I Love the idea of Powerfull Creatures and People as "Deities". I run them more like factions, granting Blessings, Protection, etc to their Followers. Folklore and History has lots of great inspirations for such things
Great video! I tend to handle gods as misunderstandings of actual supernatural beings. I'm especially a fan of having ancient users of forgotten technologies be seen as higher powers.
If I'm making a world for gaming, my preferred framework is a combination of animism and deified concepts. The animist deities will be found in the world, perhaps even taking on mortal forms/avatars and wandering about, taking a literal hand in actions. The deified concepts don't usually do this, but it can be fun to have them interact with people through dreams.
I'm taking a more pantheistic approach here. The gods are those who have achieved divinity. But they do not grant powers to their clerics directly, rather they teach their clerics how to achieve divinity themselves. As such, the gods are viewed as philosophers, with reverence to their teaching being more important than direct worship. And because one can achieve divinity through their own actions, many such gods were believed to be once mortal.
The idea I've personally been toying around with is that godhood is a result of a soul's development: a mortal is defined by Heart, Mind, and Instinct, and each individually could pass on to the afterlife or reincarnate, and a fourth element of "spirit" is an imprint of those three from a specific incarnation... A line of mortals could all descend from the same instincts, but produce multiple hearts and minds, but a spirit only resonates with one of each. But a god is defined by those plus another three: Ideals, Cosmos, and Mythos... Ideals is self explanatory, a god gains strength from not only holding a strong ideal themselves, but in seeing that ideal fulfilled in reality and held by the masses. An unknown god who's ideals is also held and enforced by other gods whether stronger or weaker than them is going to remain healthy. Cosmos is like the various symbols and aspects of reality one resonates with, sometimes this may be animals in which case they manifest through those animals and the health of those animals as a whole effects the god, in other case it may be certain tools, in which case a skilled craftsman who takes care of those tools is likely to feel the presence of that god nearby. Mythos is on a base level something like a grand narrative they resonate with but is more often manifested in the enactment of that narrative; a god who's Mythos is that of "the dragon slayer" is going to be felt whenever a person goes out to slay a dragon, and especially in the act of slaying the dragon itself which would give a lot of strength to that god. However, as much as making the story real once more helps, its not the only way; ritual is itself a potent way of strengthening this aspect.
The Old Riverman is a minor deity that's worshipped along the Loran river. He protects those that travel on the river, will save drowning people, and will bless or hinder fisherfolk. Storks and herons are his holy creatures and messengers, and it's ill luck to harm them. The Old Riverman is sometimes seen in the river, swimming, or on the river on his raft made of broken paddles or walking along the river. He will, when encountering fishers, ask for a single fish from their catch, which when offered, he will eat it whole. You will be blessed with a good catch that day. When refused, your nets will be empty and the fish won't bite until you encounter him again. If you try to chase him off, he will disappear, only to later either kick you into the river or sink your boat. When cleaning fish, people leave the chum/fish heads on the riverbanks, for the birds of Old Riverman. Fishers will also usually have a heron or stork feather on their person, as a charm. For asking Old Riverman in help to tow your boat or cross the river, you have to pay him in wine. Old Riverman is usually depicted as hunched over, dressed in rags made of sails and fishing nets. He has the feet of a stork, a wrinkly sunburnt face, a hat woven from reeds, a grey speckled with green beard and yellow bird eyes. When the river annually floods, the people of the river usually are warned by the sudden arrival of hundreds of storks and herons.
