On the Origin of the Divinities

ichabod

Legned
Thank you very much. I assume that your cosmology is such that the "moon" is similar to the moons of our own universe?
Sort of. My world is an interior world, so people live on the inside of it, rather than the outside of it. It's basically a small Dyson Sphere, with a surface area about 10,000 times that of the Earth. In the center is Avv, a ball of fire that acts as a sun. The moons orbit around Avv, and often glow with their own radiance.
 

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Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Personally, I like my cosmology to be a bit vague. I don't feel that I have to know if every god is its own entity or if one god may have different aspects in different cultures. I don't need the provenance of every god detailed. What's important is what the societies the PC live in believe.

Indeed. In a typical game I run, the question would not be answerable by mortals. If I wanted this character to actually succeed in his quest, I'd have to make a new cosmology for the purpose.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
I use genealogical animism which means all divinities are personified nature spirits in a family/tribal structure.

For instance - Sky, Earth, Fire and Ocean are the primal four born of the Cosmic Duality. Fire and Earth give birth to Magma who dwells within the Earthmother. Magma and Mountain give birth to the Volcano, Earthquake and Dragons while Magma and Wellspring meet and give birth to Flood, River, Swamp, Rock, Sand, Soil and Clay. Rock and Storm give birth to the Giants, while Rock and Fire give birth to Dwarfs.
Soil and Rain give birth to the Trees and the Plains, the Trees then birth Elfs while the Plains and River birth humans.
Most divinities are nature spirits (who interact with mortals as nymphs, genius loci, immortals etc) a few such spirits gain enough influence to claim their own plane as gods - that's the difference, gods have their own planar domain which they manifest, while spirits merely dwell in an existing plane (including the Material Plane)
 

the Jester

Legend
Hello everyone.
I was thinking about having a character in my campaign world, sort of like a wizard version of Darwin, who was writing a natural science on the origin of divinities. The title of the book would be On the Origin of the Divinities. However, I realized I am still working on a sort of "scientific theogony."

I was wondering, in your world, what do you think are the origin of the D&D-esque divinities? Bear in mind, I am not talking about the deities of real-world metaphysics or theology. Rather, the D&D divinities, sort of like what you would see in a setting like Pathfinder, Planegea or Dawnforge, or the "Powers" from the setting Planescape, or the gods of Glorantha, essentially physical beings that have the ability to grant magic spells upon their aligned followers.

Bear in mind, I am really hoping to avoid the whole "God's Born of Belief" shtick, like you see in Terry Pratchett's Discworld or Neil Gaiman's American Gods. To me, the whole "power of belief" thing seems like a bit of a cop-out. Not to mention, it is not very scientific.

Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for the replies.
Oh man, this is a huuuge topic.

First, let me preface this by saying that all this is in my campaign, and doesn't necessarily imply anything about anyone else's game.

That said- my game includes multiple overlapping pantheons. Not all gods are the same. They don't all have the same origin, nor are they all of the same nature.

Some gods are ascended mortals. How does a mortal ascend? By gathering sufficient worshipers. The power of belief thing you think is a cop-out is a very essential part of divine ascension.

Some pantheons' gods are what I refer to as "numina". These are not individuals with physical forms a la Zeus, but more like the Romans viewed their gods in antiquity: they are formless embodiments of ideals. For example, there is a god who represents honesty, teamwork, and community. It is an ideal as much as an entity. Where do numina come from? Hard to say. Could be the power of belief all over again.

There are some gods who are imports into my setting from a prior multiverse that has been destroyed. These aren't empowered by belief, do have physical forms, and don't rely on worshipers to exist. But how did they come to be in their old multiverse? Well... some were mortals who ascended, some were the results of a change in that world's zodiacal 'settings' that destroyed their old gods and created new ones- sort of arising from a metaphysical process. You might say that, in the old multiverse, there were positions or roles that had to be filled by cosmic necessity, so certain powers arose to fill them.

There are some gods who are symbolic representations of some thing, such as the Sun (which has its own cult that venerates it directly as well). How did they arise? That question is lost to time. But without followers, such a god's power wanes, and it might eventually die, leaving a petrified shell on the Astral Plane.

There are some gods who are ultra-powerful entities that claim godhood, build up a priesthood, and then become their own self-fulfilling prophecy. Things like demon princes, fey lords, or arch-devils are normally able to empower warlocks through pacts, but if they get enough spiritual oomph behind them, they can also create clerics and paladins. Some can do this in my game, but it requires a flow of manna from followers and their acts or acts that align with the creature's portfolio to do so.

I think discarding the idea of the power of belief in creating, sustaining, and strengthening or weakening deities is fine, if that's what you want; the notion that there was/were a/some creator deities that predate believers is fine. But I prefer things a little more ambiguous, with open questions, and a system that allows for the possibility of divine ascension. If the gods predate mortals, you're very possibly closing that off.
 

Aldarc

Legend
Personally, I like my cosmology to be a bit vague. I don't feel that I have to know if every god is its own entity or if one god may have different aspects in different cultures. I don't need the provenance of every god detailed. What's important is what the societies the PC live in believe.
One idea that I occasionally recycle in some of my campaigns is that the "gods" walked earth but sacrificed themselves to seal a great evil in the world. The gods are "dead" but their living spirits dwell in the earth itself. But what this effectively mean is that the "gods of the land" is quite literal. The reach of the different gods may overlap, but their reach is also geographically restricted by their power and the land that serves as their grave. So you go to a different land, and they will have different gods because those are the gods of their lands and other gods don't reach to their lands. Also, their domains of influence are subject to interpretation and change with time according to the people of the land and their own cultural values.
 

