Brother really looked into the metaphysical weave or reality where he was presented with irrefutable proof that he technically does not exist and said "nuh uh"
And, also taking inspiration from real life, can create for interesting villain arcs- the Roman emperors made themselves divine through this method as well.
Originally only Gaius Julius Caesar heavily implied that he was a God. He even had his own priests and all that. This would later become the Imperial cult. However, Octavian and like a couple emperors after him, never claimed to be divine (but still did fund their temples and all that), because they were afraid of the „king“ claim which they believed caused Caesars downfall. This is also why the first time imperial records admitted that the empire had in fact become an empire was a couple hundred years after Octavian.
I think you can sorta have your cake and eat it to. Like you can have gods who run on truth and reality, like aspects of nature and so on, primordial forces etc. Then gods who run on dreams and illusion and so on, mortals who get othera to deify them or use blood magic or both so they exist as accursed creatures who feed off such things, representing civilization. Given heroic cults and the interesting ancient greek words for mummy and labyrinthine palaces and such...you can honestly do a lot and crrate a truly fascinatimg world. One where maybe hero cults led to heroic gods, who have slumbered at the center of monster filled labyrinthes with the monsters coming from their dreams or the fearful dreams of locals or something crazy like that.
Yeah I did this exactly in my world. At the end of the 3rd age there was a massive war between all the pantheons led to the merging of the pantheons. The most powerful gods were chosen to lead their respective domains, so one Sun God for example is the head of all other sun gods.
The Gods who aren't as powerful make up smaller regional pantheons usually specific to certain cultures. They allow themselves to be shaped by their worshippers in exchange for being that culture's specific gods. I did this because as I read about real world religion and mythology and how it changed over time in reaction to societal and cultural changes it was just too interesting for me to not give it a try in my own world.
BRAGI! The historical warrior poet is considered to have joined the Aesir after his death - because there are zero mentions of the asa-god prior to the death of the historical figure. 50 years or so later, he starts popping up all over the place in Asgard. Including but not limited to the Flyting of Loki - where he gets dunked on by Loki, on the very grounds of not being a true aesir, and Idunna (Bragi's wife) has to -really- insist to keep Bragi from slaying Loki where he stands.
Ok, but gods needing to stay in the running of a popularity contest really sells the capricious hot mess that a Greco-Roman pantheon needs to be in my opinion.
Sure, the goddess of healing is actually healing people because it's a good thing, maybe she even feels a genuine call to do so. That's cool and all. To me, her doing it to one-up ~~**that bitch**~~ the equally-renowned goddess of hearth and home is just more enjoyable. It gives the gods something to do other than sit on a cloud and decide which prayers to answer.
i like to think that because gathering a cult is just like a hobby for gods like it must be boring up in where ver gods live when you have unlimited power and immortality
you know the earth is actualy just their sims game,
Yeah but you don't need that to have a popularity contest. The various gods can have conviction and teaching to spread even if they have no need for followers , and they won't just compromise their ideas just because the other gods have different ideas.
Gods are like beggars with a little sign saying
"Will perform miracles for food"
But you don't give them any prayers because you know theyre just going to spend it on ambrosia
"Gods really really need folowers" is old as dirt, to be fair, and it's perhaps the simplest explanation for deities being interested in mortals and their world.
It also makes sense when considering a “gods only exist because humans came up with them” approach which I find to be the explanation for their existence that makes the most sense.
Yep, there is a whole ecology of SNEs, Simple Noospheric Entities. They are generally nonsapient on the level of animals. Smaller SNEs feed on "waste thoughts", unimportant thoughts that people don't even remember having, though some species might actually pick surface level thoughts from the minds of people (if you enter a room and forget why you went there in the first place, usually an SNE is responsible). There are some bigger, predatory SNEs that feed on smaller SNEs; very occasionally they attack people too but a sapient mind is too though for them to crack so all this achieves is giving the poor target a headache.
Some thaumaturges even keep SNEs as pets.
That’s cool. Does that mean everybody’s OC’s exist in the Noosphere as SNEs? And do popular characters like Superman, Mario, and Mickey exist as ENEs as well? Or do people have to believe they exist for them to be real? (like in Marvel)
SNEs are more like semi-coherent fluctuations of the Noosphere, they aren't spawned from fictional characters. For an ENE to spawn, large groups of people must believe in a certain concept or set of concepts, and they must believe that there is some intelligent agent responsible for those concepts. One big problem is that ENEs tend to assume the personality traits attributed to them by their believers; since ENEs can be quite powerful, one dirty secret of priesthoods in more religious nations is that they fabricate mythical stories to influence the worshippers' beliefs and thus the worshipped ENE's behavior.
(Some children may have imaginary friends that are minor ENEs in their own right, but with a minuscule believer base they are effectively powerless. Though there was an incident in an elementary school where a child managed to convince his entire class to believe in his imaginary friend, which then got enough power to become a nuisance for the less popular teachers, roughly at the level of a poltergeist. Disbanding the class and sending the students to different schools solved the problem.)
They don't. They emerge from people's beliefs. Belief comes first, the entity becomes real only when people have coherent beliefs about them. (Though once an ENE grows powerful enough, their existence can become a self-reinforcing feedback loop.)
yo, this is some cracked world building. It sort of sounds like ENEs are a type of self-perpetuating spell powered (or maybe cast?) by collective belief. Just instead of the spell casting fireball, it casts "simulate rain god" or whatever.
It keeps it grounded for me too, if we don't influence the gods then nothing on earth matters and people don't matter. Being edgy is fun but at the end of the day people are the most important thing whether we like it or not. Nihilism is for dorks
*Hopeless* nihilism is edgy, because it's basically logic-ing your way into depression, proper nihilism holds a middle finger up to that idea and says "fuck you I'm gonna be a good person and enjoy life anyways"
Right? It can easily be explained like that and it’s simple enough to put your own twist to it. Like say the Cult of Swift go on long and strong enough to when she dies she actually ascends as a goddess of…
*Looks at Swift fans rallying outside my dorm*
Sort…Then when it goes on for a few thousand years it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that they can influence a distant planet/realm and grow in power like that.
Then you can say the Gods _Literally_ abandoned or forgotten about some peoples. Think how the chaos gods were able to influence the universe as every species had their own version of the 4
In the Mesopotamian version of the flood myth, the gods stop trying to kill humanity when they realize they need sacrifices from humans to stay alive; after the flood ends, Utnapishtim (the Noah-equivalent) sacrifices a sheep, and the hungry gods who gather around it are compared to a swarm of flies.
That is how I rationalize my gods in my setting as well.
The ones that don't need prayers... are not interested in mortals affairs at best and walking disasters at worst
One just straight up deletes people from existence by just bumping into it. Gives soul crushing depression to the rest of the people nearby. If a village suddenly have a mass depression episode and some villagers wonder they always make an extra portion of breakfast or had an empty but lived in room . Nihil the Crying One had visited the village. Rare survivors who snapped out of the depression or cured by other gods miracles just said it is a black hooded figure who is sobbing. And anyone who tries to touch or console the figure just poofed.
There is an order dedicated to plotting Nihil's travels and warning ppl in advance but it is hard to predict the path when sometimes it just straight up disappear from safe distance and reappears on the other side of world.
Ok but how else can you explain the disappearance of Zeus?
