There is one thing I'ev overlooked in my current campaign that I've been DMing. In said campaign, the the major golarion gods (only those in the player handbook and maybe 1-2 more) have been ripped from their divine powers and cast down as mortals in the world, having arrived anywhere between 10 and 2 years of the game's starting point.
Now some of the gods, those who had been previously mortals, have some ways of handlings things, seeing as they used to be mortal and as such can adapt, Iomadea and Caedan(sp) for example. All of the gods are lvl 20 or so NPC's with a class that more or less defines what they used to be as a god. Now of course with all of them being cast out of their divine planes it made a huge s$&&storm in the different faiths, wars, truces and many things happened since then.
I was wondering if I didn't go in over my head when making my setting to my players, as I still can't account to all of the gods locations. i'd assume they would try to shake things up themselves, but with their divinity gone, they lack some of their old omniscient knowledge about certain things. The loss of divinity is caused by a epic-level artefact that was used to seal the planes away or kill the gods or something, it's not important for now.
As of now Abadar is the right hand of an emperor. Said emperor rules over a far away continent and with Abadar's consel, created the adventurer's guild to send people around the world to explore and bring back information, connections and the likes to the empire. It's Abadar's network of information.
Caeden is back to being an adventurer, albeit a kick-ass one. He's encountered the PC's a few times but is pretty laid back. He's starting to get into gear and explore what he can to see what happened.
The gods of dwarves and elves (Torag and the bee lady I think) are on a continent with only dwarves, elves and orcs as the dominant humanoid races. This place has not been explored yet.
Urgathoa isnt in motion yet, but I was planning to have her either busy with something, or focused on reaching her main base of worshippers, the Necromancer nation of Gelb. Pharasma is also nearby Gelb, as some of her worshippers are building up in power after the god's silence (the mortals dont know what happened). She will try to remove the nation's worship on undeath, turning it more to the white necromancy, study of death and the likes.
Sarenrae, Asmodeus and 2-3 other gods are checking on Rovagug's prison
Irory and Gozreh are more or less working togheter to gather info and see who did this to the gods. So far I'm hoping for all of them to work behind the scenes, but as their divinity leaves them, they might try to be more drastic and less enigmatic.
And around all of this, I have the PC's 4 lvl 3 characters with poor wisdom scores working for the adventurer's guild, trying to make money, further their personal quests and not die horribly in the land of necromancers (which is neighbor to a kingdom of good stereotypical people who don't like necromancers, while the necro kingdom is slowly turning from a LE land to a LN aligned land).
IN SHORT : does anyone have suggestions for what the other gods could be doing, or how to interpret some of their actions? I'd see them as slow moving forces, planning (appart from the ex-human ones, who can act somewhat faster).
Iomedae gathers her followers adn leads an army. Cue crusade against Evil.
Norgorber is in hiding. Chances are he will not be found if he doesn't want to.
Desna is a traveling gypsy woman giving advice and healing to all who ask.
LAmashtu is gathering a horde of her children in a bid to take the world as her own.
Gorum is basically Gorum. He fights. And when he's not fighting he's looking for a fight.
Gorum is the suit of armor, right? I'd see him on the northern continent, amongst barbarians and constant warfare, either that or my world's version of the mana scar, a blasted land of magical beasts, aberrations and a no man's land. He could simply be there killing many maner of monsters all the time.
Lamashtu is the *mother* of monster humanoids, no? She might be good to have some of those pop up as threat from time to time. The players chose where they want to go, and the places that they don't go to evolve on their own, so I have to keep track of many different places. They had the choice of the northern barbarian continent, the one they are on now, and the orc dward elf continent as a starting destination.
As time will go one, the adventurer's guild will build warp gates (should they manage to secure aprooval from the different countries), essentially permanant greater teleport woundrous items or something. Add more flavor for the players to travel. Especially since one of the players will have her personal quest resolves in orc land XD
Not the kind of advice you want to hear, but make sure you don't forget the PCs are the stars. Probably unneeded but I just wanted to make sure...
Of course they are, but the world still moves at places they aren't located. This isn't a jRPG or a wRPG when the action starts as you get there. They made a choice to go to one of the basic continents, and the others will move in their own direction. The gods act on their own, and the characters are mostly free to do what they want. Work in subtle ways, they have the chance to try and further the plot if they wanna try, or do a basic adventurer's gig and find a dungeon here or there.
Will the gods be a part of your campaign, or are they just background noise?
And here's an idea. With the loss of his divinity Zon-Kuthon losses his connection to the entity that drove him mad. He's now a shattered wreck, guilt-stricken over his actions, and becomes the main force behind those trying to prevent the gods from regaining their powers out of fear of being possessed again.
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Will the gods be a part of your campaign, or are they just background noise?
And here's an idea. With the loss of his divinity Zon-Kuthon losses his connection to the entity that drove him mad. He's now a shattered wreck, guilt-stricken over his actions, and becomes the main force behind those trying to prevent the gods from regaining their powers out of fear of being possessed again.
Good call! And his sister might even support him on that one.
But I'd think top priority for most of them would be regaining their immortality, if not their outright god-hood. Even for those who are good, something this traumatic might scare them into being a little selfish, possibly even giving in to the temptation to betray their basic beliefs. It could be interesting to see a former god(dess) who was never mortal become paranoid at the thought of aging and dying, and abandon their core beliefs trying to find a "cure" for their condition.
True, that is interesting, and it could make the once mortal gods (Iomadea and Cayllan and I forgot who else). I also like the Zon-Kuthon idea.
