Deities

Have them at a constant and impossible to not notice nervous tension when they meet, and make it clear they're forcing themselves to be diplomatic with each other despite any obvious opposition. Have gods be absolutely terrified of all other gods, because they're literally the only thing that can kill each other, and they don't want to find out if they've got what it takes to survive such an encounter.

They don't speak or act directly but use other forces.

I'll pick two.

Stop treating them like two dimensional anthropomorphic representations of concepts and treat them like extremely powerful people.

This. Pretty much humans that formed from celestial materials instead of physical ones

Give them personality beyond "worship me lmao die", give them different places of worship that reflects their personalities, powers and priorities, add some variety and dont make them all passive lusty cowfuckers, add phrases, idioms or sayings that were directly or accidentaly coined by them, incorporate religion in every day speak, slap togheter some books, writings, etc about their adventures, teachings, mistakes, satire parodies, bla bla bla.

make them exclusively artificial

Obtaining Godhood can be done by anyone, should they be able to find it naturally or take it from a god. The power of Godhood, however, comes from prayers.

Sort of like the storyline in Okami, if you ever played it. A God is powerless without the hearts and minds of their believers.

youtube.com/watch?v=lXmsLe8t_gg

A Goddess of Love that instead breaks up couples, so people pray for her to not get involved.

Source?

Moon Knight the 2006 series.

"Gods" being unwitting friends of a demiurge god who simply wants to protect them from the horrors of reality outside of their bubble of existence, and the drama of mortal life simply being their sandbox that daddy demi needs to patrol for heroin needles and other dangerous truths.

The Gods having a mutal pact out of fear of a certain concept.

A group of mortals having once successfully supplanted the gods, only to fall to their own hubris. Instead of this being a lesson to mortals about their fallibility compared to the gods, the gods take this as a lesson of their own fallibility too and taking steps not to follow in those mortal's footsteps.

Deity worship being the only way to achieve any kind of afterlife, where the alternative is naturalistic annihilation of the soul as apposed to some sort of limbo or hell.

Though I'm sure a lot of people are loath to mention it, didn't they have a similar thing in
>Pathfinder
with the Path of the Starstone (I think it was called that) where anyone could take the challenge but if you succeeded you gained godpowers. Cayden Caelian (spelling) the lucky drunk took the path on a drunken bet and succeeded.

>gods being ascended humans with flaws and limited powers
Those aren't gods. Try again.

>The definition that applies to 99% of gods in real world mythology
>Not Gods

Abrahamic monotheistic omnipotent Gods are the exception, not the rule. They're also fucking boring in a fantasy setting unless you hit them with some restrictions.

Have them be people who live on the Prime Material of your setting, giving people guidance in the guise of wise-men or ruling as god-kings on earth.
Or do what I did and make them mental constructs of those who believe in them.

Make them vulnerable, ready to be usurped for their power. So, exceptionally powerful mortals essentially.

Flat is Justice

>what are personified concepts like Thanatos, Hypnos, Chronos
>what are primordial deities like Chaos, Nyx, Eros
Bear in mind those are just from classical mythology.

And those are either exceptions, not rules, or still have human traits and flaws because the storytelling isn't interesting otherwise. Divine perfection is dull.

Give them themes of real life religions. Make their existence questionable, but have some evidence. Have moderates and extremists
Real world religions such as Christianity have fascinated people for 2,000 years. Islam has captivated people for 600.

*1,600, my B. Don’t behead me.

They're distant and contradictory.

This is the best way.

This

God is equivalent to "really strong being". They can be killed by people who are strong enough.

Personally, I use the mortal/immortal qualification. If they don't age, then they're immortal, and therefore a lesser God.

Give them interesting personalities and actually have them interact with the world on some level.

>flat chest: sexually appealing

The more I think about it the better the idea is.

Doesn't Eberron do this?

It’s too late for all that cringe

Cowtitted hag please go and stay go

Make them perfect in one aspect, and imperfect in another.

>He doesn't want to be Mariel's foot's slave.