For my D&D setting, I started with a creation myth that revolved around the astral sea giving birth to 4 elemental primes and those primes giving birth to hundreds or thousands of gods. The vast majority of gods were spawned in the age of war when the elemental primes were attacked by the invader gods from the Eberron setting. When gods clashed, new gods sprang forth from the spilled blood that hit the battlefield. The war was ended when the top invader god clashed with energy of the astral sea, and two goddesses were spawned. The divine mothers. The divine mothers killed off the invader gods and ended the war. Almost immediately, the gods began squabbling. Some stayed with the prime that spawned them. Others started snatching up bits of energy from the astral sea to craft the outer planes. The divine mothers saw this chaos and crafted the material plane. Then Bahamut, the son of Tiamat, went and started filling the material plane with dragons so that his kind could steal and rule the new center of the cosmos. The divine mothers sent their first daughter, The Slayer, to kill Bahamut. An act that shocked all the other gods into obedience because when Bahamut fell dead at the Slayer's feet, no new god was born from his spilled blood. With the mortal world secure, the gods that broke off to craft the heavens and hells soon learned that they could no longer draw divine power from the astral sea itself. They needed to beg their parents, the elemental primes, for sustenance or earn the worship of the mortals now spreading across the material plane. A task made impossible for the gods who thought like Tiamat and Bahamut who could not and would not obey the rules laid down by the six daughters of the Divine Mothers. This schism between gods that can play nice with the Daughters and those that can't play ball to save their own hides creates infinite campaign hooks because the forbidden gods are always trying to establish footholds in the mortal world with their cults and fanatics. For game purposes, this setup lets me establish five distinct factions of gods. The children of the four elemental primes make up four loose groupings of any number of different pantheons, and the Divine Mothers and the Daughters making up the fifth group. And each group of gods has access to a different set of summon monsters from the Final Fantasy games, which are what happens when a cleric uses Divine Intervention. For reference, the six Daughters are each the goddess of the six primary ability scores in D&D. The Slayer - str The Trickster- dex The Hero - con The Healer - wis The Scholar- int The Storyteller- cha
Applying Gods to certain values in a Gameplay Mechanic sense is actually quite an interesting idea, even though it makes a lot of sense on a representational level at least. I like it.
@Worldbuilding Sage the Daughters are the goddesses of humanity, culture, the different types of adventurers, and any who push forward societal progress. The Slayer and the Hero slay the enemies of mortal life and defend those who need defending. The Trickster and the Storyteller spread entertaining lies while keeping track of all the threats skulking around the mortal world. The Healer manages knowledge in the fields that keep mortals alive, while the Scholar oversees all other scientific advances made by mortals. And all of them keep the thousands of outer planar gods in line when any one god threatens to instigate a crusade or some such nonsense.
I want to thank you for articulating that traditionally most gods exist outside of human auspices. D&D saturation has really done a disservice by making too many creative types (particularly Americans) believe this human centric world view. It's as if Gods can somehow create the universe and yet then need the worship of the lesser beings that were also created by the gods.
The Bible style true omnipotent God who is a caring and eternally righteous creator who careful and prepared to do what he must at certain established circumstances while protecting and blessing his elected is my favorite style. I am inspired to make a people and nation in a world setting based on that creation that are dealing with cultural strife and being conquered in multiple ways by many other nations and empires who have their own traditions of lesser and false gods who are really demonic spirits or other mysterious and ambitious entities who try to subvert and lead them astray and bring their nation to ruin. Like breaking them down in economic debt, external financial reliance, and changing their currencies, outside institutions taking over their administration and old ways of life, those trying to merge their traditions and doctrines in their Creator God's word and corrupting their knowledge against them. Puppeteering, vassalization, transferring of powers and authority, and other methods of multi layer deceit and manipulations. Even rewriting their history and laws through making them ignorant and subtlely defiling it through systematic institutes and other organizations. Many types conflicts would insue and eventually lead to a spritual reawakening of their ancient faith and relationship with their Creator God and a era of war for independence and defending themselves against the most powerful and advanced of these Empires who have super powerful godking who to they revere and his dynasty as a divine God in physical form that is in their theology and culture the physical avatar of absolute Order and power. Alot of stuff are on my mind which I am reflecting on.
@@worldbuildingsage Indeed yep very similar to the Biblical chronology narrative but there will be atleast a few other smaller nations who are their long distant family allies like Ophir was to Yahshar'el (Ancient Israel's name) sharing the same and keeping their faith and relationship with the One True God alive. There is alot I am thinking on. Something very similar to both Numenoreans and Ancient Hebrews. Longer lasting lifespans included and a abundance of rich resources and geological landmarks and self governing kingdoms like the Ancient Hebrew Tribes operated under.
