In most cases it's hard to imagine them just sitting on their divine throne. Some of them may spend time in a peaceful, relativly uninteresting way, practicing their hobbies (Shelyn creating art, Cayden visiting taverns, Calistria partaking in orgies etc.). But some of the gods seems to have motivation to be more active than that.
Take Iomedae for example. What was she up to since her ascension? Except supporting her followers with spells and sending out planar allies, what was she doing personally?
Does Sarenrae has any occupation beside basking others in her shining presence? Does managing his current holdings takes all of Abadar's time? What is Torag working on currently? Does Pharasma ever takes a break?
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One thing to keep in mind about the gods is that they don't necessarily perceive the passage of time like mortals. To a deity, a 5,000 year nap is nothing. What I've always assumed is that the deities pass their time doing the things they represent—Sarenrae healing others or basking in sunlight or redeeming others. Gorum fighting monsters or plotting wars or building weapons and armor. Abadar counting money or patrolling walls in Axis or cataloging the contents of the vault. Asmodeus gloating over his collected contracts or tormenting prisoners or spreading lies.
And as a result, in the mortal world, the suns keep shining and smiths remain inspired and energized to craft weapons and city walls don't crumble immediately and liars continue to lie and be trusted. In effect, what the deities do is keep reality working the way folks are used to it working.
What I've always assumed is that the deities pass their time doing the things they represent (...) And as a result, in the mortal world, the suns keep shining and smiths remain inspired and energized to craft weapons and city walls don't crumble immediately and liars continue to lie and be trusted. In effect, what the deities do is keep reality working the way folks are used to it working.
So basically, because whatever the gods do in their realms, it affects the Material World even without the gods actually doing anything obvious. If a god appears on grows in power, their influence grows and specific aspects of the Material World become stronger. For example, once Norgorber ascended, his mere existence made it easier for various criminals to thrive, and Nethys's ascenscion, filling the void after Amaznen died and Lissala left, made it easier for mortals to master magic. It just happens, without a need of a clear divine intervention.
Conversely, if something were to happen for example to Shelyn, mortals wouldn't be able to create good art and love would lose their appeal, at least until someone else would take her place; in a terrrain is cursed in a way that limits Desna's influence, the travelers will be prone to get lost; and when Aroden died, the destined future failed to happen and humanity experienced a series of crises.
This gives me some ideas how to make the divine influence present in the game world without the deities being there in person.
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What I've always assumed is that the deities pass their time doing the things they represent (...) And as a result, in the mortal world, the suns keep shining and smiths remain inspired and energized to craft weapons and city walls don't crumble immediately and liars continue to lie and be trusted. In effect, what the deities do is keep reality working the way folks are used to it working.So basically, because whatever the gods do in their realms, it affects the Material World even without the gods actually doing anything obvious. If a god appears on grows in power, their influence grows and specific aspects of the Material World become stronger. For example, once Norgorber ascended, his mere existence made it easier for various criminals to thrive, and Nethys's ascenscion, filling the void after Amaznen died and Lissala left, made it easier for mortals to master magic. It just happens, without a need of a clear divine intervention.
Conversely, if something were to happen for example to Shelyn, mortals wouldn't be able to create good art and love would lose their appeal, at least until someone else would take her place; in a terrrain is cursed in a way that limits Desna's influence, the travelers will be prone to get lost; and when Aroden died, the destined future failed to happen and humanity experienced a series of crises.
This gives me some ideas how to make the divine influence present in the game world without the deities being there in person.
More or less, but the results wouldn't be as extreme. If Shelyn died or vanished or changed so that she was no longer the goddess of love and art, mortals would find it more difficult to create good art and falling in love wouldn't happen as often. It would STILL happen, just not as much, as there's always other gods out there who are love or art deities.
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Some books give us some insights into the fancies of particular deities. Planar Adventures teaches us that Daikitsu spends her time exploring Nirvana and interacting with both locals and visitors. She likes giving out blessings and even magic items to people who interest her, but never if they realize who she is.