Lmao get this normie outta here

Make them for all their power and dominion, human. They make mistakes, they fall in love, they do stupid things and deal with stupid mistakes. The important thing is when a god does human things, they are on a godly scale. When the orcish god of war falls in love with the elven god of beauty, he leads his people on a culture-wide conquest to claim her. When the god of the forge gets into a feud with the god of art, the resulting clergies wage a brutal arms race to create the better work. When the god of death has grown tired of his mantle and seeks a successor the entire underworld system falls apart.

The point is that gods should be human so we can relate to them, but the actions and consequences for their actions are on a horrific and massive scale. Forever after those actions are myth and legend, and will be told for centuries to come.

This also works great if you decide to include a few truly primordial abstract gods like Nyx or Chaos, since the contrast can make them seem significantly more inhuman and dangerous.

Just copy everything TES did

>Of all the universal constants
>All the fundamental forces
>The fates and destinies
>One stands more unflinching than the rest
>In the realm of time, every step stretches for an eternity
>And for those of a certain persuasion, this is the worst torture imaginable
>But for those of a deeper thought, this reminds them of what is more important
>No step can be taken back
>In the center of this realm, there stands an enormous hourglass, taller than any structure in existence, a new grain of sand dripping through every aeon
>It is said that when the final mote of sand falls, the universe shall end and all shall be reclaimed to the primordial energy that was
>And atop of this design, listening to nothing but the granules falling, stands Cheibriados
>On one, chitinous leg he stands, stiller than any statue
>A small, round, leathery body sits atop it
>Small beads of slime hang off from the sides, gently swaying in the breeze in pendulous thought
>And a single eyestalk juts out above
>Forever closed, as though asleep
>But only the nimble-witted would make such an assumption, in their haste making mistakes
>No, Cheibriados never sleeps, every attosecond is far too important for that
>He sits deep in thought
>Meditating
>"Does he think on how to forestall the end?" they ask in hurried breaths
>"No"
>And that is all any true follower would give them
>For, in their brief forays into the dominion of time, they learn the lesson Cheibriados hopes to teach all
>Everything is special
>Every scent of rose on the wind
>Every drop of wine into a jeweled goblet
>Every note in an orchestra
>All things are great, but the hurried never care
>They move from place to place, looking for one thing happiness in particular
>Whereas one with the proper consideration will love all
>And for one in deep enough thought, in a particularly lethargic sleep
>Even the harsh walls of stone are a delight worth noting
>"So take it easy" a voice echoes "and think"

>You step
>Your body is wracked with pain x4

Yahweh is pretty classical. It's the more generic 'God' that isn't.

Explain.

This, plus give them personality. Finally, have them interact with the world and players in a meaningful way. If you make an appropriate offering to a god, something should happen. The party cleric doesn't just pray once a day and get powers handed to them from nowhere, instead the party has to go on quests to gain miracles and favors.

>two versions of the Omnissiah: the standard one which the Mecahnicum worship, and other one who is not all bwahaha evil, but more amenable to concepts like experimentation and innovation

Having players try to make their own can be fun. I've actually got a related conundrum atm.
>Be civquesting
>stone age tribal
>GM says the gods are vague and can show up in whatever form best serves their purpose to communicate with their people.
>leaves us to invent our own religions.
>don't want a generic humanoid god.
>start actively steering civ towards a nebulous all-spirit like pic related.
>develop an animist religion were invisible spirits animate everything and connect to the all-spirit.
>craft elaborate elk totem as a prayer for safety
>it accidentally summons the Gnoll God of Hunting.
>He shoots an arrow, says he likes the statue and disappears.
>we've never seen a gnoll before.

So the question is, WTF was that and how does it fit into our belief system!?

A good thread to ask. How many is to many? One god? A dozen? Hindu levels? Shinto levels?

Maybe they could view the Gnoll god as some kind of culture hero? Like the idea is that gods are these animist nebulous creatures, but you can get culture heroes and demigods, people of legendary and almost deific importance, who can just show up? They could be the start of some interesting myths, like the whole concept of the "King Under the Mountain": Heroes and villains who one day will arise again, at least within your culture's mythology.

