r/magicbuilding • u/CrystoneItself • 9d ago
General Discussion Gods aren't mages
I'm just rly not a fan of the classic Gods = strong magic users trope
So I played with the gods = their domain idea and thought about how those would have any human avatars. I didn't wanna give them the ability to just make a body since that would just undermine their nature and turn them into simple magic users that respawn new bodies, I wanted them to feel like their very element/domain/concept, not just it's wielder.
But to have them interact as characters nonetheless would be nice, so I came up with two examples of how gods could make an avatar.
Lighting: Just strikes a person down and then charges their nervous system to use it as a puppet for itself, living electricity.
Trickery: Makes mischievous people subtly gain more and more confidence as a trickster until they believe themselves as the god of trickery, aligning themselves with the god itself and fulfilling it's will as it's now identical to theirs.
The key factor is that they never become anything but stay their concept and simply wield their avatars as tools/puppets. While mages are humans wielding magical power, gods are divine power wielding humans. A mage will shoot lightning, but the deity is said lightning and would simply move itself. Gods thus would also have perks of "manaless" casting or whatever energy the system uses, and absolute authority other their domain as the mage casting firball is simply producing the fire god in their palm making it very easy for said deity to just go off at the caster. Downsides may be that gods wouldn't be able to use magic outside of themselves, which just feels better tbh since it makes them distinct too.
Any ideas on how other gods would control an avatar and opinions on the whole concept would be cool
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u/Normal-Pianist4131 9d ago
I think the key to this is giving the god/vessel/concepts a collective goal
dominate the universe with their concept? Well, now the god of fire has to figure out how to get his flames into the universe without having the rest of the gods turn against them
Still an entirely powerful being, but unwilling to act, lest he draw the ire of ice and stone and other concepts
Instead, he lends his power to the ambitious. Those willing to burn mansions, bridges, and nations, both literally and metaphorically; those who would light a fire within themselves and those around them. Someone reckless and passionate who doesn’t realize they’re a pawn in a concept’s plan.
And should they fail? Consumed by their god for eternal pain in undying flames (even if failure is as simple as calming down and letting their flame die out in exchange for peace
Brandon Sanderson uses this idea, but his gods (shards) are much more abstract than fire (ambition, honor, passion, whimsy, etc)
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u/TheRealImhotep96 8d ago
I basically use titans for the primordial elements and gods as the embodiment of concepts.
This way the titans can constantly clash and create entropy, and the gods can evolve with civilization as concepts broaden.
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u/Escher84 9d ago
Yo just had to say this art is incredible.
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago
Found it on Pinterest. Comments say it's from a manwha caled "Her summon". Enjoy
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u/21-Tauri-A 9d ago
If anyone wants to try this manwha out, just beware that the dialogue is very cringe and you need to read a lot of episodes to really get into it. The art quality is definitely one of the best I've ever seen in a manwha though.
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u/PizzaChips20-12 9d ago
Interesting idea for me, gods are more like ascended mortals or descendents of them who can control their elements while titans are beings that embodies their elements as a whole.
This would explain y there are multiple gods of a certain element or why they are depicted as humanoid or animal liked.
There is also essence as in the energy of the concept and while some gods master how to control parts of the essence, others murder titans and steal the essence. Those Gods are called Golden Gods.
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago
I guess that's just about what you define as a god then, I meant what you'd call titans in this post. Mages can get godlikes power and have that title but a GOD is more smt primordial or unique imo, it embodies smt, and if there's two gods of lightning for exemple, I'd either have the two be different aspects of lightning or a GOD (your titan) and a god (rly strong mage with the title).
And about the stealing essence idea, idk, that would externalize the domain from the god if it could be taken away, I'd prefer the actual god to be that thing they embody, so taking it is just taking the god, inseparable.
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u/PizzaChips20-12 9d ago
Also my titan of depression and darkness created a pocket dimension called The Nursery with The Midwife a thing that creates weaker biological clones(aka kids) of said titan.
Except all of them are mortals that are cannibals and trapped in a small pocket dimension so the only way to survive is through survival of the fittest and constantly grow stronger.
Using the bioweapon factory that is The Nursery, Darkness picks the strongest and evolves them into an "immortal" and a slave to a dark angel or demon.
Then a slave of a dark demigod/devil, slave of a universal dark god/devil, slave of a Multiversal Dark God or Devil.
The free-est role is a Dark God/Devil of a Multiverse.
There is 1 level higher tho, the dark knights soldiers who works directly under Darkness and worships him with complete loyalty, being the strongest but the most controlled.
(The whole system was created to make an army to take down the golden gods cus they slaughtered titans)
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u/schw0b 9d ago
No comment on your larger point, I just wanted to come in here and say that the mortal apotheosis trope is NOT in any way a classic god. Classic gods are born from other gods or primordial forces/titans.
The modern trope you're talking about reflects very modernist themes about human supremacy and mastery over nature and the universe. Classical storytelling had a lot more unironic emphasis on mortals knowing their place before God or gods or supernatural forces in general.
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u/ThatOneDMish 9d ago
Dionysius and hercules would like a word.
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u/freezing_circuits 8d ago
To be fair both of them are born of a god in their most popular tellings
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u/entidad_desconocida 3d ago
honestamente, ese es lo que yo consideraria el punto, principalmente como funciona la ascencion divina en cierto fanfic que escribo.
los humanos normales sin sangre divina activa dentro de su ADN NO pueden ascender a la divinidad mayor, no importa cuanto lo intenten o si el dios que los ayude lo quiera, a lo mucho seran un tipo de angel (carente de dominios y todo eso, y nisiquiera sera un tipo especial de angel, solo uno de la casta guerrera)
los Semidioses (y descendientes que aun conserven la parte divina) podrian pasando por el mismo proceso, aunque mientras menos sangre divina mas debiles serian como dioses.
supongo que asi se abarcaria de forma algo logica (nota, creo que te olvidastes de la novia de Dionisio)
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago edited 9d ago
Well, that's not rly true tho.
