it depends upon the campaign setting. During the Time of Troubles, it was rather easy to kill gods. in the Forgotten Realms gods have died at a variety of times in a variety of ways. Dragon Lance also has specific rules about killing Gods in their home plane. You could also refer to the D&D Immortal Rules boxed set, where the PC are gods rising up the ranks.
Artifacts and help from great powers, seems like a good place to start. Usually the power that helps doesn't actually enter the fight, but rather takes actions to keep the target preoccupied so they don't notice the growing threat represented by the PCs. Most gods have allies so a god might not want to take credit for killing a rival. Better to let some foolish mortals brag about killing a god than to bring down the wrath of the rest of the pantheon.
Usually the precise way to kill a god is tied to their domains, origination story, and known weaknesses. Knowledge is power, and it will likely take many years of collecting secret and lost tomes to learn what is needed to kill a specific god. Or ask one of the gods of knowledge or secrets.
My friends seem to be fans of the Small Gods framework, which is basically that a god is only as powerful as the number of people who... Well, BELIEVE in them isn't quite right, and following their dogma certainly isn't it... It's more like, the number of people who need them. People who know about them, and for whom the god is useful in some way.
At least, that's how it is in the book. When we talk about it, it's basically just people who believe the god is real and powerful. The god can do whatever people think it can do. And since Deception is a skill you can get Expertise in, the path to killing a god (or indeed, becoming one) becomes so simple as to be boring imo.
I've always been fond of gods who are flawed people. I think you should be able to trick a god into exposing some kind of weakness, and then stab them with a rusty knife that future generations will insist was an enchanted mithral sword forged in a volcano by the king of devils. The trick, really, is in getting the god's attention. There's a lot of people living at any given moment. If a god paid special attention to any of them, where should they draw the line? Who's important enough? Who can offer them something they don't already have?
I actually never understood the issue with killing gods in D&D, since these aren’t deities with a capital ‘G’. At 20th+ level, you’re up there with Hercules, OR, as another person mentioned, Kratos. Just set them at the high end of CR 30 (meaning more powerful than Tiamat or the (lame) Tarrasque). Obviously both Legendary and Mythic (though more Mythic along the lines of how Auril was done in Rime of the Frostmaiden). If killed anywhere other than their home plane, they are effectively banished there for Xd100 years. Killing them on their home plane should involve cutting your way through hordes of planar servants, navigating the fantastical landscape, breaching their presumed fortress, and facing off with the god in a god’s Lair. Unique Legendary, Mythic, and Lair Actions to apply. If the party does all of this, they’ve earned the title of godslayer. Personally I do imagine the characters would have to use a magic item along the lines of an artifact.
I actually never understood the issue with killing gods in D&D, since these aren’t deities with a capital ‘G’. At 20th+ level, you’re up there with Hercules, OR, as another person mentioned, Kratos. Just set them at the high end of CR 30 (meaning more powerful than Tiamat or the (lame) Tarrasque). Obviously both Legendary and Mythic (though more Mythic along the lines of how Auril was done in Rime of the Frostmaiden). If killed anywhere other than their home plane, they are effectively banished there for Xd100 years. Killing them on their home plane should involve cutting your way through hordes of planar servants, navigating the fantastical landscape, breaching their presumed fortress, and facing off with the god in a god’s Lair. Unique Legendary, Mythic, and Lair Actions to apply. If the party does all of this, they’ve earned the title of godslayer. Personally I do imagine the characters would have to use a magic item along the lines of an artifact.
P.S. I’m the 99th reply, woot!
The Tiamat stats are for an avatar, not the full being herself. You're breaking a deity's hand if you kill an avatar, but the core of their power and being is unaffected. And, generally speaking, in D&D lore deities are objectively so far above mortals that even level 20 characters have no chance in a straight battle with them. It takes some form of plot device like the Time of Troubles to give an opening.
The problem with the faith model for the existence of gods is that it begs the question as to what, exactly, do gods actually do?
They cannot have created anything that came before them. They cannot have governed anything that came before them. So what, exactly, does a Sun God do? The sun was there being exactly as it was believed to be before anyone started personifying it. It almost certainly is pretty much the same afterwards, too.
