How do you treat gods in your setting?

[Quinn_Patrick]

Maybe you need to take a step back and think about what sort of story you want to write. Where is your focus? I ask that because in my experience the sort of story you write has an impact on how you set up the deities and on the impact they have in the setting.

As a simple example, in a high fantasy story the heroes might find some sword blessed by the gods or whatever, and this will be needed to defeat the big bad. Or the gods might intervene to grant some power or ability, or revive someone. An epic scale to a story needs epic events in order to save the world, and in a setting like that it is OK to have the deities be some form of (limited) deus ex machina.

Alternatively, you might have your story focus on the various protagonists and their struggles in the world, which might give a more low fantasy setting. In that situation, it might be the way worship of the deities is organised which is more important for the story (e.g. priests playing politics) rather than faith in the deities themselves.

In all my published stories I've tended to have a focus on the way organised worship of the various deities can influence what happens to people and their societies rather than focus on the actions of the deities. That's partly (probably mainly) because most of my work is based on places and events I've seen during my military career, and so I'm more interested in how and why people act the way they do. In that sense it become the motivations and actions of the various people the protagonists have to to deal with which drives the plot and some sub-plots. With that written, the existence of the deities gives and opportunity to deepen the setting by having temples, festivals and the names given to some natural phenomena reflect the pantheon the locals believe in.

I agree with you completely! I knew what I wanted to write about and how the story would unfold way before I decided on any of this stuff, don't worry. My stories are actually very character driven, and most of this deep lore stuff is heavily contextualized by how the characters understand it. I also firmly subscribe to the notion that what the reader imagines is much more powerful than what they read on the page, so I always leave avenues of uncertainty and mystery in worldbuilding topics, especially in the divine.

 

[barrowyarrow]

Maybe you need to take a step back and think about what sort of story you want to write. Where is your focus? I ask that because in my experience the sort of story you write has an impact on how you set up the deities and on the impact they have in the setting.

As a simple example, in a high fantasy story the heroes might find some sword blessed by the gods or whatever, and this will be needed to defeat the big bad. Or the gods might intervene to grant some power or ability, or revive someone. An epic scale to a story needs epic events in order to save the world, and in a setting like that it is OK to have the deities be some form of (limited) deus ex machina.

Alternatively, you might have your story focus on the various protagonists and their struggles in the world, which might give a more low fantasy setting. In that situation, it might be the way worship of the deities is organised which is more important for the story (e.g. priests playing politics) rather than faith in the deities themselves.

In all my published stories I've tended to have a focus on the way organised worship of the various deities can influence what happens to people and their societies rather than focus on the actions of the deities. That's partly (probably mainly) because most of my work is based on places and events I've seen during my military career, and so I'm more interested in how and why people act the way they do. In that sense it become the motivations and actions of the various people the protagonists have to to deal with which drives the plot and some sub-plots. With that written, the existence of the deities gives and opportunity to deepen the setting by having temples, festivals and the names given to some natural phenomena reflect the pantheon the locals believe in.

The role these deities will fulfill is defining cultures for my characters to react to. The formula is mostly character's travel, meet a local, learn about the locals, solve a problem. I want each place they meet to feel unique but have details that overlap like these places share some cultural similarities.

I might be overly worried about falling into common fantasy tropes. You're right, I do need to take a step back though and pick through the sea of ideas I have because not all of it needs fully fleshed out. It just takes me out of a story when I read into something that feels overly formulaic. Fantasy stories can be heavy handed with stuff about "The Gods!". So I'm curious how people here handle deities and religion because maybe some idea sharing will help my own writing you know?