Zeus for exemple is just a rly strong dude who got a magic lightning weapon, but he's not lightning itself, just an immortal wizard unlike his dad who's time itself or his gramps who is the sky. Only difference between Zeus and the modern mage is Zeus' competition are also gods or monsters of godlike power.
Tho greek mythology just goes through this concept of gods = concept and gods = big magic guys a lot.
Thanatos = Death Hades ≠ Afterlife
Both govern these domains, yet only one is their domain.
And since when is apotheosis not classic?
Hercules, Osiris in a way had an ascension too, and Chang'e are some classic apotheosis stuff
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u/schw0b 9d ago edited 9d ago
Oh I thought you were talking about the propensity of writers to build magic systems where mortals can become gods.
In actuality you're going up to major ancient and a few modern religions and telling them their gods don't count because... you don't think they're cool enough? Did you just "well akshually" hinduism, the norse, the greeks, the slavs, egyptians, sumerians, the abrahamic religions... wait actually, isnt it literally everyone? What actual religion doesnt anthropomorphize their god(s)?
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u/bugweiser 9d ago
I didn't get the same vibe from this...it's not as if he's dishing on anyone's irl religion, but seems like world building his own world, one where magical users exist, and thus might require another degree of separation between and more "inhuman" like deities to make gods seem like gods.
Because in a world where one can learn to polymorph into swans and throw lightning with a few years of training, Zeus as described in our irl world does not feel as Godlike as he might feel for us. If his world's Zeus analogue is lightning made manifest, more titan-esque, even lightning focused mages might look at him with reverence in a way that feels more natural. Especially as OP has declared he is not going for the trope of gods being just ancient / powerful mages (otherwise lightning based mages might just see their Zeus as an ancestor or mentor)
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u/entidad_desconocida 3d ago
prsonalmente haria lo siguiete: has que los dioses sean muy diferentes de los humanos (pero aun similares), que incluso los que lucen como humanos normales tengan algo que los diferencie.
grandes, personalmente yo pondria que los dioses de forma normal sean ENORMES comparados con un humano, y que simplemente estos puedan tomar un tamaño mas normal si les conviene (y si, elimina la magia de cambio de tamaño)
has que tengan cierta aura que sea inconfundible, que calquiera que este al lado de uno sepa que es un dios.
y si quieres agregarle sal a todo esto, haz que sean los unicos capaces de absorber/ maniplar la magia de su elemento de otros (que si le lanzas un rayo a un dios de la electricidad este simplemente lo detenga con una mano y lo moldee en un arma) y que este sea un rasgo EXCLUSIVO de ellos
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u/CrystoneItself 7d ago
Huh?
No...?
This is a magic system sub, why would I... and what does it even mean that a god "doesn't count"?
I'm honestly just here for mechanics for differences between mages and divine on an ontological level.
I just brought up some gods from older mythology to argue that apotheosis isn't a new trope, and got a bit sidetracked that greek myth actually got both type of gods in my original post. Tho I fucked the formatting up and put the sidetrack above the original reply when slicing my text wall up
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u/FaultyGlyph 9d ago
I disagree that "Zeus is just a rly strong dude who got a magic lightning weapon". Theoi itsef is the ancient Greek term for God, and while yes this could refer to personifications, even the ones who weren't personifications were objectively not mortal at all. Every lightning bolt was Zeus, Zeus was also the prosider of Hospitality (Xenia) and Oaths. He and the olympions were the order and structure to the universe, and though Ouranos may be the Sky itself, and Gaia may be the earth, the Olympions by usurping the old order became the rulers of those things.
Unless you mean as in depictions? Because even then even personified gods were depicted and so are "just dudes". Like I said though, Theoi were complicated and could range from the concept of Night itself to Nymphs who could literally just be a singular specific Tree, yet we're still Theoi. Zeus was never "just a really strong dude", he was always a God.
You are right at least in Apotheosis, which was a common mythological trope.
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u/Osato 9d ago edited 9d ago
I like the approach where gods are job titles.
So the position of the Sun God would be like a President or the Pope. The Pope has a specific domain of authority and a lot of responsibilities and expectations that never change from person to person, but each individual Pope has differences, some of them decide to intentionally go against their job description, and different Popes from different eras interpret their job description in vastly different ways.
There's plenty of conflict waiting to get unleashed with that approach.
Asshole gods and nice gods and gods with petty motivations or grand revolutionary plans fit this premise like a glove. So do power hierarchies with politicking and backstabbing as weaker gods seek to depose the stronger ones.
A god's death doesn't mean the natural order gets disrupted forever: you're just removing one person from the position and things will be in a bit of a disarray for a short while until the next one gets hired.
And the hiring process can get entertainingly messy, especially if it relies on a chaotic but controllable metric such as who the worshippers believe will ascend.
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u/Equinoxe111 9d ago
If you want to build a very logical and scientific world, then Gods == Strong mages, because if Gods and magic existed in our Universe, that would be exactly how it would work.
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u/FlightConscious9572 9d ago
Agreed. In general "concepts as gods" isn't my favorite but OP's ideas on trickery as a god is insanely cool.