Basically, something happened 70 years ago that ripped the major gods from their planes and god-hood, sealing off their planes along with the minor gods and demi-gods working there. The BBEG didn't want the gods to be mortal, he wanted them, good and bad ones, to never interfere with mortal affairs ever again, using a major artifact that I made for the game. But he failed, the spell didn't go off quite right, and his body was more or less destroyed. It took him about 60-70 years to start working on finishing what he's done. The gods appeared back on the moral plane years after, because well that's how I wanted it to be.
I'd assume some will try and find the starstone temple again, perhaps even kill a rival god when he's easy picking. But yes most of them would try and become immortal again. However some are back to immortality, since it's a bonus from some lvl 20 classes.
In short 3/4 of the gods will be background noises, while some will interact sometimes with the characters, but they won't know it's them. The gods will be too busy working on the grand scheme of things to see all the minor details happening around them. Like, for instance, the BBEG using his now huge network of connections and influence to get the ridiculously hard to get spell components to use his artifact again.
It's to note that a god's mortal class is closest to what he or she represents. Cayllan is simple, as a lvl 20 fighter, and the goddess of nature is a lvl 20 druid. The goddess of knowledge and the god of magic are wizards, or sorcerer and wizard. Iomadea would be a Paladin of Aroden, while some other would be clerics of themselves, since they can tap in their own power.
Asmodeus is in the material realm in his mortal form, that's why nothing bad's happening to him in the form of devils trying to attack him all the time.
Cayden is indeed a drunk fool, he's doing regular adventuring things and drinking half the time, being usefull only every once in awhile. The rovagug is still trapped in his mortal prison excuse is there to take care of some gods. However It's true that *some* gods would try and off others, be they good neutral or evil. But then again it's an even match, so they organise armies, powers and such to try and make things work.
Even if I'm using the Golarion gods and things like the starstone, every country and place is made-up by me. There is no Cheliax, and while there is a necromancer nation it's because I tought it would be good for ze setting.
Well the gods won't go and say they are the gods, they know how much of a danger to themselves and to others that would be.
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Arh... what about Gozreh? He/She is both a male and female... so what happens?
Oh, and Asmodeus should be in a ton of trouble, as some of the dukes of hell should be out to get him.
Lamashtu should also have tons of Daemons out to get her for her past actions.
In short any god with no friends and a lot of enemies should be in trouble.
Oh... and does this means that no one can "die" now that Pharasma is not on the job?
Arh... what about Gozreh? He/She is both a male and female... so what happens?
Oh, and Asmodeus should be in a ton of trouble, as some of the dukes of hell should be out to get him.
Lamashtu should also have tons of Daemons out to get her for her past actions.
In short any god with no friends and a lot of enemies should be in trouble.
Oh... and does this means that no one can "die" now that Pharasma is not on the job?
It just means no one is around to judge the dead. Though, since Asmodeus did create the contracts of creation then those would technically be broken if she is not longer there to do her job. I wonder what the ramifications of that would be...
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My word. I want to recreate this campaign setting as a variant of Golarion... I want to so bad. Right now.
In fact, I think I will right now.
Hahahaha XD Well I'm still a new DM so I haven't imagined some ramifications. Some troubles are dealt with before they began, since the god's divine powers are still *up there* they are working on auto-pilot to some degree (as in granting spells).
While the demons are out to find Asmo and Lamashtu, the fact is that the planes are sealed, as such they can't even try and mess with them.
Should people be interested in the bigger picture I could write my current campaign ideas/setting.
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Wouldn't Asmodeus technically go back to being a regular devil? At which point, all the other devils would be plotting/teaming-up like hell to wipe him out of existance while they have the opportunity, or perhaps hoping that they get to take up his old mantle in his stead if they do.
Basicaly, put all of Hell into one big full-on power struggle.
Because of this, infernal influences on the mortal realms seem to disappear for a while (not sure how this would affect Cheliax) as all their influence/hostility/power struggles are suddenly focused inwards.
Perhaps have some of this conflict spill out into the mortal realms.
I think the power struggle in hell would be far less eventful then many assume....In Book of the Damned—Volume 1: Princes of Darkness it outlines that basically the archedevils still have a power variance between them....The rule of law would probably fall to the next in line as defined by power both personal and in resources.
Also while Asmodeus is the king of hell and of all devil kind, he himself is not a devil. In the same book mentioned before it says that basically Asmodeus is the last of the first two divine beings to exist. While losing his divine spark would certainly hinder his ability to know as much as he does when divine; in the Book of the Damned—Volume 1: Princes of Darkness it basically says that Asmodeus is so hyper intelligent and logical that even the good deities seek his counsel from time to time (although in general they find it distasteful). I don' think you would see all of that knowledge just dry up and disappear. I think you would be talking about a mortal creature who is literally as smart as an entire cotenant of nations combined. Some of this knowledge would truly be ancient knowledge (Pre-Golarion) although in a mortal form it may have gaps and holes in it so he has a hard time using it practically.
Also the Book of the Damned—Volume 1: Princes of Darkness pretty much states that the only reason that Asmodeus is still around is because none of the other gods (outside of Rovagug) are powerful enough to defeat him, even combined. Whatever magic artifact you have designed has got to be a pretty monstrously powerful little item.
I think if Asmodeus were mortal you would see someone who literally spent every second of everyday attempting to regain his divinity. It says he is one of the most charming gods and so I think you would find him seeking out this artifact with an army in tow. (having used murder, charm, bribs, and other tactics to gain an army)
