85 replies to this topic

[Archmage Silver]

Possibilities, infinite amount of possibilities. Nothing is always certain, though.

[Stone Wolf]

I've read in a few places that a Power cannot survive without worshippers. One place is in the Astral Plane book in the section titled "Dead Gods."

[NiGHTMARE]

After the Time of Troubles, Ao made the gods' power depend on the number of worshippers they have. However, obviously this only affects the gods of Aber-Toril, and not any other world.

[Stone Wolf]

Well, this is what they say in the Planescape book on the Astral Plane:

Far more commonly (though it's still very rare), a power will die a slow, undramatic death.  Her demise will be brought about as her worshippers faith wanes and mortals cease to believe in her or what she represents.  Some folds say that a power is merely the sum of the beliefs of her worshippers.  The mortal follwers of a god sustain her and give her life.  This certainly appears to be true, because no worship  means no deity--there's some floating gods on the astral as proof.

It then gives an example of a Power that isn't of the Forgotten Realms, who was worshipped on two worlds and then died due to lack or worshippers. It appears that the standard rule is that a Power cannot survive without worshippers. Maybe there was something funky going on in the FR, and then Ao changed it back to normal.

[Archmage Silver]

Afaik the gods of Krynn aren't dependable on the number of their followers.

[Stone Wolf]

Are there any Powers that don't have worshippers? That would prove the book I quoted wrong, but I don't recall reading anything that said the number of worshippers determined power level (though it seems logical to me).

[NiGHTMARE]

If you're a follower of the theory that the Lady (of Sigil) is a god, then she certainly breaks the rule. In fact, she goes out of her way to prevent people worshipping her.

[Stone Wolf]

I'm not sure what the Lady is, but I doubt she's a regular Power. Some people think the Dabus might worship her, but I don't know why she'd try to prevent other people from worshipping her (and by preventing I mean killing anyone who does). Who knows, though. She might have made a deal with Ao (or something else like Ao) granting her control of the portals in exchange for having only Dabus worshipping her.

In Planescape campaigns, I had one rule with dealing with the Lady, and that was to treat her as if she were a Power. In other words, avoid her at all costs.

[Archmage Silver]

Krynn's gods don't die if their followers do, but I'm not sure if the number of their followers affects their personal power.

[Stone Wolf]

Do you have a source for that info? Does it also say that they aren't worshipped on other worlds as well?

[Caedwyr]

Note that the power and strength of deities, is not necessarily based off the number of worshipers. I do know that Ao introduced this for the Toril deities, and only after the Time of Troubles. Before then I believe the tablets of fate outlined what power each god had. Of course this causes problems for all the gods who've died from neglect.....

Also, Ao only can intercede with deities that are worshipped in Toril, and only so far as their major interactions with Toril are concerned. AFAIK Ao can't mess with a Kyrnish, or Athlas god unless they are also worshipped on Toril.

[Stone Wolf]

That's true. I know Krynn has it's own overpower. I think they're in charge of a specific crystal sphere. Ao was seen conversing with something else which might have been in charge of all crystal spheres or maybe the whole ball of wax. Of course there are also alternate realities, and I don't know how those fit in.

[Archmage Silver]

I guess that if every sphere has its own supreme leader the whole collection of worlds don't have a yet Higher Power watching over all of them?

[Stone Wolf]

Well, there is that being that Ao was seen talking to, but noone knows who that is. Since the vast majority of Powers have most of their worshippers on Prime worlds, I imagine that the overpowers do a pretty good job of watching over the others.

[Archmage Silver]

I guess that the big bosses are the ones who existed before the multiverse and even helped to create it, like Ahriman.

[Stone Wolf]

Not that I've heard of. I guess having my NPC worship Celestian is a good choice, since Celestian has a lot of Planars worshipping him and doesn't have to fear the Overpowers too much.

[Archmage Silver]

Overpowers... I wonder if they can be beaten by alliance of gods and their mortal spellcaster allies?

[Stone Wolf]

I'm guessing they can't--at least not on their home world. If they wandered out onto the Planes, they could probably be stomped pretty easily.

[NiGHTMARE]

I think Overpowers are so closely tied with their respective worlds, they can't leave them entirely. And if an Overpower was ever killed, their world would probably end up being destroyed along with them.