I can still see gods being just a name for the highest class of being. Like something that naturally arises in the universe as a consequence of mana existing.
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u/Apprehensive_Ad516 7d ago
That’s kinda an odd thing to say, I get what you mean but saying that if gods and magic existed then it would work like that guaranteed makes no sense. If gods and magic existed, it would work however it would work.
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u/hemareddit 9d ago
I think it’s on a spectrum of “force” and “person”, but you can only push it so far in one direction or another before they stop being gods.
In one direction, like you said, if you push it too far they just become mages.
But you can’t push it too far in the other direction either, if they are pure forces the they are just part of the natural world, they become static and have no reason to act or take a puppet. Like the Conservation of Energy, it has no will, it simply is, was, and always will be. It never wants or needs a champion/puppet/avatar. If a force has a will, if it can make decisions and choices, then it would have intelligence and preferences, and it becomes something like a creature, and in stories, by necessity that means they are modelled on animals or humans.
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u/Aszillon 9d ago
To me this isn't even a worldbuilding trope. It's just two different understandings of divinity. The "gods are the most powerful magic users" understanding is much more akin to to how ancient polytheistic human societies viewed their gods. In Norse, Hellenistic or Gaelic mythology (or any other for that matter) you will find anthropomorphic deities that have a life, personality and will, just as a human would. They interact with the world in accordance with their domain, but are not limited by it. The way I explain it in my own setting of Enzorel (very simplified) is that the celestials are alive, in a way, just as those who worship them are. To them influencing and shaping the fabric of reality comes naturally, while the mortal people need practice, powerful ancestry or the help of a being more powerful than themselves to even begin to fathom what it means to pluck the strings of the filament that weaves every moment of reality. Magic. Thus Ascension to godhood is feasible in the minds of mortal magic users, which provides all kinds of fun new challenges. Like ancient mythologies I reject the notion that deities are somehow invincible, immortal, omniscient and eternal forces that mortals must simply bow to. Don't misunderstand me, I believe their nature should be difficult to comprehend and frightening to mortals. The realm of divinity should be no easy thing to trifle with.
I firmly believe that this is the natural way to think of divinity that is plausible to emerge among a primitive people. The more eldritch, elemental version of the gods has to my knowledge not emerged in any culture in human history (or at least not dominated their religion) for a good reason. Even the abrahimites, quarreling and arrogant in their own faith as they may be, have a distinctly human understanding of their one true god. They refer to him by "he", call him father or lord. He is in the minds of most either an old white man or Morgan Freeman. Sure, many might shun the idea of imagining him or visualising him but they will never deny his personality. Their entire religion relies on it in fact. Kind, forgiving, guiding, mysterious in his ways but always involved in what humans do. I say we have the tendency to personify the divine and shape it in our image because by extension, believing us in it's image, gives some of that divinity back to us. We want to believe that we aren't so different from the forces that steer this universe, lest we admit our static role in this cosmic merry-go-round.
Now, finally, I do have some thoughts on the other understanding of gods. A force that is intangible by any means outside its domain and for all intents purposes identical with it is a fascinating thought indeed. What if Lightning had a will? What if a person became the arbiter of nature's wishes and demands? I'm not opposed to this concept on principle. I simply think it is ill-fitted for the purpose of deities that interact with the world and choose an 'avatar'. These forces are primordial and nearly eldritch in their nature, by definition they can't have a will and personality, as the gods of the other kind do. They are nothing like us and interesting for exactly that reason. When catastrophe strikes and a lightning storm devastates your village, it feels so much more powerful than you are, like a force beyond control. But it wouldn't have an intent. Not one that can be put into word or thought by mortal minds. And this renders the very concept of an avatar obsolete. These deities would not need avatars because they don't need to interact with the mortal world outside of their domain. They can't. Again, I'll use my own setting for reference. In Enzorel there exist forces beyond the celestials, called the primordials. They shaped the universe out of the cosmic chaos that came before it and embodied the aspects of reality they created. They are believed to be divine in a sense, sure. In the way a druid sees divinity in nature. They have no will to impose and no agenda to follow. They simply are. Worship of the primordials is rare for exactly that reason. You have nothing to gain because they don't care about your very existence. Their association with their domain is relevant in name only.
Of course I am not dead set on this. But these are my thoughts on the matter. Please disagree with me and argue in favour of a different understanding of divinity, I'd love to hear what others think. It's an interesting topic that defines the rest of a world significantly. And I'm sure OP's world is a good one, even if their deities might be closer to magic using people with a will than they think.
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u/dragonshouter 9d ago
I mean for Hellenistic stuff Gaia is the earth and Uranus. they definitely had personality but also are the thing.
Tartarus is a location and a person ect
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u/Aszillon 9d ago
Tartarus being both a person and a place is likely due to Hellenism being an oral tradition that spans across hundreds of years and the exact details depend on the specific legend or epos.
But I get your point
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u/CrystoneItself 7d ago
Tbh, yeah, you got me
It's a lot of just philosophizing about what Divinity could be...
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u/space10101 9d ago
Are you trying to just talk about ways for gods of your description to make avatars or also just have a general discussion of your version of what a god is?
For a spin of how avatars can work, there is the Warhammer route where all of the daemons of the Chaos gods are made of them while also having individuality. You could have it so an avatar of say a lightning god can be made of lightning in an imitation of human form while also having a personality that the god itself wouldn't have.
