Gods and Pantheons

What is a God?

Gods are beings of great power that emerge from the concentrated essence of belief. As people develop strong beliefs about different things, concepts, and aspects of the world, power begins to build in a way reflective of those beliefs, becoming what is known as a divine aspect. When said power gathers to a sufficient amount, it takes on a sentience of its own and a new god is born. As different cultures can have different beliefs about the same subject, multiple gods can hold dominion over the same aspects. For some gods this creates a bond of kinship, for others a fierce rivalry for power.

The Gods and Power

The amount of power a god holds is directly tied to the number of worshippers they have, and the strength of the beliefs associated with them. Their power will also increase or decrease with proximity to centers of their worship or their divine realms. While the exact aspects a god represents do not directly affect their power, aspects that are associated with powerful forces do grow stronger as a result of that association. For example, a god associated with farmers might have more direct worshippers than one associated with kings, but because kings hold a much more powerful position in society than farmers do, the aspect of worship will be viewed as more powerful, and the god associated with kings will grow more powerful. Gods also gain power by having powerful followers. This is why gods who count many powerful creatures such as dragons or giants among their followers can compete with gods whose followers are made up of more common races such as humans. The followers of gods can also conduct rituals, give sacrifices, or perform rites of worship to increase the power of their god, though the specifics of what must be done and how much power it grants are different for each god.

Divine Ascension

Aside from being directly born it is also possible for a mortal or other lesser being to ascend to godhood. The first method is that a god can choose to grant a portion of their divinity to another individual. This is not a common occurrence, as doing so weakens the god who grants their power, but as this usually grants the god an incredibly powerful ally it has been done on occasion. The second method is by conducting rituals that allow an individual to absorb a great amount of power into themself. Usually this method is only sufficient to allow an individual to become a demigod, but from there they can either begin gathering enough followers to become fully divine, have a divine aspect granted to them by a more powerful god, or they can somehow challenge an existing god and take a divine aspect from them by for. The third and final method is simply by having enough people be devoted to an individual to the point that they believe the individual is divine. This functions similarly to conducting a powerful ritual in that it first elevates an individual to a demigod, at which point they will need to complete their ascension by acquiring a divine aspect in some other way. Most of those who have ascended to godhood have used at least two of these methods if not a mixture of all three.

Pantheons

Gods typically arrange themselves into pantheons with other gods who they share followers of regions with. Being a member of a pantheon provides a variety of benefits to the gods that join. Joining a pantheon usually provides some increase to a god’s power as it connects them to the followers of other gods, who will usually offer up some amount of prayer to the pantheon as a whole. Pantheons also offer some form of protection as, while direct attacks against the gods are quite rare, lone gods are far more vulnerable than gods who have allied themselves with others. As a result even gods who might be opposed to the goals of a pantheon on a general basis would still likely join if they have no other options. It is generally preferable to be in an unfavorable pantheon and compete to change it, than be without the protection of any pantheon at all. The strongest god will typically be the leader of a pantheon, and in the instances where a weaker god is the leader, they typically become the strongest before long as leading a pantheon grants a great deal of authority and a portion of the powers of the other member gods. The leader of the pantheon gets a minor dominion of the aspects of the gods who join under them, and they in turn have some influence on the aspects of the others. It is not uncommon for gods to compete against other gods in their same pantheon for leadership, though direct confrontation is usually forbidden.

Killing a God

Gods do not easily die. As the embodiment of aspects they do not succumb to age or disease. Even injuring a god is incredibly difficult, and can typically only be done by another being of equal or greater power. There are only two ways to truly kill a god. The first is for a being or beings with enough power to defeat a god in battle, then absorb the entirety of the god’s divine essence. Doing so also involves draining the essence that would be flowing into them from their followers, so this method typically results in the death of all worshippers of the god as well. Another complication with this method is that it would need to be done in the divine realm of the god in question, which is where they would be surrounded by servitors and at their absolute strongest. The second method is to eliminate every follower a god has. This is quite difficult for deities with anything more than a small, heavily regional following, but it has occurred on a smaller scale to remove a god's influence in a specific region. The main weakness of this method is that as long as some semblance of memory exists of the god, it is possible for that god to be revived should someone start gathering enough worshippers for them once more. When a god is killed their divine essence is released back into the world. The divine realm of the god collapses in on itself and it along with anything inside it is transported into a random spot in the astral plane. The corpse of a god and the pieces of the divine realm surrounding them still contain some of the divine essence of the god, but accessing them is incredibly dangerous and the power is very unstable.

Levels of Godhood

There are several different categories of god organized by the level of power.

Demigod: Demigods include any being that is capable of absorbing divine essence, or acquiring a divine aspect, and can control up to three. Demigods can grant a small amount of power to their followers and are immortal, but are far easier to kill than true gods. Many Demigods are powerful extraplanar beings or small regional deities that are only worshipped by a specific area, such as a powerful spirit that looks after a mountain range and its inhabitants.

Minor God: Minor Gods are deities that control four divine aspect. This is the stage where the core aspect that shall form the god is determined. Minor Gods cannot yet form a true divine realm, but they may claim a small portion of another plane to serve as the foundation for their realm if they continue to grow in power. Minor gods can sense the surroundings of their followers, but only when actively concentrated on, or when the follower is offering a prayer. Minor Gods are usually gods that have only recently been born or ascended, and their faithful are usually still confined to one or two small nations, such as an ocean god specific to one chain of islands.

Major Gods: Major Gods: Major Gods have gained dominion over at least five divine aspects. This is the largest and most varied category of god, as the vast majority of gods have never advanced past this point. Many consider this to be the point of true divinity as this is when gods achieve a full divine realm and gain a constant passive awareness of all of their followers. Major gods also gain the ability to create a number of divine servitors in proportion to their power, and an avatar for each divine aspect they control. Very few people are unaware of the existence of major gods, and they typically count large numbers of followers in multiple nations.

Greater Gods: Greater Gods are gods that have dominion over ten different divine aspects. This is believed to be the pinnacle of power that a god can reach, for beyond this point the sheer number of different divine aspects begins to make them split apart as contradictions between those aspects develop. Gods who reach this level gain full awareness of all things connected to the aspects they possess. There have only been three gods to achieve this level of divinity, and those three gods all perished in the war against the titan, Genesis.

The Omnigod: The Omnigod is the theoretical level of power a god would achieve by holding dominion over every divine aspect. No god has ever been able to achieve the level of power needed to reach this point, and so there is no concrete idea for what it would mean. It is believed that the only way for a deity to reach this level of power, would be to absorb every other god, and become the sole being of worship in existence. The only thing that possibly reached this level of power was the titan Genesis, before the war against the Qlippoth and the birth of the gods.