So a god/goddess dies, what happens?

[I'm A Banana]

Gods only die as concepts change. Deities IMC usually embody certain aspects of the world --if the god of Death dies, death ceases to be. If the God of Nature dies, Nature ceases to be. If the God of Dwarves dies, dwarves cease to be. This occurs the other way around, too -- if all the dwarves die, the god of dwarves ceases to be. It's not instantaneous, but it's a slow withering. They have no core, anymore, no reason for life, so the slowly waste away, often becoming undead in the process.

And then there are concepts of deity like in my Concordance campaign that basically presume that God is above death, has created death, and manipulates death from His own ends, and even if people stopped paying attention to him, He would not stop being the omnipotent deity that He is in reality.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I do not own the book but I think "Requiem for a god" should deal with such aspects.

Yes, it does, as Psion notes above. It's one of my favorite d20 books. It's worth at least a look for anyone interested in the subject.

 

[delericho]

Depends on the campaign

I've run a couple of games where a god has died, and the ramifications have varied, depending on how directly involved with the world the gods are.

In one campaign, the gods were very active in mortal affairs, in a manner similar to the Trojan War. In that setting, the death of a god had some fairly significant immediate consequences (essentially, a retributive strike effect hit the area). However, the long-term effects were pretty muted, as the gods were essentially humans writ large - they weren't particularly revered as of greater moral character, merely held in awe for their greater capabilities. Therefore, there wasn't really a lot of worship to crumble.

In another game, the gods are very distant and seemingly uncaring (not dissimilar to the gods in Eberron). Here, a goddess was declared dead by a particularly powerful (NPC) human mystic. As this was one of the key events of the campaign, this then actually resulted in the death of the goddess (long story...). In this instance, the only immediate consequence was that the clerics of the goddess immediately lost all access to all powers. However, as the goddess in question was the patron of silver in a particular empire, the people of the empire developed an aversion to the use of silver. Suddenly, the coin of the realm lost all value, and the economy collapsed. That empire is now rapidly falling inot decline.

 

[Bryon_Soulweaver]

Well, gods/goddess' in the game I play in are near impossible to kill. Even a epic group with levels 26-40 cant kill a god with a DvR of 2, unless they have a godly weapon or another diety's protection. They're gods after all, exceeding mortal limits.



Example: The god of war in the current game is ftr40/brb35/psi(kineticist)10/sor15, and thats a lesser diety with a DvR of 7. Stats arent even bothered with, he is a god after all.


But if a god were to die, its different for each one. A god of forest and water, if dead, would create portals to the elemental plane of water as forests sprouted up from almost everywhere, even 90% of a desert would now have forests with trees reaching 400' in the air with water reaching 140' or so.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I just came in here to see who mentioned Piratecat's Story Hour, and found that no one has! Well, it'll have to be me. It's a great example of this - the Goddess of the Undead is killed, and the ramifications are wide reaching.

A couple of neat effects: Magic stopped working for about 30 seconds. Think of the ramifications of that. Spontaneous odd effects on the undead - some got more powerful, while some became suddenly self-aware of their state to their shock. Planar travel became difficult because of the metaphysical shockwaves. Commune spells were unanswered as the gods observed a mourning period. Lastly, someone, somehow had to take over the goddess's portfolio, or Bad Things would happen.

Of course, the details depend greatly on what the god is god OF.

 

[Nightfall]

I'd pretty much use Requiem and it gets my votes as "A nice source to mine ideas for killing off gods, its after effects and possible re-ascention of a new/nascent godling."

But some other ideas are nice.

Trick,

Gods do die. They just need a few titans involved.

 

[Bryon_Soulweaver]

Gods do die. They just need a few titans involved.

YEAH!!! GO TITANS!!! (not the football team)

 

[Nightfall]

Just as long as it's not the teen titans. I mean Mormo, Mesos, Kadum, etc.

 

[the Jester]

Just as long as it's not the teen titans. I mean Mormo, Mesos, Kadum, etc.

Young Mormo and Kid Kadum?

 

[Nightfall]

You really know how to poke fun Jester.

Anyway I will say I did get a chuckle from that.

(And really I'm suprised no one said Wonder Gormoth.)