What happens in your setting when a god/goddess dies?

In one they're cannibalized by other spirits who take it's portfolios. In another it's power spreads to those deeply connected to it, like Clerics, Paladins, and the children Demigods of the dead god. One of them will achieve apotheosis and become the new god. In another, all the gods are already dead, and like vermin the races have spread and defiled the heavens.

They reincarnate.

Impossible. Gods cannot die for they are gods, permanent facets of the universe.

All the heavens - mighty halls, howling pits, impossible cities, the dark realms of death, the holy forests - fell out of the sky and crashed into the world, resulting in an adventuring economy that thrives to this very day.

The domain that god owns begins to run rampant, growing more and more chaotic over time. It doesn't stop until another god takes over the domain and stabilizes whatever it is.
If any of the major gods die, the universe is put on a timer. Their domains are too big for lesser gods to handle and new gods aren't being made anymore.

Two settings:

>Setting one
When a god dies, their power doesn't disappear has to go somewhere. This can create a new god, empower a mortal, get divided up into the remaining gods, and so on. Usually it just sits around as a chunk of solidified god juice until someone claims it, but there is one recorded case of a god using his dying breath to claim his own power before it escaped and becoming an unstable zombie god with corrupted versions of his old domains.

>Setting two
Gods are massive collections of soul fragments combined into one soul, and one of the rules of the setting is that souls cannot be fully destroyed, only shattered. If shattered, the god soul becomes a number of lesser beings mindlessly enforcing the former god's domains.

>a corpse
>god

wew OP

Nothing.

I like this as a theory.

In a friend's setting, there were no Gods anymore as an Elf stole immortality from them to give it to his people. He killed them all. Followed a century of domination after which they started to invade the other continent (where the campaign took place). We never finished this campaign but it was kinda nice, we had at some point to explore dwarves ruins (the dwarves suddenly disappeared some centuries ago, leaving behind them maze-like ruins now populated by goblinoids) to retrieve some legendary artifact that was supposed to let us create a portal leading directly to their Emperor (the guy who killed the Gods) and we had to kill him somehow. Magic was rare in this setting, and very ritual based, the mage in our team (who was the most promising mage in the world, as we were an elite squad assembled for the assassination) could only make really limited miracles, like setting fire to our swords after casting runes on it and setting a huge tree on fire beforehand, things like that.

Ultimately depends on how they die, what happens when a god simply fades away forgotten, what happens when some jackass murders the shit out of them, what happens when someone manages to steal their power, and what happens when....ect, can result in very different things

A floating continent descends from the heavens. Somewhere on the continent are seven empty stone thrones gathered in court.

The first to sit on a throne ascends to godhood until the dead pantheon is replaced.

The campaign is either gonna end with the party becoming gods, or the pissy fallen paladin smashing all the thrones and ending the tyranny of the gods forever.

>Well, there was this painter from Austria who found out god was dead and decided to start his own apocalypse. It didn't turn out very good for the Jews in the end.

Your post is false though, you can hear Rudolf Hess, Hitler's #2 deputy Fuehrer and second in command of the Third Reich talk about his Christian beliefs here:

youtube.com/watch?v=PO6Zk5qkYcA

And Hitler talks about his belief in "god" frequently in his speeches, which you can read here:

realhistorychannel.org/MEINSIDE.pdf

and he also talks favorably about Jesus and God in Mein Kampf, which you can read for free here:

endchan.xyz/.media/a18332e643d7cb83515627b693496fc0-applicationpdf

You can also listen to Hitler's speeches on Youtube here:

youtube.com/watch?v=uUyDcGSMPEQ

and here:

youtube.com/watch?v=x4obeqaxhRs

It's also important to note that over 99% of the "Nazis" or NSDAP party members were church going Christians although there were some NSDAP members (less than 1% of the party) who were Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, neo-pagans, etc. I think this guy (who was of Jewish ancestry) was a leader of a group of Japanese Zen Buddhists who were in the Nazi Party:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlfried_Graf_Dürckheim

and Heinrich Himmler secretly practiced Yoga and other aspects of the Hindu religion of India as you can read here:

ibtimes.com/heinrich-himmler-nazi-hindu-214444

and General Erich Ludendorff was the leader of the neo-pagans in the NSDAP and Hitler booted him out of the party for publicly making a lot of anti-Christian remarks that caused the party to lose votes in the elections (Germany was a majority Christian country in the 1920's and 1930's and to win votes the NSDAP had to win the Christian vote). Anyway, a majority of the NSDAP party members including Hitler, Goering, Rudolf Hess, etc. were church going Christians.

