You've almost completely missed the point I was making: killing gods isn't something players should be doing since it causes *serious problems* in properly constructed settings.
As an example, during the events of Forgotten Realms "time of troubles" Ao forced all of the gods except Helm to take on avatars until such time as the tablets of destiny were returned to him. As a consequences of this a plethora of gods were killed or kidnapped and various mortals ascended to godhood. The issue with this is that two of these mortals didn't understand the responsibilities they had and either tried to brute force the Pantheon into behaving as they wanted, screwing up the afterlife or going completely buckwild evil and potentially overthrowing the whole god damn thing.
Another example is from the war of the spiderqueen in which Lolth and Elistraee went all in for the fate of the drow and various other gods from the dark seldrine got involved and got wrecked (Elistraee killed Vhaerun when he intruded on her domain, a mortal was able to vorpal seveltarm's head off, Kiaransalee had her name obliterated via high magic and Ghaunadar's avatar got stuck in an infinite labyrinth) with Elistraee realizing too late that Lolth wasn't doing this to take her out, but rather to off all the gods of the Drow so that she would be the only one left and in a position to control the fates of all dark elves.
It's like smashing walls in a house; there might have been problems with some of them but things are only going to get so much worse when they no longer have a load baring section.
You may not like that mortals can kill gods, but that isn't going to change the plan or the method through which the plan will be enacted.
If a mortal is able to lay claim to a physical manifestation of a God's flesh; develop and implement a ritual strong enough to forcefully summon that God onto the material plane; And has the means to capture, process, and consume the dead God's power, then YEAH they probably deserve the glory that comes from killing (and perhaps becoming) a God.
Putting aside how most of this wouldn't work outside of say... prose, you are also ignoring two other important factors:
The god's worshippers who will kill you (for extra irony they're liable to do it the exact same way that you did it to them and rip the divinity back out of you).
Other gods who are not going to tolerate uppity mortals.
You've almost completely missed the point I was making: killing gods isn't something players should be doing since it causes *serious problems* in properly constructed settings.
As an example, during the events of Forgotten Realms "time of troubles" Ao forced all of the gods except Helm to take on avatars until such time as the tablets of destiny were returned to him. As a consequences of this a plethora of gods were killed or kidnapped and various mortals ascended to godhood. The issue with this is that two of these mortals didn't understand the responsibilities they had and either tried to brute force the Pantheon into behaving as they wanted, screwing up the afterlife or going completely buckwild evil and potentially overthrowing the whole god damn thing.
Another example is from the war of the spiderqueen in which Lolth and Elistraee went all in for the fate of the drow and various other gods from the dark seldrine got involved and got wrecked (Elistraee killed Vhaerun when he intruded on her domain, a mortal was able to vorpal seveltarm's head off, Kiaransalee had her name obliterated via high magic and Ghaunadar's avatar got stuck in an infinite labyrinth) with Elistraee realizing too late that Lolth wasn't doing this to take her out, but rather to off all the gods of the Drow so that she would be the only one left and in a position to control the fates of all dark elves.
It's like smashing walls in a house; there might have been problems with some of them but things are only going to get so much worse when they no longer have a load baring section.
You may not like that mortals can kill gods, but that isn't going to change the plan or the method through which the plan will be enacted.
If a mortal is able to lay claim to a physical manifestation of a God's flesh; develop and implement a ritual strong enough to forcefully summon that God onto the material plane; And has the means to capture, process, and consume the dead God's power, then YEAH they probably deserve the glory that comes from killing (and perhaps becoming) a God.
Putting aside how most of this wouldn't work outside of say... prose, you are also ignoring two other important factors:
The god's worshippers who will kill you (for extra irony they're liable to do it the exact same way that you did it to them and rip the divinity back out of you).
Other gods who are not going to tolerate uppity mortals.
Sure let them try. Your average worshipper isn't going to stand much of a chance of defeating someone strong enough to kill a god. And I would love to see the other Gods actually do anything. If the Gods can't physically interact with the world, hence the divine gate that I just used to make God ground beef, then how do they plan to "punish" the uppity mortal who just managed to kill one of them?
You've almost completely missed the point I was making: killing gods isn't something players should be doing since it causes *serious problems* in properly constructed settings.
As an example, during the events of Forgotten Realms "time of troubles" Ao forced all of the gods except Helm to take on avatars until such time as the tablets of destiny were returned to him. As a consequences of this a plethora of gods were killed or kidnapped and various mortals ascended to godhood. The issue with this is that two of these mortals didn't understand the responsibilities they had and either tried to brute force the Pantheon into behaving as they wanted, screwing up the afterlife or going completely buckwild evil and potentially overthrowing the whole god damn thing.
