D&D General where did the gods come from?

[dave2008]

I like the 4e idea of gods as living concepts (possibly because of my IRL religion.)

So I like to think of the gods as sort of being BOTH "they came before there were ever creatures" and "they are the product of mortal actions." That is, the first is true in that the gods existed before there was any life to believe in them--they created that life. But once that life comes into being, it develops a symbiotic relationship (whether mutualistic or parasitic depends on a variety of factors) with those deities. Because mortal actions exemplify, instantiate, those concepts into the world.

IOW, when you do the right thing for the right reasons even when you don't have to, you are empowering Bahamut by doing so, though perhaps only in the smallest of ways. And when Bahamut reaches out and gives his blessing to a mortal, that encourages more mortals to be just and merciful and brave. Meanwhile, doing something petty and self-serving empowers Tiamat.

As above, so below; and as below, so above. We are not cosmic playthings, nor are the gods mere figments. We forge the world that will be, and thus the gods that will look upon it, by the actions we take.

So do not pay me in gold. Pay me with the prayer of works: show justice and mercy even to your bitterest enemy, be kind to every traveller who calls upon you for aid, hold fast to hope even in the darkest hour of the blackest night.

That is pretty much how I do it as well. Of course I also have cosmic beings that similar in power to the gods, but that don't get any benefit from mortals. But the gods in our setting are pretty much just like you've stated.

 

[Hriston]

In my games, the players are the primary authority on any gods their PCs worship, so I’d look to them to provide any historical setting details about the origin of their god(s).

If, as DM, I’m called on to introduce some color or other setting details, I generally default to the tropes present in Tolkien, so I would say that, at the beginning of Time, the gods came from the Positive Plane where they had sprung forth from the mind of the Creator.

 

[jasper]

where they born from belief, or did they always exist?

Always existed. The idea that gawds need worshipers to be batteries always turned me off.

 

[Celebrim]

In my campaign this is something mortals argue about.

The orthodox version of events is that some unknown creator created the universe and left in it a thing called The Tree of Life before it moved on out of boredom or some unfathomable motive. The fruit of the Tree of Life eventually ripened and those fruit became the first gods. The gods did what living things do and multiplied and made families.

There are various heretical versions of events and one of them is that the gods are actually created by the collective belief of everything else in the universe. In this version, the gods are just super powerful spirits created by and sustained by belief in them the way a darkness spirit is created if you purposefully banish light from a place or the way a horror spirit is created if you continually feed an area fear or the way a meadow spirit is created if a particular bit of ground flourishes as a meadow for long enough.

Exactly what the truth is I'm not going to say.

 

[Vaalingrade]

ME.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I like the 4e idea of gods as living concepts (possibly because of my IRL religion.)

So I like to think of the gods as sort of being BOTH "they came before there were ever creatures" and "they are the product of mortal actions." That is, the first is true in that the gods existed before there was any life to believe in them--they created that life. But once that life comes into being, it develops a symbiotic relationship (whether mutualistic or parasitic depends on a variety of factors) with those deities. Because mortal actions exemplify, instantiate, those concepts into the world.

IOW, when you do the right thing for the right reasons even when you don't have to, you are empowering Bahamut by doing so, though perhaps only in the smallest of ways. And when Bahamut reaches out and gives his blessing to a mortal, that encourages more mortals to be just and merciful and brave. Meanwhile, doing something petty and self-serving empowers Tiamat.

As above, so below; and as below, so above. We are not cosmic playthings, nor are the gods mere figments. We forge the world that will be, and thus the gods that will look upon it, by the actions we take.

So do not pay me in gold. Pay me with the prayer of works: show justice and mercy even to your bitterest enemy, be kind to every traveller who calls upon you for aid, hold fast to hope even in the darkest hour of the blackest night.

got to ask what is your faith as I can't think of one like that easily.

look for an origin to gods you need the core eldest to be axioms the reality is based on and flow down from there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Always existed. The idea that gawds need worshipers to be batteries always turned me off.

What about it turns you off exactly? I'm not trying to push back on your preferences, but I wonder if it is more the phrasing than anything else.

Because, I agree that "worshippers are batteries" doesn't feel right to me. But if we accept the idea that "all things must die" is a truth, and the Gods can be killed, then it could also be true that "all things must eat". And this is something I've seen in multiple fantasy stories and even in mythology. The food of the gods is special, and in some versions it is special because it is offered as part of religious rituals or it is infused with Faith.

And so for me, it becomes less of a concept that "bee-boop, god-bot needs power" and more that the Gods need to eat to sustain themselves, and what they eat is metaphysical and related to Faith. And as a person who eats well is healthier and stronger than someone who eats poorly, such is true of the divine.

 

[Fifinjir]

Always existed. The idea that gawds need worshipers to be batteries always turned me off.

Not usually a fan either, but I can see it working if creatures born from people’s minds are a significant element of the setting. If gods are born from belief, then it stands to reason that enough children believing in monsters under their beds would end up creating these bed-lurking entities.

 

[Mind of tempest]

What about it turns you off exactly? I'm not trying to push back on your preferences, but I wonder if it is more the phrasing than anything else.

Because, I agree that "worshippers are batteries" doesn't feel right to me. But if we accept the idea that "all things must die" is a truth, and the Gods can be killed, then it could also be true that "all things must eat". And this is something I've seen in multiple fantasy stories and even in mythology. The food of the gods is special, and in some versions it is special because it is offered as part of religious rituals or it is infused with Faith.

And so for me, it becomes less of a concept that "bee-boop, god-bot needs power" and more that the Gods need to eat to sustain themselves, and what they eat is metaphysical and related to Faith. And as a person who eats well is healthier and stronger than someone who eats poorly, such is true of the divine.

if gods need us for fuel it is kind of not a god, I have heard of no real-world faith that operates of it. gods normally are, it would be like if we need to worship gravity for it to work it stops being fundamental and becomes contingent.

gods often eat in myth but normally super special stuff that grants great ability if eaten by mortals but not gods needing morals for much even the mexica gods who need human blood have it more for a boost and not a fundamental to their being.

Not usually a fan either, but I can see it working if creatures born from people’s minds are a significant element of the setting. If gods are born from belief, then it stands to reason that enough children believing in monsters under their beds would end up creating these bed-lurking entities.

that world gets nightmarish fast not just from the childhood monsters.

 

[Xamnam]

Maybe there are some gods that exist outside belief, but I'm not ever going to take the Kuo-toa's ability to create actual real deities away from them.