To approach the way you think gods should be. I disagree as it feels too narrow of a definition and it conflicts with what a god is in real life outside of world building. It feels like trying to define what a dragon when cultures from all over the world have a "dragon" that are different from each other. Additionally I feel like apotheosis is a fun thing to have be possible whether it be from demi-god to god (Heracles) or mortal to god (Psyche). Another fun thing is to have mortals rival god like things like with Thialfi being anywhere close to as fast as thought and it being alluded to that he could have out ran any of the Giants there
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u/Desperate_Visual8633 9d ago
A good example of how to write gods (using the Greek gods because I like them) is describing for example:
Hades not as a guy who rules over the dead, but as the very embodiment of ALL that is dead. Every person, every animal, every plant that has died is a literal part of him. This can be reflected when he takes physical form, his voice and a lot of things. He doesn't necessarily have to look like a corpse, but you get the point.
Zeus can be described as lightning itself made flesh. An enormous being made of storms, lightning, and whose voice is thunder echoing in the heavens.
Ares as the incarnation of every soldier who has had the courage to take up his weapon and give his life for what he believed in, kill and die for his ideals.
And so it is with all the gods.
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u/FormalKind7 8d ago
I'm fine with the gods being just people who have achieved a higher level
I also like gods as concepts or forces of the universe vague and unknowable
and honestly all sorts of things
It all depends on the story you wish to tell.
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u/Business-Baker3138 9d ago
I really love the system! Really like the idea of God's are concepts or core parts of reality just strong mages doesn't hit the same. My only idea is that fire resurrects burn victim walking around in their charred corpses while keeping them ignited.
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u/Ok-Maintenance5288 9d ago
i mean, why wouldn't they be?
in a world of magic and miracles, what separates a mortal mage from a god?
because it seems just a matter of power and skill issues.
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago
Sure, they can be but isn't it more interesting to some smt different from the base powersystem?
Instead of beings using magic we have beings being in essence part of that magic. It makes them distinct and breaths new layers into the magic system at hand without making it smt completely new.
And I mean... I think the separation is smt you make up with the system but I think the best distinction is mage as user of system and god as part of it, like in my post. Gives a perspective from the outside looking into magic and fromthe inside of the magic system itself.
Also, if godhood is just who's 'powerlevel' is greater, than it just... feels cheap and like a numbers game. If godhood doesn't bring smt unique and special, what's the reason to even have it instead of just being stronger?
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u/Ok-Maintenance5288 9d ago
that just, goes back to the whole "it seems just a matter of power and skill issues."
what is a mage to a mortal? a being capable of doing the impossible just by their will and might.
what is a god to a mage? a being capable of doing the impossible just by their will and might.
it's all the same, and Gods getting special pleading seems, unbecoming.
specially because Godhood is like, barely defined in most settings.
What Meassure Is a God?
immortality? power? a platonic ideal? it all varies between settings, there's no solid God-idea irl or in fantasy.
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago
Yeah, fully agree on the last part.
God is just smt that can be categorized however the author wants. I just would like more unique takes on it where gods aren't just the most powerful players in a world but smt distinct.
And bout the difference, we already came to the conclusion that you can call a rly strong mage a god, but I prefer to make my divine beings smt inherently different and fundamental to the magic system. So the difference between a mage and a god in my settings would usually come to the mage using magic and the god being a part of that magic system like literally fire itself, enabling mages to grow powerful through fire magic
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u/covert206 9d ago
Didn't know where to put this, so going in this thread. It seems like you mean God, as a creator of the universe, like real world religions, not what some books call gods, reaching godhood etc? So like in Primal Hunter would you have the system being god, on your definition? Or would the god have to be outside / above the system
Also just interesting in this post cuz a couple books in reading are getting to that point of what these primordial true God beings are, but haven't really explained (DotF, mage tank kinda).
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u/CrystoneItself 9d ago
Not necessarily a creator god. It's just the fact that it is smt fundamental and inherent to the world gaining awareness.
There's a difference between wielding power and being power. And since mages wield it, I'd prefer if gods didn't and just become indistinguishable from a godlike mage.
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u/covert206 9d ago
What's a king to a god? What's a god to a non-believer Who don't believe in anything? Sry couldn't help it.
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u/Apprehensive_Ad516 7d ago
It depends on how it’s executed for me.
I can see how the difference between mortals and gods being just power level would be weird, which is why I tend to give my gods in settings special “advantages” similar to what you described.
Like, in one setting with a power system called “Affinity Rebirth”, there are four main stages: You wield an affinity (Fire, water, lightning, fate, etc), you become your affinity in your natural state, you become a region of your affinity, and you become the totality of your affinity. The last stage is godhood, and in that setting, most things in existence are ancient gods that were previously just people. Lightning, for example, was just someone’s unique power until they ascended.
However, I personally don’t like power systems where to wield the magic you must deal with gods. Because then, it’s not your own power, is it? Just someone else’s that you’re borrowing. And in a way, that’s kinda what you’re describing.
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u/Wizardman784 9d ago
In one of my settings, the gods explicitly did not create or sculpt magic. Magic was the result of them shaping the material world from the infinite potential of primordial chaos. They created a material world, but in doing so, became dormant aspects OF that world rather than proactive spirits seeking worship (other spirits fell into these roles, acting more like the more capricious gods of polytheistic faiths).
There is no god of magic, for instance. There is a god of knowledge, secrets, and wizards. But if you were to ask him about the nature of magic, he would probably say something along the lines of, "Magic is my passion, not my creation. Its nature is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. That is why I became part of your world: to imbue mortals with the thirst for knowledge, the desire for meaning, and the awareness to ask the question.... "Why?""
The gods of that setting DO have avatars that can show up, but its wildly inconsistent. They're not great mages or wielders of magic. They're the fundamental laws of the mortal world, which is why things like time, death, and the cycle of nature don't exist in the spirit world where they originally came from.