And if someone did ascend by way of enough people believing them to be a god, who would really be in control? Wouldn't the person ascending be ceding control over their very being, over everything about them, to the masses of believers? After all, when the power is coming from the believers, it is based on what the believers actually believe, not merely on what this new deity wants them to believe.
For the low cost of "being at the whim of your founding followers for a few decades", you get power ever lasting and life eternal (well eternal as long as your faith (religion) maintains). I mean let's be honest, would you believe that mere mortals had any real power over a god? What would you say if someone told you they could literally call (insert god of choice) up, and command them to do their bidding?
As to what do the gods actually DO? Their jobs of course. (God of choice) doesn't need to have started with (ability), they simply have to convince enough mortals that (ability/power/event/etc...) was caused by them.
For example, say a simple musician was gifted with the ability to KNOW the exact moment the sun would rise every day. This musician decides to play a song to welcome the sun, everyday. People start taking note, and it becomes a legend that the musician's song is what causes the sun to rise. As fate would have it, someone publicly confronts the musician about the legend, insulting the musician in the process.... Wouldn't you know it, that insult happens to perfectly sync with a solar eclipse.... a series of happenstance has just given rise to a Sun god... Backed by the fervent belief, a simple musician has gained actual power over the ability to make the sun rise.
I personally would have put this thread in "Forum Games" board, not here, since the original intent of this board as far as I can tell is to have people on this site ask each other QUESTIONS about how to do things (that WOTC could just as well have solved by investing a little more money and time into their help department instead of fobbing it off on the community when it's really THEIR responsibility to answer questions ...)
whereas the Forum Games board and similar ones seem more designed for "what if" discussions, speculations, and other threads that are created without a specific PURPOSE other than to have fun in mind. IMHO that might have helped avoid some of the more contentious debate.
=====================
As far as killing a god, really it comes down to, "Why is a god alive in the first place? What causes them to live?" Since that's a finite thing, and in most cosmologies comes down to one thing, belief, there are existentially and by definition only a limited, finite number of ways to do it. To take the admittedly most interesting and creative of the examples you've adduced, if gods don't breathe then suffocating them under an infinite pile of rose petals isn't going to do very much, now is it? And if their bodies are uncrushable (which they should be since the god THEMSELVES is I'd imagine more like Tolkien's view of the Valar, that the body they walk in is not essential to them and not necessary for them to live therefore not necessary it remain intact for them to continue living.
I've been trying for some time now to think of a more interesting answer, since I too like the creative and the quirky, but the nature of the problem itself kind of limits the options. And the ways to kill an ancient dragon are already well established in the game system. But there, having a little more leeway ...
how about, since most dragons love a good debate, boosting your INT to 20 with magic and debating it into a logical paradox where whatever conclusion it comes to involves it either killing itself or literally, since its a magical world ... you've proven logically it can;t possibly continue to exist, so it simply doesn't
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Famh Thrawn Fiadhaich - 'half elven' sorcerer (wild magic) 2, Sleeping Gods - A Dragon Warriors campaign in the Lands of Legend
Quspira Inirali - tiefling cleric (Life domain) 4, Painted's "He'll be the father of my child"
---RETIRED HEROES' REST HOME---
Sae Ivui Nailo - wood elf rogue (inquisitive) 5 , Sea of Death: Captain Hailstorm's Lost Treasure
Ryshraxea "Shra" Naranthi - tabaxi artificer 1, Nyx's Tomb of Annihilation - Group 1
The problem with the faith model for the existence of gods is that it begs the question as to what, exactly, do gods actually do?
They cannot have created anything that came before them. They cannot have governed anything that came before them. So what, exactly, does a Sun God do? The sun was there being exactly as it was believed to be before anyone started personifying it. It almost certainly is pretty much the same afterwards, too.
And if someone did ascend by way of enough people believing them to be a god, who would really be in control? Wouldn't the person ascending be ceding control over their very being, over everything about them, to the masses of believers? After all, when the power is coming from the believers, it is based on what the believers actually believe, not merely on what this new deity wants them to believe.
For the low cost of "being at the whim of your founding followers for a few decades", you get power ever lasting and life eternal (well eternal as long as your faith (religion) maintains). I mean let's be honest, would you believe that mere mortals had any real power over a god? What would you say if someone told you they could literally call (insert god of choice) up, and command them to do their bidding?