@@ENOCH_INSPIREDJ That's actually really interesting. I've barely ever seen worlds where they take the stories of the Israelites rather than the Christians as inspiration.
@@worldbuildingsage Thank you. Glad you appreciate it. Much of modern day Christianity not all but much don't really read or test all of scripture as they really should be doing. Nor do they do it st heart. After watching a youtube channel of Bible researchers who go indepth about the traditions and knowledge the Ancient Hebrews knew like Sabbaths, Tabbernacles, Jubilees, Shavuot, their calendar of recording the days and years, the Angel of the Presence, Melchizedek, and all the other types of knowledge they would have knew in their times and viewed through the teachings of their God Yahuah and his Son Yahusha who they knew even early on would come to fulfill prophecy. It's all stuff that really stuck to me. Even their insidious concealed enemies like the Synagogue of satan, Mystery Babylon, the Three Headed Eagle beast in 2nd Esdras, and the Principalities of Darkness are very fascinating once you stsrt understanding all these concepts and start putting them into a fantasy world equivalent history. Even the Leviathan can play a good role in a story like this. And after learning about the wars and conflicts they had been facing constantly from neighbors who declared themselves enemies of Yahuah and Yahusha, the amount of corruption and internal temptations and strife they had to go through constantly with organized powerful and influencial deceptive groups like the Pharisees or Hasmonean being a long line of many who had come before. It started really sticking to me for what multiple antagonists and enemies characters would have to face or be living in the conditions of their reign. Plus add to that the wars they had with the supernatural inhuman entities like the abominable giants who are one of the nephilim who during the pre flood era when people lived 700-900 year life spans nephilim were complete demonic monsters of pure evil it really started inspiring me what kind of nature of warfare there could be. Though in my world I imagine this people of mine I am focusing on being a very strong and powerful nation of people who has been slowly been weared down in similar manners like the Ancient Hebrews were. After suffering a series of large and very divided civil wars and alot more woes (which might be purposely designed and intended by a silent spritual adversary similar to Satan in the Bible and many other princepalities and kings and decievers on the Earth) their perpetual downfall from might and grace would leave them more open to falling apart and being left open from both the inside and outside over time which would eventually lead to their current desperate situation where they are nearly all but conquered in their own realm by many Empires, cults, agencies, departments, corporations, enforcers, occult institutions and who have infiltrated and defiled their original culture and have established their governments and systems of influence and power across their lands. There are just so many things to establish with this foundation setting to write from.
@@worldbuildingsage One of my favourite cosmology concepts in the Bible I found out about has got to be the Firmament. I am definitely going to be including that in the creation account and narrative.
I'm no anthropologist, but I have a personal theory on the real-world origins of gods. Imagine you are a caveman. You live in very precarious conditions, at the mercy of the elements and the wildlife. At any time, a hungry sabertooth tiger can find your cave and kill you and your entire family. You can fail to catch a mammoth and then your entire tribe starves to death. It can get cold, you can catch diseases... In short, nature can kill you and those you love in a myriad ways, and there's very little you can do about it. And you can't argue with nature. You can't ask the wind to not blow so hard, you can't just ward off predators, you can't beg for someone to stop it all. But what if you _could?_ So you start imagining gods. Beings that look like you, and have control over nature. Beings that can stop the wind, ward off tigers and make it so your tribe's harvests of wild berries are good. Of course, your life has taught you that nothing ever comes for free; for everything you gain, you have to give something else in return. Life is all about bargains. So it's only natural that those gods, who are like you, would demand something in exchange for their services. What could they possibly want from you? Well, things you can give: your time, your devotion, some offerings, such as some of the animals you hunt, like a commission. Of course, whether the gods actually help or not is irrelevant. The belief that they do is enough to keep you going, to give you that extra confidence you need to do better. You forget the things you can't do, because you things the gods will help you do them. And so you achieve those things.
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I Love the idea of Powerfull Creatures and People as "Deities". I run them more like factions, granting Blessings, Protection, etc to their Followers. Folklore and History has lots of great inspirations for such things
Yeah. That's the way most beings that are worshipped as gods in my setting work too.
