When Celestials Attack... and Small Gods... an idea...

[Breakstone]

I was reading a couple articles in various Dragon Magazines, and I started pondering...

What if there's a god (lawful good or lawful neutral) who's followers believe is is the god. Meaning no other gods are real, just this one. Let's call him Authority.

Authority believes that the only way to take over is to send a bunch of his angels to devastate any non-believers.

All the other gods are (pretty much) saying, "Meh..." Maybe they're even constructing a new world, a "better" one.

But there are gods yet. On the world, there are a number of Small Gods. The great Apple Tree out by the desert villaige of Tumolk.

The roaming Glacier of the great ice fields of the North.

Maybe even a Kaiju or two.

So, I was thinkin': Where can I take this? What parts can the characters play? Is their task to find and awaken the small gods?

What do you think?

 

[Brother Laszlo]

Huh

So, what are you saying? The PCs are small gods who must band together to ward off the minions of Authority from taking over the world and turning it into a starbucks? Some sort of super-epic campaign it sounds like to me. That'd take some work.

 

[wolfpunk]

I think it is a cool idea. My understanding is this the player characters would have to undertake a journey to wake these small gods. Perhaps they go to the great apple tree, and then they must find a way to awaken it. Perhaps blessed waters from a nearby secret fountain, who knows. Perhaps once awakened the tree tells them of the glacier that roams in the ice fields, and so they must travel there to awaken it. Or perhaps it is awake but it is roaming because it is looking for something. The pcs have to find that item. Anyway, they go on all these little mini quests in order to awaken the small gods and bring them together against the authority.

Sounds like great fun

 

[Breakstone]

Wolfpunk- that's exactly what I was shooting for. Any more ideas about what small gods there could be, or how to wake them?

Brother- While that's not what I was shooting for, it could eventually develope into that. Maybe the Characters find out that one of them is a Small God (or something like that...).

 

[wolfpunk]

I think in order to come up with some more small gods you need to give us some more information about the campaign setting we are dealing with.

Are you wanting the small gods to be things based on nature, glacier, tree, etc, or how about animals?

You could always do the great owl, or the white stag.

I think it would be cool if one of the small gods was an old stone building in one of the cities in your campaign. Perhaps it is set to be demolished and the player characters have to find a way to save it.

Maybe an old ship, like a galleon or something like that. All sorts of different things could take on the sort of fable like qualities.

 

[Breakstone]

Ooh, those are some good ideas, Wolfpunk. I like the idea of an old ship and a stone building, along with the animals... I'll have to look into this...

 

[wolfpunk]

No problem, I really like your idea.


You know you could do all sorts of things, perhaps an inactive volcano, you have to awaken it, but at what consequence. How about a waterfall??

I think you need to decide how many small gods you have, and what happens once they are awakened. Another question would be, what if they don't awaken all of them, or what if they anger one of them. Also you need to decide how it is going to happen. Are celestials going to be trying to kill off these small gods, are they simply going to fight the player characters?

 

[Breakstone]

Maybe while some of the small gods need to be awakened, others just need to be convinced.

Like the roaming glacier could be the spirit of a great warrior who attained small god-hood through his great deeds in battle. He could be searching for his long-lost weapon, or helmet, or something like that...

Hm... how many should there be, and how did they get there?

Some could have attained small god-hood, as the roaming glacier did. Others could have been put there by the bigger gods. Maybe younger brothers or even sons and daughters of the big gods.

 

[Valkys]

Well, Authority's followers would be like the Christians and Muslims. They're mounting crusades to wipe out the follwoers of the small gods. The PCs could be worshippers of one of the small gods, perhaps they are from the same small town where a msall god is worshipped. A god of Tolerance might be a good opponent to Authority.

This god tells them where the other small gods can be found. And in some climactic, apocalyptic battle at the end, each of the PCs is endowed with the Power of a small god's avatar.

Basically they get the special qualities of an outsider in a titanic struggle against the avatar of Authority or maybe his Archangels.

It isn't a battler of good vs evil, but right vs wrong, tolerance vs. stubborness. If the PCs lose, they die along with the small gods. If they win, maybe they get deified so that they can be an eternal balance against the power of authority.

 

[Breakstone]

Ooh, I like the idea of the PC's becoming the Small God's avatars. The Barbarian being the avatar of the volcano, the Druid that of the White Stag, and the Monk an avatar of the Apple Tree...

This is getting cool...