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More or less, but the results wouldn't be as extreme. If Shelyn died or vanished or changed so that she was no longer the goddess of love and art, mortals would find it more difficult to create good art and falling in love wouldn't happen as often. It would STILL happen, just not as much, as there's always other gods out there who are love or art deities.What I've always assumed is that the deities pass their time doing the things they represent (...) And as a result, in the mortal world, the suns keep shining and smiths remain inspired and energized to craft weapons and city walls don't crumble immediately and liars continue to lie and be trusted. In effect, what the deities do is keep reality working the way folks are used to it working.So basically, because whatever the gods do in their realms, it affects the Material World even without the gods actually doing anything obvious. If a god appears on grows in power, their influence grows and specific aspects of the Material World become stronger. For example, once Norgorber ascended, his mere existence made it easier for various criminals to thrive, and Nethys's ascenscion, filling the void after Amaznen died and Lissala left, made it easier for mortals to master magic. It just happens, without a need of a clear divine intervention.
Conversely, if something were to happen for example to Shelyn, mortals wouldn't be able to create good art and love would lose their appeal, at least until someone else would take her place; in a terrrain is cursed in a way that limits Desna's influence, the travelers will be prone to get lost; and when Aroden died, the destined future failed to happen and humanity experienced a series of crises.
This gives me some ideas how to make the divine influence present in the game world without the deities being there in person.
Is that why so many calamities that ruined or destroyed so many centers of humanity across Golarion happened when Aroden died? Like, Cheliax's history was basically expunged due to Thrune's takeover, Imperial Lung Wa collapsed, Xopatl's cultural magic network basically crashed, and so on.
Is that why so many calamities that ruined or destroyed so many centers of humanity across Golarion...More or less, but the results wouldn't be as extreme. If Shelyn died or vanished or changed so that she was no longer the goddess of love and art, mortals would find it more difficult to create good art and falling in love wouldn't happen as often. It would STILL happen, just not as much, as there's always other gods out there who are love or art deities.What I've always assumed is that the deities pass their time doing the things they represent (...) And as a result, in the mortal world, the suns keep shining and smiths remain inspired and energized to craft weapons and city walls don't crumble immediately and liars continue to lie and be trusted. In effect, what the deities do is keep reality working the way folks are used to it working.So basically, because whatever the gods do in their realms, it affects the Material World even without the gods actually doing anything obvious. If a god appears on grows in power, their influence grows and specific aspects of the Material World become stronger. For example, once Norgorber ascended, his mere existence made it easier for various criminals to thrive, and Nethys's ascenscion, filling the void after Amaznen died and Lissala left, made it easier for mortals to master magic. It just happens, without a need of a clear divine intervention.
Conversely, if something were to happen for example to Shelyn, mortals wouldn't be able to create good art and love would lose their appeal, at least until someone else would take her place; in a terrrain is cursed in a way that limits Desna's influence, the travelers will be prone to get lost; and when Aroden died, the destined future failed to happen and humanity experienced a series of crises.
This gives me some ideas how to make the divine influence present in the game world without the deities being there in person.
I imagine partly, from this thread. I still suspect that the death of Aroden was more dramatic than other deaths of gods, as much as there could be a usual case for something so dramatic.
Accepting that the gods need to spend most of their effort on maintaining their existing influence, I believe that most of them aren't fully satisfied with status quo. Most, if not all of them, would probably like if the thing they are interested in would be more prevalent in the world. Of course, changing status quo and shifting the balance is very difficult, as there are many deities who would oppose it or shift it in a different direction, but it seems like it soemtimes happens. Like when Lamashtu killed Curchanus and took over most of his divinity, the beasts of the Material World became more feral and aggresive. And with the ascension and the alignment shift of Nocticula we can expect more eccentrics to appear, but rapists and assasins may find the night darkness to be less helpful than before.
So I imagine that beside the day-to-day maintenance of their domains the gods also have these grand plots that take millenia to complete, and require more personal action. The balance of power is in a flow, and as a result the laws of the Material Plane don't remain constant - sometimes civilizations thrive and sometimes they fall, sometimes magic is more powerful, sometimes light is stronger and sometimes the shadows.
Answering prayers mainly I would guess. If they have millions of followers, even considering they can't answer all of them that would take up most their time all by itself.
Answering prayers mainly I would guess. If they have millions of followers, even considering they can't answer all of them that would take up most their time all by itself.
