It still doesnt explain "where the heck to these things come from" (which is my biggest concern). Whether Thor & Hercules are the same effective deity is relatively unimportant in that respect.
As to the three approaches you propose, I would take a) & b) for simplicity's sake. If 2 deities share the exact same domains, they are aspects of another (greater) deity. The notion can work with both (to a certain degree). Some aspects would share the same rites & everything (just not the name), while some would share the same "philosophies" (IE, war & glory) despite having different names & rites.
Wolfgang Baur's Midgard setting has something called 'masks' of deities, that I found an interesting concept. It mostly works with option B), and essentially some gods are merely masks that the main gods wear to diversify their flock.
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I rather dislike the "our belief makes the gods" thing. It makes them feel cheap to me.
I can certainly see this, and even agree to a point. Mostly, it depends heavily on what the nature of "god" is to you (strictly in-game speaking - out of game, I wouldn't even begin to accept this idea!) and how you handle that.
I do tend to find the "powerful pantheon of pre-existing gods" model kinda... nonsensical. Why the hell would creatures so powerful bother with us at all? That has always been the weakest link in a lot of fantasy pantheons to me: why do they listen to/want worshippers?
The "forgotten realms" (yes, I know a bunch of you dislike it) actually adressed that issue by having the local overgod installing a "power=worshippers" condition, since apparently several gods where ignoring their worshippers.
On Golarion though, I have yet to see a satisfying reason as to why they care (though it may have something to do with preventing Rovagug from escaping)
Whow, that got ranty for a sec.
I think that FR handled it pretty well.
(I know many didn't like that setting - though I find most of the reasons not personally satisfying/agreeable, that's pretty firmly in the realm of personal opinion.)
The problem with FR's method of handling it, to me, is that be making all of them entirely dependent on worship, it created a very interesting dichotomy where deities suddenly had a weakness after becoming greater. The sudden appearance of a weakness never before established felt problematic to me. Don't get me wrong - I had a couple of players ascend over the years, and that newly-established weakness/dependency was actually explored, and created interesting stories; I've even adopted a similar model for the campaign setting I linked above. But it always felt more... hollow... than it should, for some reason. The idea that gods "die" without worship just... didn't feel right. At least not as FR spun it.
That said, I am totally on-board with the concept that worship generates power.
I've thought about this a lot, so allow me to ramble, if I may.
I such goals, I generally break it down into three major properties, or elements, that govern how much worship is generated.
- Salience: the importance of the deity (known or not)
- Belief: the passive acceptance of the reality of the deity
- Worship: the active pursuit of the deity's will
Belief is the acceptance that a deity actually exists. One of the interesting things about belief is that Salience is not really that necessary. A community that has nothing to do with cheese (perhaps there are no dairy-producing creatures, or its considered unsanitary or uncivilized to acquire dairy from them) may well believe in the existence of a god of cheese that a missionary, traveling cleric, or trader from the other community imports to them (or one of their own returns with, after traveling). This god might receive an official notice of canonization, but never really be that important (or, rarely, though potentially, might become the supreme local deity, despite having no real purpose; but see Worship below). In any event, belief is the acceptance that a given entity is real. Belief acts as something of a "smoother" or "lubricant" - it generates power that more readily ascends to the deity in question. Any other power-generation (such as, say, by Salience) more readily and rapidly ascends to the god in question - it also, naturally, enhances Salience, because, by simple virtue of being believed in, there is some prominence. All-in-all, belief just makes things better for the deity. Belief can be seen as a kind of catalyst - it makes effects easier to accomplish, rather than accomplishing the effects itself.
Worship is the active, purposeful participation in the expansion of the deity's goals (including the utilization of religious ceremony). For example, praying to a deity, preaching about a deity, or purposefully acting on a deity's portfolio in a manner the deity approves of all are acts of worship. Worship is interesting because it requires neither Salience nor Belief. That may sound odd, but hear me on this: it doesn't matter if Cheese is all that important to me, it doesn't matter if I, personally, believe that Cheese exists; if I choose to enact the will, principles, and so-on of the Cheese deity, than I am worshiping them. () The benefit of worship is that it generates a tremendous amount more power - it amplifies any power generated through other methods (Salience or Belief) as well as actively generating an increase in both of them (Salience because, if you're worshiping, the thing is more prominent/important to you, and Belief, because physical action tends to generate mental/emotional follow-through and also as people see your acts, they are more likely to accept your offered Truth). Worship is the thing that all deities desire most of all, because it's the most versatile and potent of the three forms of power generation.
Now, with all this this, there are two major issues that tend to crop up - handling Ascension and Precedence.
1) Power is the self-evident concept: higher hit-dice, levels, skill ranks, ability scores, etc.; it doesn't matter how you get there, so long as you have a certain tier of power (specifically over <insert potential portfolio element>; see Sympathy, shortly), you have the potential to ascend. Interestingly, to me, having notably high power is not necessary - only having power. Power, however, does not a deity make.