Another example is from the war of the spiderqueen in which Lolth and Elistraee went all in for the fate of the drow and various other gods from the dark seldrine got involved and got wrecked (Elistraee killed Vhaerun when he intruded on her domain, a mortal was able to vorpal seveltarm's head off, Kiaransalee had her name obliterated via high magic and Ghaunadar's avatar got stuck in an infinite labyrinth) with Elistraee realizing too late that Lolth wasn't doing this to take her out, but rather to off all the gods of the Drow so that she would be the only one left and in a position to control the fates of all dark elves.
It's like smashing walls in a house; there might have been problems with some of them but things are only going to get so much worse when they no longer have a load baring section.
You may not like that mortals can kill gods, but that isn't going to change the plan or the method through which the plan will be enacted.
If a mortal is able to lay claim to a physical manifestation of a God's flesh; develop and implement a ritual strong enough to forcefully summon that God onto the material plane; And has the means to capture, process, and consume the dead God's power, then YEAH they probably deserve the glory that comes from killing (and perhaps becoming) a God.
Putting aside how most of this wouldn't work outside of say... prose, you are also ignoring two other important factors:
The god's worshippers who will kill you (for extra irony they're liable to do it the exact same way that you did it to them and rip the divinity back out of you).
Other gods who are not going to tolerate uppity mortals.
Sure let them try. Your average worshipper isn't going to stand much of a chance of defeating someone strong enough to kill a god. And I would love to see the other Gods actually do anything. If the Gods can't physically interact with the world, hence the divine gate that I just used to make God ground beef, then how do they plan to "punish" the uppity mortal who just managed to kill one of them?
Per your own logic: they do the same ritual to you "hamburgering you" and then ripping the divinity out of you.
Beyond that you appear to be fundamentally misunderstanding what exactly a god *is*; It's an icon of faith that require worship in order to exist let alone function. All those cleric spells and crazy displays of power all stem from the worship of mortals of the god in question with the primary determinence of a gods power being the sheer volume of worshippers and faith they place in it. At the point where you have pulled this nonsense off you have precisely zero worshippers which means you may have whatever residual power is left in the god but that's probably not much more then the equivelant of a boon given that it was fighting for it's life against some uppity mortal.
Beyond that, the method that you have proposed was (per FR lore) attempted when Azuth (god of spells) had his divintity devoured by Asmodeus in the aftermath of Mystra's (god of magic) Murder at the hands of Cyric and Shar (Gods of strife and loss respectively) which allowed Asmodeus to ascend to straight up godhood... and it had the long term effect of causing him to start coming down with schizophrenia because it turns out that this methodology doesn't actually kill the god in question. As a result the lord of the nine was hearing a very old man rambling in his head until he ultimately ejected the god in question.
You've almost completely missed the point I was making: killing gods isn't something players should be doing since it causes *serious problems* in properly constructed settings.
As an example, during the events of Forgotten Realms "time of troubles" Ao forced all of the gods except Helm to take on avatars until such time as the tablets of destiny were returned to him. As a consequences of this a plethora of gods were killed or kidnapped and various mortals ascended to godhood. The issue with this is that two of these mortals didn't understand the responsibilities they had and either tried to brute force the Pantheon into behaving as they wanted, screwing up the afterlife or going completely buckwild evil and potentially overthrowing the whole god damn thing.
Another example is from the war of the spiderqueen in which Lolth and Elistraee went all in for the fate of the drow and various other gods from the dark seldrine got involved and got wrecked (Elistraee killed Vhaerun when he intruded on her domain, a mortal was able to vorpal seveltarm's head off, Kiaransalee had her name obliterated via high magic and Ghaunadar's avatar got stuck in an infinite labyrinth) with Elistraee realizing too late that Lolth wasn't doing this to take her out, but rather to off all the gods of the Drow so that she would be the only one left and in a position to control the fates of all dark elves.
It's like smashing walls in a house; there might have been problems with some of them but things are only going to get so much worse when they no longer have a load baring section.
You may not like that mortals can kill gods, but that isn't going to change the plan or the method through which the plan will be enacted.
If a mortal is able to lay claim to a physical manifestation of a God's flesh; develop and implement a ritual strong enough to forcefully summon that God onto the material plane; And has the means to capture, process, and consume the dead God's power, then YEAH they probably deserve the glory that comes from killing (and perhaps becoming) a God.
Putting aside how most of this wouldn't work outside of say... prose, you are also ignoring two other important factors:
The god's worshippers who will kill you (for extra irony they're liable to do it the exact same way that you did it to them and rip the divinity back out of you).
Other gods who are not going to tolerate uppity mortals.
Sure let them try. Your average worshipper isn't going to stand much of a chance of defeating someone strong enough to kill a god. And I would love to see the other Gods actually do anything. If the Gods can't physically interact with the world, hence the divine gate that I just used to make God ground beef, then how do they plan to "punish" the uppity mortal who just managed to kill one of them?
