The Origin of Gods

[avisarr]

I asked this in the forum, but here it is in a proper poll form. The question is "What do you, as a player, prefer with regards to the nature and origin of deities in a fantasy world? Do you think it's reasonable/likely that the gods were once mortals who ascended to Godhood? Or do think the Gods should be all powerful beings who have always existed? Or perhaps a mix of the two. What about the idea of there being no true gods at all?

I'm curious what the gaming community thinks about Gods and Religion within the context of a fantasy world.

[blackfire83]

In MY world (hehe) there is an all powerful god who is ultimately reponsible for everything... however, there are what are referred to as this gods "children" who are in effect the real 'gods' of the land. They are essentially different ASPECTS of the god's being. However, I've narrowed it down to a handful of gods and goddesses as 'children' rather than having hundreds of gods like many polytheistic religions.

As for Demigods... I'm not fond of the idea of mortals 'rising up' to the heavens and becoming godlike. Mortals are mortals. Forever. Their 'souls' may come to rest with the gods when they die, but they are still not godlike. The only way I see demigods as being possible is if they were the offspring of the gods and a mortal.... but I don't go there either. Hehe.

Just my two cents.

-Dan

[Kristian]

My thoughts are the same as in the other thread. I like both option 2 and 4. Actually I propably like the There Are No Real Gods version the best, but the The Gods Are All-Powerfull give you the whole priest-spells aspect which I've just now started to experiment with. I never liked the idea back when I was playing ADnD.

I'm slowly crafting a new world. The last long-lasting rpg world I created (called Maelaros) that we played in had a lot of good things but also a lot of limitations. So now I'm working on something new. I planning on having an all-powerfull creator who creates worlds out of some sort of primordial, chaos-like matter. When he created this one he left a race of powerful, celestial beings to govern all aspect of it. When the humans and other intelligent races evolved they started worship these beings. Now since the gods have to govern all aspects of the world I've had to create quite a lot. I think I'm up to around 50. But it's fun to do. Drawing them, giving them names, thinking of related spell-like effects they can grant their priests and so on.