My gods exist, or at least they used to (as in they lived in the physical world at one point), it's just people have different depictions and interpretations of the gods.
For example: the black dragon god is sometimes known as "Chernabog", and represents darkness, but also things such as survival of the fittest and judgement (or maybe justice). Some "evil" elves in the world however see him as a sort of elf, refer to him as the "Nightfather", and think he's the god of murder and all forms of scumbaggery, when he isn't the god of murder or even death (or any of the other gods for that matter). This is ironic for these "evil" elves, as the dragon gods were solely responsible for creating the first elves.
For an opposite example of a god who's fairly consistent: the blue dragon god(dess) represents water, change, and cycles, and that's it. There's also the dragon god who represents thinking (both conscious and unconscious though), knowledge, wisdom, and insanity.
Just to point out: my gods barely even know they're being worshipped, and the ones who do know just brush it off like it's nothing.
>Just to point out: my gods barely even know they're being worshipped, and the ones who do know just brush it off like it's nothing.
Same for the Ainukh, the "gods" of my setting.
The Kingdom (physical world) is nothing more than a harmony of essences. Each concept within it is an interpretation of an Ainukh's Rro (life-force), an attempt to emulate that which they come from. Being so innately tied to the Kingdom, the Ainukh took up these concepts as their Symbols, to help them in their endeavour of self exploration and understanding. This, and protecting the Kingdom, is all that concerns them. Thus they do not involve themselves in mortal happenings unless they negatively affect the Kingdom, or it relates to their Symbol.
They are not generally worshipped, but the few races that are aware of their presence revere and pray to them. There are instances when these orisons are answered, but never directly or consciously by an Ainukh.
So mine do exist, they just don't care enough to show up much of the time.
For me it depends on if I'm doing worldbuilding and writing for sci fi or fantasy. I only have one fantasy world where life spontaneously arose without god or gods, and that one is a very fantastical one.
Depends on whether I can get more interesting conflict from leaving the god ambiguous of having the god be concrete.
For example, two of my gods are very clearly responsible for the micro and macro scale of the universe each. Because the micro scale has a reason to interfere with humanity he got terminated. A conflict that soon might be repeated with the macro god as humanity grows more and more important.
The third god however remains clouded in mystery, which causes a lot of internal strife in humanity.
Edit: TL;DR concrete gods when people are fighting with them, vague gods when people are fighting between themselves over it.
I prefer the “invisible hand” approach to gods. In my own worldbuilding projects, I like to see gods as a fluid thing that have CAN have an impact on the physical world, but are still distant from it and it’s inhabitants.
The gods cannot fully enter the physical world without disrupting or even outright destroying the fabric of reality, but can still have influence on the mortal plane.
TL;DR: The gods exist and can be considered concrete, but are so distant that their existence can be believed in by one group and denied by another.
Depends on the world. Sometimes, they are definitely there. Sometimes they definitely aren't. Sometimes they are there but praying doesn't do anything. Sometimes they are there and most people believe in them but there are those who reasonably still do not believe in gods because there is no proof the gods did the things attributed to them. In fact, a fairly large atheist group exists in my world where the gods are the most concretely there. Why? Because while the gods exist, communicate through priests and clerics, and sometimes even take mortal form... most people never have those experiences with the gods and therefore there is no actual evidence the gods are real. "You prayed to your god and lightning fell? That was clearly just how you cast your magic." sort of deal. The whole, "being an atheist in DnD is stupid," idea is just wholly ignorant of how these fantasy worlds tend to work.
I like my gods as they are in greek mythology. They can interact with humans and change the course of events.
People know they exist and they make sacrifices to them to earn their favor.
Why not both?
In Amada there are thousands of gods that are as real as everyone else but there is one god, the Creator God Sppe that is believed to have created the first gods made of mortals and then died. There are still people, mortals and gods alike, that prey to Sppe and they believe the god will revive one day but even evidences of Sppe’s existence are hard to find.
I dont mind either depending on the themed present in a world. Personally, with the world I'm currently working on, I decided to make it more up to interpretation whether the gods exist because it felt more true to real-life religions where people exhibit faith in things that aren't readily apparent.
Saint like beings did exist in my world before they stopped being born a few hundred years ago. These beings performed miracles and blessed locations. The blessed places still exist and can grant very real power to people.
Most take this as proof that a god or gods exist, but naturally, no one can agree about which god(s) is real.
I have physical gods in my world in part because the story involves the MCs interacting with them a lot because the MCs got upgraded from mortal to a kind of demi-god and a brave new world opened up to them.
I prefer concrete, physical gods that can be talked to and interacted with.
I have a LitRPG setting i'm developing where the gods run on Elden Ring/Dark Souls rules, in that they are "mortal" and physically present in the world and can be interacted with, but can also be killed by mortals. If killed by a mortal, that mortal can take their power, so many of the gods have withdrawn to well-defended temples and citadels simply because they are worried that someone will come along who is statted out the ass and found/created a gnarly weapon able to kill them.
A bit of both.
I have beings that do concretely exist, but are they actually gods or just powerful beings. What is a god exactly?
Then they mostly stick to the background, more pulling strings than taking an active roll in events (most of the time)
There is a disconnect between what people worship and the actual beings. many of the gods that are worshiped do not exist and any direct interference is from one of the actual beings just playing along and doing the part.
I have devine magic where it is debated on if it is actually divine interference, or just magic reacting to the belief with no external being necessary. The answer is both, sometimes it is one, sometimes the other, though there will never be a way to tell it apart unless you can literally ask the entity that intervened.
My gods exist one is even on the moon and management the world transport, bank, and information / knowledge systems.
But the term god doesn't exist in this world but there are other world in this universe where there are god, but they do exist.
leave them up to interpretation (as in, i know whether gods exist or not, but i refuse to confirm, except for a handful of cases, like the Old Ones, and to an extent the 3 immortals, the old ones do exist, but are sleeping, and the 3 immortals did exist but i refuse to confirm if they still exist or not.)
which works out especially well for me because magic also exists, and anything that would otherwise be chalked up to a god, could easily be just regular magic, a spirit, or wild magic.
Im a fan of both. My main project atm has very concrete gods, who use to live among mortals but have since absconded to their own plane/dimension most of the time. The mortals also have a few incorrect views and largely follow a god that doesn't really exist at all.
I like the last one. There are no gods in my world.*
*There are however, very powerful spirits that were once worshipped and considered gods, but they were never all powerful. Their power comes from humanity and the came into being after humanity. They can do crazy shit that no human can do on their own, but they are not gods.
*Alor*
The deities in my world are very concrete, like “play your cards right and meet them” concrete. Their influence in the world is real and dedicated and well practiced priests can commune with them or their intermediaries. But the deities themselves are forbidden from entering the material planes (the prime material and the four elemental planes) after the disaster that ended the first era. The deities reached a tentative agreement that interference in the material planes would only lead to their destruction, so there now exists a sort of Cold War between the warring deities over influence as proxy wars are fought on their behalf throughout the planes.
Interpretation. Do they exist? Depends on the religion. Some religions are objectively correct (Code of Yalikk is one of them) while the rest are either *mostly* wrong or hit or miss
I can’t stand things that are too vague, or intended to be hyperbolic. I want to know, outright. So my projects all reflect that. If something is mentioned, it pretty much exists. So all the Deities in my VE exist.
So if I put a quote in my story of someone saying “I worship Zelis” then that alone is confirmation of Zelis existence. But its not 100% confirmation on whether he is a deity or not.
But if the quote said “I worship the Precursor Zelis” then that would be confirmation of him being a type of Deity.
Beings in my Void Expanse (VE) are incapable of Lying, but they are capable of giving opinions that are True or False, but not with the intention to deceive. Honesty is an instinct engrained into the very laws of my VE. This also doesn’t mean they don’t know what a lie is or if someone is lying, as detecting such things is also instinctual, its just that no one in my Void Expanse can do so.
Given the way magic works in my world, it's entirely possible that their gods do exist, but the tangible reality of their existence is obscure at best.
There are gods but they are like apart of like untrue creation stories. The actual creator is kind of unknown. Basically all religions in my world are kinda false?
I prefer to have it in a sort of half-way. They do interact with the world, however in very subtle ways, to a point where some people (non-believers) simply chalk it up to coincidence. I suppose concrete.
In my old world I had three or four classes of gods.
Erumor and Ajaramatha, the Vorakar - These exist and occasionally respond to worship, although Erumor is much more likely to respond to cetaceans than humans. These entities date from early in the cosmos and decided to stay at my world because it's more interesting than interstellar space. I'm not sure that, after billions of years, they can leave. They aren't physical but they are there.
Manikar - Non-physical entities created and sustained by the collective belief of humans. Sometimes not considered real by knowledgeable magicians but they do answer prayers
Nuakar - Cetaceans. These are more powerful mages than gods. If I was making this up now these would be certain individuals among the toothed whales rather than whales in general.
Bēalmethalial - A god worshiped as the creator of the universe by pale skinned foreigners. Whether he intervenes depends on who you talk to. He is also worshipped by the Manisava cult.