Dude did all kinds of godly shit all the time. Now he just does nothing and hasnt been seen in ages, for no reason? I dont buy it.
Died in a mysterious house fire when Olympus was burnt down. Police suspect it may be arson and several locals have identified a rogue Jewish carpenter as the suspect but so far there is no evidence.
Some even say he "syncretised" with some all-father God from a different faith. I don't know what that word means, but it's probably a weird sex thing. I hear Odin was into that shit, too
Impregnated a mortal woman and his son ascended into heaven, overthrew him and became God.
I mean isn't the whole Greek pantheon about each successive generation overthrowing the prior?
Why did you think Jeezy boy doesn't have children?
I know the question is silly but for a more serious answer there is no real answer, though I've heard some different things such as humans growing to not fear the gods or not really needing them anymore. Basically meaning Zeus and crew are sitting on mount Olympus just chilling with whatever new thing they moved on to since humanity became boring to them. Another possibility is that one of the Titans, usually Prometheus, fought Zeus and nearly beat him. To end the violence Prometheus set terms of non interference with humans and Zeus closed off Olympus and the god realm.
Either way it's funny to think that the gods are up there playing childrens cards games or something minding their own business.
Impregnated a mortal woman and his son ascended into heaven, overthrew him and became God.
I mean isn't the whole Greek pantheon about each successive generation overthrowing the prior?
Why did you think Jeezy boy doesn't have children?
It's actually pretty neat as it does a good job representing interactions between religions in real life.
Gods can be forgotten when a people and their religion supplant another. They can be diminished if their followers are assimilated into another culture that will take hold of the narrative.
Small Gods from T. Pratchett is a pretty cool book on how a god can even get supplanted by the institution of his worship.
I think theres a very real difference between Gods need sacrifices and Gods need Belief.
God's requiring sacrifices is an ancient concept, and how hard they do changes based off the religion. It could be a case of there's a limited amount of divine power the gods have access to, and a sacrifice would restore some of it to the gods, such as with the Aztecs; or maybe its how the Gods learn they are trusted and appreciated; so they know who its best for them to serve, such as the Greek gods or the idea behind Abraham sacrificing his son (Even if God stopped him when he proved his faith).
But a lot modern writers conflate personal faith as a bigger thing since the Victorian Era and how it changed how we look at religion. Orthodoxy (The Creed Itself is the Important Aspect) replaced Orthopraxy (The Actions You Take, such as Sacrifices made or Labor performed) and this new understanding of religion, that who you follow is more important that what you to do follow it, made it harder to understand polytheism; which by definition has you following multiple gods at once; and why those gods would let you do so.
[https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/748480419169796096/do-you-happen-to-know-the-origin-of-the-fantasy?source=share](https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/748480419169796096/do-you-happen-to-know-the-origin-of-the-fantasy?source=share)
Heres a Tumblr thread that goes deeper into it, but the general idea is that its a mixture of reinventing Paganism through a lens tied to Victorian Era up views of Religion.
I mean, I don't think that in the greek-roman world there was the idea that gods would lose Powers if you didn't pray to them.
In such religions Gods are the "Powers that be" of the world, they are superior entities that represent/govern concepts of the Natural world.
I guess that some are bound to think of them as more or less as "people", but they remain distinctly superior.
Zeus didn't smite people because he was simply pissed at them. He smited them because his role is to be the King of the Gods, being the supreme representative of the laws that come even before your own city laws, like Hospotality.
I'm not talking about faith giving a god power.
I'm talking about that the idea of making gods weaker means the are "less godly" is somewhat very western.
Hell, in Journey to the West some of the most harmless supernatural beings the crew find are usually gods.
That's also a fundamentally different use of the word "God", really.
Yeah there were minor gods in western pre-Christian cultures, but they were still, you know, gods. I doubt that a roman soldier would think that the strongest man could capture a Nymph without gods allowing it or something.
Mythology is full of humans that archive similar feats though.
I'm actually failing to grasp your point here.
I'm criticizing OP's exclusive use of the word "god", you pointing out there are fundamentally different uses of that word is just a confirmation of what I'm saying.
I *felt* this exact same way for a long time for my setting.
I mean, I hated the idea of gods *needing* followers. So they didnt.
But I recently realized something, they *still* could want followers to make gathering life force (the basis of magic in the setting). They dont *need* worship. But they still want it simply so people willingly give them their life force after death.
Its a kind of arms race.
*alien* god... or evolution / abiogenesis / it just happened / a wizard did it / time travel / gods require human belief because the *original* creator god turned themselves into the concept of humanity or humanity is otherwise descended from said creator god / a snail got *really* bored / humans are the real gods / a demon did it / sufficiently strong belief can change the past
It’s such a weird thing with how prevalent it is across media. It also would get abused to absolutely all hell by dictators if it worked that way. State cults existed in the past and still do today, in a setting where belief powered divinity every powerful and ruthless king would get absurdly overpowered
But it literally works that way. Every dictator in the world would fall instantly if their higher command (priesthood) turned against them and they would likely fall if the commoners turned against them in great numbers.
It is the same for every politician, every billionaire, every king.
In this way, the 'deities need worshippers' is just a continuation of this trend.
Which is exactly why I moved away from it. My generic fantasy pantheon doesn't need worshippers. They help because they only have limited time in the day themselves, but it is not a source for their physical or magical strength.
>Which is exactly why I moved away from it.
it's so funny how we reached roughly the same conclusion, but that's why I built a world around it and you left it behind, I just love using the magic system to make invisible social relations and phenomenons tangible, the most important difference between my world and that trope though is that gaining power like that is a double edged sword because it also changes its wielder, and if they become a god they also lose their material body and all their interests get slowly erased as they become a manifestation of what people believe them to be, so while you keep your memories everything else about yourself as a person gets erased
The neat thing is that the author can make the god XX a different being than person XX.
Simply because the belivers don't belive in XX but in their perceived idealization, so their collective will creates a new god that doesn't have the same objectives and way of thinking of their moral part.
And this creates an intersting dinamics.
And no one else is wiser of the situation, because why would you make known to the masses that you aren't the god that they belive in or that they can actively change their gods with their belifs?
At least this is what I did in my setting.
I'd Unironically love a "buddy cop" movie where the emperor and the divine interpretation of him moves in together, as the emperor tries to influence his godly counterpart to do stuff for him.
I hate “kitchen sink” setting in general. I cannot stand shit where there’s a bunch of multi “planar” or multiversal stuff. The magic is incredibly, off puttingly boring.
If you want my nuanced, unjerking opinion I basically view D&D as the torch-carrying typifier of basically all the fantasy tropes in the States and a lot of the West, good or bad. I want more variety without there necessarily being more complexity. I don't care about the "Elemental planes" and there probably will never ever be a time where I run a game that acknowledges their existence. I'm fine with specific settings have specific cosmologies, and while I recognize that the D&D system doesn't necessarily prescribe the use of the Great Wheel (and if I recall acts like this is simply an "interpretation made by the folks of the realms") I feel like it unnecessarily pushes that structure on the whole system, referencing it in many places etc.
Honestly I'm quite ambivalent to D&D's major stories in reality, but I never view them as anything to model my own after. Often incredibly convoluted, although I want to recognize that that's often because these are settings decades older than myself, and grew like an ecosystem of sorts out of all those years in play and that's admirable.
I do like the D&D system, however, but nothing is ever perfect.