Per your own logic: they do the same ritual to you "hamburgering you" and then ripping the divinity out of you.
Beyond that you appear to be fundamentally misunderstanding what exactly a god *is*; It's an icon of faith that require worship in order to exist let alone function. All those cleric spells and crazy displays of power all stem from the worship of mortals of the god in question with the primary determinence of a gods power being the sheer volume of worshippers and faith they place in it. At the point where you have pulled this nonsense off you have precisely zero worshippers which means you may have whatever residual power is left in the god but that's probably not much more then the equivelant of a boon given that it was fighting for it's life against some uppity mortal.
Beyond that, the method that you have proposed was (per FR lore) attempted when Azuth (god of spells) had his divintity devoured by Asmodeus in the aftermath of Mystra's (god of magic) Murder at the hands of Cyric and Shar (Gods of strife and loss respectively) which allowed Asmodeus to ascend to straight up godhood... and it had the long term effect of causing him to start coming down with schizophrenia because it turns out that this methodology doesn't actually kill the god in question. As a result the lord of the nine was hearing a very old man rambling in his head until he ultimately ejected the god in question.
Someone didn't bother reading my previous replies, and doesn't seem to understand how the divine gate and/or the ritual in question function.
You also seem to be assuming quite a bit. You did get one thing correct though, a large amount of a God's power comes from the faith and belief they receive from their followers. Sure would be a shame if those followers weren't able to distinguish between their God, and an uppity mortal doing roughly the same thing. But then to be fair, how many people can honestly say that they have had the chance to look upon a God's visage. Sure MAYBE you might have to worry about the absolute upper echelon, those who have had direct or indirect dealings with the god in question. But how much are you really worried about the ramblings of a few old men/women? If the Pope publicly disavowed the existence of God, tomorrow, do you really think Catholics would just up and stop being Catholics?
One idea I’ve contemplated for a Ravenloft game is a ritual that would trap a Domain’s patron Dark Power in the body of its Darklord. If the Dark Power/Darklord fusion is defeated, it might not outright destroy the Dark Power, but it will be greatly weakened for a time, at least within that Domain. The Darklord will also be out of commission, a combination that just might allow the domain to slip out of the Mist.
There’s a BIG catch though. The Darklord in question must willingly agree to participate in this ritual, an event where “million to one chance” starts to sound like a very generous estimate.
While I was DM my players killed a god in the following way
(a bit of background).
The campaign lasted 7 years (with others in-between). Edition 3.5 Players started at 3 and the campaign finished they were at 21.
Homebrew planet situated in the wider d&d multiverse.
Quite early in the campaign they the found Staff of Fraz'Urb-luuin in the loot of an ancient Archmage’s tomb. The discovery of the Staff was noticed by the gods (the classic celestial gods of d&d pantheon) that summoned the PG to hand it over to them.
The gods, as a gift, gave to each PG a pendant that could be used to access alternative realities powered by the PGs psyche.
The PG returned to the mortal world where they helped the emperor of the Imperium of Misvara (a human very powerful empire) and his counselor Blizzard the Blue Wizard, a level 46 Arcanist (that had been puppeting empires for centuries), to neutralize a powerful Nerull cleric (lord Necratim), previously the best friend of the emperor (reportedly his former lover) that had tried to murder him with dark magic, was exiled and set up a renegade undead kingdom 14 years ago and did other stuff. During this long war both Necratim and the Imperium kingdom rushed to put their hands on three powerful artifacts, the Axe of Kord, the Sword of Pelor and the Shyte of Nerull, held in the sacrest temple in the continent.
One of the PC started hearing a voice that guided him through the most tough moments in the campaign and convinced him that he was the voice of one of the Celestial gods they had the honor to meet.
Guided by him, the pg managed to steal the artifacts for the Emperor, but they were spied by a cult of Rakshasa demonists who venerated Orcus and Fraz'Urb-luuin. The Rakshasa stole the artifacts from the pg apparently for the goal of using them for a ritual able to open a permanent portal for the Abyss, wide enough to allow the armies of Orcus to pass. The ritual took more than one year, so the PC still had time.
Many nations (included racist blue skin elves) tried to steal back the divine weapons from the Rakshasa, the PG, with the help of Blizzard, managed to defeat the Rakshasa and take back the Axe of Kord and the Sword of Pelor. But the Sythe was taken by Necratim Kingdom’s agents. Apparently using its necromantic powers to create very nasty unkillable anti-magic zombies.
After many battles, Necratim Kingdom was brought to its kneels, the Imperium sent a 200k man strong army that defeated Necratim’s legions near the tower where the cleric lived.
The PG went with Gotor, the emperor of Misvara, and his son and heir Valor and Blizzard the Blue Wizard to claim the head of Necratim, at the end of the battle.
