Your opinion on god killing?

[Enkhidu]

I think much of how a person answeres this question hinges on how they percieve the gods:

Are your gods Saberhagen-esque (or simply superpowerful beings that merely seem like gods, a la the creators of the 12 swords of power?)?

Are they Norse/Greek/Asiatic Indian in feel (and thus simply very powerful persons that consort with mortals)?

Are they like Conan's Crom (distant beings(?) that do not directly involve themselves in the realms of mortals)?

Answer these questions and you might have a better idea of how to handle the occasional god-killing.

 

[adriayna]

Killing a god should only be reserved for those uber-heroic campaigns. And even then, I don't think you can just walk up and beat on the god till it dies. If one of my campaigns ended up taking this sort of route, I would have the PCs work to banish the god or contain/trap the god somehow--I just don't see being able to kill a god outright as something that any mortal can do.

 

[Aaron2]

What is your opinion of PCs rising up and challenging the gods themselves?

I'm pro-god killing. I figure lesser gods should be around CR 20 to 30; greater gods around 40 or so. Also, I think that attaining godhood should be fairly doable by level 30 or so.

The idea of a gods as untouchable forces of nature seems too modern a concept for me.


Aaron

 

[Toras]

I agree that it really depends on the setting.
Olympions, Norse, Egyptian, etc. Pantheon type gods are inherently challengable because they are less abstract. They are factious, warring and often petty and cruel. Gods like this can kick off on quite a number of occasions. (Set going to town on Osiris, Loki killing a few minor Godlings, etc.)

I could see the characters challenging a God of this manner, as there are great precident for it. FR is full of histories where advanced civilizations have ruined many a God's day, (I think one group actually emptied a pantheon). Planescape is full of God kicking it Goodness, the Astral being littered with their bodies. There are even a group of Athar dedicated to the destruction of the "False" Dieities. (They haven't done much, but planescape is like that)

The Gods I could see being unchallengable are the ones that are simply manifest ideals or concepts. Water, Fire, Air, and Earth all could be Gods and so long is they didn't manifest into some form of humaniod incarnation, it would be very difficult to destroy them. Ao or other overgods are the unchallengable forces to the extent that they are actually supreme beings in their spheres.

Can God's be slain by PC's? Only if you've gotten some serious firepower (20+ levels of pain, sweat, and tears), especially on the magic front. It would definately being an extreme special cases death as well, based on the manner of God they are.

For your God of Darkness, you would need Weapons of Forged Light to strike at him, and to slay him, his heart would have to be placed in the font of Purest Light. However, his power wouldn't dispear. I would have it pass to the PC's as a collective whole. Suddenly they are tainted by darkness and lords of that God's Dark army. His Duties in the Celestial Spectrum would fall to them, as well as any consiquences for killing the previous God.

It forces the, do we slay our enemy only to become him or do we defeat him, knowing that he will return. Of course if they did it for power, then things get interesting, as they begin to turn on each other or the other Gods. This would get messy. But it would be a fun ride.

 

[diaglo]

i still hold to what Timothy Kask wrote in the foreward of Supplement IV.

 

[Psion]

If the story leads me that way, that's what we'll do. Somthing like a final confrontation with a dark power that has plagued the world for 30 levels could be a pretty gripping, epic thing.

I would never do it more than once in a campaign. To this end, I find books full of statistics blocks for deities a bit less than useful.

 

[Dogbrain]

The idea of a gods as untouchable forces of nature seems too modern a concept for me.

I don't seem to recally any of the Vikings having claimed to have killed a god in a saga. Even Baldr is slain by another god. So are the Vikings too modern for you?

 

[GreyWanderer]

I remember an episode of Deep Space 9, where Major Kira made a comment about how difficult it was to understand the ways of their deities. To which Warf said something like
'The Klingon gods were very annoying. That's why we killed them'

Knowing how warlike Klingons are, I bet their gods were happy that their worshipers could actually destroy them!

My point is, gods (in D&D) are not composed of flesh and blood, but belief - the combined will of thousands (if not millions) of worshipers, elevating a minor spirit to the point where it becomes a channel for energies from the Outer Planes. That's why they wind up floating in the Astral Plane (a place of thought, not matter). If those worshipers believe they can kill their god, they can do it (as the Klingons did).

As for a group of PC's doing it, I can see an epic group using artifacts and knowing they had all that divine energy and astral conduits to deal with, but it should be the focus of an entire campaign, with a divine ally (whether they know it or not) ready to pick up that deities portfolio (you figure that some other god would be anxious to do that anyway).

Grey

Grey

 

[Knight Otu]

I don't seem to recally any of the Vikings having claimed to have killed a god in a saga.

And that's not necessary. The point is that the Norse gods were killable.

Even Baldr is slain by another god. So are the Vikings too modern for you?

That can be debated. Pretty much every thing and being was sworn into not to harm Baldr, except that little mistletoe that did it.

 

[dcollins]

Yes. Classic mythology, can make for a great campaign.

And leave the avatars to the Hindu deities where they belong, thanks.
www.superdan.net/dndmisc/avatars.html