2) Sympathy is the second element required... and is secretly the only element required. Sympathy, as noted in the "**" is not how you respond when a fellow of yours hits a hard spot; rather it's how much you relate or resonate with a given portfolio element. Sympathy asks how much you're naturally related with, for example, Cheese (we're going with Cheese as an example for the rest of this for ease). How much do people associate you with Cheese? How much do you associate with Cheese? Interestingly, you don't have to be specifically "after" an attempt to gain Sympathy. Sometimes these associations simply happen. Perhaps you defeated some bandits that had recently attacked a wondering cheese merchant, and you shortly thereafter donated large amounts of cheese to a starving family or village; in another, unrelated event, you ended up defeating a diabolical plot that was corrupting local cheese to attract rats; and later still you declare (and, perhaps, it is made known) that you delight in cheese with your wine. None of these generated obvious sympathy with Cheese - in fact, in the course of a game, they might never be noticed by the players or the people (recalled as "I gave food to the hungry," and, "we stopped that rat-summoner plan," and, "I like fine dining, but demand the full treatment - half measures simply won't do"). But, when taken together, people subconsciously associate you with cheese, generating Sympathy. Ultimately, Sympathy is the greatest (and, after a fashion, only) thing that needs to exist in order to ascend. That said, the more obviously tied to a given element, the more Sympathy generated, which leads to...
3) Focus next. Focus is the self-generated thematic tie to a given thing; if you've got power, how much of that power deals with Cheese, either potentially (fabricate spell) or directly (ranks Craft (godly cheese)). The greater the focus, the greater the sympathy generated. A character who has the afore-mentioned fabricate and 2 ranks in craft (Cheese) might generate less Sympathy and Focus than a character who researches the spell Nipper's Cheesy Aeromatic Leviosa as a method of levitating people, objects, or cities by way of cheese and who invests heavily in getting a cheese-creation operation up and running. While greater Focus generates more sympathy, strictly speaking, it's not necessary. If a black ooze somehow began receiving worship as a source of benevolence and altruism (I dunno, it seems that stranger things have happened) despite itself, and it consistently generated Sympathy for that thing, and so on, despite not actually possessing anything that deals with benevolence and altruism (and despite not being sentient - see below) it could eventually ascend, in theory. But Focus makes this task easier and, on the whole, much more likely.
4) Belief is also an incredibly important ingredient. Belief is the general acceptance that what is said is so - i.e., that a creature is a god (of Cheese, in our current example). Belief is generated when, for whatever reason, people begin actively assigning an interest over an area of concern - a portfolio - to a given entity or thing. Interestingly, belief does not have to be earned. If enough Sympathy is generated, then, despite the character's actual capability, they can earn belief. Sometimes, they can earn belief despite the character's actual desire (see Life of Brian, for an example***). As noted above, Belief acts as a kind of catalyst. Thus, the more belief generated, the lower the "Sympathy threshold" is necessary for a character to ascend. Depending on your interpretation, it may be impossible for a creature to ascend without Belief (the "Sympathy Threshold" wall is, effectively, infinitely high without this catalyst). No matter how much belief there is, however, I would have a "lower bound" of just how low the Sympathy Threshold can go (in other words, after a certain point, more belief won't help you - a god can't ascend just because people "think they are").
5) Worship is the final requirement. Worship is, as noted, the active efforts of someone or something to promote a god's area of concern in a manner related to the god (prayer, religious services, etc). Worship - the action taken on behalf of the deity in question as a deity - generates a very powerful "push" to associate a creature with an area of concern. When combined with sympathy and belief, it is Worship that finally pushes a creature over the threshold into "divinity". Worship is kind of a super-Sympathy, as it acts as both a Sympathy generator (people begin associating a given creature with a given element or area of concern) a Belief generator (seeing the worship, people will naturally fall into belief), a power generator (political influence is, in fact, power), and Focus generator (all of this is focused on the portfolio aspect in question).
The "numbers" of all of this, I leave at least a little vague, though I use those numbers noted in the Deities and Demigods book combined with ideas from the Mythic Adventures book.
A demigod or meager god might have a few hundred or few thousand worshipers, and a number of believers substantially beyond that (similar to the above). They've completed at least a few legendary trials revolving around their element of choice (again, the association need not be "solid" - feeding a hungry family with whatever you have... that just happens to be cheese... functions just as well for cheese-related portfolios as purposefully going out of your way to make cheese-themed powers) of greater or lesser significance.
A lesser deity or minor god might have a few thousand to tens of thousands of worshipers and many more believers. They've completed a decent number of legendary trials revolving around their portfolio elements.
An intermediate deity or moderate god might have hundreds of thousands of worshipers and many, many more believers. They've completed dozens of legendary trials involving their portfolio elements, and are almost always justifiably considered masters of their area of concern for some reason or another.
A greater deity or major god might have millions of worshipers and more believers than it bears really counting (entire worlds-worth). They've completed hundreds of legendary trials. These would include such beings as the Big 20 in Golarion (should they choose to use this system) or other similarly high-placed gods in other worlds.
Over-gods have achieved a secondary "apotheosis" and gone beyond the need for mortals. They can never "wane" in their might, as they've been altered into a new state - kind of like taking two volatile chemicals and processing them until you generate a noble gas - the gas no longer cares. In some cases, I use over-gods as generating worship from the lower tiers of gods, making mortals the "next down on the food chain". In other words, over-gods might not (for their own sake) care about the mortals' ability to generate power, except that it feeds regular gods who, in turn, feed the over-god. Sometimes I don't bother with this. It really depends on what I'm going for in a given game.