After they defeated Necratim and they thought the campaign was over, the emperor pushed Blizzard in the anti-magic zombie-making antimagia slug and, under the horrified eyes of the pc, the emperor stripped away his skin and the pg discovered that the beloved emperor they had served so long had been Fraz'Urb-luuin all the time, killing the human emperor years before they even met him and shapeshifting him. The Prince of Deception had just waited for the right moment to catch the mighty Blizzard off guard and now that he had done it the Mortal world was defenseless.
Necratim, that the PG had just killed, was the only one who discovered and tried to kill the Prince of Deception, he had been stopped by Blizzard (decepted by the demon), exiled and became crazy and evil after the episode.
Fraz'Urb-luuin used the magic contained in the slug Necratim had obtained from Nerull Shyte and opened the a portal to Thanatos, the realm of Orcus, with whom Fraz'Urb-luuin had an alliance.
He had his Staff (the one the pg gave to the gods was a con, able to deceit the gods themselves) and was able to steal one of the pendants that the PG had received, apparently necessary for a ritual that would have allowed to turn the Staff in the Scepter of the Abyss, powerful enough for Fraz'Urb-luuin to rule over all the demon lords.
Fraz'Urb-luuin left the PGs and the broken Valor (the son of Gotor, the emperor he murdered tears ago) to face Orcus and his armies.
The most epic of battles took place. Gell, the barbarian of the group, was able to kill Orcus himself and to took his epic weapons, including the Wand of Orcus.
Orcus was killed, but his armies, infinite, not stopped. It was only time before the once 200k strong imperial army was going to be depleted in the effort of holding the portal.
The PG tracked Fraz'Urb-luuin to the Hearth of the Dark, one of the deepest layers of the abyss, where he was starting to perform the ritual to have the Staff becoming whole again.
There the pg fought a ferocious battle against Fraz'Urb-luuin, his rakshasa minions (some were epic characters in their own right) and Kostchtchie, that had teamed with the lord of deception.
The Scepter was almost whole, but the PG sorcerer of the group managed to touch it for a second (becoming the evil PNG boss in follow up campaigns for that reason) and, doing so, he was able to close the portal between Thanatos and the material plane and involuntary evocated Graz’zt and Pazuzu, that, really unhappy about what Fraz'Urb-luuin was planning to do, unexpectedly allied with the PG. Graz’zt even used his powers to free Blizzard from the anti magic slug. Fraz'Urb-luuin was killed, but then the god whose voice the pg heard in his head for all the campaign (he thought Kord or Pelor) revealed himself. Apparently was a much more ancient god, one of 7, he was a brother of Ao, his name being forgotten. He was crazy because of the cosmic horror he faced and, apparently, Ao and his peers had imprisoned most of the crazy god soul inside the Sceptre. That one was a loose fragment trying to free the rest of his soul, but a fragment with god powers. The PG didn’t exactly killed him, but mutilated him using the Wand of Orcus, a legendary weapon able to kill anyone, gods included.
Thereafter the maimed god was imprisoned in one of the pendants and the Sceptre broken again and different pieces given to different celestial angels.
I wouldn't. I typically play semi-intelligent adventures who value their life (somewhat).
fair enough.
I settled on binding a god into a physical form, then pulling that physical form through the magical equivalent of a cheese grater/ chain link fence. Even a God is ill equipped to survive being turned into ground meat
Convince people to believe in a different god. I feel like gods are only strong as their followers. As they get weaker and weaker due to the lack of followers; hopefully they will become easier to kill. They will loose their powers and maybe become mortal.
….On that note. I think I just realized that influencers are practically following this same principle.
I'd personally just fall back on the old Level 2 Artificer approach: Step 1: Become a level 2 Artificer, with the spell Unseen Servant. Step 2: Pick up your infusions, picking "Replicate Magic Item: Bag of Holding" for each infusion. Step 3: Make two Bags of Holding, and hand them to your Unseen Servant. Step 4: Have your servant walk up to Tiamat, and stuff one bag into the other. Step 5: Profit.
Apologies for posting on an old thread, but I noticed this pop up in a search and decided to comment!
One of my characters actually has a story ark based on that! In my DM's homebrew world, there's a god of rebellion and freedom. This god, that my character worships, actually wants those to challenge them. Pretty much a "If you think you can do better, take me on and take my place." kinda situation.
So! There's rumors of a mythical item or weapon that can kill gods, which my character will start getting glimpses of in the future. Only problem is, is that once people know this weapon exists, everyone is gonna want to get their hands on it, and the other gods won't be happy about it. It doesn't just kill this one god my character is going after...but any others as well, which as one would assume, would be a problem for all of them, and all would wanna get their hands on it for one reason or another.
Also, according to DM, this won't end up in any issues, as if one just replaces the god and takes up the mantle, that entity is kinda gone that you just defeated. You won't have the issue of having to get rid of their followers, as...well they're your followers.