Hobbit4Hire$

Explorer
Sort of. My world is an interior world, so people live on the inside of it, rather than the outside of it. It's basically a small Dyson Sphere, with a surface area about 10,000 times that of the Earth. In the center is Avv, a ball of fire that acts as a sun. The moons orbit around Avv, and often glow with their own radiance.
Nice. The moons orbit around the sun. I hope it works well.
 
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Hobbit4Hire$

Explorer
One idea that I occasionally recycle in some of my campaigns is that the "gods" walked earth but sacrificed themselves to seal a great evil in the world. The gods are "dead" but their living spirits dwell in the earth itself. But what this effectively mean is that the "gods of the land" is quite literal. The reach of the different gods may overlap, but their reach is also geographically restricted by their power and the land that serves as their grave. So you go to a different land, and they will have different gods because those are the gods of their lands and other gods don't reach to their lands. Also, their domains of influence are subject to interpretation and change with time according to the people of the land and their own cultural values.
Interesting. You mentioned that there was a time in the past that the gods walked the earth. Do you have an idea of where your gods came from?
 

Hobbit4Hire$

Explorer
Oh man, this is a huuuge topic.

First, let me preface this by saying that all this is in my campaign, and doesn't necessarily imply anything about anyone else's game.

That said- my game includes multiple overlapping pantheons. Not all gods are the same. They don't all have the same origin, nor are they all of the same nature.

Some gods are ascended mortals. How does a mortal ascend? By gathering sufficient worshipers. The power of belief thing you think is a cop-out is a very essential part of divine ascension.

Some pantheons' gods are what I refer to as "numina". These are not individuals with physical forms a la Zeus, but more like the Romans viewed their gods in antiquity: they are formless embodiments of ideals. For example, there is a god who represents honesty, teamwork, and community. It is an ideal as much as an entity. Where do numina come from? Hard to say. Could be the power of belief all over again.

There are some gods who are imports into my setting from a prior multiverse that has been destroyed. These aren't empowered by belief, do have physical forms, and don't rely on worshipers to exist. But how did they come to be in their old multiverse? Well... some were mortals who ascended, some were the results of a change in that world's zodiacal 'settings' that destroyed their old gods and created new ones- sort of arising from a metaphysical process. You might say that, in the old multiverse, there were positions or roles that had to be filled by cosmic necessity, so certain powers arose to fill them.

There are some gods who are symbolic representations of some thing, such as the Sun (which has its own cult that venerates it directly as well). How did they arise? That question is lost to time. But without followers, such a god's power wanes, and it might eventually die, leaving a petrified shell on the Astral Plane.

There are some gods who are ultra-powerful entities that claim godhood, build up a priesthood, and then become their own self-fulfilling prophecy. Things like demon princes, fey lords, or arch-devils are normally able to empower warlocks through pacts, but if they get enough spiritual oomph behind them, they can also create clerics and paladins. Some can do this in my game, but it requires a flow of manna from followers and their acts or acts that align with the creature's portfolio to do so.

I think discarding the idea of the power of belief in creating, sustaining, and strengthening or weakening deities is fine, if that's what you want; the notion that there was/were a/some creator deities that predate believers is fine. But I prefer things a little more ambiguous, with open questions, and a system that allows for the possibility of divine ascension. If the gods predate mortals, you're very possibly closing that off.
Thank you very much for your reply.
As I think about it, I think that one of the best instances I have seen would be something like Glorantha, the setting of the rpg Runequest. In that setting, what the "gods" are is very open to interpretation.

For the animists, the "gods" are merely just powerful spirits, or animated minds behind reality. The god-spirits are vast minds who work to maintain physical constants. They are too powerful to be bargained with.

For the theists, the "gods" are the anthropomorphic superhumans of myth, who grant favor in return for worship. The gods locked themselves away in order to preserve the world from being destroyed by chaos. They can only interact with mortals via dreams, altered states of consciousness and other such inspiration. This inspires cults and cultures and communities. Because of the compromise, the only way in which gods can actively affect the world is through their worshippers

For the monotheists and atheists, the "gods" are merely anthropomorphic projections of "Runes", basically the physical laws of nature or physical constants. The rune of "Air", for example, refers to those physical constants that permit the continued existence of air and aerial phenomena. Any experience of little-g "gods" is merely a projection of the human mind upon nature, or just some powerful entity pretending to be god.

This to me seems like one good way to go. I am of course open to others.
 

Hobbit4Hire$

Explorer
Gods were born in the Astral Sea as the embodiment of abstract concepts, platonic thought given form. As those various abstract concepts and ideas grew, so too did the number of gods.
Interesting. Were the gods the product of human thought? Or, are they just platonic forms that, to humans and other mortals, seem to have some form of agency?
 

cbwjm

Seb-wejem
My god concept for my campaign world is pretty simple, there weren't any in the beginning. At some point in the mythic history of the setting, during a great war between the upper and lower planes, the immortals - one of the most powerful of celestial races, found the cornerstones of reality those that seized them became the gods and used their new found power to cast the fiends back into the lower planes!
 

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