What makes a god?
It's always either a) you have sheer power enough that your power makes you indisputably a good of one kind or another, or b) people believe that you are one.
Deity Power LEvels
Ascended
An ascended deity is one which was born (or created) in any plane other than the mental. This can happen one of a few ways, described below, but they all share a few traits:
- They can manipulate their plane of birth as well as the mental plane
- They are not omniscient or omnipotent in any way
- They can be killed from mortal wounds in their plane of birth, though their magical abilities do make this almost impossible
- Their physical body remains unchanged by default, though they can change it. Most choose to be immortal.
- All personality traits they had before ascension, they will continue to have, though they can change and be affected emotionally the same as the type of being that they were before ascension, so deities that have been ascended a very long time may eventually no longer resemble a normal person
- They can still use magic the normal way in their birth plane, and skill still does apply in all the normal ways, including losing that skill if they do not use it.
- They all have to physically live somewhere. Usually this is some sort of pocket dimension in their birth plane, but not always.
Ascended deities can have children with mortals, and aren't necessarily limited by species. Children of ascended deities and mortals are called
demigods, or
half-celestials, and their children are
aasimar.
Investiture
An existing deity basically creates a mental version of that person, thus investing that person with that power. These are called
invested deities. They tend to be on the lower end of power, as a deity who invests another gives up a portion of their power to do so, and the stronger the deity, the more likely they are to not want to give up their power.
Legend
Enough beings believe that person to have deification powers, that they actually start to develop them. This
requires that the person being invested believes they do in fact have supreme powers, so there is only one of three types of personalities that generally achieve legendary ascension:
- True megalomaniacs
- Magic theory experts who are also strong of will
- Actual schizophrenics
- Oddballs
Mad Legends
Schizophrenic legends are those who are out of touch with reality, and very often they only rose to power because of a will to wreak havoc or to garner fame. This usually means they are also not very good at magic, perhaps incapable of it, so their powers are usually pretty restricted to the mental realm. However, their erratic personalities also means that wild magic is rampant around them. They have very strong wills, usually, and stronger emotions, but almost no ability to focus it outside of simple items. This makes them forces of destruction, and this can create a cascading effect if the will of the people around them continues to give them greater juice.
Mad legends usually rise fast and fall hard.
Wizard Legends
These are relatively rare. They all will share a penchant for reason and rationality, as they are pivotal and required for their ascension, and they all will be strong in magic. Beyond that, personality and specific magical abilities will vary wildly, as it will depend on their particular areas of knowledge. They are not always without ego nor always friends to mortals, but they do tend to be at least neutral or friendly, since evil tendencies often coincide with mental illnesses that would prevent ascension. Because of this, wizard legends are quite likely to want to invest and to meddle in the affairs of mortals.
Gilded Legends
So named because their ascension was due to sheer ego. Relatively common among deities, they are fortunately almost always only really qualifying under local deity or semi-deity power levels, as their ego would get in the way of developing significant powers to higher levels. They rarely can stop trying to perform more and more impressive feats, which usually ends up with their deaths or with losing faith in themselves -- resulting in becoming no longer a deity.
Strange Legends
Very rarely, some people can become legends through accidents of personality that allows them to accept their powers without also being an egomaniac, or having any particularly exceptional will or magic theory. These sorts are usually very down-to-earth in one way or another, but beyond that there's not necessarily any particular personality traits -- except a tendency for these sorts to remain attached to their non-ascended life, and so may take mortal partners (or invest them)
Spirits
Spirits vary extremely wildly. A spirit is by definition simply a creature entirely of the mental realm. They can be formed in some cases by the death of an exiting deity or a strong enough mortal, but usually are formed from the collective religious belief of people who believe a god exists, but either do not give it physical form or there is not a strong enough belief to give it one.
Totemic
Totemic spirits are those formed by religious belief. Totemic spirits can evolve and change independently of their inception, and take action to encourage belief in them.