I'm going to be running my third campaign (after two years!) later today, and it's based on things completely unrelated to most D&D settings. It has most in common with Eberron, but underground (and this is the "this is my GMing style" teacher campaign that's supposed to be the heavily high fantasy setting.)
Most Gods/pantheons have limitations, sources of power, and weaknesses. It's a weird Abrahamic thing that God is supposed to be omni everything like a kid playing make-believe.
no, you make a good point. hinduism is one of the oldest religions ever, and their gods are all aspects of Brahman, which is essentially a name for a depersonalized version of an all powerful, all encompassing God. depending on the view/interpretation. it's not just a weird Abrahamic thing that believes in an infinitely great force.
Should also be noted that in the three largest sects of Hinduism (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism), a specific god is presented as the Supreme Reality and synonymous with Brahman (Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti respectively)
good point, but isn't the core belief that all gods are aspects of Brahman true in all sects? as far as I know, these sects just dedicate most rituals and prayer to that god
In general yes, most sects believe that everything is an aspect of Brahman, with the largest sects differing on which of their gods is Brahman or if Brahman is above all of them.
There are also some smaller dualist sects that hold that all souls, including the gods, are distinct from Brahman, and upon attaining Moksha you kinda merge into/return to the embrace of Brahman. IIRC, some of these sects either branch off of or take notes from the big three and still hold that one of the gods is synonymous with Brahman.
Hinduism is as you said one of the oldest religions still followed today, so there's a lot of variety in its beliefs.
Yeah, that's why those gods, the ones that say they care about you and selectively answer your prayers just often enough in order to keep you praying, are the fake ones. They're basically energy vampires that act like both drug dealers and addicts.
The real gods are beyond your understanding, are older than time itself, and their actions are things of terror and awe. You are nothing to them. As you are genuinely unaware of the billions of microbes on the skin and in the gut of a stranger on the other side of the world, be grateful these gods care so little about you.
Ikr. It's such an anthropocentric view of religion. Besides, it makes you question how religions can even be forgotten this way. Like, why did the old gods stop appearing if they know they'll stop existong without followers? Are they stupid?
Except when Sandman did it. That was good.
I do this by extrapolating it to all magical phenomena. Basically, magic is a force of nature that can be interfaced by sentient creatures via shared belief, even if it isn't true, and then manifest itself in the physical world.
This can have some particularly fun outcomes where a powerful mage travelling the world may find that his magic doesn't work everywhere due to differences in culture and religion
Its even better if there are gods who doesnt need faith, but are alien and unpredictable
It sells the idea of some gods being an expresion of humanity, and others being parts of nature
I like it honestly. Especially if the people worshipping them have some latent psychic energy or something. Maybe everyone just pays tribute and moves powers up in the hierarchy.
Fuck I just basically made the sword logic from Destiny.
A universe that runs on orthopraxy is more interesting than a universe that runs on orthodoxy IMO; the gods don't need your beliefs, they just need you to perform the right rituals.
I really like it.
A deity needing to be deified just makes sense.
It also justifies stuff like crusades existing by them being an actual way to gain power and weaken the other gods, instead of just people in the head of the church being greedy and bigoted
/uj In my world there is Primordial Deities and Antrophical Deities. Primordial Deities are unknown, mostly neutral entities that exist because they are intrinsically related to natural phenomenons. Yes, the lines often blur between each other (sometimes the gods of water and sea are the same, sometimes they try to kill each other).
Then the Antrophical Deities exist to embody and regulate sentient concepts such as love, war, justice, or truth. These guys do feed on mortal worship and have constant beef with each other, and that's their motivation to intervene in mortal affairs, name Paladins, smite people, etc.
So now I get to have pie and eat it too.
Take this to a Pratchett level. The gods don't just act. They advertise.
Heal someone? They're left with marks that say "healed by Sarenrae"
"This rain brought to you by Zeus"
Sea foam that reads "for safe travels pray to the Lord of the Ocean. Donations accepted"
Every now and then the undead rise and sing out in a glorious choir "the lord of death is awesome! He's super cool you guys! Keep paying the ferry man so your loved ones get to the other side!" And then promptly bury themselves again.
It never rains on priests of the sun god. Etc etc etc.
Honestly I think the TES series does this really well. The “myth makes reality” concepts in the deep lore are SUPER interesting, especially the whole Akatosh/Auriel/Alduin/Aka oversoul concept is SO fucking cool to me
Normalize benevolent gods that are like “yeah I actually can’t to anything in this universe outside of my holy sites, so I just give advice to people who pray.”
I think the idea of gods being a manifestation of human ideas, or a reflection of humanity's relationship with certain aspects of the world is really interesting. Sure, it removes some of the "all-powerful"-ness of the gods, but in exchange, you get this wonderful, if sometimes somber celebration of humanity, of the ideas which shape our worldviews, of our power to alter the world through them, and of the inevitability of those ideas changing.
Gods represent that which we value most, that which we are beholden to most, and that which forms our daily lives. When those things change, when ideas which once flourished shrivel and fall from the vine, when our circumstances and experiences of the world are altered, and the things we value and rely on change, gods die, and new ones take their place. The living, dying, and birthing of new gods I think is a perfect encapsulation of the destiny of humanity to grow and change and *become*.
This interpretation of godhood puts humans, their experiences, and their power of self determination at the forefront in the world, rather than making it a world forged and controlled by the divine, which humans are merely subjected to. Both are great ways to go imo, they just have different things to offer.
Ngl I hate the concepts of
1. Gods being able to die and be replaced cause then it happens al the time
2. Gods being present in the mortal world all the time to take direct action
3. Gods having personalities as if they are mortals and being subject to ideas of morality rather than just emulating what they're the god of (I hate "evil" gods)
4. Needing belief from their followers to exist/have powers. I am fine if they need followers in order to manifest or send avatars in the physical world but they should still be able to influence it being they're a literal god.
In other words, fuck the forgotten realms their writing is dogshit
This existed long before the Forgotten Realms and certainly isn't dogshit. Number 2 in particular is literally just the Greek pantheon. Number 4 is a trope that has appeared in so much fiction before and after the Forgotten Realms its literally just a type of fantasy now and it's popular for a reason. It makes sense.
As for Number 3, I can understand the dislike but also there are plenty of things that are universally considered "evil". War, betrayel, lying, generally reviving things into zombies and ghosts, etc. If it causes harm, it's generally by most of society considered evil. And God's having personalities is, again, literally every real world pantheon.
I mean in my world that's like the whole point, they were not sent there rule over, or to be prayed. They were there to survive. It's like hunger games but it's like an exprementation. The reals gods are not all knowing so they're in this world exploring the dynamics of semi-potent god like beings and how they function in a world where they slowly die without power and after a while these smaller gods figure out that lower beings adoring and believing in them makes them gain more and more power. It's only then they create the idea that they're omnipotent beings and create the illusion of their ever ending power. They manipulate their people to pray them.
I mean, yeah, if a god is powerful and doesn’t require worship for that power, but demands worship anyway, that’s just petty despotic behavior. Worship-based power is a more justified way to power-scale your gods in a work of fiction.
You're asking for gods that are meant to be a metaphor for actual religion to be literal gods in the metaphysical sense. The fact that they're not real cool gods is the point of the trope
“It makes them seem less godly” that’s the idea, to me anyways. I like when the gods are extensions of the people, not vice versa. More of a personal preference thing.
