Small Gods

[Macbeth]

Try reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. That's how my campiaigns idea of small gods got started...

 

[Snoweel]

IMC I have a giant feindish dire eel

W3rd.

 

[Lalato]

I'm not sure that more powerful magic using classes is what Buttercup is looking for.

Oh I know... I was slightly kidding. That said, in AU the spellcasters basically use the same casting mechanic. They are all basically tweaked sorcerers of one stripe or another. They all use the same spell lists. There is no distinction between arcane and divine. Even so, the various spell-casting classes can be quite different from each other. It's a very elegant system.

On the subject, I see small gods not as spell granting deities but as divine beings (in game terms DR0 gods). They are immortal etc, but to protect the one village of worshippers they use their own power rather than giving the power to clerics through spells.

Perhaps they are native to the prime, perhaps they reside in a portal. Perhaps they teach and lead cooperative casting rituals ala incantations from UA. They'll be the gods of soemthign but that may be the god of beggars or the god of the village of Thoa or the god of obsessing over collectible painted minis. They may have no worshippers, or a hundred. They could have becoem divine through luck, adventure or intervention.

I think that there is a place for gods to not grant spells while still having a place in a society.

And I wholeheartedly agree. If you haven't had a chance you really should pick up the previously recommended novel, The Waterborn... J. Gregory Keyes writing really brought the concept to life for me.

--sam

 

[Tallok]

Try reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. That's how my campiaigns idea of small gods got started...

this was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title... someone earlier mentioned a turtle god... similar concept, no? if you haven't read the book, the gods gain power from the followers and vice versa, the more followers, the more powerful the god.

 

[Kaji]

I always liked the idea that if you could get worshippers, that was enough to be a god. Kind of like the God-Kings of old, or at least what they thought they were. That might lead to...

Several hermits living in a commune. they all had hundreds/thousands of worshipers at one point, but are now down to a few each. Still divine, but very limited in power.

Any serious hero upon death picks up some ancestor worshippers. That spirit hangs around the ancestral manor and gives advice and guidance that know how to ask correctly.

Several cultures had the notion that the spirits/gods/demones (greek) were everywhere, always trying to get in and "get you". Even mideveil (sp?) christians were pretty good for the idea that the devil was just hanging around trying to get your soul, one slip up and you were toast. So, devise numerous rituals and superstitions in each town/village/area that must be followed (so the locals say, or maybe even for real) or else minor bad things happens to you. Hair starts to fall out, breath stinks, potions you drink start to have a minor mishap chance. Give all the players at least one free rank in Knowledge (religion) to help explain the concept.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

An Oasis in the middle of a vast desert is a small god. providing sustanence and shelter to the bands of wanderes who find it. they eventualy build a temple and city around the Oasis.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

`1

AU is chock-full of the small gods concept. Totem warriors follow a specific animal spirit and get shapeshifting powers and animal companions, Greenbonds can communicate with water/air/fire/earth spirits for information, the faen believe in quite literally thousands of small gods, such as the god of Flying Without Wings and the god of Fighting Hydras with a Spear, with more being discovered daily. In DT, you learn that there are a few gods, but that they are not powerful, and may in fact be frozen in a glacier in the North. You should get it. All of you should go get it now.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Dawnforge works with the idea of small gods in game terms with its Immortals, which are physical beings that can grant powers to their disciples. As of yet they are the closest things to gods that the world knows.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I've always been interested in running a campaign in which the world is inhabited by small gods- physical beings instead of vast belief systems. These gods wander the world, and are encountered by people every day. Here's some ideas of my own:

An ancient apple tree in the middle of a desert that always bears fruit and watches over a small town of desert-dwellers.

A giant vulture that roams the skies. Legends say that those who he touches with his shadow will die before sunrise.

An ancient warrior frozen in a glacier who now controls the icelands around him.

The fossils of a dragon exposed in the side of a cliff. A wild tribe of kobolds now worship this bones, sacrificing travelers to their god.

The Mother Rat, a gorged female rat at the center of a maze of pipes and sewers who is said to be the mother of all rats.

You get the idea. Post some of your own!

Great topic! I particularly liked the fossil idea. That was new. Here's a few more ideas:

In the midst of a great peat bog a corpse was dug up. The eyes had not turned to brown like the rest of the body. In fright, the villages dropped it back into the muddy water and fled. They found it the next day in the village. Now they worship it. And fear it.

After a great storm at sea, the huge ribs of an ancient ship five stories tall emerge from beneath the sands on the beach. The locals, fishermen all, believe that this is the mother of all ships.

Lichen covers a small red stone with a groove worn in it. The stone is colored like nothing else for a hundred miles in any direction. Unique flowers surround it in the spring, blooming until fall. The gnomes in the hills beneath it don't know how it got there, but they believe in its power.

The elves of Fallaith revere a white eagle that flew into their tree village before a great storm. The storm did not harm their village despite wreaking great damage upon the forest. They have adopted the eagle now as their god.

 

[Psionicist]

THE LITTLE GOD THAT COULD.

I think I can.