - by knocking off the guy who was already sitting there.

I once had a group of ascended PCs decide to start their own pantheon. They picked spheres, like War, Magic, Justice, etc., but they just couldn't win many followers. Eventually they figured out that every pantheon needs strife, and theirs was totally lacking in evil entities. So they got some NPC divine hirelings, if you will, ascended them to a truly godlike status, and hung spheres like Death, Destruction, Evil, etc., on them. Then declared war on them. And eventually the followers started flocking in...

Puts a campaign into a whole new realm when you take it places like that.

That was over 15 years ago, and I still have players reminiscing about how angry it made them (in-character anger) when their newly ascended adversaries ran around destroying their hard-won temples and followers to undermine the PC's divine source of power.

I would kill to have players that proactive.