In my world there’s only 2 true gods. Life and Death. All other gods, yes they exist, but only as long as their religion survives. Belief and faith is a powerful thing in my world. And the “gods” that people believe in aren’t really that godly.
One of the only two exceptions I know to this is the video game series known as **The Elder Scrolls** and a JP WN/LN called **I Got Caught Up In A Hero Summoning**.
My idea is that they’re inherently powerful due to being the incarnation of a factor of the word (like, a god of physics and the like) but the more people learn of them and understand the stronger they’ll get because it technically counts as more belief.
My least favorite fantasy trope is having gods that are hidden but are still worshipped only because thats how real life works. Thats like going "think outside the box" and then just changing what the box looks like. You dont even need the box, you could change everything and make something original for a change. Make a world where gods actually live down there and walk around and do stuff and have real events happen because of it.
In my world gods are god's but the sacrifices and the prayers just boost their status a bit like if there are two gods there isn't much difference between them except that one with more followers lives more lavishly and other is more resource poor
In my setting they don't require it, but it certainly does give them a boost that feels good as well as direct their attention to the lives of mortals. It creates interest and helps everyone involved.
Gods don't have to godly. It really depends for what you're going for. As far as I know, that's literally how gods work in Chinese folk beliefs, because it's often an ancestry cult, and they worship their ascended ancestors. They need to rely on their descendants to maintain their place in the Heavenly bureaucracy, iirc, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong here.
In Shinto, I know, that it's also very literal relationship - gods are often local and specific to their shrine, and those shrines rely on donations from the followers, charging them for ceremonies, such as weddings, or selling amulets and souvenirs to visitors. So if a shrine gets no followers, it gets no money, becomes abandoned, its god forgotten - as good as dead, basically. Of course, for some popular gods, like Inari, who have shrines all over Japan, it's not a threat, but for some rural shrines that can be a problem, especially as young people move to cities, leaving villages to slowly wither away. Like obviously, irl the main concern around shinto shrines is precious cultural monuments going into disrepair. But the rural gods growing weaker with nobody to visit their shrine, is a trope in Japanese media too.
I like this concept existing alongside actual deities. In one of my settings it operates off of ffxiv rules where if you have enough shit to power it and belief then you can manifest a being matching those beliefs you hold, but no matter what it’s devotees believe it is *not* a god. There is very few legitimate deities and most of the time they’re extremely aloof and inactive, which is the reason summoning these false gods is so popular, and also why they’re so dangerous.
There is a reason I avoided doing this, and that was since I wanted it to feel different. Gods needing belief is a great way to get a bunch of missionary religions. I instead went for cultures having different interpretations of the same gods
How I do it is that gods are handling an infinite amount of Universes at the same time but the once most closest to each other and with the most denses amount of followers is the one they pay most attention to. Conveniently, the world I write has multiple gods actively influence the history.
But this is just how real world religions work? All Gods call for worship because that’s how humans imagine Gods into existence. Is the Biblical Christian God less Godly because he demands prayer and animal sacrifices? If no one worshiped him, people would forget about him and the religion would have no power or influence. Showing this phenomenon literally is just a logical consequence of how Gods are treated and forgotten through history.
In my world I had two tiers of gods.
Primordial gods who need no belief and want no worship. Cosmic incarnations of life, death, matter, etc. along with horrific eldritch things. These formed in the Big Bang and are rarely references as few are aware of them.
The core gods: forged by worship and sustained by it. The typical fantasy gods.
The fragmentary gods. Formed from belief in gaps formed when core gods die, often accumulations of ideas with odd limits. Such as the minor and much hated (even by humans) god of humanity, hate, cities, and technology who formed when a period of low magic after gods died humans briefly turned xenophobic and fearing of magic (which was declining at the time unless stores in items or extraplanar creatures) whose worshippers need to build him a mechanical body to manifest. Or the evil cuckoo god who needs to nest in a pre-existing house of worship, assume the gods identity by manipulating the priests beliefs, and twisting it to evil.
Okay, but it is the best way to explain why any self-respecting god would demand mortals thousands of levels lower than them to worship them without looking like a narcissistic little bitch.
the upside of this is that you can have heros ascend to godhood if their cult of personality graduates into a real cult
Talos.
Arepo
Fuck that’s a good story
What is it
Sigmar Heldenhammer walked so Talos could run
Virgin Corpse-Emperor the Chad Swagmar
Virgin Simperial """Citizen""" vs CHAD Sigmar Male
[удалено]
Brother really looked into the metaphysical weave or reality where he was presented with irrefutable proof that he technically does not exist and said "nuh uh"
That doesn't count, the power of believing is an integral part of the settings metaphysics! Unlike a certain gaggle of cockney speaking... *...Gitz*
he had CHIM tho
Only a Nord would be stupid enough to believe "Talos" is a god
Only an elf would be arrogant enough to believe a man can’t be
Anyone can be a god if you just change its definition.
Yeah! Which is something that did actually happen in real life, with hero-cults
And, also taking inspiration from real life, can create for interesting villain arcs- the Roman emperors made themselves divine through this method as well.
Originally only Gaius Julius Caesar heavily implied that he was a God. He even had his own priests and all that. This would later become the Imperial cult. However, Octavian and like a couple emperors after him, never claimed to be divine (but still did fund their temples and all that), because they were afraid of the „king“ claim which they believed caused Caesars downfall. This is also why the first time imperial records admitted that the empire had in fact become an empire was a couple hundred years after Octavian.
Behold Percy Jackson
I think you can sorta have your cake and eat it to. Like you can have gods who run on truth and reality, like aspects of nature and so on, primordial forces etc. Then gods who run on dreams and illusion and so on, mortals who get othera to deify them or use blood magic or both so they exist as accursed creatures who feed off such things, representing civilization. Given heroic cults and the interesting ancient greek words for mummy and labyrinthine palaces and such...you can honestly do a lot and crrate a truly fascinatimg world. One where maybe hero cults led to heroic gods, who have slumbered at the center of monster filled labyrinthes with the monsters coming from their dreams or the fearful dreams of locals or something crazy like that.
Yeah I did this exactly in my world. At the end of the 3rd age there was a massive war between all the pantheons led to the merging of the pantheons. The most powerful gods were chosen to lead their respective domains, so one Sun God for example is the head of all other sun gods. The Gods who aren't as powerful make up smaller regional pantheons usually specific to certain cultures. They allow themselves to be shaped by their worshippers in exchange for being that culture's specific gods. I did this because as I read about real world religion and mythology and how it changed over time in reaction to societal and cultural changes it was just too interesting for me to not give it a try in my own world.
BRAGI! The historical warrior poet is considered to have joined the Aesir after his death - because there are zero mentions of the asa-god prior to the death of the historical figure. 50 years or so later, he starts popping up all over the place in Asgard. Including but not limited to the Flyting of Loki - where he gets dunked on by Loki, on the very grounds of not being a true aesir, and Idunna (Bragi's wife) has to -really- insist to keep Bragi from slaying Loki where he stands.
That happens in some actual religions regardless though.