As to what do the gods actually DO? Their jobs of course. (God of choice) doesn't need to have started with (ability), they simply have to convince enough mortals that (ability/power/event/etc...) was caused by them.
For example, say a simple musician was gifted with the ability to KNOW the exact moment the sun would rise every day. This musician decides to play a song to welcome the sun, everyday. People start taking note, and it becomes a legend that the musician's song is what causes the sun to rise. As fate would have it, someone publicly confronts the musician about the legend, insulting the musician in the process.... Wouldn't you know it, that insult happens to perfectly sync with a solar eclipse.... a series of happenstance has just given rise to a Sun god... Backed by the fervent belief, a simple musician has gained actual power over the ability to make the sun rise.
But that's the thing... it is not your power. You can only exercise it in accordance with the beliefs powering it, i.e. as they wish, rather than as you wish.
With respect to that musician, not only now MUST they play to welcome the sun, the sun was rising before its rising was attributed to them. Or even before they were born. So it is still not really their playing causing the sun rise.
IMO, it is your power within limits established by your portfolio. It's like a gift certificate for DDB (your portfolio). Your followers, over a month, give you a $20 credit to buy whatever you want as long as it is for sale on the site. Eventually it adds up to enough to buy a book. They also occasionally ask you to start a campaign for them & grant access to Kotath's Encyclical of Erudition because they want to use a subclass or spell or whatever. But you can have only so many campaigns, and only so many followers per campaign, so you can't just give everyone everything all at once. And Ao, Domain Host of DDB.com, needs a cut to cover the infrastructure that allows your followers to give gift certs to you, send you requests, and for you to share books with them.
Without your followers, you can't get new books or maintain your Master level subscription (without which, you die). But without you, your followers can't access those new books, and are stuck playing D&D with just the SRD and a few paltry scraps that fell off the table.
According to prior editions of D&D, not all gods are created equal. Some (or at least one) existed before the multiverse. A decent number came into existence at the same moment as the multiverse. These early gods created other gods, titans, the creator races, and some of the PC races (although many of these were created by the creator races). While many gods came into existence because of the faith of their followers, some of these are actually just different aspects of the same god. Another fun twist is that dead gods can be resurrected. On occasion living gods can even be merged together to from one god, or split apart to form multiple gods.
Also the Dawn War makes a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse as all the official campaign settings exist before some of the fights between the gods and the primordials are fought. those fights can retroactively change not only the present and future, but also the established past.
Also the Dawn War makes a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse as all the official campaign settings exist before some of the fights between the gods and the primordials are fought. those fights can retroactively change not only the present and future, but also the established past.
That's nothing new. WOTC has been making a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse for quite some time now. For just a recent example, WTF is this crap that now all my tiefling characters have to be sired by Asmodeus even though they come from a homebrew world where Asmodeus doesn't exist? But its written into the official materials, not just a campaign setting, so we HAVE to use it. That's bull. Keep the campaign-specific spit in prechewed predigested official campaign worlds where it is OPTIONAL.
Come to think of it, White Wolf pulled this paternalistic dictatorial business about 2000 with their World of Darkness games, had to retract later and issue a 20th anniversary edition that put things back the way they had been. And White Wolf is the 1000 pound gorilla that bought the 500 pound gorilla TSR, the original manufacturer of D&D; and then were bought up by the 2000 pound gorilla WOTC, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Famh Thrawn Fiadhaich - 'half elven' sorcerer (wild magic) 2, Sleeping Gods - A Dragon Warriors campaign in the Lands of Legend
Quspira Inirali - tiefling cleric (Life domain) 4, Painted's "He'll be the father of my child"
---RETIRED HEROES' REST HOME---
Sae Ivui Nailo - wood elf rogue (inquisitive) 5 , Sea of Death: Captain Hailstorm's Lost Treasure
Ryshraxea "Shra" Naranthi - tabaxi artificer 1, Nyx's Tomb of Annihilation - Group 1
Also the Dawn War makes a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse as all the official campaign settings exist before some of the fights between the gods and the primordials are fought. those fights can retroactively change not only the present and future, but also the established past.
