Dieties

[Arc]

Here we go then. Lists of dieties, descriptions, and eventually stat blocks. Dieties will also be labled according to the time period they reside in.

[Arc]

Alright, so here's my idea for gods. You may have noticed that I chose the name Aeos. This indicates that I would like to name the original creator diety Aeos. Not to say that I think the god Aeos should be an active part of the "current" religions (in fact I'm judging that he is the most ancient of them all and if players EVER learn of him in game they better be freaking EPIC first...)
Consider AEOS to be one of the (if not the only) Overdiety, a.k.a. Divine Rank 21+.

So enough about me. the question begs, what dieties do we actually need?

For the answer, I turned to Dieties and Demigods. (Har har, go figure (Go figure an overdiety with a sense of humor... eesh)). So the DD calls for 9 basic dieties (to cover all alignments) and ALSO for there to be at least 22 (to cover all the basic Domains). The way I see it, there should definitely be several "tiers" of Gods, representing different eons the gods have endured, for example one pantheon could have fallen prey to an entirely new pantheon, receeding into the fog of time for lack of worship. This gives us some great upper end plot to work with, as well as some excellent oppertunity for new Godswar campaign material. Also, it gives some room to mess with things even at the extreme levels that my come from Shinigami's Realm Ruler theory.

Shinigami said:

...there could be physical embodiments of each Realm that rule their respective realms from behind the scenes, allowing the "living" things that occupy the area to believe they are in control while in actuality they're not. They could be humanoid or non, but in any case they would probably be a race of their own, kind of like gods but not exactly the same thing...

I'll post a list of alignments and a list of domains in a sec here.

[Arc]

Lawful Good
Lawful Neutral
Lawful Evil

Neutral Good
Neutral
Neutral Evil

Chaotic Good
Chaotic Neutral
Chaotic Evil

This is so that if we come up with lists of dieties for each tier, we can easily get down the basics on them for a list, before having to do an entire full list involving the domains.

[Arc]

Here are the base and new domains that I suspect we will use.

Also, apparently, there are 20 new domains from these two books alone... and my thoughts are that the newer domains would be for newer dieties, in newer, more evolved niches for mortal life. Therefore, some domains from the original set could be elimitated for earlier and earlier tiers. An example might be that the Protection Domain may be inapproriate for a set of Gods in a Tier that existed before Mortal society had developed much more than simple villiages. Obviously, Fire and Earth wouldn't work if the Dieties had not yet CREATED the Elemental Plains yet, though that may have been before the creation of mortals.

1 Air
2 Animal
3 Beastmaster#
4 Celerity#
5 Chaos
6 Charm*
7 Community*#
8 Creation*#
9 Darkness*
10 Death
11 Destruction
12 Divination#
13 Domination#
14 Earth
15 Evil
16 Exorcisim#
17 Fire
18 Glory*#
19 Good
20 Healing
21 Inquisition#
22 Knowledge
23 Law
24 Liberation*
25 Luck
26 Madness*#
27 Magic
28 Mind#
29 Mysticism#
30 Pestilence#
31 Plant
32 Protection
33 Repose*
34 Rune*
35 Scalykind*
36 Strength
37 Summoning#
38 Sun
39 Travel
40 Trickery
41 War
42 Water
43 Weather*

* see Dieties and Demigods
# see Defenders of the Faith (these domains are "Presige domains, meaning, among other things, that they aren't neccisary for the earlier Tiers of gods to have.)

[Shinigami]