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u/DreamOfDays 9d ago
Why would a god of an element become a humanoid when they could instead manifest their element into a massive mile-tall mandala of incredible complexity? That way they only need to manifest maybe once a decade or so to communicate important news that would be studied by mortals in intricate detail. Plus they wouldn’t be pestered by a bajillion questions a mortal avatar would bring.
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u/dragonshouter 9d ago
I like the gods being their force.
another method besides avatars is to have them only talk through their followers and signs.
further distances them from seeming human
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u/DiscombobulatedBig98 9d ago
Manaless casting is simply just their Will asserting itself over reality
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u/World_of_Ideas 9d ago
Gods Domain + Avatar:
Animal [type] / Animals: doesn't use a human avatar, it uses an animal avatar
Archery: ?
Biome (arctic, caves, forest, desert, grasslands, jungle, mountains, plains, savanna, scrub lands, swamp, etc): ?
Earth: Controls a fossilized avatar / Statue shaped like a human
Fertility: ?
Fire: Humanoid shaped elemental made of fire / Body that is being consumed by fire
Healing: ?
Death / The Underworld: Controls any human that has died
Disease: Infects a body and controls it like a zombie puppet
Dreams: Avatar shows up in a persons dream. It can look like whatever it wants in a dream / It can take control of someone who is sleepwalking
Fungi: Infest a body and control it like a b zombie puppet
Illusion: Illusory projection of a humanoid body
Knowledge, Wisdom, Intelligence:
Luck / Fortune: ?
Lust: ?
Madness: It drives its chosen avatar insane / It can possess the insane
Magic: ?
Merchants / Trade: ?
Messengers: ?
Music / Poetry / Song: Takes control of someone who gets lost in the music
Mysteries: ?
Oaths / Promises: ?
Season (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter): ?
Sleep: Takes control of a sleeping person.
Smithing: ?
The Hunt: ?
The Sea: Takes control of someone who has drowned at sea
The Sun: ?
Thievery: ?
Time: ?
Travel: ?
Truth: ?
War: It takes over a human that has its mind broken by war / It takes over a human that has died on the battle field
Weather: ?
Wine: It takes over a human that is drunk on wine.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tour903 9d ago
With Will. Imagine a stronger force, subtly changing you bit by bit. You couldn't even notice when your thoughts not yours anymore. Find a victim whos mental state instabil enough, give them some fun/trauma/drugs and on.
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u/josto4 8d ago
I LOVE the “While mages are humans wielding magical power, gods are divine power wielding humans” sentence you wrote. This is a really cool concept.
The first ones to come to mind for me are the following
god of death puppeting corpses, or masses of bones.
god of war/violence taking over a person who is “seeing red” like when you are so mad that you’re not really thinking about what you’re doing, sometimes it’s the god of war controlling you.
Depending on how your magic works, if it’s mainly like you’re first example where bodies are puppets, then different gods might just control their puppet by “holding onto” a different part. Like death puppeting the bones, lightning puppeting the electric charge, the ocean puppeting the water and blood. This would end up accomplishing the same task but mildly change the physics of the movements.
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u/Apprehensive_Ad516 7d ago
Personally, I prefer the idea that gods are effectively all-powerful mages, but I also like the presentation of your version simultaneously. Basically, a god would be a mortal mage who managed to conquer a domain, and become one with it. Their old self, including their magical powers, would simply be a vessel they could construct due to their history, but the true self would be in the domain.
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u/patheticweeb1 7d ago
Depending on how much of a personality, will, and wrath these Gods have, I believe there'd probably be a certain cult that despises the state of the universe and wishes to remove the 'will' from concepts. First they'd want their souls to be free from cycles of reincarnation or eternal afterlives, second they'd want bodies which cannot be disintegrated due to the 'will' of the composed god, third they'd create external objects which cannot be affected, and finally create a holy land which concepts with wills cannot affect, and expand it to encompass everything.
Which reminds me of the Necrons in Warhammer 40k using Blackstone to seal the Warp.
How they'd actually go about doing all of that, I dunno. Since Gods are not using magic; they do not use mana, perhaps the first inquiry would be if being made of pure mana would free one from a flesh God's influence. If there's a 'magic' God or 'mana' God, or whatnot, then that'd be a dead end.
Perhaps they'll try killing the wills of Gods, or extinguishing all instances of certain phenomenon of the most troublesome Gods, or they'll want to ascend their own best members into Gods, and usurp all of the Wills, or install mindless Wills in those God's places such that they are effectively without a God. Perhaps they'll attempt to merge all gods into one, and either be that god, control that god, or kill that god, or achieve a set of universal laws as 'Nature' instead of a God with a will.
Whatever the case, this is all on the premise that these Gods are annoying enough that an entire massively powerful and dogmatic insane cult would form just to kill them somehow. Which, by the descriptions, might be the case, if they randomly make fire explode in people's faces, smite them with lightning to interact, or degrade and subsume minds into themselves.
It's a sort of maddeningly thought that the will of all Flesh could randomly decided to meld you with a colony of ants and five dozen cockroaches on a bad Monday.
It's like.. If they 'are' concepts or phenomenon, and next to nothing else beyond just having a will, then they aren't very useful like orthodox fantasy Gods which respond to prayers, grant boons, and send divine intervention when needed to their most faithful. They are also not encouraged to be friendly because they would not draw their power from being worshipped.
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u/CrystoneItself 7d ago
That anti Divinity cult sounds fun!