In any event, ascension is probably pretty rare. You have to have all the elements come together (for the most part) and you have to have enough to generally overcome the (ill-defined) "threshold" (set, of course, by the GM for their world).
Despite what it seems to imply above, I would allow a god to develop out of pretty much anything - an extant god, a man, a fish, an ooze, or a brick are all theoretical options. The difference is that a god or a man are more likely to generate worshipers, sympathy, and the like. Even though it remains an unfathomably large effort, it is ultimately less effort to get a god out of a guy (or gal) than it is to get god out of a pebble, as the person generate sympathy just by doing, whereas the inanimate object has to have all the sympathy generated for it (similarly, it's incredibly difficult to have a "reluctant god" under these circumstances, especially if the would-be god is avoiding as much sympathy as possible).
In any event, Ascension usually happens only to quasi or demi-status - anything else would certainly require very specific circumstances!
The next major issue is that of Precedence. I.e. "What happened before there were worshipers?" This is especially thorny in worlds where Apotheosis is possible.
There are many relatively straight-forward answers, the simplest of which is "the gods didn't make stuff." But many (myself included) find that a bit, "meh", so I have to take a closer look at what divinity is and how it functions.
As mentioned above, there is the concept of Salience, and, under Ascension, I noted both Focus and Sympathy. In my view, when the gods are the creators of things, but utilize the generated-divinity above, that means that either something different (a different paradigm) was happening in those earlier eons; the gods weren't yet "gods" as we define them "now" (something that I have used in several worlds); or that divinity isn't dependent on worship, but is augmented by worship (which is the one I tend to like best, except for specific instances). In other words, divinity (and its power) exists even if nothing else does, but worship (including salience, belief, and worship) enhances and empowers divinity.
In this "base" form, divinity is little more than a state of potential power. The act of creation generates sympathy automatically - the deity created it, and thus automatically has sympathy with that thing or concept.
The other side of the coin, is where I note that Portfolio-based divine power is, while not limited to worship, dependent upon it.
Where worship is active and the portfolio is prime, a deity has full divine power. Where belief is present (perhaps a shrine or something) but no major worship; or if there is worship, but no major salience beyond that (say an important god of Cheese in a Dairy-less society), then their power is half its "value". Where worship and salience wane, a deity's power is 1/4 its normal value. Where there is no salience, belief, or worship at all - or active resistance - a deity's power is not. However, as a deity is naturally present in a given location, they are salient (and they tend to believe in themselves, and worship themselves - thus generating those two forms and elements as well), meaning that wherever a deity goes, there they are so to speak - they take their divinity with them. But the more a deity spreads their influence, the broader the scope of their power.
Thus, you can have gods who have divinity (supported by their own innate Salience, Belief, and Worship) who created all, but then have their power magnified across larger values by new worship. New deities can form when powerful enough worship/psychic gestalts reach a certain threshold and thus create a universal impression about them and then "fill in the gaps" with power.
One of the core elements of all of this, however, is that a deity is not controlled by its worshipers (unless that's the kind of deity it is). In other words, despite the fact that belief and worship power the deity, mortal churches don't dictate what a god's favorite color, preferred method of action, or alignment is - the god determines these things, the church just determines how faithful it is to these tenets. One of the interesting side effects, then, is that a brick, ultimately, never changes from being a brick, even though it becomes a god. It doesn't get a ability scores or an alignment or anything like that. It gains power... but lacks the facility to do anything with it. The "benefit" (if you could call it that) of such a thing, is that it also can never castigate worshipers, rebuke or harm them, and just automatically generates the things that a deity of its station (whatever that is) would without any personal input on the part of the brick. Similarly, an active, sentient god decides what they do, not the worshipers.
In any event, this is one of the many methods of justifying divinity-by-worship, and many of the thoughts and conclusions I've come to. My apologies for rambling. I do that. Hope it helps, though! :)
* For instance, a god of plants is desperately needed - not just for food, but also for breathable air, moisture-systems, and all sorts of other things. All of this generates a huge amount of Salience, even for those who, for example, live in a desert.
** Sympathy in terms of how you resonate or relate to a concept or idea, not in terms of how you express a kind attitude toward others.
*** No, actually don't. I mean, you can if you want, but... ugh. I've never enjoyed that film.
EIDT: Ninja'd, but still relevant!
(removed the double-post, added the edit here)
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Syncretism can be fun. Skyfather Zeus and Skyfather Odin have plenty of differences, but also some interesting similarities. (Both have a love of shapeshifting, are unpredictable, and have prominent children, few of whom seem to be by their wife...) Aphrodite and Freya make for a fun mashup as well. Lord of the crossroads between flesh and spirit, symbolized by the cross, suspended between the mortal world and the higher plane, through whom all prayer to the higher power / spirit world must pass? Could be Legba. Could be Jesus. Red-haired dangerously violent warrior god of storms, known for his fondness for beer? Could be Thor. Could also be Set. Or perhaps Quetzalcoutl (less with the beer, but, like Set, also with the 'god of foreigners' association)?
It still doesnt explain "where the heck to these things come from" (which is my biggest concern). Whether Thor & Hercules are the same effective deity is relatively unimportant in that respect.