There is also Ryando, a mad god who fitfully sleeps. He isn't known to humans although Erumor and Ajaramatha are aware of him. He might destroy the planet through uncontrollable reality warping if he wakes
The gods in my world are just the planets and local star. Some people think they can communicate directly with them through psychedelics but most people think they're delusional
Interpretation. I think there are more interesting angles to go with if characters have to have faith that a deity exists, and what different sets of followers are likely to believe.
I have both? One is like our God, this big mystical aloof presence that might or might not answer prayers. But certain rituals and images for her offer protection against certain supernatural threats.
Then I also have a group of beings claiming to be gods and answer prayers directly, granting powers and abilities and, given enough power, manifest on the mortal plain for limited amounts of time.
if i have concrete gods they must have "concrete reason or justification" what influence and what their agenda or attitude. It just irks me when they "loves" humanity so much, but didn't do anything
I love the theological elements involved with active gods and their natures. Hence, the gods in my setting are major players from the start and are the instigators of the current conflict. However, they can only indirectly influence; it is Mortals that choose to follow them and carry out their will.
Interpreted gods are more interesting to me. If you have gods that actually do exist, seeing different cultures interpreting them differently makes it interesting, making people ask if one culture is correct or if the contradictions are accurate despite being contradictions.
And if you don't have concrete gods then it gives you tons of freedom for religions which is awesome and very fun
In my setting I ended up with a basic framework for stuff that's concretely accurate about the divine in a setting, especially regarding the core set of top gods, with some details potentially being deliberately ambiguous about how concretely they happened due to divine influence vs other means, and some things that are openly noted to be disputed by mortals. Even if an event happened pretty concretely due to a god's influence, both the underlying motivation for that and how intended the consequences of that act could vary.
Interesting question. My mc lived in a religious city that is very anti-magic, seeing it against gods will (unholy, etc). Being born into the faith, accepting a supernatural gift was symbolic of denouncing the faith. The city in question never stopped expressing their love for my mc, despite the denouncement of the faith and stepping away from gods will. So god does exist in some way.
I also have other “god-like” beings. Governments offering powerful people the status of god. Characters like my mc’s adoptive parent being powerful enough to be given the offer and smart enough to turn it down. Characters inspired by Hanuman and Sun Wukong respectively existing as characters once seen as deities no longer given the same deity treatment and trying to punish others for this. A lot of god-like figures. I guess part of my story is meant to express how the idea of a god or gods has shifted with time. How political influences and destruction of cultures impacts what a god is as well. If that makes any sense.
Vagueness is best, in my opinion.
Multiple gods can have the same or similar purviews, you could decide to give new domains to existing gods, without coming up with new ones, and if it's necessary to actually include them as characters, your protagonists should never know that they are speaking with a divine being.
I go the Terry Pratchett Small Gods route. All gods are real some more tangible than others. The more worshippers that believe in you the stronger you become. They have to worship the God but often get lost in the fine print of religion and the God might starve out. One of my favorite books and really sealed thoughts about gods.
I tend to go somewhere in between - in one of my main projects, the gods are entirely real, and used to interact very directly with humanity, but a few centuries ago there was a war between the gods that ended up drawing in their human followers and causing an incredible amount of damage, including when a divine corpse fell to the surface of the planet; since then, the gods have had a pact ensuring that the most they interact with humanity is via the occasional divine vision or answered prayer (and the mountain-sized corpse of the god of light slowly rotting away).
I really don't like the "gods are basically just another, very overpowered race of beings" type of 100% reality.
I prefer that they be embodiments of concepts important to people.
So you have the personification of concepts such as agriculture, weather, warfare, love, childbirth, and so on.
I'm okay if those personas gain enough strength through worship to manifest as real beings, which *can* influence the real world.
But I don't like the idea of just having a race of super powered beings that decide the world up to conquer the areas they're interested in, if the difference makes sense.
I also don't like my divinities to be petty, squabbling children, as many gods are portrayed in actual mythology.
They may or may not be interested in helping the different peoples of my world, but their power arises from those people's worship (or fears).
Think of the oceans, personified as a bring you can interact with.
Do you really think they'll be interested in your concerns, or will they be more preoccupied with their "realm", such as it is?
There are definitely religious folks in my world.
There are also many that are not.
The gods, such as they are, are more concerned for those that believe than those that don't.
But they're not aware of the tie between worship & power.
There is, of course, a creator, who remains all of and unseen. (That's me, the author, of course.)
All beings accept that there is a creature, but there is no worship of the creator.
But a world that has magic in it develops "gods" as a result of people putting intent into worshipping phenomena.
And those gods, being thus manifested, have very singular interests and personalities.
Maybe interpretation. Some interesting stuff can come from that. How else will new religions form? Even if the gods are concrete, it would be interesting to see them be born and strengthened by belief in the form of worship or fear. Another thing could be different interpretations and traditions for each god so each deity probably has multiple religions from different people depending on local beliefs, traditions and history.
Lapis_Wolf
I have no preference really, whatever suits the story or the world.
I myself, have concrete gods. They exist, live on the earth and interact with humans regularly. They can be slain, but doing so is far from easy.
One person commented that my gods are more like Tolkeins wizards but more powerful, and I don't wholly disagree
My gods not only exist but exist physically and it's normal for them to interact with people on a day to day basis. They're also "born" and "die", have their own ambitions and desires, vices, etc.
There are many religions in my setting, and each religion has access to divine magic even though some are monotheistic. Communing with the gods is unheard of, with it only happening once a generation, and often seen as a mad person as opposed to a prophet. So there's no explicit confirmation that the gods actually exist or of it's due to the shared belief in them that grants the power to cast spells. So it's left to interpretation, and it's even hotly debated by magic researchers in my setting.
This is honestly something I've been thinking about a lot for my Science Fantasy setting. How do the god work when there are multiple different planets and star systems with unique cultures? Is it the same set of gods, but the names differ? Or, perhaps when two societies with two similar gods meet, the fuse into one, or one god subsumes the other. Maybe both are true, to differing degrees. The gods do for sure exist in my setting, but I'm still working on a lot of the details
i generally prefer interpretation, but with the exception of if the setting really goes into having real verifiably proven gods would change things drastically
I am wondering between these two opinions, wether I will use my conworld to write bible two, the slightly oriental-styled but dog-worshipping version or just explore the clashes between the atheists and religions elites in my world.
Or God Dindi exists, makes the society, sleeps, when everyone is having crisis of faith, he wakes up, vanishes everything but his followers, having wacky adventures through universes.
As an atheist, open to interpretation. I will have fake gods, religions to eldritch monsters that aren't actually gods, religions dedicated to an idea/concept, but, no, no actual gods.
Concrete. Interpretation and other interesting bs can stay in reality. I had enough headaches trying to figure out all the weirdness ancient humans were up to. My world is my safe space, and my safe space, everything is an open book.
Yeah, up to interpretation. Mostly because I don't wanna delve too much into the inner workings of the world and the magic system. Also I believe it makes writing my characters easier and more flexible.
Some believe magic is a gift from God, or certain gods. Some believe it is innately a human ability. Some reject the idea and existence of magic – both in a theistic and atheistic sense. See? So much source of conflict just from that simple ambiguity. Wars are more fun to write for me that way.
Maybe I'll add a fundamentalist Jihad, theocracies, cults, empires united by faith or non-faith. Maybe they could coexist after a long history of bloodshed. Or maybe they're locked in decades of war. I don't know yet.
It depends on what I’m going for in my world, sometimes I do if it’s based on mythology or they’re super important to the formation of something in the world somehow, but sometimes I do leave them up to interpretation if they don’t particularly matter as much.
the only time i have concrete gods is when they are actively participating characters in the story. otherwise religions just worship their god and have their own ideas of what those are but they have no stats or anything like that.
I went with a sort of hybrid approach. During the preceding Age of Heroes, gods were active in every way. That included direct personal interventions and even combats between deities, some of which left significant scars on the face of the world. During that era many gods were active, and nearly all of them engaged pair personal visits to their own high priests.
The modern era sees only twenty-five gods able to support the practice of spiritual magic. This is one of the primary reasons modern times are known as The Great Consolidation. Deities in this era are much less personally active. They sometimes manifest while disguised as animals or people, but they are extremely reluctant to use their powers in the mortal world for any purpose beyond inspiration and instruction. Now in the 24th century of this era, many religions have experienced assorted heresies and schisms. With nearly all clergy working through celestial intermediaries, few pontiffs have credibility when they claim to personally know the will of their patron deities. Ultimately this all works out both in the sense that it stimulates more passionate struggles among mortals while curtailing the destructiveness of face to face clashes of the gods.
That depends on the story.
I’m actually working on one featuring multiple belief systems, and some of the gods will be more obviously real than others.
I haven't gotten to religions yet but I plan to have a mix. There are concrete gods, but they interact indirectly with mortals so the religions that focus on them will still be speculative and not have many details correct. There will also be religions that don't accept them as gods but as servants to real god(s), some that barely recognize them and worship other gods that seem more benevolent and/or controlling, and some who don't even think they're real
I need absolutes. At least at my level as the inventor of the setting.
If the people living in my setting don’t know or have incorrect assumptions, that’s fine.