Alright; if we plan to keep the same 43 domains, I'd say they'd probably play out like this:
At first, there was truly nothing, save a single being known as Aeos. With no death, no time, no reality, he was able to effectively perfect the ability to "create." At first he created but one kingdom, a perfect land of harmony with a myriad of beasts, flora, and intelligent beings. However, the intricacies of rule slowly overwhelmed him, and the land fell under a deep shadow, becoming twisted and maligned. In the future, this first kingdom would come to be known as the Fringelands, a world of contradiction and irrationality.
Aeos knew he had failed, but could not bear to accept his loss. He cast away this first kingdom, forever embittering its residents to any and all outsiders, and began creation of a new, structured land. Originally, Aeos felt it prudent to create a number of subordinates, to ease the maintenance process of an entire existence. He decided to start with the easy to recognize yet hard to control aspects, such as Chaos and Law, and Good and Evil. To each of the four aspects he granted a clan of beings somewhat less powerful than himself, to fan out, maintain their respective charges, and report back to Aeos what was happening from time to time. The members were called T'raen, and each clan had a head member known as the Hortator, who managed his or her clan, its charge, and its lands. Each clan bickered and warred with each other, attempting to best the others with their ability to perform; Aeos quickly grew tired of their non-stop infighting, and so created a fifth clan to bring a sort of balance to them all: Neutrality. The clan of Neutrality brought about a new idea, that the clans might be able to intermingle and cross-reference their work to be more appealing to Aeos. All four clans loved the idea, but certain combinations failed miserably. Members of the Good clan couldn't stand how the Evil clan could be so unscrupulous, and likewise Evil members just didn't understand why Good clansmen hesitated so much. Lawful members absolutely hated the carefree attitudes of the Chaos clan, who in turn were horribly agitated by the Law clan's rules, regulations and restrictions. Each clan managed to sustain itself thereafter, and nine Philosophies were bred: Neutrality, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Lawful Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil, and Chaotic Evil; there were still but four clans, but now they allowed varying beliefs amongst themselves.
Several generations down the line, each clan began to notice strong traits in certain bloodlines; through careful selection, not unlike practices used in agriculture, these strains were purified over time. Good bred Life, Evil bred Death, Chaos bred Destruction, and Law bred Creation. With the introduction of these four new clans, Aeos deemed it fit to begin creation of the lower tiers of beings under his control, currently known as "mortals." He charged the clans with the responsibility to make these mortals follow them, and that the forerunning clan would recieve his favor. Upon hearing this, the clans fervently sought mortal followers, crafting lesser worlds of their own within existence, known as Planes. The original four clans held the most sway, therefore formed their Planes high above the Plane of Existence, also known as the Material Plane; the secondary four clans created theirs somewhat lower. The clans considered acceptance and entrance to these Planes to be sacred, thus crafted Sentinels of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire to protect the gates to the Planes. Each Sentinel was granted a Plane-like plot and ordered to protect and fortify it through whatever means necessary. The Sentinels thus created great factories of mana and energy, forming entire armies of magical and mundane beings to protect the lands of their masters...
...
...
And, I'll get going with the rest eventually, but my mind is drawing a little thin right now.

[Arc]

It sounds excellent Shin, although I have a Slightly different take on how/why Aeos would make a Second world and continue to move on...

Imagine that Aeos had created a first world that was perfect in a more primal sort of sense. More fluid and Chaotic than the current. After seeing the results (the Seond Tier Pantheon) He decided that there could be more. (need for creation taking over, after the vast lonelyness of pre-Multiverse) Seeing that he could create greater things with each permutation, he banished the Second Tier Pantheon, and started working on the Third Tier, using things that the Second Tier had come up with, including the Elemental Cube. And of course, the Third Tier continued to create new things that Aeos had not created. Aeos gets angry that he can't create as well as his children, and tries to banish them as well. However, they rise above and banish him using the Elements they had created. (thus explaining Aeos' dissapearance and lack of touch with the current divine community)

So the Third Tier Dieties were more individualistic, each having a slightly different opinion. After eons, they became more and more extreme in their traits. They create mortals (instead of Aeos) and spend time shaping them in the image of themselves, Distilling down the base Alignments (Chaos, Law, Good, Evil) Eventually, Mortals being Mortals, they mingled themselves and people began to diverge into different Alignments (note that Alignment in the 4 Clan stage is more of an *element* than an attirbute. It provides Outsiders with a reason to be far more extreme in their alignments, basically differentiating them from mortals, and a reason for things like Banish and Protection from Evil to work.) Therefore, in an Imortal such as a God, Power, or an Outsider, the Alignment trait is pretty much set in stone because it is the basic building structure of the creature. However, Mortals have much more of a mixture, and often a Mortal's Alignment is determined only by a small margin of one Clan winning over another (i.e. just a little more Chaos than good, Chaotic Neutral... etc)

So The Third Tier's mortals began to create societies, and the societies and the mortals themselves evolved. Eventually, some Mortal became powerful enough to chalange the Third Tier. Thus, the first Ascended Gods came into being. Eons pass, Mortals evolve, Society changes, and Ascended Gods slowly overthrow the Third Tier Pantheon one by one. The Fourth Tier is created.

