Several weeks back, I outlined a novel I’d like to write at some point, and a problem with the setting blindsided me this morning. In my outline I describe the characters as being “faithful and devoted,” largely due to the time and place in which they live, and then it occurred to me that the gods played no active role in their lives.
That might not sound like a problem to anyone but me.
It isn’t just because I’m writing a fantasy novel, that I want deities to play an active role in the story, but it has to do in part with the place and the time. I want to set my stories in ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, and in their myths and legends, the gods play an active role. I had to ask myself how to recreate a situation like theirs.
For me, and for the purpose of my setting and my characters, it meant finding some way for the characters to interact with their deity and vice versa. Since it’s a fantasy setting and its marginally inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, I thought about what I would do if I had to incorporate a character’s deity in their daily life.
The first thing that came to mind was visiting and leaving offerings at a temple. I’m not sure what was different about this time, as opposed to other times that I’ve thought about what to place in temples and who the characters might encounter, but I thought, “what prevents a deity from being right there?” It is a fantasy setting after all.
Quickly I thought, “well, maybe not the deity themselves, but perhaps an aspect, or a servant of theirs?” That got me thinking about what sort of influence they would be able to have on the city in which their temple would reside. Then I asked myself, “what prevents an aspect from just walking around the city doing stuff?”
There were some other thoughts that bounced around in my head for a bit, but I came to a couple interesting conclusions. There’s no reason a clergy of sufficient level shouldn’t be able to conjure up and maintain an aspect of their deity. They should be able to conjure up aspects of different power levels, at that.
“But what can a conjured aspect actually do?” This had me thinking for a while. If the aspect were truly a conjuration, it wouldn’t be wholly physical, and therefore would be subject to magical “dismissal.” It could well enough serve as an agent working on behalf of a deity, performing miracles for the faithful in exchange for offerings.
Offerings could serve a practical purpose, such as “paying the component cost” of a ritual, a la Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It would be easy enough for the priests and clergy to secure additional funding upfront for “emergency miracles,” and that’s something that should be easy enough to calculate.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense for deities to have their “domains” or “spheres” in their divine “portfolio,” because that could well define the sorts of rituals their aspects could perform in their stead. A given aspect would always remain under the control of a deity, but magic-users could command or banish them.
Fourth Edition makes it that much easier.
Something I might mention, if it wasn’t already thought of later, since you brought up the “Avatar” aspect (a Follower/Believer allowing themselves to be possessed or made an aspect of their Deity), while the rules for conjuring and dismissal do sound pretty sound – what of the WILL of the Deity themselves?
You also have to take into account a Deity is obviously not going to wish to be “bound” to one of their Followers all day and will feel they have better things to do with their time, influence and energy. Obviously, they can’t help all their other Followers if a sizable amount of their aspect is already being conjured into a Follower or aspect of theirs. That would limit their ability to help other Followers.
Just something to think about.
Deities in Dungeons & Dragons are usually described “off doing something else,” and have servants in their domains (angels, daemons, etc.) to deal with followers who might abuse the powers granted them — there are scores of creatures with specific purposes like “hunt down false clergy” and whatnot. Mortal “inquisitors” are also in a position to deal with conjurers who take too much or waste power.
Also, most deities aren’t given limitations to the number of aspects they can have at once — Third Edition played around with this concept, and I believe it was present in Second Edition as well — which means that whatever the Will of the deity, they don’t _suffer_ for having more incarnations in the Natural World at once.
I’ve been going around the issue though — they probably _do_ have the option to naysay any attempt to conjure an avatar, and choose not to because every avatar they have in the world just means more influence for them. The only limitations imposed on a given avatar would be based on the power of the conjurer.
That might be an issue they should redress then. While I understand Deities are powerful, if they are off making multiple aspects of themselves – I think at some point they’d, in a way, exhaust their power and begin to, in a way LOSE their omnipresence or something. Like a battery degrading overtime from use if it isn’t recharged.
However if D&D is running off the whole “Phenomenal Cosmic Powers!” and Infinite omnipresence of Gods idea, then I suppose nothing needs to be changed if they like it that way. I just think it’s a bit – overkill, in a manner of speaking. Influence or no, in a way – a God or Goddess probably should limit their time on any one particular plane at a time.
Though aspects are just less powered Avatars, so maybe they can stretch that a bit. Just thinking.
D&D being the diverse game that it is, several different settings have approached the concept different ways. In “Forgotten Realms,” deities have power levels relative to one another. Greater and Lesser deities if you will. Some can maintain only a single avatar while others have many.
The deities of Eberron are so far removed from the world that they have no avatars or aspects whatsoever, and it’s questionable that priests receive power from the gods at all — only that their will works in the world … “mysteriously.” It’s a much more pragmatic world, Eberron.
Most D&D settings feature incredibly powerful deities on a scale closer to the omnipotent, omniscient, etc. Christian god, though usually they have “filters” through which their omniscience works (e.g. “domains” or the spheres of influence you mention in your post).
Really, they’re all over the map in this case.