D&D General Visiting divine realms

[Modi]

Gods can control what effects take place within their realms, so even if you use the option rule for Elysium, if the PCs are inside a divine realm they needn't be affected by it. Or they could just leave a day before a full week is up and then come right back... also, it's likely that magical items have been created to thwart such planar effects, and the PCs could buy and equip some. Or perhaps spells exist that would do the same trick, nullifying the effect for the duration. As to actually being in a divine realm, I can't really help you there except to suggest that the 2nd edition book On Hallowed Ground has some advice/info. Also, the PCs would first encounter lesser servants (including deceased worshipers AKA petitioners), then a proxy (a spokesperson for the god), and then possibly an avatar or aspect of the god unless the god is feeling generous and decides to present his/her true essence to the PCs. (Which depending on edition it might have to, as in the current edition Lesser gods have only the one form, such as Tiamat, and - as far as I can tell from what it says in the DMG - can't make avatars. If the god being visited is a Greater god, then per 5th edition they can make avatars. But use whatever rules work for you.)

 

[Bohandas]

I actually had an NPC Archmage send the players to obtain a "material" component for a new spell which was the wail of a banshee. Needless to say they were aggrevated for the next hour trying to figure how they were going to accomplish that. I told them go find a banshee first then go from there. One of the PCs sacrificed themselves and the rest of the party used his corpse as the material component.

I'd have just used a copy of the spell

 

[R_J_K75]

I'd have just used a copy of the spell

I dont understand your comment. The spell wasnt created yet so it couldnt be copied. Its been a long time but if I remember right, they used part of the corpse to research and create the spell, another part to actually cast it and then left enough to resurrect the players character.

 

[Bohandas]

I meant a copy of the spell "Wail of the Banshee"

 

[Quickleaf]

So in most D&D settings, the gods have physical domains that exist in the Outer Planes. I'm in a situation where I've got a high-level player that's keen on knocking on his god's door and talking to her. Long story short this is something I ultimately want to facilitate for his story, but when I actually sat down to think about how this works, it feels obvious that even though you can visit a god's humble abode (or shining golden fortress) with a Plane Shift spell, actually gaining an audience with them would be immensely more difficult.

Does anyone else have experience with campaigns that have run into this sort of thing, or thoughts regarding it?

I did a bit of this back in AD&D Planescape. The PCs met different aspects of Osiris while working to piece the god back together (he'd been severed into different parts by Set). One also had a vision of Isis and Ishtar after assisting a city in the Outlands to cross over into the Upper Planes.

My recommendation is to dig into the lore of the specific deity involved. For instance, that bit about Osiris being cut up into parts by his brother Set is borrowed from Egyptian myth.