I start to think that answering common prayers doesn't take the deity's attention at all. Rather, it involves just the infulence of the god in the world, withough engaging the deity directly. Basically, if a worshiper prays in a place where the god's influence reaches, this influnce may take a beneficial form, maybe exactly what the worshiper wanted, and maybe something else, more fitted the deity;s portfolio. Similarily, if a deity's taboo is broken in a place where their influence reaches, the influence may manifest in a negative way, for example as some kind of a curse.
All of this may as well happen below the threshold of the deity's consciousness. Only in really significant cases the deity actualy notices them and intervenes directly. Otherwise rituals like Commune wouldnn't be necessary.
This may actually explain why gods don't solve all the problems they could and why they need worshippers. They can't act directly at that many places at once, and they need their influence to be strong enough to do thing automatically for them when they are not actively paying attention.
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Answering prayers mainly I would guess. If they have millions of followers, even considering they can't answer all of them that would take up most their time all by itself.
Deities are much better at multitasking than mortals. The answering of prayers doesn't take any time at all—they can answer countless prayers at once, in the same way us mortals can grow hair or pump blood or sense things without having to stop what we're doing.
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Answering prayers mainly I would guess. If they have millions of followers, even considering they can't answer all of them that would take up most their time all by itself.Deities are much better at multitasking than mortals. The answering of prayers doesn't take any time at all—they can answer countless prayers at once, in the same way us mortals can grow hair or pump blood or sense things without having to stop what we're doing.
Or maybe like the old 1-2nd edition D&D books said, they leave the low-level miracles to underlings, mid level spells to higher ranks and the top-tier Miracles(Both spell name and parting rivers) get the personal touch. A comment in Deities and Demigods was 'If Gods answered just 1 in a 1000 prayers, they would be like a phone operator having to handle a massively busy call center all by themselves'
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Or maybe like the old 1-2nd edition D&D books said, they leave the low-level miracles to underlings, mid level spells to higher ranks and the top-tier Miracles(Both spell name and parting rivers) get the personal touch. A comment in Deities and Demigods was 'If Gods answered just 1 in a 1000 prayers, they would be like a phone operator having to handle a massively busy call center all by themselves'Answering prayers mainly I would guess. If they have millions of followers, even considering they can't answer all of them that would take up most their time all by itself.Deities are much better at multitasking than mortals. The answering of prayers doesn't take any time at all—they can answer countless prayers at once, in the same way us mortals can grow hair or pump blood or sense things without having to stop what we're doing.
I never bought into that analogy myself, simply because a deity is not a mortal phone operator. Part of what makes them gods is the fact that they can do godlike things like answer an infinite number of prayers simultaneously.
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I never bought into that analogy myself, simply because a deity is not a mortal phone operator. Part of what makes them gods is the fact that they can do godlike things like answer an infinite number of prayers simultaneously.
Otherwise it would probably be something like this.
That gets mw thinking; we know that even after the Age of Creation there were several cases when some gods took a significant and personal action (protecting Golarion from the Earthfall, killing Tar-Baphon and demon lord Aolar). I wonder whether these kind of things happen a lot and just most of them don't affect Golarion (so we don't get to hear about them) or are they really isolated cases?
I guess I meant more 'Make crops grow overnight' and less 'grant a cleric's spells'. Stories are full of examples of gods sneaking around to knock boots with mortals or run through barren land so plants grow. So a 'mysterious stranger' who shows up to fix some problem and vanish wouldn't be out of line.
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That gets mw thinking; we know that even after the Age of Creation there were several cases when some gods took a significant and personal action (protecting Golarion from the Earthfall, killing Tar-Baphon and demon lord Aolar). I wonder whether these kind of things happen a lot and just most of them don't affect Golarion (so we don't get to hear about them) or are they really isolated cases?
They are incredibly rare, and tend to have significant repercussions.
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I guess I meant more 'Make crops grow overnight' and less 'grant a cleric's spells'. Stories are full of examples of gods sneaking around to knock boots with mortals or run through barren land so plants grow. So a 'mysterious stranger' who shows up to fix some problem and vanish wouldn't be out of line.
That's more real world mythology and less Golarion.
This sort of thing works well in non-interactive fiction or myths. It doesn't work well in an RPG where the players are meant to be the ones whose choices matter.
In other words, the more the deities directly "play the game" like this, the less your PCs have agency to actually matter.