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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5607634" data-attributes="member: 2067">Very minor character resemblances (such as the Godsmens' belief in reincarnation heirarchy), but more than exist in Bog Standard D&D. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Indeed, that's part of the point. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> In 2e, when PS came about, there wasn't a character class who could gain power from devil-worship, but the idea that gods were relatively small (in comparison to most worlds) was driven home pretty powerfully. Sure, Zeus might chuck lightning bolts down on your little backwater homeworld, but that's not everywhere, and it ain't here. If you worship Zeus as a planewalker, it's not because he chucks lightning bolts down, it's because there's a particular idea he embodies that you favor (forex, with Zeus, it might be the power of the masculine patriarch, expressed through chucking lightning bolts). Otherwise, perhaps it's part of your cultural or personal identity or story. You worship Zeus because he helps people where YOU come from, because he helped liberate YOUR world from the titans, because you've been personally aided by a timely lightning bolt. Zeus isn't there for all, he's there for YOU, and you have the spells to prove it!"Magic" is belief in PS. It's not being a creator or a sustainer that gives you the power to grant Cure Light Wounds, it is (in Planescape), being the concentration of millions' of peoples' hopes and dreams, having THEM believe in you, worship you, and dedicate their lives to serving you. That nebulous quality gives real magical power to deities, which they then share back with the people via the divine power source. A god has power because people believe in them. It is the same reason the Abyss exists. Possibly there's something else, too (the Athar certainly believe there's something beyond divinity that the gods are just a spigot for), but the basic "greybeard understanding" is that the divine power source is raw faith, given magical utility via a god.Is the god WORTHY of that worship? Well, in some cases, clearly not. Evil deities are a dime a dozen, and demon lords and devil princes and eladrin nobles all get their share of ritual and belief, despite their patent and often obvious unreliability as divine beings. But people worship them, ascribe them importance, and, even knowing that Juiblex is a bubbling malevolence who wants to dissolve you, might truly believe that this is what the world needs, and so signs up for Team Blex.And via the god, that principle lets the faithful blast holy light and heal the sick. Pretty awesome. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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