>What happens in your setting when a god/goddess dies?

Lesser gods die and are reincarnated as mortals. Their domains still remain, only that they must reclaim it, or someone else beats them to the punch.

True gods lose their power and reality jitters for some time, depending on their domain.
>If the God of Light and Nature dies, all lights go out.
>If the God of Darkness and Progress dies, all light becomes truly blinding.
>However, both gods are intertwined, and both die in the process of their millenia-long fight against each-other, and are reverted back to their singular form.

>If the God of War and Death dies (who resides in the Pit), this causes all of the spirits that they've collected throughout the time of their rule to fall back down to the world, and fight until there is one left standing.
>They become the new God of Death, and everyone else is reincarnated/deleted/becomes One with the Universe.

>The title of the Dungeon Master is passed onto the person that destroyed Him, slowly corrupting the hero to doing His bidding.

>The God of Magic is always mortal. He will be born and die whenever it happens.
>However, when he does die, magic weakens to a point of uselessness until he is reborn.

The stars in their constellation go dark. The space which their power once filled is now of the void. The beings and realms tied to it can feel the void seeping in, slowly. It changes them. And out of that void, maybe one day a new god will rise.

Last time i did this was on the last campaign i had with some friends before they moved out on college and shit, basically, we split our ways and since we had a game on cliffhanger, i think i went overboard with the whole killing god

>BBEG is God after being possessed by Satan and the only way to stop heaven and hell destroying the entire universe is to kill god
>Party manages to kill Satan God
>bla bla bla evil monologue
>Everything ends in a blank flash for about 3 turns of no evens happening, the dudes tought the game was over and i was bullshitting with "you see/feel/hear/smell/taste nothing"
>turn 4, the characters wake up
>they are normal people now
>With god being dead there is no more fantasy world, the universe was resetted and the party is now living like we would in real life
When god literally died and world was saved, it was turned into 21st millenium modern life, no more wars, no more good and evil fighting, just existing and living peaceful lifes. And even the flamboyant bard became a normal guy, sad ending but hey, world's saved.

It's one of those Things That Should Not Happen.

So when not only ALL of the gods, but ALL of the archiends as well just up and /vanished/ one day, everyone was understandably worried.

And that was when the world started unraveling into floating islands, inanimate objects started coming to life, people randomly polymorphed into animals and monsters and objects and other people, and anything resembling "sense" or "reason" ceased to be.

It's been 100 years since then and it's only gotten worse - if the PC's don't find a way to fix it all, and soon, reality will cease to be.

Depends of how death works in your cosmology.

Osiris was murdered by his brother Set, had his body mutilated and his limbs scattered all around Egypt. That didn't stop him from keep ruling as the god of death, fertility and justice.

Only time a god died was when the guardian of humanity devoured the god of war at the climax of a war which humanity went around conquering everything that moved.

The result was that the guardian became the god of war and humanity itself suffered a large counter-attack that scattered them all over the world.

Their grasp on the material realm weakens, and they must find an other way to manifest. Be it through establishing a new cult, possessing a random guy, or creating a new race to serve them. However, this process can take several millennia and in this time, the dead god has nothing to do but plan his revenge.

>by his brother Set, had his body mutilated and his limbs scattered all around Egypt.

That reminds me of some weird religious quotes I was reading about Egypt and the Exodus somewhere in the part between page 12 and page 138 in this book:

prometheism.net/library/jewishsupremacism.pdf

Sorry that I can't remember the exact page number or I would tell you.

Haven't decided yet, and it seems like I should. The forces behind god-like entities somewhat recently cropping up is sort of a closed system, with vast but finite power to go around. So when an entity that drew that force into itself dies, it would return to that well if unclaimed.