So, an interesting deal I'll be running into eventually!
I'm curious to see if anyone has any interesting answers that aren't "get another god/god-like being to do it", "get rid of their followers, forever", or the ever dull "The DM says I do it, so I guess I just do it (/shrug)".
I know that (most) Gods lack a stat block in 5E, so i figure this should make it extra spicy to come up with a believe-able reason that they could be killed.
Specifically, in the lore killing off the followers or having another deity kill them and take their portfolio are the main ways to do it. (Sadly this isn't Final Fantasy, and we don't kill the gods during the story.)
As for Stat Blocks... older editions had stat blocks, and it's not hard to translate most god stats into current editions. the weakest gods usually have 2 to 3 classes maxed out at 20, with stats equal to those of 2 to 3 player characters merged into one. The problem was player characters could beat them, so someone decided to change the lore to indicate those were actually Avatars of Gods, and not the actual gods.
Which is why removing the followers and having another god help you is the only way that works in lore.
Note: You can build a campaign to do just that fairly easily, the party would have to be the opposite alignment of the deity, or face a moral dilemma, and their patron aka the guy in the bar, was actually the avatar of the god looking to kill the other god.
Chopping them into tiny pieces usually doesn't work. It barely stops mortals (Ivan Tsarevich, Aztec twins, etc.) and it didn't stop Osiris.
Maybe look around and see if the god's mother forgot to ask something inconsequential (say, mistletoe for example) not to kill her son. Then build a weapon out of it.
If you're lucky, your universe will have a God who loves you so much that they would take on human flesh and give their life for you. The thing is, this completely hypothetical god we are talking about wouldn't stay dead. No grave could restrain that sort of God. You would have to be really lucky to get a God like that.
Hide and shout, "The great god {insert target god here} is dead!" to some sailor. They will then go and spread the news and that god will be considered dead by the populace.
Maybe poison a sacrificial offering? That might result in you being struck dead by divine fire, so don't quote me on this one.
Find a way to make Ragnarok happen. Lots of Gods were destined to die then, so just hope you will survive the apocalypse.
Outside of homebrew the only ( I think) place where you actually meet a deity face to face on their home plane (ie not an avatar) is the old 1e module ( nd it’s updated 5e revision) Queen of the Demonweb Pits where you encounter Lolth. What my character did ( after she wiped out the rest of the party) was a called shot to the eye with an arrow of slaying. The DM asked for a Nat 20 to hit and I rolled it, then proceeded to roll the next 10 1 or 5% chances he asked for (save vs death magic, deific resistance, Con save, etc). When he couldn’t think of anything else to ask for he declared Lolth dead and, as the nay living being present m character was engulfed in the deific energies and started transforming not a deity themselves. If you do the math the minimum odds of a series of rolls like that is .05^10 or 1 in 10^-13 (yes 1 in 10 trillion). If you beat those odds you deserve to kill and absorb the deity.
Hmm…well, since convincing another deity to do the deed is out of the question; I’d say the best option is to utilize a prominent weapon often wielded by another god.
The Spear of Gruumsh, for example, or Asmodeus’s Ruby Rod…maybe that “Godslayer” sword (though I think that ended up being Mask in disguise)…basically, an artifact that is VERY difficult to acquire; and likely would be the basis for a campaign in and of itself.
I’m also reminded of “Pillars of Eternity” where a group of engineers manufactures a device called the Godhammer; a bomb that was constructed by faithful followers of a destruction deity (they were guided on a spiritual level in its creation; which made it difficult or perhaps impossible for it to be replicated).
If you have a godlike nail; you need a godlike hammer.
I slam my head into a desk until i am unconscious or dead either way my party leaves with out me and i am not on a fools errand...
Or we look for the absolute antithesis of the deity in question and we get that.... then to ensure they are dead we travel to their home plane and kill them there. Most likely we will die along with them as their allied deities smite us from existence.
So, this is me shamelessly ripping off the plot of a novel I really enjoyed, but it had the concept that all beings had a metaphysical shadow that represented the impact one had left on the world, and the characters realized that destroying that shadow via a ritual could be used to at the very least banish a god from their world theoretically forever if not destroy it by destroying the representation of their influence on the world. Now, the gods of this setting were aware that their shadows could be used against them and so hid them, so the main body of the plot was the characters first finding out where the shadow was, testing the concept of manipulating a god's shadow, going and getting the shadow they needed, and then finally facing off with the deity for long enough to carry out the ritual. Something along those lines could make a good arc, maybe adding in a few component or other steps if you want to stretch it out some more.
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Putting aside how most of this wouldn't work outside of say... prose, you are also ignoring two other important factors:
The god's worshippers who will kill you (for extra irony they're liable to do it the exact same way that you did it to them and rip the divinity back out of you).
