D&D 5E The Logistics of Trapping a God (Or all of them.)

[JasmineF]

Hi all,

I was hoping I could get some advice regarding a campaign idea I had and how it might be possible using in-game mechanics.

So I was reading up on various Gods a while ago when I came across Cyric. When I read the section about the book he created, the Cyrinishad, I was intrigued. Basically anyone who reads it cannot stop, and when finished you will believe that Cyric is the one true god above all others. In the lore his plan doesn't work and he ends up going insane after reading it himself.

I wanted to run a campaign centered around a universe in which he did manage to successfully distribute the book. My initial idea was that he would make a pact with a spellcaster of some kind that would help him, and the first order of business is to get the other gods out of the way so that they can't interfere. I was thinking perhaps through the pact, Cyric could help the caster make a demiplane, trick the gods into going there or just summon them directly, and using dimensional anchor in order to trap them on that plane. My concern is, would this be mechanically possible, and if so, how much power would it take? I imagine for full effectiveness the caster would first have to find some sort of power source, because Cyric himself would not be able to provide enough power alone, and all of the gods would have to be trapped at the same time.

The campaign twist is of course that there is one god who avoids getting stuck there. Based on my understanding of the plane anchor concept, Savras forsees this event and before it all goes down, he allies with a spellcaster who uses plane anchor to anchor him to to Faerun, so that he cannot be anchored elsewhere. I figured perhaps the other gods wouldn't believe him, given he's only a demi-god himself and according to the lore most of the other gods look down on him.


Any advice or critique would be much appreciated, as well as suggestions for improvement.

 

[Lidgar]

I would seek advice from Zagyg the Mad.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I would start from the other end, if I were you. You have a world in which there is only one god who is widely recognized, but a cult is growing around a god that challenges that monotheistic status quo.

Questions then become:
1. Do the masses KNOW that there used to be a bunch of other gods? If they have heard of those other gods, do the people believe they existed? (what if, say, Johovah wrote a book millennia ago, and distributed it to Zeus and Shiva and Odin and the rest, trapping all of them? And now, in our current age, most people believe that the Norse and Greek gods and all the other pantheons are just stories people made up and told each other way back when).
2. What does it mean to be a god? Why can't the others break out of whatever prison or veil holds them back? Why is the other remaining god so weak?
3. How much time has passed since the imprisonment of the other gods? Elves have long memories, dragons even longer, and some creatures don't age at all. How did the knowledge get lost, if it did? And if people know about the other gods, why hasn't any church tried to free them? Or did they try and fail? How widely known is that attempt?

I wouldn't worry about the mechanics of how it all happened. As your players learn more about the history of the world, you'll likely arrive at a solution best suited to them and how they think. Their conversations about possible ways it happened will likely inspire a better solution than you would have come up with anyway, and then they get the extreme pleasure of having "figured it out."

 

[Shiroiken]

I would seek advice from Zagyg the Mad.

Came here to say that

 

[JasmineF]

The majority of the events would have to have happened a long time ago, maybe a few thousand years I think. Also there would have to have been massive amounts of book burning, with the church of Cyric destroying any and all evidence of other Gods they could find. I'm thinking that maybe the party at some point might stumble across some really old ruins that might still have information on other Gods that was somehow missed. It's generally accepted among the public that there are no other Gods and that only Cyric is the one true God, any other Gods that people speak of are heretical and make-believe. Anyone who openly opposes this way of life is branded a heretic and 'banished'. (Really they just get executed.)

The subject of Gods and their power is a tricky one, I feel, because Gods are meant to be far more powerful than mortals, but you would also assume all Gods are roughly equal to one another. That would also mean one God might be able to defeat another God, but for one God to defeat all other Gods would require that God to amass a great deal of power first.

All of the other Gods at the time of the campaign starting would be weak because of the lack of belief in them, making it harder from them to break out. The best way I can think to justify them being trapped in the first place is the person trapping them having a very large source of power, either from some kind of ancient artifact or from killing something very powerful. Maybe by killing lots of formidable creatures like Dragons and trapping their souls to use as fuel.

As part of the campaign the party will encounter a smallish group of rebels who have managed to encounter Savras in some way, and thus are fighting to try and free the other gods and restore balance. They aren't really known about by the public, but the Church of Cyric are aware of them and actively trying to hunt them down.

I am very curious as to what a party might theorize happened, I'm mostly just concerned that I don't want my history to be flimsy enough that it doesn't hold up to questioning.

 

[JasmineF]

I would seek advice from Zagyg the Mad.

This Zagyg fellow is very interesting x) Thanks for the extra reading - I think I might put him in the campaign, or at least let him have a spot in the history of the world

 

[dave2008]

My concern is, would this be mechanically possible, and if so, how much power would it take?

If your talking about 5e then no, this is not "mechaniclly" possible. There simply are no mechanics for the "greater" gods in 5e. The gods in 5e have the powers and abilities provided to them by the DM. Only one god, Tiamat, has been given any stats (which contradict her flavor in the MM a bit) and she was notes as a lesser god. The 5e DMG stats that "greater" gods are basically beyond stats for game proposes.

 

[transtemporal]

and the first order of business is to get the other gods out of the way so that they can't interfere.

Why not trick the gods into reading the book, thereby making them his obedient thrawls? Ao is the real threat though. How is he going to deal with Ao?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Why not trick the gods into reading the book, thereby making them his obedient thrawls? Ao is the real threat though. How is he going to deal with Ao?

He tried that a few times. Notably at his trial when he had grown so insane he was utterly terrible at his job as God of Strife. (He was doing nothing to lead or send his followers on spreading strife other then in their own ranks.) As a result the other greater gods were growing fed up with him and decided to put Cyric on trial.

He tried to being in the book as evidence but the gods pretty much refused to have it read for them. However Mystara knowing the book was altered into "The true life of Cyric" made it so that it could be read. "The true life of Cyric" is a version of the book that instead of being a book of lies that proclaims Cyric the one true god, describes the truth of Cyric and his true petty, selfish and deceitful being. "The true life of Cyric" has no negative effects instead it actually cures anyone who read the Cyrinishad of their madness. (In the case of the gods attending Cyric was cured as he was the only one who read it.)

Anyone a good idea for getting rid of the other gods is saying they read the book. "The true life of Cyric" gives a way to save the day as well.

 

[transtemporal]

Yeah, if it were me I'd just ignore the munchkin canon and have Cyric win.