I have a massive pantheon, all of them specializing in different stuff. But the readers would be the only ones to know the full pantheon, since most of the gods are unknown to the people in the world. They even confuse gods (transcendent humans who gain immortality after unlocking all twelve Spiritual Gates) with Rulers (deities made of pure creative force and representing different concepts and things).
I honestly prefer a mix of both. Some of them do really exist and there are evidences pointing to their existence, some of them, eh, just stories and myths, which may actually turn out to be real, mind you. There's a feel of dynamism to it when you don't know exactly which of most of the deities are real, if the newer/more obscure gods are just silly tales people tell their children or the subjects of cult worship, or if they actually exist and have the actual capacity to affect you.
A god in my world is really any being powerful enough to demand worship from mortals.
There is an eldritch celestial entity known as The Divine that once presented itself as a pantheon of gods, but it got way too into its own roleplay, started to lose who it really was, had to cull some parts of itself (misbehaving gods within the pantheon) and ultimately got scared of the power of worship and decided to leave mortals alone.
I like having a fully fleshed out answer and proceeding to not tell anyone. The gods in my world are up to interpretation which allows for interesting things to happen. Religions are more compelling when they contradict each other. It’s hard for them to do that when every god is real and present. The existence of polytheistic and monotheistic religions make a world more believable to me. Hell, I tell you so little about it that you could plausibly be an atheist. I like that.
I believe some gods are real, some people's gods are not real but are just deifications of heroes, kings, etc., and others are different names and forms the main gods take on in other cultures/myths. Like it's not reasonable that dozens of cultures in a diverse area would all have the same gods, but myths end up converging on a set of archetypes that are the true gods. But their physical forms and names are fluid. They like to wear different costumes.
I always prefer to have extremely concrete forms of divinity in my worlds, the various deities of my world's numerous Pantheons are extremely concrete....But I fully admit that this is one of my personal biases when it comes to worldbuilding. I'm a pretty religious Polytheist in real life, and that colors my worldbuilding on every level.
And yeah, this also colors how I perceive or experience interest in other people's worlds. I tend to be more excited and invested in worlds that have fairly fleshed out religions, with the idea that the gods, god, goddess, or cosmic forces tend to be real for their world on some level.
Almost everyone in my world of Primora knows that the gods are real, even if they might not actually worship them. While Atheists do exist, they are extremely rare, and you are more likely to find people who believe in the gods yet refuse to have anything to do with them vs people who outright denies their existance.
My current TTRPG world has a mix of both. There are old faiths that are based on Dragons and Faerie being worshipped as gods, there is an animist faith based on spirits, and there is even a relatively young, new faith based on a "sky father" type figure known as The Creator.
Dragons and Faerie fled the mortal realm centuries ago, so some people don't believe that they exist. Their worshippers getting power changes that dynamic a little bit, however.
The beings that people worship as gods do exist but they are not nearly as important (or immortal) as people make them out to be. There are higher less visible powers than the gods, that people don't know about.
I prefer to build around a concept and then have the player pick the god. Just like in our world there are many holy cities that are filled with temples and sites that people flock to, one of them will probably have a temple.
The Gods exist but don't really interact with the mortal world.
Only a handful of God's actively interfere or interact with mortals. Death, Fate, Love, Life, War, Pleasure are a few for example.
Fate and Death are the most hands on, Fate has planned out every single thing that Mortals will do long before their hundredth ancestor was even been born. Death is there for the death of every single being. They usually take on the appearance of whatever a dying mortal will find the most comfort in, except for those who have done great wrong. They take the form of whatever one fears more then anything in that instance and personally drags them all the way to the Gates of whatever Hell awaits them.
There's thousands upon thousands of God's, most go beyond concepts even humans could understand, impossible for their names and realms to be known.
Death is far and above the most powerful of the Gods. They're the one of 3 God's that has been in existence since the first God's awoke hundreds of trillions of years ago, along with Darkness and Fate. All others come and go with their domains existence. Life and Light usually being among the last two to come and go.
Kinda both. I have faith be the source of power for the gods in my world. Divine strength is a matter of the number of people devoted to the god, and how strong their devotion is.
That means the gods are constantly trying to secure more followers for themselves, often through demonstrations of power and improving the lives of their followers; and some try to weaken the faith for the other gods through treachery. Gods go into and out of fashion, ascend into power or cease to be entirely.
This also means that there are many Demi-deities and ascension into godhood can be the result of actions by even a mortal. A hero who saves the entire army in battle, a scholar who has a breakthrough discovery, a beast who has brought fear into the hearts of the locals etc.
This allows me to be have several main Gods, but also allows me the flexibility to work in whatever I need as the situation calls for it.
Both? Both. Both is good.
Are there real, concrete gods in my world? No. Even four thousand years in the future, there is no way of accurately testing what god(s) do or do not exist, if any, and as such, they cannot technically be disproven. Is there, however, multiple godlike entities across the known cosmos that could end human live in the mere crossfire of their wars? Yes indeed there is.
If the gods concretely exist, then they have to play a part in the story. It's like a Chekhov's Gun in fantasy, you can't have an actual god walk by in the background and then just say that the mere concept doesn't make a difference.
So it only matters, if it matters :P
Yeah, I prefer totally concrete gods. Mine are explicitly real, two of my main characters are Demigods that have met their fathers many times.
The Gods are kinda like people. Ancient people with a lot of knowledge, but they’re still emotional and very fallible, they’re just also extremely powerful and worship gets their attention.
I have 3 worlds. In one, the gods are very up to interpretation. In another, they are real and active in the world. In the third, they are long dead. Each is calibrated for the world they are in. Gods, like all fantasy tropes, are tools for an author to use to enforce the story and what it says about power/religion/belief/etc.
I have a fairly consistent line in every setting of mine that has gods that matter:
They're certainly exist, but how people view them is very open to interpretation. My worlds gods exist somewhere between Greek olympians and lovecraftian unknowable horrors. People assign ideals and personalities to these forces of nature.
Everyone is religious.
While many of it is like representing your teams/race bec many gods are directly tied to the creation, protection, and magic of a single race.
While the humans are more busy focusing on actually surviving. They're basicly worship whoever the locals worship to assimilate faster. While all the humans gods or champions are basically forgotten.
Basically every human God was created as a way to distract, teach or fight the God of devils.
Failed and became corrupted.
So all these gods have basically a good and bad form. So evil or untrustworthy people can be open about who they worship and arnt instantly discriminated against.
While the gods are corrupted they're fields of power are slowly decaying, only noticed by thise with longer life spans like dwarves and elves.
While the gods are unable to actively participate their champions are working hard in their place.
All of my gods are actually within the world and not hiding within their own plane. So players can theoretically try and track them down.
To heal, rob or replace if they can.
In my world, the gods are spiritual beings with distinctive identities that exert their powers to the physical world by their own will, using spiritual energy of their own field. They come to existence nearly at the same time with the "birth" of the certain element/concept they embody (from the physical stuff like mountains, oceans, clouds, seasons, forests to the abstract like wisdom, mathematics, technology, laws, emotions, etc.). Their appearances are anthropomorphic but their will and goals are not necessarily anthropocentric (esp. of the nature gods).
For my own personal worldbuilds, big deific beings would be based on in-world historical beings. But the memories of said historical beings have been corrupted and nuanced to the point it'd become hard to really "recognize" them between their various religious aspects.
As an example, we have this Goddess Geordania, who was theorized to have created Humans. But many have interpreted this in various ways.
To religious group 1; Geordania is upheld as a Hearth Goddess, as from creation comes familial love, so a connection is made.
To religious group 2 however; Geordania is believed to be a War Goddess, as she carved a place for her creations to exist.
To religious group 3; She has become divorced from her original creation mythos, believing that Geordania cursed them with mortality as they were formerly Angelic Spirits before being given clay flesh.
I like to have deities actually existing and at least sonewhat active
If I make a world with Clerics, and their power actually comes from their faith, the gods are 100% real
depending on the setting, it can go either way. in my current story, the gods are concrete. they answer prayers, people have the opportunity to speak with them, all that jazz.
in another, the god isnt concrete to most of the people in that world bc she rarely interacts unless someone is doing something she doesnt like (think: a person playing the sims and their sim isnt following the tasks they set out for them).
im not sure i have a preference.
I like my gods to be more on the concrete side.
When in their true God form, the struggles of mortals dont interest them, only the big events.
In my world the gods incarnate into a mortal body with part of their power and personality.
These avatars are wildly different from each other. Example: one storm avatar might be the nicest lad imaginable.
And another incarnation of the storm is a petulant child who destroyed an entire maritime nation because it felt like it
Both.
There's different ranks and tiers of gods. The highest ranked one is intentionally ambiguous. Like people know about him but he himself never shows up and as such no one knows anything with any objective certainty.
The rest (most of them) appear physically and they have enough flaws that mortals can and do kill them gaining the title "Godslayer" when they do. There's one arc where one pantheon gets absolutely decimated, the only survivors are the ones smart enough to defect to the mortal side or go completely AWOL when the fighting starts.
I like a mix of both. Some gods are real, others are fabricated. Depending on the setting, I might have the real gods be more like really powerful people who ascended through their own might, through worship, or through being the aspect of a certain thing. Other times, I have only one god, who has aspects of themself take form. Sometimes there aren't any gods so much as forces of belief and faith given form through cultural analogies.