As to the three approaches you propose, I would take a) & b) for simplicity's sake. If 2 deities share the exact same domains, they are aspects of another (greater) deity. The notion can work with both (to a certain degree). Some aspects would share the same rites & everything (just not the name), while some would share the same "philosophies" (IE, war & glory) despite having different names & rites.
My post was mostly aimed at the OP ("how many gods is too many"?) The answer depends on the system. It could be very few in a setting where there is one universal pantheon that is the same everywhere, with little or no portfolio overlap. It could be much higher for other systems.
(Example of pagan Roman syncretism in action)
As to your question about where the gods come from, I may try to provide some options soon, though I have to go to work now.
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I couldn't really say what is too many regarding its use a standard RPG game, but consider that with Shinto belief in Japan, it is believed that there are an infinite number of gods. It is a Shinto thing to say there are 8 million gods, but this is just a euphemism, to really suggest infinity. So depending on your religion, there might only be 1, or there might be too many to ever count - neither one is 'wrong'.
Since my published setting is the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror, and since an analog Shinto religion exists (called Yokinto, due to that religion's connection to the yokai supernatural beings), it very much emulates the Shinto belief in an infinite number of deities and spirits - and its definitely a setting intended for use in Pathfinder.
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I will check your stuff in more depth later Tactislion. It seems interesting, and I will admit I have always like having good metaphysical bases. My own take (before having read your own):
-All sentient beings have (limited) psionics.
-If the power isnt enough to manifest, it gets implied in the will/faith of the individual
-This power then gets "added" to whichever god they believe in most, creating a huge psychic battery. This battery differentiates "lesser creatures" (empyreal lords & archedevils) who exist under their own power, but can be defeated vs. gods who are literally undefeatable by anything that isnt a god.
-If people stop believing in a god, the god's psychic battery stops being recharged. They wont die until they use all their energy, but they CAN loose that energy and return to being one of the "lesser creatures".
I need to flesh it out more, but that's the basic idea.
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As far as the original question of how many is too many, that number is somewhere around "I can't remember the names and major points of all of them as the person who created the game world." My suggestion is to have a minimum of 2 deities for each alignment, and make sure each domain is available. As for the maximum, it shows itself when while running the game, new deities are constantly coming up, and every religion is encountered only once. Maybe the PCs only encounter the cultists of Lord McBaddie once, but the PC cleric of Jeebuspraisebehim should see his/her religion active in the world at least once. As with most things when designing your own game world, less is usually better.
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This is like asking "How many countries is too many?", or "What color should my capital's flag be?". There's no standard for this--do what feels right for your world. Have one god, no gods, a "standard" pantheon (or more than one) of a dozen-ish major gods and assorted minor gods, a "personal deity" society with thousands or millions of gods, a celestial bureaucracy, ascended ancestors, whatever you like, so long as you keep in mind the way society is affected by its theos.
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We in the D&D/PF world like to think of things in absolutes, like a god of water. But if you look at Celtic beliefs (let alone Japanese), every river, lake, pond, stream, bay - has its own divinity. There tends not to be one god of water, rather if your land has 100 rivers, there are 100 deities, one dedicated to each river, 50 more for all the lakes, 10 for the main bays, so the idea of infinite deities isn't too hard to swallow.
We in the D&D/PF world like to think of things in absolutes, like a god of water. But if you look at Celtic beliefs (let alone Japanese), every river, lake, pond, stream, bay - has its own divinity. There tends not to be one god of water, rather if your land has 100 rivers, there are 100 deities dedicated to each river, 50 more for each lake, 10 for the bays, so the idea of infinite deities isn't too hard to swallow.
I think in D&D/PF terms, those various "gods" would be more akin to lesser outsiders. Not quite deities, like the empyreal lords.
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I do tend to find the "powerful pantheon of pre-existing gods" model kinda... nonsensical. Why the hell would creatures so powerful bother with us at all? That has always been the weakest link in a lot of fantasy pantheons to me: why do they listen to/want worshippers?
The "forgotten realms" (yes, I know a bunch of you dislike it) actually adressed that issue by having the local overgod installing a "power=worshippers" condition, since apparently several gods where ignoring their worshippers.
On Golarion though, I have yet to see a satisfying reason as to why they care (though it may have something to do with preventing Rovagug from escaping)
Whow, that got ranty for a sec.
Why do the gods care about us, if they don't need us? That's a good question to ask. Unlike you though, I don't think the absence of an immediate answer is a terrible blow to the setting.
First off, they might care because they created us, have plans for us and such, and don't want us to screw up. This suggests benevolence, but not necessarily. We might be playthings and they enjoy turning us against each other and watching the reality TV show that ensues.
Also, the gods might have some sort of agreement not to intervene directly, not all that much anyway. So they need proxies, and empower divine casters. Some of the racial gods may have crafted their races for the express purpose of waging war on the puppet race of a rival god because it's "not done" for a god to pursue the extinction of a race in person.
But even the lack of a clear-cut answer works for me. Some of the central questions of most religions are "why are we here?" and "what do the gods want from us?". The answers don't need to be the same for each religion. Maybe Sarenrae really cares, and provides us with a meaning of life: being a Good person and enjoying a happy life together. Gozreh though doesn't care to give us a Meaning Of Life.
