Questions about Overdeities. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Questions about Overdeities. [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sulacu
06-04-07, 03:39 PM I've been wondering about this for quite a few moments now. Overdeities. I have been through Deities and Demigods front and back, and I cannot find any more information about them other than that they have a divine rank of 21+ and sometimes must give their consent before a mortal may ascend to godhood.

Now, that is really shallow, and I suspect that the writers somehow wanted to keep such powerful entities so far out of reach that they didn't bother giving them stats.

After all, what is more powerful than a greater deity; a being that always succeeds at everything, absolutely everything it ever needs doing?

Are overdeities to deities what deities are to mortals? In such, is their power so much greater that for mortals they are incomprehensible and indefinable?

Or is it simply that these elusive beings are governed by houserule? Still, though, I like the idea of no being in D&D being truly omniscient or omnipotent.

Does anyone have any info, official or fanmade, on Overdeities.
sciborg2
06-04-07, 05:27 PM In 2e Planescape, Overdeities had incredible power of their individual worlds or if you want to get technical, the black crystal spheres that contained worlds. This meant beyond that an overdeity had little power to speak of.

The concept outside Planescape, near as I can tell, has been largely undefined. The only overdeities I can think of are the High God of Krynn and Ao. One can say that overdeities don't require worship but then neither do the any of the gods of Krynn iirc.

At the end of the novel Waterdeep, which closes the FR Time of Troubles, it seems that Ao (and perhaps by extension all overdeities) are servants of a much larger power (thought by many to represent the DM) tasked with ensuring balance. In fact, Ao chastised his gods for not seeking to ensure the Balance of Order and Chaos...

The High God, before he became a ripoff of Tolkien's Simarillion, also focused on Neutrality but for him it was the balance of G, N, and E.

I suspect overgods might be servants of a mysterious force, maybe the same one that created the rilmani.
Gray Richardson
06-04-07, 08:26 PM Are overdeities to deities what deities are to mortals? In such, is their power so much greater that for mortals they are incomprehensible and indefinable?Yes. Overdeities are not meant to be statted. They exist in a higher order of reality. They are higher dimensional beings. They are not gods at all. They have transcended divinity and have gone "beyond".

As such they do not need worship, and do not grant spells. Nor do the vast majority ever interact with mortals or the Material Plane.

They usually don't care about the material plane at all. Mortals are like ants or bacteria to them. If they do care at all about the material plane or mortals it is in the same way we worry about loss of wetlands habitat, or keeping a computer server from crashing. They are distant and removed. They have cares and concerns far beyond the scope of the universe in which we live.

Some of them are tasked with looking after universes or crystal spheres. They do not do this directly. They use gods or other systems as their intermediaries. However, I think this must be the job of a fairly low level overgod. The really busy ones are regulating the flux of n-dimensional membranes or the local valence of adeledicnander. Some are off contesting the incursion of the Quincunx into the 18th magnitude of the hyper-concord. While others still are recinerating the pamphagous Sarhool.

Overdeities are not merely bigger gods. They are something else entirely.
El_Machinae
06-05-07, 11:22 AM It's tough to say that "people are like insects" because, in the end, we cannot communicate with insects. So their relationship with humans is a bit more complicated than that, because they could interact with humans on a human-scale but don't because humans don't really matter at the scales that they're dealing with.
Dwarven_Fighter_DR20
06-05-07, 11:54 AM Our group has been barking up this tree for quite some time. Check it out on the Overdeity House Rules thread.
ripvanwormer
06-05-07, 12:09 PM The really busy ones are regulating the flux of n-dimensional membranes or the local valence of adeledicnander. Some are off contesting the incursion of the Quincunx into the 18th magnitude of the hyper-concord. While others still are recinerating the pamphagous Sarhool.

That's beautiful.
sciborg2
06-05-07, 04:22 PM Gray's ideas are great. :)
ripvanwormer
06-06-07, 12:37 AM In the beginning, humanity looked out into the cold emptiness of the stars, and created gods to protect them.

The product of mankind's hopes and fears, the gods grew powerful, fat with prayers and sacrifice. For a time, they played with the substance of reality like a child in a sandbox.