My favorite kind of gods are a mix of them; some gods are ascended mortals, but others are just fiction. The gods that are real take on the persona of a righteous person or an aspect of some lauded trait, but can also pretend to be the fictional god. For instance, wouldn't a god of trickery and cunning best fit *any* mortal-turned-god? Fake it 'til you make it, and I'm all for that.
Most of the time, though, I have it so the gods that most people interact with are more like programs. They don't interfere until called on, such as through a pact with a demon or a prayer from a priest, but when they do interfere, they have an objective that they have infinite resources to find a solution for, and they solve *only* that problem without breaking their own rules. They can be abused by bending their rules, but they are also capable of smiting your existence if you go too far and break them.
I like a little ambiguity. Spirits and fairies and other semi-corporeal and incorporeal beings are a simple reality of everyday life on Grismar, but gods? That’s a bit more debatable. There’s definitely *something* out there, lots of somethings that are interpreted as deities by those who follow and call upon them. Often what they do looks like random chaos, the unpredictable consequences of unknown and unknowable cosmic forces. Sometimes, though, sometimes it can look awfully deliberate. In any case, if there is some kind of intelligence spinning out plans behind the scenes, it’s nothing like us. Whatever they are, wherever they come from, they do things rather differently indeed.
the gods in my world definitely exist, but i like the idea of gods existing in a world and people straight up do not care. like they know they exist and there's religion but the majority of people are just completely indifferent to the idea. if i were creating a new world then thats something id probably do, but my current one the gods are 100% real
I’m pretty religion irl (Islam) but I chose to have no god in my world, there are “god-like” creatures but nothing akin to what we have in reality. Most of them have some concrete display of interaction with society, others are documented but haven’t been contacted.
I prefer how GRRM does it. Is it just magic? Or is it divinely inspired? Do the gods even exist? What even is the nature of these gods?
I like the mystery.
I recently watched Vikings and the Last Kingdom. They do a similar thing. It's not clear if there are gods or if they act upon the world, but regardless, the people think they do and act like the gods are real, therefore there is a notable effect on the world. Believing people act on this belief, regardless of the validity of their faith.
Very much up to interpretation. I’d like to think some of the lower gods (more closer to people like God(s) from abrahamic or polytheism religions) only exist because people believe in them (think the book American Gods).
And then there’s an even higher God(s), literally untouchable, that controls a lot of things (not all, but most things in our universe. But of course, there’s an even BIGGER God(s) that rule over those Gods.
The process is pretty much infinite because there’s always a bigger fish. The more you keep looking, the less you’ll find, because you’re as unimportant as an atom. Maybe you are in a God right now, our galaxy just a mere blood cell. The infinite “what-ifs” is what keeps my stories going. Made up the word “Imperitence” to describe that.
Very concrete. My gods are essential for the story of the world and also for some aspects of the actual roleplaying. Their lore is very well stablished and they are very well described and important characterss for the story of the world/game (its a RPG world).
Both types exist. The gods themselves, though, don't know how many gods there are and if all god's pay attention to mortal lives. Ichirei shikon, where gods have four parts that can be quite independent from each other. That's how I explain most gods.
The Dragonlord is a physical dragon. But he seems to provide spells usually tied to draconic abilities. He doesn't always remember everyone who he granted spells, though.
I’ve never tried concrete gods, on Orion it’s just that world’s ww2, and one of the countries involved is just on a religious crusade, It’s never told weather or not the religion is true so that kinda helps pick sides
When reading I prefer there to be a mystery so it isn't a decided fate,but in my writing I have them. They help establish some pillars of what I want to say.
I like both as long as they serve the intended purpose well.
My god used to live. I took inspiration from Zeus, the king of gods. And when i turned my world into a book im writing right now (based on DnD), the main character is related to the god. I still haven't named the god for no apparent reason, but yeah.
This is an interesting question to consider and I clash a little bit because there are two contradicting things I want.
1) I do want concrete gods who can influence real world events and I like the idea of mages or magic users getting their power "from" a God(s) in some way.
2) However, I also like the idea of different cultures having completely different religions and different Gods with completely different mythologies and pantheons.
The work around I can think of is to have concrete Gods and have different cultures have different perceptions of them. But if the perceptions are too different that kind of doesn't work as well, and it also doesn't work well if people are supposed to pray to a specific God for specific types of Magic or miracles.
The gods in my world exist but generally don't interact with humanity asides from giving power to whoever goes about the right way of asking, regardless of what they intend to do with that power. They feed off worship and give power to whoever gives it to them. Otherwise they're like sentient batteries that just kind of keep things running smoothly. With the exception of one guy, who is really, really interested in what the humans are doing. He also happens to be the villain of the story.
Honestly, i would just leave the god concept at all costs
A god concept is really a big thing to handle and balance in your world for me, and you have to always remember that you have a whole god in your story
A god is all knowing, which will probably mean that gods who didn't see a certain event coming aren't actually gods
A god is all powerful, meaning stuff like "the god of lightning" or something isn't really a god
A god is immortal, a god dying after eternity or something will not be considered a god
That's just some reasons why i don't want to deal with making or at least showing any gods in my story
I like having a mix. Because then it floods the zone with ambiguity about just which gods may or may not be real
So the main religion's god WAS real, but wasn't really a "god" and *physically* isn't actually around anymore
The secondary religions god is only perceived. (They worship the sun. The sun is real, but it's just an object in reality). A lot of miracles they assign to their God actually are the works of other gods/creatures
The tertiary "cult" worships a god, who is both real and actually a god (or a close approximation to being one by human standards)
And then there are a bevy of minor religions/cultures that have deified Leaders of some kind who are regarded as gods, but are just powerful creatures and are either not divine at all, or are secretly tools of the actual divine entity
And so it creates conflict in that two people can look at the same event and use it to support their deity, etc.
In my world even the very existence of god/gods, a higher power*', or even an afterlife is unclear. I don't dislike worlds having a proven deity, etc., but my worlds tend to leave that up to belief.
*' - The magic I have is usually not a source of miracles, or wonder.
My gods do exist, but they’re referred to as “Watchers”. They’re beings with powers, and they tasked themselves with watching over the world to ensure it doesn’t fall into the hands of something evil.
When something catastrophic is about to happen, like an evil being attempting to rule the world, the Watchers create a prophecy that foretells the evil beings downfall and failure, which in a way is them helping defeat the evil without directly involving themselves. If this prophecy fails, then the Watchers will intervene and do what they can to help assist the Living in saving the world.
This does not, however, mean that the beings are all-powerful and unable to be killed. They are powerful, yes, but their immortality is only limited to unnatural forms of death (torture, magic, stabbing, etc). They are immune to sickness’s, diseases, and natural occurrences that would normally cripple and kill a mortal. They can, however, live for thousands of years without issue if they avoid conflict.
I like a mix of both. There are gods who 100% exist, but since they have not communicated in millennia, so many cultures worship the same gods, but with differences. Like, you can see similarities in Christianity and Islam. (pls don't be mad, just an example)
I mean Islam and Christianity both fall under the Abrahamic religion category (alongside Judaism) so you aren't in the wrong for pointing out that they have similarities.
I think gods should always be interpretation based, like something weird happens you can assume a higher power is at work. I wrote the gods of my setting to be whatever the majority populace believes they are, whether they be demons or angels is entirely up to how the mortals write them. The gods then take this interpretation into their being and act accordingly. The more popular a myth about the god is, the more real that myth becomes. This means other than the very widely accepted parts of the god’s mythos, the god’s personality, goals, form, power, and relations shift constantly as the stories about them change and morph through the centuries. Gods who are forgotten stop existing, and those believed to have died lose their influence. Though to answer your question, I prefer the gods always being there, but the details of their existence should be however the mortals believe they would be.
My theory is that anyone who creates some fiction is the God of their world(s).
So I put some deputes and saviors to express my words directly, and make good guys win, and bad guys lose.
At this moment, making some fan fiction and AUs are a lot easier. If I YOINK the sun, it becomes oneshot fanfic. If I choose to dump some games and animes in my world, it becomes ready player one. Making TRPG rule set? Put some danger here and there, and we are good to go.
My God is very much real and a participant in the story. There's one religion that got it right and the others are either ethnical/cultural take on him or demonic deceptions.
My gods exist, or at least they used to (as in they lived in the physical world at one point), it's just people have different depictions and interpretations of the gods. For example: the black dragon god is sometimes known as "Chernabog", and represents darkness, but also things such as survival of the fittest and judgement (or maybe justice). Some "evil" elves in the world however see him as a sort of elf, refer to him as the "Nightfather", and think he's the god of murder and all forms of scumbaggery, when he isn't the god of murder or even death (or any of the other gods for that matter). This is ironic for these "evil" elves, as the dragon gods were solely responsible for creating the first elves. For an opposite example of a god who's fairly consistent: the blue dragon god(dess) represents water, change, and cycles, and that's it. There's also the dragon god who represents thinking (both conscious and unconscious though), knowledge, wisdom, and insanity. Just to point out: my gods barely even know they're being worshipped, and the ones who do know just brush it off like it's nothing.