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We in the D&D/PF world like to think of things in absolutes, like a god of water. But if you look at Celtic beliefs (let alone Japanese), every river, lake, pond, stream, bay - has its own divinity. There tends not to be one god of water, rather if your land has 100 rivers, there are 100 deities dedicated to each river, 50 more for each lake, 10 for the bays, so the idea of infinite deities isn't too hard to swallow.I think in D&D/PF terms, those various "gods" would be more akin to lesser outsiders. Not quite deities, like the empyreal lords.
Well, the kami are a good example of that type of 'god'. Another would be fey. Which is hardly a surprise, as many 'tiny gods' get turned into generic mythological monsters.
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I will check your stuff in more depth later Tactislion. It seems interesting, and I will admit I have always like having good metaphysical bases.
Hey. 'S'all cool. I write a lot. :)
I'm actually interested in yours!
My own take (before having read your own):
Sweet! I'm also going to critique/compare/contrast yours with my own, if that's okay!
-All sentient beings have (limited) psionics.
Neat! I more or less run things this way, too, though not necessarily under the same terminology.
Instead (though not elucidated above), I note that all creatures have a three-fold aspect to themselves - the body, the spirit, and the soul. The spirit contains the "divine spark" that makes the character special; it's what differentiates a creature from an object (even a living object, like a tree*). The body is the housing for the spirit, but by the proper union of body and spirit a soul is created (improper unions result in... problems). Death of the soul is when the body and spirit are separated (i.e. "death" as everyone knows it), and the spirit, bearing its imprint of the soul goes on to be judged and become a petitioner. But that's another topic.
The point is that the body connects to the power of Arcane**, the spirit connect to the power of the Divine, and the soul to the power of Psionic (or psychic, depending**)***.
In any event, its this trichotomy that allows access to the various power sources. The divine spark that is the spirit is what grants the innate power of a mortal to impress upon/create/etc a deity. A given divine spark is, by itself, far too weak to produce anything. It is this divine spark that becomes the various kinds of outsiders after death. However, the outsiders are also a byproduct of their plane, meaning they now have an inherent alignment and nature partially dictated by their plane - less freedom in some ways (though more in others**), but wholly devoted to their own nature**, meaning they're not as valuable to generate worship***. Undeath is generally a corruption of this whole process (which is predicated on positive energy for <reasons>**), though that doesn't mean that undeath is automatically evil in all cases**.
In any event, it's kind of semantics, kind of non-important over-all, and only one possible take. The similarities between what you describe and what I do are striking, though their are (obviously) differences.
-If the power isnt enough to manifest, it gets implied in the will/faith of the individual
Now this is a really strange (to me) take on it. I think I can see what you're going for, but I've never like the atheistic aesthetic for psionics. Even if the power is enough to manifest, why would it cease to get implied into the will/faith of the individual? Or am I reading that wrong? If it's just that you mean, since it's manifested as full-scope psionics, it's "all used" (which is how I'm taking it), I'm not such a fan... but to each their own! I can certainly see how it might appeal to people who aren't me! :D
-This power then gets "added" to whichever god they believe in most, creating a huge psychic battery. This battery differentiates "lesser creatures" (empyreal lords & archedevils) who exist under their own power, but can be defeated vs. gods who are literally undefeatable by anything that isnt a god.
That's a pretty interesting distinction.
I myself am thinking of applying something akin to WotC 4E's "gods can't be affected by less than 20th level" thing, though I'm thinking of making it mythic instead of epic as the requirement (or, rather, have >20HD or mythic ranks be the prerequisite for affecting a god).
That still means they're mostly untouchable (only a few could do anything to them, for example), but they're less inviolable that way, and thus mortals do matter (sifting through all the chaff to occasionally come up with some wheat that can successfully take on a godslayer, say, without becoming a godslayer itself, is an especially useful thing).
-If people stop believing in a god, the god's psychic battery stops being recharged. They wont die until they use all their energy, but they CAN loose that energy and return to being one of the "lesser creatures".
Now that is an interesting concept. In some ways, it seems (ever-so-slightly) similar to the Dawn of Worlds concept, as it's being played out on the forums (you stop rolling long enough, you go to 0 power and "die", however temporarily).
Mostly I hadn't really thought of the divine energies in terms of batteries for living. I, instead, looked at them as batteries for divinity, with the "base" or "underlying" creature still extant after the complete loss of their divinity. (In the APG world, I effectively made it a non-battery link to worship, but allowed as self-sustainable system by generating worship - actually Ambrosia/Soma, or liquid joy/worship - from dead worshipers who persisted in the heavens.** But if all worship ended, so did the divinity... but not the creature that was formerly divine.** Creates very interesting possibilities to have "deities emeritus" in stories.)
In any event, this is very interesting.
I need to flesh it out more, but that's the basic idea.
Man, I've always got more to flesh out. I'm never caught up to myself. ADD+ high creativity, I suppose. Ah, well. Neat concepts! Thanks for sharing!
* This is not to negate the concept of spirits-everywhere. Actually, it's an entirely different concept altogether, even for personal spirits. But that's beyond the scope of this discussion.