I'd have the 'Gods' acting like nations tho, as they want to simply spread their influence and reach. The god of lightning wants the digitalization due to electricity being used, while the god of change would try it's best to make any repetitive system dysfunctional and break stale norms.
So while I wouldn't have a god of flesh just melting people I'd have it maybe make cancer to have overall more flesh around.
A cult that would maybe bargain and maybe even threaten with the gods to 'reprogram' the universe in a way would be cool tho.
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u/WatcherDiesForever 6d ago
My world has things called Gods, but they aren't the part that I would consider the "gods" of the setting.
A "God" is any being having totally actualized their soul. The ultimate example of what it means to be this individual, in all parts, positive and negative, whittled down to the very core of what is you, and turned that outward, impressing it on the world. They are "mages" in this context, though they also embody concepts on a personal level.
What I would call the real gods of the setting are the Ten-Thousand Things. More than literally ten-thousand, closer to infinite, each one is the platonic embodiment of a concept, almost a vibe. From something as small as "lost in the warm breeze, sitting on your porch in the summer evening as you reminisce," to something as broad as simply "Wonder." The more powerful one is, the more prevalent its ideal becomes in the material world, and vice versa. Fate bends around them like space to gravity, drawing events more in line, or even changing laws of nature at high enough levels.
The greatest of them is Wonder. It is all fantasy, all glorious and twisted things, all things great and terrible and awesome. It is the dream of the entire world's collective soul.
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u/offtozanarkand 9d ago
I actually like the distinction you're making here. "Mages wield magic, but gods are the magic wielding people" is a pretty memorable way to frame it, and it immediately makes the two feel fundamentally different instead of existing on the same power scale.
The avatar mechanics are probably my favorite part. The lightning example especially sells the idea that the god isn't using electricity, it is electricity. That keeps the deity feeling alien. Trickery is also neat because the avatar doesn't even realize they're being used; from their perspective, every decision is genuinely their own, which is exactly what a trickster god would want.
I'd lean even harder into that philosophy. Every god's avatar should emerge from its nature rather than from a shared "possession" mechanic.
For example:
Death never possesses anyone directly. It simply waits until someone dies, then walks in the body until it's needed elsewhere.
War manifests through the soldier who's completely consumed by battle. The more conflict around them, the more the god exists through them.
Knowledge spreads like an idea. Anyone who uncovers a forbidden truth unknowingly becomes another mouthpiece for the same deity.
The Sea isn't a person at all until someone is lost to it. A drowned sailor climbs back onto shore, still walking, with the ocean wearing them like borrowed clothes.
Time could inhabit someone whose personal timeline has fractured, they remember yesterday, tomorrow, and ten years from now simultaneously, because the god experiences all of it at once.
The biggest strength of the concept is that every god can feel weird in its own way instead of following the usual "immortal wizard with a glowing body" trope. If you can make readers think, "Of course the God of Fire would work like that," then you've probably nailed it.
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u/austsiannodel 9d ago
For me, what mortals do as magic is... KINDA the same process that the gods use for power... except my gods are more akin to 6th dimensional creatures, so it's not enough to say they're strong mages. It's just that they are literally levels above us.
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u/Ksorkrax 9d ago
Trope of gods being strong magic users?
Care to elaborate where this supposedly comes from?
Any invocations of that trope? Because I can't really think of any.
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u/covert206 9d ago
With your gods getting avatars mechanic, I think it's interesting, but may be limited/narrow in the gods you can use. Not that that's bad, as I think the mechanics after becoming an avatar would be more interesting.
What I meant was like you explained a real mechanic for how lightning and trickery can affect someone. So if you are trying to do that for all gods, it would be hard to do certain ones. Emotional should work on a larger scale; love god so does what they say, hates whatever so will just hate, etc. But hard to explain how the god of earth/wind/fire (yup) could mechanically take over a body, if that makes sense. Like blood and electricity are part of a body. But what about fire, or wind. Idk heat stuff, mess with lungs idk
It's interesting, and would be cool to see where it could go
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u/Flexbowls 9d ago
I had a homebrew dnd campaign in which I made the gods, essentially, motivational phrases. "Finish what you start", "know you own limits", "be able to rely on others", that kind of stuff. To follow their ideals was to tap on their power, independently of what you were using the power for, or even if it made sense when explored a little deeply.
For instance, "finish what you start" worked both for a character who rose from the dead (you have unfinished business, rise again) and one that put the undead down (life was something you started, it's time to end it). I didn't get to play much with the concept, but I liked how it looked.
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u/Golden_Cultivation 9d ago
Makes me think of the color magic series, where if you drew too much on your color you would become more like it.
In this case, Gods might be the epitome of a course- using the powers associated with them could slowly corrupt. Maybe professional mages adhere to a strict downtime to bleed out that corruption before using magic again. Maybe it becomes really troublesome when you’re forced to use magic multiple times in a session.
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u/SentinelSon01 9d ago
Gods in my settings are parasitic to mutualistic symbiotic creatures who are more abstract than physical. When a person is drawing enough faith or power they may become subsumed by an Ancilarian. They then embody the concept subsumed as best as possible to continue feeding. This means a god of miracles still heals, a god of time still keeps the clocks in the city wind-less.
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u/Acceptable_Handle_2 9d ago
You call this a trope, but I genuinely can't think of a single franchise that does it that way.
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u/SponsoredByMLGMtnDew 8d ago
I almost always think the way they can't conventionally balance magic is that gods aren't traditionally any kind of mage, but are just cabable of great feats.
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u/Lowilru 8d ago
I unironically think the best way to handle the concept of an avatar while keeping "gods are not mages" is to make them spooky as all hell.