The Fourth Tier busies itself with creation of all manner of beasts, plants, magic, technology, society, and Artifacts. This Allows average mortals from the CURRENT eon to find something close to the truth about where the Multiverse came from... if anyone sees past the Fifth Tier, they find the Fourth Tier in all of their creation, and believe THEM to be the creators of the multiverse (although this is entirely innacturate, its closer than believing that the Current Pantheon created the Multiverse)

The Fourth Tier is gradually relplaced by the Fifth, who focus on the Mortal worlds. By now, the interbreeding of the divine spark and mortal (and often Immortal) lives begins to manifest in the creation of Realms. Divine Children are often granted their own Realms as "Practice" for rulership, even though many never Ascend that high.

So the Fifth Tier currently rules a world popuated by mortals and immortals who think that the Fifth Tier Pantheon are the creators of the universe.

[Arc]

The usual rules call for at least 3 domains per diety. That makes for about 14 different dieties, not repeating anything, which ought to be difficult. so if we repeat enough to make 17 or so, that should be pretty exaustive.

So of 20 domains are new or Prestige, its obvous that several dieties could have more than one or possibly all three prestige domains. what does that mean for PCs? Probably not much, considering that a cleric of that diety probably woudn't really be any better off than any other, (since the spells in the Domain are still the same levels and such) just more specialized.

There may or may not be a place for Every God on Every Realm. Some realms may have fewer good Gods being worshipped, making that particular Realm a little more dreary at best and at worst, well a tyrannical hellhole run by Lawful Evil Dictators. But how long would the Power who rules that Realm let his or her Realm lay under such a seige?

Perhaps the Power would covertly Recruit several people in the right position to become adventurers to eventually oppose the evil forces keeping the Realm down.

Similarly, if the Realm is getting too good to be true, the Power may choose to make more people unhappy, thus causing more crime to balance the Edenic status of their Realm.

Another question to bring up: Do/Can the Realm Powers grant Domains?

Short answer #1 Yes: but not specifically. They grant power to the Druids and Rangers and the like.

But do they grant REAL Domains, as per the Cleric's spells?

What do you guys think?

[Arc]

There is sort of a question now as to how the Phyla of creatures and the Dieties relate. My opinion is that there ought to be several basic pantheons that contain similar deties, and may overlap, and each Realm may or may not have a slightly different set of dieties that are widely worshiped. This will relate very specifically to what Phylums are present on the Realm.

[Seraphine]

I guess I'd like to poke at the possibility of a perfect or plane. A perfectly good, or evil, or chaotic, or lawful plane of existance. but to imagine that would be to envision abstracts. Law and chaos would have to be higher level planes, or more base planes because without some order to what is good and what is evil there cannot be either. Would that make Law and Chaos dieties more powerful than ones that perfer to dabble in the good and evil? Break the fundimental basis that dictates what is evil and you've no idea where your faith or worship is heading. That may cause gods to loose a great source of power, and perhaps even palidins and clerics thier power as well.

[Arc]

Sera, I'm only half replying here, the rest will be on the Cosmology board for the sake of organization.

Have you checked out the Fundamental Principles of Reality in Downloads? It shows at what "energy levels" forces combine. I don't think that a god who can put the moves on Chaos and Law has any *real* advantage over a Good/Evil god simply because they both require the same amount of energy to master. It would more likely be an effect on how Chaos/Law dieties might have more control over a larger area or can generate a larger amount of creatures than Good/Evil.

Also, A god of sufficiently high Divine Rank may be so powerful that the only reason he or she stands out as a "Good" Diety or "Chaos" Dietiy might be mortals conceptions and observations of that god. Assume that mortals cannot fathom the gods and might concieve of the notion out of our own limited perception. HOWEVER.

I do NOT want this to sound like a total shoot-down. I Like the idea that Law and Chaos hold a little more sway over the Multiverse as a whole and I'll talk about that in my next post on Cosmology.

