Splitting a Deity in half

[vixengmer]

Soooo here is what I have done. Homebrew deity CE sports an alter Ego LN deity in order to control a large port city-state through a theocracy. All clerics above level 10 are in the know about the fake "puppet" deity. Anyone lower prays to the "puppet" deity but in reality receives their power from the CE one. So enter LN PC who wanted to be a cleric, plot progresses he finds out and has a major life crisis....DM decides to work with this great character progression and gives the cleric who is now CN the idea that the "puppet" deity may have developed self awareness autonomously from the CE deity but is still bound to her because in essence she is her. So similar to D&Ds Yondalla and Dalla Thaun (sp) where two aspects of a god but with different alignments have their own consciousness but are still one being. So now the cleric wants to know...how do you split a god?????? He wants to liberate the LN personality from control of the CE one to make her a god in her own right. So Fellow Gamers: How do you split a god?

[Cartigan]

Be epic level and get an artifact.

[TriOmegaZero]

Orchestrate a schism in the faith.

[Kirth Gersen]

Some of the swords in the Paizo artwork are so big they could easily cut the PLANET in half, so I don't see that splitting a god should be so difficult for them.

[tlc_web tlc_web]

Well for starters that sounds like a pretty epic (epic in length and scale, not character level), multi-session story.

My big question is "Why did a CE god empower a LN subset of herself?" I think the key to how to break the subpersonality away will lie in the reason as to why the subpersonality was created in the first place.

But to critique those before me:

Cartigan: Be epic level and get an artifact.
--- Not a lot of detail, but he is basically right. If you tell me why a CE did this, I can give you some suggessions on artifacts and plot.

TriOmegaZero: Orchestrate a schism in the faith.
--- I actually think this is what the CE god wants. If you think about it, a civil war in orderly city would not only unleash wild destruction and confusion, no mater the result the CE god wins. If the truth about the CE is revealed then it makes people far and wide question their faith. How does anyone know that their particular god is not just another puppet leading them to hell? Talk about serious crisis of faith for EVERYONE. If the truth is again silenced then the CE god goes back to leading souls that would normally go to a better afterlife into its clutches.

[J.S.]

How don't you? I generally think that it's a sort of "get out of the way!" and let him/her/it do it for him/her/itself. Otherwise, outside of nearly any epic quest you want to use, I like the idea of finding the place for the god - working it out with the rest of the pantheon, finding a nice cottage in the outer planes, deciding what the vestments and holy symbol look like - gathering up, in effect, all the elements of the religion save the deity itself.

[Luna eladrin]

If a god has enough followers, he can probably split off. So let the PC organize the LN faith and make it strong.

[Cartigan]

Luna eladrin wrote:

If a god has enough followers, he can probably split off. So let the PC organize the LN faith and make it strong.

Assuming (a) it is a different god and (b) it wants to split off.

There are way more followers lower than level 10 (being both clergy and random worshippers) than there are over level 10 clergy members of this specific deity. If we go by "common sense," the LN deity is WAY more powerful as it is. Therefore, it is either a code-sharing agreement at the LN deity's acceptance or the LN deity isn't actually real and is just a cover the CE god - which makes perfect sense for a trickster god assuming it is a CE trickster god (which is the only reason I can see a LN deity being involved at all).

[Matthew Morris]

[Realms hat]
Well we've seen that deities can be killed/subsumed by other deities without the core deity knowing. In the case of Shar/Sharess, it took the direct intervention of another deity to break Sharess free. Is the LN deity a facade? (like Cyric/Leria) or at this point has it become a seperate power under the control of the CE deity? (Shar/Sharess) If the former, then an epic option might be to ascend one or more PCs to sainthood in the LN church and eventually become the deity of the LN's portfolio, in essence stealing that portfolio (Like how Kelemvor 'stole' Death from Cyric.) If the later, then yes, a godcleaving sword (maybe The Vorpal sword, not just a vorpal sword would work. Or Doomgiver.
[/Realms hat]

Now a more mundane method would be for the party to have an oracle or a cleric who worships multiple deities (Panthesitic Cleric?) work in the hiearchy to associate the church with a LG deity, eventually 'revealing' that the LN deity is an aspect of the LG deity, or vice versa. Cosmically, this means that in any church schism you can have the LG deity start answering the low level clerics spells, and the lay people who accept this 'revelation' go about their lives unaffected.

[Xabulba]

So who gets the bottom half?

[LazarX]

vixengmer wrote:

Soooo here is what I have done. Homebrew deity CE sports an alter Ego LN deity in order to control a large port city-state through a theocracy. All clerics above level 10 are in the know about the fake "puppet" deity. Anyone lower prays to the "puppet" deity but in reality receives their power from the CE one. So enter LN PC who wanted to be a cleric, plot progresses he finds out and has a major life crisis....DM decides to work with this great character progression and gives the cleric who is now CN the idea that the "puppet" deity may have developed self awareness autonomously from the CE deity but is still bound to her because in essence she is her. So similar to D&Ds Yondalla and Dalla Thaun (sp) where two aspects of a god but with different alignments have their own consciousness but are still one being. So now the cleric wants to know...how do you split a god?????? He wants to liberate the LN personality from control of the CE one to make her a god in her own right. So Fellow Gamers: How do you split a god?

I'm sorry but this sounds more like someone trying to sport a clever contrivance than to make a story with versimilitude. I just don't buy the Chaotic Evil making a Lawful Neutral front of itself. It reeeks of the worse of gamer writing.

[Crimson Jester]

below Castle greyhawk are these 9 cells designed to hold a diety of each separate alignment. No what you do is....

[Charles Evans 25]

vixengmer wrote:

Soooo here is what I have done. Homebrew deity CE sports an alter Ego LN deity in order to control a large port city-state through a theocracy. All clerics above level 10 are in the know about the fake "puppet" deity. Anyone lower prays to the "puppet" deity but in reality receives their power from the CE one. So enter LN PC who wanted to be a cleric, plot progresses he finds out and has a major life crisis....DM decides to work with this great character progression and gives the cleric who is now CN the idea that the "puppet" deity may have developed self awareness autonomously from the CE deity but is still bound to her because in essence she is her. So similar to D&Ds Yondalla and Dalla Thaun (sp) where two aspects of a god but with different alignments have their own consciousness but are still one being. So now the cleric wants to know...how do you split a god?????? He wants to liberate the LN personality from control of the CE one to make her a god in her own right. So Fellow Gamers: How do you split a god?

The quick and easy solution of 'involve another deity' unfortunately only works in settings which already assume some sort of 'divine soap opera'. In a situation where deities are somewhat more stand-offish to one another, I assume that very large quantities of magic and faith (plus possibly some sort of huge scale ceremony or ritual) is required.

As a stalling technique for the immediate future, I would recommend that research discovers a very old and crotchety dragon that knows all about the gods and faith and belief who is the closest thing to an 'authority' on this, but who will require some substantial quests/favours before providing any assistance. For added moral dilemma make it a chromatic dragon with unsavoury habits (although one opposed to the chaotic evil deity, so it's credible that it might have an interest in harming that deity's interests)...
That might give you a level or two to plan (and of course some of the quests which the dragon sends them on may turn out to be working towards the end goal).
And in the meantime, the chaotic evil deity may well be trying to subsume the rebellious other personality (hinting at a clock?) and sending agents after the PCs to try to thwart/slow them down...

[karlbadmanners]

The solution: The CE deity pooped out the LN deity, and now the poo has worshipers.