** Really, really beyond the scope of this discussion.
*** This last presumes a standard PF cosmology model. For different models (such as the APG-world thread that I linked before) this isn't true. See "**".
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...
AHHHHH! Way to much for me to respond quickly. But I'll try:
1) The limited psionic abilities:
-I treat magic (arcane/divine/psionic) as coming from the same force, IE "will".
-Arcane power stems from using the energy that flows naturaly from the universe (with wizards as learned, and sorcerers as intuitive).
-Divine power stems from suckling from your deity's psychic battery ( or whichever deity's is closest to your beliefs). Ranger & druids pull their power from a generalized psychic residual hidden from nature.
-Psionic power comes from inside yourself. If you have enough, you can use it to manifest something useful.
2) The manifestation issue:
-This I'm unsure of. I could just say that everyone gives a small portion of "will" to support their deity.
3) Innefable psychic battery:
I see this as pretty important, and the defining characteristic of a god vs a "powerful being". Gods cannot be defeated because they do not "exist" in the casual sense. They are a metaphysical collection of energy; a god has no body.
For story purposes, I think a true god should not be defeatable in the physical sense. I also thinks it's good to separate gods from demigods.
I need more time to think. Never enough time...
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In Pathfinder, I think a big reason gods are concerned with mortal is politics. Faithful believers in a god to to their god after death, resulting eventually in the creation of more outsiders loyal to that god. Which in turn increases the influence of a diety in the Great Beyond, especially given the number of cold and hot wars between different outsider groups or dieties.
As for number of gods, like everyone else said, its going to largely depend on the flavor you are going for and the type of games you want to play. Personally, if I was creating a setting, I would be tempted to cut out the names of all the domains, paste them on a wall, blindfold myself, and throw 5 darts to select 5 different domains. I would then try to create a god based around those throws...could be a nice way of trying to create more original gods.
WAY TOO MUCH!
AHHHHH! Way to much for me to respond quickly.
Hey! No stress, man! I already said that I write way too much! I understand! Also, notice that there's, like, a nine-hour gap (or something, I can't tell as the forum clock is being a bit strange) between your post and mine! It's fine!
I'm also a stay-at-home dad! So I can drop by and peck and add ideas at various points throughout. There is no need to compete with my word-count (which is too much, by far). You are entirely fine. :D
But I'll try:
Only if it's cool with you and/or interesting! I'm not trying to dominate a conversation!
1) The limited psionic abilities:
-I treat magic (arcane/divine/psionic) as coming from the same force, IE "will".
-Arcane power stems from using the energy that flows naturaly from the universe (with wizards as learned, and sorcerers as intuitive).
-Divine power stems from suckling from your deity's psychic battery ( or whichever deity's is closest to your beliefs). Ranger & druids pull their power from a generalized psychic residual hidden from nature.
-Psionic power comes from inside yourself. If you have enough, you can use it to manifest something useful.
That's fine. I actually agree. The reason the arcane is associated with "physical" is many and varied (and beyond the scope of the thread), but the fact that it's an ambient energy around the universe at large (and bloodlines affect how intuitive it is) is why I make that note. I'm a bit "meh" on the psychic battery thing, but I can see where you're coming from. More or less, that's what psionic power is to me as well. It's just there "where" inside yourself that it comes from - i.e. the method of access (which part of "you" that you use to do so). Thus: your body allows access to arcane (universal) energies, your soul is the source of psionic energies, and your spirit allows access to divine energies (by holding its divine spark). The natural divine powers are a bit of a "thing" for me to figure, but I handle them like FR does, so...
2) The manifestation issue:
-This I'm unsure of. I could just say that everyone gives a small portion of "will" to support their deity.
That's fine. I was just curious and/or posting my own response to the idea as I read it. :)
3) Innefable psychic battery:
I see this as pretty important, and the defining characteristic of a god vs a "powerful being". Gods cannot be defeated because they do not "exist" in the casual sense. They are a metaphysical collection of energy; a god has no body.
For story purposes, I think a true god should not be defeatable in the physical sense. I also thinks it's good to separate gods from demigods.
I can see that. I don't agree, but that's not to say you're wrong - far from it. For me, I like the idea that the gods of the game are fallible, limited, and able to be defeated. It's interesting. But I can certainly understand the desire for something other than that.
We're cool. :)
I need more time to think. Never enough time...
Agreed. Always. :D
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Religions involving the worship of tons of minor gods are probably best represented in PF either by letting clerics choose whatever domains they want or by treating the whole religion as a major deity that grants a set number of domains (particularly if the setting has other more PF-typical gods with limited domain lists). The druid domains are a good set for a "spirits of nature" religion, while Community, Protection, Magic, Knowledge, and Healing work well for something more focused on daily life.
EDIT: The spirits involved are indeed probably outsiders or fey in PF terms, but given that druids & rangers are powered by nature and paladins are powered by the LG alignment I see no problem with a character drawing divine power from a religion that doesn't have a proper deity.
I don't have any strong feelings on whether gods are created and/or empowered by belief. My current setting leans towards "minor gods/saints/demigods draw power directly from mortals and/or a major god, while major gods are self-sustaining."
I rather like the idea that certain mortals ascend to sainthood under the patronage of a greater deity. Saints grant only a handful of domains, but there can be quite a few of them.