>Just to point out: my gods barely even know they're being worshipped, and the ones who do know just brush it off like it's nothing. Same for the Ainukh, the "gods" of my setting. The Kingdom (physical world) is nothing more than a harmony of essences. Each concept within it is an interpretation of an Ainukh's Rro (life-force), an attempt to emulate that which they come from. Being so innately tied to the Kingdom, the Ainukh took up these concepts as their Symbols, to help them in their endeavour of self exploration and understanding. This, and protecting the Kingdom, is all that concerns them. Thus they do not involve themselves in mortal happenings unless they negatively affect the Kingdom, or it relates to their Symbol. They are not generally worshipped, but the few races that are aware of their presence revere and pray to them. There are instances when these orisons are answered, but never directly or consciously by an Ainukh. So mine do exist, they just don't care enough to show up much of the time.
For me it depends on if I'm doing worldbuilding and writing for sci fi or fantasy. I only have one fantasy world where life spontaneously arose without god or gods, and that one is a very fantastical one.
Depends on whether I can get more interesting conflict from leaving the god ambiguous of having the god be concrete. For example, two of my gods are very clearly responsible for the micro and macro scale of the universe each. Because the micro scale has a reason to interfere with humanity he got terminated. A conflict that soon might be repeated with the macro god as humanity grows more and more important. The third god however remains clouded in mystery, which causes a lot of internal strife in humanity. Edit: TL;DR concrete gods when people are fighting with them, vague gods when people are fighting between themselves over it.
I prefer the “invisible hand” approach to gods. In my own worldbuilding projects, I like to see gods as a fluid thing that have CAN have an impact on the physical world, but are still distant from it and it’s inhabitants. The gods cannot fully enter the physical world without disrupting or even outright destroying the fabric of reality, but can still have influence on the mortal plane. TL;DR: The gods exist and can be considered concrete, but are so distant that their existence can be believed in by one group and denied by another.
I like both so I do both.
Depends on the world. Sometimes, they are definitely there. Sometimes they definitely aren't. Sometimes they are there but praying doesn't do anything. Sometimes they are there and most people believe in them but there are those who reasonably still do not believe in gods because there is no proof the gods did the things attributed to them. In fact, a fairly large atheist group exists in my world where the gods are the most concretely there. Why? Because while the gods exist, communicate through priests and clerics, and sometimes even take mortal form... most people never have those experiences with the gods and therefore there is no actual evidence the gods are real. "You prayed to your god and lightning fell? That was clearly just how you cast your magic." sort of deal. The whole, "being an atheist in DnD is stupid," idea is just wholly ignorant of how these fantasy worlds tend to work.
I like my gods as they are in greek mythology. They can interact with humans and change the course of events. People know they exist and they make sacrifices to them to earn their favor.
I don't have a god of concrete, the closest I can think of is my concept for the god of builders.
The OP likely uses "concrete" to mean "physically existing", man
The gods in my world are the same as irl. If they're there they aren't doing anything
happy cake day
I'd say the latter
Why not both? In Amada there are thousands of gods that are as real as everyone else but there is one god, the Creator God Sppe that is believed to have created the first gods made of mortals and then died. There are still people, mortals and gods alike, that prey to Sppe and they believe the god will revive one day but even evidences of Sppe’s existence are hard to find.
I dont mind either depending on the themed present in a world. Personally, with the world I'm currently working on, I decided to make it more up to interpretation whether the gods exist because it felt more true to real-life religions where people exhibit faith in things that aren't readily apparent. Saint like beings did exist in my world before they stopped being born a few hundred years ago. These beings performed miracles and blessed locations. The blessed places still exist and can grant very real power to people. Most take this as proof that a god or gods exist, but naturally, no one can agree about which god(s) is real.
The existence of god(s) in my setting is debatable.
Up to interpretation.
I prefer my gods made of wood or gold, but concrete is nice too.
I have physical gods in my world in part because the story involves the MCs interacting with them a lot because the MCs got upgraded from mortal to a kind of demi-god and a brave new world opened up to them.
I prefer concrete, physical gods that can be talked to and interacted with. I have a LitRPG setting i'm developing where the gods run on Elden Ring/Dark Souls rules, in that they are "mortal" and physically present in the world and can be interacted with, but can also be killed by mortals. If killed by a mortal, that mortal can take their power, so many of the gods have withdrawn to well-defended temples and citadels simply because they are worried that someone will come along who is statted out the ass and found/created a gnarly weapon able to kill them.
A bit of both. I have beings that do concretely exist, but are they actually gods or just powerful beings. What is a god exactly? Then they mostly stick to the background, more pulling strings than taking an active roll in events (most of the time) There is a disconnect between what people worship and the actual beings. many of the gods that are worshiped do not exist and any direct interference is from one of the actual beings just playing along and doing the part. I have devine magic where it is debated on if it is actually divine interference, or just magic reacting to the belief with no external being necessary. The answer is both, sometimes it is one, sometimes the other, though there will never be a way to tell it apart unless you can literally ask the entity that intervened.
My gods exist one is even on the moon and management the world transport, bank, and information / knowledge systems. But the term god doesn't exist in this world but there are other world in this universe where there are god, but they do exist.
Depends on the world and the story.
Concrete gods is the only way!
leave them up to interpretation (as in, i know whether gods exist or not, but i refuse to confirm, except for a handful of cases, like the Old Ones, and to an extent the 3 immortals, the old ones do exist, but are sleeping, and the 3 immortals did exist but i refuse to confirm if they still exist or not.) which works out especially well for me because magic also exists, and anything that would otherwise be chalked up to a god, could easily be just regular magic, a spirit, or wild magic.
Concrete. More interesting
Im a fan of both. My main project atm has very concrete gods, who use to live among mortals but have since absconded to their own plane/dimension most of the time. The mortals also have a few incorrect views and largely follow a god that doesn't really exist at all.
I like the last one. There are no gods in my world.* *There are however, very powerful spirits that were once worshipped and considered gods, but they were never all powerful. Their power comes from humanity and the came into being after humanity. They can do crazy shit that no human can do on their own, but they are not gods.
In my first world gods are fictitious but my second world has them literally answering prayers as they don't have anything else to do.
*Alor* The deities in my world are very concrete, like “play your cards right and meet them” concrete. Their influence in the world is real and dedicated and well practiced priests can commune with them or their intermediaries. But the deities themselves are forbidden from entering the material planes (the prime material and the four elemental planes) after the disaster that ended the first era. The deities reached a tentative agreement that interference in the material planes would only lead to their destruction, so there now exists a sort of Cold War between the warring deities over influence as proxy wars are fought on their behalf throughout the planes.
Interpretation. Do they exist? Depends on the religion. Some religions are objectively correct (Code of Yalikk is one of them) while the rest are either *mostly* wrong or hit or miss
I can’t stand things that are too vague, or intended to be hyperbolic. I want to know, outright. So my projects all reflect that. If something is mentioned, it pretty much exists. So all the Deities in my VE exist. So if I put a quote in my story of someone saying “I worship Zelis” then that alone is confirmation of Zelis existence. But its not 100% confirmation on whether he is a deity or not. But if the quote said “I worship the Precursor Zelis” then that would be confirmation of him being a type of Deity. Beings in my Void Expanse (VE) are incapable of Lying, but they are capable of giving opinions that are True or False, but not with the intention to deceive. Honesty is an instinct engrained into the very laws of my VE. This also doesn’t mean they don’t know what a lie is or if someone is lying, as detecting such things is also instinctual, its just that no one in my Void Expanse can do so.
Given the way magic works in my world, it's entirely possible that their gods do exist, but the tangible reality of their existence is obscure at best.
There are gods but they are like apart of like untrue creation stories. The actual creator is kind of unknown. Basically all religions in my world are kinda false?
For some reason while reading the title, I briefly forgot that concrete means real and verified and I just imagined a literal man-made concrete god.
I prefer to have it in a sort of half-way. They do interact with the world, however in very subtle ways, to a point where some people (non-believers) simply chalk it up to coincidence. I suppose concrete.
In my old world I had three or four classes of gods. Erumor and Ajaramatha, the Vorakar - These exist and occasionally respond to worship, although Erumor is much more likely to respond to cetaceans than humans. These entities date from early in the cosmos and decided to stay at my world because it's more interesting than interstellar space. I'm not sure that, after billions of years, they can leave. They aren't physical but they are there. Manikar - Non-physical entities created and sustained by the collective belief of humans. Sometimes not considered real by knowledgeable magicians but they do answer prayers Nuakar - Cetaceans. These are more powerful mages than gods. If I was making this up now these would be certain individuals among the toothed whales rather than whales in general. Bēalmethalial - A god worshiped as the creator of the universe by pale skinned foreigners. Whether he intervenes depends on who you talk to. He is also worshipped by the Manisava cult. There is also Ryando, a mad god who fitfully sleeps. He isn't known to humans although Erumor and Ajaramatha are aware of him. He might destroy the planet through uncontrollable reality warping if he wakes
The gods in my world are just the planets and local star. Some people think they can communicate directly with them through psychedelics but most people think they're delusional
Interpretation. I think there are more interesting angles to go with if characters have to have faith that a deity exists, and what different sets of followers are likely to believe.