Great video! I tend to handle gods as misunderstandings of actual supernatural beings. I'm especially a fan of having ancient users of forgotten technologies be seen as higher powers.
That's actually one of my guilty pleasures as well!
If I'm making a world for gaming, my preferred framework is a combination of animism and deified concepts. The animist deities will be found in the world, perhaps even taking on mortal forms/avatars and wandering about, taking a literal hand in actions. The deified concepts don't usually do this, but it can be fun to have them interact with people through dreams.
I really wish people would use animism as an inspiration for their religions and gods more in fantasy.
I'm taking a more pantheistic approach here.
The gods are those who have achieved divinity. But they do not grant powers to their clerics directly, rather they teach their clerics how to achieve divinity themselves.
As such, the gods are viewed as philosophers, with reverence to their teaching being more important than direct worship.
And because one can achieve divinity through their own actions, many such gods were believed to be once mortal.
The idea I've personally been toying around with is that godhood is a result of a soul's development: a mortal is defined by Heart, Mind, and Instinct, and each individually could pass on to the afterlife or reincarnate, and a fourth element of "spirit" is an imprint of those three from a specific incarnation... A line of mortals could all descend from the same instincts, but produce multiple hearts and minds, but a spirit only resonates with one of each. But a god is defined by those plus another three: Ideals, Cosmos, and Mythos...
Ideals is self explanatory, a god gains strength from not only holding a strong ideal themselves, but in seeing that ideal fulfilled in reality and held by the masses. An unknown god who's ideals is also held and enforced by other gods whether stronger or weaker than them is going to remain healthy.
Cosmos is like the various symbols and aspects of reality one resonates with, sometimes this may be animals in which case they manifest through those animals and the health of those animals as a whole effects the god, in other case it may be certain tools, in which case a skilled craftsman who takes care of those tools is likely to feel the presence of that god nearby.
Mythos is on a base level something like a grand narrative they resonate with but is more often manifested in the enactment of that narrative; a god who's Mythos is that of "the dragon slayer" is going to be felt whenever a person goes out to slay a dragon, and especially in the act of slaying the dragon itself which would give a lot of strength to that god. However, as much as making the story real once more helps, its not the only way; ritual is itself a potent way of strengthening this aspect.
I’m using this for my novel, very useful information thank you 😊
The Old Riverman is a minor deity that's worshipped along the Loran river. He protects those that travel on the river, will save drowning people, and will bless or hinder fisherfolk. Storks and herons are his holy creatures and messengers, and it's ill luck to harm them.
The Old Riverman is sometimes seen in the river, swimming, or on the river on his raft made of broken paddles or walking along the river. He will, when encountering fishers, ask for a single fish from their catch, which when offered, he will eat it whole. You will be blessed with a good catch that day.
When refused, your nets will be empty and the fish won't bite until you encounter him again. If you try to chase him off, he will disappear, only to later either kick you into the river or sink your boat.
When cleaning fish, people leave the chum/fish heads on the riverbanks, for the birds of Old Riverman. Fishers will also usually have a heron or stork feather on their person, as a charm.
For asking Old Riverman in help to tow your boat or cross the river, you have to pay him in wine.
Old Riverman is usually depicted as hunched over, dressed in rags made of sails and fishing nets. He has the feet of a stork, a wrinkly sunburnt face, a hat woven from reeds, a grey speckled with green beard and yellow bird eyes.
When the river annually floods, the people of the river usually are warned by the sudden arrival of hundreds of storks and herons.
For my D&D setting, I started with a creation myth that revolved around the astral sea giving birth to 4 elemental primes and those primes giving birth to hundreds or thousands of gods.
The vast majority of gods were spawned in the age of war when the elemental primes were attacked by the invader gods from the Eberron setting. When gods clashed, new gods sprang forth from the spilled blood that hit the battlefield.
The war was ended when the top invader god clashed with energy of the astral sea, and two goddesses were spawned. The divine mothers. The divine mothers killed off the invader gods and ended the war.
