What are the defining traits of a god?

 

My sporadic bedtime reading has been the Discworld series; picked it up again from the first when Pratchett died. As it so happens, I've been in the middle of Small Gods, which very strongly relates to this thread.

[quote="Terry Pratchett, Small Gods"] "Right," said Om. "Now . . . listen. Do you know how gods get power?" "By people believing in them," said Brutha. "Millions of people believe in you." Om hesitated. All right, all right. We are here and it is now. Sooner or later he'll find out for himself . . . "They don't believe," said Om. "But- "It's happened before," said the tortoise. "Dozens of times. D'you know Abraxas found the lost city of Ee? Very strange carvings, he says. Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure." "I don't understand," said Brutha. "Let me put it another way," said the tortoise. "I am your God, right?" "Yes." "And you'll obey me." "Yes." "Good. Now take a rock and go and kill Vorbis." Brutha didn't move. "I'm sure you heard me," said Om. "But he'll . . . he's . . . the Quisition would- "Now you know what I mean," said the tortoise. "You're more afraid of him than you are of me, now. Abraxas says here: `Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.' " [/quote]

Small Gods was, I think, my first Pratchett book! The only one my highschool library had. What a lovely book to remember!

I would say that there are four major characteristics of a god. 1. Power on a level far outstripping mortals. 2. Being extremely difficult to kill and not dieing of old age. (plenty of gods can die look at the norse). 3. Being able to affect multiple places and interact with multiple people at the same time. 4. Having something to do with souls and an afterlife.

I recently wrote a short essay on my blog about my take on how deities interact with mortals. I did not go into mechanics because that is just not my thing, but Alex's work as well. I posted it in the ACK Google+ group which is were I normally post. 

http://stifflittlebrushes.blogspot.com

Interesting! I think a lot of what you've written is compatible with Alex's soul mechanics, and it overlaps heavily with the ideas I'd already come up with. Making power anathema to mortals solves a lot of the inherent issues with gods.

I think too often people over look the psychology of religon. Religon fills an important role in society and in the mortal realm. The rules (dogma and doctrine) of the different faiths create a psychological framework that allows mortal to feel connected to their deities. This dogma and doctrine is often how mortals interpet the will of the gods not the gods themselves.

The "Cult of Me,Me,Me" causes a lot of players and DM to create situations where Deities too often directly interact with the mortal realm.

In my eyes, this diminishes the whole purpose of deities and turns them into Deux Machina or the Mary Sue. DM's waaaayyyyy over use gods and goddess in an effort to make an campaign and adventure "Epic" as if having deities directly involved somehow raises the the quality of the adventure. I tend to find that it has the exact opposite effect. 

So true! And welcome to the forums. You're at home here, clearly!

I figured I have lurked in the shadows long enough, I might as well contribute

Quite right!  Even in a world in which the "gods" are real, I find that a narrative is much better served by the uncertainty and/or subtlety of higher powers which do not take too direct a hand in the course of human events.

At the moment, my game world is beset by a war which is, in no small part, fueled by theological disagreement over the details of two pantheons which share certain gods in common.  This conflict continues to escalate because the gods in question - despite continuing to grant supernatural power to their clergy on both sides of the schism - remain largely silent on the truth of the matters in dispute.  High priests on both sides of the divide claim divine revelation as to the truth, and since both groups continue to manifest power, there is no further authority to which the faithful might appeal.

Which means that, despite a world in which gods are "real" and grant power to their followers, I get to explore the vagaries of religious conflict in much the same context as it has existed in the real world throughout history.

Good times.

That's a fine setup for religious war, but it does invite an obvious question: why do the gods act this way?

Of course, you probably never need to answer this question in your campaign, but if we consider gods as a special case of NPC, I wonder what their motivation is.

Do they not care that their followers are killing each other? If so, why do they even bother with worshippers.

Or are the gods actually just impersonal forces of nature, granting spells for anyone that worships them, but uninterested in whether a million worshippers live or die?

Or is there some complicated circumstance that the gods can't disclose to mortals?

The defining trait of a god is that...

When someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes!

The motives of the gods are inscrutable to mere mortals, Maladax.

Of course, one might posit that faith is more powerful (and therefore more nourishing to deities) when it is strengthened by difficulty and calamity.  A war between two factions which worship the same god provides that god with super-charged faith on both sides of the conflict.  You might rightly point out that the god is also losing worshippers on both sides of the conflict, but perhaps a single fanatic engaged in holy war produces more faith energy than ten complacent worshippers in a time of peace.

One might further conjecture that mortals worship gods for their own reasons.  If a given god doesn't satisfy their "needs" they may move on to others that better suit their worldview.  Since the gods may only influence the mortal realm through the actions of their faithful and the powers they grant those faithful, perhaps it behooves them to allow these theological disagreements to iron themselves out, rather than risk driving away an entire faction of worshippers by picking a side.

Along alternate lines, one might hypothesize that the gods are shaped by the dogmas and theologies of their worshippers, rather than being the shapers of them.  Perhaps the gods are ultimately powerless in the face of their own faithful, taking on the traits ascribed to them by the very worship that sustains them.  In that case, a god whose worshippers engage in a factional religious conflict literally CANNOT pick a side, as they must await the outcome of the argument to learn who they are to become.

Or maybe another reason, or maybe none of them.  The gods, after all, are inscrutable in their motives.

When their followers die, the god gets to claim a significant burst of short-term divine power. Plus, those who level up in the conflict begin generating more divine power over time. As long as they're still making more at or above replacement rate, we're doing fine.

I think Ghostbusters gets quoted more often then Monty Python these days.

 “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!”

 “Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes!”