Other gods who are not going to tolerate uppity mortals.
Sure let them try. Your average worshipper isn't going to stand much of a chance of defeating someone strong enough to kill a god. And I would love to see the other Gods actually do anything. If the Gods can't physically interact with the world, hence the divine gate that I just used to make God ground beef, then how do they plan to "punish" the uppity mortal who just managed to kill one of them?
Per your own logic: they do the same ritual to you "hamburgering you" and then ripping the divinity out of you.
Beyond that you appear to be fundamentally misunderstanding what exactly a god *is*; It's an icon of faith that require worship in order to exist let alone function. All those cleric spells and crazy displays of power all stem from the worship of mortals of the god in question with the primary determinence of a gods power being the sheer volume of worshippers and faith they place in it. At the point where you have pulled this nonsense off you have precisely zero worshippers which means you may have whatever residual power is left in the god but that's probably not much more then the equivelant of a boon given that it was fighting for it's life against some uppity mortal.
Beyond that, the method that you have proposed was (per FR lore) attempted when Azuth (god of spells) had his divintity devoured by Asmodeus in the aftermath of Mystra's (god of magic) Murder at the hands of Cyric and Shar (Gods of strife and loss respectively) which allowed Asmodeus to ascend to straight up godhood... and it had the long term effect of causing him to start coming down with schizophrenia because it turns out that this methodology doesn't actually kill the god in question. As a result the lord of the nine was hearing a very old man rambling in his head until he ultimately ejected the god in question.
Someone didn't bother reading my previous replies, and doesn't seem to understand how the divine gate and/or the ritual in question function.
You also seem to be assuming quite a bit. You did get one thing correct though, a large amount of a God's power comes from the faith and belief they receive from their followers. Sure would be a shame if those followers weren't able to distinguish between their God, and an uppity mortal doing roughly the same thing. But then to be fair, how many people can honestly say that they have had the chance to look upon a God's visage. Sure MAYBE you might have to worry about the absolute upper echelon, those who have had direct or indirect dealings with the god in question. But how much are you really worried about the ramblings of a few old men/women? If the Pope publicly disavowed the existence of God, tomorrow, do you really think Catholics would just up and stop being Catholics?
One idea I’ve contemplated for a Ravenloft game is a ritual that would trap a Domain’s patron Dark Power in the body of its Darklord. If the Dark Power/Darklord fusion is defeated, it might not outright destroy the Dark Power, but it will be greatly weakened for a time, at least within that Domain. The Darklord will also be out of commission, a combination that just might allow the domain to slip out of the Mist.
There’s a BIG catch though. The Darklord in question must willingly agree to participate in this ritual, an event where “million to one chance” starts to sound like a very generous estimate.
While I was DM my players killed a god in the following way
(a bit of background).
The campaign lasted 7 years (with others in-between). Edition 3.5 Players started at 3 and the campaign finished they were at 21.
Homebrew planet situated in the wider d&d multiverse.
Quite early in the campaign they the found Staff of Fraz'Urb-luuin in the loot of an ancient Archmage’s tomb. The discovery of the Staff was noticed by the gods (the classic celestial gods of d&d pantheon) that summoned the PG to hand it over to them.
The gods, as a gift, gave to each PG a pendant that could be used to access alternative realities powered by the PGs psyche.
The PG returned to the mortal world where they helped the emperor of the Imperium of Misvara (a human very powerful empire) and his counselor Blizzard the Blue Wizard, a level 46 Arcanist (that had been puppeting empires for centuries), to neutralize a powerful Nerull cleric (lord Necratim), previously the best friend of the emperor (reportedly his former lover) that had tried to murder him with dark magic, was exiled and set up a renegade undead kingdom 14 years ago and did other stuff. During this long war both Necratim and the Imperium kingdom rushed to put their hands on three powerful artifacts, the Axe of Kord, the Sword of Pelor and the Shyte of Nerull, held in the sacrest temple in the continent.
One of the PC started hearing a voice that guided him through the most tough moments in the campaign and convinced him that he was the voice of one of the Celestial gods they had the honor to meet.
Guided by him, the pg managed to steal the artifacts for the Emperor, but they were spied by a cult of Rakshasa demonists who venerated Orcus and Fraz'Urb-luuin. The Rakshasa stole the artifacts from the pg apparently for the goal of using them for a ritual able to open a permanent portal for the Abyss, wide enough to allow the armies of Orcus to pass. The ritual took more than one year, so the PC still had time.
Many nations (included racist blue skin elves) tried to steal back the divine weapons from the Rakshasa, the PG, with the help of Blizzard, managed to defeat the Rakshasa and take back the Axe of Kord and the Sword of Pelor. But the Sythe was taken by Necratim Kingdom’s agents. Apparently using its necromantic powers to create very nasty unkillable anti-magic zombies.