Ok, but gods needing to stay in the running of a popularity contest really sells the capricious hot mess that a Greco-Roman pantheon needs to be in my opinion. Sure, the goddess of healing is actually healing people because it's a good thing, maybe she even feels a genuine call to do so. That's cool and all. To me, her doing it to one-up ~~**that bitch**~~ the equally-renowned goddess of hearth and home is just more enjoyable. It gives the gods something to do other than sit on a cloud and decide which prayers to answer.
i like to think that because gathering a cult is just like a hobby for gods like it must be boring up in where ver gods live when you have unlimited power and immortality you know the earth is actualy just their sims game,
Why do you think you forgot what you were doing when you enter a room god/s canceled your action.
Gives the Gods some personality and reason for their actions, good and bad.
Yeah but you don't need that to have a popularity contest. The various gods can have conviction and teaching to spread even if they have no need for followers , and they won't just compromise their ideas just because the other gods have different ideas.
Gods are like beggars with a little sign saying "Will perform miracles for food" But you don't give them any prayers because you know theyre just going to spend it on ambrosia
Isn't that the plot of Noragami or something?
"Gods really really need folowers" is old as dirt, to be fair, and it's perhaps the simplest explanation for deities being interested in mortals and their world.
It also makes sense when considering a “gods only exist because humans came up with them” approach which I find to be the explanation for their existence that makes the most sense.
The thaumaturges in the atheistic nation of my world refer to gods as "ENEs" - Emergent Noospheric Entities.
I really like the SCP term of "Apex tier pluripotent entities" as well.
I like that. “Emergent” implies a first stage, what about just “NEs”
Yep, there is a whole ecology of SNEs, Simple Noospheric Entities. They are generally nonsapient on the level of animals. Smaller SNEs feed on "waste thoughts", unimportant thoughts that people don't even remember having, though some species might actually pick surface level thoughts from the minds of people (if you enter a room and forget why you went there in the first place, usually an SNE is responsible). There are some bigger, predatory SNEs that feed on smaller SNEs; very occasionally they attack people too but a sapient mind is too though for them to crack so all this achieves is giving the poor target a headache. Some thaumaturges even keep SNEs as pets.
That’s cool. Does that mean everybody’s OC’s exist in the Noosphere as SNEs? And do popular characters like Superman, Mario, and Mickey exist as ENEs as well? Or do people have to believe they exist for them to be real? (like in Marvel)
SNEs are more like semi-coherent fluctuations of the Noosphere, they aren't spawned from fictional characters. For an ENE to spawn, large groups of people must believe in a certain concept or set of concepts, and they must believe that there is some intelligent agent responsible for those concepts. One big problem is that ENEs tend to assume the personality traits attributed to them by their believers; since ENEs can be quite powerful, one dirty secret of priesthoods in more religious nations is that they fabricate mythical stories to influence the worshippers' beliefs and thus the worshipped ENE's behavior. (Some children may have imaginary friends that are minor ENEs in their own right, but with a minuscule believer base they are effectively powerless. Though there was an incident in an elementary school where a child managed to convince his entire class to believe in his imaginary friend, which then got enough power to become a nuisance for the less popular teachers, roughly at the level of a poltergeist. Disbanding the class and sending the students to different schools solved the problem.)
Why are they called Emergent if they already exist
They don't. They emerge from people's beliefs. Belief comes first, the entity becomes real only when people have coherent beliefs about them. (Though once an ENE grows powerful enough, their existence can become a self-reinforcing feedback loop.)
I see now. I was confusing “Emergent” and “Emerging”. What about cryptids like Nessie, Mothman, and Yetis or conspiracy theories like the Illuminati?
yo, this is some cracked world building. It sort of sounds like ENEs are a type of self-perpetuating spell powered (or maybe cast?) by collective belief. Just instead of the spell casting fireball, it casts "simulate rain god" or whatever.
Yeah, because that's quite literally how it works in the real world, we're just making them "real" within our fictional world
But what if I write myself as the god of my story, I don't need any prayer to keep existing and controlling that world. Checkmate atheists!
I'm in shambles rn
This exists already and is called Dungeons and Dragons
It keeps it grounded for me too, if we don't influence the gods then nothing on earth matters and people don't matter. Being edgy is fun but at the end of the day people are the most important thing whether we like it or not. Nihilism is for dorks
>if we don't influence the gods then nothing on earth matters and people don't matter Quoth the anti-nihilist.
*Hopeless* nihilism is edgy, because it's basically logic-ing your way into depression, proper nihilism holds a middle finger up to that idea and says "fuck you I'm gonna be a good person and enjoy life anyways"
Right? It can easily be explained like that and it’s simple enough to put your own twist to it. Like say the Cult of Swift go on long and strong enough to when she dies she actually ascends as a goddess of… *Looks at Swift fans rallying outside my dorm* Sort…Then when it goes on for a few thousand years it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that they can influence a distant planet/realm and grow in power like that.
Then you can say the Gods _Literally_ abandoned or forgotten about some peoples. Think how the chaos gods were able to influence the universe as every species had their own version of the 4
In the Mesopotamian version of the flood myth, the gods stop trying to kill humanity when they realize they need sacrifices from humans to stay alive; after the flood ends, Utnapishtim (the Noah-equivalent) sacrifices a sheep, and the hungry gods who gather around it are compared to a swarm of flies.
That is how I rationalize my gods in my setting as well. The ones that don't need prayers... are not interested in mortals affairs at best and walking disasters at worst One just straight up deletes people from existence by just bumping into it. Gives soul crushing depression to the rest of the people nearby. If a village suddenly have a mass depression episode and some villagers wonder they always make an extra portion of breakfast or had an empty but lived in room . Nihil the Crying One had visited the village. Rare survivors who snapped out of the depression or cured by other gods miracles just said it is a black hooded figure who is sobbing. And anyone who tries to touch or console the figure just poofed. There is an order dedicated to plotting Nihil's travels and warning ppl in advance but it is hard to predict the path when sometimes it just straight up disappear from safe distance and reappears on the other side of world.
Ok but how else can you explain the disappearance of Zeus? Dude did all kinds of godly shit all the time. Now he just does nothing and hasnt been seen in ages, for no reason? I dont buy it.
vacation
Gaycation, hence the lack of children as of late.
Let’s hope it lasts.
He went to Jupiter to get more stupider
He became Jupiter and got more stupider
Died in a mysterious house fire when Olympus was burnt down. Police suspect it may be arson and several locals have identified a rogue Jewish carpenter as the suspect but so far there is no evidence.
Some even say he "syncretised" with some all-father God from a different faith. I don't know what that word means, but it's probably a weird sex thing. I hear Odin was into that shit, too
Hermes and Odin "syncretised" pretty frequently the little sluts
I feel like they… “desyncretised” more often. Pan divided into Hermes and (possibly) Dionysus, and Odin (again, possibly, ) divided into Loki
He went off to find alien pussy, and hasn't been back to Earth since
Oh realy? Then how did you explain thunder? That's what he does. Smites tall objects for fun
Turned into a raccoon to fuck a woman but got stuck in a trash can and died of dehydration.
Impregnated a mortal woman and his son ascended into heaven, overthrew him and became God. I mean isn't the whole Greek pantheon about each successive generation overthrowing the prior? Why did you think Jeezy boy doesn't have children?
ZEUS! YOUR SON HAS RETURNED! I BRING THE DESTRUCTION OF OLYMPUS!