That's nothing new. WOTC has been making a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse for quite some time now. For just a recent example, WTF is this crap that now all my tiefling characters have to be sired by Asmodeus even though they come from a homebrew world where Asmodeus doesn't exist? But its written into the official materials, not just a campaign setting, so we HAVE to use it. That's bull. Keep the campaign-specific spit in prechewed predigested official campaign worlds where it is OPTIONAL.
While I 100% agree on keeping lore setting specific and out of PHB descriptions, that’s a bit dramatic. I promise you, Chris Perkins will not come to your house if you ignore half a sentence of lore.
Maybe if you ignore a full sentence, but not half a sentence.
Also the Dawn War makes a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse as all the official campaign settings exist before some of the fights between the gods and the primordials are fought. those fights can retroactively change not only the present and future, but also the established past.
That's nothing new. WOTC has been making a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse for quite some time now. For just a recent example, WTF is this crap that now all my tiefling characters have to be sired by Asmodeus even though they come from a homebrew world where Asmodeus doesn't exist? But its written into the official materials, not just a campaign setting, so we HAVE to use it. That's bull. Keep the campaign-specific spit in prechewed predigested official campaign worlds where it is OPTIONAL.
Come to think of it, White Wolf pulled this paternalistic dictatorial business about 2000 with their World of Darkness games, had to retract later and issue a 20th anniversary edition that put things back the way they had been. And White Wolf is the 1000 pound gorilla that bought the 500 pound gorilla TSR, the original manufacturer of D&D; and then were bought up by the 2000 pound gorilla WOTC, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised
It ain't exactly new for them to cite official lore in the sourcebooks, I don't know why you're acting like this is something unheard of a debilitating. Just... don't use that that lore in your homebrew if you don't like it.
I would seek out another God that wanted this one removed. Then I would attempt to follow the quests that God gave me to see the task through.
This would begin with finding a Bard or Cleric that could tell me which gods were likely to appreciate my help.
Then I would seek out clerics of those orders and inquire of them if they could ask for guidance on this issue for me.
Once I have established a link and it sounds like this is a god I could work with, I would begin performing the quests.
The earliest quest may be to prove my worth and then my dedication to the cause. After that I expect to get quests that are obviously helping me advance the cause. The problem becomes, am I receiving help from this god or just a pawn in their game?
Maybe it’s just me but most of the solutions come back around to having someone else do the work of killing the god for you (another god) or destroying the faith. That is 100% against the parameters the OP laid out.
Maybe it’s just me but most of the solutions come back around to having someone else do the work of killing the god for you (another god) or destroying the faith. That is 100% against the parameters the OP laid out.
Which points out the difficulties involved in actually killing a god.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I'm fairly sure the Dawn War was part of AD&D 1st edition, while Gary Gygax was still in charge.
Technically 5e is set in the Forgotten Realms although the PH and DMG provide rules for making adventures located in other worlds. If you are going to offer races in the PH you need to chose which campaign setting to use. Elves and Dwarves are different in the Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance, along with some of the other races. Dark Sun is even more extremely different for all the races.
I wanted Dragon Lance to be a campaign setting with its own set of races and classes. That would have been a great place to test the One D&D rule changes, as it would not detract from the core 5e world, but could expand into the Realms if it turns out to be popular enough.
Dark Sun would be a great place for a different set of rules that are very Psionic heavy. If it turns out to be game breaking, no problem since they aren't core rules and were never intended to be compatible with the rest of the game, but if they work, or only need a few tweaks they can be added to the Realms.
Eberon would be another great place to test out a different set of rules.
By using different campaign settings to test out different rules, they could get feedback about what is well received and what flopped. Then when they eventually create 6e they could take the best from everything and tweak it to be even better.
Maybe it’s just me but most of the solutions come back around to having someone else do the work of killing the god for you (another god) or destroying the faith. That is 100% against the parameters the OP laid out.
Which points out the difficulties involved in actually killing a god.
Or the false assumption that our modern understanding of godhood doesn’t match up with gods D&D takes inspiration from. Greek gods took physical form all the time, as did the Norse. And while you’re run of the mill commoner or even hero couldn’t touch their stats, it makes perfect sense that an epic level PC could.
Maybe it’s just me but most of the solutions come back around to having someone else do the work of killing the god for you (another god) or destroying the faith. That is 100% against the parameters the OP laid out.