Other effects would include the crumbling of anything sustained by their power, followers losing magic, pocket dimensions falling into ruin, and maybe even something horrible rising from that vacuum depending on the circumstances of death.

The God is dead. Long live God.

Fantasy game I'm in if you can kill a god you inherit it's powers, effectively becoming a god.

Mostly they fade into obscurity almost immediately.

Mortal's will go on and on about eternal dedication while they're getting Their Cure Wounds once per long rest, but when the magic stops flowing, they're quick to pave over the old temples for a god that's actually giving it out.

If an Elder God dies the aspect of reality they represent will cease to exist. This has happened once before, nobody can recall what was lost.

If an Outer God dies nobody gives a shit. Hell, they might throw a party. Fuck those guys.

If a regular God dies their realm will collapse and all the souls within will be shunted out into the astral realm. This is generally considered a bad thing. Its really unpredictable what will happen.

If a demi-god dies, oh well. Shit happens.

Depends. Setting has multiple religions, and each god is a physical being you can touch.

Subject Gods just go poof for a while, and may have hired the God of Standins to fill in for them until they're resurrected or a nev god of X is trained.

Ruler Gods, the type that run afterlives, have much of the same, but usually close their afterlife off for anyone who tries to enter.

Standin Gods can't die, they're needed to do their job of standing in for dead gods.

Eldritch Gods are usually blocked from resurrection, and their death means the world is a bit safer now.

Creator Gods lose track of their creations and any power they held over them, resulting in, say, large sinkholes where mountains used to be.

There's one more, who's not even really a god, who imagined up the other gods and used his overclocked, steam-powered computer to create them and repairs, cleans and patches the engine that keeps the world running. If he dies, and no one notices/the heroes don't get there in time to help/save him, the whole world just runs itself ragged until it collapses.

>Current setting
there were two Gods and they died a long time ago. Leaving behind the Essence of Sanctity and the Essence of Sanity, immaterial "gases" that equate Chaos and Order in their absence.
These essences were captured and used in the First Fires to create the 9 Blades of Balance which were thrown into the Magical Aether during the Collapse of the Walls of Reality and there they hold up the Walls of the Universe. On this day the Last Child of the Collapse was born of the Aether and we worship Him as the new God of Balance, facillitating the flow of the Essences from the Aether through Him.

>Last Setting
Gods die when they are killed.

A god is nothing more than an entity who is powerful enough to weave itself into reality as a constant. Their existence is objectively true. However, they have to hide their name, as being named by anything other than an adopted title will kill them. They lose the ability to feel and think, instead becoming corrupted and maddening. The gods that are killed are the dreaming dead, and they are merely pieces of objective reality that do not care and do not think. Their presence corrupts all life within their sphere of influence. Sentient beings who do not have any way to perceive objective reality are driven mad by their influence. You cannot remove them, but, if you're powerful enough, you can withstand their presence. That's when living gods aren't corrupted by dead gods.

Many of the dreaming dead will "sleepwalk" and set up poor, unlucky mortals to become slaves to their will. Usually by ruining their minds and setting them up on the cusp of becoming true gods themselves, but without telling them the rules so that they are named and then consumed. Beware of who offers you power.

>A god is nothing more than an entity who is powerful enough to weave itself into reality as a constant.
I've always it as a god is anyone powerful enough that they can back that claim up

The remaining gods divvy up the power that the dead one left behind, peacefully or violently depending on who it was that died. Clerics and paladins suffer from soul crushing night terrors before losing their powers. (And potentially most, if not all, of their ability to have faith in anything afterwards.)

They don't die naturally. If they're murdered than their Godstuff explodes, violently. This causes enough destruction and chaos that killing gods is always discouraged even if the god in question is an evil fucker. Mortals involved in their death, directly or indirectly, are usually exposed to enough divine fallout to ascend to godhood, but they don't necessarily replace the dead god. In fact it's rare for them to inherit the same domains. The leftover divinity tends to gather together and can form new minor gods spontaneously. Any left over is absorbed by existing gods, allowing then to become more powerful or expand their influence.
Originally there were 103 gods, but now there are thousands with only 16 of the originals still around.

There are no gods.