When the old gods of earth began to be forgotten, they abandoned their world of origin to found new ones in their own image, places where they could never be ignored because they were the true source and sustainers of existence, places where they didn't have to worry about rival pantheons and new gods competing for their worship. Near a distant star, the Aesir and Vanir created Midgard; near another star, the gods of Olympus created Gaia. Other pantheons created other planets, each perfectly reflecting the world as their original worshipers had believed it to be. For a time, they were the absolute rulers of their realms, and they were more powerful than ever before. The greatest among them evolved to a state beyond gods. Calling themselves overgods, they created new pantheons in their image, new gods, new worlds, and new stars in entirely empty regions of space.

Eventually the people of Earth advanced to the point when they were able to travel the stars using their own technology, and they began to colonize distant planets. The gods saw them as a threat, a source of potential contamination on their perfect worlds, and they petitioned the overgods to intervene. This the overgods did, creating spheres of unbreakable crystal to separate the worlds and stymie the earthling interstellar drives - and also to define the limits of what the gods could do, to protect their own power from being usurped by their former colleagues. They used their fiat to permit alien gods to invade some of the "perfect" worlds, hoping rival pantheons could keep each other distracted, their influence in check, so that no new overgods could evolve. The age of Earth was over, and the reign of the overgods had begun.
sciborg2
06-06-07, 12:42 AM :D
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht
06-07-07, 11:04 AM It's tough to say that "people are like insects" because, in the end, we cannot communicate with insects.
Sure we can. We deciphered the language of bees, for one. We just can't do it in person. We need little things that can duplicate the language of bees.
El_Machinae
06-07-07, 12:33 PM If a person pray to Ao, do you think that Ao hears it, understands what it is, and chooses to ignore it? Or does it never enter even his subconscious? I think that it's the first, not the second. This is quite different from my relationship with ants, where I have no idea if ants are requesting anything from me. While ants are ignorant of me, I'm also ignorant of ants. I don't think this is as true with an overgod.
Gray Richardson
06-08-07, 01:00 AM Ao hears every prayer said to him. He mostly tunes it out. If they become really persistent and annoying about it he simply erases all knowledge of his existence from their minds.
:doh:
zzakk2to2
06-08-07, 11:19 AM i think that their intelect is so great they hear every prayer made to them but it takes so little thinking on their part that its more like how some people type. they dont look they just do.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sulacu 06-04-07, 03:39 PM	I've been wondering about this for quite a few moments now. Overdeities. I have been through Deities and Demigods front and back, and I cannot find any more information about them other than that they have a divine rank of 21+ and sometimes must give their consent before a mortal may ascend to godhood. Now, that is really shallow, and I suspect that the writers somehow wanted to keep such powerful entities so far out of reach that they didn't bother giving them stats. After all, what is more powerful than a greater deity; a being that always succeeds at everything, absolutely everything it ever needs doing? Are overdeities to deities what deities are to mortals? In such, is their power so much greater that for mortals they are incomprehensible and indefinable? Or is it simply that these elusive beings are governed by houserule? Still, though, I like the idea of no being in D&D being truly omniscient or omnipotent. Does anyone have any info, official or fanmade, on Overdeities.
sciborg2 06-04-07, 05:27 PM	In 2e Planescape, Overdeities had incredible power of their individual worlds or if you want to get technical, the black crystal spheres that contained worlds. This meant beyond that an overdeity had little power to speak of. The concept outside Planescape, near as I can tell, has been largely undefined. The only overdeities I can think of are the High God of Krynn and Ao. One can say that overdeities don't require worship but then neither do the any of the gods of Krynn iirc. At the end of the novel Waterdeep, which closes the FR Time of Troubles, it seems that Ao (and perhaps by extension all overdeities) are servants of a much larger power (thought by many to represent the DM) tasked with ensuring balance. In fact, Ao chastised his gods for not seeking to ensure the Balance of Order and Chaos... The High God, before he became a ripoff of Tolkien's Simarillion, also focused on Neutrality but for him it was the balance of G, N, and E. I suspect overgods might be servants of a mysterious force, maybe the same one that created the rilmani.