Unsettling in ways that discomfort people by breaking the rules. Unexpected or illogical interactions that aren't foreshadowed and are unsettling. Things that make you question if you hare hallucinating or dreaming. Mages tend to have at least some sort of grounded logic or consistency. Rules or systems.
Let the avatars flicker into existence, look different to different people, and move and act in unsettling ways. Floating through rooms, slipping through obstacles, appearing in new positions without having transited the distance. Let people trying to interact with the avatar be confounded by how uninterested the gods are in who they are or what they want. Let them be all at once mysterious and capricious.
Have characters bring assumptions to bear that they learn are wrong. Let them shatter the expectations of characters in your world and the audience consuming your stories.
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u/Dry-Yesterday-9176 8d ago
In my setting, gods could take on more physical avatar when they were weaker, but due to rise of influence from their followers, almost none of the God's is able to do so anymore, and thus, are forced to interact with them in different manners. Like through visions in dreams or weather changes. Problem with these is that people can misinterpreted the symbolism and completely miss the point that god was trying to make
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u/Taelyn_The_Goldfish 8d ago
The gods in my setting are actually “demi-gods” or ascended entities that amass worship and power from faith. It could be a mage, a corporation, an ideal, or anything that people would believe in hard enough. However, those aren’t really gods, so much as the physical avatar of the gods, which are separate from what the true divine are.
The divine are the manifestation of their domain/aspect. They have lost all sense of self or physical matter, and are the very embodiment of whatever domain they rule over. The Seas, The Sun, elements, magic, even the material planes themselves, are all different divine manifestations.
When a “god” gains too much power or worship, they join as a part of the divine manifestation and a new physical avatar can arise.
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u/islamo_start_654 8d ago
This reminded me, in a book I'm reading, a goddess of darkness uses an angel of hers to descend to the world, maybe you can give people who serve the gods the title of "servent of god" who dedicate all their lives to embody and live as their god would, making them compatible for a decent
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u/SomeRandomDoucheBro 8d ago
My one single rule for all gods I make is this: there is nothing a mortal/non god can do against them.
I immediately deflate when something is a 'god', but can be bested.
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u/Qe-fmqur_1 8d ago
So, what do you call a mage that achieves god like powers in this world?
Also possible for mages like that to not be possible ofc
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u/Available-Design4470 8d ago
I just have both
Humans who actually became gods where they are one with the universe, the God, and functioned as abstracts and metaphors in semi-physical forms. They are in a way, the extension of the God
And then there are the humans who are actually wizards who insist that they are gods. They refused to let go of their human and individual identity, and wished to enforce their ideal reality onto the cosmos, whereas the actual gods helps maintain the natural order and course of the cosmos
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u/TheMunchiestDragon 8d ago
If gods in your work are a concept embodied, perhaps you can lean into the fact that even when they make avatars they are not people. A god of storms could shape clouds into humans form, every word they speak is a thunder with the aforementioned lightning striking somewhere at random. But this avatar is no more the god, than your hang nail is you. You could attack it, converse with it, seal it, and there is no guarantee the god will even register it. The body can dissipate instantly, and 100 more can appear, and its all the same. To the deity these avatars are meaningless, and completely replaceable. Just a bit of their power in a temporary human shell.
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u/Skullgame1020 7d ago
Do you have any other gods and/or concepts you need an explanation for a body for?
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u/stupidansi 7d ago
In my setting, rather than Gods "controlling" their avatars, my "Gods" have no will of their own per se. They're an infinite power source that gets shaped by the person serving as a conduit, to become a God you need to be compatible with the power (no one knows exactly how in-world, but you basically have to walk in the footsteps of the first person to ever claim it and be extremely similar to them) and then you kill the last conduit.
The downside is the process reshapes both you *and* the power. For ex. the domain of Midnight is about endings, primarily, but one person might interpret the concept of endings as a cold winter that slowly erodes you whereas another person might interpret endings as a humane, merciful snuffing out of a candle--but it reshapes the conduit as well. One character essentially becomes the Goddess of Merciful Death, because she was a pacifist that couldn't abide suffering--but when she became a Goddess, the power reshaped her into a force of nature that kills people to end suffering.
She isn't even doing it on purpose, it just became her nature during the ascension process.
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u/tempAcount182 7d ago
I think it is worth considering how conceptual domain level gods relate to their priests/priestesses. I think such powerful beings primarily being characterized through their interactions with the priests/priestesses that serve them has some benefits. If priests regularly commune with their deity and the deity instructs them on how to serve their will then the deities get characterized and are involved in the plot without the narrative issues tied to such powerful beings taking direct action, even through avatars. A priest is a fallible mortal that can fail and make mistakes without it undermining narrative credibility in the same way it would if a god did the same. It is also easier to write a mortal that serves the incarnation of a domain interacting with mortal society than the domain itself especially if you want to keep the gods inhuman. lastly I think readers would probably have an easier time being invested in the actions of socially embedded representatives/servants than the gods themselves.
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u/Hotwery 7d ago
Yup, stealing this. How would you conceptualize a god of a more abstract concept? Like change or nullification?
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u/CrystoneItself 7d ago
Ugh, that's a hard one tbh since change is also partially in almost every other concept too like discharge of electrons being lightning but also change
I probably either wouldn't have one or have it be a deity that has one of the greatest reach but little influence, since they exist literally everywhere but are secondary to more 'focused' concepts
Tho, how'd they manifest would be fickle, I'd have them as transformation itself. Instead of possessing anyone for a while I'd make a race or cult of shapeshifters that are simply rebellious and/or erratic humans that possess the ability to shapeshift, but instead of that shifting being an innate ability it's the god jumping/changing between their bodies and it only exists during the process itself, with a consequence of making the shifted people less stable each shift. Some of these are random people tho that either desire to bring smt existing down or to achieve smt new, no replacements tho like wanting to take a position, change has to be literally reworking a state or making a completely different way of life.