Which points out the difficulties involved in actually killing a god.
Or the false assumption that our modern understanding of godhood doesn’t match up with gods D&D takes inspiration from. Greek gods took physical form all the time, as did the Norse. And while you’re run of the mill commoner or even hero couldn’t touch their stats, it makes perfect sense that an epic level PC could.
Greek gods took physical form, but they could not be killed. Norse gods could be killed, but only by foes of similar power levels or in the case of Baldr, by the one thing in existence he was vulnerable to, which still had to be powered up by Loki's magic to make it a deadly weapon.
Once something's powerful enough to call themselves a god and get away with it, killing them is much more difficult than some schmuck just poking them in the kidneys with a pointy bit of metal.
it depends upon the campaign setting. During the Time of Troubles, it was rather easy to kill gods. in the Forgotten Realms gods have died at a variety of times in a variety of ways. Dragon Lance also has specific rules about killing Gods in their home plane. You could also refer to the D&D Immortal Rules boxed set, where the PC are gods rising up the ranks.
Artifacts and help from great powers, seems like a good place to start. Usually the power that helps doesn't actually enter the fight, but rather takes actions to keep the target preoccupied so they don't notice the growing threat represented by the PCs. Most gods have allies so a god might not want to take credit for killing a rival. Better to let some foolish mortals brag about killing a god than to bring down the wrath of the rest of the pantheon.
Usually the precise way to kill a god is tied to their domains, origination story, and known weaknesses. Knowledge is power, and it will likely take many years of collecting secret and lost tomes to learn what is needed to kill a specific god. Or ask one of the gods of knowledge or secrets.
My friends seem to be fans of the Small Gods framework, which is basically that a god is only as powerful as the number of people who... Well, BELIEVE in them isn't quite right, and following their dogma certainly isn't it... It's more like, the number of people who need them. People who know about them, and for whom the god is useful in some way.
At least, that's how it is in the book. When we talk about it, it's basically just people who believe the god is real and powerful. The god can do whatever people think it can do. And since Deception is a skill you can get Expertise in, the path to killing a god (or indeed, becoming one) becomes so simple as to be boring imo.
I've always been fond of gods who are flawed people. I think you should be able to trick a god into exposing some kind of weakness, and then stab them with a rusty knife that future generations will insist was an enchanted mithral sword forged in a volcano by the king of devils. The trick, really, is in getting the god's attention. There's a lot of people living at any given moment. If a god paid special attention to any of them, where should they draw the line? Who's important enough? Who can offer them something they don't already have?
I actually never understood the issue with killing gods in D&D, since these aren’t deities with a capital ‘G’. At 20th+ level, you’re up there with Hercules, OR, as another person mentioned, Kratos. Just set them at the high end of CR 30 (meaning more powerful than Tiamat or the (lame) Tarrasque). Obviously both Legendary and Mythic (though more Mythic along the lines of how Auril was done in Rime of the Frostmaiden). If killed anywhere other than their home plane, they are effectively banished there for Xd100 years. Killing them on their home plane should involve cutting your way through hordes of planar servants, navigating the fantastical landscape, breaching their presumed fortress, and facing off with the god in a god’s Lair. Unique Legendary, Mythic, and Lair Actions to apply. If the party does all of this, they’ve earned the title of godslayer. Personally I do imagine the characters would have to use a magic item along the lines of an artifact.
P.S. I’m the 99th reply, woot!
The Tiamat stats are for an avatar, not the full being herself. You're breaking a deity's hand if you kill an avatar, but the core of their power and being is unaffected. And, generally speaking, in D&D lore deities are objectively so far above mortals that even level 20 characters have no chance in a straight battle with them. It takes some form of plot device like the Time of Troubles to give an opening.
For the low cost of "being at the whim of your founding followers for a few decades", you get power ever lasting and life eternal (well eternal as long as your faith (religion) maintains). I mean let's be honest, would you believe that mere mortals had any real power over a god? What would you say if someone told you they could literally call (insert god of choice) up, and command them to do their bidding?
As to what do the gods actually DO? Their jobs of course. (God of choice) doesn't need to have started with (ability), they simply have to convince enough mortals that (ability/power/event/etc...) was caused by them.