Gray Richardson 06-04-07, 08:26 PM	Are overdeities to deities what deities are to mortals? In such, is their power so much greater that for mortals they are incomprehensible and indefinable?Yes. Overdeities are not meant to be statted. They exist in a higher order of reality. They are higher dimensional beings. They are not gods at all. They have transcended divinity and have gone "beyond". As such they do not need worship, and do not grant spells. Nor do the vast majority ever interact with mortals or the Material Plane. They usually don't care about the material plane at all. Mortals are like ants or bacteria to them. If they do care at all about the material plane or mortals it is in the same way we worry about loss of wetlands habitat, or keeping a computer server from crashing. They are distant and removed. They have cares and concerns far beyond the scope of the universe in which we live. Some of them are tasked with looking after universes or crystal spheres. They do not do this directly. They use gods or other systems as their intermediaries. However, I think this must be the job of a fairly low level overgod. The really busy ones are regulating the flux of n-dimensional membranes or the local valence of adeledicnander. Some are off contesting the incursion of the Quincunx into the 18th magnitude of the hyper-concord. While others still are recinerating the pamphagous Sarhool. Overdeities are not merely bigger gods. They are something else entirely.
El_Machinae 06-05-07, 11:22 AM	It's tough to say that "people are like insects" because, in the end, we cannot communicate with insects. So their relationship with humans is a bit more complicated than that, because they could interact with humans on a human-scale but don't because humans don't really matter at the scales that they're dealing with.
Dwarven_Fighter_DR20 06-05-07, 11:54 AM	Our group has been barking up this tree for quite some time. Check it out on the Overdeity House Rules thread.
ripvanwormer 06-05-07, 12:09 PM	The really busy ones are regulating the flux of n-dimensional membranes or the local valence of adeledicnander. Some are off contesting the incursion of the Quincunx into the 18th magnitude of the hyper-concord. While others still are recinerating the pamphagous Sarhool. That's beautiful.
sciborg2 06-05-07, 04:22 PM	Gray's ideas are great. :)
ripvanwormer 06-06-07, 12:37 AM	In the beginning, humanity looked out into the cold emptiness of the stars, and created gods to protect them. The product of mankind's hopes and fears, the gods grew powerful, fat with prayers and sacrifice. For a time, they played with the substance of reality like a child in a sandbox. When the old gods of earth began to be forgotten, they abandoned their world of origin to found new ones in their own image, places where they could never be ignored because they were the true source and sustainers of existence, places where they didn't have to worry about rival pantheons and new gods competing for their worship. Near a distant star, the Aesir and Vanir created Midgard; near another star, the gods of Olympus created Gaia. Other pantheons created other planets, each perfectly reflecting the world as their original worshipers had believed it to be. For a time, they were the absolute rulers of their realms, and they were more powerful than ever before. The greatest among them evolved to a state beyond gods. Calling themselves overgods, they created new pantheons in their image, new gods, new worlds, and new stars in entirely empty regions of space. Eventually the people of Earth advanced to the point when they were able to travel the stars using their own technology, and they began to colonize distant planets. The gods saw them as a threat, a source of potential contamination on their perfect worlds, and they petitioned the overgods to intervene. This the overgods did, creating spheres of unbreakable crystal to separate the worlds and stymie the earthling interstellar drives - and also to define the limits of what the gods could do, to protect their own power from being usurped by their former colleagues. They used their fiat to permit alien gods to invade some of the "perfect" worlds, hoping rival pantheons could keep each other distracted, their influence in check, so that no new overgods could evolve. The age of Earth was over, and the reign of the overgods had begun.
sciborg2 06-06-07, 12:42 AM	:D
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 06-07-07, 11:04 AM	It's tough to say that "people are like insects" because, in the end, we cannot communicate with insects. Sure we can. We deciphered the language of bees, for one. We just can't do it in person. We need little things that can duplicate the language of bees.
El_Machinae 06-07-07, 12:33 PM	If a person pray to Ao, do you think that Ao hears it, understands what it is, and chooses to ignore it? Or does it never enter even his subconscious? I think that it's the first, not the second. This is quite different from my relationship with ants, where I have no idea if ants are requesting anything from me. While ants are ignorant of me, I'm also ignorant of ants. I don't think this is as true with an overgod.
Gray Richardson 06-08-07, 01:00 AM	Ao hears every prayer said to him. He mostly tunes it out. If they become really persistent and annoying about it he simply erases all knowledge of his existence from their minds. :doh:
zzakk2to2 06-08-07, 11:19 AM	i think that their intelect is so great they hear every prayer made to them but it takes so little thinking on their part that its more like how some people type. they dont look they just do.