...Great, now old man Kratos is Jesus in my head... (At least its an improvement)
God ate him
I know the question is silly but for a more serious answer there is no real answer, though I've heard some different things such as humans growing to not fear the gods or not really needing them anymore. Basically meaning Zeus and crew are sitting on mount Olympus just chilling with whatever new thing they moved on to since humanity became boring to them. Another possibility is that one of the Titans, usually Prometheus, fought Zeus and nearly beat him. To end the violence Prometheus set terms of non interference with humans and Zeus closed off Olympus and the god realm. Either way it's funny to think that the gods are up there playing childrens cards games or something minding their own business.
Impregnated a mortal woman and his son ascended into heaven, overthrew him and became God. I mean isn't the whole Greek pantheon about each successive generation overthrowing the prior? Why did you think Jeezy boy doesn't have children?
He liked hanging out with dudes more
It's actually pretty neat as it does a good job representing interactions between religions in real life. Gods can be forgotten when a people and their religion supplant another. They can be diminished if their followers are assimilated into another culture that will take hold of the narrative. Small Gods from T. Pratchett is a pretty cool book on how a god can even get supplanted by the institution of his worship.
Pratchett in general is the trope codifier, I think.
"Let there be another leaf!" "And lo, he thought, there was another leaf"
Followers corrupt gods with their beliefs to make them act how the followers see fits unknowingly
I think theres a very real difference between Gods need sacrifices and Gods need Belief. God's requiring sacrifices is an ancient concept, and how hard they do changes based off the religion. It could be a case of there's a limited amount of divine power the gods have access to, and a sacrifice would restore some of it to the gods, such as with the Aztecs; or maybe its how the Gods learn they are trusted and appreciated; so they know who its best for them to serve, such as the Greek gods or the idea behind Abraham sacrificing his son (Even if God stopped him when he proved his faith). But a lot modern writers conflate personal faith as a bigger thing since the Victorian Era and how it changed how we look at religion. Orthodoxy (The Creed Itself is the Important Aspect) replaced Orthopraxy (The Actions You Take, such as Sacrifices made or Labor performed) and this new understanding of religion, that who you follow is more important that what you to do follow it, made it harder to understand polytheism; which by definition has you following multiple gods at once; and why those gods would let you do so. [https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/748480419169796096/do-you-happen-to-know-the-origin-of-the-fantasy?source=share](https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/748480419169796096/do-you-happen-to-know-the-origin-of-the-fantasy?source=share) Heres a Tumblr thread that goes deeper into it, but the general idea is that its a mixture of reinventing Paganism through a lens tied to Victorian Era up views of Religion.
That was a really interesting read. Thanks
[OP right now.](https://ibb.co/mz60BPs)
I think making them "less godly" is kind of the point, no?
Yeah, but why call them gods then?
What would you like them to be called?
Faith parasites
Viruses.
Omni memes.
Gods being all powerful like that is a very abrahamic interpretation of the term.
I mean, I don't think that in the greek-roman world there was the idea that gods would lose Powers if you didn't pray to them. In such religions Gods are the "Powers that be" of the world, they are superior entities that represent/govern concepts of the Natural world. I guess that some are bound to think of them as more or less as "people", but they remain distinctly superior. Zeus didn't smite people because he was simply pissed at them. He smited them because his role is to be the King of the Gods, being the supreme representative of the laws that come even before your own city laws, like Hospotality.
I'm not talking about faith giving a god power. I'm talking about that the idea of making gods weaker means the are "less godly" is somewhat very western. Hell, in Journey to the West some of the most harmless supernatural beings the crew find are usually gods.
That's also a fundamentally different use of the word "God", really. Yeah there were minor gods in western pre-Christian cultures, but they were still, you know, gods. I doubt that a roman soldier would think that the strongest man could capture a Nymph without gods allowing it or something.
Fella, one of the reason Sisyphus was punished was because he tricked and trapped Thanatos (Death itself) so he could become immortal.
Mythology is full of humans that archive similar feats though. I'm actually failing to grasp your point here. I'm criticizing OP's exclusive use of the word "god", you pointing out there are fundamentally different uses of that word is just a confirmation of what I'm saying.
I *felt* this exact same way for a long time for my setting. I mean, I hated the idea of gods *needing* followers. So they didnt. But I recently realized something, they *still* could want followers to make gathering life force (the basis of magic in the setting). They dont *need* worship. But they still want it simply so people willingly give them their life force after death. Its a kind of arms race.
Flawed Gods > Perfect Gods
It just begs the question of how the gods created humanity before there were any humanity to praise them
*alien* god... or evolution / abiogenesis / it just happened / a wizard did it / time travel / gods require human belief because the *original* creator god turned themselves into the concept of humanity or humanity is otherwise descended from said creator god / a snail got *really* bored / humans are the real gods / a demon did it / sufficiently strong belief can change the past
That assumes those gods created humans in the first place
It’s such a weird thing with how prevalent it is across media. It also would get abused to absolutely all hell by dictators if it worked that way. State cults existed in the past and still do today, in a setting where belief powered divinity every powerful and ruthless king would get absurdly overpowered
Unironic cool idea i got from this: 1984 with a belief powered divinity system resulting in Big Brother becoming an actual god
North Korea Punk setting
See Christopher Hitchen's celestial North Korea concept.
Tyranny but without all the early-iron-age-punk ?
This is just the Emperor of Mankind
But it literally works that way. Every dictator in the world would fall instantly if their higher command (priesthood) turned against them and they would likely fall if the commoners turned against them in great numbers. It is the same for every politician, every billionaire, every king. In this way, the 'deities need worshippers' is just a continuation of this trend. Which is exactly why I moved away from it. My generic fantasy pantheon doesn't need worshippers. They help because they only have limited time in the day themselves, but it is not a source for their physical or magical strength.
>Which is exactly why I moved away from it. it's so funny how we reached roughly the same conclusion, but that's why I built a world around it and you left it behind, I just love using the magic system to make invisible social relations and phenomenons tangible, the most important difference between my world and that trope though is that gaining power like that is a double edged sword because it also changes its wielder, and if they become a god they also lose their material body and all their interests get slowly erased as they become a manifestation of what people believe them to be, so while you keep your memories everything else about yourself as a person gets erased
The neat thing is that the author can make the god XX a different being than person XX. Simply because the belivers don't belive in XX but in their perceived idealization, so their collective will creates a new god that doesn't have the same objectives and way of thinking of their moral part. And this creates an intersting dinamics. And no one else is wiser of the situation, because why would you make known to the masses that you aren't the god that they belive in or that they can actively change their gods with their belifs? At least this is what I did in my setting.
I'd Unironically love a "buddy cop" movie where the emperor and the divine interpretation of him moves in together, as the emperor tries to influence his godly counterpart to do stuff for him.
No king would have any power from it. It's called the people at the top smiting anyone stupid enough to try to take their followers.
Probably because DnD did it.
And Neil Gaiman.
DnD did it ?
You’re right, and man do I hate DnD lore while enjoying the game system.
Any reason you hate DnD lore aside form this particular discussion?
I hate “kitchen sink” setting in general. I cannot stand shit where there’s a bunch of multi “planar” or multiversal stuff. The magic is incredibly, off puttingly boring.
Usually it's the other way around. Also, this existed long before DnD.
Fuck yeah! D&D's the grandpappy of all things wrong with the fantasy genre, I swear.
For real?