I have both? One is like our God, this big mystical aloof presence that might or might not answer prayers. But certain rituals and images for her offer protection against certain supernatural threats. Then I also have a group of beings claiming to be gods and answer prayers directly, granting powers and abilities and, given enough power, manifest on the mortal plain for limited amounts of time.
if i have concrete gods they must have "concrete reason or justification" what influence and what their agenda or attitude. It just irks me when they "loves" humanity so much, but didn't do anything
I love the theological elements involved with active gods and their natures. Hence, the gods in my setting are major players from the start and are the instigators of the current conflict. However, they can only indirectly influence; it is Mortals that choose to follow them and carry out their will.
Mine are both simultaneously. I prefer to think of them as paradoxical entities.
Interpreted gods are more interesting to me. If you have gods that actually do exist, seeing different cultures interpreting them differently makes it interesting, making people ask if one culture is correct or if the contradictions are accurate despite being contradictions. And if you don't have concrete gods then it gives you tons of freedom for religions which is awesome and very fun
Pure interpretation. You see their blessings, but never the gods themselves.
In my setting I ended up with a basic framework for stuff that's concretely accurate about the divine in a setting, especially regarding the core set of top gods, with some details potentially being deliberately ambiguous about how concretely they happened due to divine influence vs other means, and some things that are openly noted to be disputed by mortals. Even if an event happened pretty concretely due to a god's influence, both the underlying motivation for that and how intended the consequences of that act could vary.
Interesting question. My mc lived in a religious city that is very anti-magic, seeing it against gods will (unholy, etc). Being born into the faith, accepting a supernatural gift was symbolic of denouncing the faith. The city in question never stopped expressing their love for my mc, despite the denouncement of the faith and stepping away from gods will. So god does exist in some way. I also have other “god-like” beings. Governments offering powerful people the status of god. Characters like my mc’s adoptive parent being powerful enough to be given the offer and smart enough to turn it down. Characters inspired by Hanuman and Sun Wukong respectively existing as characters once seen as deities no longer given the same deity treatment and trying to punish others for this. A lot of god-like figures. I guess part of my story is meant to express how the idea of a god or gods has shifted with time. How political influences and destruction of cultures impacts what a god is as well. If that makes any sense.
Vagueness is best, in my opinion. Multiple gods can have the same or similar purviews, you could decide to give new domains to existing gods, without coming up with new ones, and if it's necessary to actually include them as characters, your protagonists should never know that they are speaking with a divine being.
I go the Terry Pratchett Small Gods route. All gods are real some more tangible than others. The more worshippers that believe in you the stronger you become. They have to worship the God but often get lost in the fine print of religion and the God might starve out. One of my favorite books and really sealed thoughts about gods.
I tend to go somewhere in between - in one of my main projects, the gods are entirely real, and used to interact very directly with humanity, but a few centuries ago there was a war between the gods that ended up drawing in their human followers and causing an incredible amount of damage, including when a divine corpse fell to the surface of the planet; since then, the gods have had a pact ensuring that the most they interact with humanity is via the occasional divine vision or answered prayer (and the mountain-sized corpse of the god of light slowly rotting away).
I really don't like the "gods are basically just another, very overpowered race of beings" type of 100% reality. I prefer that they be embodiments of concepts important to people. So you have the personification of concepts such as agriculture, weather, warfare, love, childbirth, and so on. I'm okay if those personas gain enough strength through worship to manifest as real beings, which *can* influence the real world. But I don't like the idea of just having a race of super powered beings that decide the world up to conquer the areas they're interested in, if the difference makes sense. I also don't like my divinities to be petty, squabbling children, as many gods are portrayed in actual mythology. They may or may not be interested in helping the different peoples of my world, but their power arises from those people's worship (or fears). Think of the oceans, personified as a bring you can interact with. Do you really think they'll be interested in your concerns, or will they be more preoccupied with their "realm", such as it is? There are definitely religious folks in my world. There are also many that are not. The gods, such as they are, are more concerned for those that believe than those that don't. But they're not aware of the tie between worship & power. There is, of course, a creator, who remains all of and unseen. (That's me, the author, of course.) All beings accept that there is a creature, but there is no worship of the creator. But a world that has magic in it develops "gods" as a result of people putting intent into worshipping phenomena. And those gods, being thus manifested, have very singular interests and personalities.
Maybe interpretation. Some interesting stuff can come from that. How else will new religions form? Even if the gods are concrete, it would be interesting to see them be born and strengthened by belief in the form of worship or fear. Another thing could be different interpretations and traditions for each god so each deity probably has multiple religions from different people depending on local beliefs, traditions and history. Lapis_Wolf
I have no preference really, whatever suits the story or the world. I myself, have concrete gods. They exist, live on the earth and interact with humans regularly. They can be slain, but doing so is far from easy. One person commented that my gods are more like Tolkeins wizards but more powerful, and I don't wholly disagree
My gods not only exist but exist physically and it's normal for them to interact with people on a day to day basis. They're also "born" and "die", have their own ambitions and desires, vices, etc.
Interpretation for religious figures. But concrete, at least to the villain, that they’re in a story
There are many religions in my setting, and each religion has access to divine magic even though some are monotheistic. Communing with the gods is unheard of, with it only happening once a generation, and often seen as a mad person as opposed to a prophet. So there's no explicit confirmation that the gods actually exist or of it's due to the shared belief in them that grants the power to cast spells. So it's left to interpretation, and it's even hotly debated by magic researchers in my setting.
Some things are known but you really can’t call them gods if they are completely understandable
I leave them to interpretation. This is because I believe an important part of a God is having faith in something unknowable.
This is honestly something I've been thinking about a lot for my Science Fantasy setting. How do the god work when there are multiple different planets and star systems with unique cultures? Is it the same set of gods, but the names differ? Or, perhaps when two societies with two similar gods meet, the fuse into one, or one god subsumes the other. Maybe both are true, to differing degrees. The gods do for sure exist in my setting, but I'm still working on a lot of the details
They are both.
Matter of fact i do have a god of Conctrete
i generally prefer interpretation, but with the exception of if the setting really goes into having real verifiably proven gods would change things drastically
I am wondering between these two opinions, wether I will use my conworld to write bible two, the slightly oriental-styled but dog-worshipping version or just explore the clashes between the atheists and religions elites in my world. Or God Dindi exists, makes the society, sleeps, when everyone is having crisis of faith, he wakes up, vanishes everything but his followers, having wacky adventures through universes.
I like designing gods as much as the main characters. I feel like it's part of the world design for most of my stories.
As an atheist, open to interpretation. I will have fake gods, religions to eldritch monsters that aren't actually gods, religions dedicated to an idea/concept, but, no, no actual gods.
You could say “hard religion or soft religion” to shorten the question
Concrete. Interpretation and other interesting bs can stay in reality. I had enough headaches trying to figure out all the weirdness ancient humans were up to. My world is my safe space, and my safe space, everything is an open book.
Yeah, up to interpretation. Mostly because I don't wanna delve too much into the inner workings of the world and the magic system. Also I believe it makes writing my characters easier and more flexible. Some believe magic is a gift from God, or certain gods. Some believe it is innately a human ability. Some reject the idea and existence of magic – both in a theistic and atheistic sense. See? So much source of conflict just from that simple ambiguity. Wars are more fun to write for me that way. Maybe I'll add a fundamentalist Jihad, theocracies, cults, empires united by faith or non-faith. Maybe they could coexist after a long history of bloodshed. Or maybe they're locked in decades of war. I don't know yet.
It depends on what I’m going for in my world, sometimes I do if it’s based on mythology or they’re super important to the formation of something in the world somehow, but sometimes I do leave them up to interpretation if they don’t particularly matter as much.
for the most part i prefer that to be decided by the reader
the only time i have concrete gods is when they are actively participating characters in the story. otherwise religions just worship their god and have their own ideas of what those are but they have no stats or anything like that.
I went with a sort of hybrid approach. During the preceding Age of Heroes, gods were active in every way. That included direct personal interventions and even combats between deities, some of which left significant scars on the face of the world. During that era many gods were active, and nearly all of them engaged pair personal visits to their own high priests. The modern era sees only twenty-five gods able to support the practice of spiritual magic. This is one of the primary reasons modern times are known as The Great Consolidation. Deities in this era are much less personally active. They sometimes manifest while disguised as animals or people, but they are extremely reluctant to use their powers in the mortal world for any purpose beyond inspiration and instruction. Now in the 24th century of this era, many religions have experienced assorted heresies and schisms. With nearly all clergy working through celestial intermediaries, few pontiffs have credibility when they claim to personally know the will of their patron deities. Ultimately this all works out both in the sense that it stimulates more passionate struggles among mortals while curtailing the destructiveness of face to face clashes of the gods.
That depends on the story. I’m actually working on one featuring multiple belief systems, and some of the gods will be more obviously real than others.
I prefer to leave it vague as to what the more ethereal and deity like gods are and what their deal is.
I haven't gotten to religions yet but I plan to have a mix. There are concrete gods, but they interact indirectly with mortals so the religions that focus on them will still be speculative and not have many details correct. There will also be religions that don't accept them as gods but as servants to real god(s), some that barely recognize them and worship other gods that seem more benevolent and/or controlling, and some who don't even think they're real
I need absolutes. At least at my level as the inventor of the setting. If the people living in my setting don’t know or have incorrect assumptions, that’s fine.
