Different kinds of divinity

[Oxylepy]

Okay, so someone else was questioning me on my system of 30-50 class levels as being important to my PCs as a criteria for divinity. Anyway, I went in minor depth into the different kinds of gods I use, and was wondering how others handle their divine beings. So, here are the different kinds of gods I use as well as how each works.

Earned Divinity:

This is where someone becomes divine, but isn't granted it. This is for where a character levels into divinity, steals divinity, or otherwise becomes divine through power.

In my own system this exists for PCs who are between levels 30-50 and somehow elevate to divine status, which is often particular to the character. For this I use the rules from Deities and Demigods and they are leveled to Divine Rank 0 or 1 depending on the circumstance.

This is the place for gods like Shar who was an adlet sorcerer that achieved divinity by creating Nightshades from fiends, rending a small fraction of each transformation into herself and reaching divinity through that. Or Miliara, mother of Undeath, the first (humanoid, at least) lich and creater of Vampires, who achieved divinity by leading the dark elves to freedom from elven slavery while inventing a means of achieving a form of immortality, then spending millenia traversing the planes, finally coming across the divine drow representation of her as a god, and killing it to merge with it.

Innate Divinity:

For those beings which are born with or have otherwise always had divinity. These beings tend to be unique and may or may not host class levels or be creatures.

Nature spirits and concept based deities tend to find a home in this group of dieties.

For my own world this is where things like The Deer God and Mira exist. The Deer God is a stag of storms, and if actually engaged in combat it would likely only be a CR 14. I classify many things like Cthulu as being in this group as well. Where as individuals like Mira, The Vain Lich, were somehow born with the divine spark (in her case her father was a god). This could use the system from Deities and Demigods, but usually just innate divine abilities cover this better.

Belief Divinity:

For deities which exist because people believe in them. I stole this from Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, however the concept has been around for a long time.

This is where groups worship a deity and thus that deity has power. Sometimes that power is real, others it is merely how the concept manifests itself through groups. Real religions, without regard to if they are true or false, have power in how people behave or think, it can drive forward wars, lead to one group being dubbed greater or less than another, and generates a sense of inclusion within those who follow the deity.

In my own world this is where the beings like Umberlee come into play. They exist as they are detailed from 3.5, they grant people's spells and act in all ways as they would, but they are fragile and can easily die and be lost forever. Numbers of believers matter, as well as written chronicles of their existence. Things made by practitioners of these deities can cease to function or change over time, as views of those deities change or the deities are lost.

Granted Divinity:

Deities in this group require the existence of other deities. They can be gifted their divine powers, or be an opposition deity of a belief deity. This is a portion of pantheons, where mortals or demigods are granted full divine status by another divine.

My own world hosts the first Vampires as deified by Miliara, as well as the four generals of the void as being granted divinity by Shar. In some instances these beings will be subserviant to the one who created them, in others they are not, but merely part of the pantheon.

In some cases these are actually just enemies to other dieties. Such could be said of the devil in Christianity, while not a deity, he exists as an evil but lesser counterpart to God. In greek mythology the Olympians also had the Titans as evil counterparts.

Core Divinity:

This is where the deities are somehow integral into the structure of reality. While other deities may have made existance, they may or may not be in this group. These deities are tied to reality in such a way that their destruction without a replacement would break reality.

This is where the deity actually has work to do, to somehow maintain thing. Driving the chariot across the sky which is the sun, or keeping things firmly planted on the ground. These are the rules creators, maintainers and
/or enforcers.

I actually make little use of the minutia deities in this group. There are no actual chariot drivers or gravity enforcers. However my most powerful gods are here. Fron the 11th dimmensional All, down to the points (0th dimensional), these exist as concepts which make and maintain the multiverse. Mira's father came from this group, a 5th dimmensional deity of a separate group from this reality's. With a word he could have unmade or altered this reality (being a minute 4th dimmensional reality, it is an infinitesimal to him) had he desired. However at the same time that may have angered this reality's own 5th dimensional deity, and the more problems he would incur the more likely he would draw the attention of a higher level deity.

Sub Divinity:

This group consists of beings which are beyond the mortal scope of power, but not really divine. Sometimes this is the kind of thing which you want your BBEG seeking. Things like Punpun exist here, or characters who can reliably hit a caster level of 100. Often the abilities here would break the gaming system, allowing things to have extremely high stats or damage, or even arbitrarily high numeric values. This is how the game is broken and where we often thought project ways to make these things. From deathstar groups to GM fiat, this is when the not-divine needs to be stopped or it could mess up everything.

I actually host a couple beings like this. The Sourcerer exists as a font of arcane energy, able to alter reality at a whim and born as the seventh itteration of the seventh son of a seventh son, he brings magic into this world. Rarely do I actually throw him into the story, other than perhaps a very rare chance meeting of him such as a party randomly being put through a maze, just to get out and activate a dozen explosive runes, all because he found it comical, or him sitting lazily on a tranquil field in the middle of a dual lich transformation ceremony. The other being like this was Weylan, an alchemist human who accidentally became true immortal trying to make a philosopher's stone, got bored and became a jack of all trades, master of all trades, master of all classes, divine notary, dread lawyer, contracted divine power, became the strongest divine being, and finally retired to drink mai-thais on a lawn chair while death tried to do its job.

This is often where you can encounter truely absurd things, often that abuse certain rules, or merely exist outside the scope of the rules

[Cyrad]

Divinity in my campaign is not merely having a power level of nine thousand.