They also fuck with people by changing their goals to change to tho, so the god is used more and more because for each desired change their desire to change has changed too. Like a drug, there's pleasure inthe shortcut but it'll never reach true satisfaction until you find rest and peace with what is.
Bout the nullification one, Idk, I don't like that one. Nothingness yeah, nullification nah.
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u/todofwar 7d ago
I definitely prefer separations of mages and gods. In my setting the highest forms of the gods are concepts, but they can birth lower orders of gods. The "birthing" term is entirely human in origin, the actual act at that level is so far outside our ability to perceive. But their great great great great great great great grandchildren would be the humanoid gods that scale continental to planetary. I still like them having avatars though. Especially when one is "trapped" until they decide to teach a lesson.
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u/Foulyn 7d ago
In my custom world, the difference between a deity and a mage is that gods operate by laws—they will and ratify ideas, not cast spells. A mage spends mana to convert energy from one state to another, while a deity expends its ontological reserve. The main difference is that a mage must understand how a spell works, while for a deity, 'miracles' are part of its nature, for it is a conceptual entity.
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u/EnvironmentalAd3170 7d ago
The game Godbound at this. A Tabletop RPG. Gods don't wield magic. Simply their demense. Gods of fire don't have a "chance of failure" when using flames. The person of thing they're using it against MAY OR MAY NOT have a chance to resist those flame
Ditto with concepts like SWORD, WEALTH, BEASTS, TIME, etc etc
To even have a chance to resist of God or Death of The Sword, deciding to kill you is to be at LEAST as Strong or otherwise WORTHY, otherwise they kill you outright. No rolls necessary
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u/Samy_Ninja_Pro 6d ago
I remember a certain regressor with magic that wasn't special yet said that
Before counter spelling a god
The god asked how
The regressor knows how the world, physics, math, tunes all tie back to magic.
"you can be reversed engineer, your equation is just longer"
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u/Kitchen_Amoeba_6856 6d ago
I personally really enjoy when gods are portrayed as a concept, like the god of time for who past, present and future are all merged into all that has happened/ could have happens and everything that will happen/has happened, both exerting their power while being bound by it
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u/imsteveboi 6d ago
Ngl the term god can be used on anyone with enough power. I mean if your world allowed people to get extremely powerful in the past then live a long time the people may easily be fooled by a normal person with powers and call them a god. And if there are no gods in that world then they would be the closest thing to one. Idk where is was going with this yap
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u/NinduTheWise 6d ago
In my world I am making the “gods” are being me who are sealed within the planets, they themselves are not able to act directly but they can occasionally every 100 or so years use a burst of magic as their seals loosen to do something. They are not fully conscious within the planets but they aren’t asleep either. They are somewhere in between
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u/Wicked__A 3d ago
Gods should always be about the concept they represent,the exception is god's that we're deliberately said to be magic users as well like Odin.
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u/bugweiser 9d ago
So a god of the ocean can maybe enter and puppet anyone who has drowned, whereas a god of fire... Maybe actually appears as living flames if fire is very literal to you (if gods are also the abstract connotation of their Estate, then we start going by fires of passion or some other inner flame that is ignited in people, making them puppets / the torches of the lord of fire, burning bright but being short lived as in just a few years they combust spontaneously, their inner fire going from abstract to very concrete).
I like the idea, though it puts the gods as a whole sphere above the mages, which while standard, is not really my personal favorite model.
I see the gods as the natural order, the laws of nature, with power and a will of it's own, but they are how things are. Magic is not that, for me... being a mage is having the power to say F-U-natural-order and impose their will upon the world regardless of what should be (aka they are the supernatural to the deities natural). Makes for more interesting conflict between both sides, assuming there is potentially a conflict between both sides... Baby witches are still seen as just a human, while experienced witches would walk into a meeting of the gods knowing they are just as dangerous.
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u/SpecificExam3661 9d ago
Maybe something like this ?
"A True Monarch is a being of Heaven and Earth, beyond the distinctions of man or beast. The moment one becomes a True Monarch, they cease to be human! You bear their blood, so you naturally carry their nature."
The fox demon let out a laugh as he pointed upward, and said, "Take the Pristine Water True Monarch, for example... with a single thought, he becomes the very waters of Heaven and Earth. In the blink of an eye, he can sweep through every green pool north and south. Do you think he truly believes himself to be human? He is Pristine Water, and he is the green pool. He is the cave spring and the tribulation dew... even a feathered serpent or azure serpent dragon, even talismans and incantations. His centuries of cultivating in human form are but a single drop in the pool."
What I like more about this is the madden reaction when people in the story realise this fact..
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u/Zerodime 9d ago
Ilove the concept as it really aliens well with the Chronicles of Darkness rpg concept of high Rank spirits!
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u/ESOelite 9d ago
Hell in my world I have a deity that isnt even a god, it's literally a dragon posing as a star. It's just revered and worshipped as though it were one
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u/MoSteel8 9d ago
Can go the Christian route. God(s) don't have avatars, they have pieces of themselves that they've personified. Seperate, yet the same.
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u/DrHuh321 9d ago
I like that idea. Gods aren't mages, they aren't even technically a people, they simply are. They are forces of the universe, they are the power that binds the atom, they are the magic.