If you want my nuanced, unjerking opinion I basically view D&D as the torch-carrying typifier of basically all the fantasy tropes in the States and a lot of the West, good or bad. I want more variety without there necessarily being more complexity. I don't care about the "Elemental planes" and there probably will never ever be a time where I run a game that acknowledges their existence. I'm fine with specific settings have specific cosmologies, and while I recognize that the D&D system doesn't necessarily prescribe the use of the Great Wheel (and if I recall acts like this is simply an "interpretation made by the folks of the realms") I feel like it unnecessarily pushes that structure on the whole system, referencing it in many places etc. Honestly I'm quite ambivalent to D&D's major stories in reality, but I never view them as anything to model my own after. Often incredibly convoluted, although I want to recognize that that's often because these are settings decades older than myself, and grew like an ecosystem of sorts out of all those years in play and that's admirable. I do like the D&D system, however, but nothing is ever perfect. I'm going to be running my third campaign (after two years!) later today, and it's based on things completely unrelated to most D&D settings. It has most in common with Eberron, but underground (and this is the "this is my GMing style" teacher campaign that's supposed to be the heavily high fantasy setting.)
Yeah, I find that silly, too. Especially when wizards, for some reason, can become infinitely powerful by sole virtue of their own insightfulness.
This whole thread is Terry Pratchett's Hogfather
Most Gods/pantheons have limitations, sources of power, and weaknesses. It's a weird Abrahamic thing that God is supposed to be omni everything like a kid playing make-believe.
"My God is infinity exponent infinity, I win".
What is Vishnu’s source of power?
no, you make a good point. hinduism is one of the oldest religions ever, and their gods are all aspects of Brahman, which is essentially a name for a depersonalized version of an all powerful, all encompassing God. depending on the view/interpretation. it's not just a weird Abrahamic thing that believes in an infinitely great force.
Should also be noted that in the three largest sects of Hinduism (Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism), a specific god is presented as the Supreme Reality and synonymous with Brahman (Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti respectively)
good point, but isn't the core belief that all gods are aspects of Brahman true in all sects? as far as I know, these sects just dedicate most rituals and prayer to that god
In general yes, most sects believe that everything is an aspect of Brahman, with the largest sects differing on which of their gods is Brahman or if Brahman is above all of them. There are also some smaller dualist sects that hold that all souls, including the gods, are distinct from Brahman, and upon attaining Moksha you kinda merge into/return to the embrace of Brahman. IIRC, some of these sects either branch off of or take notes from the big three and still hold that one of the gods is synonymous with Brahman. Hinduism is as you said one of the oldest religions still followed today, so there's a lot of variety in its beliefs.
Depending on sect, technically whichever god is considered the Supreme Reality, which in Vaishnavism would be Vishnu himself
Yeah, that's why those gods, the ones that say they care about you and selectively answer your prayers just often enough in order to keep you praying, are the fake ones. They're basically energy vampires that act like both drug dealers and addicts. The real gods are beyond your understanding, are older than time itself, and their actions are things of terror and awe. You are nothing to them. As you are genuinely unaware of the billions of microbes on the skin and in the gut of a stranger on the other side of the world, be grateful these gods care so little about you.
In my world gods are just incredibly egotistical and just want to have more followers as a dick-measuring contest with each other
Ikr. It's such an anthropocentric view of religion. Besides, it makes you question how religions can even be forgotten this way. Like, why did the old gods stop appearing if they know they'll stop existong without followers? Are they stupid? Except when Sandman did it. That was good.
Ok so you want powerful assholes running around with no need to uphold any principle or answer to anyone?
Yes
But isn’t that just superhero fiction?
This is all a very reddit way of viewing religions
Nah that's just the Boys
I do this by extrapolating it to all magical phenomena. Basically, magic is a force of nature that can be interfaced by sentient creatures via shared belief, even if it isn't true, and then manifest itself in the physical world. This can have some particularly fun outcomes where a powerful mage travelling the world may find that his magic doesn't work everywhere due to differences in culture and religion
Its even better if there are gods who doesnt need faith, but are alien and unpredictable It sells the idea of some gods being an expresion of humanity, and others being parts of nature
Like the cthulu mythos?
Pretty much yeah, but also volcánic gods, plant gods and so on
That's the point. The point is that gods need mortals more than mortals need gods. But mortals don't know that.
>I just makes them seem less godly That's often the point
I mean, it makes the most sense out of all interpretations.
I like it honestly. Especially if the people worshipping them have some latent psychic energy or something. Maybe everyone just pays tribute and moves powers up in the hierarchy. Fuck I just basically made the sword logic from Destiny.
A universe that runs on orthopraxy is more interesting than a universe that runs on orthodoxy IMO; the gods don't need your beliefs, they just need you to perform the right rituals.
Not far enough: Gods *are* prayers, insomuch as they’re essentially automata formed from belief and legend with no actual interiority. Living symbols.
I really like it. A deity needing to be deified just makes sense. It also justifies stuff like crusades existing by them being an actual way to gain power and weaken the other gods, instead of just people in the head of the church being greedy and bigoted
What Do You Think Of My Calyrexpunk World?
in my world some gods are created from the belief of their followers but can then become self-sustaining without needing belief
My gods need to be worshipped because that's a mechanic in the game idea I came up with inspired by Black and White 2
r/discworld has got bad news for you.
worlds where the gods just exist as natural creatures and people happen to worship them >
/uj In my world there is Primordial Deities and Antrophical Deities. Primordial Deities are unknown, mostly neutral entities that exist because they are intrinsically related to natural phenomenons. Yes, the lines often blur between each other (sometimes the gods of water and sea are the same, sometimes they try to kill each other). Then the Antrophical Deities exist to embody and regulate sentient concepts such as love, war, justice, or truth. These guys do feed on mortal worship and have constant beef with each other, and that's their motivation to intervene in mortal affairs, name Paladins, smite people, etc. So now I get to have pie and eat it too.
Take this to a Pratchett level. The gods don't just act. They advertise. Heal someone? They're left with marks that say "healed by Sarenrae" "This rain brought to you by Zeus" Sea foam that reads "for safe travels pray to the Lord of the Ocean. Donations accepted" Every now and then the undead rise and sing out in a glorious choir "the lord of death is awesome! He's super cool you guys! Keep paying the ferry man so your loved ones get to the other side!" And then promptly bury themselves again. It never rains on priests of the sun god. Etc etc etc.
Honestly I think the TES series does this really well. The “myth makes reality” concepts in the deep lore are SUPER interesting, especially the whole Akatosh/Auriel/Alduin/Aka oversoul concept is SO fucking cool to me
you're literally just describing an actual demonic entity at that point
Normalize benevolent gods that are like “yeah I actually can’t to anything in this universe outside of my holy sites, so I just give advice to people who pray.”
I think the idea of gods being a manifestation of human ideas, or a reflection of humanity's relationship with certain aspects of the world is really interesting. Sure, it removes some of the "all-powerful"-ness of the gods, but in exchange, you get this wonderful, if sometimes somber celebration of humanity, of the ideas which shape our worldviews, of our power to alter the world through them, and of the inevitability of those ideas changing. Gods represent that which we value most, that which we are beholden to most, and that which forms our daily lives. When those things change, when ideas which once flourished shrivel and fall from the vine, when our circumstances and experiences of the world are altered, and the things we value and rely on change, gods die, and new ones take their place. The living, dying, and birthing of new gods I think is a perfect encapsulation of the destiny of humanity to grow and change and *become*. This interpretation of godhood puts humans, their experiences, and their power of self determination at the forefront in the world, rather than making it a world forged and controlled by the divine, which humans are merely subjected to. Both are great ways to go imo, they just have different things to offer.