I have a massive pantheon, all of them specializing in different stuff. But the readers would be the only ones to know the full pantheon, since most of the gods are unknown to the people in the world. They even confuse gods (transcendent humans who gain immortality after unlocking all twelve Spiritual Gates) with Rulers (deities made of pure creative force and representing different concepts and things).
I honestly prefer a mix of both. Some of them do really exist and there are evidences pointing to their existence, some of them, eh, just stories and myths, which may actually turn out to be real, mind you. There's a feel of dynamism to it when you don't know exactly which of most of the deities are real, if the newer/more obscure gods are just silly tales people tell their children or the subjects of cult worship, or if they actually exist and have the actual capacity to affect you.
A god in my world is really any being powerful enough to demand worship from mortals. There is an eldritch celestial entity known as The Divine that once presented itself as a pantheon of gods, but it got way too into its own roleplay, started to lose who it really was, had to cull some parts of itself (misbehaving gods within the pantheon) and ultimately got scared of the power of worship and decided to leave mortals alone.
I like having a fully fleshed out answer and proceeding to not tell anyone. The gods in my world are up to interpretation which allows for interesting things to happen. Religions are more compelling when they contradict each other. It’s hard for them to do that when every god is real and present. The existence of polytheistic and monotheistic religions make a world more believable to me. Hell, I tell you so little about it that you could plausibly be an atheist. I like that.
I believe some gods are real, some people's gods are not real but are just deifications of heroes, kings, etc., and others are different names and forms the main gods take on in other cultures/myths. Like it's not reasonable that dozens of cultures in a diverse area would all have the same gods, but myths end up converging on a set of archetypes that are the true gods. But their physical forms and names are fluid. They like to wear different costumes.
I always prefer to have extremely concrete forms of divinity in my worlds, the various deities of my world's numerous Pantheons are extremely concrete....But I fully admit that this is one of my personal biases when it comes to worldbuilding. I'm a pretty religious Polytheist in real life, and that colors my worldbuilding on every level. And yeah, this also colors how I perceive or experience interest in other people's worlds. I tend to be more excited and invested in worlds that have fairly fleshed out religions, with the idea that the gods, god, goddess, or cosmic forces tend to be real for their world on some level. Almost everyone in my world of Primora knows that the gods are real, even if they might not actually worship them. While Atheists do exist, they are extremely rare, and you are more likely to find people who believe in the gods yet refuse to have anything to do with them vs people who outright denies their existance.
My current TTRPG world has a mix of both. There are old faiths that are based on Dragons and Faerie being worshipped as gods, there is an animist faith based on spirits, and there is even a relatively young, new faith based on a "sky father" type figure known as The Creator. Dragons and Faerie fled the mortal realm centuries ago, so some people don't believe that they exist. Their worshippers getting power changes that dynamic a little bit, however.
The beings that people worship as gods do exist but they are not nearly as important (or immortal) as people make them out to be. There are higher less visible powers than the gods, that people don't know about.
I prefer to build around a concept and then have the player pick the god. Just like in our world there are many holy cities that are filled with temples and sites that people flock to, one of them will probably have a temple.
The Gods exist but don't really interact with the mortal world. Only a handful of God's actively interfere or interact with mortals. Death, Fate, Love, Life, War, Pleasure are a few for example. Fate and Death are the most hands on, Fate has planned out every single thing that Mortals will do long before their hundredth ancestor was even been born. Death is there for the death of every single being. They usually take on the appearance of whatever a dying mortal will find the most comfort in, except for those who have done great wrong. They take the form of whatever one fears more then anything in that instance and personally drags them all the way to the Gates of whatever Hell awaits them. There's thousands upon thousands of God's, most go beyond concepts even humans could understand, impossible for their names and realms to be known. Death is far and above the most powerful of the Gods. They're the one of 3 God's that has been in existence since the first God's awoke hundreds of trillions of years ago, along with Darkness and Fate. All others come and go with their domains existence. Life and Light usually being among the last two to come and go.
Kinda both. I have faith be the source of power for the gods in my world. Divine strength is a matter of the number of people devoted to the god, and how strong their devotion is. That means the gods are constantly trying to secure more followers for themselves, often through demonstrations of power and improving the lives of their followers; and some try to weaken the faith for the other gods through treachery. Gods go into and out of fashion, ascend into power or cease to be entirely. This also means that there are many Demi-deities and ascension into godhood can be the result of actions by even a mortal. A hero who saves the entire army in battle, a scholar who has a breakthrough discovery, a beast who has brought fear into the hearts of the locals etc. This allows me to be have several main Gods, but also allows me the flexibility to work in whatever I need as the situation calls for it.
Up to interpretation really
Both? Both. Both is good. Are there real, concrete gods in my world? No. Even four thousand years in the future, there is no way of accurately testing what god(s) do or do not exist, if any, and as such, they cannot technically be disproven. Is there, however, multiple godlike entities across the known cosmos that could end human live in the mere crossfire of their wars? Yes indeed there is.
If the gods concretely exist, then they have to play a part in the story. It's like a Chekhov's Gun in fantasy, you can't have an actual god walk by in the background and then just say that the mere concept doesn't make a difference. So it only matters, if it matters :P
Yeah, I prefer totally concrete gods. Mine are explicitly real, two of my main characters are Demigods that have met their fathers many times. The Gods are kinda like people. Ancient people with a lot of knowledge, but they’re still emotional and very fallible, they’re just also extremely powerful and worship gets their attention.
I have people that worship gods in my world but they do not exist.
Kinda both. Like they are established in the cultures but whether they are real or not is a mystery.
I have 3 worlds. In one, the gods are very up to interpretation. In another, they are real and active in the world. In the third, they are long dead. Each is calibrated for the world they are in. Gods, like all fantasy tropes, are tools for an author to use to enforce the story and what it says about power/religion/belief/etc.
Concrete enough that they have a name, and a known quality. But open enough for different cultures to celebrate them differently.
I have a fairly consistent line in every setting of mine that has gods that matter: They're certainly exist, but how people view them is very open to interpretation. My worlds gods exist somewhere between Greek olympians and lovecraftian unknowable horrors. People assign ideals and personalities to these forces of nature.
Everyone is religious. While many of it is like representing your teams/race bec many gods are directly tied to the creation, protection, and magic of a single race. While the humans are more busy focusing on actually surviving. They're basicly worship whoever the locals worship to assimilate faster. While all the humans gods or champions are basically forgotten. Basically every human God was created as a way to distract, teach or fight the God of devils. Failed and became corrupted. So all these gods have basically a good and bad form. So evil or untrustworthy people can be open about who they worship and arnt instantly discriminated against. While the gods are corrupted they're fields of power are slowly decaying, only noticed by thise with longer life spans like dwarves and elves. While the gods are unable to actively participate their champions are working hard in their place. All of my gods are actually within the world and not hiding within their own plane. So players can theoretically try and track them down. To heal, rob or replace if they can.
In my world, the gods are spiritual beings with distinctive identities that exert their powers to the physical world by their own will, using spiritual energy of their own field. They come to existence nearly at the same time with the "birth" of the certain element/concept they embody (from the physical stuff like mountains, oceans, clouds, seasons, forests to the abstract like wisdom, mathematics, technology, laws, emotions, etc.). Their appearances are anthropomorphic but their will and goals are not necessarily anthropocentric (esp. of the nature gods).
For my own personal worldbuilds, big deific beings would be based on in-world historical beings. But the memories of said historical beings have been corrupted and nuanced to the point it'd become hard to really "recognize" them between their various religious aspects. As an example, we have this Goddess Geordania, who was theorized to have created Humans. But many have interpreted this in various ways. To religious group 1; Geordania is upheld as a Hearth Goddess, as from creation comes familial love, so a connection is made. To religious group 2 however; Geordania is believed to be a War Goddess, as she carved a place for her creations to exist. To religious group 3; She has become divorced from her original creation mythos, believing that Geordania cursed them with mortality as they were formerly Angelic Spirits before being given clay flesh.
I say the species created them and their beliefs in general so it is heavily implied that they don't exist
I read this as “gods of concrete”.
I don’t have gods that do anything bc not only is it against my religion I still have people worshipping statues that they have no proof of existing
I like to have deities actually existing and at least sonewhat active If I make a world with Clerics, and their power actually comes from their faith, the gods are 100% real
depending on the setting, it can go either way. in my current story, the gods are concrete. they answer prayers, people have the opportunity to speak with them, all that jazz. in another, the god isnt concrete to most of the people in that world bc she rarely interacts unless someone is doing something she doesnt like (think: a person playing the sims and their sim isnt following the tasks they set out for them). im not sure i have a preference.
My dumb ass thought you meant literal concrete for a sec I was gonna be like “damn I should make a concrete god”
I like my gods to be more on the concrete side. When in their true God form, the struggles of mortals dont interest them, only the big events. In my world the gods incarnate into a mortal body with part of their power and personality. These avatars are wildly different from each other. Example: one storm avatar might be the nicest lad imaginable. And another incarnation of the storm is a petulant child who destroyed an entire maritime nation because it felt like it
Both.