 “The dead rising from the grave!”

“Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!”

Sounds Like an adventure to me

I like to have a lot of options in my settings for religions and belief systems. In it, I have totems which are a spirit animal, plant, or concept that protects a clan or a tribe. You have your family's totem, your tribe's totem, and can have your own personal one that reflects something that happened to you. Maybe a wolf sparred you while out in the wilderness and now the wolf is your totem. 

There's also tonali, which are spirit animals tied to the deities in my setting. Each deity has a month and each month has a tonali (except the last five days of the year). So the month you are born in gives you your tonali. Though for divine casters like clerics, this can be ursurped by your patron god's tonali. So if you were born in the month of the caracara, but you worship and serve Tezcatlipoca as your patron god, then your tonali is the jaguar. The high chief's tonali is interesting, as it begets a cult that reveres their tonali as a powerful god of their nation. Even the main deities have tonali, which are revered by practitioners of tonal.

Then there are local gods called zemi. Spirits that are petitioned by shamans for wisdom, magic, and guidance. Every household, location, and city has a zemi that guards them. And then there are hero cults for different chiefdom's histories. Founder's myths, great military leaders, all can be worshipped though more commonly they are respected and evoked in times of great need. There's also ancestor worship, where people can evoke their ancestors for guidance. Some ancestors can even be a family's totem.

Finally, there are the gods. Everyone prays to all of the gods, even the "evil ones". The gods themselves are above alignment, but some do tend towards more benevolent or malevolent attitudes (like the goddess of healing vs the god of slaughter). Many of the more malevolent gods are prayed to by people out of fear, beseeching them to spare their city or loved ones from their wrath. Although many of the malevolent gods also hold sway of some everyday dominion. The goddess of murder, for example, is also the goddess of secrets and many pray to her to keep their skeletons in their closets. The god of tyranny and darkness is also the god of wealth, with everyone praying to him for great wealth and fortune. So there are no banned gods, just banned antisocial cults that disrupt the stability of a city. It keeps it more "real" for me that all the gods would be prayed to. 

 People can also pick their patron god. This is rare amongst the common folk and more seen with servants of the gods, like clerics and priests. High chiefs will pick the patron god that they feel best reflects their people, or shares the same tonali as them, solidifying their divine right as ruler.

For me, there are some non-negotiables when it comes to the big deities. Unlike the previous local gods and hero gods, these are cosmic forces. So, they don't die from old age and in terms of deicide, are hard to kill. So most can be imprisoned for eternity. Gods can be killed, but one killing the other would ignite a terrible cosmic war that would probably end with the destruction of most, if not all of their work. And all of the gods like the universe they built, even the more malevolent ones. Plus, it's a taboo, like killing your kin. That's why the gods act through worshipers, champions, and servitors. When a local god or spirit guardian is killed, it's not a big deal (cosmically, that is). When a big deity dies, a fundamental aspect of the universe changes or disappears completely. That's up to the being that does the killing. 

I also have it that gods do not need worship to remain powerful. I always found it weird that gods create races and whole galaxies, but need the power of belief to exist. Instead, worshipers provide them with souls in their realm. These souls can be made into servitors, guardians, and champions that can act on the god's behalf. I haven't figured out what sacrifices do yet, but I do know I want people that are sacrificed against their will to be less beneficial to a deity than those who are willing and wish to be sacrificed.

Roll that all in with numerology, vitalism, astrology, reincarnation, and you've got how varying religion is for my setting. That also doesn't cover the growing philosophies and the other religion, a monotheistic religion inspired by gnosticism. I really like religion and enjoy the great varieties of worship one can have.

I like your cosmology! Were you inspired by any particular real-world religions? Aztec? "Zemi" and "tonali" sound like something real.

My game setting is loosely based on pre Columbian peoples of Central America and the Caribbean. There is a lot based on Taino and Carib mythology as well as the Aztecs and their predecessors. A lot of the religions have been based on real world counterparts with my own twists on them. Like combining Roman imperial cults with the idea of the Mesoamerican tonali, or hero cults and expanding on the Hero Twins motif we see. In particular, I was really fascinated with astrology and numerology and its place in the Mesoamerican religions. And there's other inspirations in there for more pagan, syncretic beliefs, like Vodou and Santaria, or more monotheistic religions, which in this setting comes from the colonists and is inspired a lot by Gnosticism. 

But yeah, lots of inspiration from the Tainos, Aztecs, and Mayans. Zemis in particular are nature spirits from the Tainos of the Caribbean that live amongst the rainforests on the islands. I need to pick up the ACKs Player's Guide so I can run Shamans in my game, since they'd really make more sense in the setting :)

Sort of the Vecna approach, fake it till you make it. 

You've especially gotta watch out for those Basket-Weaving gods. They are dogmatic and spiteful creatures. Why, the great stick-vs.-grass crusades were a terror over three continents!

:D

That gives me an idea for representing heavily institutionalized religions. Imagine a small country where there was a widespread belief that a little turtle man could be prayed to for bountiful rivers, during a few droughts the widespread devotion to the idea actually causes the almighty tortuga to pop into existance. Being that Tortuga enjoys existing he begins appearing to villiages all along his most sacred river, minting all the clerics and paladins he can, and sends visions to every holy man he can find. As things begin to build up he realizes that the places with the most organized dedication provide the most stable spiritual energy so he sends along a prophet to establish a great church. Over the years he focuses more and more on the stability, heigharchy, and structure of the church until one day he tries to god it up and realizes... he can't. The institution itself has become a sort of mindless imbicile god granting powers based on the established rules and genuine devotion to Tortuga is so low he can barely manage to summon up a hot cup of tea....