For example, say a simple musician was gifted with the ability to KNOW the exact moment the sun would rise every day. This musician decides to play a song to welcome the sun, everyday. People start taking note, and it becomes a legend that the musician's song is what causes the sun to rise. As fate would have it, someone publicly confronts the musician about the legend, insulting the musician in the process.... Wouldn't you know it, that insult happens to perfectly sync with a solar eclipse.... a series of happenstance has just given rise to a Sun god... Backed by the fervent belief, a simple musician has gained actual power over the ability to make the sun rise.
I personally would have put this thread in "Forum Games" board, not here, since the original intent of this board as far as I can tell is to have people on this site ask each other QUESTIONS about how to do things (that WOTC could just as well have solved by investing a little more money and time into their help department instead of fobbing it off on the community when it's really THEIR responsibility to answer questions ...)
whereas the Forum Games board and similar ones seem more designed for "what if" discussions, speculations, and other threads that are created without a specific PURPOSE other than to have fun in mind. IMHO that might have helped avoid some of the more contentious debate.
=====================
As far as killing a god, really it comes down to, "Why is a god alive in the first place? What causes them to live?" Since that's a finite thing, and in most cosmologies comes down to one thing, belief, there are existentially and by definition only a limited, finite number of ways to do it. To take the admittedly most interesting and creative of the examples you've adduced, if gods don't breathe then suffocating them under an infinite pile of rose petals isn't going to do very much, now is it? And if their bodies are uncrushable (which they should be since the god THEMSELVES is I'd imagine more like Tolkien's view of the Valar, that the body they walk in is not essential to them and not necessary for them to live therefore not necessary it remain intact for them to continue living.
I've been trying for some time now to think of a more interesting answer, since I too like the creative and the quirky, but the nature of the problem itself kind of limits the options. And the ways to kill an ancient dragon are already well established in the game system. But there, having a little more leeway ...
how about, since most dragons love a good debate, boosting your INT to 20 with magic and debating it into a logical paradox where whatever conclusion it comes to involves it either killing itself or literally, since its a magical world ... you've proven logically it can;t possibly continue to exist, so it simply doesn't
Famh Thrawn Fiadhaich - 'half elven' sorcerer (wild magic) 2, Sleeping Gods - A Dragon Warriors campaign in the Lands of Legend
Quspira Inirali - tiefling cleric (Life domain) 4, Painted's "He'll be the father of my child"
---RETIRED HEROES' REST HOME---
Sae Ivui Nailo - wood elf rogue (inquisitive) 5 , Sea of Death: Captain Hailstorm's Lost Treasure
Ryshraxea "Shra" Naranthi - tabaxi artificer 1, Nyx's Tomb of Annihilation - Group 1
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.
- Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
IMO, it is your power within limits established by your portfolio. It's like a gift certificate for DDB (your portfolio). Your followers, over a month, give you a $20 credit to buy whatever you want as long as it is for sale on the site. Eventually it adds up to enough to buy a book. They also occasionally ask you to start a campaign for them & grant access to Kotath's Encyclical of Erudition because they want to use a subclass or spell or whatever. But you can have only so many campaigns, and only so many followers per campaign, so you can't just give everyone everything all at once. And Ao, Domain Host of DDB.com, needs a cut to cover the infrastructure that allows your followers to give gift certs to you, send you requests, and for you to share books with them.
Without your followers, you can't get new books or maintain your Master level subscription (without which, you die). But without you, your followers can't access those new books, and are stuck playing D&D with just the SRD and a few paltry scraps that fell off the table.
According to prior editions of D&D, not all gods are created equal. Some (or at least one) existed before the multiverse. A decent number came into existence at the same moment as the multiverse. These early gods created other gods, titans, the creator races, and some of the PC races (although many of these were created by the creator races). While many gods came into existence because of the faith of their followers, some of these are actually just different aspects of the same god. Another fun twist is that dead gods can be resurrected. On occasion living gods can even be merged together to from one god, or split apart to form multiple gods.
Also the Dawn War makes a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse as all the official campaign settings exist before some of the fights between the gods and the primordials are fought. those fights can retroactively change not only the present and future, but also the established past.
