How do you treat gods in your setting?

[barrowyarrow]

I'm writing a lot about creation and origins of things lately and I've started wrestling with how much I want gods in my setting to play a role beyond just a creation myth. To me it feels like gods are used as a crutch a lot just to solve a problem without too much thought or they get added just for the sake of having this complex Greek myth style pantheon. It's just something that's tumbling around in my head and I can't find a place that I like yet. What do you guys think?

 

[pmmg]

Well. You are calling creation a myth. You have to decide if they are even real or not.

I would say, even in those creation myths people gave a lot of thought to their gods.

The real question is what do you want to write about? Any world with multiple cultures and diverse people are gonna have plenty of stories about gods.

 

[ThinkerX]

My Gods are mostly straight out of Lovecraft. Alien. Indifferent or malevolent, seeing mortals as amusing pests or sustenance. Some of these entities are occasionally helpful, in an alien and distant way.

There are also relatively benign, entirely spiritual entities who occasionally occupy physical hosts to provide mortals with guidance.

 

[Queshire]

Oof, I have to put more work into how I want to handle gods. I'm happy with the world building regarding them, but I need to work on getting better on actually using that world building.

 

[Gurkhal]

I'm treating them pretty abstractly.

For example in my main religion I just call the divine "the Light" in one form or another: Supernal Light, Glorious Light, Saving Light, Burning Light and so on.

Religions plays a role but its more of a personal, social and cultural, and sometimes political, force than the personalities of the gods being terribly important as people. I haven't decided to what degree divine forces exists but they don't take a irrefutable part in the world(s) of mortals. The religions can thus influence individuals or groups in their actions but the heavens remain silent.

 

[Rexenm]

I’m having to wrestle with how much they play a role in peace keeping. Being totally negligent, over what that stands for. They could have an effect on the people, but don’t in a totally totalitarian way. Or they have an excessive effect, being a secret kept in the dark.

 

[Lead_Dragon]

My gods exist primarily to keep the universe in balance. Mortals pray to them, celestials aspire to be them, but the Divine themselves don't interact with the lower Realms on a regular basis. None of them were born Divine though; the Universe itself selected them to fill the required roles.

 

[Insolent Lad]

In that the basic premise of my main fantasy mythos is that there are infinite universes, it follows that there are infinite worlds of the gods. This allows me to do pretty much anything I want with them, ranging from deities that are simply unfathomable to those that are very like humans. The latter are more fun to work with.

 

[Orc Knight]

Depends entirely on the setting.

The primary world I've been working on and getting back into, they go between possibly existing and also not. To me, yeah, they exist and one of the mythologies is mostly true. And the Goddess is actually an Eldritch Abomination taken serpent form that eats other abominations and has taken humans into her coils.

As for the people in the setting, they treat them as real and like those of polytheistic religions tend to. Offer sacrifices and generally try to keep the deities on their side. It's worked for hundreds of years, why stop now?

My straight up Fantasy setting? Yeah, they're real and can be spoken too. Or even visited.

And my cyberpunk one doesn't exactly have gods per se, though many are worshipped in various ways. They also have the Saints of the Streets, which are venerated and prayed to. And act in some deities places. Or, in the case of Maggie, are directly worshipped.

The supernatural exists in it, but it blurs the line with technology. So something like a viral ghost of Maggie gets set loose in the machines around, kind of hard not to take her as an act of God in her own right.

She's got to be a god/dess if she can still kill you despite being thirty years dead, right?

 

[Karlin]

Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

 

[DesinKalaScribe]

I don't want to say my story has "gods," but there are characters who exhibit godlike characteristics and do eventually become worshipped as gods.

There is a group of inter-planer beings who were drawn to the world in my story by accident and now remain trapped there. They have supernatural abilities but they are limited in scale and scope. They are not omnipotent or omniscient and have no ability to intervene in situations in some some sort of deus ex machina scenario. A side-effect of their arrival to this world has been that some people have gained the ability to wield the same powers as them, with some growing just as, if not more, powerful. The only power these beings wield that people have not been able to adapt is immortality.