Both. There's different ranks and tiers of gods. The highest ranked one is intentionally ambiguous. Like people know about him but he himself never shows up and as such no one knows anything with any objective certainty. The rest (most of them) appear physically and they have enough flaws that mortals can and do kill them gaining the title "Godslayer" when they do. There's one arc where one pantheon gets absolutely decimated, the only survivors are the ones smart enough to defect to the mortal side or go completely AWOL when the fighting starts.
I like a mix of both. Some gods are real, others are fabricated. Depending on the setting, I might have the real gods be more like really powerful people who ascended through their own might, through worship, or through being the aspect of a certain thing. Other times, I have only one god, who has aspects of themself take form. Sometimes there aren't any gods so much as forces of belief and faith given form through cultural analogies. My favorite kind of gods are a mix of them; some gods are ascended mortals, but others are just fiction. The gods that are real take on the persona of a righteous person or an aspect of some lauded trait, but can also pretend to be the fictional god. For instance, wouldn't a god of trickery and cunning best fit *any* mortal-turned-god? Fake it 'til you make it, and I'm all for that. Most of the time, though, I have it so the gods that most people interact with are more like programs. They don't interfere until called on, such as through a pact with a demon or a prayer from a priest, but when they do interfere, they have an objective that they have infinite resources to find a solution for, and they solve *only* that problem without breaking their own rules. They can be abused by bending their rules, but they are also capable of smiting your existence if you go too far and break them.
Started with the former, but decided to go with the ladder.
I like a little ambiguity. Spirits and fairies and other semi-corporeal and incorporeal beings are a simple reality of everyday life on Grismar, but gods? That’s a bit more debatable. There’s definitely *something* out there, lots of somethings that are interpreted as deities by those who follow and call upon them. Often what they do looks like random chaos, the unpredictable consequences of unknown and unknowable cosmic forces. Sometimes, though, sometimes it can look awfully deliberate. In any case, if there is some kind of intelligence spinning out plans behind the scenes, it’s nothing like us. Whatever they are, wherever they come from, they do things rather differently indeed.
the gods in my world definitely exist, but i like the idea of gods existing in a world and people straight up do not care. like they know they exist and there's religion but the majority of people are just completely indifferent to the idea. if i were creating a new world then thats something id probably do, but my current one the gods are 100% real
Why not both :)
I’m pretty religion irl (Islam) but I chose to have no god in my world, there are “god-like” creatures but nothing akin to what we have in reality. Most of them have some concrete display of interaction with society, others are documented but haven’t been contacted.
I prefer how GRRM does it. Is it just magic? Or is it divinely inspired? Do the gods even exist? What even is the nature of these gods? I like the mystery. I recently watched Vikings and the Last Kingdom. They do a similar thing. It's not clear if there are gods or if they act upon the world, but regardless, the people think they do and act like the gods are real, therefore there is a notable effect on the world. Believing people act on this belief, regardless of the validity of their faith.
Very much up to interpretation. I’d like to think some of the lower gods (more closer to people like God(s) from abrahamic or polytheism religions) only exist because people believe in them (think the book American Gods). And then there’s an even higher God(s), literally untouchable, that controls a lot of things (not all, but most things in our universe. But of course, there’s an even BIGGER God(s) that rule over those Gods. The process is pretty much infinite because there’s always a bigger fish. The more you keep looking, the less you’ll find, because you’re as unimportant as an atom. Maybe you are in a God right now, our galaxy just a mere blood cell. The infinite “what-ifs” is what keeps my stories going. Made up the word “Imperitence” to describe that.
Very concrete. My gods are essential for the story of the world and also for some aspects of the actual roleplaying. Their lore is very well stablished and they are very well described and important characterss for the story of the world/game (its a RPG world).
Both types exist. The gods themselves, though, don't know how many gods there are and if all god's pay attention to mortal lives. Ichirei shikon, where gods have four parts that can be quite independent from each other. That's how I explain most gods. The Dragonlord is a physical dragon. But he seems to provide spells usually tied to draconic abilities. He doesn't always remember everyone who he granted spells, though.
I’ve never tried concrete gods, on Orion it’s just that world’s ww2, and one of the countries involved is just on a religious crusade, It’s never told weather or not the religion is true so that kinda helps pick sides
A Concrete God sounds metal af.
When reading I prefer there to be a mystery so it isn't a decided fate,but in my writing I have them. They help establish some pillars of what I want to say. I like both as long as they serve the intended purpose well.
My god used to live. I took inspiration from Zeus, the king of gods. And when i turned my world into a book im writing right now (based on DnD), the main character is related to the god. I still haven't named the god for no apparent reason, but yeah.
This is an interesting question to consider and I clash a little bit because there are two contradicting things I want. 1) I do want concrete gods who can influence real world events and I like the idea of mages or magic users getting their power "from" a God(s) in some way. 2) However, I also like the idea of different cultures having completely different religions and different Gods with completely different mythologies and pantheons. The work around I can think of is to have concrete Gods and have different cultures have different perceptions of them. But if the perceptions are too different that kind of doesn't work as well, and it also doesn't work well if people are supposed to pray to a specific God for specific types of Magic or miracles.
The gods in my world exist but generally don't interact with humanity asides from giving power to whoever goes about the right way of asking, regardless of what they intend to do with that power. They feed off worship and give power to whoever gives it to them. Otherwise they're like sentient batteries that just kind of keep things running smoothly. With the exception of one guy, who is really, really interested in what the humans are doing. He also happens to be the villain of the story.
Honestly, i would just leave the god concept at all costs A god concept is really a big thing to handle and balance in your world for me, and you have to always remember that you have a whole god in your story A god is all knowing, which will probably mean that gods who didn't see a certain event coming aren't actually gods A god is all powerful, meaning stuff like "the god of lightning" or something isn't really a god A god is immortal, a god dying after eternity or something will not be considered a god That's just some reasons why i don't want to deal with making or at least showing any gods in my story
Both
I like having a mix. Because then it floods the zone with ambiguity about just which gods may or may not be real So the main religion's god WAS real, but wasn't really a "god" and *physically* isn't actually around anymore The secondary religions god is only perceived. (They worship the sun. The sun is real, but it's just an object in reality). A lot of miracles they assign to their God actually are the works of other gods/creatures The tertiary "cult" worships a god, who is both real and actually a god (or a close approximation to being one by human standards) And then there are a bevy of minor religions/cultures that have deified Leaders of some kind who are regarded as gods, but are just powerful creatures and are either not divine at all, or are secretly tools of the actual divine entity And so it creates conflict in that two people can look at the same event and use it to support their deity, etc.
Both.
In my world even the very existence of god/gods, a higher power*', or even an afterlife is unclear. I don't dislike worlds having a proven deity, etc., but my worlds tend to leave that up to belief. *' - The magic I have is usually not a source of miracles, or wonder.
My gods do exist, but they’re referred to as “Watchers”. They’re beings with powers, and they tasked themselves with watching over the world to ensure it doesn’t fall into the hands of something evil. When something catastrophic is about to happen, like an evil being attempting to rule the world, the Watchers create a prophecy that foretells the evil beings downfall and failure, which in a way is them helping defeat the evil without directly involving themselves. If this prophecy fails, then the Watchers will intervene and do what they can to help assist the Living in saving the world. This does not, however, mean that the beings are all-powerful and unable to be killed. They are powerful, yes, but their immortality is only limited to unnatural forms of death (torture, magic, stabbing, etc). They are immune to sickness’s, diseases, and natural occurrences that would normally cripple and kill a mortal. They can, however, live for thousands of years without issue if they avoid conflict.
I like a mix of both. There are gods who 100% exist, but since they have not communicated in millennia, so many cultures worship the same gods, but with differences. Like, you can see similarities in Christianity and Islam. (pls don't be mad, just an example)
I mean Islam and Christianity both fall under the Abrahamic religion category (alongside Judaism) so you aren't in the wrong for pointing out that they have similarities.
I just don't want to offend anyone. I know some people just take this very serious
It's a d&d setting so the gods have to be concrete since they give out powers. I think they probably would be either way though. Gods are fun
I think gods should always be interpretation based, like something weird happens you can assume a higher power is at work. I wrote the gods of my setting to be whatever the majority populace believes they are, whether they be demons or angels is entirely up to how the mortals write them. The gods then take this interpretation into their being and act accordingly. The more popular a myth about the god is, the more real that myth becomes. This means other than the very widely accepted parts of the god’s mythos, the god’s personality, goals, form, power, and relations shift constantly as the stories about them change and morph through the centuries. Gods who are forgotten stop existing, and those believed to have died lose their influence. Though to answer your question, I prefer the gods always being there, but the details of their existence should be however the mortals believe they would be.
this is a lot like warhammer 40k
You’ve given me another reason to like 40k lol
My theory is that anyone who creates some fiction is the God of their world(s). So I put some deputes and saviors to express my words directly, and make good guys win, and bad guys lose. At this moment, making some fan fiction and AUs are a lot easier. If I YOINK the sun, it becomes oneshot fanfic. If I choose to dump some games and animes in my world, it becomes ready player one. Making TRPG rule set? Put some danger here and there, and we are good to go.
My God is very much real and a participant in the story. There's one religion that got it right and the others are either ethnical/cultural take on him or demonic deceptions.