That's nothing new. WOTC has been making a mess of the history of the D&D multiverse for quite some time now. For just a recent example, WTF is this crap that now all my tiefling characters have to be sired by Asmodeus even though they come from a homebrew world where Asmodeus doesn't exist? But its written into the official materials, not just a campaign setting, so we HAVE to use it. That's bull. Keep the campaign-specific spit in prechewed predigested official campaign worlds where it is OPTIONAL.
Come to think of it, White Wolf pulled this paternalistic dictatorial business about 2000 with their World of Darkness games, had to retract later and issue a 20th anniversary edition that put things back the way they had been. And White Wolf is the 1000 pound gorilla that bought the 500 pound gorilla TSR, the original manufacturer of D&D; and then were bought up by the 2000 pound gorilla WOTC, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised
Famh Thrawn Fiadhaich - 'half elven' sorcerer (wild magic) 2, Sleeping Gods - A Dragon Warriors campaign in the Lands of Legend
Quspira Inirali - tiefling cleric (Life domain) 4, Painted's "He'll be the father of my child"
---RETIRED HEROES' REST HOME---
Sae Ivui Nailo - wood elf rogue (inquisitive) 5 , Sea of Death: Captain Hailstorm's Lost Treasure
Ryshraxea "Shra" Naranthi - tabaxi artificer 1, Nyx's Tomb of Annihilation - Group 1
While I 100% agree on keeping lore setting specific and out of PHB descriptions, that’s a bit dramatic. I promise you, Chris Perkins will not come to your house if you ignore half a sentence of lore.
Maybe if you ignore a full sentence, but not half a sentence.
It ain't exactly new for them to cite official lore in the sourcebooks, I don't know why you're acting like this is something unheard of a debilitating. Just... don't use that that lore in your homebrew if you don't like it.
I would seek out another God that wanted this one removed. Then I would attempt to follow the quests that God gave me to see the task through.
This would begin with finding a Bard or Cleric that could tell me which gods were likely to appreciate my help.
Then I would seek out clerics of those orders and inquire of them if they could ask for guidance on this issue for me.
Once I have established a link and it sounds like this is a god I could work with, I would begin performing the quests.
The earliest quest may be to prove my worth and then my dedication to the cause. After that I expect to get quests that are obviously helping me advance the cause. The problem becomes, am I receiving help from this god or just a pawn in their game?
And what sorts of quests do you envision for the second category?
Maybe it’s just me but most of the solutions come back around to having someone else do the work of killing the god for you (another god) or destroying the faith. That is 100% against the parameters the OP laid out.
That only works on Lawful deities. Trying to pull that on Chaotic deities just makes them stronger.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Which points out the difficulties involved in actually killing a god.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I'm fairly sure the Dawn War was part of AD&D 1st edition, while Gary Gygax was still in charge.
Technically 5e is set in the Forgotten Realms although the PH and DMG provide rules for making adventures located in other worlds. If you are going to offer races in the PH you need to chose which campaign setting to use. Elves and Dwarves are different in the Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance, along with some of the other races. Dark Sun is even more extremely different for all the races.
I wanted Dragon Lance to be a campaign setting with its own set of races and classes. That would have been a great place to test the One D&D rule changes, as it would not detract from the core 5e world, but could expand into the Realms if it turns out to be popular enough.
Dark Sun would be a great place for a different set of rules that are very Psionic heavy. If it turns out to be game breaking, no problem since they aren't core rules and were never intended to be compatible with the rest of the game, but if they work, or only need a few tweaks they can be added to the Realms.
Eberon would be another great place to test out a different set of rules.
By using different campaign settings to test out different rules, they could get feedback about what is well received and what flopped. Then when they eventually create 6e they could take the best from everything and tweak it to be even better.
Or the false assumption that our modern understanding of godhood doesn’t match up with gods D&D takes inspiration from. Greek gods took physical form all the time, as did the Norse. And while you’re run of the mill commoner or even hero couldn’t touch their stats, it makes perfect sense that an epic level PC could.
Greek gods took physical form, but they could not be killed. Norse gods could be killed, but only by foes of similar power levels or in the case of Baldr, by the one thing in existence he was vulnerable to, which still had to be powered up by Loki's magic to make it a deadly weapon.
Once something's powerful enough to call themselves a god and get away with it, killing them is much more difficult than some schmuck just poking them in the kidneys with a pointy bit of metal.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.