Through many conflicts over time, most of which were generated through the squabbling and internal politicking of this group of inter-planer beings, their power has waned, their names forgotten, and their legacies destroyed. In their absence, many religions have sprouted, each worshiping any number or combination of these beings as all-powerful gods who are manipulating the world around them.

A key turning point for the characters in my story is the revelation that the gods aren't all-powerful, and frankly that the conception of them is a lie. Their reactions to this truth sets the stage for a lot of their actions down the line and is the center of most of the conflict thereafter.

So while these may be "gods" in a sense, they don't exist for the sake of existing or get used as a crutch for solving problems. I've tried to make them complex characters with their own goals and objectives.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

How do we treat our gods? Well, it's got to be a nice place, like a restaurant or something. They're gods. Let them pick and don't bitch when they order the lobster. A gift of an exclusive sports car never goes amiss. It depends on their purview. We also throw things at th-

Uh.

Gods? What gods? >.> I... I don't know anything about gods. Not gods in Seahaven. And surely no ancient, forgotten gods on the Council of the Eldest. Lies. False lies. Somebody's gonna need to explain themselves to HR in the morning.

 

[pmmg]

To me it feels like gods are used as a crutch a lot just to solve a problem without too much thought

I dont understand this. Are you saying Gods are used too much in too many stories as like a Dues ex Machina device? I wonder if you could expand this thought.

There may be people who just pop in a lot of Gods because they feel they have to have them. I dont know. I feel that, for a story to reflect a real people and a real world where things have evolved over time, there would have to be some level of including belief in Gods or God. It would be important to many, and should be treated such.

 

[Gurkhal]

Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

I think this may be a good general position to have.

 

[pmmg]

In the interest of not discussing religion, I let this comment slide, but…I do not agree with this sentiment.

 

[Queshire]

Really, it's the Bodhisvatta that you want rather than the Buddha. Their whole thing is that they put off Buddha-hood in order to help out peeps. =D

 

[Prince of Spires]

Do the gods, or religion, actually play a role in your story? If not, then you can just ignore the whole thing and handwave it. Just consider how often real-world creation myths, or gods come up in everyday conversation, and use that as a starting point I would say. Decide if you want a monotheistic or a polytheistic religion, and stop there.

If they do play a role in your story (beyond having someone to swear by), then start with the question are they real? Do the people know they're real? And how do they influence the world? Are there any rules they have to follow? And take it from there.

 

[Gurkhal]

Do the gods, or religion, actually play a role in your story? If not, then you can just ignore the whole thing and handwave it. Just consider how often real-world creation myths, or gods come up in everyday conversation, and use that as a starting point I would say. Decide if you want a monotheistic or a polytheistic religion, and stop there.

If they do play a role in your story (beyond having someone to swear by), then start with the question are they real? Do the people know they're real? And how do they influence the world? Are there any rules they have to follow? And take it from there.

Sounds like a good starting point to take.

 

[Incanus]

I've approached this rather like Prince of Spires suggested.

I have two old religions with a number of gods each (based loosely on real-world pantheons), and a newer religion specific to my world.

It is more or less like the 'real' world--the gods don't interact with the world in any definitive sense, but some believe they do. Many believe in one of the religions, based on faith. Others go along to get along. Some few express skepticism.

This stuff is largely cultural, and in the background, but it becomes a little more important as the stories continue on...

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I've approached this rather like Prince of Spires suggested.

I have two old religions with a number of gods each (based loosely on real-world pantheons), and a newer religion specific to my world.

It is more or less like the 'real' world--the gods don't interact with the world in any definitive sense, but some believe they do. Many believe in one of the religions, based on faith. Others go along to get along. Some few express skepticism.

This stuff is largely cultural, and in the background, but it becomes a little more important as the stories continue on...

Sounds a lot like how religion was viewed in Rome, Republic to early Empire or so. It worked well.