After many battles, Necratim Kingdom was brought to its kneels, the Imperium sent a 200k man strong army that defeated Necratim’s legions near the tower where the cleric lived.
The PG went with Gotor, the emperor of Misvara, and his son and heir Valor and Blizzard the Blue Wizard to claim the head of Necratim, at the end of the battle.
After they defeated Necratim and they thought the campaign was over, the emperor pushed Blizzard in the anti-magic zombie-making antimagia slug and, under the horrified eyes of the pc, the emperor stripped away his skin and the pg discovered that the beloved emperor they had served so long had been Fraz'Urb-luuin all the time, killing the human emperor years before they even met him and shapeshifting him. The Prince of Deception had just waited for the right moment to catch the mighty Blizzard off guard and now that he had done it the Mortal world was defenseless.
Necratim, that the PG had just killed, was the only one who discovered and tried to kill the Prince of Deception, he had been stopped by Blizzard (decepted by the demon), exiled and became crazy and evil after the episode.
Fraz'Urb-luuin used the magic contained in the slug Necratim had obtained from Nerull Shyte and opened the a portal to Thanatos, the realm of Orcus, with whom Fraz'Urb-luuin had an alliance.
He had his Staff (the one the pg gave to the gods was a con, able to deceit the gods themselves) and was able to steal one of the pendants that the PG had received, apparently necessary for a ritual that would have allowed to turn the Staff in the Scepter of the Abyss, powerful enough for Fraz'Urb-luuin to rule over all the demon lords.
Fraz'Urb-luuin left the PGs and the broken Valor (the son of Gotor, the emperor he murdered tears ago) to face Orcus and his armies.
The most epic of battles took place. Gell, the barbarian of the group, was able to kill Orcus himself and to took his epic weapons, including the Wand of Orcus.
Orcus was killed, but his armies, infinite, not stopped. It was only time before the once 200k strong imperial army was going to be depleted in the effort of holding the portal.
The PG tracked Fraz'Urb-luuin to the Hearth of the Dark, one of the deepest layers of the abyss, where he was starting to perform the ritual to have the Staff becoming whole again.
There the pg fought a ferocious battle against Fraz'Urb-luuin, his rakshasa minions (some were epic characters in their own right) and Kostchtchie, that had teamed with the lord of deception.
The Scepter was almost whole, but the PG sorcerer of the group managed to touch it for a second (becoming the evil PNG boss in follow up campaigns for that reason) and, doing so, he was able to close the portal between Thanatos and the material plane and involuntary evocated Graz’zt and Pazuzu, that, really unhappy about what Fraz'Urb-luuin was planning to do, unexpectedly allied with the PG. Graz’zt even used his powers to free Blizzard from the anti magic slug. Fraz'Urb-luuin was killed, but then the god whose voice the pg heard in his head for all the campaign (he thought Kord or Pelor) revealed himself. Apparently was a much more ancient god, one of 7, he was a brother of Ao, his name being forgotten. He was crazy because of the cosmic horror he faced and, apparently, Ao and his peers had imprisoned most of the crazy god soul inside the Sceptre. That one was a loose fragment trying to free the rest of his soul, but a fragment with god powers. The PG didn’t exactly killed him, but mutilated him using the Wand of Orcus, a legendary weapon able to kill anyone, gods included.
Thereafter the maimed god was imprisoned in one of the pendants and the Sceptre broken again and different pieces given to different celestial angels.
I wouldn't. I typically play semi-intelligent adventures who value their life (somewhat).
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HERE.fair enough.
I settled on binding a god into a physical form, then pulling that physical form through the magical equivalent of a cheese grater/ chain link fence. Even a God is ill equipped to survive being turned into ground meat
Convince people to believe in a different god. I feel like gods are only strong as their followers. As they get weaker and weaker due to the lack of followers; hopefully they will become easier to kill. They will loose their powers and maybe become mortal.
….On that note. I think I just realized that influencers are practically following this same principle.
I'd personally just fall back on the old Level 2 Artificer approach:
Step 1: Become a level 2 Artificer, with the spell Unseen Servant.
Step 2: Pick up your infusions, picking "Replicate Magic Item: Bag of Holding" for each infusion.
Step 3: Make two Bags of Holding, and hand them to your Unseen Servant.
Step 4: Have your servant walk up to Tiamat, and stuff one bag into the other.
Step 5: Profit.
Simple answer, if a god is forgotten they die.
But what if someone with eternal life remembers that god?
Apologies for posting on an old thread, but I noticed this pop up in a search and decided to comment!
One of my characters actually has a story ark based on that! In my DM's homebrew world, there's a god of rebellion and freedom. This god, that my character worships, actually wants those to challenge them. Pretty much a "If you think you can do better, take me on and take my place." kinda situation.