And not all saints are bright souls. Some are saints for the darker gods.
Absolutely. In my current campaign, a saint is defined as a mortal who was granted minor godhood by a major deity. I'm still filling them in, but I've already got a saint of vampires and will likely have one for torturers
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i force clerics to worship a concept or a set of ideals. the ideals or concept, can be anything from a god to something akin to bushido. the cleric chooses 2 domains and a favored weapon as appropriate, or the oracle chooses a mystery as appropriate.
clerics, inquisitors, druids and the like, draw their power, not from a god, but from their devotion to their ideals and their faith in their cause, which may or may not have a manifestation.
allowing clerics to worship specific lesser nature spirits ala shintoism or allowing them a more direct to a code of ideals such as bushido, it gets around the god and alignment problems and allows the removal of alignment restrictions as appropriate.
I am developing my own setting using the Pathfinder system.
I have gotten to a point where I am developing the Pantheon(s) for my world. And as the title suggests I am wondering; at what point have I created too many?
"Too many" for any aspect of your campaign (whether it be deities, cities, NPCs, or whatever) is when you take things to a level of detail way beyond what your players will ever notice. Let's say you have decided that your campaign literally has millions of deities. You would need to identify the major gods that your cleric players are likely to select as patrons, then perhaps the immediate subordinates of whoever they choose to worship or of whoever is important to the campaign for other reasons. If a country on the other side of the world has a separate deity for each of its 100 rivers, you can probably ignore those initially.
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I'm really enjoying this topic. Tacticslion's posts are (almost) making the belief-powered deity concept palatable for me :P
Based on williamoak, I'm now considering the possibility that wizards are indeed un-worshipers; the power that normal people send to their deity, wizards use that power to cast arcane spells. A good reason for clerics to have a dim view of wizardry. Not quite enough for outright persecution, but enough to consider it immoral.
As a variant of the man-made-god concept, I'm considering the concept of a "mantle" of divine power. This is somewhat inspired by Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, where some people such as the Knight of Summer/Winter get power that goes with the title of Knight. If they die, the mantle is passed to their successor. However, the knight can have power of his own as well, leading to interesting combinations;
Harry Dresden is a powerful wizard in his own right, but when he also becomes Winter Knight he gets a whole new set of additional toys to play with.
Godhood could function somewhat like this; a mortal that ascends to godhood keeps his old powers, but also those of the divine mantle. If he were to fall from godhood he'd still be a (probably Epic/Mythic) character.
Rests the question of where the mantle's power comes from. No need to have only a single answer.
* Some are powered by mere belief.
* Others by prayer and/or sacrifice; I can imagine that Aztec-scale human sacrifice generates a lot of divine power. A small population could power a disproportionate god by sacrificing neighbouring unbeliever tribes.
* Maybe for every Domain there's a "true" god, who draws power from the cosmic importance of that domain. The "true" Sun God gains power not so much from mortal worship (they happen to worship a different sun god), but from solar power itself.
* Some mantles are powered by other gods, choosing to sponsor a saint. This could be the saint's sole source of power, or maybe at some point the saint gains enough worshipers to become independent.
* Power could be drawn from elemental/energy planes.
* Power can be drawn from more than one source; both worship and embodying a domain.
It's even possible that you assume a divine mantle and yet remain a mortal. You just gain the significant power to grant divine spellcasting to clerics. Like a sort of Egyptian Pharaoh that has his own priests, but still dies after a mortal lifetime, passing the mantle on to his heir.
An interesting item to consider in this contrext is the Witch Patron system. Are the Patrons gods? I don't think so. They don't actually grant power, they "merely" grant knowledge. The arcane spellcasting ability comes from the witch. Theoretically a witch might switch patrons while keeping previously learned powers.
My take is that the divine spells are those that can be delegated. Other spells can't really be granted to other people, you have to cast them yourself. This can lead to the odd situation where a god-emperor wizard needs priests because he can't himself cast some spells that he's able to grant to his priests.
Patrons on the other hand have to know their spells and can share this knowledge with a familiar, who then shares the practical execution with the witch. The witch can discover spells on her own and teach those to the familiar as well. Just maybe, this is a sneaky way for the patron to learn some new spells from time to time.
Who could be a patron? Anyone with a lot of spell knowledge. Wizards, some epically well-informed sorcerers, other witches, and yes, some deities. But patrons are more of a "low-budget" operation than godhood.
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I had a setting idea where I had 4 per alignment. That was max for me at that point.
The best thing I would suggest you do is to check with your favorite campaign setting. See how many major deities are in the setting. It also has a lot to do with your idea of the cosmology. The planes could be packed with divine beings or they could be void of them. I liked my approach to the 4 per alignment mainly due to the fact that I had wanted an interesting and colorful pantheon a la Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or EverQuest. So 36 seemed like a nice big but not too big number.
I wanted to have a balance and a solid idea behind these groups and their philosophies.
So if I had started with the 4 elements for example, and decided they each would be Neutral in alignment meaning True Neutral. I had even thought of the idea of mega churches uniting the four in some cities. So you could placate a group of them at the same church. All of the LG for the Paladins etc. Just an idea.