Gods in my setting are basically things/people who have built up a large enough following and are essentially worshipped.
It could be something mindless like a river (that brings water to an otherwise dry town) or something as complex as a cult leader who as followers.
As such, they are incredibly diverse. Some are very primal and simple minded (like the river), they have one purpose and work to that purpose. Other are just as intelligent and complex as any other NPC/PC. They could be an orc who is the god of muscles as everyone in his camp worships him as the strongest. Or an old master who is a god of arcane who can wield spells previously unheard of. '
Whatever someone is the god of, their powerlevel is reflected in how many people worship them. And upon gaining godhood, these creatures tend to transform somewhat. Becoming even more of an embodiment of whatever they are a deity of. (ie. God of muscles is bigger and has even more muscles).

>How do you make the gods interesting, tg?
Just go full-on Voltaire and create them by the hands of humanity.
Since humans are flawed, then the gods are inherently flawed too, and since it's public knowledge and the humans are aware of it since they are the one who created their gods, it gives you an opportunity for all kinds of interesting interactions between a god and its followers that isn't flat-out worship.

my brethren of yukkuri origin

There's a reason the standard D&D religion systems have always had small pantheons. A small pantheon of deities who embody varying concepts allows for variety, and lets them serve as a proxy for further character customization.

Variety is actually the main consideration in this case because it allows characters to have more depth on the basis of their religious affiliation. With monotheism, there is no variety; with animism, there is so much variety that all the different two-bit spirits blur into one another and you end up with the same situation as monotheism.

You can have differing flavours of animism / monotheism as well. Some groups won't be deterred by an Abrahamic-like sole arbiter of morality, or it might work for some settings. A detached Deistic creator deity is harder to work with but might work in settings with a more modern flavour, or where divinity is not commonly encountered / not a focus of everyday life. Monotheistic religion systems lend themselves well to Apocalypse arcs. As in the situation of , animism can also work if your setting is built for it or your players are involved. It works in nature-based, low-tech settings, or one where you might want to make nature magic and divine magic one and the same. But in any case, small-pantheon is a crowd-pleasing system that is adaptable and interesting for the purposes of a fictional world.

The Faiths and Pantheons supplement for 3.5 is a great place to look for more details on this sort of thing.

bump for interesting topic

Write them via a collection of inconsistent legends

L E G S

Make them have dual natures of generally positive things or "hidden" bad realms. The god of knowledge might sound harmless but he's also the god of want and fire. Your worship in him, if you're not carefull, will lead you to burning everything and everyone you love for scraps of cosmic knowledge.

That sorta thing, nice gods might be only nice because they're advertised as such.

Make them varied, some are just strong spirits, some are ascended masters, some are simply a force of nature made sentient. Also bring variation to the nature they are worshipped. Ex: A god of justice and mercy is not worshiped for flames or spectres of justice over your shoulder, but out of "fear" and respect in a way much like christian priests speak of god, nobody expects god to be the problem solver but rather a all powerful watcher. Then add gods that give boons, gods that need to be appeased.

variety is the spice of life.

New Question:-

How do you present your deities to your players?

For example, when they are trying to decide what deity to pick when they roll a cleric or paladin, how do you parade your gods before them?

>Flaws, restrictions and limitations. The classical Gods most fantasy fiction draws from involved deities with very human flaws, often amplified to extreme levels

I like settings where deities range from really powerful spirits (that can still be defeated) to little spirits that a clever/capable enough mortal can outdo.

After all, Arachnae beat the goddess of CRAFT at a weaving contest. Orpheus moved gods with his music. There are all kinds of stories about people outsmarting the Devil.

Go back to the monstergirl thread you degenerates.

Ancient Greek thought on Gods post-Euripedes was that having personified gods was fucking retarded. Gods are just forces you have no understanding of.

I writy up a couple of gods in a pdf file, make a little art for their holy sign. Then I tell them ask if you dont see what you'd like.

If they ask for a god that fits what they have in mind I make up a new one for them or ask them to do it, some players always love to have a hand in the world building.

I make them distant. I make intervention more of a coincidence than anything else. The gods are barred from directly interfering with this reality, so they use intermediaries, like Angels and Demons. If you ever get to their side of reality, they're always off in the distance, no matter how far you travel.