Divine Characteristics
The Divines of Asyur are far more active than the deities of most D&D worlds. But that doesn’t mean they are ordinary creatures—they aren’t mere mortals, nor are they monsters that can be fought normally.
Further, the gods of Asyur aren’t omnipotent. They can tangle the threads of destiny to a point, but they are unable to overstep their assigned places in the pantheon.
Likewise, the gods aren’t omniscient, though they see and hear everything that occurs inside their temples and before their altars. They have perfect recall of everything they experience. Certain liminal spaces—cave mouths, shorelines, crossroads, forest edges, and so on—enable mortal voices to reach the gods as well, though most gods have little reason to pay attention to what is spoken there.
Gods can speak directly to their oracles. They can appear in the dreams of mortals or manipulate natural phenomena to create omens. They can also create creatures and even entire new races to serve as messengers or emissaries.
Gods grant their clerics the ability to cast spells, and they can effortlessly duplicate the effect of any spell they could grant (any spell on the cleric spell list, as well as any domain spell from their domains). They also have broad influence over aspects of the world associated with their portfolios, beyond what can be defined by spell effects. For example,
Tiamat can make a volcano erupt, and
Talos can call up a tidal wave. Gods can bestow supernatural blessings on mortals, and they can lay terrible curses (such as when
Talona turned lycanthropy upon the world).
Some gods can assume any form they choose. These Divines most commonly appear as humanoids—the form in which the people of Asyur most easily imagine them; sometimes even on an enormous scale. They often seem to be walking across the dome of the sky, with their feet disappearing just below the horizon. Any part of a god’s body that isn’t directly lit takes on the appearance of the starry night sky of Asyur. The gods sometimes also appear as animals or magical creatures, or they manifest in insubstantial forms like sunlight or wind.
When physically present in the mortal world, a god is capable of devastating physical attacks. Like
Sehanine Moonbow's great arrows that toppled the Pharos of Darkshelf.
The power of the gods exceeds that of any mortal being. Even so, a god killing another god—let alone a mortal attempting the task—isn't unheard off. Any kind of direct confrontation against a god by mortals would require the assistance of at least one other god, and ideally more than one, to have any hope of success. A group of adventurers might try to convince a group of gods to lend their aid against a god who has become a threat to the mortal world, hoping to get the gods to band together to restrain or punish the offender.
Pelor or
Selûne might be able to force a god into a physical form that doesn’t fill the sky (perhaps something similar to an empyrean or the tarrasque), which could enable adventurers to battle the god, especially if they have access to a divine weapon like the artifacts of a god. But defeating the god in that form would merely weaken the deity, allowing other members of the pantheon to capture, bind, or punish them, in order to truly slay a god it must be done in their home domain.
Myths and Deeds
Countless tales tell the history, deeds, and nature of the gods. Sometimes these stories play out among the constellations in the night sky. They are chanted in hymns during the gods’ festivals, inscribed in temple walls, told around campfires and hearths, and collected on scrolls. Some are simple fables meant to illustrate a single facet of a god’s character or of moral behavior. Others are monumental epics, most notably The Crystal Cosmology, a poem by an unnamed
Carcinian sage that includes several (sometimes conflicting) tales of the creation of the world and beyond.
The people of Asyur don’t balk at contradictory myths. Is Sehanine Moonbow the literal child of Selûne and Talos? Did she spring unbidden from Talos' heart when his rage grew too great for him to control? Or did she come into being when
Lathander tried to steal the secrets of
Solis? To the people of Asyur, it doesn’t matter whether these tales describe historical facts, and each of them is true in its own way. Each tale about Sehanine expresses a truth about the god, about inspiration and storms and secrets. Studying each one can lead Asyur's worshipers to a deeper understanding of and a closer relationship with their god.
Various writings, usually organized around a central theme, collect myths about the gods. The Origin of Monsters is one such collection, notable as an attempt to find commonality in a number of different tales about the birth of dragons. It also describes how
Bahamut hid secrets in the blood of basilisks, how the spirits of great warriors are reincarnated in the form of manticores, and dozens of other tales.
The epic poem called The Theriad is another such collection. It describes the exploits of various champions of Heliod, all of whom are simply called “the Champion,” as if they were a single individual. Because the identities of the heroes aren’t mentioned, the tales have more to say about the character of Heliod than about any champion’s mortal deeds.
The Callapheia, by contrast, is about the exploits of a single mortal hero, Callaphe the Mariner, who snuck into the
Celestial Mountain Range and stole Selûne's tears, hid behind Pelor and wrote down his secrets, and raced The Hound at the edge of the world before sailing into the
Sigma. Tales of this sort highlight the gods’ pettiness and vanity and promote the somewhat blasphemous notion that a mere mortal can outwit the divine. The Callapheia also serves as something of a gazetteer of Asyur, describing its various lands and their inhabitants, at least as they existed some centuries ago.
Finally, the deeds of the gods are sung in paeans during their festivals. Naturally, these hymns portray the gods in the most favorable light, as benevolent (or at least indifferent) and all-powerful.
