What is a God

What Makes a God Different?
In a High Fantasy world where heroes can achieve incredible feats of magic and power, it's worth asking what makes a God different from a level 20 adventurer. There are several key things that make a God distinct.
 * Able to bestow power upon followers
 * Has an astral form and a Seat in the Astral Plane
 * Can only act directly on the Material Plane through followers
 * Cannot be killed unless under special circumstances (see below)
 * Gains power from belief and prayer, not from facing adversity (i.e. not levelling up like an adventurer)

Fae, Spirits, Devils and Demons - are they Gods?
Gods and adventurers aren't the only powerful creatures who call this world home, and the lines between these different types of powerful creatures can sometimes appear very blurred. As a rule of thumb:

Fae are native to the Faewilds, and the process of creating new Fae is largely a mystery, although collective humanoid fears and ambitions seem to play a part. As the Faewild is much closer to the Material Plane, Fae can move physically between their homes and the land of mortals. Like Gods, Fae can grant power to followers and they can only be killed permanently in their Faewild home. There is some link between the power of a Fae and the worship they get, but it's much less clear-cut as Fae seem able to survive indefinitely without it.

Spirits and ghosts exist halfway between realms and can't usually grant power. They also have no special protections against death.

Devils and Demons are the most similar to Gods, and some would say the difference is purely theological. They bestow power, have a seat in the Astral Plane and cannot be killed unless in their Seat of Power. Unlike Gods, while they do gain power through belief and souls, the exchange is much more transactional. Very few Infernal creatures will give boons for free.

The corollary to this is that given sufficient worship and souls from mortal followers, it is very possible for Fae, Spirits and Ghosts to become Gods in their own right - certainly it is far more easy for such already powerful creatures than it is for mortals.

Seats of Power
Each God has their own Seat of Power, a part of the Astral that has shaped itself around their principals and beliefs. The relative size of the Seat is dependent on the power of the individual God, which is itself based on the amount of people on the Material Plane who believe in and worship them. For a tiny forest God this could be the equivalent of a few acres of woodland, but for a powerful God it could be a seemingly limitless panorama.

Pantheons commonly have Seats that sit next to each other within the Astral Plane, creating one enormous world that represents every God. Even if the different Gods within the pantheon are at war with each other, the combined nature of the worship they receive means that they can never escape each other.

Seats are populated by the souls of dead mortals. These are usually the spirits of people who believed in the God but there are other means to secure souls - an example being the classic 'deal with a devil'. The power of the God is directly linked to the number of souls they possess and mortal souls are the main 'currency' of the Outer Realms. Celestial and Fiendish creatures also exist within Seats. Commonly they are created by the God themselves using an expenditure of power, though this is not the only way they can come into being and as they are intelligent creatures with their own free will, sometimes they do not end up serving the same master who created them. One of the ways a God can help their chosen people on the Material Plane is to expend power and send them a Celestial or Fiendish ally.

The Wars of Gods
Gods cannot be killed while in the Astral Plane. If their form is dissipated by something, they reform at a specific point within their Seat. This does not mean that there is no point in attacking a Seat and everything is peaceful in the Outer Planes. Instead, Gods war over mortal souls and the power they represent.

The Outer Planes are therefore in a constant state of war. Sometimes this is an active conflict, with celestial and fiendish creatures clashing as the Gods try to minimise their own power expenditure while claiming as many souls as possible from the enemy. Sometimes they are cold wars of secrets, leverage, and complicated treaties and trade agreements.

The wars are endless because they are very difficult to make decisive - even if a God were slain 100 times and all their souls were stolen from them, as long as someone on the Material Plane believes in them, they will not cease to exist.

How to Kill a God
If a God gets their power from belief, it makes sense that a forgotten God would die without this belief to sustain them. This is almost right, but not quite. The nature of a God is such that when they have no power, their Seat will collapse and disappear back into the chaos of the Astral - but the God itself will not dissolve. Unable to affect the world around them, they will float infinitely through the Astral tides. If one day an old temple or artifact is discovered and knowledge of the God begins to spread, it may be that the God regains power and can once more form a Seat and gain followers.

The only way a God can be truly killed is if they choose to come to the Material Plane in person. They can do this is by inhabiting the body of one of their highest level clerics - an act that usually kills the cleric once the God leaves. This is the greatest tool a God has to directly affect the world of the Material Plane as the cleric gains incredible divine power equal to multiple epic level casters. This sort of power can literally change the course of history - but the potential cost is that if the follower is killed while the God inhabits them, the God dies permanently and irrevocably. There are no resurrection spells for Gods killed in this way.

The consequences of a God dying are as devastating to the followers as to the God. The huge release of magical energy destroys everything around it like an atom bomb, damaging not only the Material Plane but also the corresponding parts of the Feywild, creating an area called a Shadowfell. Additionally, all knowledge of the God is instantly removed from history. Monuments disappear, books and scrolls are wiped clean and memories dissolve from minds, usually driving devoted followers hopelessly mad.

Because of this, a God manifesting on the Material Plane is a vanishingly rare occurrence, and none but the most learned and ancient sages even know it is possible.

Can I Become a God?
There are 3 common types of God origin story. The first and most common one is that the God either created the universe, was there at the start of creation, or has always existed. They never speak about the God as having been anything other than a God. The second and second most common story is one of a outsider created directly by the Gods who gains enough power for themselves that they become a God in their own right. The third type of story is the rarest, and talks about the God having previously been a mortal.

Stories of mortals becoming Gods are always fuzzy at best, and there is definitely no clear single path for apotheosis. The common thread between all 'ascended' Gods seems to be an incredible amount of both power and belief - but those alone are not enough. There is something else needed to become a God, maybe something different for each person, and if anyone knows a surefire method they have not shared it with others.

Conflicting Origin Stories
Many pantheons will have a world origin story where their Gods created the world. Are these stories true? If so, which one is true? Is the Material Plane an egg laid by the cosmic bird, or a disc on the back of a turtle? This is something endlessly debated by clerics on the Material Plane, as each religion claims to have the perfect and complete truth. If there actually IS a complete truth that excludes all others, nothing has been proven yet.

What is certain is that creatures of legend are not just legends in this world. Players should be careful about how loudly they say the cosmic bird is nonsense - or they may just end up explaining that to her in person.