Almost immediately, the gods began squabbling. Some stayed with the prime that spawned them. Others started snatching up bits of energy from the astral sea to craft the outer planes. The divine mothers saw this chaos and crafted the material plane. Then Bahamut, the son of Tiamat, went and started filling the material plane with dragons so that his kind could steal and rule the new center of the cosmos.
The divine mothers sent their first daughter, The Slayer, to kill Bahamut. An act that shocked all the other gods into obedience because when Bahamut fell dead at the Slayer's feet, no new god was born from his spilled blood.
With the mortal world secure, the gods that broke off to craft the heavens and hells soon learned that they could no longer draw divine power from the astral sea itself. They needed to beg their parents, the elemental primes, for sustenance or earn the worship of the mortals now spreading across the material plane. A task made impossible for the gods who thought like Tiamat and Bahamut who could not and would not obey the rules laid down by the six daughters of the Divine Mothers.
This schism between gods that can play nice with the Daughters and those that can't play ball to save their own hides creates infinite campaign hooks because the forbidden gods are always trying to establish footholds in the mortal world with their cults and fanatics.
For game purposes, this setup lets me establish five distinct factions of gods. The children of the four elemental primes make up four loose groupings of any number of different pantheons, and the Divine Mothers and the Daughters making up the fifth group.
And each group of gods has access to a different set of summon monsters from the Final Fantasy games, which are what happens when a cleric uses Divine Intervention.
For reference, the six Daughters are each the goddess of the six primary ability scores in D&D.
The Slayer - str
The Trickster- dex
The Hero - con
The Healer - wis
The Scholar- int
The Storyteller- cha
Applying Gods to certain values in a Gameplay Mechanic sense is actually quite an interesting idea, even though it makes a lot of sense on a representational level at least. I like it.
@Worldbuilding Sage the Daughters are the goddesses of humanity, culture, the different types of adventurers, and any who push forward societal progress.
The Slayer and the Hero slay the enemies of mortal life and defend those who need defending.
The Trickster and the Storyteller spread entertaining lies while keeping track of all the threats skulking around the mortal world.
The Healer manages knowledge in the fields that keep mortals alive, while the Scholar oversees all other scientific advances made by mortals.
And all of them keep the thousands of outer planar gods in line when any one god threatens to instigate a crusade or some such nonsense.
I want to thank you for articulating that traditionally most gods exist outside of human auspices. D&D saturation has really done a disservice by making too many creative types (particularly Americans) believe this human centric world view. It's as if Gods can somehow create the universe and yet then need the worship of the lesser beings that were also created by the gods.
I mean, DnD which religious understanding is basically Christian with the added twist of needing worship.
The Bible style true omnipotent God who is a caring and eternally righteous creator who careful and prepared to do what he must at certain established circumstances while protecting and blessing his elected is my favorite style.
I am inspired to make a people and nation in a world setting based on that creation that are dealing with cultural strife and being conquered in multiple ways by many other nations and empires who have their own traditions of lesser and false gods who are really demonic spirits or other mysterious and ambitious entities who try to subvert and lead them astray and bring their nation to ruin. Like breaking them down in economic debt, external financial reliance, and changing their currencies, outside institutions taking over their administration and old ways of life, those trying to merge their traditions and doctrines in their Creator God's word and corrupting their knowledge against them. Puppeteering, vassalization, transferring of powers and authority, and other methods of multi layer deceit and manipulations. Even rewriting their history and laws through making them ignorant and subtlely defiling it through systematic institutes and other organizations.
Many types conflicts would insue and eventually lead to a spritual reawakening of their ancient faith and relationship with their Creator God and a era of war for independence and defending themselves against the most powerful and advanced of these Empires who have super powerful godking who to they revere and his dynasty as a divine God in physical form that is in their theology and culture the physical avatar of absolute Order and power.
Alot of stuff are on my mind which I am reflecting on.
So, those people are basically the only ones who remained with the faith to said god, even throught strife and hardship?
@@worldbuildingsage
Indeed yep very similar to the Biblical chronology narrative but there will be atleast a few other smaller nations who are their long distant family allies like Ophir was to Yahshar'el (Ancient Israel's name) sharing the same and keeping their faith and relationship with the One True God alive. There is alot I am thinking on. Something very similar to both Numenoreans and Ancient Hebrews.