So! There's rumors of a mythical item or weapon that can kill gods, which my character will start getting glimpses of in the future. Only problem is, is that once people know this weapon exists, everyone is gonna want to get their hands on it, and the other gods won't be happy about it. It doesn't just kill this one god my character is going after...but any others as well, which as one would assume, would be a problem for all of them, and all would wanna get their hands on it for one reason or another.
Also, according to DM, this won't end up in any issues, as if one just replaces the god and takes up the mantle, that entity is kinda gone that you just defeated. You won't have the issue of having to get rid of their followers, as...well they're your followers.
So, an interesting deal I'll be running into eventually!
Specifically, in the lore killing off the followers or having another deity kill them and take their portfolio are the main ways to do it. (Sadly this isn't Final Fantasy, and we don't kill the gods during the story.)
As for Stat Blocks... older editions had stat blocks, and it's not hard to translate most god stats into current editions. the weakest gods usually have 2 to 3 classes maxed out at 20, with stats equal to those of 2 to 3 player characters merged into one. The problem was player characters could beat them, so someone decided to change the lore to indicate those were actually Avatars of Gods, and not the actual gods.
Which is why removing the followers and having another god help you is the only way that works in lore.
Note: You can build a campaign to do just that fairly easily, the party would have to be the opposite alignment of the deity, or face a moral dilemma, and their patron aka the guy in the bar, was actually the avatar of the god looking to kill the other god.
Chopping them into tiny pieces usually doesn't work. It barely stops mortals (Ivan Tsarevich, Aztec twins, etc.) and it didn't stop Osiris.
Maybe look around and see if the god's mother forgot to ask something inconsequential (say, mistletoe for example) not to kill her son. Then build a weapon out of it.
If you're lucky, your universe will have a God who loves you so much that they would take on human flesh and give their life for you. The thing is, this completely hypothetical god we are talking about wouldn't stay dead. No grave could restrain that sort of God. You would have to be really lucky to get a God like that.
Hide and shout, "The great god {insert target god here} is dead!" to some sailor. They will then go and spread the news and that god will be considered dead by the populace.
Maybe poison a sacrificial offering? That might result in you being struck dead by divine fire, so don't quote me on this one.
Find a way to make Ragnarok happen. Lots of Gods were destined to die then, so just hope you will survive the apocalypse.
Outside of homebrew the only ( I think) place where you actually meet a deity face to face on their home plane (ie not an avatar) is the old 1e module ( nd it’s updated 5e revision) Queen of the Demonweb Pits where you encounter Lolth. What my character did ( after she wiped out the rest of the party) was a called shot to the eye with an arrow of slaying. The DM asked for a Nat 20 to hit and I rolled it, then proceeded to roll the next 10 1 or 5% chances he asked for (save vs death magic, deific resistance, Con save, etc). When he couldn’t think of anything else to ask for he declared Lolth dead and, as the nay living being present m character was engulfed in the deific energies and started transforming not a deity themselves. If you do the math the minimum odds of a series of rolls like that is .05^10 or 1 in 10^-13 (yes 1 in 10 trillion). If you beat those odds you deserve to kill and absorb the deity.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Hmm…well, since convincing another deity to do the deed is out of the question; I’d say the best option is to utilize a prominent weapon often wielded by another god.
The Spear of Gruumsh, for example, or Asmodeus’s Ruby Rod…maybe that “Godslayer” sword (though I think that ended up being Mask in disguise)…basically, an artifact that is VERY difficult to acquire; and likely would be the basis for a campaign in and of itself.
I’m also reminded of “Pillars of Eternity” where a group of engineers manufactures a device called the Godhammer; a bomb that was constructed by faithful followers of a destruction deity (they were guided on a spiritual level in its creation; which made it difficult or perhaps impossible for it to be replicated).
If you have a godlike nail; you need a godlike hammer.
I would homebrew kratos :)
BEANS
BOTTOM TEXT
I slam my head into a desk until i am unconscious or dead either way my party leaves with out me and i am not on a fools errand...
Or we look for the absolute antithesis of the deity in question and we get that.... then to ensure they are dead we travel to their home plane and kill them there. Most likely we will die along with them as their allied deities smite us from existence.
So, this is me shamelessly ripping off the plot of a novel I really enjoyed, but it had the concept that all beings had a metaphysical shadow that represented the impact one had left on the world, and the characters realized that destroying that shadow via a ritual could be used to at the very least banish a god from their world theoretically forever if not destroy it by destroying the representation of their influence on the world. Now, the gods of this setting were aware that their shadows could be used against them and so hid them, so the main body of the plot was the characters first finding out where the shadow was, testing the concept of manipulating a god's shadow, going and getting the shadow they needed, and then finally facing off with the deity for long enough to carry out the ritual. Something along those lines could make a good arc, maybe adding in a few component or other steps if you want to stretch it out some more.