I'm thinking about some fundamental questions concerning goods and divine powers.
I'd love to have some input.
- How do you imagine a God ?
- How differs an Avatar from a God itself ?
- How would you kill a God ?
- How do a God grant Power ?
- What can a God know ?
- What is the Gods Power ?
people can gain the power of channeling divine energy from a ritual, or the god can send an avatar, and do it him/herself.
Hello,
I'm thinking about some fundamental questions concerning goods and divine powers.
I'd love to have some input.
- How do you imagine a God ?
- How differs an Avatar from a God itself ?
- How would you kill a God ?
- How do a God grant Power ?
- What can a God know ?
- What is the Gods Power ?
My answer to these questions depends on the setting. In what I'm beginning to think of as the "standard" PoL setting, I'd consider the Gods to be similar to those of Greek or Norse myth. Real beings with great abilities who would be very, very difficult - though not impossible - to kill.
In the setting I've been developing for the past 6 months or so, what people think of as the Gods are actually the AI controlling various ships sent to the solar system as a mass terraforming and colonizing mission. The AI were "Awakened" (similar to the spell) shortly after their arrival in the system and quickly developed abilities, preferences and portfolios that roughly match the entries in the PHB.
The God-as-machine is a familiar plot device, and my take on it is based mostly on the _Book of the Long Sun_, by Gene Wolfe. There are of course other influences, like the "Spock's Brain" episode of Star Trek, and many others.
As a result of their construction and origin:
The God itself appears as it is: a great space ship, and it is either parked on a planet or moon or it is in orbit about one.
A God is able to project one or more avatars of itself to any place within the system. The avatar looks and feels exactly like a real being, complete with clothing and possessions. A God is also able to project its personality into any willing person within the system.
It is _very_ difficult to kill an avatar; they are very well constructed and are Epic-level multi-class characters with lots of magic equipment. Killing a host person is considerably more difficult than killing the person would be otherwise, because the God's abilities can be channeled through the host.
It would be almost impossible to kill the actual God itself. It would probably take other Gods working in tandem or a group of Demons at least as powerful as Orcus. Or a lucky attack with a couple of fusion bombs detonated simultaneously at different points of the God's structure.
Gods have been killed before; several died in a war against Elemental forces for control of the system thousands of years ago. Their hulking bodies drift in the interplanetary space known as the Astral Sea, and some have become the living space for such creatures as the Githyanki.
Gods typically grant power through a connection to their chosen similar to that through which the God would project itself into a host person. It's not something the God itself controls, but is the result of a ritual or other magical effect.
Gods know a _lot_. But they are often limited in their knowledge to what they prefer to know about. Erathis would know a lot about civil engineering, Moradin would know a lot about metallurgy, etc. Within their spheres of influence, a God is as close to omniscient as doesn't matter, but outside "common knowledge" and their own specialties, they would have to rely on angels or some other information source.
A God's power is almost limitless, but as with their knowledge, Gods tend to specialize here too. Lolth would be very hard pressed to make a permanent area of bright sunshine, Moradin would have very great difficulty making a kelp field in the ocean, etc. But within their spheres of influence, a God can do anything that a Wish can do, only better.
An important consideration: Gods are only what they are within the area of the system. Outside a definite boundary, they would revert back to being "only" AI and "only" a starship. The original mission to the system was many thousands of years ago; they lost contact with the civilization that sent them when they entered the field that surrounds this star system. Almost all Gods remember what they were, and almost all of them are content to remain here and be Gods rather than seek to regain contact with the civilization that sent them there.
Godslayer- at level 30 your PC steps into the heavens and smites some god.
No dice, no power names and keywords just an epic description of it taking everything your character has to bring down this cosmic authority.
Now, if you really are desperate to stat them, lvl 40-50, and a bunch of artifacts with bonuses of +8 to +10. They don't need special rules really, the extra +5 to +10 lvl bonus to hit and defense will do most of the work.
Worst case you give them Encounter abilities as at wills and Dailies as Encounters with normal at wills as minor actions.
- How do you imagine a God ?
Physically the gods interact through avatars, possessing them in order to appear as a physical form. In my world gods exist as meta-physical (I guess you could say) entities that do not have a purely physical form. As an avatar the god's powers are limited. When someone ascends to god-hood they basically dissapear.
- How differs an Avatar from a God itself ?
Avatars are divine beings that rely on gods for their powers but are always in a physical form.
- How would you kill a God ?
To exist a god must have followers. Followers are sort of like divine batteries that fule the gods existance and power. In return the god can send avatars or blessings to his followers as well as connect certain followers (clerics, paladins, etc) to the astral sea (or another realm).
So in order to kill a god you kill its followers. Once weakened sufficiently the god will simply dissipate or return back to another form or try to take another way out.
- How do a God grant Power ?
By connecting the souls of his chosen followers to the astral sea or another source of power.
- What can a God know ?
All that his followers hear, see, and know, so the god knows.
- What is the Gods Power ?
Depending on the relative "level" of the god, powers can vary greatly. In almost all cases a god's power does not extend past its followers. Its followers and avatars act as a conduit to influence the physical world. Thus if a nefarious god wants to conquer the world he has to do it through his followers.
Hello,
I'm thinking about some fundamental questions concerning goods and divine powers.
I'd love to have some input.
- How do you imagine a God ?
A god is an anthropomorphization of belief. A person may believe strongly in, say, the importance of the sun and worship the sun itself, but most people need a 'crutch' and thus create a humanoid (or elfinoid, or ...) visualization of such and call it a god.
- How differs an Avatar from a God itself ?
I don't use avatars.
- How would you kill a God ?
The gods do not truly exist, though if everybody on an entire plane ceased to worship them, it could be argued that they 'died'.
- How do a God grant Power ?
The power is a function of the cleric, not the god. The power results from the strength of faith.
- What can a God know ?
- What is the Gods Power ?
Obviously, to my game paradigm, neither of these questions are relevant.