The police gets mad, the forensic services get mad, the morgue guys get mad, the cemetery guys get mad.

Basically bad times for everyone.

The equivalent of a cosmic server crash as the rules they left behind attempt to find suitable replacements among their servants to gift their aspects and promote to new gods - if they didn't have servants, said aspects will be haphazardly handed to available gods as the prior method promotes them - though these aspects give nifty abilities and perks like unaging if whatever is given them wasn't already so and multiplying their attributes by a power of 5, they don't do so much to really allow the gods' lowest non-demigod servants to take over their jobs in a satisfactory manner without prior experience, at all.

One god, the God of Chaos who is the indirect BBEG, is technically from another dimension and got his position by killing the previous (weaker) Chaos God, so his "death" would only last for until the next capable being of chaos decides to claim the title, which would be almost instantaneously. Regardless if this new god was any threat or not, the world is probably now doomed to fall to Chaos as the (other) gods were the only thing keeping it from consuming the rest of the world.

That works for most places. They may worship you and stuff, but if you're talking about the true infinitely-dimensioned reality of which ours is merely a poor shadow of, then that showing you have enough power thing comes in the form of weaving your immortal mote into the fabric of the universe. Which makes you a real god.

Gods are Gods, you can't kill God. You can scream to the heavens, and they might listen; you can throw a spear into the sky, but all you'll get is air.

Posts citations and refutes point. Eloquent post, good chap.

Thank you!

>What happens in your setting when a god/goddess dies?

>Physical death
If a God's physical avatar/incarnation dies within the mortal realm their bodies will be decomposed and broken down through perfectly natural means like any other body within the physical world. HOWEVER, Gods are MASSIVE and the Mana they contain is proportionately overwhelming; it will soak into the land and be absorbed and attributed into the system through all faucets of life; causing massive surges in growth and biological diversity. The only thing that usually remains of a god is it's bones, but even then these fossilized skeletons make for excellent texture on the landscape: hills, mountains, valleys, reefs, etc..

A disclaimer though: even in death a God's Mana possess a very strong personal identity and the living beings that are nourished from can potentially take on the physical, moral, or spiritual qualities of said God... Depending on the God things can get pretty weird.

>Spiritual death

A God's soul can never die; if they lose their source of worship (and therefor their outside mana) they will simply become "poor" or "impoverished" and have to seek worship else where or otherwise "reinvent/rebrand" themselves. Keep in mind though that if a God loses all their mana in it's entirety they can completely devolve into a perfectly mundane spirit/ethereal being- likewise any such spirit can make it's way through the ethereal chain of command to become a God.

Long story short, bad shit.

They cease to exist. Gods aren't even known to explicitly exist in my setting, nobody meets their gods and comes back. Paladins and shit exist but you could theoretically form a random cult and become a paladin eventually.

What is death to a god? Indeed, is to become a god nto to transcend death? Many gods were mortals who then died, and became divine. At least, so would say some. Others would call them merely spirits and ancestors, and say that only the five who make up the world itself are truly divine. Those can't die, or if they did it would destroy a huge aspect of the world along with it. Even of the lesser spirits, while banishing them from corporeality isn't that difficult, destroying their soul is impossible, at worst it can be consumed and incorporated into oneself. That's true for the souls of mortals too, of course, hence the debate about divinities who were once mortal. And then there's a god who has not died, but remains in bodily form. And there's a god who didn't exist but now does due to a terrible necromancy.

Apocalypse.

Basically this, but with an added dose of extreme environmental damage. The last time a god was killed in my setting a good chunk of the continent fell into the sea and several large craters appeared.

I start a horse race to collect all of the corpse parts that were spread across the country.

That sounds pretty neat. I could imagine the slain body of gods providing some pretty interesting adventure hooks or setting details as they slowly influence their surroundings.

there's two ways for a god to die
1. normal mean (only a god can kill a god)
2. a god loses his followers
i was working a story for 2
a protector god of an island lost all of his believers to a disease. he slowly lost his godliness and was cast out of "heaven"
he came crashing down and now lives on that island alone.
i'm thinking of doing something like he hasn't fully decayed because he still has some level of godliness left due to not doing anything for years.