I'm really enjoying this topic. Tacticslion's posts are (almost) making the belief-powered deity concept palatable for me :P
"Almost" is all I seek. I know full well that personal preferences aren't easy (or possible) to change!
I really like the mantle idea. It's one that I've been tooling around with sometimes as well, though mine is less developed than yours and, as a concept, less generic, thus wasn't mentioned.
If we have alternate divine takes, one of my favorite "weird" ones is what I refer to as the "gods of sides" or "the three essences". The Countess' post reminded me.
The idea is to take several gods and create a single, visible pantheon out of them.
The three "core essences" are Toldeth (neutral and evil), Taiia (neutral), and Elishar (neutral and good)
The three "expressed gods" are Hermod (chaotic and neutral), Hiemdall (lawful and good), and Freya (neutral and good)
This yields nine total aspects of the gods:[list]
CE: Toldeth+Hermod --> Hermdeth (chaotic evil)
LN: Toldeth+Hiemdall --> Hiemdoth (lawful neutral)
N: Toldeth+Feya --> Freydeth (neutral)
CN: Taiia+Hermod --> Hermaiia (chaotic neutral)
LG: Taiia+Hiemdall --> Hiemdaiia (lawful good)
NG: Taiia+Freya --> Freyaiia (neutral good)
CG: Elishar+Hermod --> Hermishar (chaotic good)
LG: Elishar+Hiemdall --> Hiemishar (lawful good)
NG: Elishar+Freya --> Freyishar (neutral good) While lawful evil and neutral evil lack direct divine representation, the church of Hiemdoth functions for lawful evil and the churches of Freydeth and Hermdeth function for neutral evil characters. Lawful good has both Hiemdaiia and Hiemdar churches while neutral good has both Freyaiia and Freyar churches. Each of the nine aspects above has a god that represents one of three base portfolios interpreted by its chosen essence.
There are also a large number of demigods and quasigods - creatures who've achieved or been granted divinity from one or more of the above gods (each of which have their own ranking). Demigods have their own portfolios as well, but they do not have a "core essence" to create three aspects.
From there, portfolios (and their attendant divinity) is broken down into various subsets based on alignment and sharing certain groupings with other portfolio elements. A god and church may select up to three "additional" portfolio aspects: secondary (second most powerful: either shares alignment or at least one portfolio aspect), tertiary (third most powerful: must share alignment and at least one portfolio aspect of the secondary, or your alignment), or quarternary (fourth most powerful: must share alignment and at least one portfolio aspect of tertiary, or your alignment).
The six gods I noted up above were, obviously, taken from the 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods book.
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Follow the Seven Plus-or-Minus Two Rule. Try to have a number of gods between 5 to 9 as that's the number of objects that the average human can hold in working memory. Since there are nine alignments, it cannot hurt to have nine core gods.
If you want more than that, then establish 5 to 9 as "core gods" and have others be "obscure gods."
When I was creating the setting for my last homebrew PF 1E campaign (a process that went on for many years before I ever ran a game in it), I went through a few different phases of how I approached the gods in the setting.
At the beginning, I just had two rules:
1. No gods from other settings. (I wanted this to be an all-original world.)
2. A finite number of gods, so that neither I nor the players would have a prohibitively long list to keep track of. I also wanted to see how few gods I needed to cover all the domains in some way that made coherent sense for each god.
I briefly toyed with abolishing alignment, but it was too thoroughly ingrained in the PF 1E rules to implement without a ton of work. [So I am that much more impressed that the 2E Remaster tackled that!]
As I started to work out more details of the world's history and cultures, I realized that I needed to sort my gods into smaller pantheons linked by some common origin or relationships in order to give them some much-needed flavor. And also add a few more to fill gaps left by this sorting. My main groups ended up being:
* Elemental gods (one per element): Worshiped by elemental creatures and giants.
* Dragon gods (good and evil, plus a couple minor cults): Worshipped by dragons and kobolds. The Tarrasque, which had an aberrant-draconic origin in this world, was the most popular cult among orcs.
* Faerie gods (nature gods, one per season): Worshipped by elves, gnomes, and fey.
* Celestial gods (sun, moon, shadow, and void): Worshipped by halflings.
* The "original" human pantheon, with roles like lawgiver, general, artisan, merchant, and healer: Very imperialistic overall, but with some more benevolent members. Over time, some human nations abandoned this pantheon in favor of new gods (mostly elemental and celestial gods, plus at least one dragon cult). Those schisms feed into many of the big political conflicts in the setting.
Most of these pantheons ended up having around 4 members, with the human pantheon being about twice that size (but including more lesser gods). Overall there were about 2 dozen gods, which gradually became more distinct from each other, and had numerous ties to the history of the world. But rarely would more than one or two pantheons have significant numbers of worshipers in any one city or kingdom, so the PCs only needed to know the handful of gods who were most popular where the campaign started, or in whatever land each PC claimed as home.
Eventually, I also added cults for the most prominent groups of outer-planar outsiders, with at least one or two original lords' names for each of them (because my "no gods from other sources" rule still applied). But none of these had influence comparable to the major pantheons. It was mostly just added color for fiend-worshiping villains and the occasional other secret cult.
Wow, I didn't realize this thread had been recently necro'd before I made that longish post. Oops.