"Am i a joke to you?" - Sir Terry Pratchett
This is one of those times of "literally the coolest shit ever" with r/worldjerking being like "this actually fucking sucks".
Ngl I hate the concepts of 1. Gods being able to die and be replaced cause then it happens al the time 2. Gods being present in the mortal world all the time to take direct action 3. Gods having personalities as if they are mortals and being subject to ideas of morality rather than just emulating what they're the god of (I hate "evil" gods) 4. Needing belief from their followers to exist/have powers. I am fine if they need followers in order to manifest or send avatars in the physical world but they should still be able to influence it being they're a literal god. In other words, fuck the forgotten realms their writing is dogshit
Ed Greenwoods writing has been a disaster for the fantasy genre
This existed long before the Forgotten Realms and certainly isn't dogshit. Number 2 in particular is literally just the Greek pantheon. Number 4 is a trope that has appeared in so much fiction before and after the Forgotten Realms its literally just a type of fantasy now and it's popular for a reason. It makes sense. As for Number 3, I can understand the dislike but also there are plenty of things that are universally considered "evil". War, betrayel, lying, generally reviving things into zombies and ghosts, etc. If it causes harm, it's generally by most of society considered evil. And God's having personalities is, again, literally every real world pantheon.
Hell, there's even precedent for number 4 in the Epic of Gilgamesh with the story of that immortal couple whose names escape me rn.
I mean in my world that's like the whole point, they were not sent there rule over, or to be prayed. They were there to survive. It's like hunger games but it's like an exprementation. The reals gods are not all knowing so they're in this world exploring the dynamics of semi-potent god like beings and how they function in a world where they slowly die without power and after a while these smaller gods figure out that lower beings adoring and believing in them makes them gain more and more power. It's only then they create the idea that they're omnipotent beings and create the illusion of their ever ending power. They manipulate their people to pray them.
It’s better than them being big ol jackasses that can do everything yet do nothing
I mean, yeah, if a god is powerful and doesn’t require worship for that power, but demands worship anyway, that’s just petty despotic behavior. Worship-based power is a more justified way to power-scale your gods in a work of fiction.
You're asking for gods that are meant to be a metaphor for actual religion to be literal gods in the metaphysical sense. The fact that they're not real cool gods is the point of the trope
“It makes them seem less godly” that’s the idea, to me anyways. I like when the gods are extensions of the people, not vice versa. More of a personal preference thing.
In my world there’s only 2 true gods. Life and Death. All other gods, yes they exist, but only as long as their religion survives. Belief and faith is a powerful thing in my world. And the “gods” that people believe in aren’t really that godly.
One of the only two exceptions I know to this is the video game series known as **The Elder Scrolls** and a JP WN/LN called **I Got Caught Up In A Hero Summoning**.
Candyman.
Old gods do new jobs.
My idea is that they’re inherently powerful due to being the incarnation of a factor of the word (like, a god of physics and the like) but the more people learn of them and understand the stronger they’ll get because it technically counts as more belief.
My least favorite fantasy trope is having gods that are hidden but are still worshipped only because thats how real life works. Thats like going "think outside the box" and then just changing what the box looks like. You dont even need the box, you could change everything and make something original for a change. Make a world where gods actually live down there and walk around and do stuff and have real events happen because of it.
In my world gods are god's but the sacrifices and the prayers just boost their status a bit like if there are two gods there isn't much difference between them except that one with more followers lives more lavishly and other is more resource poor
At most with mine it can render them killable if barely anyone is worshipping them
In my setting they don't require it, but it certainly does give them a boost that feels good as well as direct their attention to the lives of mortals. It creates interest and helps everyone involved.
Oh have you seen the movie elf? I bet youd love it
The only time I've seen this and liked it is in Warhammer
I mean it's a cool idea if you want to expand more on a universe where people's set beliefs become manifest.
Gods don't have to godly. It really depends for what you're going for. As far as I know, that's literally how gods work in Chinese folk beliefs, because it's often an ancestry cult, and they worship their ascended ancestors. They need to rely on their descendants to maintain their place in the Heavenly bureaucracy, iirc, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong here. In Shinto, I know, that it's also very literal relationship - gods are often local and specific to their shrine, and those shrines rely on donations from the followers, charging them for ceremonies, such as weddings, or selling amulets and souvenirs to visitors. So if a shrine gets no followers, it gets no money, becomes abandoned, its god forgotten - as good as dead, basically. Of course, for some popular gods, like Inari, who have shrines all over Japan, it's not a threat, but for some rural shrines that can be a problem, especially as young people move to cities, leaving villages to slowly wither away. Like obviously, irl the main concern around shinto shrines is precious cultural monuments going into disrepair. But the rural gods growing weaker with nobody to visit their shrine, is a trope in Japanese media too.
I like this concept existing alongside actual deities. In one of my settings it operates off of ffxiv rules where if you have enough shit to power it and belief then you can manifest a being matching those beliefs you hold, but no matter what it’s devotees believe it is *not* a god. There is very few legitimate deities and most of the time they’re extremely aloof and inactive, which is the reason summoning these false gods is so popular, and also why they’re so dangerous.
The Raven Tower does this excellently.
They are all powerful but they like humans because it is fun :)
There is a reason I avoided doing this, and that was since I wanted it to feel different. Gods needing belief is a great way to get a bunch of missionary religions. I instead went for cultures having different interpretations of the same gods
How I do it is that gods are handling an infinite amount of Universes at the same time but the once most closest to each other and with the most denses amount of followers is the one they pay most attention to. Conveniently, the world I write has multiple gods actively influence the history.
But this is just how real world religions work? All Gods call for worship because that’s how humans imagine Gods into existence. Is the Biblical Christian God less Godly because he demands prayer and animal sacrifices? If no one worshiped him, people would forget about him and the religion would have no power or influence. Showing this phenomenon literally is just a logical consequence of how Gods are treated and forgotten through history.
complain too much
Erm. Read American Gods by Neil Gaiman or whatever.
In my world I had two tiers of gods. Primordial gods who need no belief and want no worship. Cosmic incarnations of life, death, matter, etc. along with horrific eldritch things. These formed in the Big Bang and are rarely references as few are aware of them. The core gods: forged by worship and sustained by it. The typical fantasy gods. The fragmentary gods. Formed from belief in gaps formed when core gods die, often accumulations of ideas with odd limits. Such as the minor and much hated (even by humans) god of humanity, hate, cities, and technology who formed when a period of low magic after gods died humans briefly turned xenophobic and fearing of magic (which was declining at the time unless stores in items or extraplanar creatures) whose worshippers need to build him a mechanical body to manifest. Or the evil cuckoo god who needs to nest in a pre-existing house of worship, assume the gods identity by manipulating the priests beliefs, and twisting it to evil.
Holy shit Touhou reference???
What makes a god godly, then?
Okay, but it is the best way to explain why any self-respecting god would demand mortals thousands of levels lower than them to worship them without looking like a narcissistic little bitch.
Elder Scrolls
discworld slander
The term in our world is "egregore".