Your opinion on god killing?

[Zappo]

It depends on the campaign. In all campaign I've DMed until now, any god is far, far above the capability of any mortal to harm, and far, far more powerful than what it takes to slay any mortal. That doesn't mean that I couldn't engineer or enjoy a campaign where gods are "only" extremely powerful celestials or fiends. I would still make it sure that slaying a god is the focus of a major story arch, if not the entire campaign. Anything less than that would require a major redefinition of the concept of "god" (which is quite fuzzy to begin with) before I find it palatable.

 

[Rawwedge]

Spawned due to a recent thread. What is your opinion of PCs rising up and challenging the gods themselves? I myself like it if it is good for the story I guess you could say. An example would be a dark god himself has come to the world and has captured someone important to absorb his power so he can become utterly omnipotent. Naturally the other PCs must save him from the dark god, and the god is only going to let you get him from his lifeless corpse.

I know there is a place for direct interaction with gods in the game but I'm one of those people that believes gods are best when they don't even have stats for combat etc. I like the game best when the omnipotence of gods is complete and absolute and the only way to harm them is by acting against their mortal (semi-mortal) agents down below. They are most fun as story telling tools for the DM; not as super charged NPC's.

 

[Bagpuss]

I don't allow the killing of gods. Gods are meant to be all powerful type entities so I don't see how a mere mortal can do anything to them.

Why are you assuming the PC's are mere mortals?

 

[S'mon]

I get most people preferred the 2e approach to deities (omnipotent, no stats) rather than 1e or 3e's.

 

[carpedavid]

As others have said, it depends on the campaign world. In my main homebrew setting, the gods are omnipotent, omnicient, and omnipresent - no mortal force can affect them, and they have no stats.

In my secondary homebrew setting, which I'm running right now, the "gods" are more akin to powerful spirits - to most people they're untouchable, but to powerful PCs, they could be targets.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Gods IMC's Current Cosmology

For most of my DMing experience (25 years and counting...getting old here! ) gods have been unkillable in worlds that I've created. However, I've always enjoyed stories (like some of the Conan ones) where a mortal can defeat, if not kill, a god. And also, I am reminded that satyrs and dryads (for instance) were originally "small gods of wood and field" or something like that. When I set up my campaign world, I wanted the gods to be involved on a regular basis, even at low levels. Which means that really minor gods (esp. faerie lords, beast lords, and ancestral spirits) might make appearances. So what's a poor DM to do?

When I devised my cosmology (first post in my story hour, link below), I decided to include imprisoned Elder Gods (ala Lovecraft), slumbering Titans, and a War in Heaven. The War in Heaven included casualties, which means that someone in the Celestial/Infernal sphere was capable of dying.

Now, I had decided to deal with "spirits" before I dealt with "gods," and the "gods" originally were the most powerful of the spirits. They simply declared themselves gods. Done deal. Now, where does the divine power come from?

For that, I went to the idea of true names. The idea is that everyone and everything has a true name that absolutely describes its nature, and its place in the universe. By manipulating an object or being's true name, you can alter its nature or its relationship to other beings/objects. IMC, all magic is devolved from knowledge of true names. With arcane magic, the practioner is manipulating information he has learned; with divine magic, the practioner is imploring spirits/gods to manipulate information that they know. This makes divine magic require patrons, but it is also easier to learn. Also, depending upon who your patrons are, divine magic might be safer.

With this as a basic setup, it becomes necessary to believe that gods can be killed. I also decided that mortals could become gods (necessary if ancestral spirits are "gods"), and made sure that the players had at least one example in their starting documents. Obviously, anything the PCs can kill is likely to be a minor manifestation, but I range "divine" or "semi-divine" encounters from CR 1 to 48 (so far). In my cosmology, most demons, devils, and celestials can grant at least a couple of low-level spells, and even some fey creatures can do this.

A very different worldview that I typically run, but it's also very much fun.

Raven Crowking

 

[Torm]

In my current campaign, the gods are distant beings believed in by some but not all people. They make their presence known in "mysterious ways" that can be taken for simple luck or odds by some people - almost never by taking physical form. (There IS one recorded incident of someone claiming to have been addressed by a god directly, but a lot of people think the orc was crazy.)

In a previous campaign I ran, the PCs killed several gods, including Corellon Larethian, whom they then used to power a spelljammer-like engine to fly a castle around. Weird campaign, but a lot of fun.

Of course, being the God of Paladins, I'm in the same boat with Bagpuss, more or less - its fine with me to have gods killed, as long as their evil, and especially as long as they aren't ME.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course, even if gods can be killed, it doesn't mean that they stay dead.

The stories of Ishtar, Osirus, etc., demonstrate that a god who dies may be restored under the proper circumstances. In a D&D world, where PCs return to life after being killed, surely the Gods have friends with more powerful magics yet?

RC

 

[Mallus]

In most of my homebrews, the gods are most definately mortal --I have a little trouble RP'ing beings that are actually supposed to be uncreated and wholly divine. However, offing my mortal gods involves having the right tools, not levels.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Speaking of which, the discussion of godlings in the recently released Legends & Lairs: Darkness & Dread was the highlight of the book for me.