Longer lasting lifespans included and a abundance of rich resources and geological landmarks and self governing kingdoms like the Ancient Hebrew Tribes operated under.
@@ENOCH_INSPIREDJ That's actually really interesting. I've barely ever seen worlds where they take the stories of the Israelites rather than the Christians as inspiration.
@@worldbuildingsage
Thank you. Glad you appreciate it.
Much of modern day Christianity not all but much don't really read or test all of scripture as they really should be doing. Nor do they do it st heart.
After watching a youtube channel of Bible researchers who go indepth about the traditions and knowledge the Ancient Hebrews knew like Sabbaths, Tabbernacles, Jubilees, Shavuot, their calendar of recording the days and years, the Angel of the Presence, Melchizedek, and all the other types of knowledge they would have knew in their times and viewed through the teachings of their God Yahuah and his Son Yahusha who they knew even early on would come to fulfill prophecy. It's all stuff that really stuck to me. Even their insidious concealed enemies like the Synagogue of satan, Mystery Babylon, the Three Headed Eagle beast in 2nd Esdras, and the Principalities of Darkness are very fascinating once you stsrt understanding all these concepts and start putting them into a fantasy world equivalent history.
Even the Leviathan can play a good role in a story like this.
And after learning about the wars and conflicts they had been facing constantly from neighbors who declared themselves enemies of Yahuah and Yahusha, the amount of corruption and internal temptations and strife they had to go through constantly with organized powerful and influencial deceptive groups like the Pharisees or Hasmonean being a long line of many who had come before. It started really sticking to me for what multiple antagonists and enemies characters would have to face or be living in the conditions of their reign.
Plus add to that the wars they had with the supernatural inhuman entities like the abominable giants who are one of the nephilim who during the pre flood era when people lived 700-900 year life spans nephilim were complete demonic monsters of pure evil it really started inspiring me what kind of nature of warfare there could be.
Though in my world I imagine this people of mine I am focusing on being a very strong and powerful nation of people who has been slowly been weared down in similar manners like the Ancient Hebrews were. After suffering a series of large and very divided civil wars and alot more woes (which might be purposely designed and intended by a silent spritual adversary similar to Satan in the Bible and many other princepalities and kings and decievers on the Earth) their perpetual downfall from might and grace would leave them more open to falling apart and being left open from both the inside and outside over time which would eventually lead to their current desperate situation where they are nearly all but conquered in their own realm by many Empires, cults, agencies, departments, corporations, enforcers, occult institutions and who have infiltrated and defiled their original culture and have established their governments and systems of influence and power across their lands.
There are just so many things to establish with this foundation setting to write from.
@@worldbuildingsage
One of my favourite cosmology concepts in the Bible I found out about has got to be the Firmament. I am definitely going to be including that in the creation account and narrative.
I'm no anthropologist, but I have a personal theory on the real-world origins of gods.
Imagine you are a caveman. You live in very precarious conditions, at the mercy of the elements and the wildlife. At any time, a hungry sabertooth tiger can find your cave and kill you and your entire family. You can fail to catch a mammoth and then your entire tribe starves to death. It can get cold, you can catch diseases... In short, nature can kill you and those you love in a myriad ways, and there's very little you can do about it. And you can't argue with nature. You can't ask the wind to not blow so hard, you can't just ward off predators, you can't beg for someone to stop it all.
But what if you _could?_
So you start imagining gods. Beings that look like you, and have control over nature. Beings that can stop the wind, ward off tigers and make it so your tribe's harvests of wild berries are good. Of course, your life has taught you that nothing ever comes for free; for everything you gain, you have to give something else in return. Life is all about bargains. So it's only natural that those gods, who are like you, would demand something in exchange for their services. What could they possibly want from you? Well, things you can give: your time, your devotion, some offerings, such as some of the animals you hunt, like a commission.
Of course, whether the gods actually help or not is irrelevant. The belief that they do is enough to keep you going, to give you that extra confidence you need to do better. You forget the things you can't do, because you things the gods will help you do them. And so you achieve those things.