[Arc]

I'm not sure how familiar everyone is with DD (Dieties and Demigods) but Divine Rank is the level of power a god has. I'd like to put a little darker twist on the whole "fade away to nothingness" bit for gods without worshipers....

Let us say that once an entitiy becomes a Power (aka god, dieity, realm ruler, etc) that this entitiy becomes closer to the finges of reality, simply by having more power over it. Faith can provide the main basis on which Divine Rank is built, causing chuches and temples to be of rediculous improtance, thus their respect gained by mortals. By gaining more and more followers, a diety gains more power in the form of divine rank. Some of this power crystalizes as the diety gains power from the souls that die and are reborn under that god's purview. So even if a god loses all followers, that god has a chance to get back up there. However, if the diety is defeated in this position, without followers and with divine rank, they loose their divine rank to their enemy, and return to the chaotic mishmash of the Far Realm.

Basiclly, if you know enough about the Multiverse without the Divine Rank to hold down your own reality, you get converted into godstuff. And THAT is why gods fear the loss of worship, because someone else is bound to destroy them and send them back to the infinite nothing. And since most dieties these days have NEVER been there, since they were descended from mortal stock, they are all terribly afraid of it.

[Seraphine]

I guess I'd like to poke at something here. The concept of stealing or taking power from another diety sounds all fine and dandy but I think I need to make it sound like a more difficult matter than beheading the god and dancing on his corpse. The faith that is given to that diety from thier followers is directed specifically toward a diety that has certain tendencies, a certain personality, a specific mindset. For someone completely different to take that faith would be hard simply because the faith isn't meant for them.

Thus I come to a point on True Names. From what I've learned about true names from NWN HotU (I know, not a good reference source) D&D doesn't handle a true name well. In the game it was just some title the gods gave you when your soul was created, dumb. Your true name should be the most intimate thing to you. It should be the resonance of your true self throughout all of reality. Every bit of it should be a truth of who you are. But just as alignment may change, so can your name. If any of you are familiar with White Wolf's Demon, then you're more familiar with the type of true name I'm talking about.

If you were to defeat a diety while you knew their true name you know how that faith would resonate with their essence, so it would definatly be easier to steal.

[Arc]

You may have misunderstood a bit, Seraphine. The ONLY Divine Rank that is bestowed upon a successful godkiller is the crystalized basic power that the god has "accumulated" over all the years of having followers live and die for him or her. It would only ever end up at 1 or 2 Ranks even for the oldest dieties, although, I would hazard a guess to say that 3rd Tier and up are old enough to have more than that in pure non-worship Divine Rank. Also, consider that its never a simple matter to deal with a god, even a dying one. They still posess 40-50+ character levels, half of them Epic, and they still have access to all their old resources (Spells, Artifacts, possibly Outsider armies) and are probably no less intelligent than they were before. Thanks for spotting my inaccuracy though.

[Seraphine]

Well, depending on how we want to treat True Names, I believe characters would have the potential to pick up more than just bas powers. To know someone's True Name would be to really KNOW them, and that may open the opportunity to take on part of who they are to take part of the faith that is given to them. They may have to partially assume the position of what that diety once did to keep a connection with the followers, but to take all of a gods powers, you must become that god.

[Arc]

Let me throw this out on the subject of True Names and Godkilling:

Just because you killed a God doesn't mean you have any conection whatsoever to that god's followers. In fact, if the god DID have any followers left, they likely hate your guts by that point.

Using True Names on the Gods is a real iffy deal, but suppose you do manange to get one and wish to take over that god's portfolio. You'd probably need to stage a Coup de'tat to shift the paradigm to your own worship. That would be hard as hell. Imagine trying to force a god to convince his followers that you are its own messiah, then slowly come into power as they worship you more, and even more slowly fade that god away from worship and after that god is TOTALLY forgotten (probably by judicious use of bookburning and stowage of ancient tomes that may allude to that god) then kill that God, having kept he or she under control all those centuries using their True Name.

Anyway, I doubt anyone would be very accepting of a new diety if it was by direct force that they were removed. Thats what starts freaking crusades.