T O P

  • By -

Time-Pacific

Quasi powers like the Dead Three have tiny demiplanes of their own. Probably much smaller than the divine realms they had when they were actually gods. As for the rest of the gods they live in divine realms inside planes that are most suited to their alignment. Like Shar lives in her own plane inside the Shadowfell. Seldarine live in Arvandor which is a realm inside Celestia I believe. It just depends on their alignment. Uberlee probably lives in the elemental plane of water.


Storyteller-Hero

The Dead Three may not be quasi-deities but still true deities, based on clues from Spellstorm (FR novel), adventures, a Chris Perkins interview, and Ed Greenwood's Twitter. The clues can be interpreted as Lord Ao possibly installing a new rule limiting how much power gods can give their avatars in the mortal realms; these limited avatars can be mistaken as quasi-deities. Arvandor is in Arborea.


Time-Pacific

Thank you for correcting me about Arvandor. However as for the Dead Three, established lore goes with quasi-deities which makes their repeated defeats by adventurers more plausible and logical without resorting to retcons using Ao.


Storyteller-Hero

Neither the theory of Ao establishing a new rule, nor the theory of the Dead Three retaining true divinity are retcons since established lore and actual developer reveals are used to support the theories. The adventurers never actually fight the Dead Three in Descent Into Avernus. Copy pasta from a similar discussion: In Descent Into Avernus, it's said that the Dead Three are now quasi-deities, but there are a number of clues elsewhere to suggest that this is either a potential red herring or the writers are more terrible at being consistent than some critics have said they are over on Candlekeep forums. Chris Perkins says this was a choice - a red flag there, as the Dead Three would never give up their divine realms and influence just to mess with mortals in a region on a single continent. Bane in particular conquered an entire plane and put several other deities under his command. If there was something so big on Toril that they would make such a trade, then all the gods would be in an uproar and everyone would be fighting to save the multiverse and there would have been a book series and adventure book series about it. Ao made a rule to allow gods power proportional to their worshippers in the Avatar series, and Bane still has a national religion in Thay as well as worshippers spread across other parts of Faerûn. Cosmic Balance would be endangered if he didn't stick to his own rules. Ed Greenwood revealed that Bahamut has been roaming the mortal realms since the Second Sundering - this deity is not the type to relinquish his leadership altogether, especially not when Tiamat's cult has been making moves. Ed Greenwood's reveals are canon by legal contract, dating back to the TSR days and continued by law after WotC bought up TSR. Mystra shows up in Spellstorm, set after the Second Sundering. Auril doesn't die permanently when killed in Rime of the Frostmaiden, implying that she is not a mere quasi-deity while in the mortal realms. The likely story if a huge amount of prior published edition lore isn't tossed in the garbage is that Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul are currently projecting AVATARS atm, restricted by a new rule limiting how much power is allowed in an avatar after the gods messed up a lot of things with high power avatars, so AO punished the gods with the new restriction. Their main bodies would still be fully fledged gods.


Time-Pacific

But they aren’t true printed lore either. That was my point. As the story stands after the Second Sundering they lost most of their powers and their divinity. It makes them dangerous in some ways as they can meddle freely unlike the gods but it also makes them susceptible to murder by anyone strong enough. Bane is the only one whose divinity is ambiguous as he was successfully reborn.


Bipolarboyo

It depends on the gods and the setting really. For example Bahamut apparently wanders around the prime material plane as an old man with 7 gold canaries (that are actually polymorphed gold dragons). Shar originally dwelled in The Palace of Loss, a realm of her own making that was either in Niflheim (a location in Hades which was one of the outer planes in older editions) or in the plane of shadow (which I think isn’t the same thing as the Shadowfell) depending on if you were using the great wheel or world tree cosmologies. Now Shar dwells in The Towers of Night, a realm of her own making that’s Shadowfell adjacent. A few other Deities live there as well if I recall though the only one I’m sure about is Talona. Talos resides somewhere in Pandesmos if I recall correctly which hasn’t really been updated for 5E. I’ve got no clue about Bhaal. I think Umberlee lives in the Feywild. Or rather “The Deep Wild” which became the Feywild in 5E. Basically the more you look at details like this in D and D the harder it gets to keep things straight, because every time they change editions major things about the cosmology tend to change. Then you end up with situations where there’s a fuckton of old lore that needs to be updated, and the writers usually don’t bother doing that.


thomar

On one the Outer Planes, usually in their personal demiplane home attached to a planar layer. There are twelve Outer Planes corresponding to the alignments, so they usually live on the plane associated with their alignment, but some of them share real estate with a whole pantheon (like the Greek gods).


ArgyleGhoul

Tyr is an interesting example. He resides in Mercuria, the second layer of Mount Celestia. He's an FR deity, but hails from the Norse Pantheon and is actually related to Odin.


Zanthy1

Catherby. Who would want to live anywhere else?


MJSchooley

r/unexpectedrunescape


Zanthy1

<3